Seventh Year Of Separation chapter 26
Nothing Like Him
Gu Jiahe buried his head in the pool, eyes open, watching the bubbles gradually rise.
Puff—water accidentally entered his windpipe, so he quickly lifted his head from the pool, coughing several times before recovering.
Gu Jiahe didn’t bring his phone charger out, and his phone had been on standby all night, with only 5% battery left.
He glanced at the time, and it was almost time to check out.
His luggage was still in Li Zhao’s room. His hand paused on the door handle for a moment, but he still pushed open the door of the single room and walked back along the corridor.
He walked to the side of that room and saw that the door was wide open, with the cleaning cart placed outside, indicating that someone was cleaning inside.
Gu Jiahe breathed a sigh of relief; Li Zhao should have left. He relaxed and walked in.
However, as soon as he stepped into the room, he bumped into Li Zhao head-on.
Li Zhao looked the same as usual, calm and composed, neatly dressed, pulling his black suitcase.
Gu Jiahe took a step back to let him pass.
Li Zhao didn’t say a word, just walked straight to the corridor.
Gu Jiahe’s luggage was still in its original place. He silently packed his luggage, while the cleaning lady pulled open the drawer of the bedside table and asked him, “Young man, do you still need this?”
He turned around and saw his blister pack of pills. He nodded quickly, “Yes, give it to me.” Then he carefully put the pills into the inner pocket of his backpack.
He went to the hotel lobby and found out that Li Zhao had already checked out. He dragged his suitcase and didn’t see Li Zhao’s car in the parking lot.
He must have left alone.
Gu Jiahe checked his phone and saw a message from his audit colleagues. They were going on a business trip to another city, and a Polo had already left.
Gu Jiahe had no choice but to take a taxi to the high-speed railway station. He boarded the return high-speed train alone.
He hadn’t slept well all night. When he got on the high-speed train, he felt drowsy as the train swayed.
But just as he fell asleep, he was awakened by the person next to him. Gu Jiahe looked up and saw that the middle-aged man inside wanted to get off the train, so he quickly stood up and let him pass.
It wasn’t until the man got off the train with his suitcase that Gu Jiahe heard the announcement: North City Station, arrived.
He had just dozed off, and he didn’t realize it had been almost an hour since they departed.
His mind suddenly cleared up, and he stumbled out of the carriage with his suitcase. The next second, the door closed, and the train departed.
After getting off the train, Gu Jiahe slapped his cheek hard, forcing himself to wake up.
There was still work to do this afternoon, so he took the subway and then a bus back to the company.
When he returned to his desk, he found that the seat next to him had a new occupant.
He Xiao sat next to him, smiling and waving at him, “Manager Gu, please guide me more!”
“How come…” Gu Jiahe subconsciously asked, then looked up at the position originally belonging to He Xiao diagonally opposite. Li Zhao’s laptop was on that desk.
“Lawyer Li said that I should coordinate more with you in the future. It’ll be more convenient this way,” He Xiao said, tapping her head with a pen.
Gu Jiahe didn’t say anything more, just smiled at her, “Sure, feel free to ask me if you need anything.”
That entire afternoon, Li Zhao didn’t return to the office. He Xiao said he had gone back to the firm for other matters.
But Gu Jiahe couldn’t verify it.
It was better if Li Zhao didn’t show up, avoiding the awkwardness of meeting each other.
Early the next morning, He Xiao arrived very early. She was organizing the documents for this business trip while greeting Gu Jiahe.
Gu Jiahe glanced at Li Zhao’s seat, which was still empty.
“Oh, Manager Gu, Lawyer Li asked me to give this to you. He said you left it at the hotel during the business trip,” He Xiao pushed a small box over from the other end of the desk.
“Oh, really.” Gu Jiahe took it, but he was unfamiliar with the box.
He had already packed his luggage. How could he have left something behind? Moreover, he was walking behind Li Zhao and couldn’t have left anything behind for him to pick up.
Gu Jiahe opened the box and was stunned for a moment.
Inside was an old phone. It was the one he had been using since high school.
A few months after he entered university, he had stopped using this phone, and it hadn’t been used for a long time. Gu Jiahe only remembered vaguely that he had left it in the rented house they once lived in together.
After breaking up with Li Zhao back then, he hadn’t gone back to that rented house, thinking that this old phone had been lost long ago.
Yet Li Zhao had kept this phone for so many years.
