CH 63

Ge Xing woke up, but his spirit hadn’t fully awakened. Upon hearing the news, before he could even react in his mind, the voice on the other end of the phone spoke again.

“No, wait.” Zhou Qingbo’s tone was steady, but his speech was a bit scattered. It was as if he had just remembered something and then withdrew it himself, saying, “I forgot that Wang Ge isn’t leaving the city—just pretend I didn’t ask. I’ll think of another way.”

Zhou Qingbo hung up the phone after speaking, tossed his phone onto the bed, and paced around as if lost in thought. Then he took a deep breath.

The earthquake in the southern province happened just ten minutes before. Interestingly, last night Zhou Qingbo and Ge Xing had been drinking half the night. After returning home, he had forgotten to silence his phone. As a result, he was awakened by notifications that pulled him out of his dreams.

Still half-asleep, he hadn’t fully grasped the situation yet and had assumed it was an urgent matter from the company. He squinted and grabbed his phone, only to see earthquake notifications popping up on the app.

The notification was brief, with only two lines of text, but as Zhou Qingbo quickly scanned it, he was instantly awake, breaking out in a cold sweat.

Almost instinctively, he sat up on the bed, ignoring the blinding light. In a rush, he opened the news article and compared the affected areas in the news with Pei You’s business trip route.

That earthquake in the southern province seemed to be severe. The coverage of affected areas on the trending searches was expanding rapidly. A quick look at the data chart showed that it covered almost half of the southern province, and a significant portion of the area where Pei You was traveling was within the affected region.

Pei You’s business trip this time covered not just one town. Before he left, Zhou Qingbo had seen his schedule, which practically spanned half the province.

Due to the complexity of collaborative work and the inadequacy of infrastructure in some rural areas, coupled with poor signal reception, Pei You couldn’t always keep Zhou Qingbo informed of his whereabouts in real time. There were several instances where he settled in a new location before casually mentioning it in a brief chat with Zhou Qingbo.

The night before last, Pei You had mentioned that the accounting planning for the area he was in had almost been completed and that he was preparing to move to the next location. However, there had been no follow-up after that. This left Zhou Qingbo unsure of where Pei You was at the moment.

He immediately called Pei You, but it was unclear whether Pei You was still asleep or in the midst of a crisis. Although the call connected, there was no response on the other end, only silence for several tens of seconds before the call automatically disconnected.

Zhou Qingbo paced in place for a moment, taking a few deep breaths to calm his racing heartbeat. Then he looked at his phone, sat back on the edge of the bed, and called Pei You again.

This time, it seemed there was no signal or some other issue. The call didn’t connect at all. Although the call was answered, there was no one on the other end, just empty sound for several seconds before it automatically returned to the lock screen, emitting a brief disconnect sound.

For the second time, Zhou Qingbo failed to reach Pei You. His heart rate, which had been stabilizing, began to accelerate again. He sat in silence by the bed, squeezing his phone, his mind blank.

Pei You is probably really in the disaster area, Zhou Qingbo suddenly thought.

Due to his nature of work as he always had to be prepared for temporary work. Even if it’s not intentionally waiting for Zhou Qingbo’s call, he would always keep the communication open.

If he was safe, even if he missed the first call because he was sleeping, the second call should go through.

Strangely enough, Zhou Qingbo originally thought he should be anxious, panicked, running around in a frenzy, but in reality, at that moment, when he was certain that Pei You was most likely in a dangerous situation, he strangely remained calm.

His mind went blank, as if the emotional module had been temporarily disconnected. For a while, he didn’t think about anything, just sat quietly on the edge of the bed, lost in thought for about ten minutes.

The sky outside the window began to lighten, the dark blue sky gradually turning into a pale grayish-white. Zhou Qingbo leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees, staring absentmindedly at the seam in the floor.

With the bedroom lights off, the dim light fell on him, making him look like a silent sculpture.

After about ten or twenty minutes, Zhou Qingbo seemed to power up again. He stood up abruptly.

He took quick steps into the bathroom, washed up in a hurry, and then, still dripping wet, pulled open the closet door and started stuffing clothes carelessly into his suitcase.

He stuffed them in rapidly, pulling shirts and T-shirts off hangers and cramming them inside. After a few rounds, the once-neat closet looked as if it had been hit by an explosion.

He packed mechanically for a while before realizing what he was doing. He then threw all the suits and dress shirts from the suitcase, leaving only sportswear and comfortable clothes for movement.

He looked calm on the surface, but inside, his thoughts were a jumbled mess. He closed and reopened the suitcase three times before finally packing it properly. Then he hastily put on some clothes, grabbed his phone and charger, and left the apartment.

In the half hour of waiting without news from Pei You, Zhou Qingbo hardly thought about anything else. He was fixated on one thought.

I can’t just stay here and wait for the news. Zhou Qingbo said to himself. How can I stay a thousand miles away, waiting for the situation to stabilize there, waiting for Pei You to be safe, and then have him report back to me?

Zhou Qingbo almost didn’t hesitate; He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t sit still and do nothing. 

He truly couldn’t sit in Beijing comfortably. He couldn’t just anxiously wait, unable to do anything while he was on edge. He couldn’t wait for Pei You to come back and say, “Thank goodness,” in a nonchalant manner.

His possessiveness and protective instincts urgently drove him to want to know Pei You’s current situation, to see him safe with his own eyes, to personally lead him out of that dangerous and tumultuous area. Perhaps he couldn’t do much over there, but at least the freedom to try was in his hands.

When Zhou Qingbo left, the sky outside was just beginning to brighten. There weren’t many people on the streets yet.

Sanitation workers had just finished their shift, but the breakfast stalls had been open for a while. The aroma of noodles drifted through the cool breeze, enticing the hungry early risers silently.

Zhou Qingbo felt choked up, unable to eat anything. But to make progress on the journey, he bought a cup of soy milk and then took a taxi to the airport.

Travel to the disaster-stricken area in the southern province was suspended, so Zhou Qingbo didn’t fly directly there. Instead, he chose the nearest airport in a neighboring province as his destination and booked a flight.

The earliest morning flight from the airport was at 6:30 AM. Zhou Qingbo barely made it in time. While waiting to board, he bought two energy bars and sat near the gate, scrolling through his phone.

During this time, the entire city was rapidly waking up. News of the disaster had spread to everyone’s phones via the internet. The buzz around it silently escalated, with calls for help and requests for disaster relief supplies flooding social media, racking up thousands of shares and reposts from early risers.

The boarding announcement for the flight sounded soon after. Following Pei You’s out-of-town schedule as he remembered it, Zhou Qingbo saved the contact information of a few nearby rescue teams and then sent a WeChat message to Zhou Cangshan before locking his phone.

As the scattered travelers stood up around him, Zhou Qingbo, dragging his suitcase, gathered among the crowd. Slowly and step by step, he moved forward toward the boarding gate.

Just before boarding, he subconsciously touched the pendant around his neck. The jade pendant quietly rested in its place on his chest, lightly brushing against his palm through the thin fabric.

Zhou Qingbo touched it twice with a calm expression, then tightened his grip on his suitcase and entered the aircraft cabin.