The next morning, Ci Wenjun sat opposite Chu Yu at the dining table with an unwell expression.
Her small, palm-sized face had pale lips.
The flush of color she had managed to gain was beaten back to its original state after a single night.
Chu Yu stared with ill intent at the cabbage porridge in her bowl, as if it held some deep-seated grudge.
Last night had been quiet enough, but she certainly didn’t expect a surprise first thing in the morning.
If she hadn’t been woken up by hunger, she would never have known that this person was running a 38-degree fever and still thinking about cooking porridge for her.
Should she kneel down right now and properly thank President Ci for her grand, righteous devotion?
It had been so many years, and Chu Yu rarely experienced such intense emotional fluctuations.
Ci Wenjun, you really are something else!
With that thought, Chu Yu’s gaze grew increasingly cold.
She didn’t want to admit that she still couldn’t help wanting to care about Ci Wenjun.
However, when she saw the unnatural, feverish flush on Ci Wenjun’s face, her bloodless lips, and the bloodshot veins spreading across her eyes, looking as though she might collapse at any second while holding a piping-hot pot, her breath practically hitched in her throat.
The temperature on that forehead was hot enough to fry an egg.
Who needed a pot anymore?
Just crack one right over her head and call it a day.
She had forgotten how frantically she had picked Ci Wenjun up, terrified that any sudden movement would worsen her suffering.
“Are you an idiot? I put the medicine right there on the table, why didn’t you take it?”
Yet Ci Wenjun was clearly delirious with illness. Aside from anxiously muttering about her half-finished porridge, all she could do was look at her with innocent, aggrieved eyes.
The anger she had been dying to unleash was instantly snuffed out by that targeted gaze. For a long moment, she could only stare at her before swallowing the stifled frustration back down.
Whatever. There was no reasoning with a patient.
She shut her mouth and resignedly carried Ci Wenjun back to her own bed.
Troublemaker.
She muttered inwardly, though her hands didn’t slow down for a second.
Dissolving the medicine, cooking the porridge, wiping down her body, and changing her clothes, the entire sequence of tasks flowed together seamlessly.
Taking care of Ci Wenjun had never been a difficult task for her.
In the end, Ci Wenjun stayed at her place for a full week, completely recovering her health before finally stepping out through Chu Yu’s front door.
Right before leaving, the face that Ci Wenjun had spent the last few days nursing back to a healthy glow betrayed a conflicted and reluctant expression.
She knew that once she walked through this door, she had no idea when she would see Chu Yu again.
She understood Chu Yu, but she understood herself just as well.
She couldn’t let go of Chu Yu. Asking her to give up on Chu Yu was harder than killing her.
Yet Chu Yu’s words from that day still rang in her ears. She bit her inner lip in agony, unwilling to relive the memory.
In the end, after much hesitation, she chose to gather her courage.
She reached out and pulled back Chu Yu’s retracting hand.
“Xiao Yu.”
Chu Yu lowered her gaze.
“Can you give me your contact information?”
Her heart hammered like thunder, causing a buzzing roar in her brain. She couldn’t help holding her breath, focusing all her thoughts entirely on Chu Yu, unwilling to miss a single reaction.
She heard Chu Yu let out a slow breath, heard Chu Yu fall silent for a long moment, and then heard Chu Yu speak.
“Ci Wenjun, I already told you.”
The world withered, turning bleak and devoid of color. All sound retreated like the tide, fading away and disappearing from her world.
Her heart contracted, slamming against sharp thorns, hurting her so much that tears welled up in her eyes.
She forced her voice down, trying her best not to make Chu Yu feel like she was bothering her any further.
With a wretched, lowered head, she didn’t even dare to look at her for a response.
“Okay. I am sorry, I will head back first. Thank you for taking care of me these past few days.”
Finishing it all in one breath, she turned and made to leave.
She couldn’t stay here any longer.
As she stood dazed while waiting for the elevator, she heard Chu Yu’s semi-compromised voice float out from behind her.
“Next time, if we meet again, I will give you my contact information.”
With that, she closed the door without a hint of attachment.
At that moment, nobody knew what kind of expression she wore. Chu Yu didn’t know, and neither did Ci Wenjun.
Yet both of them could hear it: a dormant heart, awakened by those words, welcoming a brand-new revival filled with a certain expectation.
Chu Yu leaned against the door, crossing her arms over her chest.
Quiet.
It was far too quiet.
