The next day, at 1:30 p.m.
A black Maybach stopped in front of a café next to the Civil Affairs Bureau. The driver got out of the car specifically to open the door for the person sitting in the back. A few customers in the café, as if sensing something, suddenly began turning their heads one after another, all looking toward the entrance.
Ding-dong~
The bell tied to the door rang out melodiously.
——A new customer had entered.
The person wore a light-colored, thin trench coat, without any brand logo, but the tailoring was excellent, as if it were custom-made. Many people kept secretly glancing at him, unable to look away even after he walked to a corner seat and sat down. Because he was an exceedingly handsome man. His deep-set eyes and delicate features surpassed those of many popular male celebrities. Even his casual manner of walking in made it hard to take one’s eyes off him.
The man took off his trench coat and draped it casually over the side. Underneath, he wore a simple white shirt. His expression was gentle, with a pair of black, thin-rimmed glasses resting on his high nose bridge, which softened his overly exquisite features, giving him an air of grace, modesty, and a well-cultivated demeanor. It was as if this wasn’t just a trendy café on the street, but rather a private business club of some sort.
“Hello, sir.”
A young female waitress quickly approached him, her cheeks slightly flushed, and asked softly,
“What would you like to drink?”
“A cup of black coffee, please.”
The coffee arrived quickly, but the man did not touch it. From the moment he sat down, he kept gazing out the window, his eyes casually sweeping over every person and car passing by, as if he were waiting for someone. The sunlight filtered through the leaves and branches on the street outside, casting dappled shadows on the man’s face, giving his handsome features a mysterious aura.
Unfortunately, the person he was waiting for still hadn’t shown up.
Who would have the heart to stand up such a person?
A pretty young woman, after observing for a long time, finally couldn’t resist fixing her hair and makeup before gathering the courage to approach him.
“Excuse me, sir…”
Many people quietly watched, wondering if this was going to be another beautiful encounter. However, they only saw the man smile and shake his head, pointing to the wedding ring on his left hand’s ring finger.
——So he married young.
What a pity.
Such thoughts surfaced in many people’s minds.
Tick-tock, tick-tock…
The clock on the wall at the front desk continued to tick, and the bell at the door kept ringing.
People came in and people left.
The sun began to set, and the angle of the light shifted. It turned orange-red, no longer favoring the man’s neck in the corner, instead passing over him and onto others before finally disappearing into the clouds.
——The sky was growing dark.
Drip.
At some point, the first raindrop had fallen outside.
The rain wasn’t heavy, just a light drizzle that moistened the café’s windows, making the figures of passersby outside even more blurred.
Chu Tingyun continued to wait quietly, not passing the time on his phone, without a trace of impatience or irritation on his face, only occasionally stirring the coffee in his cup. It was as if he were savoring the bitterness of the coffee, carefully tasting the long wait.
“Bzzzz…”
The phone on the table vibrated for the fifth time. After buzzing for quite a while, it was finally picked up by its owner.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Chu, where are you? The board meeting…”
“I’m busy right now.”
Chu Tingyun didn’t wait for the secretary to finish speaking, his eyes downcast, long eyelashes shading the emotions in his eyes.
The secretary’s tone remained respectful, suppressing the urgency in his voice,
“Alright, Mr. Chu. But it’s already 6 p.m., and you have a meeting at 9 p.m. tonight…”
“Cancel everything.”
Chu Tingyun sat in the shadowy corner, gently stirring his cup of coffee.
The coffee remained untouched, and the ice in it had long since melted.
The voice on the other end said something else, but Chu Tingyun didn’t have the patience to listen. His voice turned slightly cold, “I told you, I’m waiting for someone very important. I’m not coming back.”
Just as he finished speaking, the bell at the café door suddenly rang loudly.
Ding-ling-ling——!
It was as if someone had hurriedly slammed the door open.
It was hard to describe the feeling at that moment, but Chu Tingyun’s heart skipped a beat.
He instinctively looked up and saw a familiar figure entering his field of vision——
A young man with black hair, wearing a blue-striped hospital gown, holding a crutch in one hand and protecting a file in his other.
He glanced around, and the moment he saw the man in the corner, he couldn’t even wait to walk over on his crutch, instead hopping on one leg, quickly crossing the room and rushing up to Chu Tingyun.
Due to the momentum and the fact that his left leg was still in a cast, Yan Xun almost overshot, nearly crashing into him. Fortunately, he was agile enough to throw his crutch aside and use the wall behind Chu Tingyun to steady himself, avoiding this embarrassing accident.
