Seventh Year Of Separation chapter 32
Moments
There was a desk calendar on Gu Jiahe’s desk.
Early in the morning today, he took out a red marker and circled two dates on this week’s calendar.
Coincidentally, He Xiao passed by him and saw him holding the calendar, leaning over and asking, “Manager Gu, what are you doing? Are you celebrating an anniversary?”
“Oh, no.” Gu Jiahe quickly put the calendar back in its place and flipped to the next page.
He Xiao, however, dragged her chair over mysteriously to his side and asked, “Manager Gu, I have a question. You don’t have to answer if it’s inconvenient.”
Gu Jiahe’s internal alarm bells immediately rang. Could it be that she saw him going to the office building on Yuping Road that day?
Gu Jiahe felt a little nervous and asked her back, “What’s the question?”
“Um, are the salaries for your legal department high?”
“Pfft—” Gu Jiahe almost sprayed out the milk he was drinking.
“Sorry for being intrusive,” He Xiao smiled awkwardly and explained, “We interns at the law firm are working really hard, although Lawyer Li is nice to us, but there’s a ton of administrative work. We interns have to do everything…”
“So, you’re thinking of pursuing a career in law?” Gu Jiahe looked at her.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking that if the compensation is good where you are. I’ll find a good law firm to work with in the future,” He Xiao said sincerely.
“Forget it, you’d better stick with Lawyer Li. The Tianhe platform is very good. Securities firms might be a bit better off, but our kind of enterprise is just scraping by,” Gu Jiahe shook his head, smiling helplessly.
“Oh, I see,” He Xiao nodded obediently, then opened her laptop to continue typing furiously.
In fact, over the years, Gu Jiahe had some regrets.
If Gu Jianmin hadn’t come to find him that winter, he wouldn’t have been so seriously injured, and maybe he could have smoothly gone to graduate school.
Perhaps he would have had a completely different fate now.
But he only regretted it quietly once, without delving into it further.
Accepting everything life gave him calmly was the principle he had learned to live by over the years.
After Li Zhao was no longer on the project, Gu Jiahe often took He Xiao and Wen Qi to lunch together. It wasn’t because of Li Zhao’s favors, but seeing the two of them reminded Gu Jiahe of his own awkwardness when he had just graduated, so he subconsciously wanted to take care of them more.
The company canteen was economical, but the menu never changed. Occasionally, Gu Jiahe would take them to eat at the small shops downstairs in the office building. Today was no exception.
“Manager Gu! Come over here!”
Gu Jiahe heard He Xiao calling him from a distance.
He walked over and saw her standing in front of a snack shop, waving at him.
“What’s this?” Gu Jiahe asked her as he approached.
“Red bean cakes! I saw this place online yesterday, they’re supposed to be really delicious,” He Xiao said, eyeing the shop window.
“Alright, four portions,” Gu Jiahe promptly told the shopkeeper.
“No need, we can buy it ourselves. And there are only three of us, we don’t need four portions,” He Xiao quickly waved her hand, pointing to herself and Wen Qi.
“Yeah, four portions,” Gu Jiahe repeated.
He Xiao looked at him, “Are you going to eat two portions by yourself?”
Gu Jiahe hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
In no time, the shopkeeper packed four portions.
Gu Jiahe took them and handed them out, keeping two for himself, and returned to his desk.
After finishing one portion, it did taste really good. Then he put the other portion in the drawer.
In the afternoon, there was an internal meeting in the company’s functional department, and Wu Mou called him to attend. Unexpectedly, the meeting dragged on until almost the end of the workday.
The last session of the meeting was Wu Mou’s speech. Having just been promoted to director, Wu Mou was quite enthusiastic and spoke for half an hour without stopping.
Gu Jiahe discreetly glanced at his phone under the table, but was caught by Wu Mou’s gaze. He trembled and quickly put the phone away.
Two minutes later, he opened his phone again and checked.
“Xiao Gu? Do you have something urgent?” Wu Mou cleared his throat.
Gu Jiahe immediately looked up at the screen, “Nothing, please continue.”
Soon, Wu Mou found himself losing interest and hastily wrapped up the meeting, turning off the screen projector. “Alright, let’s end the meeting here. Let’s call it a day.”
Gu Jiahe noticed people starting to stand up, and he immediately sprung up from his seat and rushed out of the meeting room.