Quiet enough that she could clearly hear the sound of her own heartbeat.
After speaking those words, she felt as though a heavy burden had been lifted, and she could finally breathe again.
She hadn’t enjoyed the silence for long before the telephone on the desk rang.
Hearing the special ringtone, Chu Yu walked briskly over to the table.
“Hello?”
From the other end of the line came a woman’s hearty laughter.
“I heard from Xiao Zhuo that after returning to the country, you have been taking quite a fancy to some young lady? Don’t tell me it is that unforgettable ex-girlfriend of yours?”
At those words, the corners of Chu Yu’s lips twitched upward slightly, only to be silently pressed back down.
“That big-mouthed Wen Zhuo, I knew she was unreliable.”
She neither admitted nor denied it.
Her ambiguous attitude also hinted at her own wavering, hesitant heart.
The woman caught the underlying sentiment in Chu Yu’s voice and tactfully stopped pressing, shifting instead to a casual tone.
“Of course! She took your word for it and packed her bags overnight to come over, yet who would have thought that you, the mastermind behind the suggestion, would be the one dragging your feet?”
A week ago, she had suggested in a small group chat with friends that the weather was getting cold and they should head to Sichuan Province for hot pot to warm up, telling her assistant to book the plane tickets.
Who could have guessed that Ci Wenjun would suddenly fall severely ill? With no other choice, she had to delay her travel plans. When she announced the update in the group the next day, the usually impulsive Wen Zhuo had already packed her bags and arrived in Sichuan.
With that thought, Chu Yu shook her head with a wry smile and apologized.
“I am to blame for this too. My arrangements were clumsy. Are you all still in Sichuan?”
“Yeah! We are just waiting for you! Hurry up and get over here! We have already eaten hot pot for three days, pork trotters for five days, and little sweet rice dumplings.”
Through the receiver, mixed with the sound of howling wind, Wen Zhuo’s boisterous voice barged straight into her ears.
“Got it. I will have Xiao Ru book another ticket for me.”
“Make sure you aren’t late this time!”
“Alright.”
“Then we will be waiting for you!”
“Mn.”
The call ended. Chu Yu let out a long breath, expelling the stifled frustration in her chest.
As promised, she had her assistant Xiao Ru book the nearest available flight to Sichuan. Since she owned property in Sichuan, her mother’s former residence, she didn’t need to pack any luggage; she only needed to prepare her identification documents and phone.
She sat in the living room for a while before heading into the bedroom.
Her bedroom was a master suite combining the primary bedroom and a secondary bedroom with an attached master bathroom, spanning nearly two hundred square meters.
It was fair to say that the most important room in this entire house was her bedroom, and sealed inside her bedroom was her most important room.
Just as Ci Wenjun had previously guessed.
Aside from the kitchen connected to the living room, the master bedroom, and a public restroom, she hadn’t decorated any other spaces in this house.
In fact, aside from the master bedroom, the rest of the interior finishing was just simple and perfunctory.
She didn’t know when it had started.
She had suddenly lost all pursuit of living.
She realized she was sick.
She tried to save herself.
But regrettably, she had failed.
She no longer cared about her meals, no longer cared whether the food was fresh or how it tasted.
She stopped caring about the minute details of daily life.
She had begun to grow careless and indifferent.
Just like this house she bought many years ago.
When she was decorating it two years ago, the designer had asked her, “Do you have any specific requests?”
Even though she used to have so many wild and imaginative ideas, at that exact moment, her mind went completely blank, and she couldn’t remember a single thing.
“No special requests. As long as people can live in it.”
In the end, she only requested the renovation of the master bedroom where she would live, along with the kitchen. As for the rest, if Ci Wenjun were to open those doors, she would find that the main difference between them and a raw, unfinished concrete apartment was probably just that they were a lot cleaner.
Why did you make such a request, the designer had asked her back then.
How had she answered?
It seemed…
“Whatever. It is not like anyone else is ever going to live here anyway.”
So, she only needed to decorate hers; anything more would just be a waste.
Finally, Chu Yu stopped in front of a door.
This door looked utterly out of place inside her bedroom.
It was fitted with an old-fashioned security door, its surface bearing mottled traces of weathered time, as if pushing it open would cause one to fall straight into the rift of some past era.
In truth, that was precisely the case.
Standing before this door, Chu Yu silently and habitually knocked three times, then entered the passcode to unlock it.
A gentle, slightly green and shy female voice rang out:
“Xiao Yu, welcome home.”