Walking out of building 52, the bright sunlight enveloped her in the cold air, and her numb brain slowly began to function along with the rising temperature.
Chu Yu had said that the next time they met, she would give her contact information!
A grand smile slowly bloomed at the corners of Ci Wenjun’s lips.
Next time, meeting again.
Realizing this crucial premise, the smile gradually turned bitter.
It probably wouldn’t be that easy to meet again.
Such a meeting definitely couldn’t be achieved through clever tricks or waiting by a tree for a hare.
However, she didn’t even know what Chu Yu did or where she worked now.
The intersection in their lives was zero.
Under such circumstances, could they really meet again?
Ci Wenjun’s upturned lips stiffened completely.
Her fingertips dug deep into her palms, leaving behind crescent-shaped marks.
“Hey! Beauty, snap out of it.”
It was Fu Qi.
These past few days, she had been staying at Chu Yu’s house under the pretext of illness, stepping out for nothing, so most of the company’s work had been taken over by Fu Qi.
This week was probably much busier than an entire year for her.
After all, on ordinary days, this back-breaking workload rested squarely on Ci Wenjun’s shoulders.
Sure enough, after a week apart, or perhaps due to Ci Wenjun’s preconceived notions, looking at Fu Qi made her seem noticeably thinner no matter how she looked at her.
Fu Qi glared at her unhappily.
“You have the nerve to say that!”
Heaven knew that a week ago, when she arrived at the company building right on time as usual, the secretary from the president’s office had run over in a panic, telling her as if the sky were falling that she couldn’t get in touch with Ci Wenjun no matter what.
It scared her legs to jelly, and she almost knelt down right there in front of the president’s office on the spot.
She had called her a dozen times in a row, but none of them went through.
No one was home either.
If not for the fact that not a single item in the office was missing, and even the Polaroid photo she treasured was sitting securely right there, she would have thought Ci Wenjun had run off with her precious white moonlight and all their money.
It wasn’t until evening that she finally got through to Ci Wenjun’s phone, but the person who answered was an unfamiliar female voice.
The moment she spoke, she knew who it was.
The woman’s voice was calm and gentle.
“Hello, are you Ci Wenjun’s colleague? She’s currently sick and still sleeping. I’ll have her call you back once she wakes up, is that alright?”
Hearing this, Fu Qi’s crafty wheels started turning instantly, and she didn’t have a single objection left.
She sold Ci Wenjun out without a second thought.
That evening, Ci Wenjun woke up, called Fu Qi back, and conveniently requested a week of leave.
Fu Qi’s cleverness instantly kicked in, and feeling she had grasped Ci Wenjun’s intent, she immediately grinned slyly and agreed.
If she could have foreseen beforehand just how miserable her upcoming week would be, she would have hesitated for at least another moment at that time.
Unfortunately, there were no ifs.
Fu Qi walked up to Ci Wenjun and looked her up and down.
Her little face was rosy, with much better color than before, and she had even put on some weight.
Ci Wenjun’s ex had some tricks up her sleeve; she was being well taken care of.
Her little lips were rosy and white, and when those eyes cast a cold glance, she instantly felt her heart get struck.
Hehe.
Fu Qi poked Ci Wenjun’s shoulder mischievously.
Her eyes were filled with absolute gossip.
“Tell me about you and the big beauty?”
She had seen her expression just a moment ago.
Ci Wenjun gave a fake smile, then drooped her head, signaling for her to follow.
Returning to Ci Wenjun’s home, Ci Wenjun poured two cups of hot water for them.
Spending a week cooped up with Chu Yu, anyone else would have thought their days were full of rich experiences.
Yet only Ci Wenjun herself knew.
It was quiet, like being trapped alone in the deep sea.
She and Chu Yu lived under the same roof, but Chu Yu almost completely ignored her.
Silent, saying nothing, only routinely checking her temperature and supervising her to take medicine on time.
When she first woke up from her deep sleep, she was overjoyed, feeling she had regained Chu Yu’s attention.
But Chu Yu’s eyes were telling her.
No.
Whoever fell sick at Chu Yu’s house today would be cared for with this exact level of meticulousness.
She wasn’t special; Chu Yu didn’t care about her anymore.
Realizing this, Ci Wenjun felt a stabbing pain in her heart.
After finishing the water poured by Ci Wenjun, Fu Qi took a sip. It tasted of nothing, very ordinary, inferior to a happy fat-water soda.
In the past, she didn’t understand. Ci Wenjun wasn’t from a wealthy background; in fact, she could be considered impoverished, making her way up entirely on scholarships.
Yet she had an extremely high-quality pursuit of food, drink, and especially bottled mineral water for drinking.
At first, she thought it was vanity, a form of compensation for her past self.
Later on, she found out that didn’t seem to be the case.
She was imitating someone. She was trying to become someone.
And later on, presumably after a business trip, she learned from her that she had a lingering obsession, a cinnabar mole in her heart.
Suddenly, she understood.
