Chapter 60
Who is Xue Shangyang?
I sat sideways on Monday, thinking over and over again.
Why did Yang Ye feel so uncomfortable? Why did fear and terror suddenly appear in her eyes when she saw him? Why did Yang Ye call out that strange name when he hugged him? He looked at his phone. From last night until now, this matter had made his heart hang in the balance and he couldn't let it go.
Leaning back in his chair, he looked up at the dim yellow light on the coffee shop's ceiling. He opened his phone's address book and found Yang Ye's number. His finger hovered over it, but he didn't have the courage to press it.
He grabbed the coffee that had just been served and guzzled it, nearly burning his tongue. The burning heat and the bitter, burnt taste of the coffee slid down his throat. He felt an inexplicable unease and a sense of unease hanging in the air. It was like when you're unpacking takeout chopsticks and a small bamboo stick gets stuck in your finger. You can feel the stick sticking in your finger, but there's no way to get it out.
Chen Yuan pushed open the door to the coffee shop, and the wind chimes hanging on the door chimed as he pushed. Zhou Yiheng was the only customer in the entire shop. He sat at a window table with a nearly finished cup of coffee in front of him.
"What about the others? Haven't they arrived yet?" Chen Yuan walked over, pulled out the chair opposite Zhou Yiheng, and put the file bag in his hand on the table.
Zhou Yiheng was still thinking. He looked up and said, "Professor Li and Sister Xiao Xiao went to buy water first. The boss is still in the hotel and hasn't come yet."
"I want a latte," Chen Yuan nodded and waved to the clerk behind the counter.
"Hot or cold?" the clerk asked.
"It's cold, Shao Bing." Chen Yuan sat down.
Zhou Yiheng, still thinking about Xue Shangyang, opened his phone and searched Baidu. He typed the information in, but the result wasn't what he'd hoped. It was perfectly normal. If someone like you could find information about you on Baidu, it would be even more confusing.
He pursed his lips in self-mockery, took a long breath, and drank the remaining warm coffee in one gulp.
Perhaps because they were not familiar with each other, Chen Yuan and Zhou Yiheng did not have much to talk about. The coffee shop was very quiet, with only the sound of the air conditioner blowing out. The waiter came to bring the coffee he had just ordered. Chen Yuan took a sip and looked at Zhou Yiheng who was sitting across from him. He was in his twenties, and his face still had the childishness of a boy. The loose hair on his forehead was blown slightly by the air conditioner. He grabbed a handful of hair, revealing his smooth forehead. His brow bones were neat and clean, and his eye sockets were shallowly sunken. When he looked at people, there was always a sense of strange distance.
He wore an off-white hooded sweatshirt, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing the distinct joints of his wrists. He rested his chin on one hand while tapping the other lightly on the edge of the table. His sitting posture wasn't entirely straight, his back not quite touching the chair, his shoulder blades slightly hunched, his head leaning forward. He sat slouched, exuding the casual energy characteristic of youth.
He seemed to be lost in thought, his face drooping from the moment he entered. Chen Yuan's gaze paused briefly on Zhou Yiheng's face, and then something struck him. He quickly rummaged through the leather bag and found a photo in his diary that he had discovered yesterday in the compartment of the suitcase.
The curled-up photo paper had become brittle, and dark brown mold still clung to the edges. The two people in the photo were a little blurry, but one could still make out they were standing in front of the old gatehouse of the courtyard. They were standing side by side, very close together, and the curve of their hands, tightly clasped, was still clearly visible through the blur.
The girl's appearance in the photo was somewhat blurred by the crease, and only her slightly curly hair and light-colored skirt could be seen. But the man standing next to her was still there.
Chen Yuan's hand, raised from his cup of coffee, suddenly paused. The man in the photo wore a perfectly pressed white shirt, the collar slightly open. His brow bones were prominent, his eye sockets slightly sunken, his nose straight, and his jaw sharply defined. While the barely defined features weren't particularly striking, it was his eyes that truly caught his attention. Even through the photo, one could sense his coldness, the distance that held him at arm's length.
Chen Yuan looked at the photo, then looked up at the furrowed young man sitting across from him. A strange thought suddenly crossed his mind. He felt as if these two people somehow overlapped, or at least to some degree.
He took a sip of coffee, perhaps trying to suppress his strange thoughts. His eyes kept darting between the photo and Zhou Yiheng's face, looking back and forth countless times. He turned the photo over again and saw the line of pen writing on the back.
'In the autumn of the 15th year of the Republic of China, I took a photo with Zhao Zhao at the gate tower'
Perhaps Chen Yuan's gaze lingered on Zhou Yiheng's face for too long, and he noticed something strange. Zhou Yiheng touched his face twice, and asked in confusion, "Is there something on my face?"
"No." Chen Yuan looked away. Seeing Zhou Yiheng talking to him, he was stunned for a moment, then shook his head and laughed self-deprecatingly. The idea that had just occurred to him was absurd. People are similar, things are similar, it's a common sense, so why would he think these two people were the same?
"I found an old photo at home a few days ago, and the man in it looks a lot like you," Chen Yuan smiled awkwardly. "If this photo wasn't almost 70 or 80 years old, I would have really thought it was you. But I have to say, at first glance, you and the guy in the photo do look alike, especially when it comes to your eyebrows and eyes."
Although Chen Yuan's tone was joking, Zhou Yiheng only felt a little confused. He was about to ask what kind of photo it was and how similar it was, but he saw Chen Yuan put the photo on the table and moved it towards him.
When Zhou Yiheng's eyes fell on the photo, his throat seemed to be blocked by something and his breathing suddenly stopped.
