The plane landed.
Ye Yunche instinctively pressed a hand to his chest. He wasn’t experiencing the violent pounding from the night before.
But he wasn’t happy about it.
That didn’t mean his elder brother wasn’t feeling anything. Maybe he had deliberately shut out his own senses.
There was no denying that twin brothers understood each other better than anyone else.
He hurriedly collected his luggage and prepared to leave.
But not long after he had set off, an airport employee called to say that he had taken another passenger’s suitcase by mistake.
Taken the wrong suitcase?
Wasn’t this just delaying everything?
Ye Yunche cursed under his breath as he dragged his suitcase back. Then, at the service desk, he saw Bai Shurou.
“Why are you here?” he asked in surprise, with a faint trace of displeasure in his voice.
Bai Shurou pressed her lips together.
She pointed at the suitcase in his hand. “You were the one who took my suitcase by mistake. I couldn’t find it, so I came to the service desk.”
Ye Yunche glanced at the suitcase beside her.
They really did look almost identical. They were the same brand and model, both black, twenty-one-inch suitcases.
Neither had any stickers on it, so they were easy to mistake at a glance.
“Uh, sorry about that,” Ye Yunche said. “Who would’ve thought we’d be carrying such similar luggage?”
The two of them exchanged suitcases.
Bai Shurou gave a slight shake of her head. “It’s fine. You didn’t do it on purpose. I just didn’t expect to run into you at the airport. What a coincidence.”
Ye Yunche gave a noncommittal reply and dragged his suitcase away.
After walking for a while, he realized that Bai Shurou had been following behind him the entire time.
His elder brother’s earlier words suddenly flashed through his mind: Bai Shurou had mistaken him for his brother at first.
So… was she deliberately following him?
Unsure, Ye Yunche stopped and waited for Bai Shurou to catch up. Unable to hold back, he asked, “Why are you following me?”
Bai Shurou pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I’m not following you. I’m going to Xingyun Community to volunteer as a teacher.”
The moment Ye Yunche heard the name of the school, he was stunned.
Wasn’t that exactly where he was headed?
“You’re going to volunteer as a teacher?” he asked, his face full of surprise.
Although the Bai family had fallen on hard times, Bai Shurou had once been a young lady from a wealthy family. Why would she choose to go teach in the mountains?
That wasn’t to say there was anything wrong with teaching in the countryside.
It was just that the conditions were extremely harsh, and most people couldn’t endure them.
Bai Shurou was silent for a moment before speaking softly.
“My elder brother owes a great deal of gambling debt. My father doesn’t even know where he is, working to earn money to pay it off. I have no way to help my brother.”
“And I don’t want to become a resource for him to exploit—to be sold to the head of Jindi Group or some other wealthy executive.”
“The flower shop has already let me go. If I look for another job, my brother will definitely hound me there too. So I want to escape. Perhaps teaching in a remote mountain village is one way to do that.”
“I can get away from that environment, and my brother won’t be able to find me. And I… might still be of some use to this world.”
Ye Yunche had initially regarded her with disgust and suspicion.
But after hearing her explanation, he felt a little guilty.
He shouldn’t have maliciously assumed the worst about her.
“Um… I think your idea is pretty good. Bai Shucheng is already a complete mess. He’s the only one who can save himself.”
“As for you, a change of environment might do you good.”
At his words, Bai Shurou raised her head and smiled gently.
“Thank you, Yunche.”
“What are you thanking me for? I’m going to Xingyun Elementary School too. Though I can’t claim to have your sense of purpose. I’m just going there to find…”
He stopped himself in time and changed his words. “To find my elder brother.”
Bai Shurou nodded, looking deeply approving.
“I read in the news on my phone that the Ye Family Charity Foundation has spent all these years dedicated to providing education for children in impoverished mountain regions. This Xingyun Elementary School in the southwest should be the twenty-first school.”
Ye Yunjin and Ye Yunche’s mother each had the character “Xing” in their names.
The second character came from the word “children,” so the school was named Xingyun Elementary School.
Ye Yunche felt proud of that.
“Our family has money, so it’s only right that we give some back to society. My elder brother says that’s the social responsibility of a major corporation.”
Since they had run into each other halfway there, Ye Yunche couldn’t very well leave her behind.
He had originally arranged for a business car, so he offered Bai Shurou a ride.
At first, she refused.
“No, thanks. I’ll only be causing you trouble.”
Ye Yunche, however, was quite easygoing about it.
“What trouble? Come on. Even if someone from our circle saw us, they’d probably assume you were chasing my elder brother all the way to the southwest. Hahaha!”
Bai Shurou said nothing. After a moment of silence, she suddenly spoke.
“Yunche, I don’t like Ye Yunjin. All those rumors going around our circle are false.”
Ye Yunche laughed awkwardly.
“Of course they are. Rumors always get more outrageous the further they spread.”
Bai Shurou suddenly raised her head and glanced at him, pressing her lips together.
Her voice was serious when she said, “The person I’ve had feelings for has always been you.”
The smile vanished from Ye Yunche’s face in an instant.
!!!
Oh no. Could what his elder brother had told him actually be true?
Bai Shurou liked him?
Ye Yunche felt terrible.
If only he hadn’t invited her to share the ride.
What a hassle. Women were such a hassle. He didn’t like trouble, and he didn’t like women.
Of course, Zhu Liuyue was the exception.
Ye Yunche was blunt. “Um… you should take your own car to the school.”
He rejected her so decisively.
Bai Shurou had expected it, but a trace of hurt still flashed through her eyes.
She said softly, “I know you don’t like women.”
“It’s just that I’ve kept this hidden in my heart for a long time. Several times when I ran into you, I wanted to tell you. This time, perhaps it was fate that brought us together again. I only wanted you to know, nothing more.”
“During our first year of university, you and a few friends set up a racing club on Mount Daqi. One of my close friends had a boyfriend who was a member of the club, so she brought me along to one of your club’s events.”
“I watched you race against someone else that day…”
Ye Yunche hurriedly waved his hands, cutting her off.
“Wait. Don’t tell me you saw that race, thought racing was cool and that I looked handsome, and then started to like me a little?”
Bai Shurou fell silent, a complicated expression appearing on her face.
“I just admired you. You could do whatever you wanted, living freely and without restraint. That was because you had an outstanding elder brother.”
“I had an elder brother too, but he was useless and spent all day creating one mess after another for me to clean up.”
Ye Yunche understood even less now.
“Then shouldn’t you like my elder brother? He’s very capable.”
Bai Shurou smiled bitterly. “The first person I saw was you.”
There had never been any logic to love.
