Chapter 7: Deep Providence

After taking a shower that night, Li Wenjing lay down on her bed. She felt much more comfortable, but Gu Weiyi still gave her his room. Lying on his bed, she plucked the wind chimes, realizing that she had slept in the same place he had slept before, and that the necklace he had given her had been pressed against his chest, and she plucked the wind chimes in the same way. Somehow, the jokes Mutasha had told her during the day touched her, and she couldn't help but think about Gu Weiyi all the time.

He was an Oxford graduate, a foreigner, and three years her junior... She couldn't help but consider Gu Weiyi's qualifications. The more she thought about it, the greater the disparity between them became, and she felt discouraged. At best, she was just one of his patients; he was passionate about helping everyone. He possessed a natural gentleness that blended seamlessly into his role as a doctor, an angelic aura. As for other aspects of his personality, she had yet to understand them.

"I got malaria again and almost died." Li Wenjing said in the university roommate group.

Everyone came out to care about her.

"The doctor who treated me was quite handsome, and he was of Chinese and French descent."

"Photos, take a look."

"Xiao Qiao, you're already married, why are you still watching? Aren't you afraid that Brother Chuan will find out?"

"Can't I look at handsome guys now that I'm married?"

Qiao Sen was the first of the six people in the dormitory to get married. She was her best friend and Zhang Zhaochuan's wife. They fell in love during their student days and got married.

"Okay, I'll pamper you for a bit. I won't let Brother Chuan see it."

Li Wenjing sent his photo, and Qiao Sen said, "My first reaction when I saw this face was that Paris is so gorgeous."

"I heard French men are very romantic, right?"

During the day, Gu Weiyi asked her to follow his social account. She asked him how to write the Chinese characters for "Weiyi" in the account name. He wrote the two words "Weiyi" on a piece of paper. They were square and looked like the handwriting of a child. Li Wenjing was a little surprised. She had always thought it was "Weiyi", so she wrote the two words next to it.

"Ah! So this is what it means. My mother gave me the name."

"She thinks you're the only one for her."

Gu Weiyi was stunned for a long time, staring at the words on the paper motionlessly, sniffed, tears welling up in his eyes, and Li Wenjing quietly left the bedroom.

"I don't know if it's romantic or not, but it seems a bit silly."

"Shouldn't this be taken?"

"Aren't all French people fickle?" said another roommate.

"Take it first, it won't be a loss if you sleep with it."

"What lewd words!" "Xiao Qiao wants to go to Africa to break up with Brother Chuan." "She must be checking plane tickets already. It's so funny..."

"When I get my annual leave, I'll go to Mombasa," Xiao Qiao said. "The best way to heal this past relationship is to find a handsome guy. We don't even have to date him, just take a photo and post it on WeChat Moments. Fang Lei will be pissed off."

"She's from Oxford. I heard that only the rich go to Oxford, and only the common people go to Cambridge. How dare I marry her?"

Despite the time difference, they chatted animatedly late into the night, offering her relationship advice, each one more outrageous than the last. Li Wenjing stopped messaging and smiled at her phone screen. Fang Lei had once been very kind to her, but after a few years together, he was no longer anything but sarcastic. She realized she didn't miss him that much anymore. Xiao Qiao was wrong. The best way to get over a past relationship was to bury herself in work, to be completely absorbed in it and not think about anything else.

"I'm going to the United States to study for several years and get a doctorate."

Fang Lei was very direct, short of outright declaring he wasn't coming back. At first, they could manage, chatting until midnight and visiting her every holiday. Gradually, he stopped caring about her. The last time he came back, he said they weren't right for each other, and Li Wenjing collapsed on her bed and cried. She knew she had no money, couldn't cross the ocean, couldn't keep up with Fang Lei's pace.

It was much later that Li Wenjing finally understood that she didn't need to chase anyone's pace. There was nothing wrong with walking slowly or quickly. Life had its own rhythm, an endless cycle. This was the providence deep within Kenya; in the birthplace of humanity, it was also called fate. Trapped in time, she would always stumble upon Gu Weiyi's pauses before she realized it. If she walked too fast, she would miss him completely.

After looking around, I couldn't find Gu Weiyi and found him repairing the car under it.

"Wenjing! Wenjing!"

He called her, and Li Wenjing squatted down, her eyes merging with his pale ones. He poked his head out from under the car, wrapped in a local flowery headscarf. He took off his greasy gloves and waved, "Help me, I'm stuck in the sand."

He was filthy, his trouser legs rolled up and down, smeared with sand. He took off his work clothes and washed his face at the well before sitting with Li Wenjing on a bench beside a thorn wall. To prevent harassment and theft from wild animals like monkeys and servals, the village had built a half-man-high thorn wall. Gu Weiyi had placed a bench under a tree for patients to wait while they waited.

The shade of the trees was cool, insects hummed in the swaying grass, and birds chirped, hopping and pecking in front of Li Wenjing. In the distance, flocks of unknown birds flew across the river, their wings flapping rapidly, their lively and loud pecking breaking the ripples. Looking at this scene, Li Wenjing felt that she shouldn't talk now. Just sitting here, enjoying the cool air, was quite comfortable.

