Chapter 28
Chapter 28
In truth, Zhang Qiong had only encountered Liang He once. But that single meeting had left a deep, lasting impression on her.
It happened the day Zhang Qiong went to the bank to deposit some money.
As she was walking up the steps, her pant legs were a bit too long, and the heel of her shoe suddenly caught on the fabric. She instantly lost her balance and, with a startled cry, pitched forward.
However, a second later, she didn’t hit the hard ground. Instead, she crashed right into a man’s arms.
The staircase only had three steps and wasn’t particularly high, but Zhang Qiong was timid by nature. The moment she fell, she had squeezed her eyes shut.
By the time she opened them, she was being held steady against a firm shoulder.
The man was very tall. Zhang Qiong looked up in surprise, and he was looking down at her.
He was a tall, sturdy man with a straight posture and broad shoulders. His features were handsome yet gentle, and Zhang Qiong caught the faint scent of tobacco lingering on him.
In that moment, time seemed to stretch. It felt just like the romantic scenes she had imagined countless times as a young girl-the classic trope of a girl falling into a boy’s arms as they gaze deeply into each other’s eyes.
But times had changed. She was no longer a young girl, and he wasn’t a boy; he was a mature, middle-aged man.
Zhang Qiong’s heart hammered wildly against her ribs. She scrambled away from his shoulder and stood up straight.
With pedestrians passing by the bank entrance, her face flushed a deep, embarrassed red.
“Th-thank you. I just… I tripped.”
The man spoke warmly. “Mhm. Watch your step on the stairs.”
With that, he walked toward the curb and opened the door of a white Land Rover.
After getting in, he stepped back out. He had noticed a parking ticket stuck to his windshield.
He peeled the ticket off, glanced at it, stuffed it into his pocket, and got back into the car.
Zhang Qiong stood dazed at the bank entrance, watching him until the white Land Rover disappeared from sight.
Even as she lay in bed that night, she found herself lost in a daze, replaying the encounter.
From the moment she fell into his arms to the moment he left, the entire process had lasted barely thirty seconds.
Zhang Qiong tossed and turned, replaying those thirty seconds in her mind over and over again.
His firm shoulders, the scent of tobacco, his gentle warning, the way he tore off that ticket…
Closing her eyes, Zhang Qiong thought back to her first love.
Back then, she had been a sentimental girl-lively and rebellious.
Her aunt owned a shop in the city, and while Zhang Qiong was helping her run it, she met the owner of the clothing store across the street.
The owner was the same age as her, a young man in his early twenties from the south.
He was incredibly handsome, with deep-set eyes and a high bridge to his nose, looking a bit like the actor Zhu Yilong.
A lively, beautiful girl and a young, handsome man falling naturally in love-it was one of life’s greatest joys.
But for various reasons, her family disapproved of the relationship.
Left with no other choice, Zhang Qiong did something reckless: she eloped.
She followed her boyfriend back to his home village and hid in his house.
To make matters worse, she got pregnant. Being timid and feeling it wasn’t the right time to have a child, she chose to have an abortion.
Zhang Qiong’s aunt was a formidable woman. She drove a Jeep, with Zhang Qiong’s mother in tow, all the way to the entrance of the boyfriend’s village.
Knowing it would be dangerous for two women to go any further into the village, the aunt started calling the boyfriend’s house.
The boyfriend’s father picked up. Within a few sentences, the two of them were screaming insults at each other over the phone. In the rural areas over a decade ago, the curses were far more vitriolic than they are today.
Zhang Qiong wept bitterly. She told her boyfriend, “My aunt isn’t someone to be trifled with back home. A lot of the local Big Brothers in the underworld like her. We really can’t provoke her anymore.”
In the end, she returned to her hometown, accepted an arranged blind date, and ended up with her current husband.
She didn’t love him. There was no passion in her life.
Pulling her thoughts back to reality, she began to reminisce about the man she had met earlier that day.
She deeply regretted not finding a way to get his contact information, or at least taking a photo of his license plate so she could track down his number.
City A was neither too large nor too small, but in a sea of people, how could she ever hope to run into him again?
Her husband and child weren’t home, leaving her to sleep alone in the empty house.
Zhang Qiong pulled the quilt tight around her, replaying the feeling of falling into his arms, remembering his chest and that faint scent of tobacco. Slowly, her hand reached under the covers and pulled down her pajama bottoms.
After an unknown amount of time, Zhang Qiong finally collapsed in exhaustion. Drowsiness washed over her, and she was just about to drift into a heavy sleep when her phone chimed.
A WeChat notification.
She dragged herself out of her stupor and struggled to look at her phone. Suddenly, her eyes went wide.
It was a WeChat friend request.
The message read: “We met at the bank entrance today. Is it too forward of me to add you like this?”
Zhang Qiong bolted upright in bed, her fingers trembling as she tapped “Accept.”