The same clouds

When Chen Lu heard that, he hurried to his feet and took out his phone to check his missed calls.

The night in Hangcheng was cold, and Chen Lu's heart trembled with the cold too.

Just as I thought. She only called me once and didn't even send a message.

Mo Yuqing, do you think I'll definitely come looking for you again on my own...

Am I really that lowly in your eyes?

Chen Lu tilted his head back for a while. Once he had collected himself, he swiped left on the missed call and deleted it.

He checked the time again. It was already past eleven, so he said slowly:

"I'll walk you back."

The girl still had her head down and said nothing, so he added, "I live nearby. It's too late to get back into the university now."

Only then did she nod gently, and the two of them walked down the street together.

"My name's Chen Lu. Lu as in 'no road left to take.'" Chen Lu turned to look at the girl. "What's your name?"

"I'm Liang Zhirou..."

Liang Zhirou spoke while looking down at Chen Lu's shadow. That way, she didn't have to look directly at him, but could still see whether he was looking at her, which made her feel safe.

He shouldn't notice I'm looking at him, right?

"...Thank you for buying me medicine. I'll pay you back," the girl said softly. Then she took her phone out of her pocket and tapped it twice.

For some reason, her words filled Chen Lu's heart with warmth.

So someone would actually thank me for something this small?

Chen Lu felt a little dazed. He had never heard a single word of thanks from Mo Yuqing.

Not one.

While he was still lost in thought, he saw the girl part her lips slightly and blink, then say blankly, "My phone's dead..."

Perhaps afraid he wouldn't believe her, she raised the phone in her trembling little hand and deliberately pressed it twice more.

Sure enough, there was no response.

She couldn't even bear to buy medicine for herself, yet she still seemed to think she couldn't take advantage of someone else. She looked completely at a loss.

Chen Lu couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips. "You're a little silly, aren't you? It's all right. The medicine was cheap. It cost less than ten yuan."

The girl was too embarrassed to say anything else. She pursed her lips and lowered her head again.

"Actually, I'm very smart..." A little while later, Liang Zhirou suddenly said with great seriousness.

"Sure, sure."

The girl seemed very quiet, and Chen Lu wasn't in the mood to talk either, so the two walked along in silence.

The girl said earnestly that she would definitely pay him back for the medicine. Chen Lu only smiled and didn't pay it much mind.

Without giving it much thought, Chen Lu flagged down a taxi to go home.

He and Jiang Chao were both locals, so if they wanted to, they could stay away from the dorm every night.

But to maintain their father-son bond, the two still spent more time in the dorm.

"Lijing Garden, please."

"Oh, that's a long way."

"Well, I got lost."

Looking out at the hazy night, Chen Lu slowly took out his phone.

He suddenly noticed Mo Yuqing, whose chat he had kept pinned to the top for years. After hesitating for a long while, he finally unpinned it.

Then he went on Penguin and removed her from his special care list.

He thought about the way he used to send her good morning and good night messages every day, as reliably as clockwork;

the way he sought out all kinds of topics every day, his heart in a constant knot whenever she didn't reply;

the way he carefully weighed every sentence, terrified of killing the conversation;

the way he occasionally didn't reply instantly, treating it as an act of defiance against how slowly Mo Yuqing replied to him.

How pathetic, Chen Lu.

With another bitter smile, Chen Lu scrolled through his chat history with Mo Yuqing.

It was the same throughout: for every several messages he sent, she replied with only one or two.

He could pick any page and see it full of green bubbles, with only a scant few white ones.

As he did this, the night scenery outside the window grew more and more blurred in his eyes.

He was only unpinning someone else's chat, yet Chen Lu didn't know why he was the one feeling sad.

After sniffling, he sent Jiang Chao a message.

Chen Lu: "Boss, I went home. You guys go ahead and play."

Jiang Chao: "Go on, go on. These two are seriously dragging us down. They died almost twenty times between them in one match. Just as well you didn't come."

Chen Lu smiled faintly when he saw it. He was just about to turn off his screen when another message came from Jiang Chao.

