Because too many things happened last night, staying up until midnight, and getting caught in the rain, Lin Zhexia overslept the next day.
By the time she crawled out of bed to check the time, it was already eleven-thirty in the morning.
She slid open her phone and saw a few messages from a certain Chi.
One was:—
The cake wasn’t bad
The other two:—
I’m not here today—
If you want to come to my place, just open the door yourself
Looking at the line “I’m not here today,” Lin Zhexia guessed that Chi Yao had probably gone to see his parents.
“Mom,” during lunch, Lin Zhexia asked, “Which city is Uncle Chi’s company in again?”
Lin He asked while serving rice: “In… I think it’s in Jing City. Why are you suddenly asking about this?”
Lin Zhexia was poor at geography, and had heard it once when she was young, but hadn’t paid attention: “Just asking.”
But even with her poor geography, she knew that Jing City was very, very far from here, even farther than going to Haidu City.
A round trip would take two days.
And because of the terrain, there were more resources available for development, which was also more beneficial for factory growth.
It was precisely for this reason that Chi Yao’s parents rarely came back.
Lin Zhexia’s memory of these few days felt fuzzy, perhaps because Chi Yao wasn’t around. The next day was Monday, time to go to school, but Chi Yao couldn’t make it back and took two more days off.
The days without Chi Yao passed with particularly few memorable moments.
After school, He Yang specifically sent her a message.
Da Zhuang: Brother Xia, I’ll come over two stops to meet you after school today.
Lin Zhexia:?
Lin Zhexia: Are you that free?
Da Zhuang: …
Da Zhuang: Brother Yao said so
Da Zhuang: I don’t want to come either
Lin Zhexia was stunned for a moment.
This person, Chi Yao, when he wasn’t being annoying, was quite thoughtful.
The next time she saw Chi Yao was after school the following day. She was walking with He Yang, who was chattering about things at his school, occasionally mentioning Chi Yao: “So annoying, the last sports meet, they did some combined competition, some friendship match.”
“Now I, He Yang, have lost my identity at Experimental Affiliated School and have become ‘the friend of that very handsome guy from the neighboring school.'”
Lin Zhexia: “Oh.”
He Yang: “Don’t just say ‘oh,’ your tone makes me think of Brother Yao every minute.”
Speaking of this, He Yang sighed again: “Have you noticed that you two are sometimes surprisingly similar? Not just you, sometimes when Brother Yao speaks, it’s very much your style, like when he makes jokes with a straight face.”
Lin Zhexia hadn’t realized this: “…Really?”
She was chatting with He Yang, a bit lost in thought, when from a distance, she saw Chi Yao getting out of a taxi that had stopped at the entrance of the residential area.
Chi Yao was carrying a black bag, wearing a mask, his back perfectly straight, his legs long and straight.
“Chi Yao,” she left He Yang behind and ran over, “you’re back.”
Chi Yao made an “mm” sound through his mask.
Just from that one sound, she sensed that Chi Yao’s mood didn’t seem very good.
She followed behind Chi Yao, wanting to go into his house.
When they reached the door, Chi Yao took out his key to open it, but instead of pushing the door open to enter first, he turned around to look at her: “Want to come in for water again?”
Lin Zhexia: “I am a bit thirsty.”
After a while, she asked: “Did you… See Uncle and Auntie?”
Chi Yao rarely wore a mask, probably because the air in the car had been too stuffy.
With the mask on, his eyebrows and eyes stood out even more, and even though the lower half of his face was hidden behind the mask, one could still vaguely make out the contours of his nose bridge and chin.
He raised his hand to hook the edge of the black mask and said: “I did.”
Chi Yao couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d seen Chi Hanshan and Bai Qin.
Though one was his father and one was his mother, meeting them felt even less familiar than meeting strangers.
Two days ago, when he appeared in Jing City, Chi Hanshan came to pick him up and asked: “Why did you suddenly come here?”
Chi Yao was wearing a mask, standing in the bustling train station.
It wasn’t until they met that Chi Hanshan’s image became clear in his mind again. They looked somewhat similar, but wrinkles had already crept onto the corners of the man’s eyes. Chi Hanshan wore a grayish-white shirt, holding a briefcase, with undisguised exhaustion in his eyes.