CH 45.2

The sun melted into dusk and dusk condensed into twilight.

There were thousands of lights outside the window and a dinner of four people under the ceiling lights.

It wasn’t the best dinner He Qiao had ever eaten but it might be the most memorable.

It wasn’t just because of the chestnuts and candy wrappers before dinner, but also the conversation and laughter during dinner.

It was also because of everything that happened after this dinner.

Once Han Zhenzhen and Chi Zhongyuan left satisfied after visiting this marriage house, the master bedroom wasn’t restored to its previous empty and lonely appearance.

The dressing room of the master bedroom that contained intertwined messiness and a sense of order basically maintained the appearance deliberately created on the day of cleaning. Chi Xueyan seemed too lazy to struggle again and only took away a few pieces of clothing that he often wore.

On the bedside table that belonged to him, there were still three things intact.

The TV remote, tissue box and empty, transparent vase.

It was Chi Xueyan’s new vase that was recently brought from the bedside table of his own room.

He returned to his bedroom to live as usual, but he didn’t take this brand new vase with him.

He never brought flowers either.

Maybe he forgot or maybe he hadn’t found his favorite flower yet.

During the two weeks that passed slowly, He Qiao would occasionally go into the master bedroom to get something and he would always see the transparent vase beautifully illuminated by the sun and the ceramic candy box on the table opposite it.

Like Chi Xueyan, he didn’t remove his things apart from some commonly used items.

The vase was waiting for flowers and the bedroom was waiting for its masters.

He was waiting for Chi Xueyan to finish what he wanted to do.

The wait with an ending was happiness.

The night before that day came, Chi Xueyan went to the bathroom in the master bedroom to take a bath. The bathtub was already filled with water at just the right temperature.

Before closing the door, he said good night to He Qiao in a normal tone.

He Qiao also said softly, “Good night.”

The warm yellow light of the bathroom illuminated his hair color very softly and it was an almost transparent softness.

He Qiao turned around and left the darkly lit master bedroom as usual.

As he passed by the bedside, he instinctively looked at the increasingly familiar bedside table.

Pale silver moonlight bathed the empty, beautiful vase.

Outside the glass window on a winter night, a butterfly flew lightly.

It passed by similar and different windows, wandering in the sometimes dim and sometimes colorful night.

Beneath the twinkling neon lights, glass doors opened and closed. Young customers poured into the long-established bar, enjoying different types of nights.

The bar owner, who always liked to chat with customers, seemed to be busy today. He was sitting behind the bar and staring at the screen of his phone while scratching his hair.

The words ‘fortune telling’, which Wang Shaojing never wanted to hear again in his life, still appeared in front of him.

Chi Xueyan, who recently got to know a fortune teller, asked him to do something else.

In fact, the thing was very simple and wasn’t troublesome. It just sounded outrageous.

It was similar to posting a provocative Moments with text, but it was even more confusing.

Wang Shaojing even suspected that this old friend who had a surprising mind was engaged in some type of performance art.

It was because he knew that Chi Xueyan didn’t believe in things such as fate, let alone fortune telling.

Wang Shaojing didn’t believe in it either.

The more drunk or tearful clients he saw, the less he believed in fate.

He felt that the fates of almost all people were broken, but the degree to which it was cracked was different.

They were living life for the first time and it was too easy to make mistakes and get hurt. Sometimes, just feeling pain would make a person retract their hand. Sometimes, it would subconsciously cause them to make more and more mistakes until it was hard to take back the spilled water.

Rather than calling it a mysterious fate, it was better to say it was a choice within reach.

For example, Wang Shaojing chose to agree to help with this small favor.

It was because he was helping an old friend.

The bar owner was full of confusion as he sent a message to the customer whose name he still didn’t know, so he gave the nickname of ‘Graduate Student Who isn’t Interesting In Horror Movies.’

[SCA Bar-Wang: Mom, Jianshe Road is closed for construction recently and it has been dug into a mess. You always buy vegetables early. Don’t try to save trouble and take that road. Buy me some snacks, okay?]

After sending this message that was obviously wrong, Wang Shaojing couldn’t help pouring himself a glass of wine to calm himself down.

Chi Xueyan had given him an unclear message and he had polished the tone according to his own habits.

…He had never done such a strange thing in his life.

On the contrary, it seemed interesting.

As a bar owner who could see all types of people, he had always been more receptive to strange things.

What did this message mean to that graduate student?

