Chapter 36: The 42nd Floor
There was a three-day long weekend.
The next day, Wen Bairan went to the hospital again.
In the hospital room, only Li Yuan was alone; his assistant wasn't around.
He was leaning against the bed, reading a book.
It was a massive original edition of a psychology book, its weight seemingly too heavy for him. He held the book with one hand spread beneath it, the lower spine resting against his stomach. With his other hand, he turned the page. When he noticed Wen Bairan entering, he naturally closed the book.
"Xiao Bai."
About two-thirds of the pages closed with a force that looked like it could break his fingers.
The hand supporting the book shook unsteadily, his fingers straining so hard that his knuckles turned white.
He had truly gotten so thin to the point of appearing ill.
"Brother Li Yuan, are you feeling better?" Wen Bairan walked over, placed the flowers and gifts on the bedside table, and observed his complexion up close.
Li Yuan had just shifted out of his reading state; besides the warm gentleness in his eyes, there was also a trace of indifference. The sunlight from outside streamed in with the breeze, reflecting a bright glare on his glasses. Only then did Wen Bairan notice he was wearing glasses.
Extremely thin silver wire frames, almost merging with his pale complexion.
He said he was better, but she couldn't help frowning as she recalled how he had fainted the night before, asking if there was something he was hiding from her.
Li Yuan said no.
He had always been one to share good news but not bad, and his casual act made it clear he was trying to reassure her.
Seeing her disbelief, he smiled and apologized, saying he had scared everyone yesterday. In a few days, he would host them for another get-together.
Xiang Sun had already returned to Xixiang and wouldn’t be back in Shenjiang until next month.
She didn't believe he didn't know.
Wen Bairan wanted to push him, but Li Yuan seemed too weak, and she didn’t want to make him feel worse.
She stayed in the room keeping him company for a while. Seeing him look weary and tired, she stood up to leave.
Before she walked out, Li Yuan stopped her.
"Did you tell A Lin?"
Wen Bairan’s hand on the door handle tightened. She turned around and nodded honestly. "Yes."
The situation had been so critical yesterday, yet Li Yuan’s assistant had said over the phone that he wasn’t allowed to notify any family members. It sounded as if he had known something would happen and had prepared a standard story in advance.
But she didn’t care about that.
She knew he might blame her for overreacting once he woke up, but Zhou Lin was away on a fishing trip with his father and wouldn’t be back for two days. By the time they met, Zhou Lin would surely find a way to calm him down.
"Alright." Li Yuan understood her nature and didn’t look surprised, just a little helpless.
He pushed his glasses up and glanced over gently, the insight behind his smile intentionally let her see. "I have one more question."
She hesitated, guessing what he was going to ask.
Yesterday had been so chaotic; she hadn’t expected him to notice her and Song Xu.
She explained, "Song Xu and I... we’re just colleagues and in a boss and employee relationship for now."
As she spoke, she felt somewhat guilty.
Not because she thought she had done anything wrong, but because Li Yuan had always treated her as a friend and shared many of his own matters with her. She and Zhou Lin had been a burden to him when they were young and inexperienced. Now that their relationship had ended, she had never thought to inform him.
Wen Bairan’s eyes flickered slightly as she continued, "I’m sorry, Brother Li Yuan."
Li Yuan noticed her guilt and smiled gently. "Xiao Bai, sometimes you don’t need to be so nice. You haven’t wronged anyone, and you certainly don’t need to apologize to me. Your life is your own—how you live it and who you spend it with are things you don’t have to report to anyone. Zhou Lin is in the past. If you feel burdened, I can also remain only in your past."
His expression was still the same as always—gentle and tolerant, as if he could accept anything.
But faintly, for the first time, she saw finality in his eyes.
Later, when she recalled this moment from that day, Li Yuan’s calm and bleak look silently conveyed that a person’s life was nearing its end. The quiet, passing sadness of it was the most heartbreaking.
But she didn’t understand it yet.
Pausing at the door for a long time, Wen Bairan slowly managed a smile again. "I understand, Brother Li Yuan. Rest well. I’ll come see you another day."
/
Song Xu’s car was waiting in the VIP parking lot.
Half an hour earlier, he had come with Wen Bairan.
They had gone separate ways.
Vice President Gao wasn’t in today, so he had gone to the head office only to find it empty.
He had been waiting for about twenty minutes when Wen Bairan emerged from the hospital wing, battling the wind toward him.
