Chapter 69 A melon seed So, he is your ex-boyfriend.
There are always some moments of restlessness in the lonely night. The conversation that happened in this pure land not long ago was the worried reminder that Fu Ze left for Luo Shu before he left: "Call me anytime if anything happens."
The street lamps standing there stretched the motionless figures of the resentful woman and the infatuated man. The former waited stubbornly for the other to speak first, as if questioning him and hoping for a reasonable explanation for disturbing her life. The latter seemed to have guessed what she was thinking and was considering how to open the mouth.
At night, the suburban thoroughfare was no less congested than the city. It took nearly a minute for a car to speed by. Every time the clamor faded, the world was filled with an absurd calm. Finally, after the third car sped past, Qing Zhuo made a move: "I'll take you home first..."
"I beg you," Luo Shu suddenly interrupted, her numb, empty eyes fixed on his face. "Please, have mercy on me."
Fang Qingzhuo paused, acutely aware of the gradual disturbance of the surrounding magnetic field. He couldn't stand her gaze, much less her using the word "beg." It was more agonizing than her cursing. The jealousy that had gripped him earlier instantly washed away. "It's too late. It's unsafe."
"Even if it's unsafe, I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore." She refused decisively.
"I was wrong last time. Let's talk it over this time."
"Okay, let's talk about it." Unexpectedly, Luo Shu readily agreed. "Last time in the coffee shop, I asked you a question. Do you still remember it?"
"have."
"Is it really mad that I didn't get to see the concert we were supposed to attend? It must have been tough to be stood up and cheated on, otherwise you wouldn't have confronted me the moment we met."
"You're curious why I did that, why I broke my promise." She closed her eyes, hiding the exhaustion from a day's work. "The fake forgiveness, the fake companionship, it's all a smokescreen to keep you from getting entangled, afraid you'd know I was going to Switzerland for an exchange meeting and interfere. It seems like I'm giving you a chance, but in reality, I'm watching you self-righteously turn the page, watching you cautiously atone, watching you humble yourself, feeling guilty, and blaming yourself. Then I'm completely ready to leave and abandon you like trash. That's what I really think."
Luo Shu narrated the entire process in an orderly manner, like a job report speech, and Fang Qingzhuo was like an audience member listening diligently below. He did not show any anger, unwillingness, or any expression she imagined he would have. He just looked at her quietly with a frown.
Luo Shu was dissatisfied with his reaction, especially the straightforward emotion gradually disappearing from his pupils. So, a smug smile that she didn't understand curled up on the corner of her mouth: "Last time, because my friend was here, I saved your face. Don't be so self-righteous. I didn't come back for anyone, it was just a work transfer. Once the design team matures, I will choose to leave immediately. You saw it..."
She waved the flowers in her arms and said, "I have no shortage of suitors. My work is going well, my colleagues are harmonious, and the future is promising. What makes you think you can still mess up my life? I can tolerate you again and again."
Fang Qingzhuo remained silent from beginning to end, staring at her like this. What kind of look was this? She was just pretentious, pretending to be free and easy and open-minded. A clear voice in his head told him to hug her, to hold her, who was now smiling very forcedly, in his arms. In fact, he did so, but as soon as he took a step, another force held his arm and pressed it against the car door.
"Didn't I warn you not to mess with her?"
Shen Qianshu's face was unprecedentedly stern. He lifted Fang Qingzhuo's collar like a chicken and then pushed him back down. "I didn't do you any injustice by calling you a non-human."
His back slammed against the car door with a loud bang. After struggling in vain, Fang Qingzhuo's anger doubled over and overcame his rationality with overwhelming force. He suddenly grabbed the other person's collar with force, his eyes full of resentment: "When did you, a guy who appeared out of nowhere, get to dictate what happens between me and Luo Shu?"
"Pointing fingers?" Shen Qianshu's anger, which had been suppressed for the entire afternoon and had nowhere to vent, reached its peak at this moment. "You're dreaming, I'll beat you to a pulp."
As he spoke, he raised his fist high.
"Can you please stop messing around?"
With a roar, his fist suddenly stopped in mid-air. Shen Qianshu regained his composure a little: "Did you hear that?"
Fang Qingzhuo also regained his usual arrogance: "I heard it, I'm talking about you."
Shen Qianshu: "It's obviously you."
Fang Qingzhuo looked at the man who was about to throw a fist provocatively: "Do you dare to do one?"
Shen Qianshu's rationality, which he had finally regained, was thrown into chaos again: "You really think I don't dare, right?"
Fang Qingzhuo: "The one who doesn't dare is my grandson."
This was the first time Shen Qianshu saw someone shamelessly asking to be beaten, so he had to agree to it: "Okay, then I'll show you who is the real grandson today."
The unusual behavior attracted the frequent attention of the patrol security in the office building. Luo Shu, with a headache, scolded again: "If you think it's not embarrassing enough, I say it again, let go."
Shen Qianshu: "Relax."
Fang Qingzhuo: "You first."
Shen Qianshu: “Why don’t you go first.”
Only kindergarten kids would bicker regardless of the occasion, and they were doing it every minute. Luo Shu did her best to be kind: "Okay, you guys take your time, I'm leaving."
She threw the flowers and tossed her hair, then ran straight to the last bus at the bus stop more than ten meters away.
This time, Shen Qianshu had learned his lesson. He would rather abandon his car than follow her. He was the first to let go. "I don't care what your relationship was before, or what you did to offend her, but now, I ask you to face reality. If you dare to get entangled again, I will settle all the grudges, both new and old, on you."
After saying that, he pushed away his opponent who seemed to have lost his soul and caught up with the bus that was in motion.