At this moment, the young man had one hand against the wall behind Chu Tingyun, bending over to try and explain himself to the other.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be late.”
He didn’t realize that their current posture was still awkward. From a third-person perspective, it looked like he was deliberately trapping Chu Tingyun in the corner.
But after being late for so long, Yan Xun didn’t have time to notice such things. Originally, he was prepared for the other person to have left in anger long ago, but to his surprise, this man had really waited for him for over four hours.
So in his rush, Yan Xun hastily stuffed all the medical examination documents into Chu Tingyun’s arms, immediately explaining in this position:
“I truly apologize… I went for a checkup. There were many procedures, and even with a rush order, it took a long time.”
His speech was fast, with a bit of breathless warmth between breaths,
“As soon as the report came out, I took a taxi here, but unfortunately ran into rush hour traffic… So I had to get out of the car early, but when paying cash, the driver didn’t have change…”
Yan Xun usually wasn’t a talkative person, nor was he so reckless. But at this moment, he really needed to explain quickly and thoroughly so that Chu Tingyun would believe he hadn’t intentionally stood him up for over four hours.
Chu Tingyun didn’t say anything. This overly intimate and non-social distance didn’t make him uncomfortable; he just maintained his head-tilted position, staring at Yan Xun.
The other person must have run all the way here, or rather, hopped here in that comical one-legged manner.
Because there hadn’t been any cars parked outside earlier, and Yan Xun looked like he had gotten quite wet in the rain.
The young man’s black hair curled slightly, damply clinging to his forehead and ears. Perhaps because he had run in the rain and caught some wind, his eyes were a little red, making the water droplets on his eyelashes look less like water.
He looked very much like a little puppy that had been abandoned by its owner in the rain.
Mr. Chu leaned back in his chair, his gaze silently wandering over the young man’s face.
Actually, Yan Xun didn’t look much different from before, but his eyes had changed a lot.
Really, a lot.
Bright, clean, youthful, sincere, with an overwhelming student-like aura.
Not only had his gaze changed, but also his attitude, tone, manner of speaking, and even his unconscious body language when facing him.
Just as the doctor had said… it seemed like he really didn’t remember the past.
He didn’t remember the past grudges and tears, the bitterness and pain.
He didn’t remember the dirty strife and conflicts hidden under the guise of a perfect marriage.
And he certainly didn’t remember how hard he had once tried, by any means necessary, to escape from the man in front of him.
Yan Xun’s memory had stopped at when he was eighteen years old, at a time when he didn’t even know Chu Tingyun.
This was truly… the best news.
The corners of Chu Tingyun’s lips slowly curved into a very small smile.
As he pondered, the man’s gaze casually drifted over Yan Xun’s face——
It passed over the young man’s pitch-black, clear eyes, his wet, trembling eyelashes, the lips that kept moving as he explained, the nervous gulp of his Adam’s apple, the open collar as he bent over…
If a person’s gaze could turn into something tangible, Yan Xun would have felt something sticky and slippery crawling up his collarbone.
It would have crawled into his chest through the open collar, snaking across his abdomen, winding its way over every inch of his skin, leaving a sticky trail like a beast marking its territory, covering it with its scent.
But unfortunately, Chu Tingyun’s gaze couldn’t turn into something tangible.
He simply looked slowly, his mind following the same slow pace——
The coma during this period had indeed made his little husband lose some weight, even thinning out his chest muscles a bit, though the lines of his abs were still as well-defined as before.
Yan Xun didn’t realize that in just one encounter, he had almost been thoroughly scrutinized. He was still earnestly explaining to Chu Tingyun.
“But after getting out of the car, I rushed over as quickly as possible… Of course, I’m not making excuses, just trying to apologize…”
“Sorry, I’m so late and kept you waiting for so long.”
The young man’s explanation was sincere in tone and attitude.
So much so that Chu Tingyun found the other person almost endearingly sincere.
At this moment, the overly young Yan Xun had no idea that the person he was trying so hard to explain to wasn’t actually as angry as he imagined.
In fact, quite the opposite——
Mr. Chu, who had always hated waiting for others, found himself in an exceptionally good mood after a long four-hour wait.
If he weren’t afraid of scaring off the little wet puppy in front of him, Mr. Chu would have even wanted to press him down onto the chair right now…
And give him a good kiss.
