Chapter 33 Subtle
After that day, Zhou Lin was out of contact for a long time.
Wen Bairan met with Li Yuan twice.
They went to that café above Zhongzhan Building, and coincidentally, also ended up sitting by the window.
The girl playing the piano wasn’t Su Yi.
Heard she and Zhou Lin broke up too.
Li Yuan had lined up a project for Zhou Lin, who had gone out of town to check out the site.
Wen Bairan asked what kind of project it was.
“Private medical construction under the Dayun Group.”
The sunlight outside was brilliant; summer would slowly start fading after today.
Li Yuan set down his coffee cup. The golden frames of his glasses reflected the sunlight, appearing almost transparent from certain angles. “He doesn’t have the qualifications; core planning was never going to be an option for him. I called in some favors and got him a small supply deal for construction materials.”
She was stunned and took a long time to respond. “Why?”
The Zhou family was in retail. Even if he wanted to get into business, he should have started with the family business.
Building supplies?
He had no experience at all. A young master raised in comfort isn’t cut out for that kind of grind.
And why Dayun?
“It’s precisely because he has no experience that he should do it. In the Zhou family, he’ll always just be the young master.” Li Yuan might not have been sleeping well lately; his voice sounded weak, quiet and measured, making others settle into his pace.
“As for your second question, all I can say is there’s coincidence, and of course, some was deliberate. He never understood what you were doing; his knowledge of healthcare probably begins and ends with his annual physical.” He smiled as he spoke. “Now he has a chance to learn the ropes. We’ll see how quick he is on the uptake.”
Wen Bairan stirred the coffee in her cup, her eyelashes lowered as if lost in thought.
After a long silence, Li Yuan called her name.
“Xiao Bai.”
She looked up. “Hmm?”
Li Yuan asked, “Do you know what hit me the hardest after I found out you two broke up?”
He suddenly brought this up. The white light reflected off his lenses flashed—not glaring, but unusually sharp.
Wen Bairan was even more stunned.
“It was that you gave in too,” he said.
The light by the window was too strong, the heat baking them.
She shrank into herself, hugging her arms, like someone frozen for a long time suddenly thawing.
Li Yuan lowered his eyes and spoke with a sigh. “Any relationship, once it falls into a routine and inertia, leads to complacency and taking things for granted. A Lin was like that with you, the Zhou family is like that with him, and you were like that with him. Human nature’s fickleness dictates that the more we want to hold onto something, the less likely it is to stay the same.”
“I once thought you could change him, but changing a person is too difficult. Even for you, it was exceptionally hard. We both understand that. Before going abroad, I could see your frustration; you already knew you couldn’t do any more for him. I know you tried your best.”
Zhou Lin turning out the way he did wasn’t any one person’s fault.
It was because of his family, his education, the expectations and gazes of those around him—together, they created someone who went against every hope they’d initially had for him.
“The Zhou family gave A Lin endless doting and money, and after these things turned him into a lawless, spoiled playboy, they blamed him for being a good-for-nothing. You gave him indulgence and leniency, silently allowing him to do as he pleased and be himself, but in the end, it wore away your youth and your love. Everything he’s done in his life up to now seems wrong, yet also seems not wrong. He was simply living by what you all allowed, so why is he the one who has to bear all the disappointment and loss in the end? You all gave him so much, so why did no one ever tell him that enjoyment comes with responsibility?”
“You and I sitting here today, we know who we are. But A Lin—if you ask him what the name Zhou Lin means, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. Son to whom? Brother to whom? Lover to whom? When that ‘to whom’ no longer exists, who is he?”
“He’s such a self-centered person, so selfish, and yet he’s more adrift than you or me. Isn’t that contradictory? Everyone in this world has their own destination; only he doesn’t know where he’s going. At first glance, it seems like everyone loves him, but in the end, he’s the one who lost everything because of love. A potentially brilliant career, a beautiful romance, a happy marriage—all gone. It’s as if disappointment and being a disappointment have become the set path for his life, and he can only keep moving forward along this path to keep what he has now. He truly doesn’t know who to blame. After thinking it over, the only person he can blame is himself.”
Li Yuan took a deep breath. “Love, in a certain subtle sense, is life’s greatest source of pressure. It can nourish a parched soul, but it can also drown a healthy one until its roots rot. When I was studying abroad, I saw many cases like this. Many people like A Lin—whether they received too much or lost too much—have gentleness as the foundation of their humanity. So they don’t lash out at others, but they abuse themselves. Self-abandonment; self-exile; self-sabotage; depression; bipolar disorder—so many, many issues. Very few can truly bounce back after seeing the reality of things.”
