Chapter 22

Before Lin Ran even had time to ram herself into the wall to apologize for her sins, Huo Wan had already run out.

Considering that the situation at the scene was far too complicated and unclear, she stopped her sister from trying to chase after Huo Wan and volunteered herself instead. After all, well… her sister, now that she had a boyfriend, was no longer the good medicine that could heal Huo Wan.

She was more like a life-claiming poison. Of course, her sister would never know any of this.

Huo Wan actually had not run out because she wanted to do anything in particular. She just… wanted to be alone for a while.

After leaving the restaurant, she slowed her steps and stopped in place, looking in every direction. Cars flowed past, people came and went, yet she did not know where she should go.

Compared with the bleakness in her heart, what she felt even more was helpless confusion.

Today, the sun was bright and the weather was very good. The sunlight shining on her body felt warm. When Huo Wan had just gone out that morning, she had even thought this was a good omen. Maybe even the heavens were cheering her on? But only a few hours had passed, and she had already been slapped hard in the face.

She was not someone who could not distinguish right from wrong. Even though she knew in her heart that this was not Lin Dang’s fault, under circumstances like this, where exactly was she supposed to go from here?

Huo Wan stood on the street in a daze for a while. Lin Ran caught up from behind at this moment. She was somewhat worried about Sister Huo’s condition. She had thought she would see the other girl’s face covered in tears as she cried bitterly, or else see her wearing a heavy, sorrowful expression. Yet it was neither.

She stood with Huo Wan on the street for a while, and the two of them were silent for a long time.

Lin Dang was her biological sister, but Huo Wan was even more like a real sister than one. She could not favor either person. In her heart, both of them were family.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know she had a boyfriend.”

Lin Ran’s voice was low. Standing behind Huo Wan, she picked at her own fingers, her face full of conflict. She looked like a child who had made a mistake, seeming both regretful and self-reproachful. If she, the one in charge of gathering military intelligence, had not made an intelligence error, then such an awkward scene would not have happened today.

Although it would not have changed the facts, at least… it could have lowered the sadness value a tiny bit, right?

Huo Wan did not respond to those words. She only gave a muffled mm.

This was probably the second time she and Lin Dang had fought. Only, last time, the other girl had chased after her. And this time… she had not. Although Huo Wan did not want Lin Dang to chase after her under these circumstances either. It would only make her mood worse and worse.

“Let’s go. Come celebrate my birthday with me?”

Lin Ran was still trapped in self-blame and regret, but Huo Wan suddenly turned her head and said this. The expression on her face no longer held the same oppression and sadness from when she had been in the private room earlier. Replacing it was a faint smile.

It was over! Had she decided to swing her sword and cut through the threads of love, settle all grudges with a smile, and from now on forget each other in the jianghu?

Lin Ran’s imagination ran wild, and she began frantically guessing Huo Wan’s mental state.

“Are you still going to pursue her?” she cautiously tested.

Actually, liking someone else was not bad either. Why did she have to pursue a straight woman? Lin Ran still had one sentence she did not say aloud. Although Lin Dang was her biological sister, she admitted that she was somewhat helping outsiders against her own family. In her heart, she leaned toward Huo Wan.

“I am. I’ll think about how to pursue her after eating.”

Mm, after all this trouble, she seemed to be a little hungry.

Huo Wan was someone very good at doing psychological work on herself. To put it in a less pleasant way, it was actually called “obsession.” This obsession had persisted for so long that there was no reason to give it up at this point.

It was only a boyfriend! It was fine!

As long as they were not married, everything was still unknown.

In any case, they would break up sooner or later. She thought this with a bit of malice in her heart, though in truth, she was still sour.

The two of them found a place with a fairly decent environment to eat hotpot. Before the dishes had even been brought to the table, five or six bottles of beer had already arrived first. At that time, Lin Ran’s alcohol tolerance was still at rookie level.

After a cup of alcohol went down, she began speaking incoherently. She raised her glass and offered stolen contentHuo Wan her sincerest birthday blessing.

“Cheers! Happy birthday! I hope Sister returns to being single as soon as possible!”

….

The wish was beautiful, but the development of events was not that smooth.

Huo Wan did her utmost to restrain herself, patiently waiting for their relationship to crack. Yet reality was that the state of their relationship remained very stable, without even the slightest ripple.

It was like watching two elderly people date. Actually, the main reason was probably that Lin Dang’s personality was too indifferent, and her focus was not on romance at all. Her focus was probably entirely on work.

And the man was unexpectedly quite capable of enduring it. Even like this, he could continue getting along with her peacefully.

Even Huo Wan felt tired from acting.

He was clearly her love rival, yet she had to pretend to be friendly.

Until one late night, Huo Wan had a very realistic dream.

In the dream, Lin Dang wore a pure white wedding dress, holding Song Yu’s hand as she walked down the red carpet and accepted unauthorized copyeveryone’s blessings. They exchanged rings. Their relatives and friends gave speeches. Huo Wan wanted to shout, only to discover that her throat could not make any sound at all. She could not move, nor could she speak. She could only watch blankly.

