Chapter 17
As if the weather was deliberately playing a trick on Yan Qing, a storm broke out the moment she stepped out of the subway.
The old umbrella was quickly overturned by the strong wind, slipping from Yan Qing's grasp and flying more than ten meters away. Yan Qing tried to retrieve the umbrella, but found that the further she chased after it, the farther away it went, and she was already soaked to the bone. The rain was too heavy and too torrential.
She was glad she had the foresight to put the badge in two layers of plastic bags, which prevented the aluminum disc, which cost more than several months of her living expenses, from being damaged in the wind and rain.
She abandoned her umbrella, clutched her backpack tightly to her chest, and walked against the wind and rain towards Tan Chen Mansion.
A journey that usually takes less than twenty minutes by foot took her more than thirty minutes today. Neither Shen Hanyang nor Cheng Jiaming were home; only the housekeeper opened the door. Yan Qing handed the badge to him, saying it was a valuable item Cheng Jiaming had left with her, and left without saying anything more.
The return journey was even more arduous than the way there. The wind howled, the rain poured down, and even the air seemed thick with Secretary Gao's anger. Darkness fell completely, and there were hardly any pedestrians on the road. The rain lashed down relentlessly, and the wind chilled her to the bone. For several moments, Yan Qing even felt as if she were about to be swallowed by this terrible storm.
She waded through the floodwaters with difficulty, and finally saw the subway station entrance, letting out a sigh of relief. But then, she slipped on a loose paving stone and fell heavily against the edge of a flower bed, leaving her arms and ankles covered in noticeable bruises.
Back in her dorm, she immediately took off her soaked clothes and shoes and took a hot shower. Only then did the area where she had fallen regain feeling, and it burned with pain.
In the middle of the night, she developed a high fever, her whole body aching terribly. She groped her way out of bed in the dark, trying to find some cold medicine, only to remember after a long search that she had given the last two ibuprofen pills to Gu Feimeng, who was suffering from menstrual cramps. She dragged her aching body back to bed. The ceiling light was blindingly bright; she wrapped herself tightly in a meager summer blanket, but still couldn't stop shivering.
She tossed and turned all night, finally getting to the first light of dawn. She tried to check the time, but her phone wouldn't turn on, and plugging it in to charge didn't work either. She sighed in despair. Her old, nearly lifeless phone, worn out from years of use, had finally given up after being dropped in the rain the previous day.
She got up, quickly washed up, and pulled out an old cell phone from her drawer—one that had been retired five years ago. It was her first cell phone, and she had never been willing to throw it away; she never expected it would actually come in handy today.
The high fever that night left her feeling lightheaded, as if she were walking on cotton. She didn't know how she made it to the school clinic; she only remembered the doctor inserting a thin, shiny needle into a vein on the back of her hand, and then she fell asleep, exhausted, not long after.
After finishing her IV drip, Yan Qing returned to her dorm, ate some snacks left by Gu Feimeng's mother, took a few cold pills, and then fell asleep as soon as she got out of bed.
She didn't know how long she had slept, but she vaguely heard her phone ring—a WeChat voice message. She fumbled for it and answered.
"Hello."
Her voice was noticeably weak, and Zhuge Xiaoxiang on the other end immediately noticed: "Are you feeling unwell?"
"Yeah, I have a cold."
"Did you take your medicine?"
"I've already eaten." She didn't have the energy to say anything else.
"Get some rest." Zhuge Xiaoxiang hung up the phone.
Yan Qing drifted off to sleep again.
A series of urgent knocks on the door startled her from her deep sleep. She got out of bed, opened the door, and saw the dormitory supervisor on duty downstairs.
"Yan Qing, is that you? I heard you were sick. Teacher Hu Rui asked me to bring you some food." She said, carrying several lunchboxes into the dormitory. The auntie laid out the lunchboxes and introduced them, "There's porridge and side dishes. It's easy to digest when you're sick. Look how pale you are! Eat while it's hot; you'll recover better if you eat your fill." She left without lingering.
Yan Qing looked at the lunchbox on the table and immediately understood that the person who asked Hu Rui to deliver the food was Zhuge Xiaoxiang.
Having not eaten all day, Yan Qing only felt a little empty in her stomach when she smelled the aroma of the porridge. The white rice porridge was still piping hot, and the side dishes were all local favorites, refreshing and not greasy. Yan Qing blew on the steam rising from the porridge and took small sips.
After finishing her meal, she took a picture of the empty lunchboxes together and sent it to Zhuge Xiaoxiang. There was no reply.
The next day, the dormitory supervisor brought porridge again. Compared to yesterday's bland porridge, today's porridge was full of fresh shrimp and scallops. The side dishes were a small portion of poached chicken, a portion of stir-fried bok choy, and a fried sunny-side-up egg.
Yan Qing ate everything clean, then slept soundly for a while. After waking up, her body, which had felt heavy for two days, finally felt a little better. She dialed Zhuge Xiaoxiang's WeChat voice call, and it took a long time for the other end to answer.
"Are you free today, senior?"
Zhuge smiled and said, "I'm on the playground right now."
The storm had just passed, and the playground was still mostly deserted. Yan Qing spotted Zhuge Xiaoxiang immediately. He was gazing into the distance, lost in thought, a gentle smile on his face. Golden rays of the setting sun streamed through the gaps in the clouds, enveloping him and lending his sculpted face a touch of divinity.
He noticed her approaching and turned around.
"You look better," he said with a smile.
"I'm much better now. Thank you for your help these past two days."
"That's good." Zhuge Xiaoxiang smiled and took the paper bag containing the clean lunchbox from her hand.