As he reached this point, it was as if he had let out a huge sigh of relief. Wen Bairan even detected a sense of relief like after surviving a disaster in his tone, and she relaxed as well.
“Fortunately, our A Lin is one of them.”
All that excessive doting had, in the end, given him some backbone. The arrogant and unruly Young Master Zhou would never allow himself to spend his life as a waste, or as something even worse than a waste.
The so-called fixed pattern regarding Zhou Lin existed for Li Yuan as well. He had given him two paths: one was to enter Lianjie Household Chemicals, starting from the bottom, and the other was to join the Zhou family’s brand company, starting with products. Both paths were still under the family’s protection; the latter would certainly be easier, but it was still a learning opportunity.
On the point of not encouraging him to start his own business, Li Yuan shared the Zhou family’s view—he had no experience, and going in empty-handed would easily lead to losses. Big losses.
But Zhou Lin told him, “Bro, aside from myself and my life, what else do I have to lose? What you call ‘losses’ ultimately just comes down to money, right?”
He tossed out two cards.
One of them had money that Mother Zhou had deposited from time to time over the years. He had used some of it, but there was still enough left to serve as startup capital without having to ask anyone for money.
The other card, he asked Li Yuan to deliver.
“This is what A Lin saved up.”
Saved up.
Young Master Zhou knew how to save money, too.
Li Yuan found it funny even as he said it.
“Du has been doing well these past couple of years; the dividends are all here. Also, he said you mentioned before that you wanted to replace all the furniture at home. He seemed like he wasn’t paying attention at the time, but he occasionally remembered and would deposit money into the card. You can use it whenever you want.” He spread his hands and joked, “Of course, not to buy furniture for him.”
Wen Bairan also laughed, though strained.
It was as if someone had tied a string to the corners of her mouth but strung it through the wrong place. Lifting her smile muscles hurt, so she had to let them drop.
She stared at the card as if seeing Zhou Lin.
“What is this, breakup money?”
“I won’t take it.”
“I knew you’d say that, but he said the only thing he can give you right now is money.”
Wen Bairan was stunned. She saw Li Yuan give her a gentle smile, but the cold light reflected in his lenses left no room for argument. “Besides, I’m only responsible for delivering it, not for returning it.”
They drank these two cups of coffee from daylight until dark.
While taking the elevator down, Wen Bairan looked out at the sky. The deep blue, nearly black curtain of night was unusually dotted with stars.
She suddenly remembered what Zhou Lin had said that day.
'Mission accomplished.'
'I own up to my actions.'
......
So he was saying goodbye to her.
Li Yuan said he would be staying away for at least three months.
Three months later, it was already winter in Shenjiang.
Maybe it's for the best.
Maybe it's best to let what happened in summer stay in the summer.
Li Yuan then asked her, "If you could do it all over again, would you still be with him?"
Wen Bairan paused, caught off guard. Her gaze drifted away, as if genuinely thinking about it. "No."
If she had known that this long-term relationship would end in such a way, she would never have chosen to start it.
After saying this, she second-guessed herself.
If she could go back again, still on that university campus.
The hem of her white dress soaked transparent by the rain, Zhou Lin's dark eyes burning intensely as he looked at her and said, "Give me a chance."
She thought she probably would still give it.
He was so arrogant and domineering that everyone else just fell into a supporting role for him.
She often wondered how there could be someone in the world as unreasonable yet acted like it was his right?
Only later did she realize that was just Zhou Lin.
She really couldn’t blame him for anything, because blaming him would be like blaming her past self.
What makes young love so unforgettable isn’t because it was particularly tender, intense, or right.
It’s because of the purity, completely pure. Days spent in everyday arguments, with no one able to predict how their lives would turn out, yet the concept of love, at the very beginning, involved only two people.
You.
Me.
White dress.
Dark eyes.
Simple love and hate.
Direct happiness.
Back then, Zhou Lin charged through the rain without a second thought to find her.
Back then, she clutched her pillow, crying through the night, unable to sleep.
Back then, the two of them shared a kiss under the glow of the rain...
Now, past her youth, Wen Bairan could never go back to that time when she couldn’t even control her own thoughts from one second to the next.
