“…During the seven days before Bai Ruyi was to depart, the two were almost never away from each other. No matter how much Bai Ruyi coaxed him to, Qing Xue did not leave the residence to attend training. They both knew he was going to be punished for that, but the boy just didn’t care. All he thought of was that they didn’t have much time left together—he was not going to waste any of it.
“Qing Xue’s clinginess from his younger days also made its return with a vengeance. The way he constantly stuck to Bai Ruyi, it was like he was a patch of earth that wanted to soak up as much water as it could in preparation for a long drought.
“And yet, through it all, he didn’t cry. He wanted to—so, so much—but he remembered every little thing that Bai Ruyi told him, so he had kept in mind that it was
