In a low voice, Jian Bianlin repeated, “Senior brother?”
Then Jian Bianlin wordlessly handed that autographed photo back to the flight attendant. The atmosphere once again sunk down to the original low that it had been when they first got onto the plane.
Chu Jian gazed at him tensely, the guilty feeling inside her swelling rapidly. Tarrying for a while, she finally explained quietly, “I don’t have any feelings for him.” After saying this, she dug out a slightly battered-looking airline magazine from in front of her seat and absentmindedly flipped through a couple pages before adding in a murmur, “If I do like someone, I will let you know.”
For the second time, Jian Bianlin turned his gaze back to her, a frown between his brows.
The entire day, his complexion had been rather pale, and now it was even worse.
Actually, anyone who observed him carefully would be able to detect that his mood was all showing in his eyes. The short locks lying across his forehead, however, covered up some of it, and he was also purposely avoiding her. Not wanting his own emotions to affect her, he had thrown out a couple random sentences of joking but had not expected that he would instead end up being pulled by her into another emotional low.
Chu Jian knew his eyes were on her, but she dared not return that gaze anymore.
And so, putting on a pretense of all seriousness, she leafed through the magazine that was in her hands from front cover to back cover and then from back cover to front cover again, even reading every single line of fine print on the ads. In this way, she remained in silent suffering until the airplane landed, nearly stifling herself to the point of internal injury.
Prior to disembarking the plane, Jian Bianlin pulled out the black, surgical-style face mask and slipped it on, concealing away half his face. He normally seldom wore this. A few days ago, he had been ill and his face was wan, so he had put it on out of concern that if photographs were taken of him, his fans would worry. This time, it was because he was not in a good mental and emotional state, and he was afraid that if he were photographed, unfounded things might be written about him.
His skin tone was already fairer than the average man. Now, the black color of the mask served to emphasize his pale complexion.
That pair of eyes, which was the only part of his face showing, did not look at her. “Follow me, but don’t come too close.”
With those words, he picked up his own backpack and began walking.
This trip had been made out of emergency, so the situation of fans coming to meet his flight because his schedule had been leaked in advance would not occur. However, when he stepped out from the exit and hurriedly strode by with head bowed, there continually were passersby who recognized him. Far and near, people fished out their mobile phones and spontaneously began to follow after Jian Bianlin’s footsteps. He had not even brought an assistant with him, so it was unavoidable that his pace was slowed by the flock of people surrounding him. Fortunately, everyone was very courteous.
The entire time, Jian Bianlin would search the throng for Chu Jian from the corner of his eye, for fear that she would be bumped and crammed away by the crowd. Chu Jian was actually being very careful, unassumingly following him from a distance of twenty metres away. While he was enclosed within the swarm, she even, in passing, went to KFC and bought a cola. Patiently, she bit down on the straw and drank unhurriedly, waiting for him to break away from the masses.
When they were kids, she had often waited like this for him as well.
Back then, Jian Bianlin’s dad had frequently needed to travel on business for his work at the shipyard, and furthermore, it was to far-off locations. Often, for ten days to half a month at a time, Jian Bianlin would have dinner at Chu Jian’s home, and so it had been necessary that they went home together after school. However, his class, Class No. 1, was a key class[1] [class for high performers] and he was also a top student, so supplementary classes or classes lasting long after the bell were commonplace for him. Her class, Class No. 9, was a non-key class, so she was dismissed from school relatively early. Hence, their two classrooms, one at each end of the hallway, were always the last to turn off the lights. In the former classroom, all the students were still attending class, while in the latter, there was only Chu Jian, either sleeping or reading manga alone.
