Find someone
"Sorry, the number you dialed cannot be connected." Xu Qiao lowered his eyes and looked at the page displayed on the mobile phone. He moved his fingers and dialed the second one.
"Sorry, the number you dialed..." He hung up the phone and clicked on the chat page. The green bars on the screen were very eye-catching, but there was no response from the person on the other end of the line. Tomorrow is Saturday again, and Song Yu didn't reply to his message all day.
He sat in front of the French window, his fingers slowly rubbing the cover of his phone. Suddenly, someone knocked on the door, awakening him from his thoughts. "Come in."
The door was pushed open, and a man walked in and said, "Master, Mr. Xu wants you to go to his study."
"......knew."
Xu Qiao got up and went out to take the elevator to the top floor. Originally, the top floor was an open-air garden. A few years ago, when Xu Zhiyan moved in, he immediately ordered all the flowers and plants on the top floor to be removed, and hired a world-renowned designer to design and build a huge translucent skylight office for him.
When he arrived, Xu Zhiyan was sitting behind his desk with his head down at documents, and didn't react at all when he saw him.
"Uncle, you're looking for me."
There was a long silence. After about five minutes, Xu Zhiyan seemed to notice him and said without even looking up, "Since you're here, just sit down. I'm not asking you to stand here as punishment."
Xu Qiao turned around and sat down opposite him, with no reaction to this deliberate act of neglect.
"How's school been lately?"
"fine."
Xu Zhiyan nodded. "You've grown up now. Are you a senior this year?"
"Junior year."
"Really?" Xu Zhiyan showed a surprised expression on his face. "You're about to graduate, so what are you planning to do after graduation?"
Xu Qiao didn't say anything. Xu Zhiyan lowered his head and took a sip of tea. "Do you want your uncle to arrange for you to join the company? Hmm?"
He put down his teacup and looked at Xu Qiao. "Xiaoyi has been interning with me since you started college. Since you went to college, you have rarely contacted your uncle. Do you feel wronged?"
"No."
Xu Zhiyan sighed heavily. "My brother and sister-in-law passed away early, leaving you and the company in such a mess. I only slept three or four hours a day during that time. I was so busy, trying to guard against those people in the company who were eyeing me, while also taking care of you. I was really overwhelmed."
He glanced at Xu Qiao's expression and continued, "It was my fault for sending you to that nursing home. I know you've been feeling a bit upset for all these years, and you rarely even go home. But when I found out, I immediately took you out. You didn't even go to the hospital when you got out, but went to report the nursing home. I even brought people with me."
"You have no idea how worried I was when I thought you were deaf-mute. That nursing home said they had a cure for deaf-muteness. I sent you there for your own good. Or maybe you're okay? Otherwise, I'd be too embarrassed to see you, brother and sister-in-law."
As he spoke, tears were about to roll down his face, and it looked like he was really confessing his regret to Xu Qiao.
"..." Xu Qiao stood up and looked at Xu Zhiyan who was still wiping his tears with his head down, "Uncle, let's not talk about the past, I have something else to do." After saying that, he turned around and left.
He went back to his room, changed his clothes, did some warm-up exercises, and then jumped into the open-air swimming pool.
The cool water rushed towards me, and the smell of disinfectant that I had just smelled on the shore still lingered in my nose. The water was so clear that I could clearly see the sunlight shining on the ripples on the bottom of the pool. The whole world was turned to silent mode, and only the sound of the constantly surging water rang in my ears.
He kept swinging his arms, clearly feeling the water flowing beside him and generating power to propel him. Swimming was a good way for him to relieve anxiety.
Xu Qiao held his breath and swam back and forth in the water for several times. After finishing the last round, he did not surface, but just quietly lurked under the water, looking at the water surface that was so close to him. A flashing golden light passed through the water and sprinkled on his face. He slowly closed his eyes.
It’s so quiet.
Someone stood by the pool as usual, keeping an eye on him and handing him a towel when he surfaced.
"Splash" Xu Qiao came out of the water with an expressionless face, and the water droplets on his body fell to the ground with a tinkling sound. He took the towel and wiped his body twice, then went back to the room to take a shower.
He came out of the shower room with steam rising from his face, wearing only a pair of black sports shorts. His upper body was naked, revealing his firm and tight chest. Tiny water droplets gathered at the tips of his hair, and soon formed into large, crystal-clear droplets that slid down his smooth back.
