Chapter 96
Perhaps fearing that his talkativeness would bother Xu Qingzhou, Li Rui rambled on for a while, but seeing that Xu Qingzhou was sitting in the back seat and it was inconvenient for him to reply, he stopped talking.
Back in the small rented room, Li Rui had indeed prepared the meal.
While he was busy heating up the dishes, Xu Qingzhou took a moment to pick up his phone and glance at it.
No new calls came in.
No new messages.
"Hey little sister, where are your chopsticks?"
Xu Qingzhou looked up, and Li Rui was opening the roast chicken packaging as he spoke:
"Let me tear this chicken into strips first, so it'll be easier to eat."
Xu Qingzhou quickly put down his phone and went to the cupboard to get chopsticks.
Li Rui reached out to take it, but Xu Qingzhou gently shook his head and took the initiative to use two chopsticks to pick at the roast chicken.
Li Rui had no intention of competing with her for the job, and said with a smile:
"Okay, then you tear it up, and I'll reheat the chicken strips."
"After lunch, you should rest early. I'll wake you up at the appointed time."
Li Rui truly kept his word. When Xu Qingzhou's lunch break was almost over, Li Rui woke her up and personally took her to school on his electric scooter.
Just before entering the school gate, Li Rui pulled out a bottle of medicated oil from somewhere and applied it to Xu Qingzhou's temples, leaving a cool sensation around his head.
"It's easy to feel stuffy and lethargic in the summer, so applying a little bit of this can refresh and invigorate you."
Xu Qingzhou smiled and waved to him.
"Go ahead, I'll come pick you up tonight."
Xu Qingzhou: [No need for anesthesia]
Li Rui turned the car around before she could finish speaking: "Hey, stop talking nonsense, I'm happy to."
Xu Qingzhou had no choice but to put away his pen and paper and watch Li Rui drive away.
The afternoon exam was math.
Compared to the previous second and third mock exams, today's questions were slightly more difficult.
Throughout the exam, sighs and groans could be heard from all directions. When the papers were finally collected, some students were still writing frantically, and were sternly warned by the invigilators.
The atmosphere among the candidates was very tense when they left the examination room.
Most of the students from Lianghua Middle School took their exams at the school itself. As Xu Qingzhou walked towards the school gate with the crowd, he saw a girl who looked somewhat familiar talking to a boy next to her.
They probably didn't do well on the test; the girl spoke with a sob in her voice, and the boy kept wailing that the teacher who set the test was inhuman.
Li Rui had been waiting by the green belt on the right side of the school gate for a long time.
This is the old place that Chi Jun told him to pick up Xu Qingzhou.
As he eagerly awaited Xu Qingzhou's return, he saw a large group of students emerge, most of them with serious and solemn expressions. Some even burst into tears the moment their parents asked, "What do you want to eat tonight?"
This crying not only made the parents gathered at the school gate feel uneasy, but even Li Rui, who had been conscripted, felt a little panicked, and his mind raced through all sorts of terrible scenarios.
When Xu Qingzhou was picked up, he asked all sorts of questions, but dared not utter a single word about the exam.
When I finished packing up and was getting ready to go home that evening, I mumbled something in a daze:
"Little sister, I'll be there with breakfast at eight o'clock sharp tomorrow morning."
What he got in return was a puzzled look on Xu Qingzhou's face.
Brother Li Rui, I don't have an exam tomorrow morning, my English exam is in the afternoon.
Li Rui then realized that the exam schedule Xu Jun had given him did indeed seem to include a free morning.
"Uh... haha, I didn't remember clearly, sorry, sorry."
Xu Qingzhou smiled.
Brother Li Rui, be careful on your way back.
“I know,” Li Rui waved his hand, “Then I’ll ride the electric bike away first.”
Xu Qingzhou nodded.
After Li Rui left, Xu Qingzhou took a shower in the public bathroom on the first floor, and then wrote another set of test papers when he came back.
Before going to bed, she picked up her phone and glanced at it again.
Still no news.
She remembered Chi Jun's words, "I'll be too busy to text or call you then," and a slight smile appeared on her lips. In the end, she didn't send anything, locked her phone, put it aside, and turned off the light.
The night passed, and the next day, Xu Qingzhou got up as usual.
Just as I was about to make breakfast, Li Rui came over.
Besides steamed buns and soy milk for breakfast, he was also carrying ingredients for lunch. Seeing that Xu Qingzhou looked like she was about to get busy, he shooed her into the house to eat breakfast and ordered her not to do any housework.
Xu Qingzhou smiled helplessly and had no choice but to do as he was told.
To practice her English test skills, she did another test after breakfast and practiced her English listening comprehension for a while.
