Chapter 151 if-Pei Line (25): I like you, Pei Yanxi
The months Pei Yanxi spent abroad felt like they were on slow motion.
Yun Zhan eats and reads on time every day, and occasionally goes to the company to help Pei Yanxi with some simple documents, but he always feels that something is missing in his life and that his days are a bit boring. What he looks forward to every day is being able to call Pei Yanxi at night.
Later, Yun Zhan found a decorator to gradually transform the bedroom that Pei Yanxi had prepared for her into the small room she used to live in.
Before becoming a time traveler, Yun Zhan's room was light blue, his desk was by the window, and even the pattern on the curtains was exactly the same as he remembered.
On the day the renovation was completed, she stood in the center of the room, looking at the familiar layout but not happy at all. Instead, she felt empty inside, as if an important piece of the puzzle was missing.
What exactly is it...?
Yun Zhan sat at his desk, his fingertips tracing the old photograph in the frame, his eyes filled with a melancholy...
As the days went by, Yun Zhan began to visit Pei Yanxi's study more frequently.
The bookshelf was filled with Pei Yanxi's books, from financial magazines to literary novels. She flipped through them one by one, reading the books that Pei Yanxi used to enjoy, liking the things she liked.
One afternoon, Yun Zhan flipped through a book with a yellowed cover, the title of which was "Returning Home".
"Huh? She watches this too..."
Yun Zhan raised an eyebrow and smiled. In her memory, her senior was never one to miss home. The book looked quite new, with only some creases on the edges, so it must have only been read once or twice.
Yun Zhan sat on the carpet and slowly opened the book. It told the story of a couple who crossed mountains and seas to find each other. The words were simple but warm. When she saw the last sentence, "Where your lover is your hometown," Yun Zhan's fingers suddenly stopped. She saw the time marked on the last page.
March 6, 2343, that was shortly after I arrived in this world...
It must have been the night I slipped the room key to Pei Yanxi...
Yun Zhan couldn't help but start to wonder... was it related to her?
Yun Zhan's fingertips were still gently caressing the pages when she suddenly stopped, even her breath catching in her throat.
The air was so still you could hear the wind outside the window. Yun Zhan stared at the handwritten date, his pupils trembling slightly.
After a few seconds, she slowly blinked, but her eyes instantly welled up with tears, blurring the words on the paper.
"So...that's how it is."
Yun Zhan raised his hand and pressed the corner of his eye. His fingertips touched something warm, and it felt as if something had been suddenly knocked open in his heart, making a buzzing sound.
She looked down at the book open on her lap, her fingertips unconsciously curling up, pinching the pages into shallow creases.
I had tried so hard to renovate the room to look the way it used to, but standing in front of the familiar blue wallpaper, I felt an emptiness in my heart. I read book after book, absorbed every word, and even ate my meals on time, but I always felt like I was doing nothing all day. The inexplicable emptiness I had felt during these days suddenly seemed to have an explanation at this moment.
It's not that she misses the old days, nor that she can't live without her old environment, but rather that she lacks someone who loves her.
Yun Zhan gently pressed his face against the book cover; the yellowed pages had a slightly cool touch, which just suppressed the tears welling up in his eyes.
She didn't speak, but she could hear her own heartbeat, exceptionally clear in the quiet study, each beat telling an answer she had ignored for a long time.
All the previous doubts and gaps suddenly found their answers at this moment.
"Have you come to terms with it?"
"Um."
Yun Zhan nodded. She decorated the old room, but she felt unhappy. She read many books, but she felt empty inside. She ate and slept on time, but she always felt that life lacked warmth.
What she lacked was not her former life, nor her familiar environment, but the person who loved her... Pei Yanxi.
When Pei Yanxi was around, she always felt that the other party was too controlling, and she always felt like a bird trapped in a cage.
But after Pei Yanxi left, she realized that it wasn't a cage. She hid under Pei Yanxi's full wings, enjoying her affection. Those seemingly forceful acts of care were not constraints, but love hidden in the details.
Pei Yanxi wasn't good at comforting people, but she would clumsily comfort her when she was sad, and quietly prepare hot water in her room. Those details that she had overlooked had long become an indispensable part of her life.
Yun Zhan closed the book, buried his face in his knees, his heart filled with complex emotions.
"I miss her a little." Yun Zhan lay on his desk, hesitating whether to make a call.
It's not evening yet, isn't it making her seem too clingy?
"If you miss her, just call her. What are you afraid of? She really likes you. If you take the initiative, she might be very happy." 21 hummed a few times.
The desk lamp in the study cast a warm yellow glow, and "Returning Home" lay open on Yun Zhan's lap, the edges of the pages showing a soft, slightly rough texture.
As dusk streamed through the windowpane, her knuckles, gripping her phone, turned slightly white. Pei Yanxi's number on the screen lit up and then dimmed before she finally pressed the call button.
