◇ Chapter 51: The aftermath of a broken heart

What? Lu Fangchi reached under his eyes and felt something wet.

Crystal clear water. Is he crying?

As if he couldn't believe it, Lu Fangchi raised his hand and wiped it with his fingertips. The more he wiped, the more it came. No matter how hard he tried, it couldn't be wiped clean. He could hardly see the scene in front of him clearly.

What's going on? Is my tear gland damaged?

While Lu Fangchi was puzzled, Zhou Zheng hurriedly ran to the tea table in the living room to get some paper, then ran back to the entrance, slowed down his pace, and pulled out seven or eight sheets of paper at once. He clenched them in his hand, opened and closed his mouth, and raised his hand to wipe Lu Fangchi's tears, as if he wanted to say something but stopped.

Lu Fangchi blinked, tears welled up in his eyes, and his nose turned red. Zhou Zheng had never seen him like this before, his brows knitted tightly, his eyes filled with regret and heartache.

The feeling of the paper rubbing against his face brought Lu Fangchi back to his senses. He turned his head away and walked away.

This time Zhou Zheng did not dare to stop him. He heard footsteps behind him and he caught up.

Lu Fangchi walked forward quickly, stepped into the elevator, reached out and pressed "1", and before Zhou Zheng wanted to follow him in, he pressed the close button. He frowned and warned, "Don't follow me."

After he finished speaking, Zhou Zheng suddenly stopped walking and the elevator door slowly closed, blocking out the hesitant look on his face.

God finally opened his eyes. Lu Fangchi, who was having a lot of trouble, got a taxi as soon as he got downstairs. He was in the car within five minutes and left this place of trouble.

Lu Fangchi's emotions were not under control when he got in the car. He felt his eyes were full of tears and that he would burst into tears in the next second. Crying in front of Zhou Zheng was embarrassing enough, and he really didn't want to shed tears in a stranger's car.

Lu Fangchi's chest rose and fell slightly, and he took a deep breath, inhaling and exhaling. He felt much better.

Just two seconds later, the cell phone beside him started to vibrate non-stop. Lu Fangchi lowered his head and glanced at it. When his eyes touched the two words "Zhou Zheng" that lit up on the screen, they became blurry again.

Damn it. Lu Fangchi raised his hand and pressed the car window. The breeze blowing in his face at night made him feel even more sad. He couldn't collapse.

Lu Fangchi pursed his lips and wrinkled his nose, then raised his hand with a very small movement to rub the corners of his eyes, facing the window, trying to let the breeze dry the wetness.

The driver in the driver's seat suddenly said, "Young man, are you heartbroken?"

Lu Fangchi looked up at the rearview mirror and met his master's gentle eyes. He smiled with an open-minded look and said, "Well, if you want to cry, just cry. I see you are feeling very uncomfortable."

Lu Fangchi pursed his lips, his vision blurred, tears welled up in his eyes and slid down his cheeks.

The driver nodded and said, "Yeah, that's it. Just cry it out. Don't hold it in." As he spoke, he reached out and picked up the tissue paper on the center console and handed it to Lu Fangchi.

Lu Fangchi raised his hand to take it, pulled out one and pressed it against his face, absorbing his tears.

The driver then said, "Crying is no big deal. It's just a way to vent your emotions. Don't feel ashamed."

This touched Lu Fangchi. He felt that he had lost his temper, but he was more at a loss. When was the last time he cried like this? When he was a child? He couldn't remember. After realizing that crying would not get him any sympathy or solve any problems, Lu Fangchi never shed any tears again.

…He didn’t understand why she was crying now.

The driver continued, "When I was your age, I felt like the world was falling when I was in love. My nose would get sore whenever I thought about it, and I would cry at the slightest provocation." He squinted his eyes and laughed out loud, "I was depressed for about a week. I secretly wiped my tears in bed in the middle of the night. You know the bunk beds in the dormitory, they creaked at the slightest movement."

When Lu Fangchi was in school, the school had beds under the desk, but he had seen this before, so he nodded.

The driver continued, "Then one night my roommate couldn't take it anymore and asked me if I could make her cry all over in one go."

