The day before I was set to study abroad, I went to say goodbye to my aloof childhood best friend. His face remained entirely expressionless. He merely asked which university I was attending, then turned to leave. I pressed my lips together and eventually hid the confession gift I had prepared behind my back. Suddenly, lines of text began to float in the air right in front of me, like a live-stream comment section. [Female Lead, hurry up and confess! He's absolutely crazy about you!] [He's playing so hard to get. Pretending to be all cold and indifferent to her face, but secretly crying his eyes out at home all night.] [Wait, wasn't it because the female lead was leaving him that the male lead snapped, followed her abroad, and then locked her up in a basement?] [OMG! Are we jumping straight from pure romance to forced confinement?!] 1 Startled by the floating text, I instinctively called out his name: "Ethan, wait a second." The figure walking away stopped. He slowly turned around and asked, "Is there something else?" He looked completely indifferent. On the continuously scrolling text above him, the word [Confess] kept appearing, making me dizzy with a sudden burst of courage. I brought the gift hidden behind my back out to him. "Ethan, I like you. I have for a long time." Ethan's expression froze, and the scrolling text halted as well. "Your birthday was a few days ago, and I had this gift picked out ages ago, but..." My smile was tinged with bitterness. "If I don't give it to you now, I might never get another chance." Ethan's face was hidden in the shadows, his expression unreadable. I lowered my head, staring at the ground, feeling a burning heat spread across my ears. On the ground, as if thawed, the comments started scrolling frantically again. [Wait, did my internet lag? Did I miss a crucial plot point? Why does the female lead suddenly have a mouth and know how to use it?!] [I'm just as confused. O_O] [Something's wrong! Something's very wrong! Based on how hard the male lead simps for her, shouldn't he be thrilled she confessed? He should be announcing he's buying out the whole airport today! But look at his face...] [To the person above, do you remember what happened on Ethan's birthday? The female lead ran off early with the second male lead!] [Oh, I remember! The male lead wanted the female lead to blow out the candles with him, but he couldn't find her. He got so mad his heart condition almost flared up!] His birthday! Reminded by the comments, the memory suddenly clicked into place. That day, I had stuck close to Ethan, chatting and trying to make him smile. But he seemed completely distracted, like something very important was weighing heavily on his mind. I got so mad that I deliberately dragged an upperclassman outside to get some fresh air. By the time I cooled down and went back inside, the private room was completely empty. So, he had gone looking for me later. [Actually, based on my years of reading web novels, Ethan was probably planning to confess that day, but the main character ran off with some random guy halfway through!] [The commenter above is right. I saw Ethan secretly blowing up heart-shaped balloons. He blew up twenty of them all by himself, and stuffed a ring inside every single one.] [Tsk, so pure and innocent!] Rings? I snapped my head up, looking at Ethan. He was staring at me expressionlessly. After a long time, he let out a mocking chuckle. "You like me? How do you plan to prove it? "Hmm? Chloe, how exactly do you plan to prove that you like me?" 2 All my previous soft-heartedness and affection vanished into thin air at his cold interrogation. I took a sharp breath and glared furiously at Ethan. He looked back at me with complete indifference, as if he were looking at a complete stranger who had nothing to do with him. [Oh no, our precious Chloe is going to run away angry again!] [Ethan! You have a perfectly good mouth, why can't you just use it to talk properly?! Go home and cry about it later!] [Alright everyone, nothing to see here. The plot is returning to its original track—imprisonment and forced love!] Just as I was about to turn around in anger, seeing the comments predict my exact move actually made me feel too embarrassed to leave. My gaze returned to Ethan's face. It was an incredibly pale and beautiful face. He had narrow, elegant eyes with an upward tilt at the corners, giving him a somewhat classical look. I don't know if it was the comments influencing me, but I genuinely thought I saw a faint hint of red around the beautiful corners of his eyes. I sighed, took two steps forward, and tilted my head up. At this moment, the distance between us was incredibly close. So close I could almost feel his breath. He lowered his eyes, looking at me in confusion, his pure black pupils reflecting my figure. I cheered myself on frantically in my head, then suddenly leaned in and pressed my lips against his. Cool, soft, and