He didn’t know. He was so confused when he read this paragraph that he almost wanted to go study cryptography temporarily.

But Wang Shaojing preferred to believe that it was meaningful.

Even if it was a performance art that made people scratch their heads, it contained a type of meaning.

An hour later, he finally got the reply he was waiting for.

[Graduate Student Who isn’t Interested In Horror Movies: ?]

Wang Shaojing sighed with relief when he received this cold question mark.

Chi Xueyan had told him to make sure that the other person received the message.

He was finally able to make the last move: a flamboyant and clumsy smoothing over of things.

[SCA Bar-Wang: Oh, why did I send it to the wrong person? I wanted to send it to my mother!]

[SCA Bar-Wang: Sorry sorry, ignore me. Don’t mind it!]

Immediately afterward, he expertly sent a string of ‘disturbing you’ kowtow emojis.

Finally, he took a screenshot of this nonsensical chat, sent it to Chi Xueyan and called it a day.

Chi Xueyan thanked him and imitated him by sending a series of ‘disturbing you’ emojis.

Wang Shaojing smiled and told him not to forget to come and see the band in two days.

It was the last event of the bar before the new year arrived.

After the gathering with old and new friends, Wang Shaojing would go home to celebrate the Spring Festival.

Of course, his mother wouldn’t go by Jianshe Road to buy vegetables. She was in her hometown.

The old couple had started preparing for the New Year’s Eve dinner half a month in advance.

He felt greedy when he thought of the dishes that would be prepared.

Wang Shaojing finished this matter and turned off his phone. He hit behind the bar and ate a bag of snacks before getting up and greeting the familiar and unfamiliar guests with a smile.

“Hey, you came. I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

In the loud bar, the lights above people’s heads flickered dimly.

In the silent corridor of the laboratory building, the only bright light came from the window in front.

A young student passed by this room and couldn’t help reaching out to knock on the door. He greeted the person inside. “You haven’t left yet?”

He looked in and felt something strange. Old Lu, who had always been insulated from entertainment, was actually looking at his phone.

Lu Siyi raised his head and replied, “I’m getting ready to go.”

He had already completed the progress planned for today. As he was about to leave the laboratory building and return to his bedroom, he found a strange message on his phone.

The other person explained that it was sent by mistake.

It was common for messages to be sent by mistake and Lu Siyi didn’t care about it at first. However, there was a location name in the message that he was very familiar with.

The classmate who knew him well asked him, “Then let’s go together. Why are you still standing here?”

He replied, “I have to make a phone call.”

His mother didn’t go to Jianshe Road to buy vegetables but there was a hospital nearby. She passed through this road every morning to go to the hospital and take care of her husband.

It was approaching the winter break and the progress of the project was particularly tight. Lu Siyi hadn’t left school for a while.

So in fact, he didn’t know if the road had been closed recently due to construction or if it had been dug into a mess.

Even so, he called his mother to remind her to start going by another road tomorrow.

In the midst of the noise of the range hood, she said, “Okay, I got it. When will you have time to go home for dinner?”

Lu Siyi replied, “I am busy at the laboratory but tomorrow.”

Laughter filled his mother’s voice as she said, “Are you done with the work at school? Then I will go grocery shopping in the morning and buy flowers—”

One bunch would be placed on the coffee table at home and the other would be taken to the hospital.

Lu Siyi turned off the lights in the laboratory and walked out with his friend while still talking on the phone.

He attended college locally and it wasn’t far from home.

He hadn’t left the city since his father couldn’t leave that hospital bed.

On the way back to the dormitory, the taciturn Lu Siyi listened to his mother’s words and was rarely distracted.

He was thinking that he would get up early tomorrow to go to the laboratory, finish the task early and go home for dinner.

After hanging up the phone, he thought about how to reply to the wrong message and the screen full of ‘disturbing you’ emojis.

He was ready to reply with: It’s okay.

There was also a thanks.

The bar owner he had only met once had sent a wrong message and wouldn’t know why Lu Siyi was thanking him.

But he still wanted to say thank you.

On the bustling campus at night, the warm yellow street lights stretched the intertwined shadows.

The butterfly flew from night to day.

A wandering phantom hovered over the city and created a gust of invisible wind.

The morning sun was shining on the workers who were working at a height on the scaffolding, making people dizzy.

Soon, they were woken up by a worker who almost stepped on the air and fell.

The person next to him almost lost half his life from fright and burst out angrily, “Can’t you concentrate?”