After Wu Mou came out of the meeting room, Gu Jiahe had already disappeared.
“He’s really spreading his wings and can’t be controlled anymore,” Wu Mou shook his head, looking at the wide-open office door.
The subway during the evening rush hour was crowded. Gu Jiahe stood in a corner near the door, holding a small box in his left hand and his phone in his right.
He typed a line in the chat box, then deleted it repeatedly several times before finally sending a message.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Originally, he wanted to call Li Zhao, but he was worried it would be too abrupt. In the end, he chose to send a WeChat message.
The subway sped through the dusk, and soon Gu Jiahe got off. When he reached the office building on Yuping Road and checked his phone, he found that he had arrived five minutes early.
But as he walked closer, he noticed someone was already standing there.
Li Zhao was looking down at his phone, seemingly replying to a message.
At the same time, Gu Jiahe’s phone vibrated, and he checked it. “I’ll be downstairs in a moment, no rush.”
Even though Li Zhao was already there.
Gu Jiahe walked over quickly, waving at him.
Li Zhao seemed a little surprised but quickly adjusted his expression. “You’re here so quickly.”
“Your legs are pretty fast too,” Gu Jiahe replied.
Li Zhao didn’t respond but noticed the box in his hand. “What’s that?”
Gu Jiahe didn’t answer immediately but glanced around and found a convenience store. “Come in and I’ll show you.”
Li Zhao followed him into the convenience store and sat down by the window.
Then he watched as Gu Jiahe opened the paper box mysteriously.
“Ding ding!”
Li Zhao turned his head and saw a box of red bean cakes.
“Too bad they’re cold, I’ll go ask the clerk to heat them up,” Gu Jiahe said as he picked them up to go heat them.
“No need,” Li Zhao instinctively grabbed his wrist. Li Zhao’s fingers were long, gripping his wrist as if he were handcuffing him.
Two seconds later, Li Zhao realized what he was doing and gently let go of his hand.
“…Let’s just eat them like this,” he said.
The two of them chatted in the convenience store in a somewhat awkward manner until after eight o’clock. Only then did Li Zhao receive a call from Qin Yi and return to the office.
A day passed, and it was Friday.
After work, Gu Jiahe took the subway to Yuping Road as usual and sent a message to Li Zhao along the way. Twenty minutes later, he arrived downstairs at the law firm.
Li Zhao was already standing there, and when he saw Gu Jiahe, he couldn’t help but lift the corners of his mouth, but quickly restrained his expression.
As autumn arrived, Gu Jiahe’s attire became very simple and rough. Every day, he wore jeans with a hooded sweatshirt, but the color of the sweatshirt was different each time.
He wore blue when they went to McDonald’s, goose yellow when they bought red bean cakes, and light green today.
As Gu Jiahe approached Li Zhao with a bag, he heard him softly say a word: “Teletubbies.”
“Huh?” Gu Jiahe was confused, wondering what he meant.
“Nothing,” Li Zhao said seriously, shaking his head.
The two of them entered the convenience store, and Gu Jiahe opened that day’s small box.
This time, it wasn’t red bean cakes he brought, but “horse rolling” pastries.
Both times, Li Zhao didn’t ask him why he came.
It seemed like they had formed an unspoken agreement: Gu Jiahe would bring sweets, and Li Zhao would eat them.
Perhaps because winter was approaching, the music in the convenience store had become much more cheerful. Gu Jiahe listened for a few sentences, and it seemed to be a popular idol group’s catchy song and dance.
But the lyrics kept repeating “love you”, “baby”, and so on. Gu Jiahe thought to himself that the lyricist must be lacking in vocabulary.
After the song ended, the convenience store suddenly fell into a brief silence.
The two sat side by side, not saying anything for a while.
Five seconds later.
“Tomorrow…”
“I’ll…”
They both started speaking at the same time.
“You go first.”
“You go first.”
They both spoke at the same time again.
In the end, Li Zhao spoke first, “I have a business trip to Ningcheng tomorrow. It’ll probably take about a week.”
Gu Jiahe nodded, wanting to ask something but feeling it wasn’t quite appropriate. In the end, he just wished Li Zhao a smooth journey.
Before long, Li Zhao was called back to continue working overtime.
Gu Jiahe told Li Zhao that he would take the subway back, but he actually stood downstairs for quite a while. He looked up and saw that the lights were still on in the Tianhe office, exhaled a breath of white mist, and then turned and left.
