The living room was so quiet that even the children's cartoon was paused and stuck at the top of the screen. When Yu Siqing walked out, she saw a person sitting by the floor-to-ceiling window on the balcony at first sight.
He was leaning back as if asleep, with his dark camel-colored coat resting on his knees. He was wearing only an ordinary black shirt. His thick, crow-feather-like eyelashes were half-closed, and he looked quite lazy.
The cream-colored puppy was swaying gently at the edge of his trousers, his tail wagging.
Yu Siqing didn't see the child in the living room. As soon as she took a step, the child seemed to sense something and slowly opened his eyes.
The moment their eyes met, his slightly dark eyes seemed to hide obscure emotions, yet they were clear and sharp, which made Yu Siqing feel a sense of familiarity, and her whole heart began to twist.
No one spoke at first, and even their breathing was restrained and light.
The little yellow dog ran over and dangled at her feet. His eyelashes drooped for a second before he finally reacted. He asked with a voice squeezed out of his throat, "What... did you remember?"
He Yunjian stared at her clear face for a long time, and even after a long while, he did not deny it, and asked with his thin lips: "What kind of person was I in your heart?"
Yu Siqing pursed her lips slowly. The sun outside the window was dazzling. The puppy was still wandering around. Somehow it stepped on the remote control on the carpet, and the paused children's cartoon started playing again. The living room was instantly filled with laughter.
This made the atmosphere between them seem even more strange. Yu Siqing looked away first, bent down, and picked up the toys scattered beside the cabinet. It seemed that she had spent a lot of effort to calm down. When she spoke again, there was no sadness or fragility in her tone: "Dead man. When you woke up, he died."
To her, He Yunjian is no longer the man in New York who would fight against the entire family in order to be with her, who would study recipes in the middle of the night so that she could have a good meal, and who would try every means to be romantic in order to make her happy.
His awakening destroyed Yu Siqing's years of delusion about love.
She was forced to face... The love she had with him in New York was full of calculations of interests, which he had pretended to have for his own purposes.
Yu Siqing thought about this problem for a long time, and then somehow she figured it out and no longer worried about it.
Regardless of whether He Yunjian's love in New York was false or not, he had forgotten it when Su Xing woke up, so why should she get so caught up in it
What Yu Siqing said was true. The man who pretended to be a romantic had died in her memory. The real him was not familiar to her from beginning to end. The He family was too complicated. She just wanted to keep her own little world to herself and did not want to get involved.
Yu Siqing never dreamed of becoming the mistress of the house when she was in New York.
Otherwise, at that time, she could have relied on the child in her belly to ask He Yunjian to get a marriage certificate.
…
He Yunjian suddenly returned to China and never left. He did not mention his treatment for his heart disease in New York, but his emotions became visibly calmer and more stable.
He rented the apartment upstairs and lived alone. He also raised a custard-colored puppy named Strawberry Candy.
It was the name given by Yu Jiafan.
Yu Siqing knew very well that as long as they were in Sicheng, no matter where they moved, He Yunjian would be able to move upstairs from her, so she didn't bother moving to avoid him. She was very calm and no longer had any verbal communication with He Yunjian.
One of the benefits of He Yunjian's less irritable temper was that his attitude towards her became much gentler and he no longer looked like he was trying to take advantage of her.
His daily routine was simple: he would get up early to run and walk the dog, pick up Yu Jiafan at noon, patiently help him with his homework, and bring him back for dinner. At around 8 o'clock, he would make an appointment with Yu Jiafan to walk the dog by the lake.
And, take the energetic little carp for a walk...
This gave Gu Qingwu some free time, as his daughter would play with her brother and the puppy day and night.
Half a month passed in the blink of an eye, and Gu Qingwu said to He Suichen in private: "Is your eldest brother taking care of the baby full-time now?"
He Suichen stood in front of a full-length mirror, getting dressed. His long, bony fingers slowly adjusted his collar. He glanced over and asked, "What do you mean?"
Gu Qingwu sat on the bed, swaying the hem of her white skirt on her toes. "He has been researching recipes recently. He fed Xiaoli'er a lot of food at night and kept praising uncle's cooking for being delicious. He wants to eat more tomorrow."
He Yunjian gradually became like the person he was back then. He Suichen said calmly, "My eldest brother is a senior foodie. When I was a kid, he loved cooking for me and he has mastered the cooking skills."
However, after waking up, He Yunjian was thinking about how to undermine his aunt's power. He also took a long time to recuperate and rarely went into the kitchen.
