Old Shadows Meet Again (Part 1)

"What's wrong?"

Shen Zhiyi, seated beside him, was the first to notice his sudden change. She set down her chopsticks and asked softly with concern, "Whose call is it? Is it urgent?"

Zhou Xiaowen also stopped talking and, together with Chen Shuhua and Li Jing, looked at him in puzzlement.

Zhao Chen took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the raging waves in his heart and restoring calm to his expression.

He picked up his phone and gave the four women at the table a slightly apologetic smile. "Sorry, it's a call from my counselor. I need to take it."

He stood up and softly told Shen Zhiyi, "I'll be right back."

Then, gripping the continuously vibrating phone as though it were a hot potato, he quickly left the noisy booth and headed into the quiet, frigid night outside the restaurant.

He stood beneath a deserted streetlamp at the corner, the light from the screen illuminating his complicated, indescribable expression.

His thumb hovered over the answer button, trembling almost imperceptibly.

After what felt like a century, he finally pressed it and slowly raised the phone to his ear.

When he spoke, his voice carried a hoarseness so suppressed that even he himself had not noticed it. "...Hello?"

"Zhao Chen." The voice on the other end was nothing like his sentimental one.

Chen Xi's tone was even cold and businesslike. "Where are you right now? If you're not far from the school, come to my office in the Administration Building immediately."

Zhao Chen raised an eyebrow slightly. "Teacher Chen, now?"

"Right now." Chen Xi's tone left no room for doubt. "Class Monitor Chen Hao has formally compiled materials regarding your long-term absenteeism and reported them to the faculty. The department leadership has asked about it, and we need to deal with it as soon as possible."

Zhao Chen leaned against the icy tiled wall, the corner of his lips curving into a smile devoid of warmth.

Chen Hao's move was within his expectations, but he did not care.

He had been planning to find an opportunity to meet this assistant from his Previous Life anyway. This was the perfect chance.

"Alright. I'll be there in half an hour." His answer was calm.

After hanging up, he returned to the Private Room and apologetically explained that there was an urgent matter at school that he needed to handle immediately.

Faced with Shen Zhiyi's concerned gaze and Zhou Xiaowen's lament of "Ah, you're leaving again," he gave them a brief explanation, promised they would get together again next time, and hurriedly left the still boisterous hotpot restaurant.

Chen Xi. His counselor.

The woman who had been his right-hand aide in his Previous Life, and who had ultimately fallen into the abyss alongside him.

The third-floor corridor of the office building was empty and quiet, with only his footsteps echoing through it.

The door to the student affairs office on the east side was shut tight, light spilling from beneath it.

He raised his hand and knocked.

"Come in." A clear voice came from inside.

Zhao Chen pushed open the door and entered.

The office was far smaller and plainer than the office of the Henglong Group Chairman Assistant he remembered from years later.

Yet that extreme tidiness and orderliness had remained unchanged.

The documents were Archived with meticulous care. Other than a Computer, a pen holder, and several files awaiting processing, there was almost nothing extraneous on the desk.

Then, he saw her seated behind the desk.

Chen Xi looked up.

It was as if time had folded strangely at that very moment.

Before him was a much younger face, long hair rigorously pinned behind her head, sharp and lucid eyes behind thin-rimmed glasses, and a fitted light-gray skirt suit—the capable yet slightly distant appearance of a university counselor.

Yet Zhao Chen's gaze pierced through the surface of this "present," clearly seeing another version of her—

—the woman who had fought shoulder to shoulder with him in the Meeting Room atop Henglong's headquarters, sharply refuting the opposing Lawyer;

—the woman who, in the late-night office, repeatedly checked the listing documents beneath the faint Weiguang of a desk lamp, her profile calm and focused;

—the woman who, from the other side of the visitation glass and through a telephone receiver, had told him in the same steady voice, "I'll face it with you"...

The two images overlapped again and again before finally converging into the woman before him.

His gaze lingered on her face for far longer than was appropriate for a student looking at his counselor.

That gaze was too deep, too complicated. It held scrutiny, memories, realization, and a hint of weathered gentleness that even he himself had not noticed.

Chen Xi clearly sensed that unusual stare.

She frowned slightly, put down her pen, leaned back a little, and broke the silence in a lightly teasing yet probing tone. "What is it, Zhao Chen? Have you skipped class for so long that you don't even recognize your own counselor anymore?"

Her voice pulled Zhao Chen back from the brief yet turbulent flood of memories.

He reined in the emotions too plainly exposed in his eyes, his face returning to its usual calm, even taking on the appropriately distant air of a student.

"Good afternoon, Teacher Chen."

Chen Xi pointed to the chair across from her. "Sit."

After he sat down, she folded her hands on the desk, looked directly at him, and got straight to the point.

"Attendance records show that from November 8th to today, you have accumulated more than thirty hours of unexcused absences. The written explanation and supporting evidence submitted by Class Monitor Chen Hao are very detailed, and the department leadership has already taken notice.

I need an explanation—a reasonable one that can be included in the report."

Her Speech Speed was steady and her logic clear, entirely in line with the standard procedure for handling student affairs.