Chapter 49 A startling discovery: That bright, prickly face in my memory...
Qi Xueqing frowned, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper. Her memories, like pages turned by a gust of wind, rushed back to a morning in her sophomore year. A strange girl had come to class. She was strikingly beautiful, bright and captivating, but her brows carried an air of arrogant recklessness. She knocked over her own kettle, spilling scalding hot water all over herself. Instead of apologizing, the girl lectured Qi Xueqing on how to properly store a kettle and argued with Li Peng, who defended her. This minor conflict was eventually interrupted by the school bell, but the girl's assertive, even somewhat domineering, image was deeply etched into Qi Xueqing's memory.
What impressed Qi Xueqing even more was a scene that occurred after class. At the exit of the teaching building, she saw the girl who had burned her and showed no remorse. She brazenly and arrogantly stopped Gu Qingyan, who was about to leave, despite the crowd of people coming and going. The usually calm and composed Gu Qingyan even showed a rare emotional fluctuation...
Although other boys later asked Gu Qingyan who the girl was, he never mentioned it and even deliberately avoided it. But she could see clearly that their relationship was anything but ordinary.
It was her? The bright, prickly, and incredibly willful face in my memory slowly overlapped with the gentle woman in the invitation photo, smiling sweetly and nestled beside Zhou Xubai.
So her name is Lin Yuwei. After so many years, the girl who once recklessly burned others and only had Gu Qingyan in her eyes has actually transformed and is about to get engaged to Zhou Xubai?
Qi Xueqing froze completely in front of the steering wheel, her mind blank from the sudden connection and stark contrast. It wasn't until the sharp, impatient car horns behind her blared one after another that she snapped out of her shock and realized she had been standing still at the green light for quite some time. She hurriedly released the brake and frantically started the car to cross the intersection.
Back home, the astonishing discovery still lingered in Qi Xueqing's mind, unable to subside for a long time. A complex and indescribable emotion fermented and simmered in her heart, mixed with resentment for the unfulfilled desires of her past youth, a secret longing for Gu Qingyan that she had never truly let go of and that was hidden deep in her heart, and an inexplicable, almost destructive impulse that strongly drove her to do something to break the seemingly calm but suffocating status quo.
This force propelled Qi Xueqing forward, and almost as if possessed, she swiped her phone screen, her fingertips slowly, almost breathlessly, scrolling down through the contacts. The name lay there quietly, silent for many years, like a badge forgotten in a corner, but now it burned her fingertips.
Gu Qingyan.
Qi Xueqing's finger hovered over that name, hesitating for a moment. Her past pride and the surging emotions of the moment battled fiercely, but ultimately, the impulse overwhelmed everything. She gently tapped the screen, copied the number to WeChat, and added it as a friend. Her fingertips trembled slightly as she sent the friend request, without any additional information, just a blank, tentative request, cast alone into the abyss of time.
What followed was an anxious wait.
Qi Xueqing slept very restlessly all night. Every time her phone screen lit up slightly, her heart skipped a beat, but each time it was not the response she was looking forward to. Until dawn, her phone remained silent, and the verification message disappeared without a trace.
The next day, the hustle and bustle of the office couldn't dispel the gloom in Qi Xueqing's heart. Her gaze seemed to be drawn by invisible threads, repeatedly sweeping over the silent phone screen. Each disappointment was like a small piece of kindling thrown into the flame of "unwillingness" in her heart, making it burn even more scorchingly, almost burning her reason. It was no longer just curiosity or calculation, but more like a stubborn search for proof, about the past and about herself. She decided to stop waiting and give herself no more room for hesitation, directly dialing the number that was already imprinted in her heart.
The waiting tone on the phone was long and monotonous, each tone testing her patience. It lasted so long that she was almost certain that the cold system notification would soon sound. Just as she was about to give up, the faint static of the call being connected came through.
However, the other end was completely silent.
There was no pleasantries as expected, not even a trace of background noise, only a heavy, almost suffocating silence, as if the person on the other end of the phone was standing on the edge of an abyss, their breath frozen.
Qi Xueqing's heart began to race involuntarily. She took a deep breath, trying to make her voice sound relaxed and natural, even with a touch of just the right amount of familiarity, in an attempt to break the unsettling silence: "Gu Qingyan?"
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone before Gu Qingyan's deep and utterly distant voice came through, as if veiled by ice: "Hello? May I ask who this is?"
This polite yet completely unfamiliar question caught Qi Xueqing off guard, causing her to feel a pang of bitterness in her heart. She quickly adjusted her breathing, maintaining a steady tone, even adding a touch of helpless smile: "I...I am Qi Xueqing, do you remember me?" She threw the question back at him, the lingering resentment in her heart making her hide her true trump card, wanting to test whether she still held even the slightest weight in his heart.