Gu Qingwu thought for a moment and said, "That's a good thing."
He Suichen stopped talking about this. After they were dressed, he took out a dress from the closet for her to change into. Gu Qingwu didn't want to move. She looked out the window at the gloomy weather. She could hardly see the prosperous buildings in the city, so she hinted, "Brother, is it going to rain tonight?"
"Let's talk about it after we get off."
He Suichen had booked tickets for the pianist's concert and wanted to take advantage of the hard-earned time to go on a date with her without the child.
Seeing that he was in a good mood, Gu Qingwu couldn't refuse and went to the bathroom to change his clothes.
The two of them went out before it rained, and drove again. Gu Qingwu waited until they got to the place before putting on a hat and a mask, covering her beautiful face tightly. She was not interested in playing the piano, and she kept her head down and played with her mobile phone all the way, just following He Sui Chen.
After finding a seat in the front row and sitting down, she automatically leaned her head on the man's shoulder, and her white fingertips kept sliding across the screen.
He Suichen always sat upright. When he raised his eyes, he silently exchanged glances with the famous pianist on the stage, who was one of his friends.
Then, he looked down at Gu Qingwu who was still clinging to her phone. It seemed much more interesting than going out on a date with him. "What are you playing? Can you share it with me?"
Gu Qingwu didn't notice the strangeness in the man's tone. After exiting the Snake game, she showed him her latest chat with Jiang Dianying: "Did Cheng Shu's old house catch fire and burn up to the roof? Is this the game of having two children in three years... Diandian is unexpectedly pregnant again, and I just found out this month."
Jiang Dianying and Cheng Shu haven't gotten their marriage certificate yet, but they've gotten pregnant unexpectedly one after another. Even if a husband is honored by having children, this wouldn't happen. Gu Qingwu quietly complained to He Suichen, "Cheng Shu is so old, and it seems like he's lived in vain for the past thirty years."
He Sui Chen's thin lips finally showed a little smile, and he said indifferently: "You are very concerned about other people's affairs."
“No, not really… just sharing daily life with my besties.”
Gu Qingwu didn't let him see the chat history and quickly put away her phone, as if she was afraid of being caught and teased. It was obvious that she often talked about men with her best friend.
Her mask covered her face, but it couldn't hide her beautiful smiling eyes. She bent her beautiful curve slightly and reached out to hug his arm: "Brother, let's respect the pianist and listen to the music carefully."
This topic has been uncovered.
He Sui Chen silently held her slender hand, enjoying the rare quiet time for the two of them.
It had already started raining outside the concert hall, and as the cold wind blew, the rain became heavier.
At the apartment, Yu Siqing didn't have to prepare dinner. She poured herself a glass of milk, drank it, and started to tidy up her room. When she was alone, in order to prevent herself from having too many thoughts, she would always find something to do. She would wash the sheets and quilt covers diligently, disinfect the children's toys, and wipe every corner of the floor with a towel.
Just as she was washing in the kitchen, thunder roared outside the window and the lights above her head suddenly went out.
Yu Siqing walked outside and wanted to turn on the other lights in the living room, but found no response. She guessed that the circuit breaker had tripped. When she turned towards the door, she accidentally bumped into something in the dark. The sharp pain pierced into her bones, and she lost her balance and fell down.
Yu Siqing was stunned for a while, and now she only had one feeling: pain in her arms and legs.
I fell pretty hard and could hardly stand up. There was another rumble of thunder outside the window, and heavy rain followed by beating against the glass window. Because it was not closed tightly, some raindrops came in.
All the effort to wipe the smooth floor with a towel tonight was wasted.
Yu Siqing took a long time to get up slowly. The tears welling up in her eyes were very similar to the delayed emotions she had felt in the past few days. She was afraid of bumping into something again, so she didn't dare to walk in a hurry and could only grope her way slowly.
Just as I was approaching the entrance, there was a knock on the apartment door.
Accompanied by the sound of thunder and rain, it seemed very vague. After listening carefully, I realized it was He Yunjian.
"—Thinking of love?"
Ten minutes later.
Yu Siqing opened the door a crack. Her thin figure stood in the darkness. Her jet-black hair fell softly on her shoulders, making her fair face look very small. She looked at the man in the corridor outside with a calm expression.
The whole building was out of power. He Yunjian held a candle in his hand, and the faint light illuminated the figures of the two people: "I'll bring you a candle."
Yu Siqing looked behind him and asked calmly, "Where's Fanfan?"
