0076 076 seems to be trapped in that winter.
The Xuan Sha Club was quiet in the afternoon. Most of the employees hadn't gotten up yet, and a few aunties were cleaning the place. Tu Mi took her directly to a private room upstairs, opened a closed door, and gestured for her to go in by herself.
Qi Shuyao rested her hand on the door frame, paused at the doorway for two seconds, and then went inside.
Hearing the sound, Song Yusheng, who was inside the room, turned around.
Their reunion was devoid of intense emotions, tears, or any rushing embrace. She simply sat there, looked at her, and smiled calmly, as if it were the day before she left.
Qi Shuyao walked over, sat on the chair next to her, picked up the wine bottle and poured herself a glass of wine.
"How's it going? It's been almost three years, hasn't it?"
"He's doing well. He's still alive, without missing any limbs, and his mental state is normal."
"You don't look good."
"Actually, you don't look very good either, with such thick lipstick."
After their initial rambling, they silently drank side by side, downing glass after glass, when suddenly the glass slammed heavily onto the table.
Qi Shuyao turned to look at her.
Song Yusheng finally burst into tears.
She didn't say a word, swept everything aside, and the whole room was filled with the echo of her crying, unrestrained, like a child's loud sobbing.
Qi Shuyao actually wanted to pat her back, but she saw the protrusion of her spine through her clothes, trembling. When did she become so thin? It looked like she would break if touched.
After waiting quietly until the crying stopped, Song Yusheng got up from the table, smiling as she wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes.
"You understand me best; you won't offer comfort when I cry."
"I don't think I've ever seen you cry."
"Yeah, it feels so much better to have vented now."
Why did you go into acting?
"You saw me on TV? Am I pretty? Am I famous?"
Qi Shuyao turned around, grabbed her hand, and shook it forcefully.
"Sheng Sheng, look at me, tell me what happened."
"What happened? Don't you know what happened?"
"What do I know?"
"Really? Don't pretend with me, I won't blame you."
She laughed loudly, abruptly shook off Qi Shuyao's hand, reached out her arm to take the wine glass, and poured herself another glass of wine.
"Tell me, what is the end of politics? If you take down this group of problematic leaders, will the next group that comes in be problem-free? They are corrupt, abuse their power, and bend the law, but I think society is developing quite well. Where can you find complete fairness? Where are there only good people? All kinds of investigations, all kinds of investigations, this one is uprooted, that one's entire family is executed. Now, Yang Xun's father has also been removed from office, and he has also run away. I have no one to rely on. If I don't come out, how can I live?"
After saying that, she even lit a cigarette and took a light puff, but she was not very skilled at it and coughed repeatedly.
"Is Yang Xun's father's situation that serious that he also wants to run away?"
"Who knows? Who knows if someone else was involved?"
Qi Shuyao knew nothing about what had happened at that time and didn't know how to comfort him. She was actually smiling to herself when she saw Yang Xun leave the group. She didn't know what had happened between them abroad.
Song Yusheng was still talking to herself.
"Actually, I know he's a bad person, a thoroughly bad person, a big bad person who bullies others with the little power he has. But to me, he's also a good person. Without him, I wouldn't be alive today. Yao Yao, tell me, what is a good person and what is a bad person? What can I do? What should I do?"
"Sheng Sheng, where's your dad? Isn't he still in China? I heard he's already rebuilt the company."
"Is my dad still alive? Are you serious?"
"What's the meaning?"
“I heard before that he wanted to take revenge, so he went to confront the Yang family head-on. But I don’t know what grudge he had against the Yang family. But I know he’s no longer tough. To this day, no one knows whether he is dead or alive, where he is, or where his body is.”
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry, I didn't know..."
Do you know how I found out about these things?
Who told you that?
"Su Shaojin."
"You saw him?"
"Of course, I met him, and I even have a relationship with him. I'm going to rise to prominence and become famous, all thanks to him."
What did he do to you?
"It's nothing, I'm just a tool for him."
"Don't do anything foolish."
"You make it sound so easy. You can't do anything without paying a price these days. Your dad helped my dad a lot before, but didn't he just use him as a tool? It was all mutual exploitation. I understand all of that."
She slumped further and further into the chair, forcing a bitter smile and staring unfocusedly. Suddenly, she sat up abruptly and glared fiercely at Qi Shuyao.
"And I also learned that the root of my father's troubles, or rather, the downfall of the Lin and Pei families, was that one of our family's transport trucks was stopped by your father's men, who found contraband inside. That's how they traced the whole thing back up. If that truck hadn't been stopped, none of this would have happened."
"What...who told you that, Su Shaojin? What if he's lying to you?"
"Don't be nervous. I'm not looking for revenge. Even if it really is Uncle Qi, even if he did it on purpose, it's his duty, and I can't deny it. But I think, I just think, everyone has a hierarchy in their heart, right? If I really wanted to take revenge on Uncle Qi, you would definitely stand on the opposite side of me without hesitation."
