Chapter 68: The Airport
On the way to the airport, Wen Bairan received another call from Ding Benxuan. He had already requested the moderators to have the post locked. He originally wanted to delete it but decided to lock it to preserve evidence for the future, and he had also made a backup himself.
Having likely stayed up all night, Ding Benxuan’s voice on the phone sounded extremely anxious as he asked Wen Bairan, "Sis, did I really mess up?"
Wen Bairan reassured him not to worry, that everything would be fine, and she was already on her way to resolve the matter.
Ding Benxuan was surprised. "On the way? Where are you going?"
/
Ye Qian’s hometown was in a small county in the southwestern province. She had originally worked as a tea leaf roaster in a tea factory, toiling for years to save up for a small 50-square-meter apartment as a dowry for her daughter. Unfortunately, less than two years after moving in, Ye Zi fell ill and was hospitalized, forcing Ye Qian to eventually sell the apartment. Now, she was without a permanent home and working at a tea house in the city.
After getting off the plane, Wen Bairan went straight to the city center, winding through the alleys of the old town until she finally found the dormitory-style apartment building where Ye Qian lived. It had the oldest layout, with about twenty households per floor, and the floors were arranged in an uneven and confusing layout. Anyone unfamiliar with the place would likely struggle just climbing the stairs.
It must have been intentional how those troublemakers had managed to find this place.
She heard that this was the tea house owner’s old property, not far from the shop. When Ye Qian applied for the job, the owner, seeing her limp, let her stay here temporarily, deducting a portion of her salary each month as rent.
When Wen Bairan found the place, Ye Qian was washing vegetables at the sink by the door.
Out of breath, Wen Bairan appeared at the stairwell. "Ms. Ye..."
It had been two months since they last met. Wen Bairan thought she might have forgotten her name, but Ye Qian recognized her at first glance and even remembered her surname was Wen.
As if already aware of her purpose, Ye Qian glanced at her before turning back to break the washed greens in half and tossing them into a boiling pot. She said, "Come inside and sit."
Before being discharged from the hospital, Ye Qian had undergone five therapy sessions. These sessions were, of course, not enough to completely erase the pain of losing her daughter, but she seemed much calmer than the last time Wen Bairan saw her.
Wen Bairan still remembered how Ye Qian had mechanically and rigidly peeled an apple by Ye Zi’s bedside, a sense of despair permeating her movements. Now, that despair had vanished from her.
She had found a job, ate meals on time every day, and kept her home clean and tidy in her spare time. These ordinary tasks were things people only did when they had hope. After receiving treatment, she no longer held those extreme thoughts and was actively trying to live her life well.
That day, someone had come to her door under the guise of an interview but was actually there to secretly take photos. When Ye Qian discovered them, an argument broke out, during which a glass and a tape recorder in the house were shattered.
The local police had already arrested the culprits—two young men in their early twenties who lived nearby. They insisted they had only come because Ye Qian matched the description of the limping woman in the post who had lost her daughter, and they thought they could fish in troubled waters by taking some photos to prove the platform company had committed donation fraud, hoping to get some hush money.
The incident seemed like a mix-up, but it had dragged Ye Qian back into a vortex of pain—she had only just begun to slowly emerge from the shadow of her daughter’s death, and these people were using Ye Zi’s death to make a story out of it. How could she accept that?
Out of gratitude for Wen Bairan leaving her Ye Zi’s recording, Ye Qian was quite polite to her.
"I didn’t know you were coming, so I didn’t prepare extra food."
There was only one empty table in the room. Ye Qian sat down to eat noodles.
Wen Bairan waited for her to sit before taking a seat herself. She took out bread and mineral water from her backpack and said it was fine, she could eat this.
Ye Qian looked at the "airline food" labeling on the packaging and asked if it was from the plane.
Wen Bairan said yes, it was the breakfast served on the flight. She had slept for two hours and hadn’t eaten it, so she stuffed it into her bag when she got off the plane.
Ye Qian’s gaze went distant for a moment before she suddenly said, "Ye Zi never got to ride on a plane."
Her sudden mention of Ye Zi quieted the room.
From the moment she entered, Wen Bairan noticed there was no photo of Ye Zi in the house. Yet, Ye Zi’s comb, hairpins, and books were scattered everywhere on the table and sofa. Ye Qian had maintained the presence of Ye Zi in the home.
If this made her feel better, it wasn’t a bad way to help her gradually move past the grief.
As long as a person could keep living, everything could still be salvaged.
