Seventh Year Of Separation chapter 29
Decoupling
Gu Jiahe stood under the eaves of the office building, holding a cigarette between his fingertips.
He heard some rustling noises and turned to see the small stray dog he had encountered before limping away quickly, disappearing in no time.
The autumn wind blew into the corner, causing the ember of the cigarette to flicker.
Lost in thought, he was suddenly startled as someone snatched the cigarette butt from his hand.
Gu Jiahe was taken aback and looked up to see Li Zhao standing in front of him, still catching his breath, his hair slightly disheveled.
It had been days since he last saw Li Zhao, and he hadn’t expected him to show up today.
“What are you doing?” Gu Jiahe reached out to retrieve his cigarette, but Li Zhao pulled his hand back.
Gu Jiahe missed and sighed, “Waste.”
The cigarette was only two-thirds smoked, with a bit still burning.
Li Zhao looked directly at him, then took the cigarette butt between his lips, taking a deep drag and exhaling a puff of white smoke.
Tiny sparks burned at the tip of the cigarette, quickly reaching its end and then extinguishing.
Li Zhao said, “Now it’s not wasted.”
Gu Jiahe was completely baffled, not understanding what Li Zhao was doing.
Li Zhao threw the extinguished cigarette butt into the trash can and asked directly, “Why did you take a year off from school?”
Gu Jiahe’s head buzzed. “How did you know?”
“Why did you take a leave of absence?” Li Zhao continued to press.
Leaning against the outer wall of the office building, Gu Jiahe rubbed his shoe soles against the granite edge of the flower bed.
“Not only did you take a leave, but you also didn’t attend the graduate school interview in March. Gu Jiahe, what happened on January 27th?” Li Zhao inquired.
Gu Jiahe looked up, taking in a breath of chilly air.
He had replayed this scene in his mind many times, but when it happened for real, none of the details matched.
But he suddenly felt relieved, as if unburdening a long-held memory, which had become a physical torment for him.
And on that day in Lingang, they had already quarreled so much that the truth of this matter seemed irrelevant.
The autumn wind swept up fallen leaves from the flower bed. As one leaf rose about ten centimeters into the air, it flipped over and landed at Gu Jiahe’s feet.
Seeing Gu Jiahe’s silence, Li Zhao began to lose patience. “Even now, you still…”
Gu Jiahe interrupted his words abruptly, “That afternoon, Gu Jianmin came to North City to find me.”
He remembered that he had never introduced Gu Jianmin to Li Zhao and added, “He’s my father.”
“And then?” Li Zhao prompted.
…
“We had a quarrel, and he picked up a beer bottle.”
Li Zhao froze.
Before Li Zhao could ask further, Gu Jiahe continued, “Over some money.”
In the scorching summer of 2008, Gu Jiahe received his admission notice from North City University.
Gu Jianmin quickly processed the life insurance claim for Qian Liyun. The death benefit arrived in the account two weeks later.
After that, Gu Jianmin remarried. It was three months after Qian Liyun’s death. The woman soon became pregnant. Gu Jianmin, in his middle age, had a son again, and he was excited. Since that day, he completely ignored Gu Jiahe.
Before boarding the high-speed train to North City, Gu Jiahe found Gu Jianmin and asked him for university tuition and living expenses.
Gu Jianmin refused him twice in a row.
It wasn’t until Gu Jiahe went to his new home for the third time that Gu Jianmin’s wife opened the door. Unable to resolve the situation, Gu Jianmin, embarrassed, proposed to give Gu Jiahe a sum of money from the insurance proceeds according to the beneficiary ratio. The condition was that Gu Jiahe would stop bothering him, and they would end things there.
Gu Jiahe agreed, not wanting any further involvement with Gu Jianmin.
But later, when Gu Jiahe received the money, he didn’t touch it.
His grandmother had some heart problems, and the money had to be kept for emergencies. He deposited it in a fixed-term account and left the passbook with his grandmother.
After going to school, he applied for scholarships and secretly worked many odd jobs.
Originally, he thought that his relationship with Gu Jianmin had ended like that.
But less than a year later, for some reason, Gu Jianmin contacted him again. Gu Jiahe didn’t expect him to be so inconsistent, asking for the money back.
He called Gu Jiahe many times, but Gu Jiahe hung up every time. He knew that once he gave in once, there would be a second and third time.
The same plot had played out countless times with Qian Liyun.
What Gu Jiahe didn’t expect was that Gu Jianmin would directly come to North City on the day of his senior year.
On that bitterly cold winter evening, Gu Jianmin intercepted him on a secluded street outside the school and demanded the money back.
They had a big argument. In desperation, Gu Jianmin grabbed a beer bottle nearby and hit Gu Jiahe on the head.
Gu Jiahe cried out in pain, blood soaking through his collar.
And that day happened to be Li Zhao’s 22nd birthday.
Originally, he and Li Zhao had agreed to meet at the gate of the Law School. He had even booked a somewhat expensive restaurant nearby and bought a cake. All of this had prepaid his living expenses for the next half month.
But later, he never made it to the restaurant, and the cake was never picked up.
On a cold winter evening in 2012, Gu Jiahe, covered in blood, called for an ambulance and went to the hospital.
He received 13 stitches on the back of his head, leaving a crooked scar. It took him a long time to grow out his hair to cover that scar.
After telling all of this, Gu Jiahe let out a sigh.