Sitting idly in the car, he thought about the summer that had just passed when he saw her.
There was a rainy night.
The company had a blackout.
Everyone had left work.
He was the last to leave. Finding the elevator out of order, he pushed open the door to the emergency staircase and paused.
"A Lin, could you come pick me up? The rain is so heavy outside..."
A soft, gentle female voice, speaking in a pleading tone.
It faintly echoed in the stairwell with a surround sound effect.
The signal was probably poor there. She called out twice but hung up before finishing.
He vaguely remembered the voice belonged to someone from the company.
Was there still someone here at this hour?
Leaning slightly against the handrail, he looked down.
Forty-two floors.
From this perspective, the stairs wound endlessly, all right angles overlapping in the darkness, creating a sense of endless drop. Unconsciously sucked into this spiral, his vision slightly dizzy, the coffee stain on the woman’s white sleeve stood out like a symbol shattering the illusion.
He was abruptly snapped back to reality.
"Who's there?"
She was on edge, her voice had lost its softness, now tight with defensive tension.
Apparently sensing someone above, she leaned over the railing, her upper body stretching out. Her long hair fell behind her as she turned her face upward. The green glow of the emergency light filtered through her hair, and all he could see was countless strands swirling like a waterfall in mid-air before settling quietly on her shoulders.
"Who's there?" she asked again.
About five floors separated them.
At this height, even if both of them leaned out face-to-face, it would be difficult to distinguish facial features.
She saw nothing.
He remained silent.
He pulled back his gaze slightly and began descending the stairs.
In the late-night power outage, the skyscraper’s stairwell was both cramped and echoey.
He tried to make his footsteps sound less intimidating, but she was still frightened.
The rapid tap-tap-tap of her heels echoed loudly.
Her phone repeatedly lit up in the darkness, casting a stark white glow. Holding the phone to her ear, she said urgently, "Come pick me up, I'm in the emergency stairwell."
He guessed this was meant for him—an attempt to scare him off.
But the next moment, he happened to see the red failure icon on her screen indicating a failed call.
The signal here was so poor that not even a call could go through.
No wonder she was scared. He could have spoken up to reassure her, to tell her not to be so nervous, that he was Song Xu.
But that day, he happened to be exhausted. Whether it was fatigue or some other blocked feeling holding him back, he remained silent, as if on some strange impulse.
Forty-two floors.
It would take a while to get down.
The woman, who had initially started off strong, gradually grew tired. Her steps slowed, and her breathing grew heavier.
By around the twentieth floor, she could no longer run. She stopped, doubled over, gasping for air.
The entire stairwell became her echo chamber.
Her panting echoed in the darkness, and he stopped as well.
He raised an eyebrow.
Exhausted, she grumbled to herself about being unable to go on, then sat down and pointed her phone light up.
After all this time, she knew he wasn’t dangerous—if he were, she would have been caught by now. But she still couldn’t fully relax.
He understood, so he didn’t hide.
The distance between them seemed to have shortened somewhat, but her phone’s light still couldn’t reach his level. Instead, it allowed him to look down and see the glistening sweat on her forehead, shining faintly like the starlight that night.
So he stopped too.
He took out a lighter and lit a cigarette.
The flickering orange light, alternating between bright and dim, gave off a warm glow that made the staircase feel less creepy.
A hesitant voice floated up from below.
"President Song?"
She had recognized him.
He didn’t know how.
Just as he didn’t know how he suddenly remembered her name.
Vivi.
He took a deep drag of the cigarette, exhaling a pale plume of smoke.
It curled slowly downward through the dark, winding staircase.
Between the twenty-fourth and twentieth floors, there were seventy stairs.
Between him and her,
there was only this trail of smoke.
She was no longer afraid.
After resting enough, she stood up again.
He heard her sharp hiss of pain and automatically looked down.
It turned out her heels were too high, and they had blistered her feet.
After inspecting her bloody heels, she winced, took off her shoes, and held them in her hand. She hopped in place a couple of times.
Barefoot on the steps, she made no sound. Unrestrained, she moved light as a cloud.
He didn’t get how he could see her movements so clearly in the dark.
Perhaps the darkness left things to the imagination.
And,
he was fully focused.
Suddenly, she descended two more floors.
Not hearing his footsteps following, the woman stopped and peered up over the railing.
Her eyes were remarkably clear in the night, glimmering in the dark, as though waiting for him.