The phone now looked outdated, with a small screen and large buttons, and it had long since run out of battery and been turned off.
Gu Jiahe pressed a few times, but the phone didn’t respond.
There was no longer the universal charger with the metal clamp by his side, and it was difficult to find one now.
Gu Jiahe thought for a moment, then could only put the phone into the drawer under the desk and lock it.
It wasn’t until noon that Li Zhao came to the office. Gu Jiahe noticed that he had changed into a new shirt.
Li Zhao greeted He Xiao and Wen Qi with a smile, seeming to be in a good mood, completely different from his appearance last night.
His eyes glanced at Gu Jiahe’s desk, but didn’t pause for a second, and he sat down directly to start working.
Gu Jiahe quickly looked away and didn’t look at him again.
After the resolution of the intellectual property dispute with the competitor company, Wu Mou asked Gu Jiahe to take stock of potential intellectual property risks in the company and emphasize the seriousness of the issues to the business departments. He had been busy with this for the past few days.
Once busy, it seemed that he no longer had the heart to think about those miscellaneous matters.
Summer had arrived, and the temperature had soared to over 35 degrees. Gu Jiahe lowered the office air conditioner by two degrees, and this time Li Zhao didn’t come to stop him.
After resolving the intellectual property dispute with the competitor company last time, Wu Mou asked Gu Jiahe to take stock of potential intellectual property risks in the company and emphasize the seriousness of the issue to the business departments. He had been busy with this for the past few days.
Once people get busy, it seems they also lose interest in those miscellaneous matters.
Summer arrived, and the temperature soared to over 35 degrees. Gu Jiahe lowered the office air conditioner by two degrees, and this time Li Zhao didn’t come to stop him.
At six o’clock, Li Zhao rarely worked overtime. He packed up his laptop and left the office.
With fewer and fewer people in the office, Gu Jiahe was alone reading documents until it was dark.
When he finally lifted his head from the computer, thinking about where to have dinner, he received a new message on his phone.
Opening it, the message was from Chen Ze.
Chen Ze, his fellow townsman from Pingcheng whom he met at the North City Library, was his only close friend with whom he had maintained regular contact over the years.
Chen Ze only sent one sentence: “Come to my place for dinner tonight.”
Gu Jiahe replied with a question mark: “?”
Chen Ze: “House warming. The house is renovated.”
When Gu Jiahe arrived at Chen Ze’s residential area, he was already waiting at the entrance.
Chen Ze was wearing a shirt and glasses, waving at him.
Chen Ze was one of the few people Gu Jiahe knew who could afford to buy a house in North City. He was a pure workaholic. Gu Jiahe once thought he was a workaholic AI, except for one time when he mistakenly took the wrong medicine and came knocking on his door in the middle of the night, taking him to the hospital. It was then that Gu Jiahe felt a hint of human emotion from him.
Chen Ze’s new home was a relatively spacious flat.
Gu Jiahe found out he was the only one invited: “Am I the only one invited to the house warming?”
“I invited you first to inhale the freshest formaldehyde,” Chen Ze said as he changed into slippers and turned to him.
“Not funny, thanks,” Gu Jiahe said as he changed into slippers and followed him inside.
The two teased each other for a while, but both Gu Jiahe and Chen Ze knew what was really going on. Chen Ze accidentally found out that Gu Jiahe’s water pipes had burst and hadn’t been fixed yet, so he invited Gu Jiahe to stay for two nights under the pretext of a house warming.
Chen Ze considered him a true friend and never exposed his embarrassing situations.
Chen Ze wasn’t good at cooking, so he ordered a table of light takeout. Several green and white large plates were placed on the dining table.
Gu Jiahe glanced at them, “Are you a vegetarian and Buddhist every day? Aren’t you tired of this?”
Chen Ze didn’t answer him, but opened the refrigerator and took out a can of sugar-free soda to toss to him.
Gu Jiahe laughed. This was probably the closest thing to “snacks” in Chen Ze’s house.
Chen Ze sat down opposite him with a cup and tentatively asked, “Your father… that Gu Jianmin, hasn’t contacted you again, has he?”
Gu Jiahe sighed, then opened the call log on his phone, showing a long list of missed calls, all from Pingcheng.
Chen Ze sighed, “He hasn’t given up after all these years?”
Gu Jiahe nodded helplessly.
Chen Ze asked again, “What about that money? What are you planning to do with it?”
