◎ You’re sick.◎

I thought that distance would help me get over my short-lived infatuation with Xu Tiancheng. Reality proved me completely wrong. Not only did I fail to move on, but in the days we didn’t see each other, my feelings for him only grew stronger.

I started panicking. That fear led me to do something incredibly inconsiderate—I began ghosting him. Part of it was because I was genuinely busy with work. But I have to admit, selfishly, I also wanted to see if not meeting him and reducing our conversations would help cool down my emotions.

I deliberately kept my distance. Xu Tiancheng, being sharp, must have sensed it as a sign that I wanted to end things. The unspoken understanding between adults is cruel like that. His messages became less frequent as well. As I continued to distance myself, I realized with sadness that I had let our connection grow cold.

I fell back into my dull, work-filled routine, going through life without excitement.

That day, I finally wasn’t traveling for work, so I went downstairs for lunch with a few colleagues. To my surprise, the restaurant below our office had changed almost beyond recognition.

I must have stood still for too long, because a colleague patted my shoulder from behind and said, “We just asked you what you wanted for lunch. Why are you zoning out so hard?”

I replied weakly, “I’m writing poetry.”

“What?”

I sighed dramatically. “I was just thinking… nothing in this world is permanent.”

“What are you even talking about?”

I put on an exaggeratedly tragic expression. “I knew it. I’m just too deep for you guys to understand.”

My colleagues burst into laughter.

Once the laughter died down, one of them, someone I was closer to, looked at me with concern. “Lexiong, did something happen recently? You don’t seem like yourself.”

“That’s an understatement!” Another male colleague slapped his thigh. “I’ve known you for years, and I’ve never seen you like this.”

I blinked in surprise. “Is it that obvious?”

“Of course. Just look at yourself.”

He motioned toward my phone.

I obediently turned on the front camera. Oh wow… My face was practically covered in gloom. Even my bright red lipstick couldn’t hide how drained I looked.

I put my phone away and waved them off. “You guys don’t get it. I bought a lottery ticket the other day, but I messed up one number. I was this close to being a billionaire. I’m still grieving.”

They laughed again, assuming I was joking.

But only I knew that my regret was both real and metaphorical. Was Xu Tiancheng the winning ticket to my happiness that I had let slip away?

Sigh… Who would have thought I’d end up like this?

Lunch felt tasteless, but after eating, a colleague suggested we check out the gym downstairs. We took a completely different route on the way there.

This gym had been a hot topic in our company lately. A while ago, they suddenly put up a sign saying they were closing for renovations, which had everyone panicking. It was too close to our office, and many colleagues, including myself, had invested quite a bit in membership cards.

From a distance, we saw the doors were open, with workers carrying construction materials in and out. As we got closer, we peeked through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Inside, several workers were busy with renovations.

Good. It really was under renovation. At least it wasn’t a scam.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and was about to leave when someone suddenly called out—

“Sister!”

The voice sounded vaguely familiar. I stood frozen for a few seconds before realizing it was directed at me. When I turned around, I saw my long-lost personal trainer. I hadn’t seen him in so long that I almost wouldn’t have recognized him in a crowd.

Since we finally ran into someone who might have answers, my colleagues immediately crowded around him, bombarding him with questions.

“What’s going on?”

“Yeah! Why renovate all of a sudden? The place looked fine before!”

The trainer explained, “The owner changed. The new boss has high standards.”

“Huh?” My colleagues gasped. “So… what about our memberships? Can we still use them?”

“Don’t worry,” the trainer assured us. “It’s just a change of ownership. Everything else stays the same. It’s all been agreed upon.”

Another colleague asked, “When’s the reopening? My belly’s starting to show!”

“Soon,” the trainer said. “Probably in the next few weeks. The new owner just moved from another city, so he needs some time to settle in.”

It sounded like the new boss was serious about this place, which made everyone happy. Everyone except me.

I wasn’t really paying attention. I absentmindedly kicked at an invisible pebble, feeling a sense of doom as if the sky were about to collapse.

*

The trainer wasn’t lying. Before long, the gym downstairs started its soft opening.

Following tradition, they went around the office building handing out discount coupons. If you showed your employee badge, you could get special membership deals. This was a common marketing tactic among businesses in the area.

Then, one afternoon—

“Oh my God! He’s so handsome! The new boss is so good-looking! I’m signing up for a lifetime membership, and no one can stop me!”

My colleague practically threw herself at me, eager to share this exciting news.

At that moment, I was frowning at my phone, staring at my old chat history with Xu Tiancheng.

Who would believe it? The last time we talked was three days ago, and I was the one who initiated it. After work, I asked him what he was doing, and his reply came two hours later.

X: “I was busy just now.”

Just one sentence, and I received his silent notice that he no longer wanted to share things with me. I got the message and didn’t text him again. He never reached out either.

