She broke up with Zhao Yanmo on the way back from Xiuchun Street.
Zhao Yanmo called and complained to Xiang Yu saying that her early departure had caused him to lose a lot of face. Xiang Yu took a deep breath of the damp night breeze and softly spit out the words, so gently that it seemed to hold a small amount of tender concern, “Zhao Yanmo, let’s break up.”
She did not say that the breakup wasn’t because she had a temper, nor did she tell him what made her feel that this relationship could no longer continue. Zhao Yanmo had made several calls afterwards of which Xiang Yu had all hung up.
Even if she became a petty woman at this stage of the relationship Zhao Yanmo had made her feel unhappy, so she also wanted to pay him back a little.
It is not often that in older TV series the villain points a sword or a gun at the protagonist, first laughing towards the sky, and then says, “I will kill you today!”
The consequence of this is usually that the villain is killed. So Xiang Yu has always felt that those villains died from talking too much and not being cruel enough.
Why do you have to make it so obvious that you will kill someone?
Something that is left unclear, isn’t it more impactful?
The air was submerged in a coldness after the rain, Xiang Yu’s backpack held the graduation certificate that had a sharp corner, with every step she took the corner poked at her waist.
She held the black shirt in her arms and could faintly smell the faint fragrance remaining on the fabric.
The man said, “Sit on this, it’s cold on the ground.”
After he said that he let go of his grip and the shirt fell on her knees and arms still warm from his body temperature.
It was also at that time the man’s phone rang again, he just held the cigarette in his mouth and then walked away with his phone in hand.
Of course, Xiang Yu didn’t really use his shirt as a mat to sit on, and his move was quite baffling. She thought that he would come back after answering the phone and say something regarding his actions towards her.
Every human’s behaviour should have a purpose, right?
Just like Zhao Yanmo mingling with his scoundrel friends every day in order to work for a future in Beijing. And why she choose to break up with him was because they had different understandings of “hard work” and “love.”
However, Xiang Yu held his shirt and waited for a long time but the man did not come back.
He actually gave this shirt to a stranger so casually? Merely because you want a stranger to sit on something cushioned?
Later, Xiang Yu thought in a confused state due to the cramps in her lower abdomen, maybe his behaviour is just like feeding ham to a stray cat that has emerged from the grass? But the shirt was not ham after all, and the logo embroidered inside the collar showed quite a conspicuous price.
After returning to the dormitory, Xiang Yu caught a cold during her period and developed a fever. For a few days, her body temperature was at 38 degrees and she bid off all her roommates under a high fever. With such a weak body due to her temperature, she dreamt of the man who handed her the shirt once.
When she recovered from her high fever in a muddleheaded state, all her emotions concerning Zhao Yanmo were also gone. There was only one regret that she had and was reluctant to admit it: if it weren’t for the breakup and pain that night, she might have felt her heartbeat in a way that hadn’t happened in a long time.
Zhao Yanmo had been tirelessly calling her and pouring his feelings into lengthy posts on WeChat.
It was just a few days after, Xiang Yu went to charge her phone and when she saw the missed call notification, several days had already passed.
There was a question repeatedly asked in WeChat, Zhao Yanmo asked Xiang Yu if what she previously said that she’ll introduce him to Tang Yuchi still holds or not.
Xiang Yu deleted Zhao Yanmo and preceded to make a video call. The recipient was Tang Yuchi.
Tang Yuchi is classified as a nouveau riche, not like Xiang Yu’s small amount of wealth, but actually filthy rich. Since kindergarten, he has always carried designer-brand schoolbags.
The video was soon picked up and Tang Yuchi’s milky dog-like face soon appeared on the phone screen.
As soon as he opened his mouth, his venomous tongue was completely exposed, “After making two phone calls to you I stopped. I thought you were so heartbroken that you couldn’t think straight, and your corpse was already at the bottom of Baihe River.”
Xiang Yu smiled and said, “How could I do something like that.”
Tang Yuchi sneered through the phone, and even though he was separated by the Pacific Ocean he did not forget to roast her, “I really don’t understand, why did you choose Zhao Yanmo? At one glance you can see that he is not a reliable person.”
After a few seconds, he warned her again, “You have already broken up, don’t think about returning back to him. Zhao Yanmo has surely not calmed down these days, right? You are not anxious about contacting him right? Just ignore him.”
Xiang Yu thought of the questions in Zhao Yanmo’s message, and suddenly she laughed aloud, “Not in a hurry to contact me, maybe he wanted to see you more.”
The relationship came to an end and her ex-boyfriend’s missed calls and messages urged her to “stay”, but Xiang Yu didn’t know if he was referring to her, or to her interpersonal relationships.
After listening to Tang Yuchi laughing for a while, he couldn’t hide the gloating in his voice, “People like Zhao Yanmo, at a glance you can tell he was brainwashed by the ‘society of university’ by things like ‘networking is more important than hard work’ and so on, I told you so. “
“I told you to study hard, and you didn’t listen to me. Now haven’t you been thrown to the other side of the ocean.”
“When will you stop mentioning things of the past?”
Tang Yuchi refused to talk about his 200 points in the college entrance examination and he was thrown abroad by his parents, so he simply changed the subject, “I think you are quite at ease despite just having broken up recently, do you still know how to shop at famous brands?”