But those intruders had to show up and remind her that it was all an illusion.
Ye Zi was dead.
Wen Bairan felt even more guilty.
Ye Qian finished her bowl of noodles one bite at a time before saying, "I don’t want to make things difficult for anyone. The lawyer told me I don’t have a strong case."
When their stories were initially collected, she had signed a release form. At the time, she had hoped that by sharing their story, more people would learn about Ye Zi, and perhaps better treatment options would emerge. The consent form clearly stated that the company could disclose their relevant information after certain anonymization measures were taken.
The lawyer said that with this signed consent form, it would be difficult for her to prevail in the lawsuit. Moreover, she was alone and at a disadvantage—if the other side dragged out the litigation, she wouldn’t be able to afford it. The first half of her life had already gone with Ye Zi; did she want to spend the second half stuck in a meaningless lawsuit?
In fact, after hearing the lawyer’s advice, Ye Qian had already decided to withdraw the lawsuit.
She never expected Wen Bairan to come in person.
She heaved a heavy sigh choked with emotion and said she didn’t ask for much—she just wanted them to repair the tape recorder. The broken recorder contained Ye Zi’s voice.
Upon hearing this, Wen Bairan immediately called the tech support, sent them details about the recorder’s damage, and after receiving confirmation that the audio files could be extracted directly, Ye Qian broke down in tears. That recording was her last memento.
Before leaving, she even thanked Wen Bairan for helping her connect with a psychologist back then. Director Liu had told her that the counseling was very expensive, but they hadn’t charged her a cent.
This gratitude felt too heavy for Wen Bairan to accept. She explained that Niguang was originally a psychological counseling platform and she had only done what was within her duties.
Ye Qian sighed deeply. "But no amount of counseling can compare to my daughter being alive. If only she were still here."
//
Wen Bairan stayed in the city.
She hadn’t expected Ye Qian to be so understanding or for the matter to be resolved so smoothly.
By evening, she received notice from the company that Ye Qian had agreed to withdraw the lawsuit.
Sitting in her hotel room, facing the project mission statement on her computer, she couldn’t stop thinking about what Ye Qian had said.
She suddenly realized she might have been missing the point.
The psychological trauma of family members should not be underestimated, but the source of their trauma was the patients themselves.
It was precisely because of the various familial and emotional bonds between people that a healthy person could feel the same heartbreak as an ailing person. And this feeling would recur unless the ailing person became whole again, or the healthy person completely severed their connection.
"With the mission of serving the hearts of family members, providing free psychological counseling for both family members and patients."
She read this product description on her computer over and over, pondered it over and over, and finally changed it to:
"With the mission of serving the hearts of family members and alleviating the suffering of patients, providing free psychological counseling and treatment options for both."
Research had shown that a patient’s will to live partly depended on their family’s attitude toward treatment. And if family members were to achieve a positive mental state, the first thing that needed to be addressed was what mattered most to them—the disease and the suffering it caused the patient.
This was a closed loop; both had to happen simultaneously.
At this thought, Wen Bairan had a flash of insight. She immediately began refining her idea and without delay relayed her new supplementary suggestions to the product and technical departments, instructing them to make the changes right away.
After finalizing all the details and doing one last check to ensure everything on the computer was correct, she pressed the send button just as the sky outside began to lighten with the first light of dawn.
Ding.
A small winged envelope popped up on the screen, indicating successful delivery.
She let out a long breath, silently preparing for what was to come.
Although it's rushed, we should still make it.
/
Before returning to Shenjiang, Wen Bairan took Ye Qian to lunch.
She invited her to spend New Year's in Shenjiang—even if she didn’t want to attend the forum at Yuehu Villa, soaking in the hot springs there would be nice. Knowing Ye Qian had never flown before, Wen Bairan even bought her a plane ticket so she could experience flying.
Ye Qian stared at her, speechless.
She didn’t understand—she had already decided to drop the lawsuit, so Wen Bairan had achieved her goal, hadn’t she?
They weren't related, so why would Wen Bairan do all this for her?
Wen Bairan smiled and said, “Probably because I’m also a daughter.” So she understood what Ye Zi had wanted—for Ye Qian to live for herself.
If one day she went before Ms. Xie, she would also hope someone could take her out for a change of scenery, a change of mood. The world is so vast—it would be nice if even one person could go out and see it.
Ye Qian stared blankly at her calm and gentle smile, the kind of smile a daughter gives her mother out of love.