They walked along the track in perfect unison, each keeping a person's distance from the other. In the distance, various sounds drifted into the empty playground: voices, whistles, car horns... but the atmosphere closer by was subtly quiet.
Yan Qing coughed lightly, breaking the silence first: "The porridge and dishes are delicious, chef-level."
"That's a very high compliment," Zhuge laughed. "I rarely went into the kitchen before, I was used to being taken care of and having food served to me. Later, all my close friends and family left, and I was all alone, so I had no choice but to learn."
Just as Yan Qing was about to say something, two children chased after them. One of the boys bumped into Yan Qing with considerable force. Her cheap sneakers slipped on the wet ground after the rain, and she fell backward abruptly. Zhuge Xiaoxiang nimbly caught her.
The moment their bodies touched, Zhuge Xiaoxiang seemed to freeze before she did. Time seemed to stand still as he gazed intently at her face, his eyes filled with a myriad of emotions. Then, as if suddenly snapping out of his daze, he released her hand.
He continued walking forward, his pace quickening silently, as if deliberately trying to distance himself from her.
He stopped at the edge of the stands.
Yan Qing looked at him from the side, his gaze fixed on the distant sky, as if there was something he was looking forward to behind the ethereal, overlapping evening clouds.
“My girlfriend,” Zhuge suddenly said, “if she were still alive, she would be my wife now.”
His expression was distant, as if he had entered a memory.
"Back then, she was studying at a teachers' college, and I often traveled across half of S City to see her. After six o'clock in the evening, the food stalls behind the university would set up their stalls. Fried skewers, spicy hot pot, grilled cold noodles, red oil rice noodles, clam vermicelli, starch sausage, egg burgers—ordering a whole bunch of things would only cost a few dozen yuan. The two of us would sit facing each other on low stools in the open air, eating and chatting about everything under the sun. She said she wanted to go to a rural area to teach after graduation, and I laughed at her for being naive and idealistic... At that time, we were both students, and we didn't have any money, but we felt that life was so happy, with hope, a future, and loved ones by our side."
Zhuge Xiaoxiang paused for a moment, then continued, "I didn't take good care of her. Later, when her depression was at its worst, I couldn't even fulfill my responsibility of being there for her. We always said we would get married after graduation. But she didn't make it to graduation. After leaving campus, I went to Guizhou to teach, to do what she always wanted to do. It seems like there's always been a thought in my heart: if I can't keep her, then I'll become her."
Yan Qing's eyelashes trembled almost imperceptibly, but Zhuge Xiaoxiang still caught the subtle change in her expression. He simply smiled slightly: "Don't worry about me. I can now calmly return to the food street behind the Normal University, sit at the same stall we used to sit at, and eat a bowl of fried rice noodles by myself. The stall owner seemed to remember me and even asked me with concern if I had married my girlfriend. The food street was still as lively as ever. Looking at the owner's smiling face amidst the swirling smoke, and recalling the scene of sitting and chatting with her here, it felt like a lifetime ago. After she left, time seemed to slow down. I always felt like a very long time had passed, but when I thought about it carefully, it was only six or seven years."
Zhuge Xiaoxiang's tone was very calm, and Yan Qing could not tell whether the pain behind that tone was the pain that had been stretched out by time and felt like an eternity, or the numbness and forgetfulness that had accumulated day after day and was irreversible.
"Senior..."
Zhuge Xiaoxiang interrupted her: "Actually, the first time I saw you, junior, I felt like we had known each other for a long time, like we were very familiar friends. Eating breakfast together at the breakfast shop and taking walks on the playground together felt like something that happened a long time ago."
Yan Qing pondered the meaning behind his words.
Summer nights come late, and the last few rays of light faded very quickly, even plunging the expression on Zhuge Xiaoxiang's face into darkness.
A gust of wind came and ruffled the hair at Yan Qing's temples.
Zhuge Xiaoxiang reached out and gently tucked a few stray strands of hair behind her ear.
He said, "It was all just wishful thinking on my part; she's never coming back."
In the office, Shen Hanyang dialed Secretary Gao's internal line: "Secretary Gao, could you please arrange for the driver to take Jiaming to Lianxi Restaurant tonight? And please don't schedule any other dinners for me tonight; I need to spend time with Jiaming. Also, please inform Teacher Yan that today's math class should be rescheduled; she can have the day off."
Secretary Gao replied, "There is no math class today."
"No classes?" Shen Hanyang thought he had misremembered the time and subconsciously opened his phone's memo app. The memo app clearly stated that there was math tutoring from 2:30 pm to 4 pm.
The indignant voice of Secretary Gao came through the phone: "President Shen, you have no idea, that Teacher Yan took three days off in a row! Three days!" She emphasized the words "three days" heavily. "She treats this place like a marketplace, coming and going as she pleases. Later, she simply skipped work altogether and disappeared! Sigh, college students these days are so undisciplined and have absolutely no professional ethics..."
Did you explain why you requested leave?
"Then you can easily come up with a whole bunch of excuses."
After Secretary Gao hung up, seven or eight more calls came in, some about company business and others about trivial social interactions. Shen Hanyang answered them half-heartedly.
Even after the ringing finally stopped, the buzzing noise still lingered in Shen Hanyang's ears. He reached up and unbuttoned a button on his collar. His gaze returned once more to his large desk. There, the phone he had tossed far away had ceased its annoying blaring. He reached for it, and the black screen silently reflected his face.
He pulled up a contact from his WeChat address book. The chat window contained only messages from that person, none of which he had ever replied to.
He stared at his phone screen. It was rare to see someone use mathematical symbols as their WeChat name and profile picture, but it suited her major.
He hovered his finger over the voice button for two seconds, then gently pressed the call button.
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