slightly trembling. That was the immediate sensation Ethan's lips gave me. To be honest, in all my years of life, I had absolutely zero kissing experience. I only knew to press my lips against his; I had no idea what came next. I froze against his lips, feeling the deafening heartbeat of the person in my arms. There was no sound of breathing. He had forgotten to breathe too. I don't know how much time passed before he suddenly took a step back, staring at me with an unreadable expression. "What is the meaning of this?" His entire face was bright red. He was already very fair-skinned, so he flushed easier than most. Even the back of his neck, visible above his collar, held a faint pink hue. My mood instantly soared. I grinned at him and said, "Didn't you want me to prove I like you? Is this enough?" "Or... how about this?" Deeply encouraged, I stepped forward again, cupped his face, and planted a loud, wet kiss right on his lips. "If you still don't believe me, I'll tear up my plane ticket right now, okay?" I wrapped my arms around Ethan's neck and said softly, "I'll just stay by your side. I'll go wherever you go, until you believe me." Before I even finished speaking, Ethan violently ripped my arms from his neck and glared at me furiously: "Chloe, are you done messing around?!" 3 He pushed me so hard I stumbled violently, barely managing to steady myself. I looked at him in absolute shock, not understanding why the mood had taken such a sudden, sharp nosedive. [Keep pushing it. Keep acting up, male lead. This is exactly how you lose your wife.] [Chloe finally gathered the courage to confess, and this is what he does?!] The comments echoed exactly what I was feeling. I gritted my teeth tightly, refusing to let the humiliating tears fall. He remained completely oblivious, his voice still icy as he said, "Chloe, do you really like Alex that much? Do you like him so much that you'd stoop to pretending with me just so you could stay here and be with him?" I looked up at him in utter bewilderment. The tears lost their battle for control and fell anyway. [Huh?] [Bro Ethan, that one sentence just completely derailed me.] [Wait, does he think Chloe is confessing to him so she can stay in the country and sneak around with the second male lead?!] "And then what?" Ethan demanded coldly. "You'd stay here, date me, and still be with Alex on the side? And later, are you planning to marry me while cheating on me with Alex?" "Chloe, do you have any basic moral compass at all?! You truly disappoint me!" The angrier he got, the more the ambiguous pink flush on his face faded without a trace. [What an advanced train of thought. I don't even know how to judge this...] [Everyone, does anyone remember that after his birthday, Ethan secretly told Chloe's parents that she was dating some random bad boy? That's what caused her parents to urgently pack her off abroad to study. So, it makes sense he's thinking this way.] [...] [As expected of a psycho. So manipulative.] I scanned the words on the comments, finally realizing that my parents throwing me out of the country was actually Ethan's doing! The fury of being tattled on behind my back mixed with the sting of being rejected. Old grudges and new anger merged into a sea of fire that rushed straight to my head, and I instantly lost all rationality. "Believe whatever you want! Who wants to like a despicable coward like you anyway?! You think I can't live without you?!" I fiercely threw the un-gifted present onto the ground, turned around, and marched away. [Sigh. It's over again.] [And so, the story will inevitably head toward the imprisonment arc we've all been anticipating...] [Wait! What is he doing?! What is Ethan doing?] [Chloe, turn around quickly!] [Daughter! Turn around!] 4 Of course, I didn't turn around, nor did I pay attention to the scrolling comments, because my face was completely covered in tears at that moment. Liar! They're all liars! Who said Ethan liked me? Would someone who liked me yell at me like that? Would he question me like that? I bet he doesn't like me one bit. Getting my parents to send me abroad was probably just so he could get rid of me once and for all. I wiped the tears from my face aggressively and walked into the security checkpoint. [Why is Bro Ethan still crouching there?] [Did Chloe's gift break when she threw it? It looked like it was made of glass.] Those comments wanted me to see... that he was picking up the gift I threw? I pondered this internally, still not turning around, dragging my coat toward the boarding gate. [Something's wrong! Bro Ethan is having a heart attack!] I snapped my head back. Through the glass, I saw a black figure curled up in agony on the exact spot we had been standing. It was Ethan. His face was deathly pale. His hands still tightly gripped the gift I had given him—a watch. But the glass face of the watch had shattered completely. The broken shards had cut his hand, and blood