Chapter 32

After the New Year's holiday, there were two days of consecutive exams.

Shao Yihuai sent something over every night, sometimes in person, sometimes through Uncle Zong. The gifts were always little trinkets: snacks, beverages, delicate small jewelry, and even stationery stickers.

The day after the exams ended, the winter break officially began, and Chu Tong packed her luggage to return to her hometown.

Lu Zhiyun, her roommate, lived in Shanghai. Being a junior, she had many chores to attend to, but since the break had arrived, she had no intention of staying in the dormitory.

"I’m going to stay at the Ren family’s place for a few days," Lu Zhiyun said. "You know Ren Mingyuan, right? Brother Shao's good friend. I’m staying at his sister's house this time. I'll pick up some news and tell you all about it when I get back."

Chu Tong’s eyes lit up. "Great!"

"Is Brother Shao coming to pick you up?"

"Yes, he seems to be at the West Gate already. I have to go."

Chu Tong double-checked the ID documents in her small bag and gave Lu Zhiyun a hug. "Sister, I'm off. Have a wonderful holiday."

When she was embraced, Lu Zhiyun froze for a moment; at one meter seventy-five, she remained stiff in that position. "...Go on then."

Chu Tong pulled her suitcase, shouldered her bag, and left the dormitory.

The Maybach was parked at the temporary stop by the West Gate. Uncle Zong had been keeping an eye out the window, and as soon as he spotted Miss Chu, he immediately opened the door, got out, and hurried over. "Let me, let me."

He opened the trunk and put the suitcase inside. Chu Tong waited by the side until Uncle Zong was finished before getting into the car with him.

Shao Yihuai was on the other side of the back seat, working with a small desk board propped up. He turned his head to look at her and said, "Wait a moment, I have an urgent matter."

Chu Tong nodded.

Afraid of disturbing his work, she didn't make a sound. She would occasionally turn to look at him, at the hands he kept on the keyboard—slender fingers with faint veins visible on the back of his hands—and her gaze would inevitably linger for a moment longer than intended.

It wasn't until he closed his laptop, tucked the desk board into the armrest box, and finished a phone call giving instructions that he finally had a moment to spare. He reached out and flicked her cheek. "I envy you, having such a long break."

"I’m the one who envies you, being able to stand on your own feet."

Shao Yihuai laughed. "No need to envy me. In two years, you’ll be able to do the same."

"So, when does your group go on holiday?"

"The 22nd."

The New Year held little meaning for him; between maintaining relationships inside and outside the family and a succession of banquets and gatherings, he couldn't carve out a single moment of leisure throughout the entire holiday.

He asked, "What are your plans for the winter break?"

"Preparing for the IELTS, finding a part-time job," Chu Tong replied, "and then I have to visit a few of my high school teachers with Brother Yuan."

Shao Yihuai went quiet. "...Xiang Chengyuan, does he like you?"

"I don't know," Chu Tong shrugged. "He’s a good person, but he’s not just good to me. Besides, he hasn't made any overt romantic gestures, and I don't have the standing to investigate it too clearly. Ignorance is bliss, after all."

The profound wisdom of not letting everything weigh on one's heart.

Shao Yihuai’s gaze flickered. He remained silent for a moment, then let out a soft laugh. "...When you were investigating me before, you were so meticulous, asking about every detail. Why not talk about 'ignorance is bliss' then?"

"How could that be the same?" she feigned surprise. "You are you; you are the one person I most need to figure out."

Shao Yihuai laughed aloud and shook his head lightly, seemingly helpless at her deliberate attempt to curry favor.

Chu Tong pretended to be serious. "Don't laugh, I'm being very sincere."

"Hmm," Shao Yihuai looked at her, asking unhurriedly, "So, have you figured me out now?"

His expression was normal, his tone steady and without waves, but under his deep, piercing gaze, Chu Tong felt there was a suggestive, romantic undertone to his words.

She held up a finger in warning. "Don't be a rogue."

Shao Yihuai looked as if he had been wronged. "What did I do?"

"You know yourself."

"I do know."

"You!" Chu Tong frantically signaled to him with her eyes: Uncle Zong is still in the car, behave yourself.

"What about me? I can't be 'don't know,' and I can't be 'know'."

He chuckled softly.

Chu Tong made a gesture of biting him, "Grrr," she went. "Just you wait, I’ll settle accounts with you another day."

Shao Yihuai looked her up and down, a meaningful glint in his eyes. "I'll be waiting," he said. "Just don't forget."

In the driver’s seat, Uncle Zong felt like he was being roasted alive by the two people in the back.

Finally, they reached the South Station.

Shao Yihuai got out to help her with her luggage and walked her to the entrance.

Chu Tong felt it was truly miraculous. In the past, she had only ever been seen off by her mother when leaving home. Now, leaving Beijing to return to her hometown, there was actually someone to see her off as well.

