CH 64

After breaking through the last layer of the window paper, Qi Yanbai had no more reservations.

He no longer restrained himself trying to leave a “perfect” impression in front of Lu Ye. Instead, he completely abandoned his reservations and decided to relentlessly pursue Lu Ye.

At noon, when the sub-bureau’s closing bell rang, the office immediately filled with the clattering sounds of people.

The colleagues, hungry as if they hadn’t eaten in centuries, rushed to their desks, hastily piling up their materials and then hurriedly heading out.

Yao Xing, lagging behind, passed by Lu Ye’s desk. When she noticed he had no intention of leaving yet, she stopped and knocked on his desk.

“Lu Ge,” Yao Xing asked, “Did you order takeout? Shall I help you bring it over?”

“No need.” Lu Ye didn’t feel like going out. Wrapped in his duty coat, he shook his head and said, “I’ll make some instant noodles in a while. Don’t worry about me.”

His recent mood had been off, and there was rarely a smile on his face. Yao Xing couldn’t quite discern his mood, so she hesitated for a moment and then didn’t say much.

Soon, most of the office staff had left, and the previously noisy environment suddenly fell quiet. Lu Ye sat at his desk for a while before slowly standing up. He retrieved a box of instant noodles from the cabinet, tore open the packaging, and poured hot water over them.

“The canteen next door is serving scallion-braised pork today,” Li Zhiwen, raising his head from behind his desk, reminded him. “If you didn’t order takeout, you can go there to eat.”

Lu Ye used a fork to secure the lid of his instant noodles and casually replied, “No, I’m too lazy to move.”

“It’s just a dozen steps away, and you’re too lazy,” Li Zhiwen said in his habitual scolding tone. Then he furrowed his brows and asked curiously, “What’s wrong with you recently? You seem off. Did something happen at home?”

“Nothing. Maybe it’s just spring fatigue.” Lu Ye casually replied, “Isn’t work hectic recently?”

After the start of spring, work in the new area gradually picked up, and Lu Ye had rarely returned to the sub-bureau office lately. When he wasn’t out on patrol, he was working on cases. He left early and returned late every day, always coming back with a chill.

But Li Zhiwen knew him well. He could tell Lu Ye was talking nonsense and, hearing this, snorted before scolding, “You little brat, if you don’t want to say, then don’t. ‘Spring fatigue? You work at this intensity all year round. How come I never saw you sulking this much before?

Li Zhiwen had a sharp tongue but a soft heart. After scolding him, he couldn’t bear it and, with a cold face, threw a piece of sausage from across the table. It happened to fall into Lu Ye’s lap.

“It was made by my wife,” Li Zhiwen said coldly. “Consider it a favor for you, you little brat.”

“Well, aren’t you affectionate,” Lu Ye finally raised the corner of his mouth slightly. Seeing this, he raised an eyebrow and said, “Thanks, boss.”

As they chatted, someone pushed the office door open from the outside. A colleague who had gone out to get takeout came in, carrying a thermal bag. They greeted Li Zhiwen first, then walked over to Lu Ye and casually placed the thermal bag on his desk.

“Teacher Qi sent this to you,” the colleague said.

Lu Ye’s smile faded slightly.

“But he seems to have a class today, so it was delivered by a courier. He didn’t come himself,” the colleague leaned against Lu Ye’s desk, shrugged, and said, “By the way, he’s sent packed lunch a few times before, but you weren’t at the bureau during your mealtime, so he took it back.”

“You didn’t tell him that I haven’t been at the office recently?” Lu Ye asked.

“I did,” the colleague protested. “But he wouldn’t listen. He insisted on sending it, saying he was afraid you wouldn’t have anything to eat if you came back.”

After their confrontation that day, Lu Ye had already seen how stubborn Qi Yanbai could be. He knew that Qi Yanbai probably wouldn’t change his mind because of a few words from a colleague, so he pursed his lips and didn’t say anything more.

If you count from the day he encountered Qi Yanbai at his doorstep as he was heading to work, it had been a full ten days since Lu Ye last saw him.

………………………….

On that chilly morning, frost had formed on the cracks of the stairwell windows.

Lu Ye and Qi Yanbai locked eyes. As he gazed at Qi Yanbai’s determined look, Lu Ye had no doubt that if he were to say the word “breakup” right now, Qi Yanbai might be capable of anything.

Lu Ye keenly sensed the danger but wasn’t afraid. He had encountered too many ruthless criminals, and compared to them, Qi Yanbai was child’s play.

So Lu Ye didn’t compromise or respond at the time. He held Qi Yanbai’s gaze for a moment, then looked away first, freeing his wrist from Qi Yanbai’s grip without a word, and turned to leave.

At that moment, Qi Yanbai was left standing, his gaze and the thermal bag he held by his side both exuded a scorching heat that could unsettle anyone’s heart.

Time flowed like a river. Lu Ye’s relationship with Qi Yanbai had gone from being strangers to friends to lovers, but somehow, it had inexplicably circled back to the beginning.

This repetitive cycle made Lu Ye feel a subtle sense of irritation. He furrowed his brows, didn’t immediately open the thermal bag, and instead reached into his pocket to retrieve a cigarette box. Lowering his head, he used his teeth to pull out a cigarette.

