Translator: Paperplane Editor: Caron_

  He Jichen pressed his lips together tightly then stared down at He Yuguang’s phone screen for a moment. His fingertips gently slid across it and tapped WeChat. He found her name and started to type away on the keyboard: “Manman, have you been busy the past two days? Why haven’t you contacted me?”


  “Manman, haven’t you finished filming by now? Did you set a good time to come back to Beijing?”


  “Manman, I happen to have business in Beijing in a few days time, so when you’ve set a date to come back to Beijing, let me know. I’ll check my schedule and come see you then.”
……

  It was very quiet in the car. The only sound heard was the subtle “tap tap tap” coming from the phone.

  He wasn’t sure just how many messages he sent out from He Yuguang’s phone. All he knew was that in the end, his heart felt like it was being pulled in all directions.

  –


  Time turned back to the day before at twenty to eleven in the morning.

  Ji Yi emerged from the airport then caught a taxi to the city. As she passed by a chain hotel, she asked the driver to stop. She paid the fare and entered the hotel.

  Ji Yi booked a room, grabbed the room key, and went upstairs in a trance-like state like she was sleepwalking.

  As soon as she entered the room, Ji Yi laid in bed and seemed to fall asleep as soon as she shut her eyes.

  In reality, she couldn’t actually fall asleep.

  But she didn’t dare open her eyes either because she was afraid to think about what happened between her and He Jichen.

  Everything happened too suddenly. So sudden, in fact, that she simply didn’t know how to face it, so all she could do was hide herself like an ostrich and run from reality by not thinking about it.

  As night slowly fell, she was able to sleep for a bit, but then she woke up again not too long after.

  She pulled the curtains so tight that there wasn’t even a speck of light in the room. She couldn’t tell what time it was, nor could she see if it was dark or light out.

  Like a soulless shell of a human, she hugged her comforter and snuggled in bed without moving an inch.

  She could feel time pass in the darkness, but she wasn’t sure just how much time passed. All she knew was that since she checked into the hotel yesterday, she hadn’t had a single drop of water. She was starting to feel thirsty.

  When she simply couldn’t endure the pain any longer, she finally crawled out of bed, clutching her stomach and walked into the bathroom. She first drank half a bottle of the complimentary water from the hotel, then quickly freshened up and walked out of the room.

  Ji Yi only realized that it was very late at night when she came out of the hotel.

  She instinctively looked back and glanced at the clock in the hotel lobby. It was eleven in the evening. The date beside the clock reminded her that it had already been thirty-six hours since she checked into the hotel.

  There was a twenty-four hour fast-food restaurant near the hotel.

  After Ji Yi ordered something to fill her stomach, she was in no hurry to leave. Instead, she watched the streets from the tall windows beside her.

  The streets at midnight in the capital were just as lively as usual, yet the traffic wasn’t as fast-flowing as usual.

  Caught in a daze for a moment, she then waved over the hotel attendant and paid her bill. That was when she saw the silent phone in her bag.

  She purposefully didn’t turn on her phone throughout her plane journey. Yet, she still kept it turned off up till now out of fear. She knew full well that avoiding reality wasn’t going to fix anything, so in the end, she decided to face the music.

  So much time has passed without checking my phone, so I should probably turn it back on again……

  Ji Yi grabbed her phone and hesitated for two minutes, but eventually she pressed the button to switch it on.