"You can try me right now and see if I do," Xu Su said, giving him a sidelong glance and a provocative smile. "Men and women are different, you know?"

"Don’t push me, Susu. I’m just looking out for you. I want you to walk into that exam hall at your best."

Zhou Mochen placed a soft kiss on Xu Su’s forehead. "Don’t overestimate my self-control," he said calmly. "Once I get started, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop myself. Understand?"

Xu Su: "..."

She struggled to push the memories from her mind.

"Aside from getting back at me, the rest was because you liked him, right?"

Zhou Mochen steered the conversation back, his tone utterly flat. "Tell me. What was the most intimate thing you two did during that year? Be honest."

"...Kissing..." Afraid he wouldn’t believe her, Xu Su held up three fingers. "It was really only kissing."

’Wasn’t this just torturing himself? Why was he still asking about these details after a year?’ Xu Su’s head throbbed, and she felt a wave of guilt.

A hand slipped under her shirt at her waist, sliding slowly upward. "Did he touch you here?"

Xu Su hesitated for several long seconds. He growled in a low voice, "Tell me the truth. I just want the truth. I won’t get angry!"

"...Be gentle, you’re hurting me." ’How could I have been foolish enough to believe he wouldn’t get angry?’ She reached out, grabbing his wrist, and confessed honestly, "Just once. He kissed it once."

Her mind flashed back to a classroom last summer, to the boy’s face, streaked with tears...

Xu Su squeezed her eyes shut, her breathing unsteady. "Zhou Mochen, please let it go. You’ve already won. It was a total victory. What more could you possibly want?"

’What more could he want?’

She’d already given him her heart and soul. Xi Zirong was left with nothing.

Xi Zirong had nothing...

’Why was he so hung up on things that had already happened?’

Xu Su grabbed Zhou Mochen’s arm and firmly pulled his hand away. Deciding to come clean completely, she said, "That year, he and I kissed many times. Under the trees by the school paths, in the corners of the academic building, on the athletic field, in the woods, outside the dorms. Sometimes he initiated it, sometimes I did. The breakup was my fault. I fell for someone else. I was fickle and unfaithful."

Xu Su felt as if she were about to drown in guilt. All the memories she had deliberately tried to forget came flooding back.

Her gaze on Zhou Mochen was tinged with misplaced anger. "Is there anything else you want to ask? Just get it all out at once!"

At some point, the color had drained from Zhou Mochen’s face. He stared at her, stunned, his lips moving slightly. "What about now? Do you still like him?"

"...I don’t like him anymore!"

Xu Su had just lowered her gaze when Zhou Mochen grabbed her chin and forced it back up. "Look me in the eye and tell me, Xu Su. I want the truth."

"Zhou Mochen, I know exactly what’s in my heart. I like you." Xu Su met his gaze, her own open and honest.

"I do believe that. Xu Su, I believe you like me." Zhou Mochen watched her, his expression blank. "What I want to know is whether you *only* like me."

"Yes!" Xu Su answered decisively. "I only like you now. Things with Xi Zirong are over. I can tell you every detail you want to know today. But if you still can’t accept it, then there’s nothing I can do. What’s done is done, and I can’t take it back."

Zhou Mochen gave a slight nod and leaned closer, continuing his masochistic questioning. "Did you ever think about doing it with him? Like how you were with me tonight."

’A girl so beautiful and winsome, her heart and eyes filled with only you, acting coy, wanting to press herself against you, wanting more, wanting to possess you completely, initiating intimacy with such trust...’

’Had she ever done that with someone else?’

Seeing Xu Su’s stunned expression, Zhou Mochen gritted his teeth and pressed on. "You said before that boys of seventeen or eighteen have less self-control. Where did you get that experience? What couldn’t he control himself from doing to you?"

"..." Xu Su was completely floored. ’She couldn’t even remember when she’d said that!’

But Zhou Mochen’s expression clearly wasn’t a joke. His eyes were practically spitting fire. It was obvious how long he had been holding these questions in, and what a desperate, all-or-nothing risk it was to finally ask them.

Before Xu Su, her lips trembling, could say a word, Zhou Mochen suddenly roared, "Answer me! Tell me everything!"

"We really didn’t do anything else! He only kissed me over my heart once, that was the most intimate it ever got. Nothing else ever happened." Xu Su threw her arms around him in a panic, trying to soothe him. "Don’t be like this. Zhou Mochen, you’re the only one I like now. He’s all in the past."

His body was rigid as he let her hold him, but he remained silent.

Xu Su felt a mix of anger and pain in her heart. ’She couldn’t understand why he was still so hung up on something that should have been a closed Chapter long ago, why he’d been stewing over it for a year!’

"I never thought about doing those things with Xi Zirong. We weren’t that old. Can you stop projecting your own ideas onto us?"

Xu Su patted his back. "I only desire you. Really, I’m not just trying to appease you. I only want to be with you. You need to be more confident, Zhou Mochen. You’re so handsome, you have such a great body, and you’re an amazing kisser. It feels so good every time you kiss me, really."

A torrent of sweet nothings poured out of Xu Su, all sense of shyness gone. "If I had a time machine, I’d go back two years. But I don’t. So, Zhou Mochen, all I can say is I’m sorry. It was my fault, okay? My mistake caused both of you pain."

Zhou Mochen had long been familiar with her talent for placating people. When she set her mind to it, her words were incredibly soothing. As long as she was willing to patiently coax you, it felt as though even the deepest pain could be eased.

He closed his eyes and pulled her tighter into his embrace. "What’s the difference between him and me? Why did you choose me and break up with him?"

"..." Xu Su was at a loss for words. ’He was really determined to get to the bottom of this.’ "Let me think about it. I don’t want to lie to you, but I haven’t completely figured it out myself. Just give me a moment to think seriously."

"Take your time and think," Zhou Mochen said, stroking her earlobe. "There’s no rush."

"Xi Zirong pursued me for a long time. At first, I said a lot of harsh things to turn him down. But as time went on, he became better and better, and my heart softened. I couldn’t bring myself to reject him decisively anymore. At the time, I thought that feeling my heart soften for someone must be what it felt like to like them."

Xu Su paused for a long time before she spoke again, her words coming slowly. "It wasn’t until I realized I liked you... that I knew. Because my heart would ache..."

’To this day, she couldn’t forget the excruciating pain she’d felt in her soul form. She had never experienced pain that intense before.’

Xu Su took a breath. "After I got together with you, I slowly realized that liking someone isn’t just about your heart softening for them. It’s more about wanting to hold you, wanting to be inseparable from you, wanting to be close to you every second of the day... It’s like I have touch starvation."

As she said this, Xu Su froze. ’This...’

’Weren’t those Zhou Mochen’s symptoms at the very beginning?’

Zhou Mochen gave her shoulder a little nudge. "Keep going."

His voice betrayed no emotion...

Xu Su pressed her lips together. Unable to gauge his reaction, she decided to just continue. "You asked if I ever thought about sleeping with Xi Zirong. The truth is, I never did."