Chapter 50: Cosmic Latte (2) That was the beginning of their estrangement...
In the lounge, Lin Xia and Meijia sat opposite each other at the table and had lunch.
Meijia complained that the delivery was too slow and the food was cold, but she didn't know that it was not the delivery man's fault.
Lin Xia had been sitting in the stairwell for a long time, her mind blank, not knowing what to do at all, until the delivery man called again to urge her.
It's not that she was unprepared. She knew he had returned to China and she knew he was in Shenzhen. But she never expected that she would meet him so soon. Everything happened so suddenly. How could it be such a coincidence?
They hadn't seen each other for seven years. During those seven years, there was no news or communication between them, because the last words she said to him seven years ago were:
"He Chuan, let's not contact each other anymore."
It wasn't his fault, nor was it her fault. It was just that at that time they were both having a hard time and were too tired to hold on.
Meijia was still saying something, Lin Xia answered absentmindedly, her hand searching on her phone involuntarily.
On the floor sign in the lobby on the first floor, the 19F column had a new line of words recently replaced:
Owen & Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Representative Office
After clicking on the search button, a lot of related content pops up.
Owen & Co., headquartered in London, is one of Europe's leading intellectual property firms, with offices in numerous countries and regions worldwide. In June of this year, they established a representative office in Shenzhen, their third in mainland China, following offices in Beijing and Shanghai. Dai Zhicheng, formerly head of their Hong Kong office, serves as Chief Representative. In last year's survey of the world's top 200 international law firms, Owen & Co. was ranked 63rd in total revenue.
On the homepage of the website, the first person following Dai Zhicheng’s personal profile is He Chuan.
He holds a Bachelor of Law from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a Master of Intellectual Property Law from the University of London. After graduation, he joined the famous British law firm L&Z for an internship. Two years later, he obtained his license and began his legal career as a lawyer. In 2016, he left L&Z and joined Kaisen Law Firm as a senior consultant. In 2019, he joined Owen’s Shenzhen office as a partner and head of Asia’s technology and data business.
Just a few lines of text, a pretty good resume.
There was also a photo next to it. It was not a serious ID photo, but a candid shot of him giving a speech on the stage of an unknown venue. At the moment the shutter froze, he happened to look up at the camera.
He is wearing a well-tailored high-end suit, a striped tie, frameless glasses, and his neat short hair is combed meticulously. He also has a belt, cuffs, collar clip, and watch strap. Every detail reveals his elegance. Time has faded his youthful eyes, made him mature, and polished his sharp edges, giving him a restrained brilliance, a gentle and elegant temperament. He is almost a different person from the young man in a white shirt who used to ride a bicycle through the forest path.
After staring intently for a few seconds, Lin Xia couldn't help but feel a little dazed.
Time goes on, this person, this face, feels so familiar yet so strange.
He finally got the life he wanted.
So what about her?
"Lin Xia? Lin Xia! Why aren't you eating?"
Meijia's voice brought Lin Xia back to reality. She looked down and found that the rice in her lunch box was untouched and full of holes from her unconscious poking with chopsticks.
"I don't have much appetite..."
"Yeah, the food here is terrible, too oily." Meijia shook her head. "It's not suitable to eat such oily food in Guangdong. It's too hot, it will make you get a sore throat."
"yes."
Speaking of the weather, Meijia couldn't help but complain to Lin Xia again. She had just been in this city for less than a year and had not experienced a complete four seasons, so she was not yet used to it.
"It's so hot! It's already October, and the weather is still like a sauna. I never used to use air conditioning, but now I can't live without it. I already have a cold body, and this makes me even colder."
Lin Xia put down her phone and tried to distract herself from thinking about He Chuan.
"There's really nothing we can do about it. Shenzhen is summer 360 days a year."
"But then again, being hot does have its benefits. I'm dying of heat, and so are the mosquitoes. As soon as it got a little cooler at night these past two days, the mosquitoes became rampant. Look at the bites I got! The mosquitoes in the south are so vicious!"
Meijia gestured to Lin Xia to look at her elbows. There were two huge mosquito bites, which were red and swollen and looked scary.
Lin Xia felt a sense of déjà vu: "I was bitten by mosquitoes like this before. This is actually a kind of allergy."
"Not now?"
"Now it's just a small red spot, it doesn't hurt or itch."
Meijia's eyes lit up: "Is there any special medicine? Recommend it to me!"
