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"Shuangshuang? Shuangshuang!"
F*ck!
When Zhao Yeye looked up again, all she could see was a glimpse of golden hair disappearing rapidly through the door.
Butler Zhao, who was busy preparing the car, said with deep emotion, "Miss hasn't run that fast in a very long time."
Zhao Yeye could only stare in silence.
'Sometimes I really want to swear my allegiance to Thanos.'
"What are you standing there for? Chase her!"
Zhao Yeye took off running. After seeing Xia Yeshuang dive into a car, she quickly found another vehicle to follow. The two cars sped through the streets, finally arriving at the school gates.
"Oh man."
"That girl runs way too fast!"
Zhao Yeye saw Xia Yeshuang rush into the campus. She could only follow behind, aggrieved and completely out of breath.
"Shuangshuang is harder to catch than the freaking Golden Snitch!"
Xia Yeshuang was like a perpetual motion machine, seemingly immune to fatigue. She first rushed to the evening self-study classroom. When she didn't find Lu Xing there, she sprinted directly to the piano room.
She was fine, but Zhao Yeye was so winded she felt like she might pass out.
"My ancestor!"
Arriving at the piano room, Zhao Yeye leaned against the doorframe, her legs trembling from the exertion.
"What on earth are you trying to do?"
She had nearly run herself to death!
Xia Yeshuang looked around the familiar piano room in a daze. Her eyes filled with tears as she choked out, "I don't know."
"I don't know where Lu Xing is. I can't find him."
She had once asked Lu Xing for his home address. He had told her he lived at 888 Fandou Garden.
(TL: This is a famous fictional address from the Chinese cartoon Big Ear Tutu. It’s a common "fake" address used in China to avoid giving real information, similar to saying you live at "123 Sesame Street.")
She had asked about his family. He told her he had simply popped out of a rock.
Xia Yeshuang’s hand trembled as she looked at her phone. On the chat interface, she had sent countless messages, but Lu Xing hadn't replied to a single one.
Only now did the reality sink in.
"I can't find Lu Xing."
Lu Xing knew everything about her, but he was incredibly stingy when it came to revealing anything about himself.
Xia Yeshuang leaned back against the windowsill, looking lost.
"I can't find him."
Zhao Yeye was horrified. She looked at the tall tree behind the window and felt her scalp tingle.
'Holy f*ck!'
Ancestor!
Please don't lean back like that!
Zhao Yeye’s heart jumped into her throat. She moved carefully toward Xia Yeshuang, using her most comforting voice.
"It's okay, Shuangshuang. He'll definitely be at school next Monday, right? When he shows up, we'll apologize to him properly. Seriously, some things feel like a huge deal now, but in a week or a month, they’ll just be small memories. Don't be anxious. We'll figure this out slowly..."
Got her!
Zhao Yeye grabbed Xia Yeshuang’s wrist and immediately pulled her away from the windowsill. She slammed the window shut in one smooth motion, her heart finally letting out a massive sigh of relief.
'F*ck! Scared me to death!'
Xia Yeshuang seemed to have lost her ability to think. Her mind was entirely consumed by the image of that key.
If Lu Xing had only returned the watch, she could have convinced herself he was just worried about losing such an expensive gift. But he had returned the key, too.
He really wanted to make a clean break.
Xia Yeshuang stared blankly at the elegant piano and placed her hands on the keys.
How could this happen?
Just a short while ago, she was teaching him to play hand-in-hand. How could he just vanish?
"I already promised you..."
"I promised to teach you the piano. You haven't learned yet. How can you leave first?"
Plop.
A tear dripped onto the black and white keys, mixing with the melody of "Farewell Letter" as she began to play. The cheerful tune felt like a blade cutting into her heart.
Lu Xing...
I received your letter with such excitement, but I never imagined it would be a farewell.
The upbeat tempo was weighed down by a thick, suffocating sadness. Zhao Yeye stood frozen as she listened.
Zhao Yeye had studied vocal music herself. She used to feel that while Xia Yeshuang’s technique was perfect, her playing lacked emotion.