was staining the floor tiles of the airport terminal. I screamed in panic and immediately sprinted back toward him, but a security worker at the checkpoint stopped me. Through that pane of glass, I watched helplessly as people swarmed him from all directions. Soon, someone brought a wheelchair and wheeled him away. From beginning to end, his hands tightly gripped that shattered watch that had cut him so deeply. Only after he was taken away did I finally snap back to reality. The security guard looked at me with sympathy and gently reminded me that if I wanted to return to the main terminal, I could take another passageway. "No, I won't," I muttered to myself, wiping the tears from my face. "It's useless to go back. He doesn't believe I like him anyway." 5 During the eight-hour flight, I drifted in and out of sleep. The comments never stopped chatting. From their text, I gathered a lot of information. First, if Ethan's and my story were a novel, then we were destined for a tragic ending. In this story, I was a proud heiress who liked Ethan but was constantly wounded by his icy demeanor. To save my pride, I always pretended to be close with an upperclassman named Alex. Reading this, I felt a pang of guilt. Before this, I truly had used Alex many times. Whenever Ethan gave me the cold shoulder, I would drag Alex right in front of him, trying to hint that plenty of other people loved me. Alex was more than happy to play along. To be honest, I always believed that liking someone meant treating them well—wanting to buy them things I liked, wanting to be the first to share anything fun I encountered. So, I always thought Ethan's coldness toward me all these years meant he didn't like me at all, perhaps even found me annoying. But the comments said Ethan loved me to the point of madness. Instead, it was Alex who didn't like me at all. He was only willing to cater to me because being with me meant he could skip twenty years of hard work. The comments also said Alex had a childhood sweetheart, and they were the main characters of another book. Once Alex climbed his way to the top of high society, he would dump me—the woman he used—and fulfill his childhood promise to marry his sweetheart. I didn't want to believe what the comments said, but I had to. Because based on all the facts, everything they said was true. My mind was racing, my thoughts a tangled mess. Looking out at the clouds through the window, I couldn't help but let out a long sigh. [Sigh, my poor daughter is getting all emo.] [Don't be sad, Chloe. The real hard days are still ahead. When Bro Ethan completely loses it and locks you up, that's when you'll really have no one to cry to.] [Stop talking about it, it makes me want to cry. Why can't two people who love each other just be together properly?] [Heh, because Ethan has an inferiority complex! He always felt his poor health made him unworthy of Chloe. He wanted to avoid her but couldn't help getting close, and then he'd have a massive breakdown whenever he saw her with other guys. Honestly...] [Actually, you can't really blame Ethan for his twisted emotional expression. He was raised by his cold, unsympathetic grandfather. He has no idea what love is; he only knows what possession is. Then, subconsciously, because he likes Chloe, he can't bear to truly possess her. He went back and forth, agonizing over it until he broke himself.] Seeing this comment, I suddenly remembered when Ethan was little. 6 Ethan's grandfather built the family corporation from scratch, but tragedy struck in middle age when his son and daughter-in-law both died in a car accident. Only young Ethan survived, but he was left with a severe heart condition as a consequence. Left as the only heir, his grandfather naturally valued him immensely, raising him to take over the family empire. But terrified of anything triggering his heart condition, his grandfather was incredibly overprotective, strictly forbidding him from experiencing any intense emotional fluctuations. Because I was Ethan's friend, his grandfather allowed me to play with him. Every time I visited, he would instruct me to take careful care of Ethan. Originally, I was full of complaints about this. After all, we were both kids. Why did I have to take care of him? Besides, he was the older brother, and I was the younger sister; shouldn't it be the other way around? But all that resentment vanished shortly after I saw Ethan. For one thing, Ethan was just too beautiful. I was instantly captivated by his looks on the spot. Secondly, Ethan was incredibly good to me. If there was delicious food, he let me pick first. If there were new toys, he offered them to me first. If I casually mentioned wanting to play the newest video game, he'd have it delivered to my house the very next day. When did things change? It seemed to be after my high school entrance exams. I asked him to hang out, but he didn't show up. I didn't see him for a long