Xiang Yu followed Tang Yuchi’s gaze and looked behind herself seeing the black shirt on the hanger.
The traces of life in the bedroom were almost cleaned out and the shirt hanging on the tin cabinet door was quite conspicuous.
She felt guilty towards the owner of this shirt. After all, it was not him who broke up but she and Zhao Yanmo were left unscathed. The unfamiliar man who showed a trace of warmth on that rainy night had lost a 5-figure shirt for nothing.
“I picked it up.” Xiang Yu ignored the emotions from that night and downplayed the situation.
Tang Yuchi asked what Xiang Yu had planned after graduating from university, she thought about it and said she wanted to play around first.
If your boyfriend is gone, then he is gone. It is more comfortable to go alone on a graduation trip.
Tang Yuchi gave her a thumbs-up in the video and regretted that he couldn’t go back to China to go together to tour the mountains and rivers with her.
For nearly a month after graduation, Xiang Yu wandered around carrying only a suitcase as a tourist to every city. There were many ways to travel, sometimes she went by train, sometimes by plane, or by bus.
Near the end of the journey, the entrance tickets to scenic spots plus the air tickets and train tickets filled up a whole folder.
On her last stop in Changsha, the news showed a rainstorm had flooded Orange Isle.
Due to inconvenient transportation, Xiang Yu stayed at the hotel for a few days and was unable to appreciate the elegance of the Xiang River. She only had a few meals at a nearby top-rated restaurant.
There is a dish in the restaurant, a dense bone soup pot on a gas stove and there is actually a side of hibiscus flower to eat. The pink hibiscus flower once placed into the bone broth becomes white in boiling water, giving it a unique taste.
The taste was fascinating.
At that time, Xiang Yu didn’t know that another existence she was obsessed with would also appear in this city tormented by a rainstorm.
On the last day, Xiang Yu had eaten hibiscus flowers soaked in bone broth and took a taxi to the train station with her small suitcase.
The train station was packed with people and after finally passing the security check, Xiang Yu looked up at the times only to see red words on the screen.
There are train delays from 10 to 18, which included the train she was going to take.
She was taken aback, and squeezed through the crowd to ask the staff, only to be told that due to the heavy rain it was unsure how long the delay would last.
Xiang Yu was dumbfounded for a few minutes before remembering to call the airport. The airport staff politely said that today’s flight to Beijing was also delayed and it was very likely that the flight would be cancelled.
She was trapped in a strange city under a heavy rainstorm and had no choice but to find a hotel.
The nearby hotels were all unavailable, even the room she left in the afternoon had already been booked by a customer and only one luxury five-star hotel still had rooms. Xiang Yu took a taxi to the hotel and in only a short period of time when she got out of the car to take the luggage into the hotel lobby she was drenched.
She was wearing a white dress with straps, and after being soaked in rain her underwear was visible through the thin fabric.
There were a lot of people standing at the front desk of the hotel, and Xiang Yu was worried that the only remaining rooms would be full so she couldn’t help but act in a hurry.
She flipped through her suitcase to pull out a piece of clothing and put it on, and then she quickly walked to the check-in line. Standing still in the crowd, Xiang Yu realized that what she put on casually turned out to be the black shirt given by the stranger.
At that time everything from the dormitory had already been sent home, but this shirt was left behind. So she had to pack it in her suitcase and travel with it.
Xiang Yu who had drooped her head to look at the clothes on her body was a little stunned. The first few customers in the line had already left and she quickly reacted, scrambling her head to find her ID. A woman wearing work attire at the front desk apologised to Xiang Yu, “Sorry, but we are fully booked.”
No one noticed that a man in his nightgown lifted the plank that enclosed the front desk and walked into the front desk with a sense of familiarity. Then with a cigarette in hand, he leaned to the side.
Xiang Yu held her ID card and raised her eyes in panic. Her bangs which were damp due to rain had already been combed back revealing a smooth forehead. The look in her eyes was innocent and at a loss.
The moment he raised his head to look at Xiang Yu, as he leaned against the front desk remembered a scene in the movie “The Pirates of the Caribbean”: The raft floating in the foggy sea in the middle of the night, a mermaid quietly emerged from the water, her face masked in seawater, eyes full of innocence as if they knew nothing about the world, yet it was terribly charming.
Xiang Yu fell into a predicament; she had no room to stay in and, for a while, she didn’t know how to respond. It was then that the staff at the front desk turned their heads and were startled by the silhouette of the person beside them. Their faces blushed, as they pointed to the sign that read “non-staff are not allowed to enter” and respectfully said, “Mr. Jin, why are you here again? “
“To inspect the hotel for your boss,” the man said.
Xiang Yu was still in her current predicament, as she unconsciously followed the staffs’ line of sight, focusing on the man in the nightgown.
He was also looking at her.
The man stared at her as he leisurely stuffed something in the cigarette, lit it, and exhaled white smoke.
When he stares at someone, his eyes were full of affection, it was as if he was about to kiss the back of her head in the next second.
Later, Xiang Yu saw a discussion post about “scumbags” on the Internet. Some people said that people with charming eyes represented scumbags who are equally affectionate to everyone.
Xiang Yu fell into a deep trance.
It was just that she didn’t recognize that at this moment, the man who squinted at her through the smoke was the owner of the shirt on her.
Author: 殊娓
RiahTrans 