Ha, I flipped my phone face-down on the desk, seething with frustration.

I actually thought that as long as we didn’t meet, I could walk away from this relationship. Walk away? My ass.

I was the one who kept rejecting him. I was the one who deliberately ignored him at the beginning. If things have come to this point, I have only myself to blame.

Regretting it now? Serves you right. Who told you to dig your own grave?

I silently cursed myself, torn between whether I should take the weekend to make one last attempt.

“Lexin, did you hear me? A super handsome guy!”

Seeing that I didn’t react, my coworker shook me violently, making my head ache.

I, You Lexin, a self-proclaimed veteran admirer of good looks, actually felt so drained that I didn’t even have the energy to turn my head toward the commotion. “How handsome? Is he better looking than Xiao Chen from the IT department?”

My coworker was practically beaming with excitement. “Forget Xiao Chen, even the famous star Xiang Yi might not be on par with him!”

“That exaggerated, huh?” I remained slumped over my desk, typing away, still uninterested.

“You’ll understand once you see him for yourself!”

She grabbed my suit sleeve and squealed excitedly,

“He’s coming! He’s walking this way!”

I already knew he was coming because the surrounding whispers of admiration were growing louder. I thought everyone was being dramatic. Amidst the collective gasps of “He’s so handsome!” I slowly turned my head—

Oh my god.

The man who had been occupying my thoughts, the one who made me lose sleep and appetite, was walking through the crowd, step by step, toward me.

For a moment, I was dazed. Everything around him blurred into indistinct shadows, like a dream. I couldn’t even tell if I was hallucinating from thinking about him too much.

I rubbed my eyes in disbelief and looked again.

No mistake. It was really him.

I shot up from my seat, but he didn’t continue walking toward me.

Someone intercepted him—a bold and outgoing woman from the neighboring department. She tiptoed, hands behind her back, and asked with a playful smile, “They say you’re the boss? Oh, boss, if I buy a hundred private training sessions, can you personally train me?”

Xu Tiancheng stood at an angle to me, and with all the noise around us, I couldn’t hear his response. But judging from my coworker’s delighted expression, it probably wasn’t a rejection.

Of course. He runs a business. Why would he turn down a big-spending customer?

I slumped back into my chair, feeling like a jar of aged sour plums. The sourness bubbled up through every pore of my body, so intense that it turned bitter.

The office tour continued with lively chatter. I sat with my back to the commotion, but it felt like my ears and eyes had migrated to my back, keenly tracking his every move.

A short walk felt as long as the journey to the West for the Tang Monk. I secretly fumed—why was everyone suddenly so enthusiastic about this particular business when they never paid this much attention to others?

It felt like an eternity, a wait so long it could have changed history. But finally, finally, Xu Tiancheng was almost at my desk.

I had taken deep breaths hundreds of times, determined to stand up gracefully when he arrived, to maintain my most elegant smile, and to greet him with poise—

That was the plan.

Damn it. My heart refused to cooperate. It was overwhelmed with sourness, unease, and panic. I was not mentally prepared to act like a proper ex-girlfriend or ex-lover.

He was here.

His footsteps grew closer until he was right behind me. My nerves were completely shot. The only thing I could do was avoid looking at him. I pretended to focus intensely on my computer screen, mindlessly scrolling my mouse up and down.

Did he recognize me?

Had he already forgotten what I looked like?

Well, it’s not like someone could recognize an old acquaintance just by their back.

A storm of thoughts crashed through my mind. My heart pounded like I had just run 800 meters and resurfaced from underwater. My back was probably drenched in sweat.

But Xu Tiancheng simply placed a flyer on my desk and walked past me without saying a word—not even a standard promotional pitch.

A wave of bitterness surged through me. I clenched my teeth, forcing myself not to lose composure at work. I grabbed the tissues from my desk, planning to run to the restroom for a good cry. Once I was done, I’d come out as if nothing had happened.

Before I could even stand up, something completely unexpected happened.

After walking a few steps away, he suddenly stopped. He hesitated for just a moment, then decisively turned around and strode back toward me.

I looked up in surprise, meeting his deep, unreadable gaze.

When Xu Tiancheng got emotional, his ears tended to turn red.

His eyes held something vast—mountains, rivers, an ocean of emotions. Overwhelming, impossible to ignore.

He looked at me with such seriousness and said, word by word—

“I knew you worked here. That’s why I came. You’ve rejected me so many times, but I still ended up here. Probably because I never gave up.”

“You Lexin, is there still a chance for me? Give me a clear answer.”

The office buzzed with shocked whispers. I stared into his eyes, seeing his frustration, his persistence.

I couldn’t hold back anymore. Tears streamed down my face.

“You’re sick.”

Laughing and crying at the same time, I turned my head away and threw my tissue at him.