They sat quietly for a while, and he was the first to speak, asking her what was wrong.

"Brother Chuan has taken on other projects, so your project will be my responsibility from now on. Here's the contract. Pay the first installment of the design fee deposit, and I'll go get the construction permit right away."

Li Wenjing took the contract out of her bag and handed it to him. He took it and signed it without even looking at it. His fingers dipped in a few drops of water, leaving two faint watermarks on the cover. Li Wenjing took the contract back and rubbed the fingerprints he left.

"Don't you want to look at the contract again?"

"You'd lie to me?"

"No, it's just that you really should take a look, just to be safe."

He chuckled and said, "I've already read the electronic version. You signed the paper version for me, so why would I read it?"

"With your personality, if you were in China, you would have been scammed out of your pants long ago. Never mind the electronic or paper version, even if we had signed a contract, there would be a hundred reasons to cheat you."

"Sincerity can only be exchanged for sincerity. I will treat your illness, and you will not lie to me. I believe you."

Gu Weiyi raised his eyes and looked at her, but at this moment, she didn't dare to look at him. A scorching wind suddenly ran across her skin.

Li Wenjing lowered her eyes. "Brother Chuan said that the medicine you prescribed for us is cheaper than the hospital in the city. You are a good person. By the way, did you not include the money for buying sanitary napkins last time? I should give it to you."

"No need. Besides you, I also bought it for Anna and the others. You really have to spend some money. You can't just rely on words."

This made her laugh. She stretched out her legs and looked at the flocks of birds flying across the sky. She felt so relaxed that she almost wanted to fly.

"What if I really lied to you?"

"What else can I do? Just accept my bad luck."

He laughed, and Li Wenjing laughed with him. He asked her what she was laughing at.

"I remember when I was in school, I worked part-time and was paid 120 yuan a day, but my boss refused to pay me and only gave me half. I refused to admit my bad luck and called a few classmates to his shop to make a scene, not letting anyone in to eat. He still paid me." Li Wenjing said with a smile, "Going crazy really works."

"Your life is so...rich..." Gu Weiyi thought about it but couldn't come up with the right words. A woman's voice called them from the side of the road.

Anna, Ruth and three older women in floral striped skirts passed by with baskets and greeted them. Anna gave Li Wenjing a woven bracelet. As soon as Li Wenjing took out her wallet, they ran away laughing.

"This headscarf of mine was also given to me by Anna and the others," Gu Weiyi said. "They make handicrafts, weaving cloth, bracelets, necklaces. People come to buy them regularly, and they can make a lot of money each time. If you want to buy something else, just ask them directly. They are all very nice people."

Li Wenjing said: "Before coming to Africa, many people were worried about me. They said Africa was very poor and foreign countries were in chaos. It seemed that I would be robbed, raped, or killed by black people as soon as I got off the plane. But when I really came here, I found that the world is the same. There are good people and bad people. I used to work in a factory. There were no buses, so I took a motorcycle taxi to the village road..."

Halfway through her conversation, Li Wenjing realized she'd said too much. Ever since that night, she'd grown more trusting and reliant on him, and she'd often casually said a lot in front of Gu Weiyi. He'd asked what the motorcycle was, and while she was waiting for him to continue, she'd already changed the subject, asking, "Why did you come to Africa, to Kenya?"

"Didn't Mutasha say that he was almost eaten by a lion? He ran out of money to pay the fine, so he stayed in Kenya."

He must have been lying to her. She sensed that he was gentle and kind, trustworthy as a doctor, and at the same time, he was trying his best to hide himself. He aroused her curiosity, and she wanted to know more about him.

"I don't believe it. Who would come to Africa for no reason?"

"Really, I come whenever I want."

"Your parents don't object?"

"My father doesn't care about me, and my mother..." He pursed his lips, "My mother is dead."

"sorry."

Li Wenjing thought that he probably shed tears when he mentioned the name his mother gave him last time, and he felt a little apologetic.

"It doesn't matter. Even if my mother were still alive, she would probably be with her boyfriend or traveling around the world. She has her own life and wouldn't care about me." He sighed, "Wenjing, I'm not my mother's only one. I also realized that parents are not born to love children. Love is conditional. I cried for a long time when I realized this."

"It's true. In my family, where there's money, there's love. I send money home, and they love me more than before, especially on the days when they send money. This month, I'm sending less, and they love me less."

Li Wenjing spoke calmly, and Gu Weiyi stared at her, a little absorbed. Her ponytail hung down her back, revealing one pale ear. Her face was tanned, and she was much thinner than when she first arrived. There were dark circles under her eyes, and a few fine lines. She wasn't particularly beautiful; her charm came from her natural demeanor. Gu Weiyi, in fact, had a question in his mind. He was curious about her, and he kept talking a lot in front of her, an irrepressible desire to share.

Li Wenjing felt his gaze and turned her head to look at him. She was startled by his direct gaze and quickly turned her eyes away, lowered her head and smiled slightly.