In Beijing, she finally had someone to tether her heart.

Because it was the peak of the college students' holiday travel, the line at the entrance was very long. He stood in the queue with her, stroked her cheek, and asked, "Will you miss me?"

She pouted in a coquettish reply instead of answering.

Shao Yihuai leaned down and kissed her, smiling as he said, "In a month, I’ll be waiting for you to come back and settle accounts with me."

"Be serious for once."

"If we don't settle it clearly, I won't let you go."

Seeing that he wouldn't hold back, she simply gave up and played along. "Fine, you just wait for me."

Shao Yihuai stroked her hair and said in a low voice, "I have to go; I have a meeting."

With the year-end approaching, his schedule was packed, yet he had still squeezed in the time to take her to the station.

"Go back quickly, don't let it delay your work."

Chu Tong pushed him away gently.

He left.

Chu Tong watched his retreating figure—tall, long-legged, and possessing an air of superior elegance, he was very eye-catching in the crowd. Only when that dark silhouette turned into the underground parking entrance and vanished did she withdraw her gaze.

-

The high-speed train from Beijing to Jiangcheng took five hours.

The scenery outside the train window changed along the way until it became the mountains and rivers Chu Tong knew so well.

Jiangcheng was a small county town by the river; geographically, it was in the south, but it hadn't kept pace with the development of the south over the past few decades, and it was far from as prosperous as those famous cities.

Chu Tong and Chu Qinghe’s home was in the old district, a rented one-bedroom apartment on the third floor.

The mother and daughter lived a simple life; though not wealthy, they were not exactly destitute, and their rented home was always warm and cozy.

When Chu Tong took the bus home, Chu Qinghe had already left for her night shift. So, Chu Tong put down her luggage and went to the nearby farmers' market to buy some vegetables and pork ribs, intending to stew winter melon and pork rib soup for her mother.

Around nine in the evening, Chu Tong had finished eating and was curled up on the living room sofa, waiting for her mother to get off work while taking an online IELTS course.

That was when she received a call from Shao Yihuai.

"Have you seen your family?"

"Not yet, my mom is on the night shift; she won't be back until late."

"What are you doing?"

"Taking an online IELTS class."

The other end of the line was quiet for a few seconds before Shao Yihuai said, "Baby, I had Jingwen go to your area a while ago and look at a courtyard. It’s quite nice. Would you be willing to convince your mother to move there?"

Chu Tong froze for a few seconds, feeling an inexplicable panic. "...You don't need to do these things for me. My mother and I are both saving up; we’ll be able to buy one in a few years."

A decent courtyard in Jiangcheng cost about five hundred thousand, and Chu Qinghe had been saving for many years.

Shao Yihuai didn't push further, only saying gently, "Just think about it, okay?"

"...Okay."

Shao Yihuai laughed, the emotion in his voice unclear, his tone dropping lower. "Getting you to accept me completely is so difficult."

"...It's not that..." Chu Tong said, "It's mainly that I'm afraid my mother might misunderstand."

Misunderstand that she had gone astray and was being kept by a man.

"Hmm, we'll find a chance to discuss it carefully later, alright?"

His tone was gentle, almost soothing.

"Okay."

Knowing he couldn't see it, she still nodded.

"Good girl."

Shao Yihuai’s voice was deep, traveling across thousands of miles through the phone line.

During the rest of the holiday, Chu Tong and Shao Yihuai talked at least once every day. The content was mostly trivial and meaningless, ranging from the weather to what species a bird that occasionally flew past her window might be.

Jiangcheng winters had no snow, only bone-chilling cold rain.

One night, when they were on the phone, the rain outside was falling heavily, pitter-pattering against the bedroom glass and windowsill. Chu Tong recorded a short video and was about to send it to him when she realized they hadn't even added each other on WeChat.

After adding him and sending the video, Chu Tong immediately clicked into his profile.

Empty.

She tapped his profile picture to enlarge it. It was a low-resolution, dark night background with a wisp of faint, ethereal smoke floating in it.

It carried an atmosphere of loneliness and gloom.

She didn't know if it was a screenshot from a movie or TV show, or something he had photographed himself.

His nickname was: Shu Bai.

When Chu Tong asked, he explained, "Only family and friends are added on WeChat, so I just used my real name."

There was nothing urgent to discuss, but they were both reluctant to hang up. During the call, Shao Yihuai took a shower and stood before the mirror shaving, wrapped in a bath towel around his waist.

Hearing the low hum of the razor on the other end cease, Chu Tong said, "I'm going to sleep now. I have to wake up early tomorrow for tutoring."

"Alright."

He picked up the phone, which was on speaker. "Goodnight, baby."

The call cut off. He clicked on the short video she had sent, and the room was instantly filled with the dense sound of rain.