She had assumed that cinnabar mole must be some alluring, enchanting beauty with all sorts of charm.
After all, wasn’t that how novels always matched them up? A cold, iceberg female CEO paired with a vivid, charismatic beauty.
Yet a quick glance at that Polaroid photo told her otherwise.
That face, unforgettable at first glance, gentle, serene, overflowing with a sweetness that seemed ready to burst out of the photo paper, was also the first time she ever saw Ci Wenjun wear such a sweet expression.
Unlike now, she was like a completely different person.
“That Polaroid, did you look at it?”
Fu Qi bit her back tooth, not expecting her cover to be blown so quickly.
“Yes, but I didn’t mean to! I was just in such a hurry back then, I only took one look, just one look!”
Fu Qi hurriedly admitted her mistake and capitulated.
Ci Wenjun smiled, shook her head, and quietly took a sip of water.
She didn’t pursue the matter, instead turning to ask.
“Fu Qi, when you usually make a mistake, how do you coax people?”
She still wasn’t willing to give up; she still wanted to try harder.
Fu Qi looked blank. “Huh? Coax people? Never coaxed anyone!”
Ci Wenjun: “You had so many romantic confidantes before, not a single one ever fell out with you?”
Fu Qi grinned.
“That is not the same, right?”
Ci Wenjun: “How is it not the same?”
Fu Qi answered frankly. “They’re just after my money! If they get mad, I leave them alone for a couple of days, buy them a bag, or transfer some money, and isn’t it all resolved?”
Ci Wenjun was speechless. Truly, a sick person clutching at any medicine.
With that, she didn’t say anything more.
The atmosphere lapsed into silence once again. After a long while, Ci Wenjun spoke up in a daze.
Unlike her previous brief summaries.
“Her name is Chu Yu. We met in university. That year, she was a freshman who wandered into the wrong classroom by mistake and sat right next to me.”
After that classroom mix-up, Chu Yu had stayed right beside her until the end of the long lecture.
She was very quiet, not making a big fuss out of self-consciousness. Aside from a brief exchange before class, she didn’t disturb Ci Wenjun’s reading afterwards.
She just sat there, looking at the dull textbook in her hands without even playing on her phone.
Back then, most of Ci Wenjun’s focus was on her studies, but the girl beside her was truly eye-catching; her peripheral vision couldn’t help but stray toward her.
Sometimes she read, sometimes she pretended to watch the teacher lecture.
She didn’t even know if she could understand it, but that composed demeanor gave off an unfathomable vibe.
Inexplicably, Ci Wenjun felt that she probably understood every word.
They couldn’t be considered eye-catching, and things remained peaceful until class ended.
During the short break, seeing that Chu Yu didn’t understand, she assumed she didn’t know and signaled that she could leave, since she had her own classes after all and wasn’t even a student of this major.
Yet Chu Yu only looked at her, then burst into a warm smile.
“Senior, is someone sitting next to you?”
Ci Wenjun shook her head in bewilderment.
How could there be? In fact, her relationship with her dorm mates was mediocre, neither good nor bad.
Back then, it was still an era of relatively closed information.
In her four-person dorm, aside from her, the other three girls were all raised in big cities: two were locals from Shenzhen, and one came from the capital.
Only she came from an unknown mountain village.
The cosmetics, lipsticks, perfumes, and bags her roommates usually chatted about were things she didn’t understand and couldn’t touch.
They could eat at restaurants costing four or five hundred per person, and go to amusement parks costing one or two hundred, or six or seven hundred. These were things she couldn’t do either; the most she could manage was working part-time in such restaurants and amusement parks.
They didn’t intentionally isolate her, didn’t bully her, target her, or look down on her; they were just living their normal lives and chatting.
And she simply couldn’t fit in.
Moreover, she had a lot of miscellaneous tasks in her life: she had to work part-time to earn living expenses, pay off her student loans, balance her studies, win scholarships, and give her future self a bit of breathing room whenever possible.
So, there was no one by her side; there hadn’t been before, and in the future, probably wouldn’t be for a very long time.
“Then if there’s no one by you, and Senior won’t find it a bother, can I sit here?”
She tilted her head as she spoke, looking cute and spirited.
Ci Wenjun shook her head.
The school didn’t belong to her; if someone else sat there, it was none of her business. What’s more, Chu Yu was very quiet and didn’t make any messy noises to disturb her.
“Since there’s no one by you, and Senior doesn’t find it bothersome, can’t I sit here?”
She raised an eyebrow, looking like a proud, spoiled cat.
For some reason, Ci Wenjun felt a sudden, ungrounded wave of happiness, and a smile spilled from the corners of her lips.
“But don’t you have your own classes?”
“Doesn’t matter, I skipped them. Anyway, I’m already late, what’s missed is missed!” Besides, it wasn’t anything important anyway.
In the afternoon, still tinged with the restlessness of midsummer, the golden sunlight shone upon the girl’s unrestrained face, fearless of everything.
The bell rang, and Ci Wenjun said no more. She opened her textbook and left behind a single sentence.