With the perfect combination of skills and habits, Xu Qingzhou wrote with ease during the afternoon's English exam. While other students in the exam room were still writing furiously, Xu Qingzhou had already begun his second self-check.
There are only two elective courses left to take, and they will be taken tomorrow morning.
The elective courses are not as difficult as Chinese, Mathematics, and English, and the grades are ranked according to A, B, C, and D and are not included in the total score, so they are less important to the candidates.
The test takers seemed to have already glimpsed the dawn of freedom. Even though the math exam dealt them a heavy blow yesterday afternoon, the joy of impending freedom had somewhat overshadowed their disappointment.
Li Rui and the others at the door could clearly see that the students' auras were different from yesterday.
What puzzled him was that Xu Qingzhou's expression wasn't much better than yesterday; in fact, he seemed to have something on his mind.
Li Rui dared not speak, much less ask, so he racked his brains to steer the conversation to another topic.
Until Xu Qingzhou gently patted his shoulder from behind at a traffic light intersection.
Li Rui turned his head and saw a line of elegant handwriting written on the paper:
[Brother Li Rui, has Chi Jun contacted you?]
It's not surprising that Xu Qingzhou had something on her mind. After all, Chi Jun and she had never lost contact for more than 24 hours before, and this kind of disconnection always made Xu Qingzhou feel a little strange.
No.
Li Rui casually chimed in, then realized that the girl was feeling down because she missed her boyfriend.
Although Xu Jun didn't send any messages to his girlfriend about the college entrance exam, Li Rui felt that he hadn't done a good job in this regard. But right now, comforting the college entrance exam taker was clearly the more important thing.
Li Rui opened his mouth and said:
"He hasn't contacted you either, has he?"
Xu Qingzhou nodded slightly.
"I don't know him yet. He's afraid that saying one more word will put pressure on you. After all, candidates are usually very sensitive at times like this, so this approach can't be said to be wrong."
"Okay, when he comes back from his business trip, let's all give him a piece of our minds and make him pay dearly."
Xu Qingzhou gently tugged at the corner of her mouth, but didn't say anything.
When she got home, the first thing she did was pick up her phone and check it.
As expected, there was still no news of Chi Jun.
After thinking for a while, Xu Qingzhou couldn't resist and sent a "cat rolling around" emoji.
After sending the message, Xu Qingzhou waited for a while.
There was no response.
They're probably really busy and don't have time to reply to messages.
But is it really true that there isn't even time to reply to a message?
Xu Qingzhou didn't wait any longer. She put down her phone and went to help Li Rui cook.
Li Rui loves to cook, especially when he is entrusted with the important task of taking care of the college entrance examination candidates. He is even more excited. For a simple dinner, he actually carefully cooks three dishes and a soup, striving for a balanced diet with meat and vegetables, and a perfect combination of color, aroma and taste.
Xu Qingzhou was both amused and exasperated, but also very grateful.
When Li Rui returned home that evening, she thanked him very sincerely.
Li Rui, who is usually very easygoing, blushed unexpectedly and waved his hand rather embarrassedly: "Hey, don't say that! When Xu Jun comes back, I'll make him treat me to a big meal! A week's worth of big meals!"
Xu Qingzhou nodded seriously.
Li Rui is gone.
Xu Qingzhou watched him leave, the smile on her lips gradually fading.
She turned and went back into the house, picking up her phone again and opening WeChat.
Three hours have passed.
The latest message in her chat with Chi Jun is still that same emoji she sent.
Xu Qingzhou forced herself not to look at her phone, but it was as if a curious kitten was scratching at her heart from time to time, making her restless and wanting to touch her phone all the time.
Before going to sleep, Xu Qingzhou scrolled through her chat history with Chi Jun. After a while, her finger involuntarily tapped into his homepage.
In that instant, a powerful thought flashed through her mind—
She wanted to make a phone call.
At least listen to his voice.
But the moment his finger touched the screen, before even the ringtone sounded, Xu Qingzhou, like a startled bird, quickly hung up the phone.
Xu Qingzhou turned off the light and lay down, staring motionlessly at the empty half of the bed—the place where Chi Jun should have been lying—using the faint moonlight filtering in from the window.
She didn't know what she was afraid of.
But the moment she made that call, she was afraid.
An inexplicable panic and sadness filled her chest like smoke, intangible yet impossible to dispel.
*
A few days later, Xu Qingzhou finally understood what the fear that filled his heart at that time was.
She was afraid that Chi Jun would disappear.
She was afraid that once she made that call, all she would hear was a long, endless ringing.
Perhaps it was because Chi Jun would always hug her inexplicably, say he missed her, and look at her smiling that left a bad feeling in her sensitive heart.
Even though Xu Qingzhou quickly hung up the phone, the reality was still relentlessly pushed to her face by time—
Chi Jun disappeared.
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