Qi Shuyao couldn't refute her, nor did she dare look her in the eye. She took a step forward, wanting to hug her as they used to, but Song Yusheng leaned back, shook her head, and said,
“Yaoyao, I envy you every day I’m abroad. I want to see you, I want you to stand in front of me and help me drive away those who bully me, but I don’t dare to see you. Do you know how much I want to hug you right now? But I know we can never go back to the way things were.”
Song Yusheng jumped off the chair and stood a few steps away from her.
"I can only beg you, for the sake of our childhood friendship, if you really see what I did in the future, just pretend you didn't see it, okay?"
"Sheng Sheng, Sheng Sheng, where are you going..."
Song Yusheng left, disappearing quickly outside the private room. By the time Qi Shuyao chased after her, she had vanished from the corridor.
What is she going to do? What is she going to do to whom? Now that she has no helpers by her side, how can she survive in this cruel world?
Qi Shuyao slumped down at the door of the private room, where the air conditioning was piercingly cold, chilling her to the bone.
She pushed away the hand that Tu Mi came up to support her, and stumbled out of the door. The sunlight outside was so bright that it made her dizzy, and it seemed as if the sky and the earth had turned upside down.
Xia Jin and Yu Meiren arranged to see the apartment with the landlady at noon. They briefly looked around the moldy room and then tried to get information out of the landlady.
The old lady was quite idle and didn't rely on these houses to make money. When she saw the two young girls coming over, she pulled them aside and started telling them everything she knew.
"Girls, what's your budget? Do you really want to stay here?"
"Auntie, we work right there. It's close by and the prices are cheap."
Xia Jin stood at the window and casually pointed to the KTV across the street.
Unexpectedly, the old woman's expression suddenly changed, and she pulled them to the door.
"Girls, don't rent a place here, it's not safe."
"Why is it unsafe?"
"Are you from out of town or new here? Several girls have died in this building."
The old woman got to the point, and Yu Meiren reached into her pocket and pressed the call button.
The Haixi Central Plaza Building is located in the very center of the Xiaobei District. It is surrounded by the city's most advanced and comprehensive facilities, yet it boasts the lowest housing prices in the city. The building has 30 floors and is a circular structure, so densely packed that it resembles a beehive or a small, self-sufficient circle where outsiders don't need to enter.
It has a history of nearly 60 years and has the most accidents, fires, intentional jumping, accidental falls, elevator malfunctions and weightlessness, murders, and paranormal events.
Three years ago, there were 1,407 households, including six girls who came to Jingyang to work. They all worked at the Wenhong Bath Center downstairs.
During that period, strange things often happened at the bathhouse: lost valuable jewelry, customers disappearing for no reason, accounts that the proprietress couldn't figure out no matter what she did, and these employees who had been gone since they joined the business.
The bathhouse had been complained about time and time again. One snowy morning, the cleaning lady came in to collect the garbage and found six female corpses piled up together in an open-air square well.
The landlady's unique, hoarse voice made the story both mysterious and terrifying, causing Xia Jin and Yu Meiren to huddle closer together.
They went downstairs arm in arm, observing the layout of the building as Tu Mi had instructed. The corridors were gloomy, with no light coming in. The dilapidated walls and leaky ceilings made strange noises. Despite being in the dry city of Jingyang, the air smelled musty. Various brightly colored notices and warnings were posted in the corridors, reflecting the light only under the dim corridor lights. When the wind blew in, the rusty iron doors creaked.
The walls on the first floor are covered with advertisements for renting and buying houses. Even now, people still stand there collecting information. No matter how many legends circulate here or how many accidents have occurred, people will still live here.
They all went down to the first floor, and the landlady chased after them, pointing to the building across the street and telling them...
"Girls, if you want to live in this area, go rent a place across the street. Although the rent is a bit more expensive, it's safer. I heard that the building was built by a businessman surnamed Guan, and the facilities are quite good."
"Auntie, what's the name of the building across the street?"
"Dalong Apartment, isn't it written there?"
On the sidewalk between the two buildings, Qi Yu stood there pacing back and forth. He took off his headphones and turned to look at the Dalong Apartments on his left.
It's also a circular building, 40 stories high, densely packed with residents. Washed clothes are hanging outside the windows, and water is dripping down.
As he unfolded a piece of paper in his hand and pondered the conjecture in his mind, he suddenly began to hallucinate.
He seemed to smell the fragrance he longed for, the scent that lingered around him, mingling in the air, drawing ever closer to her.
He looked up, and the girl who had walked past turned back. Her hat covered her eyes, and he could only see a pale face with a mouth painted with bright red lipstick.
He rushed up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, but the shadow had already disappeared into the building. He stood on the street, silently collapsing.
The paper in his hand fell to the ground and was blown away by the wind; his gaze followed the paper as it drifted away.
The paper hit a tree trunk by the roadside, and he saw Tu Mi standing behind the tree, arms crossed, staring at him expressionlessly.
Summer is almost over, the ice has melted and the snow has disappeared, but they remain forever in that winter.
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