Tracing
The chill of an autumn morning, like a thin, transparent veil, enveloped the entire city. The sky was an ambiguous gray-blue, somewhere between light and dark, and the streetlights, not yet completely off, cast a dim, weary glow on the damp, leaf-strewn streets.
Lu Ziang's dark gray SUV was parked quietly downstairs at Lin Wanxing's apartment building. Its body lines were sharp, exuding a steady strength that suggested it was ready to embark on a journey at any moment. He had arrived earlier and was quickly and precisely placing a small first-aid kit and a spare thick coat into the trunk.
Lin Wanxing walked down carrying only a simple backpack with a few changes of clothes inside. Most of the space was reserved for her dark blue notebook and some of Shen Yu's belongings—as if carrying these would bring her closer to the two men whose fates had intertwined. Her face was still pale, with dark circles under her eyes, but the deathly blankness in her gaze had been replaced by a resolute determination. The guidance from Shen Yu's dream was like a flickering candle in the wind, weak yet tenaciously illuminating her path, leaving her no room for hesitation.
Su Xiao followed closely behind, carrying a slightly larger travel bag filled with what she considered essential supplies—from power banks to compressed biscuits, everything was there. When she saw Lu Ziang, she paused almost imperceptibly, then quickly regained her composure, opened the back door, stuffed her luggage inside, and got in herself, deliberately keeping a distance from the driver's seat.
Lu Ziang made no comment, but simply opened the passenger door for Lin Wanxing.
"Thank you," Lin Wanxing said softly, then sat down and hugged her backpack tightly to her chest.
The car smoothly drove out of the city and merged into the sparse traffic of the early morning. A low pressure filled the car, stemming from the unbroken, solid layer of ice between Su Xiao and Lu Ziang, and also from the heavy feeling of uncertainty about the future of this journey.
“According to the navigation and real-time traffic conditions, it is estimated that it will take four and a half hours to reach Qinanshan Town.” Lu Ziang’s voice broke the silence as he looked ahead. “I have already booked the best-rated hotel in town. Considering the complexity of the search, I suggest we use the town as the center and radiate the search outwards to possible surrounding areas.”
"Mmm," Lin Wanxing responded softly, her gaze fixed on the receding street scene outside the window. The familiar outlines of the city were rapidly disappearing, and a sense of unease about stepping into the unknown gripped her. Qinan Mountain, the place she had always been reluctant to face, the place that had brought despair to her life, was now, with each turn of the wheels, becoming a reality she had to confront.
Su Xiao took out her phone from the back seat and began searching for any information about Qinan Mountain. "Wanxing, don't worry, as long as he's there, we'll definitely find clues." Her voice was as energetic as ever, trying to dispel the heavy atmosphere in the car.
Lin Wanxing turned back to look at her gratefully and nodded. She knew Su Xiao was supporting her in her own way.
As the skyscrapers receded into the distance, the view gradually opened up, with fields and distant mountains coming into view one after another. The sky took on a unique autumnal blue, high and clear, and the sunlight shone down, carrying a touch of detached warmth.
The prolonged silence and the rhythmic swaying of the vehicle made Lin Wanxing, who had been physically and mentally exhausted for days, feel drowsy. Her fingers unconsciously caressed the backpack strap, and Jiang Chen's silent back, his gentle smile in her dreams, and the cold lock screen of her tablet computer alternated in her mind.
Suddenly, as if she remembered something, she sat up abruptly and carefully took out the laptop she had bought for Jiang Chen, which he hadn't taken with him, from the side pocket of her backpack.
She pressed the power button, the screen lit up, and the password prompt appeared again.
She had tried every date she could think of that was related to the two of them, and they were all wrong. This device, like another silent fortress, guarded his last secret before he left, and also prevented her from touching his inner world.
"Still can't open it?" Su Xiao leaned over and asked with concern.
"Hmm." Lin Wanxing nodded somewhat dejectedly, "I've tried all the important days."
Lu Ziang, who had been focused on driving, glanced at the tablet through the rearview mirror and suddenly spoke, his voice still calm: "Try the date of your first official meeting."
