Chapter 38
I think you miss me for a longer time.
The room was dimly lit, with the television, which was still on, serving as the only light source and casting flickering light.
I watched this movie in bits and pieces.
Josh didn't get to see the complete ending.
She was completely exhausted and obediently let Chen Zhiyu pull her into his arms, and they fell onto the bed together.
Josh's mind was in a daze, she had lost the ability to think, and the only thing that flashed through her mind was the relief that this person was leaving that afternoon, otherwise she would not be able to work normally in the future.
Looking at her blank expression, Chen Zhiyu lowered his head and gently kissed her burning earlobe. He whispered something to her, but the content was partially drowned out by the noise from the television. Even the few words he uttered made Qiao Xi hide her head even lower in shame.
After the pleasure, accompanied by the background music of the movie, the two of them slept soundly and took a nap.
When she finally woke up, it was a little late. Chen Zhiyu was reluctant to let her go, and after saying a lot more, he hurriedly got up, packed his luggage, and prepared to rush to the airport.
Halfway there, the two realized they hadn't had lunch yet. Seeing that they had plenty of time, they decided to grab a quick bite nearby.
As the time for parting drew near, the meal became tasteless and unappetizing.
Josh stood outside the security checkpoint, watched Chen Zhiyu go in, and then didn't linger. He turned around, took a taxi, and went straight back to his residence.
Josh's phone kept ringing in his pocket while he was in the taxi. He didn't take it out to check the messages until he got home. The business trip group chat was exploding with messages from different people posting different food photos and funny pictures.
Several of them even tagged her directly, urging her to come quickly.
Josh didn't say he would go, he just replied to a few messages and then put down his phone.
She looked up and glanced around.
The room remained exactly as it had been when the two had hurriedly left. The brown cotton and linen curtains were only half-drawn, and Josh felt a sense of emptiness as he gazed at the empty room.
It was deserted and quiet.
Even though Chen Zhiyu only arrived last night and hadn't even stayed for 24 hours, Josh felt that his presence was already everywhere.
I'm not used to it at all.
Josh stretched, strolled to the window, and completely pulled open the thick curtains that had been blocking half the sunlight, letting the warm sunlight stream in.
Around two or three o'clock in the afternoon, the dazzling sun in the sky became a halo, and the sunlight was still quite bright.
For some reason, Josh wasn't warmed by the sunshine; instead, the emptiness inside her deepened.
After thinking about it, Josh drew the curtains again.
What should have been a leisurely moment amidst her busy schedule turned into an incredibly boring one for Josh. Lying on the sofa scrolling through her phone, the afternoon felt exceptionally long. Finally, she couldn't stay awake any longer and fell asleep.
I slept soundly for days.
Josh was woken up by the ringing of the phone.
Josh, bewildered, fumbled for his incessantly ringing phone from beside his pillow. Desperate to shut it up, he answered impatiently before even seeing who it was, "Hello, what's up?"
"What's wrong? Can't I call you if there's nothing wrong?"
The phone's audio quality was blurry, and Josh was still half asleep when he heard the familiar tone of the other person's voice. He squinted at the caller ID.
The room was pitch black, and the phone screen emitted a blinding light. It took Josh a while to adjust before he could see it clearly.
It was Feng Zhao. "What's up?"
"How heartless! I'm right outside your door. Are you home? If you are, knock on the door and I'll leave."
She tried to understand what Feng Zhao meant, but failed. "Are you sick?" Josh struggled to get up.
"I was just checking to make sure you're safe. You said you're in an unfamiliar place, I was worried you'd get lost..." Before Feng Zhao could finish speaking, Qiao Xi pulled open the door, cutting him off.
Feng Zhao was indeed standing outside her door.
He must have just come back from outside, still wearing a heavy cotton coat, leaning against the door, smoking a cigarette in one hand and making a phone call to her in the other.
Josh hung up the phone immediately, looking at him with a puzzled expression. "What's going on? Don't tell me you came here to promote secondhand smoke for no reason."
