Chapter 15.3 (1/2)

A Warm Temperature (3)

This was the first time he had ever spoken to her in such a way.

For some reason, Tong Yan nearly had the false impression that he truly was in the terrible throes of suffering and hards.h.i.+p.

She estimated out the timing. Originally, she had planned on leaving the university after ten days, but if she lined up everything tightly in the schedule, it might only take seven or eight days.

When she returned to the dormitory that evening, she began to rush to pack away her things. The cardboard moving boxes had been readied very early on, and after her books and clothing as well as the random trinkets she had acc.u.mulated over three years were packed away, three whole boxes were filled.

“Didn’t you say you weren’t sealing up your boxes until the day after tomorrow?” Shen Yao grumbled, “You so put your man above your friend. You’re going to be heading back to Beijing right away, and by the time you come back here, I’ll have gone abroad already … Mrs. Gu, your Mr. Gu isn’t running off anywhere, but your best friend really is going to be leaving.”

“He doesn’t know how to cook. I can’t leave him by himself at home for too long. You be good. During winter and summer breaks, you can go to Beijing and visit me. I’ll provide you with food and accommodations.”

“Gu Pingsheng should be nearly thirty, right? Let me calculate this,” Shen Yao sighed. “You guys had your underground affair for one semester, then you were actually together for one semester. Wait, that’s not right. This semester, you can say you were together, but in reality, most of the time he was not even by your side. Tong Yan Wuji, all those years prior, how do you think he managed to survive?”

Tong Yan did not utter a reply and only sealed the boxes with packing tape.

Only after she had straightened again did she suddenly state, “All those years prior, it was really sad for him.”

“Sad?” Shen Yao was torn between laughter and tears. “The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. King’s College London. No matter how you look at it, he should be a person with high intelligence. Just from my perspective, as someone who was his student for half a year, his EQ is high, too, and his looks are handsome. If your man is sad and pitiable, then people like us can only hug the toilet everyday and cry …”

Tong Yan gave a couple of dry laughs. “All those years prior, he didn’t have me. Of course he was sad and pitiable.”

Shen Yao was squelched to silence by this reply and gawked wide-eyed at her. “Tong Yan Wuji, you’ve finally reached a point where you’re even more shameless than me.”

At the time, when she had resolutely packed up her bags and moved south with her notice of admission from the university in hand, she had never thought that one day, she would willingly return to this city in which she was born. She had even considered the possibility that after she had settled in another city, she would get Grandmother and bring her to be with her, far away from Beijing and all the people and matters there.

But in the span of just one short year, her mindset had completely changed.

If she compared herself to Gu Pingsheng, those experiences life had thrown her way were perhaps at least a little better than his. If she had been the one to have witnessed her own mother commit suicide right before her and then encountered the SARS epidemic – to have experienced such great trauma, both physically and psychologically – she might not have even known how to make it through. And there were many other hurts that were still hidden away in his past. There was his father.

Her plane landed at Terminal 3, and when she stepped out of its exit, she soon spotted him. Dressed in a black, short-sleeve polo s.h.i.+rt and casual shorts, he looked ridiculously youthful and full of vitality.

She took a couple of stealthy steps, intending on sneaking up and surprising him, but very quickly, Gu Pingsheng noticed her. In the end, she decided to simply toss aside any abashedness, and running over to him, she threw herself into his arms. “How does it feel to flaunt your affections out in public?” So, everyone deep down has it rooted in their nature that they want to show off, and Gu Pingsheng, of course, was definitely worth showing off.

“Very nice.” When he finished saying this, his face suddenly moved closer, and lowering his head, he pressed his lips directly onto hers.

After several seconds of stillness, his head tilted slightly and he enclosed her lips in his. However, right as she stretched her arms up and slid them around his neck, Gu Pingsheng unexpectedly pulled away and, purposely dropping his voice, told her, “Let’s go home first.” To stop so abruptly — it was obvious that he was deliberately playing around and teasing her.

She did not even have the opportunity at all to react before he was already wrapping his arm around her shoulders and walking with her toward the corridor.

“How about doing your interns.h.i.+p term in the courts?” Gu Pingsheng asked her as they walked. “I have already made arrangements for you at one of the courts to have your interns.h.i.+p term there. In this way, after you’ve graduated, you might even be hired directly to stay there. That type of work is relatively easier.”

“How do you know I want something easier?” Tong Yan tried hard to come up with a justification. “What if I want to be the career-oriented type?”

“Familiarizing yourself with the business and work of the courts will be beneficial in the future anyway.”

Hearing him say this, Tong Yan did not have any more objections.

They ambled along together, all the while discussing matters related to interns.h.i.+p.

In contrast to the urgency exhibited in the other people around them, this was a rare moment of idleness for both of them, with nothing waiting ahead for them to take care of or solve. She slipped her own arm through his right one and nestled against him, looking arbitrarily out beyond the gla.s.s windows at the airplanes soaring up into the sky.

Perhaps a light and easy job really would be pretty good.

From behind, someone unexpectedly called out to him with a very clear enunciation of “TK.” Turning around, she saw a man pulling a suitcase. He looked to have kept good physical care of himself, and it could only be guessed that he was roughly somewhere between fifty and sixty years old. Those eyes very much resembled Gu Pingsheng’s.

Her heart pounded ferociously, and she did not dare continue this train of speculation. Following her movements, Gu Pingsheng also turned and looked toward that person.

Soon, he said, “h.e.l.lo.”