My girlfriend is from the future!

Regarding He and Cao, although Xue Yong and his wife broke the ice at the beginning, when they are alone now, it still feels like there is a layer of paper between them that they cannot break through.

So for the first few minutes of their time alone, the two remained silent, simply walking along the ancient path paved with stone slabs into the depths of the mountains. Everyone said that the scenery along this path was beautiful, but it was winter, and both sides of them were bare ancient tree branches and withered wild grass. However, compared to the traffic and noise below the mountain, it was so quiet that all that could be heard was the rustling of the cold wind blowing through the treetops and the sound of their footsteps, one after the other, on the fallen leaves and stone steps.

After walking for another ten minutes, He Tianran was thinking about how to start a conversation when he heard Cao Aiqing's breathing becoming heavier.

The man quickened his pace to walk alongside the girl. Cao Aiqing walked steadily, the hem of her coat swaying gently with each step. In her hand, the string of bright red candied hawthorns, wrapped in glutinous rice paper, gleamed in the sunlight, and not a single one was missing.

"Don't you like sweets?" He Tianran stopped and pointed curiously at the candied hawthorn in her hand: "Why haven't you touched it? It won't taste good if it melts."

Cao Aiqing stopped upon hearing this, looked down at the bunch of bright red, juicy fruit in her hand, and her cute nose twitched slightly.

"Stop doing."

"You quit?" He Tianran was taken aback. "When did you quit?"

It's worth noting that Cao Aiqing quitting sugar is equivalent to He Tianran quitting smoking. The girl has always had little resistance to sweets; whether it's milk tea or cake, it can make her feel better.

"It was... when Tingting introduced me as being twenty-six years old."

Cao Aiqing spoke with a serious expression, tilting her head slightly to tuck a strand of wind-blown hair behind her ear, her tone carrying a touch of girlish embarrassment and reluctance towards sweets:

"Eating too much sugar can lead to oxidation and rapid loss of collagen, which in short means you will age faster."

He Tianran chuckled upon hearing this, looking at her face, which was clearly full of collagen and so tender it seemed like you could pinch water out of it, and couldn't help but tease her:
"Designer Cao, aren't you being a bit too Versailles? Looking like that, no one would dare stop you and check your student ID if you walked back into your high school. Are you afraid of getting old?"

"I'm scared~"

Cao Aiqing ignored He Tianran's flattery, continued walking past him uphill, leaving the man with only a faintly fragrant silhouette and a light, airy remark:

"After all... we've already made people wait for so many years. If we don't take better care of ourselves now, it would be a real loss if no one wanted us in the future."

He Tianran's smile froze slightly.

This sounds like a joke, but combined with her words last night, "I'm sorry for not being proactive enough, which made Tianran wait for me all these years," it adds another layer of unsettling meaning.

The man watched her retreating figure, about to catch up and say something—

"what--!"

A short, startled cry suddenly came from ahead.

He Tianran's heart skipped a beat. Before he could react, he saw Cao Aiqing, who was walking in front of him, sway and fall to one side.

A layer of damp moss had grown on the step, and her low-heeled ankle boots, which she had worn to match her coat, clearly hadn't been able to grip the ground properly.

"Be careful--!"

He Tianran rushed forward and grabbed Cao Aiqing's arm before she could fall completely, the momentum causing her to crash into the man's arms.

"How are you? Are you hurt?"

He Tianran quickly helped her sit on the stone steps and asked anxiously.

"foot……"

Cao Aiqing frowned, her pretty face instantly turning deathly pale, and fine beads of cold sweat appeared on her forehead. She tried to move her right foot, but immediately let out a painful gasp:
"Ouch... I think I twisted it."

He Tianran's eyes widened suddenly, and he blurted out a sentence out of the blue:
"Oh? You twisted your ankle too?!"

"also……?"

This offhand remark seemed to work better than any painkiller. Cao Aiqing immediately raised her head, her face full of doubt, but a glint of light flashed in her gradually narrowing eyes.

Even if he had a hundred lives, He Tianran wouldn't dare to tell anyone about carrying Wen Liang back to the hotel on the rainy night two days ago. He immediately squatted down, even kneeling on one knee on the dusty stone steps. He carefully lifted Cao Aiqing's right foot and gently pressed her ankle through her boot.

"pain……"

The pain made Cao Aiqing temporarily ignore the suspicion in the man's words, and her right foot twitched slightly.

"It seems Xue Yong's jinx was right; this old path is indeed difficult to follow..."