The last puff of smoke hung in his lungs, making them feel tight.
He continued downstairs.
She continued on as well.
For the remaining twenty floors, they walked and paused in this manner, one after the other.
When she grew tired, she sat down to rest.
He stayed on the floor above, smoking.
No one spoke, nor was there any need for words.
Cigarette smoke and exchanged glances were enough to acknowledge each other’s presence.
This tacit companionship made even confirming each other's names seem superfluous.
Forty-second floor.
Thirty-one minutes.
Over in an instant.
The lobby was dimly lit by streetlights.
The rain hadn’t stopped; instead, it was falling harder.
Those who had exited before her were making calls under the porch.
Still calling that name, "A Lin, are you here yet?"
She couldn’t hear how he responded, but her lips thinned into a straight line, her delicate brows furrowed slightly with worry.
But she wasn’t worried.
It was as if disappointment was all too familiar. When disappointment becomes the norm, it ceases to be so disappointing.
Song Xu passed by her, the smokiness on his breath—whether his or someone else’s, she couldn’t tell.
The black umbrella shielded him from her gaze.
The umbrella was quickly drenched by the rain.
In the halos of raindrops, every scent and glance vanished without a trace.
Her gaze lingered on his retreating figure.
He didn’t look back.
He didn’t need to look back.
After those thirty-one minutes had passed, the one she was waiting for was no longer him.
...
Autumn is the season of falling leaves.
Not far away, Wen Bairan’s brown trench coat snapped loudly in the wind. She held her collar tightly with one hand and clutched the backpack beside her with the other. The strong wind whipped her long hair and skirt wildly, her slender figure tilting like a stubborn leaf refusing to fall, battling against the wind as she made her way step by step toward here.
He sat in the car, his perspective overlapping with that night.
If memory served, on that stormy night, Zhou Lin never showed up.
The car headlights clearly illuminated everything washed by the heavy rain, including the white shirt she wore.
The night was so dark, the rain so heavy.
She held herself tightly, plunging into the rain with a resolute stance.
Yes, resolute.
He had already known then what choice she would make.
Shenjiang’s climate was terrible.
It had only just turned autumn, yet today’s wind had picked up without warning.
Wen Bairan felt like the wind had swept her soul away.
She pulled open the car door and sat inside, the warm, cozy air in the car instantly enveloping her.
She brushed the hair away from her face. "Such strong wind..."
Her words were cut short.
Song Xu’s kiss was as sudden and unpredictable as the weather.
He cupped the back of her neck with one hand and her chin with the other.
Wen Bairan felt that his mouth was warm; hers was cold.
Her lips, cheeks, even her neck.
Her eyes widened, her breath hitched, unprepared.
Song Xu’s eyelashes, so close, fluttered against her skin. In the blur, the deep intoxication in his gaze made her jolt.
Unconsciously, she gripped his sleeve. The onyx buttons felt cool against her palm, but her overheated mind barely noticed.
Song Xu kissed her deeply.
Four lips of completely different temperatures melted into each other, mixing, heating, dampening.
He wanted to devour even her soul.
Wen Bairan could hardly keep up with his demands. Dizziness came too quickly. She tightened her hands, tugging his sleeve to signal she needed air.
Song Xu released her then, though reluctantly, not pulling too far away.
He pressed against her lips, nipping and brushing his lips lightly, waiting until she had enough oxygen before wanting to continue.
"Wait..." Her faint gasps were swallowed by his mouth. She could only cup his face in protest. "Song Xu!"
"Hmm." The sound that came from his throat was unbearably seductive.
Wen Bairan willed herself to stay rational, deflecting to ask how his matters had gone.
Song Xu’s kissing paused. After a long moment, he slowly raised his head.
At some point, his eyes had grown misty, glistening as he stared at her.
Wen Bairan’s heart skipped a beat.
Her hands slid gradually from his face, the worry in her eyes like overcast weather. "What's wrong? Did Dean Gao say something?"
"No, I haven't met him yet." Her hands were so soft, her palms warm but her fingertips still cool.
Song Xu lifted her hand to his lips, tilting his head to plant soft, lingering kisses into her palm.
He was so tender, his actions so tender it felt almost unlike him.
Wen Bairan stilled for a second, then suddenly gripped his hand tightly. "Tell me the truth."
The wind howled outside the car as the darkness at the corners of his eyes deepened.
In a low voice, he said, "You should brace yourself."