The next day was Saturday. Originally, Gu Jiahe could have rested normally, but there was an unexpected matter in the department, and Wu Mou was too busy, so he had to come in for overtime.
When he arrived at the office, he found He Xiao and Wen Qi were there too.
“Why are you two here too?”
He Xiao pulled down the corner of her eye with her finger, “We have to write internship reports.”
“Li Zhao… no, Lawyer Li asked you to write them?” Gu Jiahe raised an eyebrow.
“No, it’s the firm’s request. It’s annoying,” the two of them complained.
In the spacious office, only the three of them were frantically typing on their keyboards, seemingly competing to see who was more disgruntled.
Near lunchtime, Gu Jiahe took out his phone and glanced at his chat window with Li Zhao.
Since he delivered the “horse rolling” pastries to Li Zhao yesterday, the two hadn’t continued chatting.
He scrolled through the chat records between them, finding them dull. There were almost no emojis, and the messages all ended with periods. None of the sentences exceeded fifteen words.
Gu Jiahe’s finger hovered over the input box for about five minutes, thinking for a while before finally sending four words.
Gu Jiahe: “Have you arrived safely?”
Then he quickly placed his phone face down on the table without looking at it again.
It wasn’t until five minutes later that Wen Qi suddenly exclaimed from his seat opposite him.
“Oh my God!” He Xiao even stood up from her chair.
Gu Jiahe was startled and quickly asked them what was going on.
“The sun rises from the west!” He Xiao held up her phone screen, showing her friends’ circle page.
Gu Jiahe was still confused.
Wen Qi rubbed his eyes, “Li Zhao actually posted a selfie!”
Gu Jiahe quickly opened his own phone. Li Zhao hadn’t replied to his message yet but had posted a friends’ circle update.
The text was only two words: “Arrived safely.”
The picture was a somewhat casual front-facing selfie, where only the eyes were clearly visible, and the lower half of the face was hidden behind a black mask.
Five seconds later, Gu Jiahe’s WeChat vibrated. Li Zhao had sent two words: “I’m here.”
He hadn’t had time to reply to Li Zhao.
He Xiao and Wen Qi simultaneously said three words: “Peacock, opens, screen!”
“What’s that?” Gu Jiahe couldn’t keep up with the young people’s thinking.
“Something’s up with Lawyer Li.” Both of them said in unison again.
He Xiao leaned on the table and explained to him, “A person only manages their image on social media when they’re in love. Besides, he almost never posts friends’ circle updates.”
He Xiao suddenly looked at Wen Qi, her eyes flashing, “Didn’t you say he seemed to have a partner for many years? Could it be because of the sudden long-distance…”
“It’s possible. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, sparks are flying!” Wen Qi nodded repeatedly.
The two of them became more and more enthusiastic as they spoke.
“Manager Gu, aren’t you and Lawyer Li old friends? Do you know any gossip?” Wen Qi leaned over to inquire.
Gu Jiahe was speechless, “How would I know? What peacock opening screen, sparks flying, you can’t even see his face clearly in the picture…”
The two sighed, “Sigh, you don’t understand…”
In the following week, Gu Jiahe rarely chatted with Li Zhao. Most of the time, it was him asking if his work was going well, and then Li Zhao replying with a simple “smoothly”. And that was the end of it.
During this time, Li Zhao would post a friends’ circle update every day. The content was also very simple, mostly just a random snapshot of his work. Sometimes it was his desk, sometimes the white clouds outside the window.
The captions were consistent, “DAY 1” was written on the first day, and “DAY 2” on the second day, and so on.
Until Friday afternoon, when Gu Jiahe went to the pantry to pour water. He Xiao held her phone with some confusion.
Gu Jiahe casually asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s strange, Lawyer Li didn’t post a friends’ circle update today? It’s already afternoon, he should have,” He Xiao said, handing her phone over. It was Li Zhao’s friends’ circle page.
The screen was empty.
Wen Qi also came over, opened his own phone to confirm, “Yeah, he didn’t post anything today.”
Buzz—
Suddenly, a thought popped into Gu Jiahe’s head.
After they both left the pantry, Gu Jiahe opened his phone and clicked on Li Zhao’s Moments page. There was a picture posted just at noon.
The picture showed a high-speed train ticket back to the North City, clearly showing the destination and time of arrival.