Lu Fangchi was amused by the master's humorous tone and curled his eyes. After erasing three pieces of paper, he calmed down.

"Then I cried my eyes out, howling like a ghost so loudly that I guess the whole dormitory building could hear it. I cried until I vomited, really vomited, and it felt like I vomited up the food I had eaten the night before. Later, I was scared when I thought about that feeling, so I didn't dare to cry anymore. I really cried myself dry all at once." The driver still found it funny when he talked about it. He shook his head and laughed, sighing at his youth.

Lu Fangchi sniffed and felt that it was about time, so he started chatting with the driver: "I'm already 28 years old." I'm not a young boy anymore.

The master's eyes widened, and he was a little surprised: "I can't tell, I thought you were only 22 or 23, you look so young."

It's normal. Lu Fangchi plays games and is exposed to many new things. He has a young mentality and naturally doesn't look old.

"I'm fifty, I'm old." The master shook his head and sighed, then said, "But no matter how old you are, you will cry. You cry when you are sad, and you cry when you are happy. There is no law that says crying is a child's right. Don't look at my age. I cry when something happens. I never think crying is shameful. It is the lowest cost way to vent emotions. I have tried it many times and it never works. I don't know about others, but I usually feel better soon after crying."

Arriving at the destination while chatting, Lu Fangchi opened the door and got out of the car, thanking the driver: "Thank you."

I've seen all kinds of people working late at night, and there are all kinds of weird people. Lu Fangchi's crying is nothing. He waved his hand nonchalantly and said, "Just give it five stars."

"Okay." Lu Fangchi nodded in agreement.

He walked into the apartment building, took the elevator, scanned his fingerprints, and the door opened. Lu Fangchi followed the instructions and turned on the light. He changed into slippers, walked to the kitchen, poured a cup of warm water, drank it, and put it down. A deep feeling of powerlessness swept over him.

Lu Fangchi raised his hand and rubbed the area on his chest where his heart was, but there was no relief. Instead, he felt a huge surge of loneliness. This strange emotion almost swallowed him up, and he couldn't even stand steadily.

He sat on the sofa with a swift step and covered his face with his hands. On the 32nd day after the breakup, he had experienced a series of ups and downs, such as illness, company changes, and overtime work. His heart was finally free. He felt the sequelae of the breakup belatedly, as well as the unspeakable longing. He found that he seemed to miss Zhou Zheng a little.

Think about that little dog Zhou who has not recovered his memory.

Lu Fangchi felt powerless and frustrated. He even began to doubt himself, wondering if there was something wrong with him and he didn't know how to love.

Why do I always fail despite offering my whole heart?

Those emotions that were deliberately avoided surfaced one by one, the oversized shoes that were no longer seen when I opened the door to change shoes, the empty refrigerator and kitchen utensils, the toiletries that were put back together in the bathroom sink, the large empty cabinets in the cloakroom, the handsome face that I could no longer see asking for a good morning kiss, and the unpleasant yet attractive scent of green tea, which I could no longer smell.

Lu Fangchi felt that his emotions were plummeting rapidly, fluctuating too much, and moving in an uncontrollable direction.

Take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and be calm. Life has simply returned to how it was before. It was the same as before. Recall how uncomfortable I felt when Zhou Zheng moved in. Everything was in pairs, and he was big and took up a lot of space.

So there is nothing wrong with breaking up, and it is also good to return to the original life track.

...That's strange.

I could have endured the darkness if I had never seen the light.

Lu Fangchi's heart began to fluctuate violently again. He felt that he was completely dominated by his emotions, like a crying and noisy madman. He also began to hate Zhou Zheng, the love cheater.

What did he just say, so deceptive? Some of the strange things that could not be explained before finally got the real answer at this moment, no wonder.

I remember the first time he asked me, "Do you like me before or me now?" This was the turning point.

No wonder the puppy suddenly became disobedient.

Sitting on the sofa, Lu Fangchi's chest was heaving heavily, his breathing was obvious and rapid, the redness in his eyes was so intense that it was about to overflow from his eye sockets, and his emotions were completely out of control.

