Moments later, Mi Cai finished her phone call with CC, and I had quickly wrapped up my lunch. Mi Cai followed my example and began eating some fruit. I looked at her seriously and said, “Tonight, I want to invite Fang Yuan, Yan Yan, and also… Jian Wei and Xiang Chen. You don’t mind, right?”
“Why?”
“We can’t just become strangers again, can we? Back in college…”
Mi Cai waited for me to continue, but I couldn’t find the right word to describe our four years in university. I simply said, “It’s been a long time since we last got together. Let’s just catch up.”
“I understand.”
I nodded, not wanting to overcomplicate things. After a brief silence, I continued, “Why don’t you invite Weiran too?”
Mi Cai clearly hadn’t expected this request. She stared at me for quite a while, as if trying to read my emotions from my expression. However, I remained expressionless, watching her instead, because I wanted to know her feelings more.
I asked again, “Is it convenient to invite him?”
“There’s nothing inconvenient about it.”
“Then let’s each make our calls.”
…
Soon, I had completed a round of phone calls and successfully arranged for everyone to meet. We agreed to gather at 7 p.m. at the entrance of Zhuomei, and then head together to the “West of the Old Town” cafe.
Before leaving, Mi Cai tidied up the table, clearing away the food containers. I could sense a subtle change in her mood, perhaps related to my invitation to Jian Wei, or maybe because of Weiran. But since we had decided to be together, there were always some things we had to face.
“Zhaoyang, I’m leaving first.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
Mi Cai nodded. I helped her carry the plastic bag containing the food containers and walked with her toward the elevator. We started chatting again, and I asked, “I want to help the cafe owner somehow, but I’m not sure how. I’d like to hear your opinion.”
“You’re right to have concerns. Someone like him, with such strong artistic sensibilities, would probably find it hard to accept the most straightforward form of help.” She thought for a moment and added, “Talk to him about your artistic journey. If he’s interested, invite him to join your project. I think you two have some common ground, so communication shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Mi Cai’s words piqued my curiosity. I asked, “What common ground do we have?”
“Nostalgia.”
This time I quickly understood her meaning. Wasn’t inviting Jian Wei, Fang Yuan, and others tonight itself an act of nostalgia? Yet I found it puzzling that she seemed to resist this nostalgia, or perhaps it was the objects of my nostalgia that she resisted. I could understand her resistance to Jian Wei, but her resistance toward Fang Yuan surprised me. Since we had reunited, love seemed to have become simpler, yet she had become more complex. This complexity was clearly present in my male sixth sense, making me feel uneasy.
The elevator doors opened, and I walked her outside the office building. I helped her open the car door, and she said to me, “Pick me up tonight. I’ll go with you in your car.”
I nodded. She hugged me briefly and then got into her own car. I watched her disappear from my sight, filled with a sense of temporary separation. I longed for every day to be like this, even if she continued to be the chairwoman of Zhuomei, but our relationship would be filled with subtle intimacy, eliminating the previous vague distance between us.
…
Back at the company, almost everyone looked at me with either envy or surprise, but I had already grown accustomed to such gazes. Mi Cai always had the power to make others feel that being her boyfriend was the luckiest thing in the world. But they never saw the pain I felt every time we broke up. I never wanted to experience that feeling again in my life. Therefore, at the first suitable opportunity, I would bind our lives together forever with a marriage certificate.
Throughout the afternoon, I stayed busy in my office. As the sun began to set, I lit a cigarette and drank a glass of plain water, finally stepping out of my work mode.
Standing by the floor-to-ceiling window for a while, I instinctively looked toward the westernmost part of the city, thinking about that girl from Changsha who had already left this world. My mood became heavy. In fact, even for me, after experiencing a third of my life, I had never met a woman who could turn devotion into something great. But she did it. She loved someone with her soul, so her departure was destined to become an eternal regret for Xiaofan Ye, because there would never be another woman as good as her in this world again.
After putting out my cigarette, I picked up my briefcase and left the office. It was nearly six o’clock, time for me to head to the appointment.
…
First, I drove to the hotel where CC was staying, planning to pick her up. After waiting for the time it took to smoke a cigarette, CC came running out of the hotel with her suitcase, placed her hand on my shoulder, and asked, “Zhaoyang, did you get back together with Mi Cai?”
“Yeah, she specially came to my company at noon to bring me lunch!”
“How does it feel to have gotten her back after losing her? Must be pretty great, right?”
“Great beyond self-control!”
“Then tell me quickly, how did you two get back together…”
I recalled, but in fact, I myself didn’t fully understand how we had reunited. In my memory, we had just gotten caught in the rain, so I said, “It was the rain that washed away our misunderstandings!”
“What a poetic answer!”
When CC mentioned the word “artistic,” I instinctively thought again of the “West of the Old Town” cafe and its owner, Xiaofan Ye. Hoping to help them connect, I asked CC, “CC, do you still like Luoben?”
CC looked at me with a somewhat gloomy expression and said, “Can’t you be more subtle with your questions?”
“In a world full of naked truths, what’s the use of being subtle… Well, answer me!”
CC hesitated for a moment, clearly in a lower mood, and replied, “Can you forget something you’ve cherished for years just like that?”
This result was within my expectations. Thinking again about Mi Cai’s advice to let things take their natural course, I didn’t press further. I opened the car door, gesturing for her to get in. CC looked at me in confusion and asked, “Why did you suddenly ask about this?”
“I just hope you can start a new life soon. If you keep standing still like this, your youth will really slip away!”
CC shrugged and said, “My youth is meant to be squandered. Once it’s gone, there’s nothing I can do… Blame the absurdity of this world, and love even more absurd!”
The word “absurd” seemed to trigger a shared wound within me. After a sigh, I patted CC’s shoulder, signaling her to get into the car… Yet that back figure under the neon lights still felt lonely because of its absurdity, and I wasn’t sure whether I had completely moved past such absurdity myself. At this moment, perhaps the loneliness wasn’t CC’s alone—I had my share too!
…
At half past six, I arrived with CC at the foot of Zhuomei’s building. At that moment, Xiang Chen’s Range Rover and Weiran’s Ferrari were parked one after another at the temporary parking spot by the roadside. Although they didn’t know each other yet, they were both taboos in my life! Especially Weiran…
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