Chapter 81

The voice coming through the phone tried its best to remain calm and composed: “Babe, tell me your location and what’s happening. I’ll call the police. Don’t be afraid.”

While holding his breath, unwilling to miss even the slightest sound from the other end, Xiang Feiran bent down, opened the WeChat desktop app, and dialed his assistant, ready to have Xiang Lianqiao contact the embassy and consulate immediately.

As the call connected, Xiang Feiran quickly covered the phone’s microphone and said to the assistant, “Hold on, don’t speak.”

He then pressed the phone back to his ear, listening to Shang Mingbao’s incoherent sobs and explanations: “Alan, Alan suddenly came to find me…”

Alan?

Which Alan?

Wu Baiyan pulled the phone out of Shang Mingbao’s tote bag and coldly said, “It’s me. She’s not in danger. I scared her with my confession.”

After saying this, without waiting for Xiang Feiran to react, Wu Baiyan abruptly ended the call.

After the busy signal, Xiang Feiran braced himself on the edge of the desk, his heart rate dropping as cold sweat quickly turned into sticky irritation. He tried calling back, but as expected, the phone was already turned off.

The assistant was still waiting for news. Xiang Feiran unbuttoned a shirt button and let out a breath, saying, “It’s fine, just a misunderstanding.”

Hearing him say it was fine, the two postdoctoral students finally dared to breathe, stealing a glance at him, only to find his face unusually dark, a look they had never seen before.

Wu Baiyan loosened his grip on Shang Mingbao’s wrist. Under the dim streetlight, his face looked pale and defeated: “Why were you so scared by me? When have I ever hurt you?”

Shang Mingbao, her legs weak, struggled to pull her hand back, but Wu Baiyan was firm, not letting go, nor making any further move.

“Stop acting crazy…” Shang Mingbao pleaded weakly, not daring to provoke him.

“I couldn’t even bear to hurt your boyfriend. I got beaten up like this and didn’t fight back at all, and yet you’re afraid of me.” Wu Baiyan tapped his nose with his finger, his brow furrowing in pain. “Shang Mingbao, you’re actually afraid of me.”

It was quite humiliating. The bitterness and grievance surged within him, making his tone change as he spoke.

Shang Mingbao only heard the first part, momentarily forgetting her fear: “You fought with Feiran-ge? Why did he hit you? What did you say to him?”

Wu Baiyan let out a self-mocking laugh: “That wasn’t a fight. It was a one-sided beating. Otherwise, your dear Feiran-ge would also have ended up in the hospital for a few days.”

He had the physique of a professional canoeist, undergoing high-intensity training for years. If he hadn’t forcibly restrained himself from hitting back, he wouldn’t have ended up in such a miserable state.

Shang Mingbao glared at him: “Can you stop acting insane?”

When she got angry, it was actually more tolerable to Wu Baiyan than her earlier fear. This was the Shang Mingbao he was familiar with.

His body, stiff as if frozen, began to relax.

“I guess I’m just a bit of an idiot.”

Wu Baiyan looked at her and tossed out a seemingly random, emotionless statement.

Shang Mingbao tugged at her hand again, and Wu Baiyan tightened his grip, suddenly pulling her closer to him. Shang Mingbao stumbled forward, and as his breath neared her, her pores stood on end. She raised her hands to shield her head, hunched her shoulders, and closed her eyes, a scream piercing through the night.

Even the heroine of a horror film wouldn’t react like this. Wu Baiyan’s face stopped near her lowered ear, leaving some distance.

He had actually only wanted to whisper a few words to her, but her resistance and tension left his heart feeling bitter and twisted.

“Babe, I originally planned to wait until you naturally broke up with him before confessing. I’ve already stayed by your side for so long, pretending to be just a friend. A few more years wouldn’t have made a difference. Last week, I went to the botanical garden to fulfill my grandfather’s last wish—he admired Xiang Feiran. There’s a five-million-dollar fund in his will, explicitly meant to sponsor Xiang Feiran’s research. I don’t know why, but whenever I see him, I become so jealous that I can’t think straight, and I can’t control myself. He told me that if I liked you, I should compete with him openly and fairly. Fine, then from now on, I’ll compete with him.”