The night was eerily quiet; even the sound of a needle falling could be heard clearly. The sudden ringing of a cell phone startled my heart.

Lu Fangchi looked down and saw the caller ID read "Zhou Zheng". He did not respond, and let the screen light up, dim, light up and dim again, repeating this seven or eight times. The notification bar on his phone was filled with a row of red missed calls.

Seeing that the phone call was not going through, Zhou Zheng started calling WeChat numbers, sending text messages and WeChat messages, bombarding them in turns.

After about ten minutes of flipping through the contacts and making calls, Lu Fangchi finally took action. He did something irrational and out of control, and threw his phone against the wall.

The phone hit the wall with a bang, breaking off a piece of the wall and sending a few pieces of white dust flying down. The phone fell to the ground, breaking into pieces on both sides.

It's finally quiet.

Lu Fangchi frowned, and belatedly realized that blocking him would also make him quiet down. But forget it, he had already smashed it, and he was too lazy to even reflect on his out-of-control behavior. He leaned back and lay on his back on the sofa.

The ceiling is very white, with only a white woven lamp and no other decorations. This home is decorated in a minimalist style. Lu Fangchi is not materialistic and buys very few things. There are almost no decorations in the whole house. Without the formal things, it looks extremely empty, and the atmosphere of life is very low and a bit cold.

Was it like this before? It seems to have always been like this, but I have never felt so unhappy before.

As my emotions continued to fall, the doorbell rang, "Ding Dong."

Who is it? Lu Fangchi did not get up. He somehow felt that it was Zhou Zheng. Apart from him, no one would come to disturb him at one in the middle of the night.

Lu Fangchi didn't want to see him at all. He leaned to one side on the soft sofa, reached out to find a pillow and covered his face and ears with it, as if this could block out everything.

"Ding Dong", the doorbell rang again, clearly and piercingly drilling into Lu Fangchi's ear canal.

Lu Fangchi closed his eyes and tried to ignore it.

Ding Dong, it rang again. The person who pressed the doorbell was very restrained, pressing it frequently but only once at a time, as if begging the door to be opened.

“Ding Dong.”

“Ding Dong.”

“Ding Dong.”

Hearing this, people were upset and confused. Why did he come here? Lu Fangchi sat up a little irritably, raised his hand to grab the pillow and threw it at the door.

The pillows were soft and the door had good sound insulation, so this action was just an expression of helpless rage and the people outside the door couldn't feel it at all.

So it's still, "Ding Dong."

“Ding Dong.”

“Ding Dong.”

It keeps ringing.

It seems like if you don't open the door today, I will keep pressing the button.

Lu Fangchi was completely carried away by his emotions tonight. The constant ringing of the doorbell added more and more pressure in his heart, and when it reached a certain threshold, he exploded.

Lu Fangchi stood up from the sofa, walked towards the door with heavy steps, put his hand on the door handle, and opened the door very roughly.

The person who appeared in front of him was indeed Zhou Zheng. He seemed not to have expected the door to open suddenly. A glimmer of light flashed in his eyes, but quickly disappeared. His brows were tightly wrinkled, and an emotion that Lu Fangchi could not understand rose in his peach blossom eyes.

Not wanting to delve into this situation, Lu Fangchi blocked the door with his hand on the door handle, a posture that was a perfect defense against Zhou Zheng coming in. He frowned and asked impatiently, "What are you doing?"

Zhou Zheng moved his mouth and opened it to speak several times, but swallowed it back again. He hesitated for a long time but couldn't utter a word.

Lu Fangchi waited for him for five minutes, then his patience ran out and he turned around to close the door.

Seeing this, Zhou Zheng quickly raised his hand and grabbed the door frame.

"Let go." Lu Fangchi said expressionlessly.

Zhou Zheng shook his head and refused.

"I'll say it again, let go." Lu Fangchi's voice dropped to freezing point.

Zhou Zheng pursed his lips and didn't move his hands at all.

【Author’s words】

There will be another chapter later, remember to read it before 12 o'clock.