I had fantasized many times about the scene of us meeting again.

Every time I was especially noble. I would wear a CHANEL suit, carry the newest bag. I would be dignified, noble, nonchalant and understated, yet devastatingly beautiful.

In reality, this morning, I didn’t wash my face.

My hair hadn’t been washed in a week. I wore a dingy gray down jacket, haggard and full of hostility, with cigarette smell on me that could be detected from miles away.

“What are you doing here?”

He said, “This was designed by our team. I came to check the site this morning and happened to run into… you losing your temper.”

Really, at that moment I truly wished this world would explode with a boom. This car, this street, this city, and that damned moon above—blow it all up clean.

This was my internal drama. On the surface I didn’t move a muscle and immediately pulled up a programmed smile. “Oh my God, what a coincidence! Now I have someone at the design institute too, hahaha. Come on, I’ll treat you to dinner, let’s eat and chat!”

Cheng Xia seemed stunned for an instant, but didn’t say anything, only saying, “Then I’ll go get my car.”

He drove a silver-white Volvo. Inside the car was a warm, fragrant smell that made one drowsy.

He asked, “You came back, why didn’t you contact me?”

I said, “Hey, wasn’t I busy? I was thinking I’d go find you after finishing this project. I was wondering why this project was so outstanding, turns out you designed it, you rascal…”

He didn’t speak the whole time. My chattering stopped and the car fell into complete silence.

I don’t know how much time passed before he said softly, “You weren’t like this before.”

What was I like before?

Heavy drowsiness swept over me. Even though I tried hard to keep my eyes open, I still fell into deep sleep.

I had a dream.

I dreamed of six years ago, that late night when I had just gotten off the plane. As soon as I turned on my phone, I received a call from Cheng Xia.

His voice was shaking terribly: Ren Dongxue, where did you run off to? I called you over forty times, I even reported it to the police…

I said: I came to work in Africa, I was on a plane, sorry I forgot to tell you.

He seemed not to hear that sentence and continued: Where are you? I’ll come find you right now!

I said: Where are you going to find me! I told you I’m in Africa!

He said: Stop being angry with me, okay! We won’t eat spicy hot pot, I’ll treat you to something good, hotpot or barbecue?

I said: I’m really not joking with you, I came to Africa, I won’t be able to go back for three years!

He said: Then what about me?

I said: “What?”

The phone was suddenly hung up. I stood there dazed for a long time, not knowing if it was bad signal just then or if he had suddenly gone crazy.

These six years, I had actually come back. Old Feng said certificate exams absolutely couldn’t be delayed, so he reimbursed my plane tickets.

Every time I came back, I had to race against time to visit Grandma, take her for checkups, then take exams, report to the company on the situation…

I never went to see Cheng Xia.

After that phone call, we never spoke again. At first I could see him in Moments doing his master’s degree, writing papers, doing projects… Later he didn’t post much to Moments, and we gradually lost contact.

What would we say if we met? Rather than facing each other in silence with false pleasantries, I preferred to treat that confrontation where the map was exhausted and the dagger revealed as the end of my grand secret love.

When I opened my eyes again, what I saw was an ocean.

The deep blue ocean was serene and vast. Waves gently crashed against the shore. A round orange-red sun was dyeing the firmament red for the first time.

I suspected I was dreaming. Looking to the side, there was Cheng Xia sleeping tilted to one side.

…I must be dreaming, right?

Actually, if you counted dreams, he had never exited my life.

There weren’t any entertainment activities in Africa. We took turns watching equipment operate and workers labor. Many people couldn’t endure the boring life in the later period.

But I wasn’t afraid.

During those days and nights on the African construction site, I had vast amounts of time to think about him.

Thinking about him at sixteen, wearing his school uniform listening to music, sharing one earbud with me. Thinking about the two of us going to see a movie together, me secretly leaning my head on his shoulder, his heartbeat racing like a rabbit. Thinking about the distance of one fist between us, thinking about how he once said we would be together forever…

And many shameless fantasies. If one day we were together, which city would we live in, would we bicker, how would we educate our children…

Clearly knowing it was fake, but the more I thought about it, the sweeter my heart felt.

This was my wild fantasy dream, my shade, my iced Americano, the VR game I developed. It ensured that under Africa’s scorching sun, I would never be weary.

And now the dream had upgraded—he was sleeping beside me.

He still had very pale, fine skin, long eyelashes, and blue-gray stubble on his chin. When I touched it, it was a bit prickly.

“Ah… You’re awake?” He opened his eyes sleepily.

The person in the dream came alive?

“Originally we were going to eat. As I was driving, I heard snoring beside me. I turned my head and you were asleep,” Cheng Xia said.

“Then you should have woken me up!”

“You were so tired, how could I wake you! I just stopped in a quiet place wanting to let you sleep properly for a while,” he said. “Later I fell asleep too.”

…What is the experience of snoring in front of your ten-year secret crush, your white moonlight?