Picking up a towel and casually wiping the ends of his still dripping hair, Xu Qiao turned around and sat on the chair in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. He took out a white bandage from the cabinet next to him and wrapped it around his face several times based on his memory. With his nose against the thin cloth, a familiar scent came to his heart, and his pounding heart gradually calmed down.
He touched the phone on the table beside him, but it still had no response. He said in a low voice, "What's wrong? ...Don't you want to see me?"
In fact, at the beginning, he had thought about meeting Song Yu. He suffered severe psychological trauma back then. He had to wrap his face with bandages every day and stayed in that ghost place in darkness. Even if he did not make any mistakes, he would be put in solitary confinement from time to time. Song Yu was no less capable and was put in solitary confinement many more times than him.
Many times in the reading room, he could hear Song Yu leaning against the bookshelf, flipping through the books and muttering that he wanted to blow up this damn place.
Until one day, she was unusually quiet and asked him softly, "Do you think this is just a nightmare?"
He had no way of answering and could only watch as the light in her eyes faded away little by little until it turned into a pool of stagnant water.
When he first met Song Yu in college, she was as lively and bright as if the gloomy her in the sanatorium was from her previous life. He stood there and watched her quietly for a long time. She took good care of herself, and he was very happy.
What if my presence would remind her of that nightmare again? He lay in the darkness, thinking all night long with his eyes open.
-
Song Yu has been very busy recently and only saw Xu Qiao's message very late. Then she suddenly remembered that tomorrow was Saturday, but she really had something to do and couldn't leave, so she quickly called Xu Qiao back.
"Hello?" Song Yu felt a little guilty when he saw so many missed calls and messages. "Sorry, I was too busy to see it."
She heard Xu Qiao laugh, "It's okay, are you busy now?"
"Not bad." Song Yu walked away from the noisy crowd around her. She glanced at the two or three missed calls and several messages on her mobile phone. It didn't matter why she made so many calls.
Xu Qiao stood on the balcony, gazing at the cloudless, calm weather. The voice from the other end of the phone, mixed with the rustling of the wind, continued to pour into his ears. "Oh, by the way, I'm busy and may not be able to come tomorrow. I'll find a classmate who knows sign language on the campus wall to help you translate."
"Where are you?"
"I'm out of town right now, but I should be at school next week." Song Yu said apologetically, "I'll post it on the campus wall right away to see if anyone can help."
"Don't bother. I've been studying on my own for a while, so this class shouldn't be too difficult."
Song Yu breathed a sigh of relief. "Then I'll have to trouble you tomorrow. I'll be back as soon as I finish my work here."
After hanging up the phone, the person next to me came up with bread to feed the seagulls and said in awkward Mandarin, "Girl, do you want some bread? Feeding seagulls is fun."
He had seen many students traveling with only a backpack, and most of them were easily persuaded. He bought the tickets after a few words of persuasion. "Girl, you're traveling alone! The seagulls here are famous. Everyone comes here to feed them. Others can't get cheaper than me. Three bags for 10 yuan."
The girl swiftly lifted the baseball cap that was pressing down on her head, and her hair was instantly blown everywhere by the sea breeze. She casually gathered her hair at the back of her neck with her hands, revealing her beautiful face and smiling brightly. "No need, uncle, I'm here to look for someone."
By the time the uncle reacted, the girl had already walked away with her bag.
"Song Yu, you're going out to play without me?" Lan Lin on the other end of the phone was going crazy, "I want to go too, I want to go too."
Song Yu reluctantly put the phone away. The sun in Haicheng was scorching, and she was sweating all over after walking for a while. She took off her coat and tied it around her waist, then sat down in a shady place with her bag on her back. "I told you, I'm not out here to have fun. I'm out looking for someone."
"Who are you looking for? Have you found him?"
"No, just looking for a friend."
"Then why don't you just make a phone call?"
"I don't have a phone."
"...and what about the home address?"
"I'll try my luck this afternoon."
After a long silence, Lan Lin's voice pierced through the microphone, "You know nothing, and yet you dare to take such a long high-speed train alone to look for someone?! Who are you looking for?"
"You haven't been cheated, have you? Hurry up and buy a ticket and come back, or I can buy a ticket and go look for it with you. Where are you now? I'll buy a ticket and come over right away." Lan Lin was anxious.
"It's okay." Song Yu said soothingly, "I'm not meeting an online friend. It's safe here. It's a big deal. I'll report to you every day."
Lan Lin was completely speechless. "How are you supposed to find it if you don't know anything? Then you have to have a deadline to come back, right?"
"Two days, maybe. If you can't find me in two days, come back. I only took one day off."