But back then, when she still had her youth, no matter what others said, she would still tell Zhou Lin, "A Lin, it was all worth it."
That's life.
Knowing full well that we are born only to die, we still scramble to find meaning in each day.
Knowing full well that the outcome would be so desolate, we still crave the journey itself.
The process of love.
The process of youth.
The process of growth.
Even if it’s destined to bring tears and wounds.
They are all marks life leaves on you.
Put together, they form who we are now.
She didn't regret any of it.
//
The second time she saw Li Yuan was at a party thrown by the CEO of Xirui.
Xiang Sun was returning to Xixiang and had put together a going-away thing before leaving.
Wen Bairan originally didn’t have to go.
But her relationship with Song Xu had been weird lately.
She couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong.
During the day at work, everything proceeded as usual. His cold, icy face still bossed her around as it always had, but after work, once they left the office, he never contacted her. Occasionally, if there were any last-minute updates in the evening, he would send them directly to Qiao Yi’s phone.
After this happened a few times, Qiao Yi finally asked, "What did you do to him? I get the feeling Song Xu is kinda scared of you."
Afraid?
Probably not.
But avoiding me? Definitely.
She could roughly guess it was because of that night, but she couldn't say for sure.
After work, as soon as Song Xu entered the parking garage, he saw Wen Bairan waiting by his car.
The temperature had dropped these past couple of days, with autumn setting in, and wind in the mornings and evenings. She wore a caramel-colored long trench coat, with a matching leather skirt and a white fitted top underneath. Her boots had low heels, making her legs look even longer and leaner.
Wen Bairan’s beauty always seemed to slip out unnoticed.
Having waited for too long, she tapped the toe of her boot absently, examining the weathered scuffs. Her focused side profile made it seem as though she gave everything her full attention. A few strands of hair had fallen around her ears, tossed by a stray breeze, dancing like willow leaves. The ends of her hair brushed against her cheeks, making her skin itch, and she tucked them behind her ears with her fingers, revealing her dainty earlobes.
Her earlobes were teardrop-shaped, with full, rounded curves and skin that was soft and luminous.
The area behind her ears, connecting to her jawline, was her sensitive area.
She was ticklish there.
yet it felt good.
Every time he lingered there, she would let out soft, kitten-like murmurs.
Equally persistent, her cat-like claws would dig into that soft spot in his heart, scratching or hooking, with just the right mix of pain and itch, making his eyes narrow too.
Their breathing grew quiet within his gradually darkening gaze.
He edged closer unnoticed.
With the public holiday weekend approaching, Qiao Yi had bought her train ticket home early and was already at the station by now.
Bored while waiting in the waiting area, she sent a message asking if Master Song had any comments about their act of seeking forgiveness rather than permission.
It was originally her turn to attend the client meeting, but Wen Bairan had filled in for her last-minute so she could go home.
It was clear that Qiao Yi was still pretty scared of Song Xu’s anger—after all, he was so hard to work with, and everyone was wary of working under him.
Wen Bairan replied that he was still at work and told her that since it was already the holiday, she should just go home without worry.
"Don’t worry, no matter how pissed he is, he’s not going to drag you off the high-speed train—" she added.
"Drag who off?"
Just as Wen Bairan was sending the voice message, Song Xu’s voice suddenly came from behind her, making her jump.
Her hand jerked, and the phone slipped from her grasp.
She instinctively reached to catch it, her fingertips barely grazing the screen... but she failed to grab it, and it fell to the ground with a crack.
—The screen shattered.
"......"
She had just gotten this new phone.
Before she could mourn the spiderweb cracks on the screen, a large, masculine hand picked up the phone from the ground before she could.
Her gaze followed the hand upward.
The backlit figure before her was broad, enveloping her completely.
In an instant, a subtle unease crept in, as if something dangerous was about to happen the next second.
She slowly straightened up and watched as Song Xu inspected the phone right in front of her.
They were barely a step apart, and his casual, cool demeanor accentuated the best features of his face.
The lighting in the parking garage wasn’t very bright. After a quick glance, the man’s narrow eyes flicked open.
Song Xu’s deep eyes were doubly intense in such an enclosed environment.
She swallowed unconsciously, only then realizing how dry her mouth had gone.
The phone was pressed back into her hand, the residual warmth from another person’s touch lingering against her fingertips.
"Get a new one."
"I’ll cover it."
He said.