Chapter 45 What are we if not friends?
Time stood still.
The sound of the warm wind in my ears was amplified infinitely.
What is my uncle saying?
Go back to Germany?
Why did Gu Lin return to Germany?
The person in the passenger seat came to a sudden, violent stop, like a branch snapped in a storm.
Back to Germany.
Ji Tong repeated it to himself again.
It felt as if those three words had pierced my ears, leaving me deaf.
He loosened the wooden crate and reached for the car door with trembling hands.
It didn't open properly.
Another one.
Song Zhenshu didn't expect Ji Tong to react this way. Afraid that he would fall, she stepped over and grabbed Ji Tong's forearm.
"Uncle, open the door." Ji Tong's voice was blank.
Song Zhenshu: "...Where to?"
"Looking for his passport and ID card," Ji Tong said, her voice incoherent as she hadn't been drinking, "His passport and ID card are upstairs, in my backpack. He needs to get his passport back in Germany. He can't leave because his passport is with me."
"My passport and ID card are also kept together."
Song Zhenshu's hand trembled.
Song Zhenshu already knew about the passport and ID card from Gu Lin, but he didn't know that Ji Tong actually carried them with him.
It was also kept together with his passport and ID card.
Before Song Zhenshu could think it through, Ji Tong suddenly stopped.
He turned around, his left forearm still held in Song Zhenshu's hand, but he was completely unaware of it. He looked down and groped his pockets haphazardly: "Where's my phone?"
Song Zhenshu felt a pang of sadness: "Why are you looking for your phone?"
Ji Tong answered quickly.
"Look at plane tickets to Germany."
All his emotions collapsed. Song Zhenshu closed his eyes, then opened them again. He bent down to pick up his phone, which had fallen onto the wooden box, unlocked it, swiped the screen, found the surveillance software linked to the Peninsula Apartments, and opened it.
Your uncle is lying to you.
"We didn't let him go back to Germany."
"He stayed on the peninsula and didn't go anywhere else."
Song Zhenshu turned his phone screen towards Ji Tong.
In the surveillance footage, Gu Lin had changed out of his windbreaker and was now wearing loungewear, leaning against the island counter making coffee.
Ji Tong stared intently, saying nothing, until Song Zhenshu took out his own phone.
"His uncle called him."
Ji Tong seemed to finally come to her senses, raising her hand to press down Song Zhenshu's hand, her hand still tense.
a long time.
Ji Tong lowered his eyes, seemingly looking away.
“Uncle,” Ji Tong’s voice was hoarse and dry, “it’s not fun.”
"Don't try to fool me with Gu Lin's story."
Song Zhenshu placed the phone in Ji Tong's palm.
"It's not your uncle who's lying to you, it's you who's lying to yourself."
Ji Tong's thoughts stalled; he didn't understand, and suddenly turned his head away.
His phone screen was still frozen on the Peninsula surveillance footage, and Ji Tong didn't exit it; he just left it there.
Song Zhenshu also turned her face to meet his gaze.
"Ji Tong".
Ji Tong was stunned for a moment.
Since Ji Tong could remember, Song Zhenshu had always called her "Tongtong". When she was younger, she also called her "Baby" like her family members. She had never called her "Ji Tong".
This was the first time his uncle had called him by his full name.
"From the time I picked you up until today, how many messages have you sent to Gu Lin, how many times have you watched the surveillance footage, and how many video calls have you made?"
"Why do you have to know where Gu Lin went, what he did, and who he met just because he went out?"
"Why did you carry Gu Lin's ID card and passport with you at all times, and even keep them with your own?"
"Why was your first thought when I told you that Gu Lin should go back to Germany, that you should go upstairs to get your passport, check your phone, and look at flights to Germany, instead of getting angry and questioning me about why I wanted Gu Lin to go back to Germany?"
"You wouldn't even think of 'arguing' with me."
"Why?" Song Zhenshu stared at him intently.
"Because you don't have time, because you have to go find him, you have to make sure Gu Lin is by your side."
"Because nothing is more important than Gu Lin."
Ji Tong felt as if he had been drenched in a downpour, his body drenched in sweat, with only one thought remaining in his mind.
yes.
Is something wrong?
Song Zhenshu seemed to have seen through Ji Tong's thoughts.
"Are you saying that this is how you and Gu Lin get along? You've always been a clingy person since you were little, is that right?"
Just as Ji Tong was about to speak, Song Zhenshu interrupted him decisively.
"no."
"No, Tongtong."
Song Zhenshu called out "Tongtong" again, his expression no longer indifferent, but even gentler than before, yet his words were like a thunderclap—
Do you know what this is called?
"Psychological regression in intimate relationships".
"Excessive, unrealistic, and excessive fear or anxiety, or even catastrophic imagination, of separation from or anticipated separation from the object of attachment, including parents, spouse, children, or even objects or environment."
"This is not a normal way of getting along."
"It's not that I'm 'clingy,' it's anxiety."
Excessive fear, catastrophic imagination?
who?
Him?
Ji Tong felt as if an invisible force was gripping his heart, making it hard for him to breathe.
He wanted to refute, to say no, to say that this was how he and Gu Lin got along, and that it had been like this since high school, but when he opened his mouth, his throat felt as heavy as a thousand pounds, and he couldn't utter a single word.
"Tongtong, tell your uncle what you're afraid of."
Ji Tong looked at the live video on her phone.
Song Zhenshu followed his gaze.
"Are you afraid that Gu Lin will go back to Germany without saying a word again?"
"So his ID card and passport were confiscated."
"Therefore, you need to maintain constant contact to confirm that he is still by your side."
"So we installed surveillance cameras in the apartment."
