Zhang Yanxin, Yun Li’s colleague, had yet to reply to the message sent the previous day. Yun Li wanted to contact Jiang Yuan’s parents through Zhou Tiao. For many years, they had ignored Fu Shize. To some extent, Yun Li could understand their actions and motivations.
However, as a fellow victim, Fu Shize shouldn’t have to live with guilt forever.
Yun Li rolled over in bed. Instead of waiting for a response, she did something she had never done before. She added everyone from the dinner group chat as friends and introduced herself: “Hello, I’m Yun Li, a new employee joining next year.”
As she added them, some people accepted her friend requests and replied.
Suddenly having to interact with over a dozen people, Yun Li’s anxiety levels skyrocketed.
After adding everyone in one go, she sat on the sofa and thought of her go-to helper, Yun Yi. She called him directly: “Yun Yi, log into my WeChat.”
Yun Yi asked, “What for…” Despite his question, he still sent her a photo of the login QR code.
Yun Li asked, “Can you see the recent messages?”
Yun Yi glanced at the profile picture: “From brother-in-law?”
Yun Li quickly said, “Don’t read my messages.”
“…”
Asking him to look but telling him not to look, Yun Yi thought she was being ridiculous.
Yun Li continued, “Look, I’ve added over a dozen friends, all my colleagues. Help me reply to them. Except for the one called Zhou Tiao.”
Yun Yi: “…”
This wasn’t the first time Yun Yi had helped Yun Li with such tasks. Yun Li would become anxious when replying to messages from strangers or answering calls from unknown numbers, so she eventually just let him handle it. He lowered his eyes and skillfully replied to each message.
With so many people, he used a shortcut to open the latest messages, accidentally opening Fu Shize’s chat window.
Apart from the profile picture, Yun Yi couldn’t find any other way to identify this as Fu Shize.
The contact name was “Wife.”
He got goosebumps, and the other person sent an emoji: “[Missing you]”
Yun Yi felt like his mind had taken a million-point hit, wanting to shut down the computer.
He expressionlessly typed one word: “Oh.”
The previous message from Yun Li read: “I made Hokkaido milk toast for you. It’s fermenting now. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow, should be enough for three days’ breakfast.”
She had also included a bear heart emoji.
While Yun Yi was still busy replying to messages Yun Li, started feeling psychologically imbalanced. He asked her over the phone, “Sis, I want to eat toast.”
Yun Li replied without hesitation, “Go buy some at the supermarket. It’s 5 yuan a bag. It takes me a long time to make one.”
Yun Yi: “…”
Yun Li: “If you don’t have money, I’ll send you a red envelope.”
Yun Yi: “…”
Yun Yi glumly chatted on her behalf for about an hour. After hanging up, he saw that Yun Li had indeed sent him a red envelope.
He opened it.
It was exactly 5 yuan.
…
Zhou Tiao was the last person to accept her friend request.
Yun Li carefully chose her words, explaining in a message that she was Fu Shize’s girlfriend and wanted to meet him to discuss some matters. They arranged to have dinner two days later.
The next morning, Yun Li sliced the toast and packed it.
As she got out of the car parked at the Control Engineering College, she saw Fu Shize standing under a tree in front of the building. She jogged over to him, asking, “Why did you come down?”
Fu Shize lowered his gaze. She was wearing a beige dress today, her waist-length hair cascading over her shoulders, her fair face tinged with a soft pink.
He spoke gently, “To meet you.”
He took the items from Yun Li’s hands and opened his other hand, looking at her.
They had done this gesture many times before, but every time he quietly waited for her to reach out, no matter how long it took, he would always wait for her.
Yun Li’s heart still raced.
As she slipped her hand into his cool palm, his temperature gradually rose. He enveloped her small hand entirely, gently squeezing it.
It was now 7:30 in the morning. Most of the other people in the office wouldn’t arrive until after 10 AM.
Fu Shize placed the toast on his desk. The computer screen showed a half-written paper, and some notes were spread out on the desk, indicating he had been working for a while.
Yun Li smelled the strong aroma of coffee in the air and astutely asked, “Where’s your breakfast?”
Fu Shize’s gaze lowered to the bag of toast she had brought: “Here.”
Yun Li sniffed and frowned, asking him, “Did you drink coffee?”
Seeing her furrowed brow, Fu Shize tilted his head, hesitating for a long time whether to tell the truth. Noticing Yun Li’s tightly pressed lips, he slowly let out an “Mm.”
Yun Li’s smile faded: “On an empty stomach?”
Any normal person would know that drinking coffee on an empty stomach is very harmful to the stomach.
Fu Shize remained silent.
“The surgery was a year and a half ago. It’s healed now,” he calmly struggled, observing Yun Li’s expression. She didn’t believe him at all: “Last time you couldn’t eat even a bite of the mille-crêpe cake, and now you can drink coffee on an empty stomach?”
Fu Shize took her hand and agreed with her words: “I can’t.”
“…”
Fu Shize’s response was smooth, but it seemed like he was just paying lip service.
Yun Li felt like she had punched a cotton ball. His response was like adding fuel to the fire. She felt a dull anger inside, her face stiff, but she still opened the bag and took out two slices of toast for him.
Fu Shize didn’t touch the toast in front of him, instead looking at Yun Li.
It seemed to be the first time Yun Li was angry.
In his memory, it was the first time.
Their eyes met, like a stern dean and a student sitting up straight.
Yun Li usually wouldn’t express her unhappiness, but rather repeatedly suppressed her emotions. The only time she had ever lost her temper with Fu Shize was when she exploded after suppressing her feelings, ending in a breakup.