time after that. When I finally saw him again, I threw myself at him crying, saying how much I missed him. But he had become cold and distant. I felt confused and angry. From then on, we started a cycle of constant, petty antagonism. Until Alex appeared, which made his temper even more unpredictable. Pondering this, I took out my phone and texted my grandfather: [Grandpa, around the time of my high school entrance exams, was Ethan sick?] The signal on the plane was surprisingly good. A moment later, my grandfather replied: [That's right. He had to undergo heart surgery during that time. He wouldn't let me tell you. I remember you threw a tantrum crying for a long time.] He added another message: [Little Ethan's health was very poor those few years. Once, I caught him secretly crying. He said he was afraid he would die and make you sad. Sigh, you two were so close back then. Who would have thought you'd grow apart as you got older.] Understood. I understood everything now. Back then, Ethan became cold toward me because he was terrified I would be heartbroken if I lost him, so he deliberately distanced himself. Since that was the case, I couldn't help but wonder what changed his mind. What made him become the person the comments described—someone who would imprison me just to be with me? To be honest, I was actually looking forward to it a little. [Is it just my imagination, or does our daughter seem to have regained her fighting spirit?] [News flash! Even though Chloe's plane hasn't landed yet, Bro Ethan is already in A-City buying a manor! Friendly reminder: it comes with a luxurious basement.] [What?! Shouldn't Bro Ethan be in the hospital right now?!] [Wow, this is intense! The imprisonment countdown begins now!] 7 Seeing that comment, I immediately sat up straighter. If he could travel alone to a foreign country to buy a manor, it meant his health must be fine right now. A huge weight lifted from my heart. As for the "imprisonment" the comments mentioned, I thought it was highly unlikely. Because I simply couldn't fathom how someone who had so sternly rejected me just moments ago would suddenly want to possess me completely. It wasn't until I got off the plane and arrived at my new place that I received a call from a friend. My friend said that when Alex found out my parents had sent me abroad, he quickly went to them to declare his loyalty, swearing he would never give up on me. And unfortunately, my parents were visiting Ethan in the hospital at that exact moment. Ethan had just woken up, only to hear Alex proclaiming his devotion to my parents right in front of his hospital bed, declaring he would marry no one but me. He even used Ethan as an example, saying how fragile life is, that someone could fall ill or meet a tragic accident any day, so one must seize the person they love while they can. According to my friend, Ethan turned deathly pale with anger. Without saying a word, he ripped out his IV, went straight to the hospital roof helipad, and demanded to be flown to A-City. After hearing my friend's account, I was utterly speechless. It was hard to say whether Ethan was provoked by Alex or actually took the "life is fragile" part to heart. Regardless, if all this made Ethan finally realize what he wanted and decide to be with me, then I was very happy. I wanted him to be happy, to follow his heart and fight for the person he liked. If that coincidentally aligned with my heart's desire, then that would be perfect. Filled with anticipation, I stepped onto campus and attended my first class. Even though I had been hastily thrown out of the country, my university and major had been carefully selected—it was Jewelry Design, my absolute favorite. The first class with the professor was very pleasant. Instead of starting with a lecture, he immediately assigned a project: to design a piece of jewelry to the best of our abilities, without considering any practical constraints. For some reason, I thought of Ethan's birthday. I thought of the twenty-something rings hidden inside balloons that I never got to see. I decided to design a ring. I rolled up my materials and walked out of the classroom. As I was walking down the steps, the comments, which had been chatting about random things, suddenly grew excited. [Here it comes!] [Oh ho! Bro Ethan! Fresh out of the hospital bed and you're already here lurking in the corners?] [Crawled right out of his hospital bed, flew on a plane, bought a massive estate, and came straight to stalk Chloe without even sleeping! Bro Ethan, with this level of perseverance, you could succeed at literally anything.] Seeing the text on the comments, I started to worry about Ethan's health again. I was just about to walk toward him. Right then, my phone rang. In that instant, I felt the expression of Ethan, hiding behind a tree, turn incredibly dark. I looked down. The caller ID read: [Alex].
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