"I'm her bodyguard."

"Is that all? But I see that Brother Chen and Sister Qin have more than just a simple relationship between bodyguard and employer."

Jiang Xiaofeng stood aside and looked at me with interest. After all, I slept with Qin Lan in my arms at night, and she saw it.

"So what do you think our relationship is?"

"I think you two are a bit like a couple, but not quite that close. You're more like friends than lovers."

Jiang Xiaofeng’s analysis seems quite reasonable to me. Don’t I think so too?

"We are not lovers. The relationship between us is just that of employer and bodyguard. She has a fiancé."

Haha, employer and bodyguard, I don’t believe this relationship myself, let alone Jiang Xiaofeng. I still don’t understand what the relationship between Qin Lan and me is.

"So, has Brother Chen ever been in love before?"

Jiang Xiaofeng asked this question in a very tentative manner.

"I had a girlfriend when I was in the army. She was the one my father arranged for me to be married to."

"Then, then did you like her?"

Jiang Xiaofeng gradually leaned towards me, and a glimmer of light slowly appeared in her eyes.

"Yes, she was the first girl I fell in love with."

"Then why did you stop liking it later?"

“I don’t dislike it.”

Only I understand the helplessness and bitterness I felt during those years.

"My father was wrongly accused, and at that time I knew I was not worthy of her."

I picked up a dead stick from the ground and drew circles on it in confusion.

"Then why didn't you tell her?"

"I didn't want to implicate her, especially since she was still young at the time. Was I going to let her live in the shadows forever? I didn't want her to become the victim of people's jokes, saying that her future father-in-law was a suspect."

"I was under investigation and surveillance at the time, and her parents and relatives also came to talk to me. I understood what they meant. No one would watch their best friend jump into the fire pit. My leaving was the most reluctant but also the right thing I have ever done in my life."

"You mean, this is why you left?"

"Well, I just want her to have a better life. No one would want to be with a loser like me."

The remaining wind blew through my long hair, and I laughed at myself.

"If you don't tell me, how do you know she won't agree?"

At this time, Jiang Xiaofeng was looking at me firmly, and the light in her eyes became brighter and brighter.

"I don't know. After so many years, I don't know where she is now, whether she has anyone around her, and whether she is doing well."

While I was thinking, I accidentally broke the wooden stick in my hand into two pieces.

"Don't worry, she's doing well and misses you too..."

"What did you say?"

Jiang Xiaofeng's voice was very low just now. I only heard the general idea and didn't hear the exact content.

"Oh, that I mean she must be doing well and will definitely miss you."

Tears gradually welled up in Jiang Xiaofeng's eyes, but as soon as the tears rolled out of her eye sockets, Jiang Xiaofeng hurriedly wiped them away.

"Are you okay?"

What I didn't expect was that Jiang Xiaofeng's mood would change so drastically all of a sudden.

"It's okay. I just felt a little touched after listening to your story, Brother Chen."

"You must be tired of listening to me for so long, so why not talk about yourself?"

Night fell quietly and the fire in the cave started.

"I'm just a flight attendant for a company. I grew up in an ordinary family. I've lived an ordinary life and haven't achieved anything remarkable."

Although Jiang Xiaofeng answered very attentively, I could sense the perfunctoriness in her words, which was not what I really wanted to hear.

"Have you ever been in love before? Have you ever truly loved someone?"

"Yes, I loved it very much."

The temperature in the cave was just right, so Jiang Xiaofeng added some firewood to the stove.

"That's my favorite and only boyfriend."

"So you and him, what about now?"

"He's gone."

Jiang Xiaofeng choked and rolled her throat a few times, and the tears that had stopped burst out again.

"He didn't say anything to me, didn't even say hello to me, and just disappeared."

"So you hate him?"

"Hate. I was very young at that time. I hated him. I hated him for abandoning me like this. I hated him for not being able to take on big responsibilities. I hated him even more for just walking away without saying a word."

"And now?"

I drank a bowl of warm soup with difficulty. Jiang Xiaofeng's story really made me feel a little distressed, and the process sounded so similar to my experience.

"I still hate him now. I hate myself. If I had been more mature at that time, maybe I could have shared the burden with him, and he wouldn't have just left like that."

After the conversation, the cave was exceptionally quiet. There was no sound of wind, no cry of cranes, and no rustling of weeds. There was only the shared emotion of two people who shared the same suffering.

Lying on the bed, we looked at each other, and then our lips moved against each other a few times.

"Do you still love him (her)?"

We asked each other almost at the same time, and asked the same questions.

After the words fell, we smiled at each other. I got the answer of that one word from her eyes, and I believe she feels the same as me.

The night slipped away quietly.

That night I still held someone in my arms, but this time the person was not Qin Lan, but Jiang Xiaofeng.

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