After saying that, Wu Baiyan released Shang Mingbao’s arm and took a step back, looking at her: “Don’t ask me why I like you; I can’t answer that. I’m just an idiot.”

“…”

“Go inside.” He tilted his chin towards the door, “I won’t be going in.”

“I never invited you in the first place!” Shang Mingbao retorted fiercely.

Wu Baiyan grimaced, trying to smile, but the movement pulled at the wound on the corner of his mouth, making his smile more painful than crying.

“Phone!”

Wu Baiyan held it in his palm, pressing the power button for a long time until the screen lit up, and he gestured to her: “Password.”

“What are you doing?”

“Setting your emergency contact as Xiang Feiran—what’s the point? What can he do if you really get into trouble? Change it.”

The phone, just powered on, vibrated countless times. Wu Baiyan smiled, “He’s going crazy.”

Shang Mingbao’s face was cold as she spoke, each word dripping with ice: “Give it back.”

Wu Baiyan didn’t persist and handed the phone over. Shang Mingbao snatched it back without another glance at him and inserted the key into the lock.

As the gate opened, just before her figure merged into the darkness inside, Wu Baiyan suddenly said, “Shang Mingbao, I would never hurt you.”

Shang Mingbao’s steps faltered for a moment, but she said nothing, slamming the door shut with a bang.

Sophie had just been about to call her again when she heard movement in the entryway and quickly leaned out. Seeing her, she let out a long breath: “I was wondering why you weren’t home so late today, and your phone was off too.”

Shang Mingbao kicked off her shoes, tossed her bag aside, and silently went upstairs to her bedroom, throwing herself onto the bed.

Today, she lost a friend she truly cherished and gained a horrible, rotten romance. If only Liao Yunuo were still here, at least she’d have someone to talk to.

Growing up is the process of gradually drifting apart from everyone you once knew, as everyone’s paths diverge in such intricate and different ways. She has been rushing around like a citizen of the world. In countless solitary mornings and evenings, she has thought of her distant friends in the slivers of light, but they can’t even live under the same time, so how could they remain intertwined in each other’s lives?

Xiang Feiran’s call came through again. Shang Mingbao swiped to answer and closed her eyes, listening to his voice.

After hearing the “phone is off” message too many times, he suddenly heard her breathing instead. Xiang Feiran paused for a second and asked, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you let me know? I’ve been worried.”

Shang Mingbao’s voice sounded calm, but with an air of exhaustion: “I’m feeling really confused right now, Feiran-ge.”

Her words “feeling really confused” made Xiang Feiran freeze in place.

Compared to the time she had recklessly made an international call to him, crying out that she was scared, the four words “feeling really confused” left too much room for interpretation. It was as if… as if she was troubled by Wu Baiyan’s feelings for her.

She shouldn’t be troubled, not with Xiang Feiran’s straightforward and decisive way of handling things. If she didn’t like him, she should reject him, and if there was a misunderstanding, she should clear it up. Why should she be “confused”?

“Why?” he asked with restraint, his throat tightening with a tension that wasn’t his own, “Because he confessed to you, and you don’t know how to face him?”

Shang Mingbao turned over, curling up like a baby: “If it were your good friend confessing to you, you’d be just as confused.”

“I don’t have such close female friends.”

Shang Mingbao was silent for a moment: “Are you blaming me? Because I have a close male friend, and because he accidentally fell for me, it’s my fault?”

Hearing her question, Xiang Feiran frowned, gripping the back of his chair tightly: “That’s not what I mean, Mingbao.”

Shang Mingbao’s emotions were out of control, spilling out like a flood toward him: “What do you want me to do? Go back in time and not be friends with him? Or remind him every day not to like me because I have a boyfriend? I’m the victim here!”

