Chapter 32
Zhou Ping'an's car drove into a quiet, but obviously older, residential complex in the city center. The buildings were small and had no elevators.
He led Liu Yifan up to the third floor. The corridor was quiet and a little dim, a characteristic of old-style houses.
As I opened the door and walked in, I was greeted by the smell of a mixture of old books, solid wood furniture and a hint of cool air.
The house was indeed not spacious as he said. It was a typical three-bedroom, two-living-room layout built in the early 2000s, about 90 square meters.
The decor was stuck in its era: beige polished tile floors, dark wood walls, and a long-outdated ceiling light. The living room, consisting of only a set of old, hard-looking sofas and a coffee table, felt empty and desolate, more like a hallway than a warm, family-friendly core.
Aside from the south-facing master bedroom and a small, closed study to the north, the door to the second bedroom was half-open, revealing a pile of cardboard boxes and old items on the floor, leaving almost no room to step. The space wasn't exactly cluttered, but it also lacked any signs of meticulous care, lacking a sense of "living" and resembling a functional, temporary shelter.
Liu Yifan put down his simple luggage and glanced inconspicuously at the overly plain, even time-stood space. Finally, he couldn't help but ask the question that had been lingering in his mind:
"Mr. Zhou, with your ability, why haven't you considered moving to a more... comfortable and convenient house?" She tried her best to make her tone sound like a casual chat rather than an inquiry.
Zhou Ping'an was bending over to get her slippers when he paused imperceptibly. He stood up without answering immediately. His eyes seemed to pass across the empty wall of the living room, and he fell into a brief moment of contemplation.
After a few seconds, he turned his gaze back to me. His tone was as calm as if he was talking about someone else, and no emotion could be heard: "I bought a big house at the beginning. Later, my girlfriend and I broke up, so I left it to her. Then I moved back here."
This answer completely surprised Liu Yifan. She had considered many possibilities—like nostalgia, a fear of trouble, or simply a lack of material desires—but she had never imagined a past filled with such...humanity, even generosity.
She was slightly startled and subconsciously asked: "Then... where is this place?"
"My mom left this house before she went abroad," Zhou Ping'an replied simply. He walked to the kitchen to boil water. His back looked ordinary, but his words were like a pebble dropped into the silent water. "She and my dad separated a long time ago. When I was eleven, she decided to go abroad. They agreed to leave this house to me."
He paused, as if adding some necessary background information, his voice smooth, "I've lived here since I graduated from college."
As the words fell, the only sound in the room was the faint hum of the kettle heating up.
Liu Yifan stood there, and suddenly felt that the slightly outdated and cold space around him was infused with a new and heavy meaning.
She seemed to be able to see the eleven-year-old boy experiencing the separation of his family here; and she also saw the newly graduated, silent and focused young man returning here with a simple bag, immersed in his world of laboratory and drawings, day after day, year after year, until this house was completely imbued with his isolated, pure and quiet temperament.
This house was not a "simple" one he deliberately chose, but an anchor point in his life trajectory, carrying a silent and perhaps not easy past.
The "clumsiness" and "loneliness" she had felt before now had a more specific and more frightening source.
A complex emotion spread in her heart. It was not just the satisfaction of curiosity, but also mixed with an indescribable touch, and even... a hint of bitterness.
She had come to "demystify" him, to pull him down from the altar. But now she suddenly realized that perhaps he had never been on the altar. He simply stood there, frozen in time, constructing another vast and magnificent world with an almost obsessive focus.
And the object of her so-called "rebellion" may have been, from the very beginning, a being more complex and more...lonely than she had imagined.
This "field survey" had just begun, and she had already collected an extremely heavy amount of "samples" that far exceeded her expectations.
Liu Yifan stood at the door of the master bedroom, his eyes subconsciously scanning the room. The furnishings were still minimalist: a bed, a wardrobe, a desk, and no unnecessary decorations.
However, her eyes were quickly drawn to the wall at the head of the bed.
There is nothing there.
Three posters were placed side by side. The paper had yellowed slightly, the edges curled, revealing the marks of time. The girl on the poster had youthful features and a bright smile. She wore a popular teenage stage costume, brimming with the youthful vitality and yearning that was unique to that age, untouched by worldly experience.
That was herself. Her fifteen or sixteen-year-old self.
Liu Yifan's breathing paused, almost imperceptibly. Of course she recognized it; it was a promotional photo taken when she had just debuted, before she'd experienced too much trouble. It was so distant that she'd almost forgotten it.
The air seemed to stagnate for a few seconds.
Zhou Ping'an had clearly noticed her gaze. He followed her gaze, which rested on the posters, and a rare, almost awkward, uneasiness flashed across his face. He raised his hand and rubbed the tip of his nose with the knuckle of his index finger, a subtle, almost unconscious gesture he rarely made.