The corner of the desk, which used to hold a mechanical alarm clock, now had a glass ashtray. There was a thin layer of white sand at the bottom of the ashtray. Lu Ye took a deep drag of his cigarette and then flicked a bit of ash into it.

“What’s wrong?” This was the first time Lu Ye had been so indifferent to something sent by Qi Yanbai. His colleague seemed to sense some kind of inexplicable avoidance in his actions. So, he turned to look at Li Zhiwen, cautiously probing, “Did he have a falling out with Teacher Qi?”

As soon as the colleague’s words fell, even Li Zhiwen, who was sitting opposite him, leaned in, wanting to see Lu Ye’s reaction.

Lu Ye had been leaving for work early and returning late lately, and Qi Yanbai’s visits to the police station had decreased significantly. Although his colleagues didn’t say anything, they were quietly concerned.

“Not really,” Lu Ye replied vaguely. “Just some differences in our personal lives.”

Perhaps he didn’t want to make things irreversible, or perhaps he wanted to leave some room for Qi Yanbai. Lu Ye hadn’t told anyone about Qi Yanbai’s stalking incident. He just bit on the cigarette and vaguely said, “So, we’ve decided to give each other some space for a couple of days and see how things go.”

“Young people these days, so fickle,” Li Zhiwen couldn’t help but complain. “What kind of personal differences can’t be resolved through communication? Why resort to the silent treatment?”

Lu Ye understood that Li Zhiwen meant well, but he didn’t want to bring his personal matters out for others to judge. He simply smiled and nodded, acknowledging Li Zhiwen’s advice without explaining.

Li Zhiwen also knew that Lu Ye had been independent and strong-willed since childhood, and once he made up his mind, others couldn’t change it. So, he shook his head, retrieved his gaze from the desk beside him, and stopped talking.

As the temperature in the insulated bag gradually dropped, Lu Ye took his last drag of the cigarette. Seeing that his colleague was still sneakily glancing over, he raised an eyebrow and asked, “What’s wrong? Are you hungry? Do you want to eat some?”

“Better not,” the colleague didn’t want to get involved in a lover’s quarrel and jokingly said, “I won’t take the risk of stealing a couple’s meal. Heaven will strike me down if I do so.”

With that, he quickly retreated and returned to his desk, where he began pretending to work.

Logically, Lu Ye didn’t want to accept Qi Yanbai’s goodwill at this moment, giving him mixed signals. However, emotionally, he and Qi Yanbai hadn’t completely broken ties. It wouldn’t be right to trample on his feelings. Furthermore, the food had already been delivered, and he would have to deal with it eventually. Lu Ye thought for a moment and decided to find a place to store it, whether he would ask his colleagues to deliver it back later or bring it to Qi Yanbai himself after work was undecided.

Lu Ye had a good plan in mind, but as he reached for the handle of the bag, he noticed a piece of paper lightly falling from the inner layer of the bag, landing perfectly on his desk.

Lu Ye glanced down and realized it was a pale yellow sticky note with two lines of writing:

“I tried making this. I’m not sure if it’s any good.”

“If you don’t like it, can you help me?”

There was no signature on the note, but Lu Ye easily recognized Qi Yanbai’s handwriting. His gaze lingered on the last sentence, and he felt a ripple of emotions.

At this moment, he had a vague idea of what might be in the lunchbox. Lu Ye took a moment to think and then, against his better judgment, pulled open the zipper on top of the insulated bag to take a peek.

Inside the bag, there was only a square glass lunchbox, and inside the lunchbox were about a dozen dumplings, most of which were a bit deformed. Two or three of them even had their fillings leaking, and the soup had formed a shallow layer of oil underneath the lunchbox.

Under the lunchbox, there was another beige sticky note, which Lu Ye pulled out and read with a glance. It contained only one sentence.

“You said you would teach me anything I didn’t know.”

At this moment, Lu Ye couldn’t describe what he was feeling. He just felt a weight in his chest, like the heavy, overcast sky before a storm, where the moisture hung heavily in the air, making it difficult to breathe.

This sticky note seemed to have finally given another meaning to the current state of his heart. Lu Ye lowered his eyes, feeling a sense of congestion in his chest that couldn’t be expressed.

—He had not been sleeping well lately, often having all sorts of strange dreams. Sometimes he dreamed of the afternoon when he first met Qi Yanbai, but most of the time, he dreamed of Qi Yanbai following him from a distance, asking him in a light and faint tone, “Didn’t you promise to be with me forever?”

At these times, the Lu Ye in his dreams always felt trance-like, as if the word “forever” had become a brand, and no matter what happened afterward, the promise he had made could never be erased.

Lu Ye absentmindedly folded the sticky note in half, thinking that Qi Yanbai was indeed adept at touching people’s hearts.

Fiery and extreme love was exhilarating but also came with high risks. Most emotionally mature adults were quite conservative in matters of the heart. Compared to the extremes of 0 or 100, most people preferred to hover around 60 throughout their lives.

Lu Ye wasn’t sure which category he belonged to, but during this period, he had reevaluated his relationship with Qi Yanbai and realized that they had rushed into things too quickly. Therefore, their relationship had ended in confusion.

Lu Ye didn’t want to make the same mistake again. He wouldn’t listen to Qi Yanbai this time, and he wouldn’t let himself be swayed by what Qi Yanbai had done. Regardless of the outcome, this time, he would take the time to understand things in his own way.