At a glance, he recognized the blurry silhouette of the girl in the photo as Yang Ye, wearing a light-colored long dress. The man beside her, his profile facing the light, had the defined brow bones and a taut jawline. He looked like him, but there was an unconcealed sharpness in his eyes, and a certainty as he stood beside Yang Ye.
That person looks like me, but not me.
He stared intently at the stranger in the photo, who looked almost like him, his pupils suddenly constricting. Zhou Yiheng seemed to have a sudden thought. He pinched the photo with his knuckles until they turned white, his Adam's apple twitching twice. After a long pause, he asked Chen Yuan, his voice trembling with disbelief and fear, "Who is this man?"
"His name is Xue Shangyang, and he was my grandfather's teacher back then," said Chen Yuan.
"Xue, Xue Shangyang" Zhou Yiheng repeated the name.
For no apparent reason, he felt a sudden tightening in his chest, as if something were gripping him. Then, a dull pain, mixed with a suffocating pain, washed over him, and even his fingers began to numb. His mind went blank, and he froze in his chair, his back stiff. Zhou Yi stared at the photo horizontally, motionless for a long moment.
Why this name? Why this name? Those three words, like a key, untangled the confusion that had been clogging his heart. But the more he understood, the more absurd this matter seemed to him. It was as if something had struck him again, and a sense of emptiness spread, until it finally turned into a bewildered, awkward feeling.
"My grandfather often said that the division commander was the person he admired most in his life," Chen Yuan continued on the opposite side. "He was willing to sacrifice and gain, and he dared to love and hate. He was shot several times but still held on to the gun and refused to retreat. I heard from my father that in his last few years, the old man was still talking about this division commander."
"Is he the person you are looking for?" Zhou Yiheng asked.
"Why am I looking for him? He's been dead for almost 60 or 70 years. I'm looking for the woman in the photo, maybe her descendants."
"What is their relationship?" Zhou Yiheng asked with a tight throat.
In the photo, they stood side by side, not deliberately close, yet he could sense that unique intimacy even through the decades-long photos. Their hands were held together, not too tightly, their fingertips perfectly connected. Zhou Yi stared at the two people in the photo, his eyes aching.
"What else could it be? My love." Chen Yuan smiled and took out a notebook from the cowhide bag. "This notebook also belongs to that division commander. Before he left, he entrusted all the things he had with him to my grandfather and asked him to make sure to hand these things over to Zhao Zhao. But there was chaos and war at that time, and after so many years, there is still no trace of this person. I guess Zhao Zhao should be gone, but her descendants should still exist. Giving it to her descendants is equivalent to giving it to her."
Zhou Yiheng's gaze was fixed on Yang Ye in the photo. That day in the old house, Yang Ye's expression suddenly changed when he saw her. She rushed over and hugged him tightly, shaking with tears. It turned out that it wasn't all for her, but because, through herself, she saw another person.
He felt like an outsider, and when he saw himself inexplicably becoming the shadow of someone else, he felt a helpless and sour feeling that spread from his throat to his heart, and even his whole body felt weak and numb.
The wind chimes in the coffee shop rang again.
Yang Ye walked in from the doorway, the afternoon sun hitting her right on her. Her face was expressionless, and she habitually glanced sideways at Zhou Yi. When her eyes fell on the photo he was holding, her steps suddenly stopped.
If what Chen Yuan said was true, if his guess was correct, then Yang Ye was Zhao Zhao, and Xue Shangyang in the photo was her former lover.
Zhou Yiheng's gaze switched between the photo and Yang Ye's face, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. From the 15th year of the Republic of China to now, a full ninety years had passed. Even if she were to calculate her age based on the photo, she should be a centenarian by now. But the man before him, in both age and appearance, looked exactly like him, still around twenty years old.
"Who are you?" Zhou Yiheng heard his own voice trembling, and the photo in his hand was almost crushed by him.
Yang Ye's lips moved, as if she wanted to say something. Zhou Yiheng's gaze passed over her and saw Li Cheng and Xiao Xiao who had just walked in, both holding unfinished milk tea in their hands. Seeing the stagnant atmosphere in the room, their steps slowed down.
Li Cheng was puzzled. Seeing Zhou Yiheng's pale face, he asked, "What's wrong?"
"Who is she?" Zhou Yiheng looked at Li Cheng and asked.
"Yang Ye," Li Cheng replied.
"Yes, she is Yang Ye. What about Zhao Zhao? Is Zhao Zhao not her?" Zhou Yiheng asked.
Li Cheng paused, and when he saw the photo in his hand, his eyes suddenly darkened. "You know?"
His hands trembled slightly as he held onto the edge of the table. Zhou Yiheng saw Yang Ye, and he seemed to have figured out a lot of things. Some of the words that had sounded strange to him before, now seemed to make sense to him in an instant. No wonder Li Cheng always talked about her for so many years, no wonder they said she had been gone for so long, it really was a long time ago.
"So," Zhou Yiheng's voice was hoarse and he swallowed hard, "so you recruited me, so you treat me well. In fact, it's not me at all, it's just because I look like him, right?"
Chen Yuan also felt something was a little strange. He noticed something, stood up, saw Yang Ye, looked at the photo again, and asked in a questioning and puzzled tone: "Boss Yang, what's going on?"
Yang Ye's gaze shifted, she looked at Zhou Yiheng, her eyes were complicated, with regret, sorrow, and confusion, but in the end, it all turned into that one sentence, "I'm sorry."
These three words suddenly hit Zhou Yiheng. He looked at Yang Ye opposite him and thought of the look in Yang Ye's eyes when he looked at him when they first met. The look was a mixture of surprise, nostalgia, and even a surprise that could not be hidden and was almost conscious.
It turns out that from the beginning, it was not for myself.
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