“Suit yourself.”
A simple conversation inexplicably shortened the distance between them, and the atmosphere relaxed considerably.
After class, Chu Yu warmly pulled her along, saying she wanted to thank her and treat her to a meal.
Yet she hadn’t really done anything; she had only reminded her, and besides, Chu Yu hadn’t left in the end, staying through the entire long lecture.
So she declined. She wasn’t good at accepting other people’s goodwill, especially this kind of inexplicable goodwill. When all was said and done, she and Chu Yu had only known each other for a few hours.
Fortunately, Chu Yu didn’t force the issue.
Instead, she reached into her backpack and handed over a bottle of mineral water with an English name. The packaging and the entire bottle looked extremely high-end. She couldn’t read it either, guessing it was probably another brand she couldn’t normally afford to touch.
In university, the one thing never lacking was rich people, especially in a metropolis like Shenzhen. At a single glance, Chu Yu was clearly someone from a completely different world than her.
She hesitated. Chu Yu saw her hesitation and said indifferently.
“Senior, take it. It’s just a bottle of water, and besides, you’re sweating from the heat.”
Ci Wenjun hesitated for a moment, then hardened her heart.
After all, as she said, it was just a bottle of water. No matter how expensive it was, how expensive could it possibly be?
At that time, she was so naive.
After parting ways at the intersection, she returned to her dorm. One of her roommates was dressed flashily, about to head out.
The two almost collided, and Ci Wenjun instinctively hugged the mineral water Chu Yu had given her tighter.
The person opposite her was stunned for a second, then gave an awkward smile.
“Sorry, I’m in too much of a rush.”
With that, she turned and ran out again, looking like she was in a hurry to go meet her significant other downstairs.
“Hey! By the way, did you win the lottery today? You can actually afford Lofoten.”
Ci Wenjun looked at her dazedly as she turned around to make such a bizarre, ambiguous joke, though the target was clear, it seemed to be pointing at the mineral water in her arms.
But the other person came and went in a flash, leaving her no time to ask for details. She could only walk back into the dorm with her doubts.
Coincidentally, another young miss was also in the dorm.
She was biting her lip, sitting at her desk and looking somewhat hesitant.
A bit insecure, and a bit timid.
What if it really was very expensive?
Even if she knew it was very expensive, should she return it to Chu Yu? Or give her money?
Would Chu Yu care?
She might be a bit poor, but she wasn’t stupid.
No matter how much this bottle of water cost, Chu Yu wasn’t the type of person to care about such things.
However, before she could hesitate for long.
That young miss walked over carrying her laptop.
“Ci Wenjun, what did the teacher talk about in class today? Can I borrow your notes to look at? And this question, can you help me check it?”
The young miss Zhou Yuncai stood beside her, placing her laptop right in front of her, precisely squeezing out the mineral water bottle she had placed on the desk.
At first, Zhou Yuncai hadn’t paid attention, but the packaging of this water was quite peculiar. More importantly, it was something she had only complained about a short while ago.
“Xiaoci! Did you strike it rich, or did someone scam you?”
Recalling Ci Wenjun’s absent-minded expression when she walked in, Zhou Yuncai cried out in surprise, looking at Ci Wenjun with deep concern, terrified that this little naive girl had been conned by some city slicker with bad intentions.
Ci Wenjun, who had been looking at a problem, snapped back to her senses in a daze.
“W-What’s wrong?”
Seeing Ci Wenjun’s clueless expression and confirming repeatedly that she hadn’t been scammed, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.
“This water, you…”
Zhou Yuncai pouted hesitantly, terrified of phrasing it poorly and hurting her roommate’s feelings.
“This water was given to me by a junior. I was actually just about to ask you. Is this water very expensive? Why are you guys reacting so big one after another?”
Learning that money hadn’t been spent, Zhou Yuncai finally dropped her worry, but the next second, she looked at Ci Wenjun with an unspeakable expression.
How was she supposed to tell her?
“It is a bit expensive.”
Ci Wenjun widened her eyes. Even Miss Zhou thought it was a bit expensive?
Ci Wenjun felt her little heart give a violent tremor and a sharp upward pull.
“How expensive?”
“Turning the bottle around, probably over forty dollars. Converted to RMB, it should be…”
“Three hundred something.”
Ci Wenjun blurted out Miss Zhou’s unfinished sentence in a daze.
Three hundred and some odd bucks, equal to a whole month of her living expenses.
Ci Wenjun shook with trembling hands, feeling for the first time what a hot potato truly was.
At this point, Ci Wenjun let out a bitter, self-deprecating chuckle.
“Three hundred and something, three hundred and something ten years ago.”
As she spoke, she picked up this very bottle of mineral water from the kitchen island.
The glass body of the bottle brushed against the marble surface of the island, producing a crisp scratching sound.
The Chu Yu of ten years ago had handed it to her just as casually, accompanied by the phrase, it’s just a bottle of water.
“A difference as vast as clouds and mud.”