Xiang Feiran clenched his phone, his voice already a bit cold: “I don’t want to argue with you. How you handle this is entirely up to you. I just want to know if you’re home now or at a safe place.”

“I’m home.”

“Okay.”

Neither of them spoke another word. Two seconds later, Shang Mingbao was the first to hang up.

This argument was bizarre, and with a ten-hour flight distance between them, it would be hard to avoid going to bed angry.

In the early hours of the morning, Xiang Feiran boarded a flight to Switzerland with his team. Three days later, he gave a twenty-minute presentation at the main hall of a world-class academic conference. The presentation, which revealed the systematics of magnoliid plants through genome collinearity and the early incomplete lineage sorting, had already garnered widespread attention upon its publication, and in this talk, he disclosed even more detailed insights and approaches.

After the conference, a Belgian professor who had met him once at the botanical garden’s restaurant approached him. He was an expert in Cinnamomum camphora, a species pivotal in uncovering the origin of angiosperms due to its early divergence among them.

He invited Xiang Feiran to collaborate with him and, if time allowed, to visit his lab after the conference to discuss the framework for cooperation.

The bioinformatics and plant evolution research at Ghent University and VIB are top-notch internationally, so Xiang Feiran had no reason to refuse.

The long hours of non-stop flying, sleepless nights, and obligatory social engagements shouldn’t have made him as sick as he became, but after landing in Ghent, Xiang Feiran fell seriously ill and stayed in the hotel bed for three days.

The two postdocs traveling with him, sharing a room, only noticed something was wrong when he didn’t show up at the breakfast buffet on the second day. After getting no response from calls and knocking, they had the hotel staff open the door with a key card. When they felt his forehead, they both blurted out, “Damn.”

It wasn’t clear if the foreign doctors were conservative in their treatment or what, but the fever kept subsiding and then returning. The two took turns taking care of him, and the lab and institute leaders kept calling to repeatedly urge caution, fearing the fever might damage Xiang Feiran’s brain.

While he slept, the two sighed, “Our Xiang Feiran really lives a quiet life, huh? Three days sick, and not a single person has cared about him?”

“Is that why he’s so quick and good at research?”

“Got it, to do good research, you need to cut off all emotions and desires.”

They had jokingly teased each other but then fell into silence.

“He’s got no emotional needs, does he?” one of them muttered, “Nobody’s looking for him, and he doesn’t seem to be looking for anyone else.”

Whether out of admiration or resignation, there was another pause.

“I say, if we take care of him meticulously, when he wakes up, won’t he feel much warmer inside? Won’t that secure our performance?”

“……”

“Ah, he’s still a kid.”

Xiang Feiran was several years younger than the two of them, looking like an undergraduate.

After some planning, a pillow was thrown at him. The feverish person closed his eyes, frowned, and coldly said, “Get out.”

The noise was unbearable.

“……”

He was too weak to be threatening and still behaved obediently when given medicine.

On the third day of lying down, he finally woke up completely and asked first, “Has anyone been looking for me?”

The two listed a string of names—leaders, professors, peers—all of whom had matters to discuss. After finishing, Xiang Feiran waited for a few more seconds.

His gaze seemed to expect another person among those names, making the two uncomfortable. They looked at each other but didn’t say anything.

Facing each other, neither wanted to be the first to speak. Xiang Feiran understood, and his eyes, which had just regained some clarity, returned to their usual calm, “I see.”

He took a shower, tidied himself up, changed into a dress shirt and trousers, visited the laboratory, and discussed the preliminary framework of cooperation during a subsequent luncheon.

When he was informed that he would return to his country on his own and needed to fly to Australia first, neither of the postdocs had the energy to be shocked. They thought, he really is something.

After transferring at Sydney and arriving at the Gold Coast Airport, he picked up the car he had rented in advance and drove for several hours before reaching the remote mining town.

The town, supported by mining, was inhabited by either mine owners or gemstone suppliers. Besides the sparse lights from a few farms, it was pitch dark with no other light, though the stars were brilliant. Unfortunately, Xiang Feiran no longer had the inclination to look up at the night sky.

