At that moment, the open office door was knocked on again. Gao Xiang looked up to see Sun Ruodi standing outside, having clearly witnessed the entire scene. She stepped aside with a faintly mocking smile, her meaning unmistakable. Liu Yaqin had no choice but to lower her head and hurry past her.
Sun Ruodi pushed aside the documents in front of Gao Xiang and perched on the edge of his desk: "It's already nine o'clock. Are you still working?"
Gao Xiang was somewhat surprised. Over the past six months, their relationship had been unstable, with Sun Ruodi's emotions fluctuating greatly. She would often get angry for no apparent reason. At the end of last month, she had stormed off during a movie date, leaving him behind. When he called, she hung up on him. He felt helpless, vaguely sensing their relationship had reached a point where he knew he didn't want to let go but had no idea how to salvage it. Yet now, Sun Ruodi seemed to be in high spirits.
"Ruodi, what brings you here?"
Sun Ruodi raised an eyebrow and smiled: "If I hadn't come, how would I have seen such an entertaining show?"
"Let it go. She's still young. Don't bring this up again."
"That girl is quite pretty, and she has a good figure too." Sun Ruodi stared at him. "So you managed to restrain yourself, right?"
He didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "Pretty girls are everywhere. To me, they're not even a temptation—why would I need to restrain myself?"
"Gao Xiang, do you still love me?"
The question came out of nowhere, leaving Gao Xiang stunned and momentarily at a loss for words. But unlike her usual reaction, Sun Ruodi didn't get angry. She only sighed: "I love you, Gao Xiang. I just feel that you... don't love me as much. Maybe I'm overthinking it."
He wouldn't miss this conciliatory tone. He took her hand: "I've been very busy lately. If I've neglected you, please don't mind."
"Let's grab something to eat, then catch a movie and relax a bit. How does that sound?"
He hesitated and confessed honestly: "Not today, Ruodi. Later, I have to go to Xiao An's place. She..."
Sun Ruodi's face instantly darkened: "Her again? Why is it always her? Your work, your family, your Bao Bao—they all come before me, and now she's always in the picture too."
"That's not fair. At least in the past six months, I haven't seen her at all. The issues between us have nothing to do with her."
"Do you know why I left last time at the cinema?"
"I was late, and I explained—I really had unfinished work."
"But while you were explaining, I saw Zuo Si'an."
"Alone?"
Gao Xiang was shocked. Last month, the American movie Titanic had taken China by storm after its release. Due to business trips and a packed schedule, he had postponed watching it until the film was about to leave theaters. Then he ended up missing the showtime, angering Sun Ruodi. It never occurred to him that Zuo Si'an had joined the movie-watching frenzy and, overcoming her psychological barriers, had gone to the cinema alone. He asked, "Why would she go to the movies?""You're more interested in why she went to the cinema than why I brought this up, aren't you?" Sun Ruodi let out a cold laugh. "Unfortunately, I can't answer your question. I saw her, and she saw us too. Just like before, she only glanced over, seemed to immediately understand we were arguing, then turned and left."
Gao Xiang tried recalling the scene but couldn't grasp the significance. "Alright, even if she happened to be watching a movie and ran into us by chance, and didn't say hello, why get so angry about it?"
"You completely don't understand how I feel, Gao Xiang. Do you really think her appearance was just a coincidence? She always shows up at the right moment, time and again reminding me that I mean nothing in your life." She jumped off the desk. "How ridiculous of me to even think about salvaging this."
"Ruodi, we're both adults..."
"And shouldn't be jealous of a child, right?" Sun Ruodi placed both hands on his shoulders, staring intently at him. "Be honest with me, Gao Xiang, just how much do you care about her?"
He looked at her, momentarily speechless. She no longer needed an answer, withdrawing her hands as she said with utter despondency, "There's no point dragging this out any longer, Gao Xiang. Let's break up."
Sun Ruodi's footsteps faded down the corridor—marking the end of their nearly four-year relationship. Chasing after her or trying to win her back had lost all meaning; Gao Xiang was filled with nothing but exhaustion and resignation. The office felt hollow and empty, and he too was swallowed by that void.
He left the company, driving aimlessly for over an hour before turning back and arriving at Zuo Si'an's apartment building. Looking up, he saw all the lights on in her third-floor home. To his greater surprise, he spotted Zuo Si'an standing on the windowsill, wiping the living room window methodically. She still wore that white T-shirt, her slender, solitary figure silhouetted against the brightly lit room behind her.
2_
Waiting can sometimes fill one with hope, while at other times it becomes an excruciatingly long ordeal bordering on despair. Zuo Si'an was trapped in this kind of desperate waiting.
She hadn't slept at all. Ever since her homeroom teacher called her out of the classroom with the news two days ago, her mother's colleague had been staying with her constantly, offering endless comfort. Yet, concern from a stranger did nothing to ease her fear; instead, she had to muster the energy to react appropriately, maintaining the posture of someone quietly waiting while being cared for. After Gao Xiang left, she began cleaning.
She stripped the bed and put the sheets in the washing machine, then started scrubbing the kitchen—from the range hood and gas stove to every single tile. Next, she cleaned the bathroom, bedroom, and living room. As darkness fell, she turned on all the lights in the house, kneeling on the floor to wipe it inch by inch, even moving the sofa and furniture to clean neglected corners. Yu Jia wasn't particularly diligent about housework, so the home was mostly maintained by Zuo Si'an, but this was the first time she had undertaken such a thorough deep cleaning.She cleaned almost mechanically, lost in her task, as if trying to make time pass faster by exhausting all her physical strength. After washing the bed sheets and hanging them on the balcony, she removed the duvet covers and put them in the washing machine, then remade the beds in the master bedroom and her own room. All the furniture in the house was nearly spotless, the floors polished to a mirror-like shine. She moved a chair, climbed onto the windowsill, and began wiping the windows.
