Since Zheng Yun’s death, it had been over half a year. During this time, Du Yunyan hadn’t picked up a pen to write a letter. The increasingly diverse means of communication nowadays had made those who wished to communicate through pen and paper few and far between. Yet Du Yunyan’s love for writing had never diminished. Leaving behind words in a relatively traditional manner felt more like a way of introspection to him. So when Gu Wenxi suggested writing letters, he himself was tempted.

The steel pen Du Yunyan often used had been with him for many years, and he had plenty of used letter paper left. He filled the pen with blue-black ink and wrote down the first word on the spread-out paper.

Communicating with his beloved was different from writing to his superiors. There was always a bit of difficult-to-utter emotion involved. After writing down “Wenxi,” he remained silent for a few minutes. The incessant chirping of insects outside reminded him of the night he fell ill and Gu Wenxi sang to him. With such feelings in mind, he resumed writing.

There were still many stamps left, which he carefully affixed to the envelopes, then rode his bike to the village’s mailbox. The old-fashioned mailing method was slower, but “waiting” itself was a unique pleasure and romance of letter communication. After sending the letter, he even felt that time passed more quickly.

After returning to S city for another week, on a Tuesday evening, Gu Wenxi finished his business dinner. After drinking a few glasses of wine, his head was a bit dizzy. He sat on the sofa in the lobby waiting for the driver to arrive, and one of his subordinates fetched him a glass of water.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Gu Wenxi had just taken a sip of water when he caught sight of a somewhat familiar figure at the entrance of the buffet restaurant.

Lu Changming? Gu Wenxi remembered a bunch of gossip about this person from Gu Wenheng, leaving a deep impression.

Lu Changming was accompanied by two people, a woman of similar age, and a young man. He was chatting with them gently. Gu Wenxi had seen the young master of the Lu family before, so the woman should be Lu Changming’s wife, and they seemed to be having dinner together as a family.

Although Gu Wenxi couldn’t be bothered to deal with this person, as the proxy of Gu Yuching, he felt that he should greet the head of a company he had worked with before. So, he stood up from the sofa.

However, he was a step too late. Lu Changming’s party didn’t even see him and went straight out of the hotel revolving door.

There was no point in chasing after them now since they had ignored him. Gu Wenxi sat back down and left when the car arrived.

Resting his temples in the car, he inexplicably thought of Lu Changming passing by him. It wasn’t that he cared much about the gossip about the guy, but Lu Changming gave him a strange sense of familiarity—not from social situations, but he couldn’t recall where else they had met besides business interactions.

The traffic wasn’t bad at night, and he felt like he had just gotten into the car when the driver informed him they had arrived.

“Thanks, take your time on the road.”

Gu Wenxi bid farewell to the driver, walked into the apartment building, and just before entering the elevator, suddenly remembered he hadn’t checked his mailbox that day. Opening the mailbox in the morning and evening had become his routine homework these days, but the postal service’s speed was truly despairing, so he didn’t have high hopes today either.

He was still a bit groggy as his key card approached the sensing area. Then, with a buzz, the mailbox drawer popped out, revealing two colorful advertisement leaflets lying atop a plain white envelope. Gu Wenxi suddenly became alert, carefully retrieved the letter, and took it upstairs.

The letter was folded into three, on plain white paper with horizontal lines, devoid of any fancy patterns. He had instructed Du Yunyan to write a few casual lines fearing the other might be too busy, but Du Yunyan had written extensively on two large sheets of paper. The familiar handwriting, even clearer than the slightly connected strokes on previous notes, almost resembled regular script.

He wrote about his daytime activities, the guests he encountered at the inn, the harvest in the fields… He was still the person who habitually concealed his emotions beneath superficial words, without any barefaced expressions of affection, only starting a few paragraphs with sentences like “in the future, we’ll do this together.”

After reading it several times, Gu Wenxi hummed a tune as he put away the letter. It wasn’t too late yet, so he sent Du Yunyan a voice invitation.

“Did you receive my letter?”

Gu Wenxi elongated the tone of “mmm” and burped.

“Have you been drinking?”

“How did you know?” Gu Wenxi was surprised. “Can you smell alcohol through the phone?”

“What nonsense,” Du Yunyan said, “last time you drank too much, your speech had this tone.”

“Who said that?” Gu Wenxi sat up a bit from the bed. “I’m still sober.”

“Then you must have really drunk a lot.”

“Yeah, had dinner with the leaders from the real estate bureau,” Gu Wenxi didn’t intend to hide it from him either, “my family mainly deals with real estate and foreign trade, have you heard of it?”

“Mmm.”

“I just haven’t taken over the real estate part before.”

After drinking, it was inevitable to feel a bit restless. Despite the continuous supply of air conditioning in the apartment, Gu Wenxi still felt like there were insects crawling in his stomach and his throat was dry. He unbuttoned his shirt while on the call, being alone at home, he just opened it wide.

“Do you usually have a lot of social events?” Du Yunyan asked.

“Not necessarily, are you worried I can’t handle alcohol?”

“It’s just not good to drink too much.”

The feeling on the other end of the phone was very quiet, except for Du Yunyan’s voice, there was no other noise. But outside the twelfth floor where Gu Wenxi was, the noise of passing vehicles continued at this time.

A few years ago, he liked the bustle and deliberately chose this apartment on a bustling street. The popularity was high, but once the windows weren’t closed properly, all the noise came in.

He got out of bed to close the balcony door with a gap, drew the curtains, poured another glass of water and placed it on the bedside table, and continued chatting with Du Yunyan.

“I won’t be forced to drink, just for the sake of appearances. These things aren’t a big deal, it’s more troublesome to deal with documents.”

Du Yunyan didn’t interrupt him. Gu Wenxi was talkative, and he couldn’t help but share various work-related matters with him. He finished a glass of water while talking, his throat didn’t feel as dry anymore, but the topics even bored himself. He asked Du Yunyan, “You’re not interested in these things, are you?”

“It’s okay,” Du Yunyan said indifferently, “you can talk about anything.”

Gu Wenxi returned to bed and dimmed the bedside lamp. “Are you in your room now?”

“Mmm, it’s late, I finished my work early.”

It was indeed late, but Gu Wenxi wasn’t ready to sleep yet, and he didn’t Want Du Yunyan to sleep either.