"Ahem," he coughed lightly, trying to sound as casual and normal as possible, but his slightly shifted gaze still betrayed a hint of embarrassment. "I put it on a long time ago. Then... I got too lazy to tear it off."
His explanation was as pale as a piece of paper, trying to cover up the panic of having his privacy exposed.
Liu Yifan turned and looked at him. A mixture of wonder, inquiry, and a subtle, indescribable emotion spread through her heart. She suddenly remembered what Zhao Feng had said in the lab, "The university dorm is covered with them." It turned out to be true. Furthermore, this "habit" seemed to continue even now, in his private space.
She blurted it out almost without thinking, with a curiosity she hadn't anticipated, even forgetting the subtle relationship between the two of them: "Observer" and "Observed":
"Your ex-girlfriend...didn't you mind when she came?" After asking, she realized that this question was too personal, but she couldn't take it back.
Zhou Ping'an's embarrassment faded slightly upon hearing this, as if he had found a more self-consistent excuse. He shook his head, a faint, almost self-deprecating smile curling up the corners of his mouth.
"She's never been here." His tone calmed down, as if he was stating an objective fact. "When we were together, I had already bought that big house. She's always lived there. Here... she doesn't know about it, and she's never been here."
His words were concise but packed with information.
This means that this room with her old poster on it, this space that retains the marks and secrets of his youth, has never been set foot in by any other woman. It is a completely personal and closed past that belongs to him.
He gave the big house, which symbolized "adulthood," "success," and "new life," to his ex-girlfriend without any regrets, and returned to the original starting point that bore the marks of adolescence.
Liu Yifan suddenly didn't know how to respond.
She felt as if she had accidentally opened a door that had never been opened to anyone else, and glimpsed the carefully sealed, clumsy but stubborn soft corner deep in the heart of a rational to the point of being cold.
The object she tried to "demystify" and "rebel against" suddenly became more complex and...specific than ever before.
Liu Yifan was silent for a few seconds, digesting the complex feelings brought on by this information. She looked up at the yellowed posters again. They were like amber, solidifying Zhou Ping'an's unknown and stubborn past, and also reflecting her own long-faded youth.
She thought for a moment, then said in a tentative, relaxed, and natural tone, half jokingly and half seriously:
"Or... should we tear it down?" She pointed at the wall and turned her gaze to Zhou Ping'an, trying to catch the subtle reaction from his face. "Otherwise, for the next period of time, I'll be living here, facing my teenage self every day... It'll feel a bit weird and awkward."
After Liu Yifan's suggestion, the air seemed to freeze. Zhou Ping'an's gaze once again turned to the three yellowed posters on the wall, as if he was examining a sealed youth for the last time.
His gaze lingered on the poster for two or three full seconds, a complex expression in his eyes, as if he were bidding an inner farewell. Then, he slowly turned his head, his gaze settling on Liu Yifan before him—no longer the illusory symbol of youth on the poster, but a real, living woman standing in his personal space, with a hint of tentative tension.
He looked at her, and for the first time he realized so clearly that the image he had admired for many years was actually standing here and making a request to him about the "present" and the "future".
Suddenly, a very shallow, yet incredibly genuine smile curved up the corners of his mouth. That smile carried a sense of relief, even a hint of barely perceptible self-mockery. He nodded, his tone calm but remarkably clear:
"OK."
This straightforward agreement actually left Liu Yifan slightly stunned. She had anticipated various reactions and even prepared further explanations, but she didn't expect him to agree so readily.
Zhou Ping'an said nothing more. He walked straight to the bedside, leaned over, and carefully grasped the top corner of a poster. The paper was brittle from age, and the edges were firmly glued. He didn't tear it roughly. Instead, he used his fingertips to patiently and gently twist the raised corners, then slowly and evenly peeled the entire poster down the wall.
His movements were focused and gentle, not like clearing out an old object, but more like completing a solemn ritual.
After peeling off the first sheet, he gently rolled it up and placed it on the desk. Then he peeled off the second sheet, and the third. Throughout this process, the room was so quiet that the only sound was the subtle rustling of the paper separating from the wall.
When the last poster was taken down, three lighter-colored, regularly shaped marks were left on the wall, like scars left by time, clearly recording a covered-up past.
Zhou Pingan rolled up the three posters, holding them in his hands. He turned and looked at Liu Yifan, who was still a little stunned. His eyes had returned to their usual calm and indifferent state, but the relieved smile seemed to have not yet completely faded.
"Well," he said, shaking the paper in his hand, his tone as calm as if he were discussing an ordinary business matter, "is this okay?"
Liu Yifan looked at the three blank spaces on the wall, then at the "past" rolled up in his hands, representing his long obsession. An indescribable complex emotion welled up in her heart. She nodded and said softly, "Thank you."
At this moment, she clearly felt that the one-way gaze between them, the product of a long time, had been quietly opened. A new, more authentic relationship, rooted in the present, seemed to have the possibility of beginning.
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