Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Following the address in my memory, I spent over two hours on a bus before finally getting off at the gate of a riverside residential complex.

Chunjiang Gardens, Building 4, Unit 5, Sixth Floor.

As I pressed the elevator button, my memories resurfaced once more.

I remembered why I had lost contact with them.

Actually, our relationship had been very good at the start. During holidays and festivals, Aunt Luo would always invite me over for dinner.

It wasn’t until my senior year that I happened to hear from a roommate that Zhou Mingyu might be cheating on me.

She had seen him with her own eyes, walking around the track field with a girl and even carrying her bag.

“Chen Ran, I saw it myself.

At first, looking at her from behind, I thought it was you-she looked just like you!

But when I got closer, I realized it wasn’t. Even though the light was dim and I couldn’t see clearly, that girl was talking really loudly and making a lot of noise. That’s how I knew for sure it wasn’t you.”

I definitely hadn’t gone to the track field that day.

So, this was a secret I had kept buried in my heart for years.

I didn’t confront Zhou Mingyu, nor did I lash out at the girl.

Because not long after, Zhou Mingyu was dumped.

I quietly looked into it and learned that the girl had gotten together with a high school classmate. Only then did I breathe a sigh of relief.

But more devastating than Zhou Mingyu’s behavior was the girl’s identity.

She was Aunt Luo’s daughter.

Based on her original grades, she never would have gotten into A University. But after that month of tutoring I gave her, her scores improved by leaps and bounds.

She was originally supposed to study architecture, but because she wanted to be considerate of her mother’s hard work, she ended up applying to the medical school as well, becoming my direct junior.

Fate truly works in mysterious ways.

From then on, I cut off all contact with them.

I hated Zhou Mingyu’s infidelity, and I hated that boisterous girl.

She already had so much, yet she still had to take things from me.

It was true-I envied her. Not because of her flirtation with Zhou Mingyu, but because of the life she had.

In my memory, she took the same electives as I did and joined the same clubs.

But the difference was that she had a mother-a mother who loved her very much.

Soon, I arrived at the apartment. Looking at the familiar door, I hesitated for a moment before knocking.

*Knock, knock, knock…*

No answer.

I continued knocking.

*Knock, knock, knock…*

The narrow hallway acted like an amplifier, the sound of the knocking echoing repeatedly before finally dying down.

Despite the hundred-degree weather, I was breaking out in a cold sweat.

Just as I raised my hand to knock again, the door swung open, and a sweaty, heavyset woman stepped out.

I froze on the spot. Was this Aunt Luo?

But in my memory, she was very thin.

The woman wiped her sweat while sizing me up. Perhaps seeing that I looked like a student, her expression immediately soured.

“Can I help you?”

The tone and the voice didn’t match at all.

Looking past her, I saw that the apartment was empty. There was nothing inside.

A chill crawled from the soles of my feet straight to my head.

Empty? How could it be empty?

The woman’s coarse voice rose in volume.

“Hey! Is something wrong with you? Why are you knocking like that? You trying to wake the dead?”

I startled, and once I regained my composure, I finally noticed her attire: an ill-fitting shirt and slacks, with a lanyard peeking halfway out of her pocket.

She was a real estate agent.

I spoke up, feeling completely lost. “He-hello. Excuse me, has… has no one been living here?”

The woman turned around to mop the floor, huffing and puffing. “Don’t ask. This place has already been booked.”

I blinked, refusing to give up. “Was there a tenant named Luo living here before? Very thin, about forty years old?”

“Come back tomorrow.”

“Huh?”

The woman turned to glare at me. Perhaps sustained by her professional ethics, she didn’t kick the door shut in my face. Instead, she suppressed her temper and explained in a lifeless voice:

“The tenant named Luo is moving in tomorrow. A mother and daughter. The kid is going to take the college entrance exams, so the mother is moving here to support her studies. The furniture is arriving in a bit, and they asked me to keep an eye on things.”

Oh! In the original timeline, that flyer for the part-time job didn’t appear until tomorrow either.

I was early.

I hurriedly asked, “Then where are they now?”

The agent let out a frustrated laugh. “I told you, they’re from out of town. They had a friend help them find this place. How should I know where they are?”

“Then do you have her contact information?”

“Even if I did, I couldn’t give it to you. If you want to find them, just come back tomorrow.”

Tomorrow? But tomorrow, my time will continue to move backward, returning further into the past.

This meant that on this day, we were as close as we could possibly be, but once this day passed, we would never be able to meet.

At least this proved they were real and not a figment of my imagination.

But why is it that I just can’t remember their faces?

And what exactly was that girl’s name?