During the tea break in the middle of the book signing, Ji Xun was backstage, seizing the moment to look at the thick stack of phone records in his hand.
The first part of the signing event, the conversation between the host and the author, had now concluded smoothly. During the dialogue, the atmosphere in the venue had been pushed to a climax several times. All in all, it was undoubtedly a very good start.
They say a good start is half the battle. The huge stone of worry about the book signing that had been hanging in Ai Yin’s heart finally landed solidly on the ground. Beaming with success, he came over and said, “Your answers just now were so humorous, you have the flair of a stand-up comedian! You weren’t this funny when we were writing the script.”
The questions the host would ask at the signing had been given to Ji Xun the day before, and Ji Xun had answered them one by one, though his answers were rather conventional.
“Maybe I’m just in a good state today,” Ji Xun answered distractedly. “Once I got on stage, I felt it, and just started riffing.”
“Great riffing!” Ai Yin gave a thumbs-up, then suggested, “The afternoon tea provided by the hotel is really good. Aren’t you going out for a bite? It’s a good chance to chat with the readers too.”
“No thanks, I’m still stuffed from breakfast this morning,” Ji Xun politely declined. “I’m having trouble even swallowing water right now.”
He really did feel unwell. The breakfast that morning had been too potent. First, it felt like a stone blocking his stomach; now that his stomach had finally churned it into pieces, it had turned into sludge, clogging him up all the way from his stomach to his throat.
He took another two sips of water, then tore off a page from the phone records with a rip and continued looking at the next one.
This movement was a bit loud. Ai Yin finally woke up from his world of success and noticed what Ji Xun was holding.
“What’s this?” he asked, puzzled.
“My past call records.”
“Past?” Ai Yin took another look, noticed the dates on it, and hissed, “2008, 2009, that was six or seven years ago. What are you checking this for…?”
“I feel like I should have received a call from a certain someone, but I didn’t. But I believe he should have called, and I just missed it. So—” Ji Xun seemed to be speaking in circles, and finally, he shook the papers in his hand, “—I’m verifying it.”
“You know her number?” Ai Yin was almost dizzy from the roundabout explanation.
“No.”
“Then why do you think she would call?”
“Confidence,” said Ji Xun.
Ai Yin was speechless. His mouth was shut, but his face began to write words, filled with eagerness and restlessness, so curious it was killing him, so full of anticipation he could neither eat nor sleep!
Ji Xun glanced at Ai Yin a couple of times and suddenly said:
“Are you using the ‘he’ with the person radical, or the ‘she’ with the woman radical?”
“The ‘she’ with the woman radical.”
“Why?” Ji Xun asked back with interest.
“Well…” Ai Yin said sincerely, “after six or seven years, for you to still be hung up on a missed call, what could it be other than the sincere love of your youth?”
“I beg to differ,” said Ji Xun.
“Where do you differ?” Ai Yin got invested too.
“If it was sincere love, why didn’t I think of it back then, but only remembered it six or seven years later?”
“You hadn’t come to your senses back then, but you have now,” Ai Yin blurted out, quite loudly, as if he had suddenly become the great author and life mentor, and Ji Xun the humble student editor.
The two looked at each other.
Ai Yin seemed to finally realize something. The bravado he had just now deflated, and he returned to his usual humble demeanor: “Teacher Ji, I think what I said makes some sense…”
Strange.
It wasn’t just ‘some sense’; it sounded like a universal truth.
Ji Xun was sure he didn’t have any romantic feelings for Classmate Zhou back then. Although he was gay, his heart was completely straight for Classmate Zhou that year. The affection he felt was that of a father looking at a pitiful little thing; he had never had a crooked thought for a moment.
It was later… after coming to Qin City this time, after confirming that Huo Ranyin was Classmate Zhou, that he suddenly felt that Huo Ranyin was different, and Classmate Zhou was also different.
They were clearly the same person, everything was the same… but some things were still different.
A boy changes between boyhood and manhood, becoming more and more handsome. Ji Xun unconsciously touched his nose.
“I can’t tell,” he mused, “you’re actually quite insightful.”
“What kind of insight is that? It’s so simple, it’s impossible for anyone not to understand it.”
“…Do you have a girlfriend?” Ji Xun asked.
“Huh? Haven’t I told you, Teacher? I’ve been married for a while, my kid’s old enough to run errands,” Ai Yin smiled.
“…” Case closed. An old winner in life.
Looking at Ai Yin, Ji Xun suddenly felt a strange sense of crisis. He stopped talking and went back to burying his head in the phone records.
For others, strings of numbers from six or seven years ago would be completely unmemorable, but for Ji Xun, it was only slightly difficult—
He had called the Public Security University that morning and asked an acquaintance for Huo Ranyin’s name.
Huo Ranyin had indeed attended the Capital Public Security University, three years his junior.
Now he finally knew the secret quietly hidden under Classmate Zhou’s gloomy exterior when he met him back then; he also finally knew what kind of determination Classmate Zhou had made to eventually choose to attend the Public Security University… and he knew that what Classmate Zhou wanted at their parting back then was definitely not his phone number… and he knew why Classmate Zhou never contacted him later.
He had sorted out all the logic.
But feelings exist outside of logic.
He felt, he was confident, that Classmate Zhou had called him in the end.
Even if only once.
After a half-hour tea break, the book signing entered its final and most important stage: readers lining up to go on stage and get their books signed by the author.
He hadn’t felt it while bantering with the host on stage, but now, as the readers started lining up for his signature, Ji Xun looked at the long, winding line and a thought suddenly came to him:
There are a lot of people.
At first, he could still distinguish the faces, but later they started to look similar, then blurry.
This was because he hadn’t been in a crowded place for a long time, and for a moment he couldn’t quickly remember and recognize the people around him.