The busy tone only rang three times before the call was answered. Pei Yanxi's voice came through the receiver, deliberately calm, but unable to hide a faint gasp at the end: "Calling at this hour, is it urgent?"
Yun Zhan was silent for a moment, his throat bobbing slightly, and he whispered, "I miss you a little."
Without any unnecessary embellishment, her tone was as calm as a casual chat, yet it concealed a directness she had never shown before... The previously ambiguous feelings of love finally found clarity in her expression at this moment.
There was a half-second silence on the other end of the receiver, followed by Pei Yanxi's laughter, though the laughter was tinged with an almost imperceptible tension: "Guess where I am right now?"
Yun Zhan paused for a moment, thinking, "They must be in a meeting, or perhaps they're resting..."
I can't guess.
Yun Zhan took a deep breath, gripped his phone tightly, and even his breathing became lighter: "Pei Yanxi, I'll book the earliest flight to come find you abroad, okay?"
He paused for two seconds, then continued, "I like you, and I want to be with you."
As soon as he said that, the breathing on the other end suddenly became erratic.
Pei Yanxi leaned against the delivery bed in the delivery room, her forehead soaked with sweat that slid down her jawline and into her collar. The intense pain from the contractions made her knuckles dig into the edge of the delivery bed, her fingertips turning bluish-white.
But when the words "I like you" hit her ears, the tension in her body relaxed for a moment, her shoulders trembled slightly uncontrollably, and even the pain seemed to recede a little.
She caught her breath, her voice still trembling slightly, but without the previous forced ease: "Okay, come on over."
She paused, looking at the operating lights on the ceiling of the delivery room, her eyes welling up with tears.
"Yun Zhan, I'm pregnant with your child. I'm in the delivery room now and about to give birth."
Yun Zhan's hand holding the phone suddenly stiffened, as if the blood rushed to her head and then sank back to her chest, making her feel suffocated.
She opened her mouth, and it took her several tries to find her voice, which was hoarse with disbelief: "Pregnant...with our child?"
Pei Yanxi turned her head away from the towel the nurse offered, her gaze falling on the clean white sheets of the delivery bed: "Yun Zhan, but I have to apologize to you... I am a very selfish mother, and also a very selfish lover."
Yun Zhan's grip on his phone tightened suddenly. Before he could speak, he heard Pei Yanxi's voice continue.
With a slight sob in her voice, she said, "I brought her into this world without asking your opinion or whether the child wanted to. I kept it from you before because I was afraid you would blame me or not accept it... I even thought that when you came, I would use this child to 'show off' to you, to tell you that I had your bloodline and could keep you by my side."
Pei Yanxi raised her hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead, the dampness on her fingertips mingling with the moisture in her eyes, her voice soft and hoarse: "I'm sorry, Yun Zhan, I was too greedy."
The breathing in the receiver became heavy, and Yun Zhan froze on the spot.
"You must be having a hard time all by yourself, right?"
As soon as he said those words, Yun Zhan could no longer hold back. Tears streamed down his face like broken beads, splashing onto the bedsheets and leaving larger and larger wet stains.
She raised her hand to wipe away her tears, but the more she wiped, the more tears she shed. Her throat felt like it was blocked with cotton, both sour and swollen, making it difficult to even breathe.
She couldn't believe that she was going to have a child. The little life slowly forming in Pei Yanxi's womb was the connection between her and Pei Yanxi, a future she had never dared to think about for so many years.
This excitement made Yun Zhan's heart pound, and even her fingertips trembled slightly, but the next second, an even deeper chill enveloped her... She had let Pei Yanxi down.
She felt very guilty.
During the months Pei Yanxi was abroad, he would often stare blankly at the renovated old room, feeling that something was missing from his life, and he was being somewhat melodramatic.
She never imagined that Pei Yanxi was carrying something all alone, thousands of miles away.
Yun Zhan had heard about how hard pregnancy was for pregnant women, but she didn't know what Pei Yanxi had gone through on her own. In fact, she would sometimes have little tiffs with Pei Yanxi when she called, because of her own little mood.
Pei Yanxi took on all of it.
In the end, he still had to say "I'm sorry" to her through a trembling voice from the pain, admitting that he was "selfish".
Just as Pei Yanxi was about to comfort Yun Zhan, a sudden, sharp pain enveloped her.
The pain was more intense than any of her previous contractions, like a dull knife churning inside her abdomen, instantly draining all her strength. She instinctively arched her back, pressed her forehead against the delivery bed railing, and let out a muffled groan.
The phone slipped from her weak fingers and slammed against the edge of the delivery bed with a "thud," the busy tone of the call being cut off drowned out by her rapid breathing.
Pei Yanxi's fingers gripped the leather armrests of the delivery bed so tightly that her fingertips almost dug into the fabric, her knuckles turning bluish-white. Cold sweat streamed down her temples, instantly soaking through her hospital gown, which clung stickily to her skin, making it difficult to breathe; each inhale was accompanied by a tearing pain.
She's about to give birth...
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