"I remember." His answer was concise to the point of being stingy, his tone completely flat, as if he were merely confirming an insignificant name: "What is it?" The background noise remained unusually quiet, and one could clearly sense the unique, oppressive yet efficient atmosphere that existed when he was focused on his work.
Qi Xueqing's red lips curled into a complex smile, a mixture of self-deprecation and an increasingly strong desire to challenge.
She leaned back in her chair, composed herself, and spoke with feigned ease and a hint of probing, extending a casual invitation like that of an old friend: "Mr. Gu, you're such a busy man. We haven't seen each other for so many years. You happen to be free tonight, how about we grab something to eat together? Also... there's something I'd like to discuss with you." She deliberately made the "thing" vague, tightly clutching the bombshell about Lin Yuwei, wanting to see if, beyond business, she could stir up any different ripples in Gu Qingyan's heart.
As expected, Gu Qingyan's refusal was swift and decisive, without the slightest hesitation: "Editor-in-Chief Qi, my project is on a tight schedule, and I really can't leave. Let's talk on the phone."
That aloof and distant tone sent a chill down Qi Xueqing's spine, almost causing her to collapse. But she quickly suppressed her embarrassment, her tone shifting to a deliberate, intriguing mystery as she precisely threw out the bait: "It's about Lin Yuwei. Some things, if you miss them, you'll regret for the rest of your life." Before she finished speaking, she decisively ended the call, giving Gu Qingyan no chance to ask any further questions.
Almost the next second after the screen went dark, her phone suddenly lit up, accompanied by a rapid vibration; it was Gu Qingyan calling her back.
Looking at the string of numbers flashing on the screen, Qi Xueqing felt a bittersweet mix of emotions and a cold sense of control. She deliberately let the ringtone run for several seconds before slowly and deliberately swiping to answer the call, making her actions appear somewhat nonchalant.
"President Gu changed his mind?" Her voice carried a hint of sadness and indifference that she had already expected.
On the other end of the phone, Gu Qingyan clearly had neither the time nor the inclination to understand her complex emotions. His voice was taut like a string stretched to its limit, on the verge of breaking. It was a tension and urgency she had never seen in the calm and composed man she remembered, completely tearing away his previous aloof and perfunctory facade: "Can you just tell me what it is?" His tone was direct, even carrying a barely perceptible, forcibly suppressed tremor.
Qi Xueqing firmly grasped this sudden initiative, speaking calmly and unhurriedly: "This matter cannot be explained in a few words, nor is it urgent to discuss it in person in the next day or two." Her implication was clear: she wanted to see him, otherwise he could not expect to get any information from her.
Gu Qingyan fell into a brief silence on the other end, the air seemed to freeze for a few seconds, before he made a helpless but urgent concession: "Okay, we'll meet today. You decide the place and time, and I'll be there on time."
In the afternoon, Qi Xueqing deliberately finished work early. She returned home, opened her wardrobe, and ran her fingers over each dress. Finally, her fingertips stopped on a perfectly tailored light gray plaid suit skirt. The lapel of the suit was clean and crisp, perfectly cinching her waistline. The skirt was knee-length, both professional and feminine. She paired it with a high-quality pearl white silk shirt, the understated sheen complementing her skin tone. Seeing that it was still early, she went to her usual hair salon to get her hair done, striving for perfection in every detail from head to toe, leaving her looking brand new.
She hoped to appear before Gu Qingyan, whom she had secretly loved for many years, in the most impeccable and dazzling way. This was not a simple reunion of old classmates; it was a silent declaration. She had to firmly control the rhythm of this reunion, which she had initiated after so many years, in every detail.
The waiter smiled and bowed, leading Qi Xueqing to the window seat she had specially reserved, which offered a superb view. However, her steps faltered almost imperceptibly the moment her gaze fell upon the seat, her heels making a nearly silent tapping sound on the polished floor.
Gu Qingyan has arrived.
He sat alone in that corner bathed in the glow of the setting sun, tilting his head slightly to gaze at the endless stream of cars outside the window. The setting sun cast a warm glow that perfectly outlined his sharply defined profile, yet it failed to melt away the coldness and aloofness emanating from within. He seemed to exist in his own little world, the soft light and hushed conversations around him invisiblely isolated from him.
Since their university graduation ceremony, Qi Xueqing and Gu Qingyan had never seen each other again. Although she refused the smooth path her parents had paved for her with their family resources and insisted on staying in this city, stubbornly breathing the same air as Gu Qingyan and listening to the same rumors about the city's rise and fall in the financial news, there always seemed to be an invisible and solid barrier between them. Over the years, under the same sky, they had never had a real, fateful intersection.
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