Time slipped quietly past the New Year in its usual uneventful manner. Before this, Yu Tu had seen Zhai Liang off, so returning home late every night felt increasingly lonely.
Fortunately, he had work assignments in January too—a month-long business trip to the desert.
It was a field test for a confidential model. Although his research institute wasn’t the lead designer for this particular model, both he and Guan Zai had contributed to some critical aspects of the work. Now that it had reached the field testing phase, their presence was required.
Before leaving, Yu Tu made a trip back to his hometown.
His parents were surprised to see him. “You just came back in October, why are you here again now?”
Back in October, he had returned home as soon as he started his long leave. But by the fourth day, his parents had grown worried, thinking his unusually long break meant something was wrong.
At that time, he hadn’t yet made up his mind and didn’t want to say anything that would make them anxious. To avoid their speculation, he pretended to return to Shanghai for work, but in reality, he spent his days idly playing games—until he met Qiao Jingjing.
Yu’s mother looked well, but her opening words made Yu Tu’s heart ache. He had spent far too little time with his parents.
“I’ll be away on a business trip for a month, and I’m not sure about the signal there, so I came home to see you.”
Yu’s mother didn’t ask where he was going or what he’d be doing, only complained, “You should’ve given us some notice.” Then she asked, “Spring Festival is late this year, so you’ll be back before then, right?”
“Yes.”
Yu’s father checked the time and said he was going to buy some prepared dishes, but Yu’s mother scolded him, “Our son comes home and you want him to eat takeout? What kind of father are you?”
In the end, Yu’s father bought a chicken and a live fish. By the time everything was cooked, it was almost one o’clock. Yu Tu deliberately ate an extra bowl of rice, and sure enough, his parents looked pleased.
After lunch, he chatted with them for a while before retreating to his room.
His room wasn’t very large, facing north, and it was where he had spent his entire adolescence. After getting into university, he rarely returned, so the room remained much as it had been in high school. Most of the books on the shelves were from that time, and the cabinets neatly displayed the various trophies he had won growing up.
He stood there lost in thought for a moment, then pulled out a book and began flipping through it in front of the bookcase.
Yu’s mother came in with some fruit and glanced at him curiously. “Why are you looking at high school textbooks?”
“No reason.” Yu Tu closed the book somewhat awkwardly and put it back on the shelf.
Truthfully, besides visiting his parents, there was another, more peculiar emotion driving him to come home this time. Lately, he often found himself inexplicably recalling high school, over and over, as if trying to dig up something from those past memories that he had overlooked.
But there was very little to find.
He knew it was overly sentimental, yet he couldn’t help himself. Trying to cover up, he asked, “Why are my high school books still here?”
“They must’ve been missed when we were tidying up.”
Yu Tu scanned the room and asked, “Where’s my first desktop computer?”
Yu’s mother thought for a moment. “You said you didn’t need it anymore, and it was old, so we moved it to the bike shed downstairs.”
Yu Tu asked for the shed key, went downstairs, and brought the desktop computer back up. Yu’s mother brought a cloth to help him dust it off. “This computer is so old, why dig it out now? I’d almost forgotten about it. Otherwise, when we sold the old TV last time, we should’ve had them take it too. It just takes up space, and it wouldn’t sell for more than a few dozen yuan anyway.”Yu Tu smiled. "Don't."
Then he said, "You can sell the monitor, but keep the computer case."
The computer hadn't been used for too long, and the startup process was extremely slow. Yu's mother had already left. Yu Tu watched as the screen gradually brightened, revealing the long-unseen desktop background of an infinite starry sky.
He adjusted some settings, connected to the internet, and opened QQ.
His mobile QQ had been running all along, so naturally no new messages popped up on the computer. However, this computer contained old chat records from ten years ago.
He stared at the screen for a moment before searching for Qiao Jingjing's number and opening the chat history.
A series of pink, adorable fonts immediately jumped into view.
Exactly the kind of font she would use. Yu Tu wasn't surprised, and the corners of his mouth even curled up involuntarily. But when he started reading the content of the chat records, his smile began to turn bitter.
He had been too cold back then.
His replies were always extremely brief, revealing a hint of polite perfunctoriness. There was even one time when she asked a very basic question about the first cosmic velocity, and he directly suggested she Baidu it.
Later, he simply stopped replying.
Yet she persistently, diligently kept trying to find topics.
For example—
"I saw you discussing the gap in aerospace technology between China and the US on the forum. Is the distance between us and them really that big? >__<
Hands Can Pick the Stars: I think I can work hard o(n_n)o"
The teenage Qiao Jingjing, using emoticons she would no longer use now, optimistically expressed her determination to give it her all.
And the thirty-year-old Yu Tu, looking at these records from over a decade ago, suddenly felt a sting in his eyes.
He suddenly found it difficult to face such records directly. Propping his forehead in his hand, he felt utterly discomposed.
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