When Shang Mingbao answered the phone, the first thing she heard was him saying, “Come out and watch the fireworks.”

She put on her coat, slipped into her half-slippers, and rushed out. When she opened the door, she almost bumped into Xiang Feiran, who was standing outside.

“……Aren’t we supposed to be watching fireworks?” she asked, a bit confused.

“Don’t you want to see me?”

Shang Mingbao shook her head and leaned into his embrace, “I thought if I saw fireworks, you would be waiting for me where the fireworks were.”

“That was the plan, and I bought some,” Xiang Feiran held her.

“And then?”

“Then I realized I bought the wrong thing—it’s paper firecrackers,” Xiang Feiran said淡淡地, “Do you want to hear a sound?”

The so-called fireworks bought from a large Gold Coast supermarket were just paper firecrackers that would burst into colored confetti, but the packaging was very realistic. He hadn’t had time to tell the difference in his hurry.

Shang Mingbao listened, both amused and helpless, pinching a piece of reflective gold confetti from his coat, “Did you try them?”

“What else could I do?” Xiang Feiran curled his lips, his mood stable yet with a hint of absurd comedy, “If I hadn’t had to brush off the confetti from myself, I could have met you five minutes earlier.”

Shang Mingbao laughed and then fell silent, closing her eyes and pressing her head firmly against his chest.

Xiang Feiran said nothing, holding her tightly. They embraced at the door for a long time. Sophie and the servants had grown used to it and didn’t bother to come out.

When he kissed Shang Mingbao’s ear, his breath and voice were tight, “Shang Mingbao, you heartless woman.”

Tears suddenly welled up in Shang Mingbao’s eyes. How could she not feel guilty, how could she not feel regret? But she had been spoiled and loved by him, her love making her demanding and hurtful, knowing he would love her no matter what.

“I sent you good morning texts every day while I was in Europe, and you never replied.”

“You only sent them for three days; you didn’t send any after that,” she countered.

“Because I was damn sick,” Xiang Feiran said, each word clear.

It was the first time Shang Mingbao heard him curse; she was stunned, sensing his frustration but still finding him cold.

“……You swear,” she said blankly.

“I not only swear, but I also hit people. I broke your ‘good friend’s’ nose. Are you heartbroken?”

“……”

Xiang Feiran pressed her head against his chest, “Don’t let him get close to you. I’ll be jealous.”

“He’s six years younger than you,” Shang Mingbao murmured.

“What do you mean? You think I’m old?”

“……Huh?”

Xiang Feiran tilted his chin, his expression meaningful.

“A twenty-nine-year-old can’t be considered old, right?” Shang Mingbao said softly.

Twenty-nine…?

Xiang Feiran hadn’t paid much attention to age because no one reminded him each year with “another year older, may everything go smoothly,” so that string was never pulled. When filling out personal details, he had to subtract to be sure.

Under the eaves’ light, he gazed steadily at Shang Mingbao, rubbing his palm and fingers over her face.

Eight years.

He had loved her for eight years.

In the eighth year of loving her, he would still be easily distracted by her, fly across continents and oceans for her without feeling tired.

Hearing that someone beside her dared to covet her, he still felt anger and lost his reason.

He couldn’t sleep for her, was thrilled for her.

Xiang Feiran looked down at her, a slight smile on his lips, “The way you say it, it really seems like I’m getting old. The first time I saw you, you were twenty-one.”

They were both shocked back to the past by that one sentence, so distant it felt like half a lifetime.

Shang Mingbao’s gaze met his, and the next moment, without either of them reacting in time, she stood on tiptoe and wrapped her arms around his neck. He fiercely encircled her waist.

In the wilderness-like town, beneath the inverted starry sky and in the thick of the night, they kissed with reckless abandon.

Could they walk this path to the end?

A voice in his heart asked, unsure whether it was asking himself or appealing to the gods.

Give him a little more time, Mingbao.

He pleaded for her with the man who was kissing her. He was madly in love with you.