strictlysupreme Chapter 1272: Yun Rui's sincerity: meeting face to face
Chapter 1272: Yun Rui's sincerity: meeting face to face
Gu Yunxi walked on the fallen leaves frozen in place by the rain, strolling along the moist Wutong Avenue, the evening breeze carrying the sweet scent of sugar-roasted chestnuts brushing past his nose.
At a class reunion that just ended, Li Wen showed off her new engagement ring and Wang Lei talked about his entrepreneurial project. Amid the clinking of glasses, only her slender joints were particularly noticeable.
The cell phone vibrated in her bag, and the message from Gu Yunqian glowed coldly: "Don't stay out too late." She turned off the screen and let the moonlight lengthen and shorten her shadow.
The pet hospital on the corner was emitting warm yellow light, and in the glass window, a Maine Coon was licking its paws lazily.
Gu Yunxi stopped and looked at the fluffy white fur, vaguely recalling the Scottish Fold cat that he secretly kept in the attic when he was young.
At this moment, the glass door suddenly opened, and Qi Ruixiang's laughter mixed with the smell of cedar perfume floated out: "Next time Snowball gets into trouble, remember to come to me for help."
His suit jacket was casually draped over his arm, and the top button of his white shirt was undone, revealing a faint trace of his collarbone.
Yang Xiaotang, who was standing next to him, was holding a cat cage, her pearl earrings sparkling in the night, and the Buddhist beads around her neck swaying with her steps. The two of them standing side by side looked like the golden boy and jade girl on the cover of a magazine.
Gu Yunxi dug her nails deep into her palms, and the memories of three years ago suddenly surged up - it was also an autumn night like this, Qi Ruixiang confessed his love to her under the ginkgo tree, and there was a carefully prepared rose in his suit pocket, but she cut it off with her own hands later...
At this moment, seeing the unprecedented tenderness in his eyes, she actually felt her breathing tighten.
"An An?" Qi Ruixiang's voice was filled with subtle surprise.
Yang Xiaotang followed his gaze and saw that the street light cut the shadow of the woman in front of her into two halves. Her thin body was wrapped in a black coat, and the teardrop mole at the end of her eye was glowing red in the moonlight.
She subconsciously hugged the cat cage tightly and felt the sudden change in Qi Ruixiang's aura.
"What a coincidence." Gu Yunxi raised the corner of her mouth, but the smile did not reach her eyes. Her eyes swept across the Buddhist beads on Yang Xiaotang's wrist, and then fell on Qi Ruixiang's action of shielding her from the night wind, "Would you like to introduce me?"
"This is Yang Xiaotang, the owner of Snowball, and also Director Yang's..." Qi Ruixiang's Adam's apple rolled, and his eyes behind the lenses wandered between the two people, "Doctor Yang, this is Gu Yunxi, the youngest dean of the Chemistry Department of Xiangtan University, and the sister of Mr. Gu." He deliberately emphasized the word "Mr. Gu", as if to draw a clear line between them.
Yang Xiaotang keenly caught the smell of gunpowder in the air.
Gu Yunxi's cashmere coat is very expensive, and his every move exudes an innate sense of superiority. The small movement of Qi Ruixiang adjusting his cuffs is completely different from his calmness when facing him.
She suddenly remembered her father's warning and the secrets that Qi Ruixiang wanted to tell her but couldn't, and she couldn't help but hold the cat cage tighter.
"It turns out to be Miss Gu. I've heard a lot about you." Yang Xiaotang smiled and nodded. Her hair was blown by the wind, revealing the cinnabar mole on the back of her neck. "This is the first time I've met you in person after so long of our two families' exchanges."
These words made Qi Ruixiang turn his head suddenly, and Gu Yunxi's smile froze on his face instantly.
The neon lights of the street shops suddenly flickered, overlapping and separating the shadows of the three people.
Gu Yunxi stared at the plain ring on Yang Xiaotang's ring finger, and remembered that Qi Ruixiang once said he hated flashy decorations;
Yang Xiaotang looked at the red mark behind Gu Yunxi's ear. The shape of the mark was exactly the same as the rose tattoo in Qi Ruixiang's study.
