“Hmm?” Qin Yinan moved his gaze from the medicine to Song Qingchun’s face. Song Qingchun had her face lowered like she was deep in thought.
Qin Yinan waited patiently, but when he noticed she was not going to speak, he prompted, “What’s wrong?”
Song Qingchun’s hands that were laid on her knees gripped into fists. Certain words had not yet left her mouth, but there was already pain at the back of her eyes.
She pressed her lips tight and contemplated the words that she was going to say in her mind again and again. After coming to a decision, she raised her head to meet Qin Yinan’s eyes and asked, “Brother Yinan, are you still in a relationship with Tang Nuan?”
Qin Yinan was not expecting this question, and he visibly reeled from shock before shaking his head and admitting, “I’ve not talked to her in a long time.”
After a pause, Qin Yinan added, “We’ve already… broken up.”
Song Qingchun thought that if she had heard this sentence one year ago, she would have been ecstatic. However, in that one year, too many things had changed, and this sentence that she had been praying for most of her life felt so flat and pedestrian in her ears.
Qin Yinan noticed Song Qingchun’s reticence, and he smiled. “She and I, we’re really not suitable for each other. It would have been a waste of time if we dragged it out, and there was no future for us, but… why would you suddenly ask this?”
When Song Qingchun heard his question, her eyes shuddered. She suppressed the tears that were threatening to pour out of her eyes before moving her lips to ask something completely unrelated to Tang Nuan and the topic that she had started earlier. “Brother Yinan, on the second night my father was hospitalized, you called me, do you remember that?”
Qin Yinan was silent for a moment, thinking about the incident Song Qingchun was suddenly referencing before nodding slightly. “I do.”
Song Qingchun lowered her head and pulled lightly on her hair like she did not know how to continue. After some time, she asked, “Then, do you remember what you told me that night on the phone?”
What I told her on the phone? I remember saying, ‘Song Song, Uncle Song is not feeling so good, and he wishes for you to have a shoulder to lean on. A while ago, didn’t you say you want me to act alongside you? I’m calling to say, if you need it, I can be that shoulder for as long as you wish…’
Qin Yinan filtered the words in his mind. He believed that he had guessed the purpose of the girl bringing this up and said, “You’re asking me to act alongside you?”
Song Qingchun shook her head slightly. Ten seconds later, she opened her lips to say, “Not acting.”
Not acting?
Song Qingchun’s lips curved into a smile before turning earning to look at Qin Yinan with her watery eyes. “Brother Yinan, didn’t you say that if I need it, you’re willing to take care of me forever?”
At this point, Song Qingchun took a deep breath and tried to make her words sound as flat as possible. “If I say, I need it now…”
Song Qingchun hesitated as if she did not the correct way to phrase her words. However, soon, she continued in a different manner to express what she wanted to say. “To put it simply, Brother Yinan, will you marry me?”