It’s really like they say, I’ve been such a shut-in I could grow mushrooms at home… Ji Xun thought with self-deprecation.
Aside from the uncomfortable feeling of being stuffed, he was indeed in a good state today. He was energetic, and his hand was steady. He tried his best to fulfill any requests from the readers who came for his signature.
The readers in line also brought gifts. They weren’t expensive—some were snacks, some were useful items, and most were opened directly for him to see… Actually, Ji Xun didn’t know why they opened them directly for him to see. He could only hazard a guess: had he delayed his manuscript for so long that his readers were worried about receiving a cake with a hidden blade or a manuscript reminder written in blood?
However, he wasn’t worried…
As someone who writes mystery novels about murders, why would he worry about bladed cakes and blood-written reminders?
On the contrary, the real boredom of a mystery novelist’s book signing was that the readers actually gave perfectly proper, respectable gifts. It was so properly and respectably lacking in surprise.
He signed autographs and shook hands, one after another. When a person came before him, Ji Xun looked at the wrist of the person holding the book. The person wore a black patent leather jacket, with long, slender fingers, like…
Ji Xun’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.
A beat like a flower blooming in an instant. He hastily raised his eyes, his words already prepared, but what met his gaze was not Huo Ranyin’s delicate and familiar face, but a completely unfamiliar one.
The face was smiling, and said to Ji Xun, “Teacher Ji, can you write a sentence for me?”
“Of course…”
The blooming flower in his heart closed up again.
It closed up and shrank back.
But the heart had bloomed after all, and a small bud remained there, a lingering thought, a little uncomfortable.
Ji Xun finished signing the book and continued. In the next half of the session, he heard voices that sounded like Huo Ranyin’s, saw figures that seemed like Huo Ranyin’s, and even seemed to genuinely see handwriting like Huo Ranyin’s in the gifts from fans…
He felt that Huo Ranyin would appear.
But until the book signing ended, the readers left, the staff left, and even the gifts were tallied, he still hadn’t seen a shadow of Huo Ranyin.
Huo Ranyin really didn’t come.
He and Ai Yin took a taxi back to the hotel.
“Today’s signing was a great success…” On the way, Ai Yin noticed his low spirits and asked, “Teacher, are you not too happy?”
“I can’t say I’m unhappy, just a little regretful,” said Ji Xun.
“Regretful about what?”
Ji Xun just smiled and said no more.
At the hotel, the two naturally went their separate ways. Ji Xun swiped his room card and stepped inside when he suddenly felt something was amiss.
There was a whiff of smoke in the room, as if from a burnt match. The position of the curtains was also different from when he had left.
Had housekeeping come in to clean?
Of course, that was a possibility.
But perhaps, there was another possibility—
He turned around, closing the door. As the room door shut, a gentle breeze rushed at him from behind. Then, his hands were twisted behind his back. The attacker encircled him from behind, trapping him between the hotel door and their chest.
He felt the coldness of the other person’s skin, and then the heat of their breath.
This heat traveled from his skin into his body, gathering at his heart, converging into a pool of bright, hot water. His heart was thrown in, bubbling up. Each time a bubble popped, a small flower of joy bloomed.
“Huo—”
He started to speak, his voice high at first, then lowering, becoming soft and lingering.
“…Ranyin.”
“Surprised?” The attacker’s voice came from behind. It was, indeed, Huo Ranyin’s voice.
The card hadn’t been inserted yet, and the lights in the room were not on.
Huo Ranyin still had enough time to compose himself.
The anxiety from waiting in the room had already turned into the joy of finally seeing the person. Huo Ranyin lowered his voice, pressing that bit of joyful excitement under his tongue.
The tip of his tongue was numb.
Was there something wrong with his voice?
“I am surprised.” Ji Xun rested his forehead against the door. The slight coolness of the door helped to calm his racing heart, but the hard door and the chest behind him made for a stark contrast. He didn’t notice how cold the door was; instead, he seemed to feel Huo Ranyin’s heart, pressed against his back, beating quietly. “I kept thinking I would see you at the signing, but you never showed up.”
He said this as if complaining, and without waiting for Huo Ranyin’s reply, he continued:
“On the way back, I figured it out. The feeling that I would see you, that illusion wasn’t brought on by you. It was simply because…”
He paused.
“I missed you.”
As these words came out, a sudden pain shot through Ji Xun’s wrist. The person holding him had subconsciously tightened their grip. Of course, the force was quickly released, the clamp turning into a caress. Huo Ranyin was rubbing his wrist with his palm, back and forth, over and over… Such a superfluous gesture. Was he trying to figure out if it was really him?
Ji Xun thought, and then he heard Huo Ranyin’s voice, sounding a bit hesitant.
“You’re quite enthusiastic today…”
“Looks like I’m usually too cold,” Ji Xun chuckled softly.
“Since you missed me,” Huo Ranyin said again, “why didn’t you call me, or send a message?”
“Because…”
At this moment, Ji Xun suddenly struggled, slipping out of Huo Ranyin’s grasp like a fish. He turned around to face Huo Ranyin.
A dim, hazy darkness enveloped them.
But there was still light, the twinkling light of stars and the moon streaming in from the open window, and the bewitching light reflecting from Huo Ranyin’s eyes, merged with the dark night.
Because the light in his eyes was dissolved in the shadows, the shadows at this moment were gentle, touching the two of them with gentle limbs.
In fact, they had only been apart for a day, just twenty or thirty hours.
But it had been a very long twenty or thirty hours.
He didn’t ask why Huo Ranyin had suddenly appeared, nor did he ask if Huo Ranyin missed him as much as he missed him. He just looked at the person who had suddenly appeared, at the pupils that reflected his own image, and smiled slightly:
“Because… I didn’t want the phone to overhear the secret that I miss you.”