He Tianran sighed and looked up at her.

At this moment, Cao Aiqing's eyes were red from the pain, and her forced strength made her look particularly pitiful. She bit her lip, glanced at the endless stone steps, and then at her own uncooperative feet, her eyes full of frustration.

This girl is quite stubborn.

"Can I still leave?"

The man asked.

Cao Aiqing tried touching the ground, and a sharp pain shot through her. She shook her head helplessly.

Having already been brought in twice—no, without saying a word—He Tianran turned around and half-squatted down in front of her, his back broad and steady.

"Come up."

“…It’s still a long way off.” Cao Aiqing hesitated. “Besides, I…”

"Don't tell me you're heavy. If I asked you to come down the mountain now, would you be willing? Stop talking nonsense!"

He Tianran directly struck at Cao Aiqing's inner turmoil and contradictions. Although the man's words were direct, they also contained a tacit understanding and tenderness that both of them understood. Cao Aiqing felt a surge of warmth in her heart upon hearing these words. Little did she expect that, perhaps to bolster his actions, the man would add another sentence:
"The night before last... I also carried equipment that was heavier than yours at the Bulgari dinner the other day. Hurry up, or Xue Yong will really eat that vegetarian meal..."

"Aren't you a guest? Why are you carrying equipment? You're not going to work on the film set."

"Oh, I misspoke, I meant suitcases. Yeah, there were quite a few people with me who went to Shanghai the day before yesterday, like makeup artists and agents, all girls, and they had a lot of luggage, so I had to help carry some, right?"

He almost let something slip again, but luckily he stopped himself in time. Cao Aiqing pursed her lips, looked at the man's back, and finally obediently leaned down, gently wrapping her arms around his neck.

He Tianran lifted the girl up steadily with both hands behind him.

In that instant, it was as if some kind of memory overlapped in the present moment.

Although He Tianran had no memory of traveling through Quanling Mountain with Cao Aiqing, the scenery before him, the ancient, winding stone steps, the soft touch on his back, and the faint fragrance lingering around his nose all felt so familiar.

"We...have we really never been here together before?"

"...It's been too long, I don't remember, but it feels...very familiar."

"You feel that way too?"

"Um……"

"Let's pretend we were here together, but forget about it."

Why pretend we were here before? Aren't we together right now? We should remember this moment, this very instant.

"Then don't forget again."

"...We must not forget again."

He Tianran felt the arms around his neck tighten slightly.

The mountain path was still long, but the distance between the two had finally changed from "half a step" one in front of the other to "zero". He Tianran carried her on his back, walking uphill step by step. At first it was relatively easy, but after walking several hundred steps, even he began to pant slightly, and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. But the man did not utter a sound, just silently adjusted his breathing and tried to keep his back steady.

Suddenly, a dark shadow flashed past the man's peripheral vision.

He glanced to the side and saw that the girl was holding a string of bright red, shiny candied hawthorns in her right hand.

He Tianran paused slightly and smiled:

“I was just thinking, you were about to fall, and you were holding this thing in your hand. It was so dangerous, why didn’t you just throw it away? You weren’t going to eat it, and you would have had an extra hand to maintain your balance.”

Immediately, He Tianran felt a pat on the back and heard Cao Aiqing's reproachful voice behind his ear:
"Tingting bought this especially so you would appease me; it's a gift from someone else! How can you just throw it away like that?"

"Haha, so you knew all along~"

He Tianran's laughter echoed through the mountains and fields. Suddenly, several monkeys darted out of the deep forest and squatted by the mountain path, scratching their ears and cheeks as they looked at the strangely dressed couple.

"Quick, eat one."

Cao Aiqing, clinging to He Tianran's back with a hint of barely perceptible shyness, peeled off the thin layer of glutinous rice paper and offered the candied hawthorn skewer back to the man's lips.

"Didn't you say you were going to... give up sugar? Are you afraid of getting old?"

He Tianran, panting, chuckled and teased.

"I'm afraid of getting old, not you!"

Cao Aiqing confidently stuffed a candied hawthorn into his mouth, her voice soft and sweet, as if she were confiding a young girl's secrets:

"Besides, your laughter has attracted the monkeys; they'll try to steal your food!"

"The monkeys in our port city are so rude!"

Despite saying that, He Tianran still opened his mouth immediately and took a bite of the candied hawthorn.