Not wanting to have any knots in her heart, she asked him in a half-annoyed, half-negotiating tone: “Tell me, if I’m angry with you, how should I express it?”
When she was angry, the sharpness in her eyes became more pronounced, making her seem aggressive. But her half-negotiating tone weakened this aggressiveness. Fu Shize looked at her and asked, “Should I decide?”
Yun Li: “I’d like to hear your opinion.”
It was quite strange.
Yun Li admitted that she wasn’t very good at handling conflicts.
She could only seek help from the person with the highest emotional intelligence present, but coincidentally, that person was the one who had made her angry.
Fu Shize leaned forward, bringing his face close to her lips: “Kiss me once. Then you won’t be angry anymore.”
“…”
Yun Li glanced at him: “You made me angry, and now you want me to kiss you. Isn’t that too much?”
Fu Shize smiled: “Then I can kiss you too.”
“…”
With just two sentences, Yun Li’s mood had already improved significantly. She pointed at her cheek, “Kiss here.”
“Mm.” Fu Shize moved closer to her, his thin lips lightly brushing against hers like a dragonfly touching water: “I missed the spot.”
“…”
Before Yun Li could react, he gently kissed her cheek again: “This time it’s right.”
Yun Li’s expression had already softened, only her chin remained slightly tense. Seeing this, Fu Shize continued, “Don’t be angry anymore. I was wrong.”
He admitted his mistake quite quickly.
Yun Li felt that at times like this, Fu Shize became as soft as if he had no bones. She was no longer angry at all and muttered, “Your stomach isn’t good. Don’t drink coffee on an empty stomach.”
Fu Shize nodded.
“Don’t just nod, you need to remember it in your heart.”
No matter what she said, Fu Shize just kept nodding.
Seeing Fu Shize’s good attitude, Yun Li felt that she might have been a bit too harsh earlier. After hesitating for a while, she said, “Actually, I shouldn’t have gotten angry just now.”
Feeling that Fu Shize was an easy target, she paused for a moment and lectured, “You should have some principles. Don’t admit your mistakes so easily.”
She thought for a while and felt it wasn’t quite right: “But you did do something wrong.”
Fu Shize took a slice of toast, tore off two pieces, and put them in his mouth, chewing slowly. After Yun Li finished speaking, he said, “I only admit my mistakes to you.”
Yun Li’s temper had completely dissipated by now, and she sat beside him to keep him company.
Remembering the company matters, she casually said, “Last night, a colleague from the company asked me if I wanted to start work early. They said they recently opened a VR game project team, which seems to be in collaboration with Director Xu’s side. Seeing that I had relevant internship experience, they specifically came to ask me.”
Fu Shize knew about this news as he had inquired with Xu Qingsong after learning that Yun Li was going to that company.
“Do you want to go?”
“Mm, because we worked together at EAW before.”
Yun Li had chosen this job only because of its nine-to-five working hours and relatively interesting work content. However, after hearing about the collaboration with EAW, she suddenly felt a strong desire to join this project team.
Because it was related to them.
Yun Li continued, “But I’m a bit worried about the progress of my master’s thesis. I don’t want to write when I’m alone.” She glanced at Fu Shize, “So I want to study with you.”
She continued to muse aloud, “But I’m also worried that I won’t be able to write with two people around.”
Fu Shize asked, knowing the answer, “Why can’t you write?”
“…”
Sometimes, his words would leave her speechless.
Fu Shize seemed to enjoy making her express those feelings openly in front of him, or perhaps he liked seeing her flustered and embarrassed.
As if he hadn’t noticed Yun Li’s silence, he raised his eyelids and asked her, “Is it because of you, or because of me?”
Admitting it was her reason would be like saying she couldn’t focus because of his good looks.
Yun Li muttered, “It’s because of you.”
Fu Shize smiled, “What did I do?”
Yun Li, extremely calm and righteous, said, “You sit there—deliberately seducing me every moment. Because you’re sitting there, I can’t control my eyes and my brain.”
Yun Li continued, “Maybe you’re just the type where your existence itself is a mistake.”
She had a bunch of twisted logic, waiting for Fu Shize to refute her, but he had no desire to argue with her at all. He turned his head and asked her, “How are you unable to control yourself?”
“…”
When she could see him, she wanted to look at him.
When she couldn’t see him, she would think of him.
She couldn’t be away from him at any moment.
Fu Shize pondered for a moment: “It seems like you haven’t done anything either.”
The way he said it—it was as if she should do something to prove that she had been seduced by him, that she couldn’t control herself.
Seeing Yun Li not speaking, Fu Shize slowly moved his face closer to hers, their noses lightly touching. He saw her eyes bright, her eyelashes clearly defined, looking straight at him.
Fu Shize asked her, “Apart from your eyes and brain, can you control everything else?”
The room was unlit, with semi-transparent brown curtains drawn. Around them were office desks filled with various textbooks. In the last few months before leaving school, in this setting, Yun Li felt that the person in front of her was the same boy who sat in the audience during high school.
Fu Shize seemed to have thought of the same thing, his fingertips touching her hair. In high school, she also had long hair.
With no one else around, the silence between them was excessive.
In the next moment, Yun Li broke her silence, directly hooking her arms around his neck.
Her forward momentum pressed Fu Shize against the metal cabinet.
The lock clanged, the sound slightly distracting Yun Li.
But the eyes before her remained motionless, consistently reflecting her face.
Yun Li curved her lips slightly, and as she leaned in to kiss him, she breathed out a few words between her lips and teeth—”I can’t control anything.”
…