As the dust was gradually wiped away, she looked down through the glass. The streetlights were dim, and pedestrians strolled leisurely. It was late spring, and before the onset of the local scorching summer, the weather remained calm and mild. The bed sheets hanging on the balcony swayed gently in the breeze, and the entire world seemed to be functioning in an orderly manner. She and her home had once been part of this normal world. But at some point, her fate had taken a drastic turn, and her family had teetered on the brink of collapse—her father was far away, her mother’s fate unknown. She refused to dwell on it further, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand, wiping the glass until it was clearer and cleaner.
A rhythmic knocking at the door snapped Zuo Si'an back to reality. For a moment, she felt disoriented. After a brief hesitation, she jumped down from the windowsill and ran to open the door. Gao Xiang stood outside, looking down at her. Under his gaze, she realized she was still clutching a rag, barefoot, her hair disheveled, her clothes damp with sweat, and two wet patches staining the knees of her jeans. She looked disheveled and strange.
Gao Xiang snatched the rag from her hand and tossed it aside, his voice sharp as he demanded, "Do you want to run yourself into the ground?"
Uneasily, she lowered her gaze. "No."
He glanced past her at the immaculately clean room behind her, growing even angrier. He slammed the door shut with a backward push, grabbed her arm, and pulled her to the sofa to sit down. Just as he was about to speak, she jumped up again and said, "Ah, it’s already 10 o’clock. Director Li said the evening news might have updates from over there."
She rushed over and turned on the TV. After the main headlines, news about the landslide in the mountainous region of Guizhou was indeed broadcast. A reporter in a raincoat, holding a microphone, reported: "Road repairs are still underway urgently through the night. Due to the inability to bring in large excavators and the massive volume of earth, rescue efforts are facing extreme difficulties. Casualties and property damage are still being assessed." The footage showed a large section of the mountainside that had slid down, cutting off the winding mountain road. A vast expanse of gray-black mud and ravines stretched out, with muddy water flowing down. On one side of the road, the outlines of buried houses were faintly visible.
Even as the news moved on to the next story, she remained in the same posture, leaning forward, staring blankly at the screen. Gao Xiang turned off the TV, took the remote control from her clenched hand, and held her hand. "Don’t be afraid, and don’t force yourself to hold it all in. I’ll stay here with you."
Her eyes were vacant as she looked at him. "My mom... she’ll come back, right?"
"Don’t worry. The report said more personnel have been deployed for rescue and search efforts."
"But it’s been almost three days, and there’s still no news."
"Sometimes, no news is good news. Understand?"She nodded, not feeling any relief, her eyes still brimming with fear. "She's been gone for seven days and was supposed to return the day after tomorrow. Before leaving, she asked for my opinion, saying this business trip would be longer. I told her to go ahead, it's fine." She began to tremble. "I never imagined the place she went to would be so dangerous, that she'd encounter a landslide."
"This is a natural disaster. No one could have predicted it."
"She arranged everything for me—left enough living expenses, pre-ordered dinners, and called every evening to remind me to set the alarm so I wouldn’t be late for school. But I didn’t care about her at all. I thought it was just an ordinary business trip and didn’t even ask about the weather there."
"Shh—now is not the time for self-blame. You need to rest properly."
"I can’t sleep."
"Then let’s chat. Time will pass faster."
She nodded silently.
"The high school entrance exam is just over a month away. Are you managing your studies alright?"
"I didn’t do well in the last mock exam. I ranked 11th in my class."
"That’s already impressive. Are you still writing to Jingjing?"
"Yes. She said her father has relented—as long as she gets into Qinggang Middle School this year, he’ll let her attend."
"That’s good."
He found it difficult to come up with another suitable topic and was hesitating when she suddenly spoke up. "Mom’s colleagues all tell me not to worry, but I’ve looked up information about landslides. They’re a severe geological disaster, hard to predict. Once they happen, people have very little time to escape."
"Don’t scare yourself."
"Dad also told me that over ten years ago, during their internship, he and Mom joined a geological disaster survey. They saw a small town in Sichuan completely pushed into the Yangtze River by a landslide. Over a thousand houses were destroyed, all ships sailing that section of the river sank, and the Yangtze was even blocked for a week..."
"Xiao An." Gao Xiang thought helplessly that with both her parents being geology majors, she had been exposed to more scientific knowledge than most children, which probably only made her more fearful. "Don’t dwell on those extreme examples."
"I can’t help it. I keep telling myself that Mom will be fine, she has to be fine. But I’m really terrified. I also know that the more you fear something, the more likely it is to... I just can’t stop thinking about it. I’m really afraid that what I fear most will happen..."
Her words were somewhat disjointed, but Gao Xiang understood. "It’s normal to be afraid, Xiao An. There are many things we have no control over, so we need to stay optimistic and hopeful."
"You don’t understand. It’s all my fault."
"Nonsense," he chided softly. "That’s going too far."
"Actually, I didn’t want Mom to go on this trip. If she were home, even if we didn’t talk, just knowing she was working in her room would make me feel... less lonely. But this isn’t the life Mom wants. She’s always loved her work, and her leaders and colleagues praise her professional skills. She gave up many important projects just to spend more time with me at home."Oh dear, if you think 52 Book Library is great, remember to bookmark the URL https:https://www.52shuku.net/ or recommend it to your friends~ Please (>.<) Portal: Ranking List | Book Finding Guide | Green Shirt Falling
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