Song Zhenshu sighed and, in Ji Tong's silence, raised his hand to touch his head.
"This is not how friends should interact."
Ji Tong had no strength left.
His wildly beating heart consumed all his oxygen, and he didn't even have the slightest strength to ask Song Zhenshu, "What else could he and Gu Lin be but friends?"
If you strip away the veneer of "friends," what exactly is Gu Lin?
This thought left Ji Tong feeling completely disoriented.
Eager to grasp the connection between him and Gu Lin, he began, "It's a friend..."
Song Zhenshu interrupted again.
"Okay, then Li Yuan, Cui Mingying, and Zhou Tian are also your friends. They've been with you since the first year of high school, even longer than Gu Lin."
"But why didn't you install surveillance cameras in room 411?"
"Why don't you hold them to the same standards you used for Gu Lin?"
"Let's not talk about Li Yuan and the others, let's talk about me."
“You’ve been clinging to me since we were little. Even though I’ve been abroad for so many years, you still text me every few days.”
“You were unhappy before I left the country, and said you would keep me tied to the house.”
"But have you considered confiscating my passport?"
Ji Tong's fingers trembled.
"No."
"You can't bear to part with me, but you'll still take me to the airport."
"But if I told you today that Gu Lin would go back to Germany after the New Year and come back in a year or two, would you see him off at the airport like you saw me off?"
Ji Tong squeezed out two words from her dry, aching throat: "...No."
"Yes, you can't."
"Why treat Gu Lin like this?"
"Why is he treated like this only by Gu Lin?"
The car was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
"戈戈."
"If your feelings for Gu Lin are different from his feelings for you."
"Then let him go back to Germany."
Ji Tong's face instantly lost all color.
How could Song Zhenshu not feel heartbroken?
But he still resolutely uttered his last words.
"...It will harm him."
-
"Weren't you supposed to be picking up your uncle? Why is it taking so long?"
Aunt Yang waited for Ji Tong for a long time, and the apple juice she made for him had separated into layers, so she took the elevator down to the garage to look for him.
She had only taken a few steps when she saw the uncle and nephew through the lowered driver's side window and walked over.
"Why are you all sitting in the car? Aunt Yang, what's wrong?"
Even Aunt Yang noticed something was wrong.
Ji Tong remained seated without moving, unaware of the arrival of the person.
Song Zhenshu touched Ji Tong's palm; it was ice-cold.
He sighed again, walked over the center console, pulled out the seatbelt from the passenger seat, buckled Ji Tong, and turned to Aunt Yang, saying, "Aunt Yang, you stay here with him for a while. I'm going upstairs to get something and will be right back."
Aunt Yang: "Tongtong, aren't you coming up with us?"
Song Zhenshu had already opened the car door and gotten out.
Ten minutes later, Song Zhenshu walked out of the elevator carrying Ji Tong's backpack, with Ji Tong's cotton coat and scarf hanging in her arms, and a thermos cup in her left hand.
He opened the car door, got in, and placed Ji Tong's backpack and thermos in Ji Tong's arms. He then draped the cotton coat and scarf over the passenger seat.
"Aunt Yang squeezed some apple juice, it's just warmed up, have a little."
Song Zhenshu asked Aunt Yang to go upstairs, unlocked the car, shifted gears, and stepped on the gas.
The sunlight, replacing the garage's LED strip lights, shone on Ji Tong's face, and her eyelids felt as if they had been burned.
He finally raised his eyes.
"...Where to?" Ji Tong asked in a low voice.
Song Zhenshu: "Close your eyes and sleep for a while. Your uncle will wake you when we arrive."
-
Fifty-one minutes later, the car stopped at the Peninsula Apartments.
Song Zhenshu unbuckled Ji Tong's seatbelt and took the cotton coat and scarf hanging on the back of the chair.
"It's cold outside, put on some warm clothes before you get off the bus."
Having barely slept all night, driven for several hours straight, fought a "battle" with Gu Lin, and then dealt another blow to Ji Tong, Song Zhenshu was utterly exhausted, both physically and mentally.
But he didn't come to "throw" Ji Tong to Gu Lin.
Song Zhenshu knew that Ji Tong liked Gu Lin.
Gu Lin knew this as well.
But Gu Lin wanted more than just "liking".
Spurred by his "blow" today, and with the unprecedented anxiety brought about by "Gu Lin's return to Germany," Ji Tong would walk towards him even if Gu Lin didn't speak or say anything.
This is definitely "like".
But that's not enough.
Because Song Zhenshu knew better than anyone that once the two crossed the line of "friends," Gu Lin would never let go.
Ji Tong had no chance to back out halfway.
He had to find his place, like Gu Lin, to think about "death" and "life," to confirm that it was love and not a compromise under the anxiety of separation, before solemnly taking this step that would completely change the trajectory of his life.
"If you still don't understand your feelings for Gu Lin."
"Then let's use 'keeping our distance' as a counter-proof."
Ji Tong felt as if she had been living a dream without end.
Just like in the morning, the fog dissipated, and the view changed from an ancient castle to an apartment building.
Now we're back in the apartment.
Ji Tong could unlock the door with her fingerprint, but Song Zhenshu still pressed the doorbell.
The doorbell, connected to the brass bell on the door, rang out three clear, crisp sounds.
Like a wind chime on the eaves, warning the world.
A dozen seconds later, the door was opened from the inside.
Song Zhenshu gently pushed the wet and wrinkled Ji Tong forward—
"I'm going to have a smoke."
"You have twenty minutes."
"Twenty minutes later, I took Tongtong back to Anhui University."
Song Zhenshu's gaze swept past Ji Tong and fixed on Gu Lin.
"Before winter break, I want him to behave himself and stay in the dormitory."
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