It was already very late at night.
Yet I couldn't sleep. I sat in the darkness, with only the faint glow of my cigarette ember flickering on and off.
I heard the door being pushed open. Someone came in.
Then the lights came on. The person who entered was Ye Jinghong.
"I saw your door was ajar, so I came in to check on you. My god, how many cigarettes have you smoked?" As she spoke, she walked over and opened the window.
Even I didn't know how many cigarettes I had smoked. I didn't know why, but ever since seeing Xu Qiuyan, I had felt restless. I kept feeling that Xu Qiuyan's change had something to do with me. Though I hadn't caused it directly, the root of it lay with me. The reason she had compromised with her mother and the Administration Bureau was to protect me.
That meant she had indeed made a huge sacrifice for me, while I had known nothing about it. I had even harbored some resentment toward her before.
"Tell me, what's going on with you? Is it because of Xu Qiuyan? Ever since you came back from seeing her, you've been completely distracted. Don't think I haven't noticed."
I gave a bitter smile and stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette in my hand in the ashtray.
I asked her, "Do you think Xu Qiuyan changed because of me?"
"Changed? What kind of change are you talking about?" She seemed not to understand what I meant.
"Before, Xu Qiuyan and I had a very good relationship. You could even say we were inseparable. But after her mother appeared, things between us suddenly changed. Her mother was with the Administration Bureau, and she had Xu Qiuyan transferred from Unit Nine to the Administration Bureau. After