In the final recording, Ye Zi had also smiled like that and said,
I love you, Mom.
The winter in the southwest is as damp and cold as Shenjiang, but today the sunlight was beautiful.
It made you warm from the inside.
Even Ye Qian thought so.
//
Wen Bairan took an evening flight.
She landed at 8:30 p.m.
She turned her phone on after taxiing.
Other than app notifications, there were no new messages.
Her last call with Song Xu was from yesterday morning.
He was usually very busy, so of course he had no time to ask about her situation—he was waiting for her to update him.
But she was up too late last night and hadn’t had time to tell him anything. She hadn’t even sent him her flight info.
After filing out of the plane and passing through the transparent jet bridge, she paused to take a photo of the deep burgundy sky outside, which looked like a piece of velvet.
Looking at the sky in the photo and her reflection in the glass, she felt a faint flutter in her chest.
She put her phone away.
Shenjiang Airport is large—it's a twenty-minute walk from the gate to the exit.
Having barely slept in two days, she was tired. She slowly descended the escalator, and the crowded crowd outside the arrivals gate came into view.
She hadn’t actually expected Song Xu to come to pick her up.
Qiao Yi had told her he had an important dinner meeting tonight.
Yeah, that sounded like him.
Forget how much profit a single dinner could bring the company—it was certainly better than wasting his time coming out here to pick her up.
He was always such a cold, bottom-line guy.
But that faint flutter in her chest just vanished, replaced by an immense calm.
She was familiar with this calm.
So familiar that she didn’t want to engage with it.
Travelers with large bags and suitcases milled around her, but her short two-day, one-night business trip had left her feeling light.
As she stepped outside, a biting cold wind hit her face.
It seemed the temperature had dropped.
Wen Bairan had left in a hurry yesterday and hadn’t brought a scarf. The wind made her quickly shrug and raise the collar of her coat, tucking the lower half of her face inside. The tip of her nose caught a whiff of smoke from somewhere, and she tucked it in too. In just that moment, she was already frozen through.
Not wanting to take her hands out to hail a cab, she decided to take her chances and see if there was an empty cab she could jump right into. Suddenly, a voice came from behind her on the right: “Looking for something?”
She jolted and turned around.
Sleek back-combed hair, pale skin against the night, a build like a runway model's—anything heavy on him just looked cozy.
The man’s overcoat looked as if it had been cut from tonight’s sky—expensive, thick velvet, its dark color gleaming with a mysterious deep purple under the lights.
He looked elite, too posh to approach, yet with a tenderness that made you want to move closer.
Wen Bairan blinked, looking at him in disbelief. “You…”
Song Xu had a cigarette in his mouth, the warm orange ember glowing within the faint white mist escaping his mouth. Noticing her staring, he narrowed his eyes, took the cigarette out, and said, “It’s gotten cold. Waiting got cold.”
He was explaining.
But his tone was so arrogant it didn’t sound like an explanation.
The night breeze blew over, scattering the smoke around him and softening her gaze.
Her lips, buried in her collar, curled into a smile unconsciously. Wen Bairan asked him calmly, “Why are you here?”
He said, “Someone asked me to pick her up.”
Someone.
Nice way to put it.
Wen Bairan pressed her lips together. “I mean, why are you out here and not inside?”
Song Xu could tell—she was trying to start something.
His left brow lifted almost imperceptibly. “It’s too stuffy inside.”
“What I mean is—!”
He kept avoiding the question, refusing to give the answer she wanted to hear. Wen Bairan grew impatient. Her loosened collar revealed her slightly puffed cheeks. After glaring at him for a moment, she bluntly said, “How did you know I’d come out this door? What if you missed me? You didn’t even call me. I thought you weren’t coming…”
She couldn’t continue. The more she spoke, the more she felt she was being dramatic, as if she had been eagerly waiting for him to come.
Song Xu’s half-smile was infuriating, as if he deliberately wanted to see her bicker with him.
He always took advantage in situations like this.
Let's just not say anything at all.
Wen Bairan grabbed the collar of his overcoat and yanked sharply, forcing him to duck down.
His indifferent expression darkened the moment she bit the corner of his mouth.
He turned the tables in an instant.
On the airport road, headlights occasionally streaked past like meteors.
Pressed tightly against his overcoat, Wen Bairan was left gasping for air. She pushed against him, feeling her heart's frantic pounding entwined with his ragged breaths.
She said:
"Considering you waited for me."
"Right now."
"Take me home."