Lin Wanxing was stunned for a moment and looked at him.
Lu Ziang's gaze remained fixed on the road ahead, and he explained calmly, "Based on his behavior and the importance he places on 'beginnings' and 'contracts,' he might use a combination of numbers that has 'initial significance' for him. That date marks the beginning of his connection with you."
Their first formal meeting... was in her office, the day he held that absurd pink sticky note and made his job application request for a "monthly salary of one thousand." That autumn afternoon, sunlight filtered through the ginkgo leaves, and he, carrying a melancholy and desperate air, knocked on her door, thus intruding into her stagnant life in a way she had never anticipated.
That date… she remembered it clearly.
With a try-it-out mentality, she took a deep breath and gently typed the string of numbers on the virtual keyboard.
The screen unlocked instantly!
The main wallpaper was a funny photo of the two of them, heads close together, that she had forcibly set. In the photo, her smile looked somewhat forced, while Jiang Chen's lips were slightly upturned, but his eyes held a complex tenderness and hidden pain that she hadn't been able to understand at the time.
Lin Wanxing's breath caught in his throat; his heart felt like it was being squeezed tightly by an invisible hand, and a bitter taste shot through his nose. He hadn't changed it... not even when he decided to leave completely.
"It's open?!" Su Xiao leaned closer in surprise and saw the wallpaper. Her voice lowered, "This kid..."
Lu Ziang didn't say anything, but silently turned the music in the car down even lower, providing a quieter and more private space.
Lin Wanxing's fingers trembled, hovering above the screen, unable to muster the courage to immediately open any application. Hidden within were Jiang Chen's hidden inner world, a realm she had never attempted, or rather, never dared to truly touch. She feared seeing more despair, more pain, which would only make her already heavy guilt unbearable.
The car cruised smoothly on the highway, the scenery outside the window gradually changing from plains to rolling hills. She took a deep breath, as if about to dive into deep water, and gently clicked on the most inconspicuous-looking built-in memo icon on her computer.
The list loads, and it contains only one lonely document with a name so simple it's almost arbitrary: "Record".
She clicked on it.
It wasn't in the diary format she had envisioned; rather, it was more like fragmented, unsystematic pieces of writing, Jiang Chen's random thoughts jotted down when his emotions were running high. There were no dates, no titles, only lines of cold text, yet they seemed to carry a scorching heat, burning her eyes.
The earliest one appears to have been signed shortly after their "agreement" began:
"...She stared out the window for a long time again today. She didn't drink the coffee even though it got cold. I made her another cup with two sugar cubes, as instructed in my notes. When she took it, her fingers were ice cold. The woman recorded in Shen Yu's notes wasn't like this before. Shen Yu... took very good care of her. What I did was less than one ten-thousandth of what she deserved."
Lin Wanxing's heart skipped a beat. So, all along, he had been carefully observing her, trying to "treat" her well in the way he had learned from his notebook, and feeling inferior because of it. She had never realized that her cold fingertips as she accepted that cup of coffee would be seen by him and become a point of comparison.
She continued flipping through the pages, her fingertips turning slightly white from the force she applied.
"...The printer's fixed. A very simple little problem. Seeing her brow unfurrowed, I actually felt...happy. That's a dangerous emotion. Jiang Chen, remember your place. You're only here to protect her for him."
"...It's raining heavily. The umbrella should be tilted towards her. Her shoulders are so thin, it looks like a gust of wind could blow them away. She always forgets to bring an umbrella, and in the future... she probably won't need me anymore."
"...She asked about the competition. Her eyes lit up. I really wanted to tell her it wasn't about finding a job, but about... wanting to stand by your side with more confidence. But I couldn't say it. What right does a job applicant earning 'a thousand a month' have to talk about the future?"
These words, like dull knives, slowly and repeatedly cut into Lin Wanxing's nerves. She clearly saw his heart oscillating violently between "imitation" and "self," saw the humility arising from his identity and self-perception, saw the love and tenderness hidden deep within him, which he dared not reveal because of his own inadequacy. It wasn't that he was without feelings; he simply suppressed all his emotions beneath that calm facade.