But now...
Xia Yeshuang had finally learned emotion.
Even though the song was meant to be cheerful, Zhao Yeye could hear the irresolvable grief within it. She rubbed the goosebumps on her arms.
They say poverty and pain create the peak of an artist’s career. She finally believed it.
Perhaps an hour passed. Zhao Yeye lost track of time. She only felt her scalp tingle, as if the music was giving her brain a spa treatment. Even though it was built on her friend's pain, the performance was awe-inspiring.
Xia Yeshuang eventually stopped. She drifted through the piano room like a ghost. This was her sanctuary, a secret base she had been willing to share with Lu Xing.
But he didn't want it.
Her throat tightened, and she let out a small, painful whimper.
"He didn't want it."
Xia Yeshuang leaned weakly against the desk. She looked at the bookshelf where she kept her small figurines, the ones she used to tell Lu Xing about.
She lowered her head, her long golden hair masking her face as the room echoed with her soft cries.
After a long while, she stopped. She suddenly reached out and pulled a thick book from the shelf.
Zhao Yeye looked over, confused. "Isn't that Camus book way too thick?"
(TL: Albert Camus was a French-Algerian philosopher and author known for the concept of Absurdism. His work often deals with individuals who feel like "strangers" or "outsiders" to the world around them.)
Zhao Yeye hated reading; the books in her own house were purely for decoration.
Xia Yeshuang looked at the book, then back at the shelf, and shook her head.
"This book... it's been read."
She knew exactly where everything in this room belonged. This book was out of order. She hadn't read it herself, which meant...
"Lu Xing read this?"
Instantly, a spark of hope returned. Xia Yeshuang began to flip through the pages from the very beginning.
"Details determine success or failure. Perfection leads to success."
---
That night, Lu Xing lay with Auntie Wen. She had lost their "staring contest" and was now sound asleep.
He aimlessly tracked the rhythm of her heartbeat, but that sentence kept echoing in his mind.
Since he started this job, Lu Xing had been very clear about one thing: this was a dream-making industry. He created virtual dreams for clients so they could escape the heavy gravity of reality.
In this business, clients get lost. Service providers get lost. Sometimes, both get lost and think they've found true love, only to break up once reality sets in.
Lu Xing knew of many such stories from his peers.
Usually, the conflict is the same. The client thinks: "You were so good to me before. Why aren't you like that now that we're together?"
And the service provider thinks: "You were my boss then. I had to serve you. Now you're my partner, do you still expect me to treat you like royalty without a salary?"
Lu Xing took a slow breath, his senses filled with a soft, milky fragrance.
He had mailed the watch and the key back. Xia Yeshuang was prideful, but she wasn't a fool. She would understand his meaning.
Sometimes, Lu Xing wondered: was he helping these people, or harming them?
He took the money. Taking money and doing the work is one thing, but taking the money and failing to do the job is even worse.
He sighed. If he wasn't professional, he lacked integrity. If he was professional, he was essentially handing the client a cup of sweet poison.
He had pondered this since he entered the industry, but he still didn't have an answer.
He could control his own heart. The clients, however, could not.
'Is being dedicated a good thing when the client starts to fall in love? Who is the good person here, and who is the villain?'
Finally, his answer was always the same: "I don't know."
There was no solution. No one was wrong, yet things still slipped into the abyss.
Beside him, Wen Lingxiu stirred in her sleep.
She groggily hugged him tighter and gently patted his back as if she were soothing a child. Her voice was muffled, sounding like she had a piece of candy in her mouth.
"Mmm... good baby... sleep..."
Lu Xing froze.
He looked up in disbelief, thinking she had woken up. But she hadn't. This was just muscle memory from her years of raising her daughter, Nannan.
In that moment, Lu Xing finally let his body relax.
With her gentle coaxing in his ear and her warmth surrounding him, Lu Xing closed his eyes.
A single teardrop disappeared into his hair, as if it had never existed at all.
...
...