"You're finally back." Hua Tong was overjoyed to see Qin Fang when he opened the door. "I thought you had abandoned me and left for good."

"Where would I go?" Qin Fang lay on the sofa with a throw pillow on top of him.

Hua Tong sat beside him, resting his elbow on Qin Fang's raised knee. "I helped you write two papers for you. Without me, you would have failed these two classes. How do you plan to show your gratitude?"

"Tong-ge, you're my angel." Qin Fang smiled at him. "What papers?"

"Just small papers for regular assignments, nothing important. It's very easy for Tong-ge to write these," Hua Tong said.

Qin Fang nodded, "Tong-ge is the best."

He had been gone for several days, leaving a pile of things at school. Classmates who were familiar with Qin Fang all knew to go directly to Hua Tong if they needed anything. Hua Tong took care of everything he could, and left the rest that he couldn't handle.

Hua Tong asked about Si Tu's situation. Qin Fang gave a brief explanation. There wasn't much to say. Something as complex as life and death can only be described in a couple of sentences.

Hua Tong sighed, "What a pity."

"Yes, it's a great pity," Qin Fang said with his eyes closed. "But there's nothing we can do."

"Everyone has their own fate." Hua Tong patted Qin Fang's leg. "As long as you live those years without regrets."

"It's impossible to have no regrets," Qin Fang thought for a moment. "Growing up is not easy. After growing up, you don't get to enjoy a few comfortable years before you're gone. This life seems to have some regrets."

But Hua Tong shook his head. He began to express his thoughts, "Having experienced hardships doesn't mean it's regretful. Growing up being difficult doesn't mean this life is not good. Maybe because I'm an outsider, I actually feel this is a very complete life. There are certainly many things missing, but it has everything it should - a few close friends, a beloved girl, tasting both the bitter and the sweet, although there are many hardships. If fate is supposed to be like this, stopping at a point where everything is still quite comfortable, isn't that very fortunate? At least the hard times are over."

Hua Tong often makes such statements. Sometimes it seems like he thinks too little and oversimplifies everything. But sometimes it feels like he's quite right. Qin Fang thought about his words for a while and finally said, "The master speaks with reason."

The words are correct, but emotionally it may not be acceptable. After all, humans are emotional creatures.

Qin Fang was a bit different after returning this time. On the surface, everything seemed normal, but if you observed carefully, there were still some changes.

For example, he rarely used to touch his phone before. He would stuff the phone in his pocket for the whole day, not even touching it once when he was busy. Now, he would take out his phone from time to time to check for messages.

"Fang-ge, are you waiting for a message?" Qin Fang was in the advisor's office, waiting to collect something and scan it into the computer later. Beside him was his junior fellow apprentice, a girl named Liu Yuan. Seeing him constantly checking his phone, she asked with a smile.

Qin Fang looked up and said, "No."

"Then why do you keep looking at your phone?" Liu Yuan asked him.

Qin Fang smiled, "I'm checking the time."

"I'm going to order a meal later. Do you want to eat together?"

"No thanks," Qin Fang said to her. "I'm going back after I finish scanning the documents. You eat by yourself."

Qin Fang was half lying on the table with his phone beside him. After a while, the phone beeped twice and a WeChat notification popped up on the screen. He tapped to open it.

Xing Yan: I'm awake. Showing you a wild rose.

Below was a photo of a large red flower sticking out of the grass by the roadside.

Qin Fang couldn't help but smile and replied: This is just a regular rose.

Xing Yan quickly replied: I know. I just wanted you to reply to me.

Qin Fang felt a bit speechless seeing Xing Yan's words, but the corners of his mouth were clearly still smiling.

Qin Fang: You're a bit childish.

Xing Yan: Mm.

Maybe he felt that "Mm" was a word that the other party couldn't continue the conversation with and seemed cold.

Xing Yan followed up with another sentence below: Mm hmm.

A single "Mm hmm" instantly made Qin Fang collapse. He lay on the table and laughed for a long time. It's too hard on Yan-ge. It's not easy to act cool. It's even harder for a real cool guy to not act cool. Look what it's forced our Yan-ge to become.

If Xing Yan's persona is gone, then it's completely gone. This person is too different from before. In the past, Xing Yan's messages never had punctuation. He would never add a period. Now, not only does he use punctuation, his tone is also much cuter.

At first, Qin Fang rarely replied to him. He had to restrain his emotions. Otherwise, if they chatted like this on WeChat every day, they would quickly get together.

Before the person even came back, they would have to resume their couple status. That would be too fast, it shouldn't be like that. So Qin Fang would occasionally reply, but most of the time he wouldn't.

Because of this, Xing Yan often behaved like he did today, sending content that Qin Fang would definitely reply to. If he said he was showing him a common rose, Qin Fang probably wouldn't reply. But if he said it wrong, Qin Fang would have to correct him. Back and forth, they could chat.

Of course, Hua Tong also noticed that Qin Fang was different. Living together every day, he could definitely tell if there was anything going on.

Qin Fang was writing a paper on the computer while checking his phone. Hua Tong was on the bed talking to his girlfriend on the phone. After more than ten minutes on the phone, he was almost done with the call, but Qin Fang was still touching his phone every half a minute.

"Then I won't talk to you anymore. I'm going to watch a movie with my roommate." The girlfriend was in a very good mood, her voice always rising in tone.

Hua Tong said, "Okay, go ahead. Call me if you need anything."

"Okay, you play with Fang-ge. Why is Fang-ge so quiet? I can't hear his voice."

Hua Tong glanced at Qin Fang and laughed, "Fang-ge is busy."

"Oh oh, then you guys be busy. I'm going to have fun." The girlfriend hung up the phone happily.

Hua Tong had been with his girlfriend for a while, and their relationship had always been pretty good. Apart from occasionally acting up and needing to be coaxed, the girl was very easy to take care of most of the time.

Hua Tong cherished his girlfriend very much. The biggest difference between him and Qin Fang was that Hua Tong always had long-term relationships, unlike Qin Fang who never dated anyone for more than two months back then.

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you." After putting down his phone, Hua Tong scooted over to Qin Fang's side and sat facing him.

Qin Fang had just replied to a message and didn't look up. "Go ahead."

"This time when you went..." Hua Tong looked at him. "Did Xing Yan come back?"

"He came back." Qin Fang put down his phone and continued looking at the computer. "There's no way he wouldn't come back."

"Did you see him?"

"I saw him."

Hua Tong smiled and then asked, "So have you been messaging him these past few days?"

Qin Fang finally looked up, raising an eyebrow and asking, "Very obvious?"

"Not bad," Hua Tong leaned against the headboard, "I have sharp eyes."

Qin Fang had no need to hide anything from Hua Tong, and this matter didn't need to be concealed anyway, so Qin Fang said, "No need to ask the next question, we haven't reconciled yet."

Hua Tong nodded, "I know that much. Whether reconciled or not, it's not possible to happen so quickly anyway."

After a while, Hua Tong couldn't stay idle and his gossipy nature flared up, "So... did anything happen?"

Qin Fang was speechless, "What could happen? Our relationship is stuck here. If something really happened, we would have made up long ago."

"Judging from your tone, you seem quite regretful that nothing happened?" Hua Tong asked.