Tears streamed down her face silently. Afraid of wetting the screen, she hurriedly wiped them away with the back of her hand, her fingertips trembling as she continued to swipe.
As the recorded timeline progresses, the tone subtly shifts, revealing an increasingly difficult-to-control emotion amidst the struggle:
"...Being with her. She has a beautiful smile, though it's rare. But I can't help thinking, what if I were the one who met her first... Stop! Jiang Chen, what are you fantasizing about?"
"...She was asleep, leaning against the sofa. Her eyelashes were long, like butterfly wings. I dared not breathe, afraid of disturbing her. It was so quiet at this moment; I wished time could stand still. Even though I knew it was stolen time."
"...I only feel alive when I'm with you...I almost blurted out my confession. Lei Sheng saved me. She seemed frightened. Well...I shouldn't have burdened her."
Upon seeing this, Lin Wanxing finally couldn't hold back and let out a suppressed whimper, like that of a wounded animal. It turned out that the unfinished confession in the car on that rainy night was not a momentary impulse, but rather the nearly bursting of long-suppressed emotions under the influence of the confined space and the emotional turmoil.
His gaze back then, with its unfathomable depths of pain and longing, now overlapped with these words, striking her heart and soul.
Su Xiao reached out with concern and gently grasped her cold, trembling shoulder, silently conveying her support.
The last few entries, seemingly written close to the time before his departure, are filled with immense pain and despair, the handwriting chaotic:
"...In the cemetery. She was crying so hard. Hearing what she said hurt me so much! But it's all my fault. It's time to wake up from this self-deceiving dream."
"...Who am I? Jiang Chen? Or just Shen Yu's shadow? Perhaps, from the moment I picked up the notebook, I ceased to be myself. What right does a pathetic creature, surviving on the remnants of others' love, have to love?"
"...It was all a dream after all, and the pain upon waking is so intense. Leave her, let her go, and let yourself go too. This was a mistake from the start."
The record ends here.
There were no fierce accusations, no venomous curses, only a deathly stillness, as if all strength had been drained from them. But beneath this stillness lay a surging, drowning pain and self-denial.
Lin Wanxing clutched her laptop tightly, her knuckles so stiff they lost their color. She pressed her forehead against the cold car window, letting tears stream down her face, soaking the glass.
Outside the window, the hills were gradually being replaced by more majestic and verdant mountains, the sky became high and distant, and the clouds hung low, seemingly within reach. They had entered the Qinan Mountains region.
She finally saw clearly the star that had silently surrounded her, offering her warmth and protection, and the intense and painful burning and struggle that had taken place within it. He was not a shadow; he was a living, breathing person with his own soul and scars.
His love was clumsy, restrained, and burdened with heavy shackles, yet equally sincere and passionate. And she, at the very moment when he most needed affirmation and self-redemption, unintentionally pushed him into an even deeper abyss with her words.
Looking through the rearview mirror at Lin Wanxing's trembling shoulders and suppressed sobs, Su Xiao pursed her lips, her own eyes reddening. She pulled out a few tissues and silently handed them to the front.
Lu Ziang remained silent, focusing intently on driving. The SUV cruised steadily along the winding mountain road, the engine emitting a deep roar. On one side of the road were steep cliffs, and on the other, a bottomless, mist-shrouded valley.
He gazed calmly at the winding road ahead, as if deep in thought. Occasionally, his eyes would glance slightly at Su Xiao in the passenger seat, and a faint, elusive, complex emotion seemed to flicker in those usually rational eyes.
A glimmer of hope mingled with the growing fear of Qi Nan, like ice and fire intertwined in Lin Wanxing's heart. The words on the tablet, like a map drawn with pain, pointed her in the direction Jiang Chen had gone, and also made her see more clearly the scars she had inflicted on his heart, as well as his real and passionate heart hidden beneath his facade of imitation.
Qi Nan Mountain is right in front of us.
Is he here?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