“I can’t touch that money. I put it in a fixed deposit. My grandmother also has a heart condition, and the doctor said she needs to have a stent implanted surgery, so I have to keep it,” Gu Jiahe whispered, “I can’t… lose another loved one for the same reason.”
Chen Ze nodded for a moment, then said, “If you need money, I have some extra. Take it for emergencies.”
Gu Jiahe quickly waved his hand, “No, you work hard too, and you have a mortgage. Making money isn’t easy. I can manage on my own.”
Seeing that he was adamant, Chen Ze didn’t mention money anymore, “How about your ex? How is he?”
“What do you mean?” Gu Jiahe didn’t expect Chen Ze to ask about Li Zhao.
“Didn’t he become the resident lawyer at your company?”
Gu Jiahe paused for two or three seconds before speaking, “We’re not on the same path, what else could there be?”
Chen Ze didn’t believe his words, “If you weren’t on the same path, how did you end up together back then?”
Gu Jiahe hastily diverted the topic, “You’re like a hundred-thousand-whys. If we keep going, I’ll charge you.”
Chen Ze laughed, “You’re really good at dodging.”
Gu Jiahe nodded repeatedly, “Yeah, if only gold bars could fall from the sky now. Then I wouldn’t have any worries.”
Sure enough, after dinner, Chen Ze asked him to stay, saying the guest room was ready, and it would be too much trouble to go back so late at night.
So he stayed.
Until Gu Jiahe finished washing up and lay down in the guest room bed at Chen Ze’s house, he thought of the question Chen Ze had just asked him.
How did you end up together back then?
The process of him being with Li Zhao was a confusing account.
Originally, he thought that after the college entrance examination, he and Li Zhao would go their separate ways and never have a chance to meet again.
Before the college entrance examination, Li Zhao mentioned once that he wanted to apply for the law major at Ningcheng University. Ningcheng was only a two or three-hour drive from Pingcheng.
Gu Jiahe just nodded, without saying anything else.
On the day when the exam results were released, he didn’t even look for Li Zhao’s name. He deliberately avoided the crowd and left the school with his scorecard.
His scores were neither high nor low. He could barely make it to the 211 and 985 universities, but it was enough to apply to an ordinary first-tier university.
Later, he directly filled in North City University as his first choice and inexplicably applied for the law major.
In the end, he was admitted as he had hoped.
When he was carrying his suitcase and sitting on the high-speed train to North City, he unexpectedly met Li Zhao. Li Zhao was wearing that beautiful gray-blue T-shirt and waved at him vigorously.
It was then that Gu Jiahe knew Li Zhao had applied to the Political and Legal College of North City.
Gu Jiahe never asked him why he didn’t go to Ningcheng and instead chose a school in North City. It was so far from home.
That year’s autumn, another October 3rd. Li Zhao crossed half the city to wait for Gu Jiahe at the gate of his university after class.
Perhaps because the sunset that day was so beautiful, they couldn’t help but kiss under the phoenix tree at the school gate.
At that moment, Gu Jiahe only remembered Li Zhao’s lips were very soft, and his eyes looked at him, reflecting the light of the sunset.
They started their relationship in this hazy and confusing manner.
Later, they rented a very small house between the two schools. Li Zhao said he would pay the rent himself, but Gu Jiahe didn’t allow it and insisted on splitting it equally.
Later, he lied to Li Zhao that he was staying at school for self-study, but actually went to work odd jobs to earn money for rent.
That small rented house had many memories for them. They watched countless movies and sports events on the small 1.5-meter bed, did countless things that lovers do, each time extremely intimate.
However, no matter how compatible their bodies were, Gu Jiahe never mentioned anything about his own family in front of Li Zhao. He seemingly made a perfect separation between Pingcheng and North City.
Occasionally, when Gu Jiahe recalled those days, he would still mock himself for not knowing the severity of the situation. How dare he take Li Zhao’s love as a refuge from this cruel world.
And now, lying on the bed in Chen Ze’s guest room, it was very quiet in the room until the message from the work group on his phone rang.
He opened it and glanced at it. It was a message from the securities representative saying there would be a meeting tomorrow.
Soon, Li Zhao replied with a simple “OK” below.
What surprised him, however, was that Li Zhao changed his profile picture.
He replaced that blurry old white profile picture.
Now, in front of his name, there was a professional photo with a gray background, taken at some unknown time.
It didn’t look anything like him.