The crisp sweetness of rock sugar and the tartness of hawthorn explode in your mouth, the flavor penetrating to your heart and soul, an indescribable and wonderful taste that even makes your physical fatigue disappear.

"Is it tasty?"

"Mmm, delicious, sweet."

"Then I'll reward you with one whenever you get tired."

"Hiss... This feeling... I feel like a donkey with a carrot hanging in front of it, but it can never reach it."

"Can't you think of something nice? This is a reward!"

"A reward? The reward is for me to carry you on my back~?"

“As a reward for you…” Cao Aiqing rested her chin on his shoulder, looking at his sweat-dampened temples, and said softly, “As a reward for you… even though you don’t remember the way, you are still willing to carry me this way.”

He Tianran chewed on the sweet and sour taste in his mouth, and his heart suddenly trembled.

He didn't speak, but tightened his arms around the girl, and his steps became heavier and more steady.

Along this rugged mountain path, whenever He Tianran's breathing became heavy, a sweet and sour fruit would always be offered to him at just the right moment.

The girl used to love sweets so much...

Cao Aiqing didn't eat a single one of the candied hawthorns; she fed them all to He Tianran.

Just like during this time, she swallowed all the bitterness herself, but saved all the sweetness for him...

"Ai Qing..."

"Ok?"

"I think I..."

For a moment, He Tianran didn't know how to describe everything that had happened recently. Wen Liang, his parents, and... Cao Aiqing on his back—they had all given him so many profound insights and impacts. But when it came to his lips, it all boiled down to four simple words—

"much better."

Cao Aiqing nestled against his back, her cheek pressed against the back of his neck. A faint smile played on her lips. After several breaths of silence, she slowly spoke:
"...You weren't bad to begin with, you're natural."

He Tianran paused, then smiled and bounced the girl on his back to make her more comfortable.

"Sometimes, I still think, what if... my illness never gets better, what if I change in the future, becoming a bastard I don't even recognize, or completely forgetting you..."

"Then let's forget about it."

Cao Aiqing answered very quickly, so quickly that He Tianran was caught off guard.

She chuckled softly in his ear, a sound as clear and melodious as a wind chime.
“You’ve forgotten? That’s okay. We can get to know each other again, just like we did down the mountain today. We may have walked this path before, but we’ve forgotten it. That’s okay too. Aren’t we walking it again now?”

"..."

He Tianran felt his eyes getting hot, so he stopped talking and just quickened his pace.

The sweet taste of hawthorn lingered between his teeth, along with a heavy sense of "love".

The stone steps beneath his feet were still steep, but every step he took was incredibly firm. He was no longer carrying the heavy burden of the past, but a girl who was more important to him than the whole world. And the place they were going to was a real, warm future that belonged to them.

Finally, the trees ahead thinned out, and a melodious and deep bell rang out, accompanied by the lingering scent of incense, and came into view.

He Tianran raised his head and looked at the temple eaves that were already faintly visible in front of him. As he climbed the steps, his vision gradually opened up. The vermilion walls and golden glazed tiles of Quanling Temple shone brightly in the warm winter sun. The incense burner outside the temple gate emitted wisps of smoke that rose straight into the sky, gazing at the bustling world of the port city in the distance.

"Hey! They're here!"

In front of the temple gate square, Xue Yong was supporting Bai Tingting when he saw He Tianran carrying Cao Aiqing up. He immediately pointed exaggeratedly at the watch on his wrist:
"You're a full twenty minutes late! Mr. He, you're not getting away with this vegetarian meal!"

He Tianran, panting heavily, carefully put Cao Aiqing down.

The girl landed on both feet, still limping, but her face radiated a lively, rosy glow.

"I am willing to admit defeat."

He Tianran straightened up, wiped the sweat from his face, glanced at Cao Aiqing beside him, then turned to Xue Yong, a genuine smile spreading across his lips:

"Fine, I'll treat you to this meal willingly."

"Wow, my brother is so generous!"

Xue Yong's loud voice broke the tranquility of the Buddhist temple, but apart from earning a glare from his wife, no one paid any attention.

Because, without his notice, He Tianran had already reached out and gently grasped Cao Aiqing's slightly cool hand. The girl did not pull away, but instead clasped his fingers together.

The two of them, without prior arrangement, looked back at the rugged mountain path they had traveled. Clouds drifted and rolled across the mountains, and at that moment, time seemed to stretch on endlessly, making one feel—

The world unfolds slowly, and life is a long, winding journey. (End of Chapter)