Xiao Yanzhi stood at the foot of the mountain for a long time.
It was too empty here. Xue An began to feel bored. "Mr. Xiao, what do you think they're chatting about up there? Will Young Master Sheng confess his love to Sister Jiang Li? And will Sister Jiang Li accept it?"
Xiao Yanzhi: "..."
He found it quite dull and simply ignored his words. He lowered his head and felt for a cigarette in his pocket.
"Mr. Xiao, the doctor said your heart is damaged. Smoking will harm your heart and lung functions and is not conducive to the recovery of your wound."
Xiao Yanzhi: "I don't care."
Xue An added, "But Sister Jiang Li doesn't like the smell of cigarettes."
Xiao Yanzhi paused for a moment and hesitantly took his hand out of his pocket. His palm was empty.
After a while, Xiao Yanzhi let out a laugh. "It's not that she doesn't like the smell of cigarettes. She doesn't even like me anymore."
Xue An could tell that Xiao Yanzhi had lost weight compared to before.
His overcoat fluttered in the wind. His face was silent, and he looked very distant.
"Let's go back."
His tone was brief. The back view of him turning around and leaving was cold and lonely.
---
"How's the matter I asked you to investigate going?"
After Xiao Yanzhi returned to his room, he took off his overcoat and hung it on the back of the chair. He undid the top two buttons of his collar. Maybe because he had been in the wind just now, his voice was a bit hoarse.
"I haven't found any useful information. All I know is that Sister Jiang Li registered her household late back then." Xue An reported truthfully.
Xiao Yanzhi nodded slightly and asked, "Have you found out the hospital where she was born?"
"I've found it. It was a small maternity hospital on Xile Street. That street was renovated ten years ago, and the hospital has been demolished. I can't get in touch with the medical staff from that time either."
Xile Street.
Xiao Yanzhi was silent for a while. "Where is Zhou Ningyun now? Send me her exact address."
Xue An was a bit confused about what his boss was thinking. "Mr. Xiao, do you think there's something wrong with Sister Jiang Li's background? But Sister Jiang Li's hometown is on Xile Street, and now Zhou Ningyun has also returned to the old house there, which means Sister Jiang Li grew up on Xile Street."
Xiao Yanzhi glanced at him. "Too talkative."
Xue An had no choice but to obediently shut up.
After Xue An left the room, Xiao Yanzhi rubbed the space between his eyebrows and casually opened the bottom drawer.
His original intention was to take out the previous materials about Jiang Li and look through them again to see if he could find any other details. As a result, he saw the USB flash drive that he had asked Xue An to repair.
The emerald - green metal shell was very eye - catching under the light.
He thought for a moment and inserted it into the computer.
There was nothing redundant in the USB flash drive, only an audio file that was a few minutes long. He double - clicked to play it.
Since he hadn't expected the content inside, he was completely caught off guard when he heard the familiar voice.
By the time he had listened to every word in the audio, the pain in his chest came surging in, leaving him no time to dodge.
"Xu Yansen, I think I'm done for. I really love him so much."
The moment the drunken female voice came out of the speaker, Xiao Yanzhi felt as if his heart skipped a beat.
He thought the first sentence was already a heavy blow to him, but every word that followed was like fine needles, stabbing his heart one by one.
"Before I met him, I thought my life had reached its end; but now I have a new goal, and I feel like I can live on again."
"He's actually a very lonely person. I want to accompany him for a lifetime."
"His family doesn't like me. I've been trying hard to win his mother's favor recently."
"I won a film award last week, and he presented the award to me. I whispered that I liked him at that time, but it was too noisy on the stage, and he didn't hear it. What a pity."
"Will he think my love is a burden? All he needs is a well - behaved person who can create value for him."
"He will definitely get married and have children in the future. If it's not me, what should I do then? I think I might die. Sounds extreme, doesn't it? But I really can't bear to think about him being with someone else. I'm so selfish."
"But I don't want to be a mistress. I want to be with him openly."
"I've decided that when I win the Best Actress award, I'm going to stand on the stage I love the most and confess my feelings to him, regardless of whether he responds or not - this will be the bravest thing I've ever done in my life."
At the end of the audio, Jiang Li was still mumbling softly when she was drunk and unconscious.
"So this is what it feels like to love someone. It hurts so much, but it's also so happy."
"I really love him so much."
By the end, Xiao Yanzhi took a deep, suppressed breath.
It turned out that there was something more painful than being stabbed in the heart with a knife.
Xiao Yanzhi glanced at the file date. It was three years ago, the first year he met Jiang Li.
It turned out that she had already said she loved him a long time ago.
It was just that he hadn't heard it.
And she never mentioned it again.
He remembered that a few months ago, he had asked her why she had never said she liked him and why she had never shown any feelings for him.
Now he realized how absurd and ridiculous he had been when he said that.
She had actually said it thousands of times.
Xiao Yanzhi closed his eyes and tilted his face slightly upwards. His heart ached so much that he could hardly breathe.
This was her initial love for him, pure and sincere love without any impurities.
But he had lost her love.
Although this audio was evidence that she had once loved him, his eyes lost focus, and he was too afraid to open this audio and listen to it a second time.
He suddenly wanted to hear Jiang Li's voice now.
And he did just that. When he dialed the number, his hand holding the phone tightened involuntarily.
"Hello?"
Jiang Li on the other end of the phone answered first. Her voice was very calm. "What's up?"
Xiao Yanzhi was stunned for a moment.
There was no fluctuation in her tone. It was that kind of sense of propriety without any emotion. "Hello? Is the signal gone?"
"I can hear you." Xiao Yanzhi lowered his face and calmly said, "It's nothing. I just wanted to ask how you've been recently?"
He tried his best to control his tone so as not to let his emotions show.
Jiang Li replied with a smile, "I'm fine. How about you?"
"I'm not fine."
As soon as he said it, he felt it was too abrupt, but it was too late to take it back.
Hearing him say this, she asked politely, "Is your wound not healed yet?"
"… Yeah, sort of."
She pursed her lips. "I hope you'll recover soon."
Xiao Yanzhi tried hard to stay calm. He opened his mouth. "The USB flash drive last time..."
Suddenly, Sheng Jingxi's unruly voice came from the other end of the phone, interrupting what he was about to say next. "Hey, who are you talking to? Let me check."