He Yunjian: "He fell asleep... The thunder didn't wake him up."
Yu Siqing accepted his candle for a simple reason: she didn't know when the call would come, and she didn't have the energy to rummage through boxes and cabinets to see if she had any spare candles. However, she raised her hand a little slowly, and something strange was noticed.
"What happened to your hand?"
"I just fell down... It's nothing serious."
That being said, the nervousness in He Yunjian's eyes was genuine, especially in the dark atmosphere, his reaction was very similar to when he was in New York. This made Yu Siqing dazed for a few seconds, and it was because of these few seconds that he entered the door.
Since the day she fell out and left the He family, Yu Siqing never thought that one day she would be able to live in peace with him like this.
He Yunjian's slender hands gently helped her back to the sofa in the living room. Two candles were lit. The warm yellow light looked very warm, and even the figure was a little blurry. Yu Siqing sat still and watched him put the messy things on the floor into the corner of the wall.
Then, she heard He Yunjian's voice, asking her, "Where is the emergency medicine box at home?"
Yu Siqing usually prepares emergency medicines for children, not for adults.
She pointed to a cabinet, and He Yunjian went to look through it, but found no medicinal wine to treat injuries. In the light, his thin face was cast in a shadow. He did not look impatient, and took out his mobile phone to quickly check the nearby open pharmacies.
Finally, he asked Yu Siqing to keep the candle and not move it while he went to the pharmacy himself.
It was still raining heavily outside, and Yu Siqing was reluctant to let him go: "You'll be fine after you get over the initial pain. He Yunjian, go back upstairs and look after the children. I'm fine."
He Yunjian raised his head to look at her, his eyes were dazed for two seconds, and he remembered that Yu Siqing, who looked young, once sat on the sofa like this, but she was more embarrassed than now. Her fingers slowly rolled up the hem of her skirt, revealing her knees that were bruised and bleeding. She smiled with a little effort: "I hate thunderstorms the most... I always fall down. Yunjian, do you know what it's like in the welfare home on thunderstorms? The children will be locked in the room to prevent them from running around... Then we will watch the rain outside through the wire window."
"I have disliked thunderstorms since I was a child. When thunder sounds, I feel very depressed and lose focus when doing anything."
When the thunder sounded just now, He Yunjian's first reaction in the study was not to go and see the sleeping child. His instinctive reaction was to run out of the apartment. When he was going downstairs, he realized to get a candle.
Now remembering these fragmented fragments, He Yunjian became extremely silent. He ignored Yu Siqing's kind words of dissuasion and insisted on going out to buy medicine. He left without looking back after saying that.
Yu Siqing's figure was hidden in the semi-darkness for a long time without moving. Her fingertips trembled unconsciously, and she moved the candle closer.
Almost half an hour later, her cell phone rang. It was He Yunjian calling.
It was raining heavily outside. Yu Siqing was worried about his safety, so she answered the video call without thinking.
He Yunjian was drenched by the rain, with water drops rolling down his hair, making his deep eyes look particularly bright. He asked her in front of the camera, "The doctor asked me, is your arm bruised or does it hurt when you move it?"
Yu Siqing breathed slower: "Bruise, maybe."
She can hold things normally and doesn't feel any pain unless she touches the bruised area.
He Yunjian switched the camera to the row of medicine shelves, as if to ask her to listen to the doctor's instructions. During the communication, the doctor in the pharmacy thought she was He Yunjian's girlfriend, and he did not explain, but asked what supplements she should drink for insufficient qi and blood.
He Yunjian looked like he was going to rob the entire drugstore during the rainstorm.
Yu Siqing listened quietly. The man's pleasant voice and the occasional conversations made the apartment no longer cold and unpopular. After hanging up the phone, she moved her stiff fingers and slightly covered her eyes.
Before the candle was about to burn out, He Yunjian finally came back carrying a large bag of medicine boxes. Before he left, he was careful and took the key hanging at the entrance so that he didn't have to ring the doorbell when he opened the door.
"Just take some simple medicine tonight. The doctor told me to go to the hospital tomorrow to check if there are any broken bones."
He Yunjian spoke naturally to Yu Siqing who was sitting on the sofa. He put down the medicine bag. He looked like he had crawled out of the water. If you looked closely, you would find that his coat had been used to block the medicine, so his black shirt and trousers were completely wet. He walked barefoot on the floor, leaving footprints with every step.
Just like that year, he went barefoot on an extremely cold night, step by step, to find her.
The author has something to say: There is a second update