At the end, during the thank-you speech, Lin Dang held the microphone and looked in the direction where she stood.

“There is one person I want to thank the most. She is also my best friend from childhood until now.”

“Xiao Wan, thank you for always staying by my side.”

“I hope that for the remaining decades of our future, we can still be the best of friends.”

Huo Wan woke with a start.

She abruptly threw off the blanket and sat up in bed, one hand clutching her chest as she gasped for breath in large mouthfuls. Clearly, she still had not recovered from the dream. The room was pitch-black. She reached out, found her phone, and pressed the screen.

It was only around three in the morning.

After leaning against the headboard and calming down for quite a while, she finally reached out and turned on the small bedside lamp.

Only then was there a little light in the room.

What the hell kind of friend!? Being best friends for the next few decades was way too terrifying, wasn’t it?

What the hell kind of flag was “best friends forever”?

Huo Wan suddenly remembered with a jolt that when she was very little, she seemed to have set up such a brainless flag.

Could it be because of that that she had never been able to take another step forward?

The more she thought about it, the more possible it seemed!

Thinking of this, she climbed out of bed, threw on a jacket, took her phone, and went downstairs to the courtyard. The flashlight from her phone looked so tiny in the vast night. Huo Wan tried hard to recall where the two of them had buried the things when they played that game back then.

In the end, she finally determined the approximate location. In the middle of the night, she began digging through the soil in the flowerbed with her bare hands, not minding the dirt.

Back then, they had not buried the things very deeply. After only a few scrapes, she dug out the two glass bottles.

Aside from some dirt clinging to them, the glass bottles were still completely intact. They did not look much different from when they had been buried back then.

Huo Wan recognized her own bottle at a glance. She immediately reached out and took it in her hand, opened the lid, and pulled out the slip of paper inside.

The color of the paper had already begun to yellow slightly. The childish words were written ​stolen content​crookedly across it. Huo Wan looked over it and saw that it was full of strange wishes. Some even made the current her not want to look directly at them… She could not help suspecting, Did I really write this myself?

This wasn’t written by me, right!

She had already forgotten how old she had been when she wrote it.

Her gaze followed the childish wishes line by line, and she could not help twitching the corner of her mouth. Among them, there was actually a wish like, “In the future, I want to become the owner of Malt Sweet and eat little cakes every day.”

Huo Wan held her forehead. “Malt Sweet” was the little dessert shop on the road home, and it was also the shop she and Lin Dang had loved going to most during their youth.

When she was little, what exactly had been in her head every day?

Was it only eating, drinking, and playing?

Why couldn’t she have opened her eyes a little earlier when she was young and started pursuing Lin Dang sooner? If that had been the case, the current her would be so much more relaxed!

Huo Wan fiercely condemned her childhood self in her heart before continuing to read down the paper.

The last line successfully caught her attention.

Very good. This was the sentence.

Huo Wan attributed the fact that her relationship had made no progress all these years entirely to this sentence.

Which dumbass had written this??

“I want to be with Dangdang forever, until we’re nine hundred and ninety-nine years old!”

“Best friends forever!”

Was this kind of wish something one could just casually make?! She could not help thinking again of the dream she had just had. That feeling had been so real it was as if she had been there herself.

She reached into the pocket of her jacket and took out the pen she had casually picked up before going downstairs, then crossed out the sentence “Best friends forever!” behind it. She did not stop until the paper was nearly blackened through.

After thinking for a moment, she added another sentence on top.

“I want to marry Dangdang and make her my wife!”

The elegant, free-flowing handwriting formed a sharp contrast with the crooked, wobbly words. Huo Wan curved her lips. This was what a perfect, qualified wish should be, wasn’t it? She rolled the paper in her hand back up, stuffed it back into the bottle, sealed it, and placed the bottle back where it had been.

Only then did her gaze move to the bottle beside it.

After hesitating for only a short while, Huo Wan reached out without the slightest hesitation and picked up the bottle that belonged to Lin Dang.

It should be fine if she secretly looked, right? No one would know anyway. Mm.

When Lin Dang was little, she had peeked at her wish too. Now that Huo Wan was secretly looking back, the two of them could be considered even.

By the light of her phone flashlight, Huo Wan slowly unfolded the slip of paper in her hand.

Compared with her own wishes, Lin Dang’s wishes seemed much more normal. Even her handwriting was neater than Huo Wan’s. They were all things like hoping her family would be healthy and so on. From between the lines, one could also see that this child had been relatively mature and sensible at the time.

Huo Wan read from top to bottom. When she reached one line, she nearly burst out laughing.

In the middle of the night, she covered her stomach and crouched on the ground, nearly unable to hold back her laughter!

“Dear heavens, can you please help and stuff Lin Ran back into Mom’s belly? Please, please!”

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I’m withered… If you haven’t added this to your favorites, please help me click favorite.

Also, it’s Huo Wan, not Huo Ran??? Type the name correctly!

Who is Huo Ran? Did you all help Lin Ran change her surname??

You’re going to anger one author to death ヽ(`Д′)