"I didn't take any medication, but the allergies became too frequent, and then I got used to it and became desensitized."
Or to be more precise, after years of allergic reactions, the body's immune system's response mechanism to abnormal stimuli has been basically paralyzed.
In college, Lin Xia studied a relatively unpopular major in the Arts and Crafts Department, which admitted students every other year and prioritized quality over quantity. She primarily studied a traditional manufacturing craft, once popular in ancient China but declining with the passage of time. Today, demand remains limited only in the southern coastal areas. As a native of Northeast China, Lin Xia had never heard of it before entering university. When registering for the college entrance exam, she was solely focused on Tsinghua University and, without any access to other options, filled in her chosen major at random.
Little did she know, the raw materials required for this process contained a special substance that could cause an allergic reaction upon contact, a condition for which no medication or treatment could cure. They took basic courses in their freshman year, but only began formally working in the studio and taking specialized courses in their sophomore year. The teacher had warned everyone beforehand, and everyone had taken precautions, fully armed. Yet, everyone still suffered varying degrees of allergies, Lin Xia's being the most severely affected. While others experienced rashes, she experienced blisters. Others experienced only slight swelling, but her entire face swelled up, a transformed person. She barely recognized herself in the mirror.
A group of people were so scared that they took a taxi to the emergency room of Peking University Third Hospital overnight. After the doctor learned about their expertise, he was not surprised and said that medication was useless and could not relieve the symptoms. They just had to get through it. If the condition was really serious, they could apply some comfrey ointment.
Indeed, every class of students went through this. For the sake of their studies, they just had to persevere. However, ideals are one thing, reality is another. No matter how strong one's willpower is, it can't change the objective physical condition. Because she had to work with materials almost every day, Lin Xia suffered from recurring allergies. The redness, swelling, and rashes on her body never subsided, and she suffered day and night. Everyone else's symptoms gradually eased after a semester, but hers remained as severe. The pain and itching lasted so long that her nerves were almost numb, but the redness and swelling on the surface could not be overcome. This was a fatal blow to the beauty-conscious Lin Xia. During that period, she didn't want to go out or see anyone, and she didn't participate in any club or school activities. She went back and forth between her studio and her dormitory every day, and even had to take meals from the cafeteria back to her dormitory.
From then on, her campus life began to become bleak. The pressure came not only from the physical pain, but also from the mental torture.
The professional courses were incredibly demanding. Ancient artisans, skilled in this art, would have spent at least 20 to 30 years studying and mastering it, not to mention passing down their skills from generation to generation. They were being asked to master it quickly in just one or two years. They couldn't achieve mastery, but at least gain a glimpse of the basics. Qingmei wasn't a place for slacking off. Furthermore, one of their professors was incredibly demanding. Not only did he assign impossible and challenging homework, he also criticized and berated them daily, accusing them of lacking talent, not working hard enough, not being as good as their former seniors, and disdaining their poor aesthetics and unfashionable clothing, not looking like art students at all. Lin Xia's allergies were seen by her as a sign of being spoiled and unable to endure hardship, and she repeatedly and relentlessly criticized her in class.
Under such high pressure, no one can stay in a good mood. Her daily chats with He Chuan are gradually filled with complaints and grievances.
Back in her senior year of high school, during intensive training, she'd had a tough time, and the only person she could confide in was He Chuan. He'd been there before her, so he understood her, he understood her, and he had the patience and love to comfort and encourage her. Even though they were thousands of miles apart, he had always been a kind of spiritual support, a safe haven for her soul. But by then, the distance between them was more than just a thousand miles; he was tens of thousands of miles away in London.
After arriving in the UK, he became even busier. Needless to say, his studies were tough, and in a foreign country, the challenges he faced were far more severe than hers. He received a full scholarship, but still had to work to earn his living expenses. London's cost of living was higher than Hong Kong's, making his life even more difficult. Sometimes, he was so busy that he couldn't see her for days. While he still replied to her messages, they were always brief. The two of them couldn't find the long, free moments to chat like before, often only able to exchange a few quick words to check in.
There was an eight-hour time difference between them, and their days and nights were reversed. No matter how strong their emotions were, they would calm down after eight hours. Once they accumulated like a mountain, he would be too lazy to talk about them again.
What's more, there's no point in talking about it. She and he are both helpless in the predicament they are facing. Talking too much will only add to their troubles.
That was the beginning of their initial estrangement.
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