Her windowsill was somewhat dilapidated, and the raindrops hitting it constantly splashed into water. In the distance was the night sky soaked in rain, and close by, on the white wall beneath the windowsill, one could faintly make out the shadow of her body, looking as if she were lying on the bed.

He had always disliked rainy and snowy days, and hearing that the rain in the south was always endless, he wondered how such damp, heavy weather could produce a girl as light and transparent as her.

His fingertips brushed the screen as he watched, and for the first time, he felt that rainy days had a sort of pitiful loveliness.

If he were with her, standing in such rain wouldn't be so bad.

-

Even though it was a holiday, Chu Tong's daily plans and tasks seemed even denser than when she was at school.

Tutoring in the morning, IELTS preparation in the afternoon, finding time to prepare a gift for Shao Yihuai, and helping her mother with cooking, laundry, and cleaning.

When she was busy, she would occasionally look up at the sky over Jiangcheng and feel that Shao Yihuai was as far away as the other side of the sky.

Her relationship with him really was hanging by a thread; if she blocked his calls and WeChat, she feared she would never even cross paths with him again.

The location of her tutoring sessions happened to be in the same residential complex as Xiang Chengyuan’s home, adjacent to a large tributary of the river in the county. Almost every noon, when she left the complex after class, she would run into Xiang Chengyuan returning from playing ball.

Learning that she was still with that "Mr. Shao," Xiang Chengyuan stopped bringing up the matter, and the care he showed her in his words became subtly more restrained.

It happened that Chu Qinghe was off work that day, so she came to pick up Chu Tong as her tutoring session was ending, and the mother and daughter planned to go shopping together. Standing at the entrance of the complex, they saw Chu Tong just coming out of the building, standing and talking to Xiang Chengyuan.

It was a rare sunny day, and the sunlight was bright. Chu Tong shielded her eyes with her hand, while Xiang Chengyuan kept his head down, dribbling his basketball. The conversation between them didn't seem particularly lively.

As Chu Tong walked over, Chu Qinghe asked, "What's wrong with you and Chengyuan? He seems a bit moody?"

Chu Tong chuckled. "Mom, you’re so far away; can you tell someone is moody just from their back?"

"Of course I can, you two used to be much friendlier than this," Chu Qinghe said. "Did you have a fight?"

"How could we?"

"How couldn't you? I thought you two were already dating," Chu Qinghe said suspiciously. "That thing you've been knitting lately, it looks like a men's style. Isn't it for Chengyuan?"

Chu Tong’s eyes widened theatrically. "I thought I hid it! You found out? Mom, you have the eyes of a detective!"

Chu Qinghe was amused by her quirky behavior. "Our place is so small, how could I not see it?"

"Hehe."

"...Don't try to distract me. Is it really not for Chengyuan?"

"Don't ask anymore, let's go, let's go shopping."

It turned out that trying to deceive her mother was impossible, especially in a single-parent family like theirs where they had been dependent on each other since Chu Tong was small; not a single trace could escape her mother's eyes.

In the evening, as they sat at the living room dining table eating, Chu Qinghe brought it up again.

"For the past few days, you've been chatting on your phone every time I come home, and the smile on your face—I knew it immediately, but I always thought it was Chengyuan."

Chu Tong kept her mouth shut.

Chu Qinghe continued, "Who exactly is it? A classmate from school?"

Seeing that she was determined to get to the bottom of it, Chu Tong pondered for a moment and revealed a bit of the truth. "Not a classmate. I met him when I went to a professor's house one day."

"A professor's house? Then isn't the other party also an intellectual from a scholarly family?"

"I suppose so."

"How old? A student? An office worker?"

"An office worker," Chu Tong pleaded. "He's just the child of one of our professor’s friends. Mom, please don't ask anymore."

"Just tell me clearly, and I won't ask anymore."

"We just started dating not long ago. I'll tell you when things are stable, okay?" Chu Tong tilted her head, trying to be cute. "Hmm? Okay?"

"Fine," Chu Qinghe finally relented. "But remember, don't get tricked by bad people. Since you're dating, treat the other person well."

Chu Tong nodded.

Chu Qinghe still sighed. "Chengyuan is such a sensible child. He knew you had a boyfriend and started keeping his distance, didn't he?"

"Can you even praise Brother Yuan in a roundabout way? Don't be too fond of him, Mom."

"Of course I am," Chu Qinghe gave her a sidelong glance. "I've had my eye on him as a son-in-law for a long time; otherwise, why would I have kept asking him to take care of you all these years?"

Chu Tong changed the subject, blinking her eyes. "Mom, since you said that if I'm dating, I should treat him well, can I ask you for a favor?"

-

January 15th.

The twenty-first day of the twelfth lunar month. The Zhuoyi Group hadn't gone on holiday yet, and by the time he finished work, the sky was completely dark.