Feng Zhao didn't look into the house. He put the cigarette in his mouth and handed her the lunchbox. "Here, I brought you lunch. I must say, the steamed buns are really delicious."
After saying that, he took one last drag and quickly put out the cigarette. "It's nothing, I just felt like I hadn't heard from you all day, just wanted to make sure you were safe."
Josh touched the still-warm lunchbox, and remembering that he hadn't eaten dinner yet, he took it without hesitation, saying, "Thanks."
Feng Zhao waved his hand dismissively, "What's the big deal?"
"By the way, did you guys have fun?"
Feng Zhao rubbed his temples wearily. "Don't even mention it. These people are so energetic. They haven't stopped working from morning till night." He raised his hands to count them, as if he were making a complaint. "Shopping, eating, shopping, eating."
The content is empty and boring, but it fills you up.
"By the way, the attractions here are quite nice, but it was too cold, so we didn't explore them much."
"Are they all back?" Josh asked, unconsciously tossing the lunchbox in his hand.
"No, they were still clamoring to go sing karaoke, but I couldn't resist, so I came back after dinner."
As the sun slowly set outside, the light in the stairwell shifted, dimming and the temperature dropped. The two chatted briefly at the door, but couldn't withstand the cold and quickly ended their conversation.
"I'm off. Tomorrow it's back to the grueling work. I'm going back to rest."
Before Josh could close the door, her phone rang again. As she closed the door, she pressed the answer button, "Hello."
"What are you doing?" Chen Zhiyu asked abruptly from the other end, as if interrogating him.
"Hmm?" Josh closed the door, dragged himself into the house, put the lunchbox down, and sat on the sofa.
"Who are you talking to? I just called you, but the line was busy," Chen Zhiyu asked again.
"It's Feng Zhao. He brought me food. You've arrived?" Qiao Xi turned on the speakerphone, put the phone on the table, and opened the lunchbox that Feng Zhao had brought. Sure enough, it contained steamed buns.
Josh picked up a steamed bun and started eating. The steamed bun had absorbed the essence of the soup on the outside and was slightly crispy with a caramelized aroma. The filling was savory and fragrant, but not greasy at all.
"We're almost at the dormitory building." Chen Zhiyu's voice was a little sleepy. He yawned and continued, "I figured the things would arrive soon, so I called you."
"Huh? What's almost here?" Josh stopped chewing and asked curiously.
Instead of answering Chen Zhiyu's question, there was a knock on the door.
Josh paused, looking towards the door. He felt that the door had been used almost as often as it had in the previous few months.
Just then, Chen Zhiyu explained, "These are the things I bought." He then added, "Just to be on the safe side, you should take a look through the peephole first."
After saying that, he couldn't help but complain, "You guys live in such a remote place, you really need to be careful about your safety."
"We'd like to stay in a five-star hotel in the city center, but we don't have the funds." Besides, the factory they need to inspect is nearby.
Before the knocking could last long, Josh put down the steamed bun he had just eaten a couple of bites of and quickly went to open the door.
However, I'll listen to Chen Zhiyu first and peek outside through the peephole.
What comes into view is a bouquet of flowers.
The voice playing the loudspeaker continued to complain, "There aren't any really good flower shops around here."
Josh placed the bouquet he received from the delivery person on the coffee table and examined it. The bouquet was a diverse collection of flowers, intensely fragrant, and quite mixed. "Did you pick all these flowers? Why did you choose them like this?"
She didn't think the florist's idea was to combine these colors and varieties. Yellow and white lilies, bright yellow double-petaled freesias, and pink lychee roses.
"Because I only want flowers with a long-lasting fragrance."
"Why?" Josh naturally thought of his perfume and guessed, "You think I like strong floral scents?"
"No." Chen Zhiyu denied it at first, then slowly explained, "These are some flowers that I specially selected because they have a long-lasting fragrance. I wanted you to be able to smell the fragrance even when you're not looking at them, so you can think of me all the time."
He paused, deliberately softening his tone, with a hint of expectation in his voice, "I want you to miss me for a longer time."
