She watched as Julian took a pink envelope out of his bag and placed it in her palm: "Help me give this to her, consider it a thank you for your help today."

Chapter 3

Clara’s heart plunged into the deepest abyss.

Though it was nearly summer, she actually felt a chill as the wind brushed against her.

Why would Julian give Cherry a love letter? Did he like Cherry?

Didn’t he write that he loved her in his suicide note? Clara looked at the letter in her hand with complicated emotions.

The little heart sticker on the envelope hung loosely, but it didn’t fall off.

Before she could answer, Julian turned her around: "Go on back."

Clara opened her mouth, but the word "Goodbye" was stuck in her throat, and she didn’t say it in the end.

Back home, seeing everything so familiar yet strange, Clara finally realized that she was eighteen years old again.

She was no longer the thirty-year-old living alone.

However, even if she could live independently at thirty, her mother’s desire to control her had never diminished.

Her mother was strong-willed; after the divorce, she had placed all her hopes on Clara.

In her school days, she was forced to study; after entering society, she was forced to marry. Everything had to be done according to her mother’s arrangements.

In her past life, that was exactly how she had been forced into that blind date.

If she hadn’t suddenly received the news of Julian’s death, she might have just compromised, stayed with that blind-date partner, and muddled through the rest of her life in resignation.

Fortunately, her mother hadn’t come home from work yet.

Otherwise, seeing her return so late, she would have certainly kept questioning her, suspecting her endlessly.

The severity her mother showed toward her at eighteen was something even the thirty-year-old she couldn’t handle.

Returning to her room, Clara took out the love letter.

She blinked her eyelashes, placed her fingertip on the little heart, and rubbed it twice to smooth it out.

Just then, a breeze blew in from the window, turning the pages of the calendar on the desk one by one.

Clara watched in a daze, but suddenly noticed something wrong.

She picked up the calendar and saw that the text on the next seven pages, starting from today, was red.

Beyond that, it was all gray. Was this her deadline for staying in her eighteen-year-old self?

With that suspicion in mind, Clara kept her eyes open until 12:00 midnight.

As expected, as soon as the clock struck 12, the text on the calendar page for that day also turned gray.

This meant that in seven days, she would be transported back to her thirty-year-old world.

So she had to make sure Julian avoided the danger that would threaten him ten years later within these seven days.

Clara looked at the love letter with mixed feelings, and in the end, she couldn’t resist opening it.

"To Julian: I am Cherry from Class 5..."

Clara was stunned and continued reading. It turned out this was a love letter Cherry had sent to Julian, not the other way around.

She breathed a sigh of relief, yet felt a bit annoyed with herself for acting like a thief, prying into someone else’s privacy.

She quickly tucked the letter away, then headed to school with her backpack.

It was still early when she arrived, and Clara hid the letter in her pocket and went to Class 5 to wait for Cherry.

After waiting a while, the voices of Cherry and her friend drifted over from around the corner.

"Really? Did Julian really ask you to go to the movies on Sunday?"

The hallway was quiet, and even though her friend was keeping her voice down, her excitement was clear.

Clara felt a tremor in her heart upon hearing this and instinctively hid in the shadows on the other side.

Cherry smiled shyly and nodded: "Yeah, he came to deliver the ticket to me himself."

"Oh my god, he must love you! You’re the best, you really snagged Julian that easily!"

As they spoke, the two walked into the classroom.

Clara had missed the best chance to call out to Cherry, and she suddenly lost the courage to return the love letter for Julian.

What did Julian mean, exactly? He didn’t want Cherry’s love letter, yet he asked her to go to the movies...

She returned to her classroom in a daze, and just as she entered the room, she bumped into someone.

Just as she was about to lose her balance, the other person caught her with quick reflexes, his tone laced with worry and anxiety: "What are you thinking about? You aren't even watching where you're going."

Clara looked at the face of Julian in front of her, and her throat tightened.

If she were still eighteen, she definitely wouldn’t have had the courage to ask that question.

But she was thirty, and she only had seven days left here; she had to figure everything out and make Julian believe her.

Therefore, Clara clenched her hands and asked what was on her mind.

"Julian, is there someone you like?"

Chapter 4

Clara gathered her courage and stared earnestly at Julian, discovering that his dark eyes were also looking back at her.

The sound of the wind and the cicadas all around them vanished, leaving the two of them alone as the only things flowing in the world.

After a long silence, Julian suddenly chuckled: "So, the word 'like' exists in your nerd brain, too. I thought you only knew how to study."

Without getting a clear answer, Clara asked impatiently: "Do you? Who is she?"

Julian suppressed his smile and left behind a single sentence: "Guess?"

Before Clara could answer, Julian walked past her, picked up his school uniform, and left.

Clara watched Julian’s retreating figure, a sour ache blooming in her heart.

For the rest of the day, Clara was somewhat absent-minded.

She hadn’t yet figured out how to talk to Julian about the future.

After returning from P.E. in the afternoon, Clara didn't see Julian until the next class began.

She wrote a note asking Quinn, the class monitor, and Quinn replied: [Julian took a leave of absence. I don't know why.]

A leave of absence?

For some reason, an inexplicable sense of unease rose in Clara. She felt that something had happened on this day in her past life.

She forced herself to think about it for the whole afternoon, and finally recalled that Julian had also taken a leave of absence on this day in her past life to attend his piano lesson.

And then, on his way home from that lesson, he was hit by a car, his hands were nearly fractured, and he spent three months in rehabilitation.

Thinking of this, Clara’s heart gave a violent jolt.

As soon as the bell rang, she asked Quinn to explain to the teacher, filled out a leave request, and bolted outside.

She still remembered the route Julian took to his piano lesson.

She had encountered him once on that road when she was heading to an extracurricular class in her past life, never expecting that memory to come in handy now.

Luckily, the place wasn't very far from school. Clara ran all the way there, and just as she arrived, she saw Julian turning the corner from the intersection.

But before she could breathe a sigh of relief, a black car from the other side sped toward Julian at an alarming velocity.

Clara’s heart tightened instantly; without a second thought, she lunged forward.

"Julian! Look out!"

At the critical moment, Clara grabbed Julian and threw them both to the side, narrowly avoiding the car.

The vehicle, seeing that it had failed, didn't stop; it accelerated and disappeared from sight in moments.

Both of them had fallen hard, but Julian was the first to regain his composure; he looked at Clara with a face full of concern as he helped her up.

"Are you okay? Are you crazy? How could you dare to charge in like that? It was so dangerous!"

Clara’s arm was scraped raw, stained with blood.

She frowned in pain, unable to stop gasping: "I’m... I’m fine..."

Julian helped her stand and flagged down a taxi to head to the hospital.

Once they had finished treating her wounds at the hospital, Julian finally asked: "What happened today? Weren't you supposed to be at school? Why were you there?"

There were too many suspicious points, and as clever as Julian was, he naturally wouldn't be fooled so easily.

Clara thought of many reasons and excuses in her mind, but finally realized that this seemed like the perfect time to come clean.

She lowered her head, nervously clenching her hands.

Then, gathering all her courage, she looked up at him: "Because I knew that car was coming for you."

Julian paused for a second, his eyebrows knitted together: "You knew? How could you know?"