There were at least four or five banquets waiting for the birthday boy, Mr. Shao, to make an appearance. Naturally, he had to show his face at each one.

Everyone knew Mr. Shao didn't like to play cards, and his mood was always hard to read; no one could figure out his preferences. But since Mr. Shao was a man of refinement, arranging something elegant was never a mistake.

Thus, at a private club inside a courtyard, a performance of the Kunqu opera "The Peony Pavilion" was arranged for him.

Shao Yihuai leaned back in the sofa chair, smoking. The hand holding the cigarette rested on the back of the chair, his posture particularly lazy and indifferent.

The person who organized the gathering leaned in front of him and said with a smile, "This little girl singing is a newcomer from a troupe in Jiangnan. She took the high-speed train for five hours just to sing this play for you."

"That's thoughtful."

His tone was flat, making it impossible for anyone to tell if this small gesture had reached his heart.

"Hey, the girl is also very pretty," he said, gesturing toward the stage. "Look, bright eyes and flowing gaze, she has that charm unique to southern girls, right?"

Shao Yihuai was very gracious and gave a glance in that direction. "Hmm."

It was a very perfunctory glance.

The organizer was a bit confused—was this a success or not?

Steeling his heart, he simply asked one more question, "Then... after the play is over... let her accompany you for your birthday?"

Shao Yihuai flicked the ash from his cigarette and lifted his eyelids to look at him. "Don't bother with that."

"Yes, yes," the man replied smoothly, "It's the little girl's misfortune then."

Shao Yihuai didn't linger; he stubbed out his cigarette and stood up.

"Take care, you have a lot of banquets scheduled for today, I assume?"

As soon as he got into the car, Uncle Zong smelled the scent of cigarettes and alcohol.

He must have had quite a bit to drink.

As he turned the steering wheel to head to the next club, he glanced into the rearview mirror. In the back seat, Mr. Shao was closing his eyes and letting out a deep breath, rubbing his temples; he seemed even more exhausted than he was during business trips.

Uncle Zong couldn't help but think that if that young lady were here, the atmosphere would probably be more relaxed, and Mr. Shao would surely be more at ease.

When they arrived and he got out, Shao Yihuai said, "Don't turn off the engine, just wait for me here."

Seeing this, it seemed he planned to go up and say hello before leaving.

Uncle Zong thought to himself, *This isn't good*, and immediately took out his phone to make a call. "Miss, we can probably only stay here for ten minutes."

Chu Tong, with her backpack on, was looking around while comparing her phone's map. There wasn't even a sign in the vicinity, and she was terrified of going to the wrong place. When she received Uncle Zong’s call, she immediately took off running.

After running for a while, she realized she was getting further away from the location. In her anxiety, she called Uncle Zong, and he made a quick decision. "Add me on WeChat, I'll send you a shared location."

Adding him, sending the location—that wasted several more minutes.

Looking at it, she was still two hundred meters away from the target. She started running again.

Rounding a corner, she pressed her hands against her knees, panting to catch her breath, steadying her pace. Pushing forward, she rounded a patch of greenery and stopped in her tracks.

Under the warm yellow streetlamp not far away, a tall man in a long black coat and a suit stood with one hand in his pocket, his head slightly bowed as he raised a hand to take a puff of his cigarette.

It was already late at night, and the surroundings were deathly quiet; even the sound of cars was inaudible. He stood solitary, his very posture exuding a sense of laziness and decadence.

Yet, it didn't look like the world had abandoned him; rather, it looked as if he didn't want the world.

Shao Yihuai took a puff of his cigarette and slowly exhaled the smoke when he suddenly heard a clear, "Mr. Shao."

He paused, his brow slightly furrowed as he looked up.

Against the backdrop of the boundless night, the tall, slender girl stood at the street corner. She was wearing the clothes he had given her, the hat and scarf he had sent—all in white—her smile a bit shy. She called his name again, "Shao Yihuai."

In that instant, his heart leaped so violently that double images appeared before his eyes.

He really had drunk too much.

Chu Tong trotted over to him and looked at his face first.

His expression was extremely calm, his posture unchanged; he stood just as he had been, even raising his hand to take another puff of his cigarette. Those deep, dark eyes looked her up and down, then his gaze rested on her face, and he said in an indescribable tone, "You came."

Chu Tong nodded and repeated, "I'm here. I’m here to wish you a happy birthday."

"Come closer."

Chu Tong obeyed and took a few steps forward.

Shao Yihuai’s hand, still holding the cigarette, brushed his knuckles against her cheek. His voice dropped lower. "Baby, I've been smoking."

She was a bit dazed, wanting to say, *I know, I can see it*, but before the words could leave her lips, he had cupped the back of her head, and her whole body was pulled up and brought to his lips.

His kiss had never been this out of control.