Jiang Chao: "I thought you'd suddenly pull yourself together and win over that part-time girl. (smirk)"

Chen Lu: "Get lost. I didn't even add her on WeChat. I took a screenshot of what you said and sent it to your girlfriend."

Jiang Chao: "Σσ(・Д・;) That really wasn't necessary. Get a good night's sleep, and when you wake up, remember you've still got us."

Chen Lu was a little taken aback by Jiang Chao's message.

You can reply instantly even while you're gaming, so why can't Mo Yuqing?

She's never been quick to reply to my messages...

When Chen Lu came back to his senses, he was already back in his room. He opened the locked drawer and took out everything related to Mo Yuqing, ready to throw it away.

Then he suddenly spotted a bracelet with only one wooden bead.

I actually kept this?

He held it in his hand and hesitated for a while, but in the end, the bracelet obediently settled back into the empty drawer.

Everything related to Mo Yuqing was gone.

Liang Zhirou, who hadn't felt warmth from another person in a long time, had a heartwarming dream. She dreamed of something from her past, an experience that had healed her and helped her hold on until now.

It had happened more than ten years ago.

A little girl crouched in the sand at a park, silently watching the other children climb up and slide down a slide.

Her bright eyes were slightly red; she had clearly just been crying.

Because she came from a mountain village, she didn't dare go over and join them.

That sense of inferiority seemed to have been born with her, because she had never seen any of the things the others took for granted.

She also... didn't know what any of them were.

Just then, a little boy came over and crouched beside her.

"Why aren't you happy?" the boy asked gently. It was the first time anyone had spoken to her like that since she came to the city.

"Because Daddy has an illness that can't be cured."

As the little girl spoke, tears welled up in her eyes, and she looked terribly aggrieved.

It was her first time coming to the big city she had imagined.

Unlike the city she had imagined, Hangcheng seemed to have nothing but the grating sound of car horns and the smell of disinfectant in the hospital.

Even though people were packed together everywhere, the distance between them seemed especially vast.

Unlike in the village, no one took the initiative to help anyone else. She could only follow her worried-looking mother around the hospital, asking how to register and pay the fees.

Seeing how lost and helpless her mother looked when people ignored her, she could only hate that she wasn't grown up yet.

The boy nodded silently. After a long silence, he pointed to a few children blowing bubbles in the distance and said softly, "At a time like this, it's best to take your mind off things. Do you want to play with a bubble machine? You just press it once and lots and lots of bubbles come flying out. It's really fun."

"My family is poor. We can't afford one."

The little girl lowered her head even further.

"Good thing I happen to have two!"

The little boy spoke excitedly as he pressed the only bubble machine in his hand into hers. There wasn't the slightest trace of insincerity or reluctance in his innocent eyes.

"Now we each have one."

Seeing that the girl didn't seem to believe him, the boy chuckled and added, "The other one's at home. It's even better than this one, so I didn't want to bring it out in case they broke it playing with it."

"What's your name?" The little girl managed to believe him and rubbed her reddened eyes.

Even though she knew she would never see him again in her life, she still wanted to ask.

"I'm Flame Dragon!" After saying that, the boy stuffed all the fruit candies from his pocket into her hands too. "Anyway, whenever you're sad, just have a piece of candy."

"Here, take this..." The girl took the wooden bracelet from her wrist and handed it to him. "Mom said you should return a gift with a gift. I can't just take your things for nothing..."

She had made it herself, so it had only one wooden bead and a red string.

The bead had been polished very smooth. It must have taken tremendous patience, and it was hard to imagine a little girl had made it herself.

"Thank you!"

The boy was just about to ask her name when a girl dressed head to toe in designer brands pulled him away.

Half asleep and half awake, Liang Zhirou smiled gently. With her eyes lowered, she tucked the blanket around her haggard mother beside her.

The reason she had applied to this university was that she wanted to come back to this city.

There are tens of millions of people in this city. I don't expect to see you again.

But at least we can see the same clouds.