“Li Zhao, do you understand now?” Although Gu Jiahe’s eyes seemed to be smiling, his voice was hoarse. “I don’t live in Chunhe West Court, and my family is not an ordinary one.”
Gu Jiahe gently crushed the dried leaf underfoot, and a gust of wind scattered it into the air.
Li Zhao remained silent for several minutes, and an icy barrier seemed to form between them.
Then Li Zhao turned his head slightly, not looking at him, and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me all this?”
“How could I tell you?” Gu Jiahe’s voice paused for a moment, then he shook his head. “… I couldn’t do it.”
Li Zhao clenched his fists, and the wind on the path grew stronger.
Gu Jiahe didn’t mind being more transparent about the matter. After all, he had no dignity left to speak of. “Li Zhao, do you remember when we went to Pingcheng together in our freshman year?”
In 2009, at Li Zhao’s insistence, he went to Li Zhao’s home once as a classmate.
Li Zhao’s parents were both there. The four of them sat at a dining table.
Gu Jiahe still remembered their conversation that day.
More accurately, it was Li Zhao’s parents talking to Li Zhao while Gu Jiahe listened.
The conversation started with his courses at the Law School but gradually shifted to other topics.
“Zhao Zhao, your cousin’s baby is already two years old. Let’s drive over to see them sometime.”
“We didn’t intervene in your college application, but it’s better to come back in the future. The weather there is too dry. Come back to Pingcheng to get married and find a girl with roots here, have a beautiful baby.”
There was a moment of silence at the table, and Li Zhao held Gu Jiahe’s hand under the table.
Li Zhao’s father turned to Gu Jiahe, who hadn’t spoken, “Xiao Gu, what about you? Any plans for the future?”
Gu Jiahe couldn’t remember how he responded back then.
What plans did he have? He never dared to think about “plans”.
At that moment, he just felt so out of place in such a clean, bright, and beautifully decorated home. If this were a frame from a movie, he shouldn’t be in the shot.
If one day their families were put on opposite sides of a balance, he would definitely not be the heavier weight.
He deceived himself, enjoying what seemed like three and a half years of happiness, embracing and entwining with Li Zhao.
But Gu Jianmin’s appearance once again woke him up forcefully.
In the depths of a quiet street, in a corner unseen by anyone, the bottle smashed against the back of his head, and glass shards scattered all over the ground.
That crisp sound seemed to remind him: Li Zhao shouldn’t be involved in your messy life. Please recognize reality as soon as possible and return to your place immediately.
Human behavior patterns can be conditioned. Gu Jiahe had realized over the years that disappointment was the main theme of his life.
Li Zhao was just bait given to him by heaven, making him believe he was eligible for worldly happiness.
Before heaven reclaimed everything, he decided to step back on his own, at least appearing to have some dignity left.
Later, on the ambulance, Gu Jiahe received a series of text messages from Li Zhao, asking why he hadn’t arrived at the school gate yet.
It was a windy day, much like today.
22-year-old Gu Jiahe sat in the emergency room, his vision gradually blurring. He used the last of his rationality to assess the situation at the time.
In the end, he made that call. He broke up with Li Zhao.
After hanging up the phone, the nurse from the emergency department pushed open the door and asked if he was still hurting somewhere, why he suddenly cried so loudly.
In the following year, both his mental and physical states deteriorated. After being discharged from the hospital, he went back to school to handle the procedures for taking a leave of absence, even telling the academic affairs teacher to keep it confidential.
He didn’t want to return to Pingcheng, so he found a cheap house in the suburbs of North City to live in.
At first, he dreamed of Li Zhao’s face, then occasionally thought of it, and finally forced himself not to think about it at all.
They stood face to face again, and the sky darkened a bit more. The little stray dog peeked out from the bushes again, but as soon as it saw them, it quickly retreated.
“Gu Jiahe,” Li Zhao suddenly called his name, “Do you feel like you’ve considered everything thoroughly?”
Gu Jiahe didn’t expect him to say that.
Li Zhao’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “You considered your family, even my parents. But there’s one thing you missed.”
He paused for a second. “Where do you place me? Have you ever thought about how I would feel?”
Only today did Li Zhao realize why he never found Gu Jiahe whenever he went to wait for him at the gate of the North City University. It was because Gu Jiahe wasn’t at the school at all.
Gu Jiahe had taken a year off, so there was always a year’s difference between them. No matter how hard Li Zhao looked for him, he was always out of reach.
During their relationship, Gu Jiahe rarely introduced Li Zhao to his classmates, nor did he ever take him to his home. So after they broke up, Li Zhao realized he knew nothing about him except his name.
In that cramped rental house, there were very few things left by Gu Jiahe. On the day they broke up, all that was left for Li Zhao in that small room were an old cell phone, a toothbrush, a water glass, and two old T-shirts.
At this moment, Li Zhao looked into his eyes. “Bus 314, transfer to Bus 655. It takes a total of 19 stops from the Law School to North City University. I’ve taken it countless times, but I always return empty-handed.”
Gu Jiahe was shaken, and memories in his mind suddenly surfaced.
That day, he sat in Li Zhao’s car, entering the six-digit lock screen code on Li Zhao’s phone, 314655.
It wasn’t a winning lottery number, nor was it the ending digits of a phone number. It was the route Li Zhao took countless times to search for him.