Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Creak!
Approaching the garage, Chen Xu forcefully stepped down on the brake pedal and stopped the car. He opened the door and rushed out.
“Luo Xiyun!” he yelled as he ran.
The gardenlike vegetable farm was destroyed. There were flowerpots everywhere, and the entire street was a mess.
He rushed to Luo Xiyun’s home, threw the door open, and hurried in, calling, “Luo Xiyun, Luo Xiyun…”
He searched all over, but there was no one there. Even the door to her bedroom room was locked. He yelled for a long time, and yet, there was no response.
“If she hasn’t returned yet, she must’ve been caught on the road.”
It was almost three in the afternoon. That meant that she had been trapped for about four to five hours.
He had returned with little hope that she had returned safely, but this was still the worst-case scenario. He couldn’t help but feel extremely worried. He hit the door in frustration, turned around, and sprinted outside once again.
He returned to the car, turned it around, and stomped on the gas pedal, peeling off.
“Luo Xiyun, please don’t let anything happen to yourself.” He didn’t want to spend the remaining two months alone with only his shadow for company.
“She takes this road every time she comes back.” Chen Xu turned onto a road, all the while holding down the horn.
It was still three in the afternoon, but in the middle of the typhoon and heavy rain, his view wasn’t good. Even with his brights turned on, he could only see two to three meters ahead.
He hoped to attract Luo Xiyun’s attention with the horn.
He didn’t know where she had ridden, nor what route she had taken. He could only search each road, one by one.
As time went by minute by minute, the typhoon showed no signs of weakening.
The sky was getting darker and darker, and the pressure in Chen Xu’s chest kept growing. All kinds of thoughts were flashing through his mind.
“Did I miss any roads? She might just happen to be stuck on one I overlooked.”
“Has anything happened to her so she couldn’t hear the horn?”
“Did she hear the horn but was unable to respond?”
…
Suddenly, he saw a glimmer of light reflected in the rearview mirror. Although it only flashed for a second, he could tell that it wasn’t lightning.
He was touched. He slammed on the brakes, spun the steering wheel, hit off the small car parked by the roadside, and forcefully made a U-turn.
After driving a short distance, he saw the light again. He saw it clearly this time. It looked like a phone’s flashlight.
“There she is!”
The tension throughout his body released as he drove closer and shined the headlights on her. He finally got a good glimpse of Luo Xiyun.
She was standing by the side of the road, drenched. But regardless of her state, she was holding the streetlamp in one hand while waving her phone flashlight with the other.
“Looks like she has suffered a lot,” Chen Xu thought as he parked the car in front of her. She seemed unable to hold out. She was knocked off balance by the strong winds and sat on the ground, hugging the streetlamp with both of her hands. She looked awful.
Looking at her dreadful appearance, he was somewhat amused but thought it would be a bad idea to mock her. He calmed his facial expression, opened the door, got out of the car, and helped her to the front passenger’s seat while straining against the wind and rain.
The backseat was full of things and had no room for a person to sit.
After getting into the car, Chen Xu found a clean towel and handed it over. Then he started the car and headed home.
…
Along the way, Luo Xiyun quietly dried herself off with the towel. She didn’t talk, neither did Chen Xu. There was an awkward silence in the car.
First of all, he didn’t want to talk, and secondly, he didn’t know what to say.
For him, Luo Xiyun was strange, yet familiar.
The last time the two had sat together like this was three months ago when they were assigning tasks. After that, the two never talked again. It was like an unspoken consensus to stagger the time each of them went out to prevent bumping into each other.
On the occasional accidental encounter, both would ignore the existence of the other.
It was exactly because of this fact that she was very unfamiliar to him.
However, he also knew her very well. He knew what she liked to eat, what style of clothes she preferred, and what she did each day of the week. He even knew which day of the month that she started her period.
The two lived next door to each other. Since many places were public, he picked up a lot of information naturally without deliberately paying attention. For instance, he knew which meat in the refrigerator was depleting the fastest, which vegetables in front of his door were picked the most often, the clothes hanging outside every day, and so on.
By the time Chen Xu drove the car back to the garage, the sky was already in total darkness. He looked at his phone. It was already seven o’clock in the evening.
He turned off the headlights and was about to get out of the car when he heard the first sentence Luo Xiyun spoke since she got in, “I sprained my ankle.”
“Huh?”
He was stunned for a minute before he came to. He turned to look at her. In the light of the car, he could see that there were bruises on her arms and knees. However, he couldn’t see her feet in this light.
From the looks of it, she probably fell from her bicycle.
He thought for a moment, they were still more than 20 meters away from the house. It would be difficult to help her across such a great distance in the middle of a 10th-degree typhoon.
He restarted the engine and drove the car into the former vegetable garden. The flowerpots that had held vegetables before the storm were scattered from the wind. As the wheels of the car ran over them, the entire vehicle quivered for a moment. Fortunately, the frame of the SUV was high enough that it didn’t get stuck on the pots.
He slowly drove the car to her residence, got out, helped her down, and opened the door to the coffee shop where she lived.
Upon entering, he pressed on the light switch. There was a “pop”, but the lights did not turn on.
“Are the lights broken?”
He turned the switch on and off a few times, but the lights still wouldn’t turn on. With no other option, he fumbled for his phone from his pocket, turned on the flashlight, and helped her to her room.
Luo Xiyun grabbed a key from the top of a picture on the wall nearby and opened the door.
After Chen Xu helped her in, he turned to leave and heard her toggle a switch. Still, the lights did not turn on.
He quickly realized that something was wrong. A power failure?
When it rains, it pours.
Their power supply at home hinged on the diesel generator. If that machine was broken, it would spell trouble.
“Hopefully it was just a trip,” he thought.
Then, he heard Luo Xiyun say something, but her voice was too soft, so he didn’t catch her words. He asked, “Pardon?”
In the thick darkness, he heard her breathing becoming heavier, and only after a while, her quiet voice spoke again.
This time, he heard it clearly. She said, “I want to go to the bathroom.”
This was the second sentence she had said since he saved her from the storm.
Chen Xu could tell that she was very embarrassed when she said this.