This joined my life’s luxury embarrassment collection, playing on loop in full screen 1080P high definition during every slightly affected night.

After Cheng Xia sent me to the construction site, I was still completely out of sorts.

Dense lists of tasks on the computer, but I couldn’t do anything. At this time, my phone rang like a death summons.

It was that contractor Boss Chen.

He said yesterday’s worker got blackout drunk, he had already fired the ringleader, from now on they would definitely complete work on time with quality, everyone was friends, they would cooperate long-term in the future, blah blah blah.

In that instant, my heartbeat stopped for several beats.

First, I certainly didn’t have such great influence. It must have been Old Feng—someone had tipped him off.

Second, such a big incident happened the day before, and I was actually spacing out? This made me want to slap myself more than angering a contractor.

I steadied my mind, finished the work at hand, then went to find Old Feng.

Old Feng certainly wasn’t polite, giving me a thorough scolding. “Li Gong has a problem with his brain, but do you have a problem too? Haven’t I told you! On construction sites, there’s no ‘better,’ as long as it can pass inspection that’s good! If you keep letting him nitpick like this, you won’t even be able to issue the next payment!”

I lowered my head as far as it would go and said, “You’re right. I just wanted too badly to succeed, so I didn’t consider many things thoroughly.”

He snorted. After a long while, he said, “Fine, I pushed you several WeChat contacts, hurry up and negotiate properly.”

I froze. When Old Feng had just been transferred away, he very clearly told me, “From now on you have to rely on yourself. I won’t help you.”

But now, the WeChat contacts he pushed to me, from material suppliers to construction teams, were all industry leaders. That they would cooperate at low prices must mean he had already greeted them.

With these resources, my project was already eighty percent successful. But…

“Teacher, actually everything is moving forward normally now. Give me a bit more time. I want to get some experience so I’ll have a method for doing things in the future.”

Old Feng looked up and stared at me. I only felt the sweat at the back of my neck seeping out drop by drop.

Actually more than half of my contracts hadn’t been finalized yet, but I had known since childhood that people with nothing must avoid owing favors they can’t repay.

Especially to Old Feng, whom everyone thought I was sleeping with.

In our kind of workplace, this was undoubtedly not knowing what’s good for you.

In the deathly silence, my phone suddenly rang. Amitabha, even if it was a scam call, at this moment it was my savior.

“Do you have time after work tonight? Fang Qiang and the others know you’re back and want to have dinner together.” It was actually Cheng Xia.

“Ah, I got it, you guys handle it first and wait for me to come back.”

“What?”

“I know it’s urgent, I’ll be right back, okay okay!”

“Hello? Ren Dongxue, I’m Cheng Xia, what are you saying…”

I put down the phone and humbly said to Old Feng, “Teacher, there’s something at the construction site, so I’ll…”

Old Feng had long since lowered his head to continue reading documents. Hearing this, he just waved his hand, indicating I should go.

After I went out, I went to the bathroom to call Cheng Xia back.

“There was a leader there just now?” He laughed on the other end.

“You knew and you still called!” I was exasperated.

“Sorry sorry, I didn’t correctly understand the leader’s intentions. By the way, you’re not feeling unwell today…”

His long-lost, warm voice made my whole body relax. I looked up at the mirror and realized I had been smiling foolishly the whole time.

I always pretended to be an adult, but when I was with him, I was always like a child.

In the evening when I finished work it was already after ten. I took a cab to that Chaoshan hotpot restaurant.

Fang Qiang and several other people stood up waving at me. “Sister Xue, over here!”

They were all Cheng Xia’s roommates, a group of pretty cute guys who got along well with me too.

“Sorry for being so late.” I smiled. “This meal is on me, nobody fight me!”

“How can we let a girl treat!” Fang Qiang said, “We’ll pay.”

Fang Qiang and Cheng Xia went to the same design institute, while Guo Changjian went to a university as faculty, Qian Langfeng entered the system and was already married, bringing his wife this time.

They probably hadn’t gathered in quite a while either. There was constant cheerful laughter, but Cheng Xia didn’t talk much, just putting meat in the pot and serving food for everyone.

This was quite strange. When I used to eat with them, Cheng Xia was always the one who talked the most.

Midway through eating, I pretended to go to the bathroom but actually went to pay the bill—forget about Cheng Xia, all the other people were my resources.

When settling the bill at the front desk, I stood behind the refrigerator where they couldn’t see me, but I could hear their conversation very clearly.

Qian Langfeng’s wife said, “You said she was your goddess in school, I thought she’d be a great beauty.”

Qian Langfeng said, “Back in school she really was. When Dongxue came, half our dorm building went crazy.”

Fang Qiang chimed in, “Wasting away six years in Africa and still being like this is pretty good. It’s just a pity—back then if she’d found a job based on looks, wouldn’t that be better than crawling and rolling on construction sites!”

Cheng Xia, who hadn’t spoken the whole time, suddenly spoke. He said, “I think she’s pretty good now.”