“But the area where you live is really too remote. There are few flower shops and a limited variety of flowers.” He smiled helplessly. “These are some of the longest-lasting scents I could pick from the few options I had.”
Josh rarely heard such long, serious love confessions from him, and he probably couldn't say them face-to-face. This was probably why Chen Zhiyu chose to have the florist deliver the bouquet after he had left.
Whether out of shyness or something else, Chen Zhiyu didn't give her a chance to respond, then changed the subject, his tone wistful, "I even ordered dinner for you, since someone already delivered it to you..."
That plaintive voice is back again. Josh could practically picture his innocent expression in his mind, and he chuckled, "My darling ordered this, so even if he can't eat it, I have to."
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end, and then Chen Zhiyu stammered, "There's no need for that."
Josh heard a lot of noise on the phone and guessed that the person must have entered the dormitory. "You're in the dormitory?"
Chen Zhiyu hummed in agreement.
Just as Josh was about to say, "You go ahead and do your thing," Chen Zhiyu interrupted, "My roommates have all gone to the study room. I asked them to reserve a spot, and I'll tidy up a bit before I go."
The two fell silent. Josh didn't mention hanging up the phone again. She lay comfortably on the bed, listening to Chen Zhiyu packing his things, and slowly closed her eyes.
After a while, Chen Zhiyu's voice suddenly rang out, "Qiao Xi?"
"What's wrong?"
Do you have my student ID?
"Student ID?" Josh sat up, rummaging through the blankets strewn haphazardly on the bed, but saw nothing.
She remembered checking carefully before leaving to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. "No, why did you bring your student ID?"
"I came straight to you after the exam, so we packed it together."
Chen Zhiyu arrived with minimal luggage, carrying only a backpack containing a change of clothes. Qiao Xi didn't see him take anything else out of it.
She was getting anxious too. "Where did you put it? Check your pockets. You need it for your exam tomorrow, right?"
"Hmm," he said, but his voice was calm and even, without a trace of anxiety.
"Hmm, aren't you in a hurry?"
"I've looked all over here, but it's not there."
"You've already turned it over?"
"I've already looked through them all. Can you check your side?" Chen Zhiyu asked tentatively.
"How could I have this?"
"Could you help me look for it? If you can't find it, I'll contact the counselor to see how to solve it. You should also check your pockets."
"There's no way I could have it in my pocket." Even so, Josh still found the jacket she'd worn out and started rummaging through it, complaining, "How could your student ID be in my pocket? When did you start becoming so forgetful?"
The moment Josh's hand reached into her pocket, she stopped talking. Her fingers, inside her pocket, touched something hard, but she was certain it wasn't Chen Zhiyu's student ID.
A soft chuckle came from the other end of the phone, "Did you find it?"
Josh's hands trembled slightly. She took a deep breath and slowly pulled her hand out of her pocket, where she saw a red velvet box.
"Open it and take a look quickly."
Now, what didn't she understand? The whole "lost student ID" story was a lie. Josh opened the box; inside was a jade safety buckle, a very common style, an icy jade with floating green flowers, gleaming lustrous under the light.
“I went on a business trip with Boss Liu a while ago and saw him buy something for his wife. He knows a lot about these things, so I asked him to help me pick one out and bought one for you.”
Josh felt the slightly cool texture of the item in his hand, his heart churning, and his eyes welled up with tears.
Chen Zhiyu suddenly spoke, his voice low, and called her name, "Qiao Xi".
"ah?"
You need to work hard.
Josh smiled, held the safety amulet in his hand and admired it slowly, "I understand."
"Josh?"
"I'm here," Josh replied curiously.
You need to eat properly.
Josh's heart softened suddenly. "I know."
“Josh”.
"Hey." Josh sat back on the bed, ready to talk to him slowly on the phone.
You need to get some rest.
"OK."
“Josh”.
Josh was getting impatient. Why was this person going on and on? This time, her tone was impatient. "What else?"
There was a noticeable pause of a few seconds on the other end of the phone, then Chen Zhiyu said clearly and slowly, "Qiao Xi, I love you."
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