Back Then, I Adored You

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

“Really? You think so?” Lin Tiantian smiled happily when she received the affirmation.

Without replying to Lin Tiantian, Su Qing turned her head again to look out the car window. As she watched the city lights grow distant, she recalled what she had said earlier.

“Good family background…”

Nobody knew how envious she had been for all these years. Even in her dreams, she had always imagined what it might have been like if she had been born into a good family like Lin Tiantian had been, because she would not have had to break up with Qin Jiayan back then.

Many people think that love is the most beautiful experience in one’s life, but just as many forget that, for people who must worry about their next meal, love is just a luxurious dream.

Qin Jiayan’s family had been blissful the year that Su Qing had become acquainted with him, but she had been a poor girl who had come from a deprived mountainous region and who had to rely on a scholarship for the needy to pursue her studies.

Although she had only been in high school when they had met, she had already started to use her time off from school to hand out flyers to reduce her financial burden on her family.

It had been winter when, from morning until late at night, she had handed out more than 5,000 flyers; however, the person responsible for paying her wages had not paid her when he saw how young she was. At that point in time, she had been completely penniless and starving for the entire day. When she had been walking back to school, she had seen beef noodles sold in a stall by the side of the road, causing her to salivate.

Coincidentally, a young couple had just left after they had finished their beef noodles, and the girl had left her noodles almost untouched. When the stall owner had been clearing away the food, Su Qing had been so hungry that she had approached the owner and asked with a red face if she could have the leftovers.

Qin Jiayan and a few male classmates had been seated at the side of the stall, and he had heard her inquiry. Before the owner could replied, he had already fished out his money to have the owner cook her a fresh bowl of beef noodles.

They had known each other in high school but hadn’t fallen in love until their first year in college, but their romance had not lasted long. Qin Jiayan’s father passed away after he had incurred a huge debt, and his mother had been hospitalized after she had become severely ill. His family’s medical bills had been costly.

It’s not a lie when one says that when it rains it pours, and joy never comes in pairs.

Just as Qin Jiayan’s family had been plagued by misfortunes, Su Qing’s family also had run into trouble. Her father had fallen off a mountain by accident and broken his leg. While her family’s situation had been nothing compared to that of Qin Jiayan’s family, they had needed money for her father’s surgery, an exorbitant amount for her family.

It was at that point in time that she had chosen to marry because she didn’t have a better solution that would allow her to save money quickly.

Her father, however, had not been the sole reason she had chosen to marry a rich man before graduating from college; she had made this decision also because of Qin Jiayan. After his father had died, they had met less frequently. She had even secretly tailed him a few times and seen for herself the difficult situation that his father’s debtors had subjected him and his sister to. She had witnessed firsthand his turmoil, and she had even gone to the hospital and found out that if his family didn’t pay the full medical bill his mother would have been forced to leave the hospital. She had also learned that he was about to quit school.

She had been in urgent need of money and, if she had continued to be with him, she would only be an additional burden to him on top of his own financial problems.

In one night, she had come to the decision to break up with Qin Jiayan and marry Lin Tiantian’s eldest brother, Lin Mo.

The Lin family had not allowed her to marry into their family for her convenience but, rather, because they wanted a woman to marry Lin Mo to cover up his homosexuality.