TPW – Chapter 113

“In the second half of 1980, he came to the mainland. At that time, I was running a street stall in the northern part of the city. We got to know each other for some reasons, and we got together in ’82.”

“Huh??” Stunned, dumbfounded, jaw-droppingly shocked…

Qiao Lu felt like her brain was about to crash. “Then when did you two break up?”

Yu Fan shrugged nonchalantly and said, “The year before last, 1983.”

“What???”

Everyone was even more confused!

1983??

Yu Fan had personally told Qiao Lu that she had a boyfriend she’d been with for three years, since graduation, and they hadn’t broken up.

But Yan Junze had only dated her for one year, and wasn’t she still with Fang Youwei in ’83? What the heck was going on?

“You… wait… wasn’t your boyfriend—” Qiao Lu almost spilled the beans. Yu Fan still didn’t know that she already knew about her relationship with Fang Youwei. Yu Fan had never officially introduced her boyfriend to anyone either.

Qiao Lu held back her shock and widened her eyes: “Wasn’t your boyfriend a college student? How did he turn into that guy? He looks like he’s in his thirties!”

“Yeah, thirty-six this year. Pretty old.” Yu Fan asked the waiter to make her a cup of coffee. It had just been made, still hot. She took a small sip and stirred it slowly with a spoon. “I’m only telling you all this. Don’t spread it around.”

“What thing?” Li Hongjun stared at her, body tense like an iron rod, not daring to miss a single word.

“I… well, dated two people at the same time.”

Even though Yu Fan had a thick skin and a rather loose sense of morality, under the intense scrutiny of her close friends, for once, she showed a trace of awkwardness.

“Uh……”

Silence. Total silence. You could hear a pin drop in the room. No one even dared to breathe. Only the sound of Yu Fan slowly stirring her coffee remained. Each gentle swirl felt like a cold blade scraping across the necks of the three people.

In the 1980s, a woman dating two men at once? That was nearly unheard of.

“Are… are you serious?” Li Hongjun swallowed hard, unable to believe what he was hearing.

“I don’t know. Things just sort of happened.” The milk foam in her coffee had long disappeared. “I was young, naïve, and dirt poor. After I met him, I never had money troubles again.”

“But my boyfriend…” She suddenly looked at Qiao Lu. “You know Fang Youwei, right? He’s my boyfriend.”

“What?!”

Qiao Lu and her husband didn’t look all that shocked, but Li Hongjun, who had been completely in the dark, cried out in disbelief: “Fang Youwei? Your boyfriend?”

What kind of international-level joke is this?!

“Does Fang Youwei’s mom know?”

The single mother and son were incredibly close, and everyone on Ziyuan Street knew how tightly Liu Xiaohong watched over her son.

“If she knew, she’d never allow us to be together.” Although in the end, she did find out…

“I chased Fang Youwei. Started in 1980. He said no at first. Took me half a year to win him over. Even after we got together, he wouldn’t even hold my hand, wouldn’t let me kiss him… cough, it felt like we weren’t even dating… whatever, not gonna talk about him anymore. So boring.” Waving her hand dismissively, Yu Fan changed the topic: “In ’81, before I got together with Yan Junze, guess where I lived?”

“Not at home? Had you finished middle school by then?”

“What do you mean finished middle school? I was already eighteen! Graduated long ago.” She gave Qiao Lu an amused glance. “I was staying at a hotel—Youyi Hotel. Quite comfortable. Better environment than my house. Big suite, private bathroom. Didn’t even have to pay for it myself.”

That last sentence said it all. Everyone instantly got what she meant.

“Huh? You two…” Li Hongjun hadn’t expected that the sunny, radiant girl in his heart had such a private life…

“Wait, wait a second.” He picked up on something. “Yu Fan, didn’t you say you got together with him in ’82? Why were you already living together in ’81?”

“Living at a hotel doesn’t mean I was sharing a room with him. Why so surprised?” Smiling faintly, Yu Fan continued, “My parents had just died. My uncles were fighting over the house. I was beyond fed up. Staying outside was easier. The hotel was nice. So I stayed. Yan Junze paid for it and didn’t mind.”

“But you already had Fang Youwei. Why did you still go to Yan Junze?” Li Hongjun couldn’t understand and was deeply shaken.

He’d never imagined that the girl he idolized would… at just eighteen… move in with a man before marriage. What even was that?

God knows if they’d done anything…

“I dated Youwei for six months. He was always cold and distant. I couldn’t stand it. Plus, I knew Yan Junze before I even chased Youwei, and he was also pursuing me.”

“Later, even though I dated Youwei for a year, it never really felt like a relationship. Felt no different from just being friends. I wasn’t special to him at all. How do I put it… it was boring. In ’81, Yan Junze paid for me to stay at the hotel, and we stayed friends for a year. Then we got together in ’82, and broke up a year later.”

It was all so messy—Qiao Lu couldn’t stop mentally untangling the web of relationships.

Xu Haizhou sat silently next to his wife, not saying a word, eyes locked on Yu Fan. He seemed to also be sorting things out in his head.

“Did Yan Junze know you had a boyfriend before him?” This time it was Xu Haizhou who asked.

After all, what man could accept that his girlfriend hadn’t even broken up with her current boyfriend before getting with him?

From a man’s perspective, Xu Haizhou found Yu Fan speechless.

“Neither of them knew about the other. It just… happened. I don’t even know what I was thinking. My brain short-circuited…”

“After we broke up in ’83, Youwei was in senior high. That year he was super insecure and under a lot of pressure. Suddenly, he started being sweet to me—holding hands, kissing me—so I dumped Yan Junze.”

Uh…

Use and discard. Yu Fan, you’re really something.

But there was one thing Yu Fan hadn’t told them.

If she hadn’t accidentally discovered in ’83 that Yan Junze had a wife in Hong Kong, she had planned to break up with Youwei at the end of the year, stay with Yan Junze, become his girlfriend, maybe even marry him…

But after learning he had a wife, she didn’t want to suffer. She dumped him decisively and went back to Fang Youwei.

After that, their relationship slowly improved. During that time, Yu Fan could clearly feel Fang Youwei’s attachment and love for her.

Their relationship peaked after his college entrance exams. She gave him full emotional and financial support.

Now, in 1985, thinking about it, she’d truly only had a real relationship with Fang Youwei for about three years. Their feelings were… passable.

Qiao Lu asked, “Oh right, your silk stall—did Yan Junze help with the supply?”

Yu Fan: “Yeah, he found the supplier before he left. Consider it… breakup compensation?”

Qiao Lu: “…Alright then.”

Yu Fan: “Actually, if I hadn’t broken up with Yan Junze, I could’ve gotten ten thousand yuan every year. But after he left, I returned all the money. Thinking about it now, I must’ve been insane. Real cash, and he even slept with me—why the hell did I return it?”

Pfft—cough cough cough—

Right now, at this very moment, Li Hongjun was extremely glad he never had the courage to confess to Yu Fan.

A woman like her—he really couldn’t handle.