"So where are you now? If you were really missing, I wouldn't even know where to report it to the police."
"I'm in Haicheng."
"Where is that?"
"A small seaside town far away."
The night wind was very wet and sticky, and the sky above was full of stars. Song Yu stood beside the pit and repeated to the man squatting on the ground digging, "A small town by the sea?"
"Yeah." 305 stood up and stomped hard on the spot where he had buried the time capsule. His voice was still hoarse, but it couldn't hide the excitement. "I used to stay there with my mother for a while. It was peaceful and beautiful there, and no one would recognize us."
"us?"
305's voice hesitated, "...Don't you want to come with me?"
Song Yu shook his head vigorously, "No, I'll be caught sooner or later if I stay here anyway, so I might as well run away."
At that time, Song Yu only had the concept of the two words "sea" and "city" in his mind about Haicheng. Now that he came here, he found that it was indeed just these two words. The city is a small city with only one main road. Standing at the entrance, you can see through the narrow road with shops standing on the side, and at the end is the boundless blue sea shining with golden light.
She wandered around the city with her bag for two days, asking everyone she could see if they had seen a tall, thin boy who didn't talk much but was actually very kind. Everyone shook their head.
In fact, she had anticipated the result before she set out, but she couldn't help but feel disappointed when she found nothing. She came here without any information, relying only on the courage in her heart and that one in ten thousand possibility.
After all, she wasn't that lucky.
Early in the morning of her departure, the car she had arranged had not arrived yet, so she walked to the tree where the local residents prayed. Red cloth strips were hung on almost every branch. When the wind blew, the green leaves mixed with the bright red cloth, and from a distance it looked like a burning sacred tree.
Without the red cloth, she took off the necklace from her neck, held it in her hand devoutly and closed her eyes.
The "Dingling" necklace slipped out of her hand in an instant and disappeared into the green sea like a bird.
-
"I've known you for several years. What are you doing this time? Looking for your white moonlight?" Lan Lin has been asking Song Yu since arriving at her house, "Who is this person? Is he worthy of you doing this?"
"I've already told you, it's not Bai Yueguang, I just want to return the things to him." Song Yu sat on the chair with a helpless expression, "And I didn't find him either."
"Of course you won't find him if you just run over there without knowing anything. Tell me what it is that has made you still miss him all these years." Lan Lin turned around and sat on the chair and teased her mischievously.
Song Yu didn't tell Lan Lin everything about the sanatorium. After all, it wasn't a good thing, so she just briefly explained it.
"Then let me ask you, after you found him, did you just return the things to him without thinking about anything else?" Lan Lin asked with an ambiguous look on his face.
Hearing these words, Song Yu recalled the scene of her standing on the second floor to see him off that day, and that inexplicable emotion instantly surged into her heart again.
"Ha, you hesitated." Lan Lin pointed at her and shouted, as if he had discovered something. Then he asked with a bit of worry, "What will happen to Xu Qiao after you find Bai Yueguang?"
"...What's it to him?" Song Yu asked curiously.
Seeing her reaction, Lan Lin stood up and shook his head pretentiously, "Hard-hearted...real hard-heartedness doesn't involve making a scene..."
“…”
Song Yu has been in contact with Yaya very frequently these days. Song Qixing has never contacted her since he cut off her living expenses that day, and neither has Ye Yuping.
In Ye Yuping's opinion, introducing a partner to Song Yu was a good thing. Song Yu had already anticipated the subsequent indifference on the day she ran away. In Ye Yuping's opinion, all this was Song Yu's fault. She was ungrateful.
Fortunately, what Song Qixing said before was just a joke. There has been no movement from Yaya in the past few days. Song Yu guessed that he was cleaning up the mess he created.
"Okay, call me if you have any questions."
Ya Ya nodded obediently over there. Song Yu paused and said, "Don't tell anyone else about this, okay?"
"Are you referring to Teacher Xu Qiao?"
Song Yu did not deny it. "The daily tutoring should continue as usual. He is just your tutor. There is no need to tell him about this kind of thing, otherwise he will worry about me not being able to pay the tuition."
Then, afraid that Yaya would be worried, he added, "Don't worry about the money. I have savings."
"I'll be graduating soon, and I can pay you back with this money by working a summer job."
Song Yu frowned, "Why do you want to work after graduation? There will be plenty of opportunities to work in the future. You can finally graduate and have fun. Don't worry about money."
"What if Teacher Xu Qiao asks?"
Song Yu's mind flashed with that pair of calm eyes, "..He....He probably won't ask."
After all, they have no relationship now.
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