The young man who was scolded turned pale and didn’t dare to refute it. He tightly grasped the rope tied to his body with both hands.

There was a safety rope and nothing should’ve happened, but he was still frightened. The originally heavy sleepiness faded away in an instant.

There was a ball game last night and it was the last big game before the Spring Festival.

He knew he shouldn’t have stayed up late since he had to go to work early the next morning.

However, the game was too exciting and he couldn’t hold back. He stayed up almost all night and drank some beer.

Just now, he was affected by the sunlight and was really dizzy.

By the time his mind returned, half of his body was already suspended in the air.

After a while, the young man finally calmed down his violent heart palpitations. He glanced at the crowded street below and couldn’t help tightening the safety rope on his body even more.

He felt that he was lucky and he should go and buy a lottery ticket after work in the evening.

If it was the old rope from a few days ago, it might’ve broken and the consequences would’ve been unimaginable.

Fortunately, a lot of safety equipment on the construction site had been newly replaced and it was the time when it was the most robust and easy to use.

The foreman here was very stingy. He would use it until it was really unusable. Otherwise, he would just make do and continue to use the equipment.

Therefore, this batch of new equipment wasn’t bought. It was given away for free by a company specializing in these things a while ago after an on-site inspection. It was given to many construction sites.

It might be a cooperation with the government or some other department.

What company was it?

He couldn’t think of it immediately.

The cold sweat on his back gradually subsided.

He couldn’t think any longer. He had to concentrate on work.

In short, he was lucky today and he couldn’t mess around like this in the future.

The shadows of the high-altitude work were cast on the ground by the sun. It rubbed together with the leaves and branches blown by the wind before disappearing.

At the entrance of this road, the ground was full of mottled shadows.

In the flow of people and cars, a gentle-looking middle-aged woman rode a bicycle and was about to habitually turn into this street when she suddenly remembered something.

Immediately, she turned the bicycle around and drove down another road.

The memory of the advice she received made a smile appear on her face.

It was a plain and happy smile.

The stranger standing on the corner quietly watched her leave.

The sun fell on his crimson hair.

He watched her pass by the danger and smile as she rode to the hospital to care for her vegetative husband, just like she did every day.

The new year was coming and there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers in the basket.

Melodious music was playing from the stores on the street.

It was the famous work of a very popular singer recently with a unique voice, Closer.

“…Approaching you from the furthest place.”

The traffic lights were changing, the horns sounded occasionally, pedestrians were hurrying and vehicles were moving forward.

Everyone was close to the destination in their hearts.

The streets and life were as calm as ever, without any accidents.

Thus, Chi Xueyan sighed with relief. He watched the unknown figure disappear and the petals trembled in the wind.

The butterfly flew over the flower.

There was a silent storm and a changed fate.

He indirectly changed Duan Ruo’s fate and also indirectly changed Lu Siyi’s fate.

Everyone’s life had new paragraphs written.

They were more beautiful paragraphs.

If he was really a big villain who hurt the protagonist in a certain time and space, was this now considered a type of redemption?

It was redeeming the self he had never seen.

-Let everything go the right way and say goodbye to the decay of loneliness.

In these intertwined lights and staggered lines of fate, Chi Xueyan couldn’t describe his mood at this moment.

He just suddenly wanted to hear He Qiao’s voice.

The appearance of the voice that couldn’t be described in the words. The only way to realize he missed it was to listen.

Standing on a sunny street corner and listening to the moving melody coming out of the store speakers, he made a call to He Qiao.

He Qiao answered his call quickly every time. So in this extremely short moment, Chi Xueyan only had time to think of one thing.

He knew that in the days to come, he would slowly forget the plot of the book, just like forgetting the names of some unimportant people.

It was because there were more important things to remember.

The waiting tone immediately disappeared and a familiar breathing came from the other end of the phone. There was also the familiar background noise.

Chi Xueyan often had inexplicable opening statements. “Which flower do you like the most?”

He Qiao often accepted it without any surprise. “Roses.”

Then he consciously said, “I’m at home. What’s wrong?”

Chi Xueyan answered him seriously, with a soft tone rarely heard in his ordinary life. It was almost a fairytale-like tone.

It was like talking to an adult client seeing a doctor for the first time.

It was like continuing a fairytale that was too late.

“I went on an adventure alone. Now the adventure is over and I want to buy a bouquet of flowers to take home.”

The author has something to say:

A kiss with the taste of butterflies.