Qi Ruixiang was caught in the middle, listening to his own violent heartbeat. For the first time, he hoped that the autumn rain would come more violently to break the suffocating silence.
"It's getting late. I'll take my leave first." When Gu Yunxi turned around, her high heels made a crisp sound on the bluestone slabs.
She heard Yang Xiaotang's gentle reminder from behind: "Be careful not to catch a cold." And Qi Ruixiang's hesitant words "Be careful on the road" were torn into pieces by the howling autumn wind.
The leaves of the paulownia tree fell on her shoulders. Gu Yunxi reached out to brush them away, but felt something wet.
She couldn't tell whether it was rain or tears, she only knew that after this autumn night, some things could never be returned.
The sycamore leaves swirled and fell on Gu Yunxi's shoulders, then were carried away by her hurried steps and floated towards the gradually blurred warm yellow light behind her.
Her black cashmere coat fluttered in the wind, like a black butterfly trapped in a spider web. The more she struggled, the more embarrassed and helpless she looked.
The ten-centimeter high heels tapped out a messy rhythm on the bluestone slabs, like her panicked and broken heartbeat. Every step was on the thorns of memories, bleeding.
The street lights stretched her shadow very long, and the branches of the sycamore tree ruthlessly cut it into pieces, just like her broken heart at the moment.
The moonlight parted the mist and filtered through the mottled leaves, casting tiny silver spots on her pale face, but it could not illuminate the bitterness surging in her eyes.
Qi Ruixiang stood there, as if nailed to the ground, his eyes fixed on Gu Yunxi's receding back.
His suit jacket had slipped to the ground without him noticing; his white shirt was lifted up and then pressed down by the autumn wind, sticking to his cold back, but it was not as cold as the chill spreading in his heart.
His Adam's apple rolled up and down, and he wanted to speak several times, but he could only let the unspoken words turn into a heavy sigh and dissipate in the wind.
Yang Xiaotang held the cat cage and stood quietly by, like a bystander who had intruded into someone else's story.
But the surging emotions in the air dragged her into this silent storm.
She could clearly feel the strong vibration emanating from the man next to her, and his scorching gaze seemed to burn through Gu Yunxi's back.
Under the moonlight, the undisguised attachment and loss in Qi Ruixiang's eyes were like a heavy hammer, hitting her heart.
Snowball in the cat cage twisted restlessly and whimpered softly, as if he was also disturbed by the depressing atmosphere.
"Is she... very important to you?" Yang Xiaotang asked softly, her voice trembling unconsciously, with a hint of bitterness that she herself did not even notice.
Qi Ruixiang woke up as if from a dream, turned to look at her, the eyes behind the lenses were a little dazed, as if he was pulled back to reality from a distant memory.
He opened his mouth, but in the end he could only force out a smile that was uglier than crying: "The past was important." These few short words carried the weight of countless sleepless nights, all those aspirations crushed by reality, and those regrets buried deep in the heart, all turned into this helpless sigh.
Yang Xiaotang stared at his profile. The halo of the street lamp gave his outline a hazy golden edge, but it could not hide his furrowed brows and the lingering sadness in his eyes.
For some reason, seeing him like this, a strange emotion quietly grew in her heart, like heartache, and also like an indescribable feeling.
She reached out her hand and patted his shoulder gently: "Sometimes, loss does not mean the end. Maybe, this is just a new beginning."
As soon as she said this, she was stunned for a moment, not understanding why she would say such words to a man she had just met.
Qi Ruixiang looked at her in surprise, and the confusion in his eyes was gradually replaced by a complex emotion.
The autumn wind suddenly became fierce, rolling up the dead leaves on the ground and making them dance wildly in the air. There were few pedestrians on the street in the distance, and the dim street lights swayed in the wind, casting flickering light and shadows.
Yang Xiaotang shivered unconsciously and subconsciously moved closer to Qi Ruixiang while holding the cat cage.
This unintentional action made Qi Ruixiang's heart skip a beat, and a strange feeling quietly spread between the two of them.
"Let's go." Qi Ruixiang took a deep breath, withdrew his gaze from the direction where Gu Yunxi disappeared, and there was a barely perceptible hoarseness in his voice.
He bent down to pick up the coat on the ground, turned to look at Yang Xiaotang, "I'll take you home."