At the starting station, after Shen Qianshu fiddled with the bus code on his phone for a long time without success, it was Luo Shu who helped him pay the fare.
The vehicle moved forward slowly and clumsily. In the deserted back seat of the bus, Luo Shu tilted her neck and looked out the window. The window was half open, and the evening breeze gently visited the car, blowing her hair up and down.
Shen Qianshu sat next to her, picking at his fingers: "Don't be angry, I will listen to you next time."
Luo Shu's voice was as slow as the car's current speed: "He did it on purpose, and you just followed his lead. Can't you see that he was provoking you to start it first?"
"People like that deserve to be beaten up before they behave themselves." Shen Qianshu argued.
Honestly, it's absolutely impossible, Luo Shu denied in her heart. A psychopath like Fang Qingzhuo would become more and more excited, like an ambush animal hiding in the dark, whose pupils would immediately erect when it smelled blood.
"Qian Shu, we are all adults now. We can't solve problems by fighting like we did when we were kids. I know your intention is for my own good, but I don't want you to get involved in the dispute between him and me."
Shen Qianshu looked at the reflection of Luo Shu's serious profile in the car window glass, pouting slightly in dissatisfaction, "Are you calling me childish in disguise?"
"It's not a disguised form." Luo Shu said very straightforwardly, "I'm just talking about the facts."
Being ridiculed as childish, Shen Qianshu was more or less frustrated. He was aware of the subtle atmosphere between her and Fang Qingzhuo. From the moment Fang Qingzhuo opened her mouth in the coffee shop, he recognized her as the man who had appeared in the work call. Then, they communicated naturally without introducing themselves. It would be strange if these two didn't get along.
"So, he is your ex-boyfriend."
The air, tinged with the fragrance of fruit, suddenly stopped. Luo Shu closed the car window, sat up straight, and placed her hands on her knees. After a long pause, a word escaped from her throat: "Hmm."
"Then he's not childish?" Shen Qianshu lowered his eyes and complained, "He almost tore my clothes."
“It’s not just clothes.”
She seized the opportunity and opened and closed her mouth to complain, "He also reported me, and my Bull Demon King was directly confiscated. It's a new car, a new car that I haven't driven for long. Today's clothes are also new. Here, I wore them specially to see you. What kind of person is he? He is just jealous of me."
“…”
Luo Shu was speechless for a moment. Her eyes fell on his wrinkled collar and she racked her brains but could not find a rebuttal. When it came to childishness, Fang Qingzhuo seemed to be no less immature. This was manifested in matters big and small concerning her, from big ones like the opposite sex with more than three hairs around her to small ones like missing a punctuation mark in her reply to his message. He would hold on to it.
Seeing that she didn't say anything, Shen Qianshu naturally understood it as a tacit agreement.
With the purpose of learning clichés: "So what do you think, how do I compare to him?"
Luo Shu refused to talk about such topics and huddled in a corner, pretending to be deaf and dumb.
Shen Qianshu didn't give up and moved closer: "Am I slightly better?"
The more Luo Shu avoided him, the closer he came, determined to see who was better. "How is it? Aren't we the best in the world? You're the first one I think of when I need cheat sheets, and all the snacks I put in the drawer end up in your stomach. When we met, that guy surnamed Fang was probably playing in the mud in some corner somewhere."
He kept on babbling, and Luo Shu was really annoyed. She took off like a spring: "Do you have any special fetish? You have to compete with him. He's an asshole, so you're an asshole too?"
Unprepared, her pretty face, which could explode at any moment, suddenly expanded in Shen Qianshu's eyes. He was stunned for a moment, as if it was the first time he saw her scolding someone with a cold face. Needless to say, it felt strangely refreshing. Then, as if to reconcile with him, she curled her lips and nodded several times: "That's right, if the old doesn't go, the new will come. Who hasn't loved a few scumbags when they were young? The important thing is that I'm back now."
Luo Shu had just pressed the operation button in her brain, and before she could figure out the meaning of his last sentence, his left hand was lifted up by him, and then something as light as a feather lay in her palm.
Looking down, I see a lonely ordinary melon seed.
"You want to bribe me with just a melon seed? Isn't that a bit too little?"
As soon as the words fell, Shen Qianshu's laughter followed.
“It’s not for eating.”
"So you're looking for fun with me?"
"No." Shen Qianshu's eyes were filled with seriousness. "In the past, when I encountered obstacles or people I disliked, I would treat them like a melon seed, rip open their stomach, take out their sweetheart, chew it up, and swallow it. This meant that I had gotten over it. It actually worked."
"Do you want to try it?"
The bus arrived at the terminal. Luo Shu remembered that Shen Qianshu had sent her downstairs in the community. She hadn't even been able to answer that question. It was already midnight when she got home, but a new message popped up on her phone. The notification sound was particularly abrupt in the quiet night.
【sorry. 】
Memories are the most torturous things. A string of dates or a few words can bring out countless threads, like the reverse shots in a badly-ended movie, letting them fill up your mind frame by frame.
After five years, she could still receive messages from this interface. Luo Shu curled up in the hanging chair on the balcony and watched them over and over again. Her eyes almost became wet at that moment. She allowed herself to condense into a silent statue, silently avoiding reality.
The moonlight on the balcony was at its brightest after midnight, shining through the window railings onto the floor, casting shadows. Although moonlight was clearly seeping in, she was completely unaware.
Fu Ze could see her trapped in the cage, Shen Qianshu could see her, and Fang Qingzhuo could also discover her effortlessly.
He took out the melon seed that was said to have symbolic meaning from his pocket and threw it into the trash can half a minute later.
Sure enough, she knew it.
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