Si Moshen watched the car disappear at the end of the road and gave a faint grunt.
"Let's go back to Yue Lan."
He wanted to spend more time with Jiang Zhirou in the last three months.
...
Inside the car.
"I've booked you a flight back to the imperial capital tonight. After you drop me off at the airport later, go through the security check and wait in the waiting lounge directly."
Chen Yu'an in the back row said to Tan Si in the driver's seat.
"Yes, sir." Tan Si rarely didn't refute him and insist on going with him.
Just as Chen Yu'an was thinking, Tan Si's voice rang out again.
"Sir, please be careful on this trip. Miss said she would often go to have meals with you in the future. Don't let her not be able to find you."
He looked at the man in the back row with a smile on his face through the rear - view mirror.
Something flashed in Chen Yu'an's eyes when he heard this. "You talk too much."
Then he lowered his head and looked at the detailed customized route map in his hand.
Tan Si in the driver's seat took a deep look at the man in the back row again, and soon withdrew his gaze.
The car soon reached its destination.
Chen Yu'an and Tan Si entered different airport terminals, one on the left and the other on the right.
"Sir."
Before entering the door, Tan Si suddenly shouted at Chen Yu'an's back.
Chen Yu'an turned his head and looked behind him.
He saw Tan Si waving his arms at him. "Sir, come home on time. Remember that the miss hasn't had a meal with you yet."
Tan Si was more talkative than usual today. Chen Yu'an pursed his lips, and a barely noticeable arc appeared on the corner of his mouth.
"Okay, I know."
But it was too far away for Tan Si to see clearly.
Watching Chen Yu'an's back disappear around the corner, Tan Si slowly put down his arms, casually got into a taxi by the roadside, and the car quickly drove into the traffic.
...
Yue Lan Manor.
Because Si Moshen was on a business trip, Jiang Zhirou had kept her phone on recently. It didn't matter.
Lu Wenxi called her every day, but the phone always showed that it was turned off.
But she still persisted in calling every day. Today, as usual, she dialed Jiang Zhirou's phone as soon as she got home from work.
Originally, she didn't hold much hope, but since she was used to calling her every day, after Lu Wenxi dialed the phone, she turned on the speakerphone, put the phone on the table, and got up and walked to the coffee machine.
"Beep..."
Hearing the sound, Lu Wenxi's hand that was about to make coffee stopped. She suddenly turned around and looked at the phone on the table behind her.
Just when she thought it was an auditory hallucination, that familiar voice came from the phone.
"Hello?"
"Mianbao!"
Lu Wenxi threw the things in her hand and pounced on the phone.
She had a loud voice to begin with, and with her excitement, the decibel was several degrees higher than usual.
Jiang Zhirou held the phone very close to her ear. When she heard the scream, she immediately took the phone away from her ear. She put the phone back to her ear until the voice on the other side stopped.
If she heard correctly, the person on the other end of the phone should be Lu Wenxi.
Only her voice was so recognizable.
Jiang Zhirou held the phone and hesitated whether to hang up.
She had always turned off her phone because she was worried that Chen Qingmian's friends would call her, so she had never turned it on.
These days, because Si Moshen was on a business trip and she needed to contact him, she had turned on her phone after a long time, and she had completely forgotten that the people in the imperial capital would still contact her.
Lu Wenxi on the other end of the phone saw that the other side didn't say a word. She suddenly realized something and immediately apologized. "Sorry, I'm used to calling you Mianbao. I'll call you Jiangjiang from now on. It doesn't sound good. How about calling you Rourou? It feels a bit strange. I'll call you Zhibao! How about that?"
Jiang Zhirou pinched the phone, and her expression was a bit unnatural. "... A name is just a code... If you're used to calling me Mianbao, just keep calling me that."
Hearing this, Lu Wenxi felt inexplicably sour in her heart. "How are you doing there? You never call me. Do you know how much I miss you? I call you every day, and your phone is always turned off. Do you know that your behavior of turning off the phone and cutting off contact is just like that of a heart - breaker."
Jiang Zhirou was very surprised when she heard that Lu Wenxi called her every day. She held the phone and didn't know what to say for a long time.
In her mind, if the call couldn't get through today and still couldn't get through tomorrow, one should stop contacting. But Lu Wenxi was so stubborn that she called every day. What was going on?
It made her seem like a real heart - breaker.
Actually, she just didn't know how to face Chen Qingmian's friends.
If she didn't know how to face them, wasn't avoiding them the best way?
She saw that adults these days were like this. After a long time of no contact, they would naturally stop contacting. Why was Lu Wenxi different from these people?
Lu Wenxi didn't hear her say a word for a long time. She thought she was angry and began to coax her. "Okay, just forget what I said just now. I just want to see if you're happy there. As long as you're happy, that's enough. If there's nothing else, I'll hang up now."
Saying that, Lu Wenxi was about to hang up the phone.
"Wenxi!"
Jiang Zhirou on the other end of the phone suddenly called her.
Lu Wenxi was a bit surprised.
Actually, she was about to give up.
Unilateral feelings, whether it was friendship or love, would make anyone tired if they just kept giving. Moreover, Jiang Zhirou only deliberately avoided her.
If one didn't have a strong heart, they really couldn't accept the other person's repeated estrangement.
Jiang Zhirou slowly tightened her hand holding the phone, and her ears were a bit red.
She now knew that blindly avoiding would only make things worse. No matter how deep the feelings were, they would be consumed.
And the problem still hadn't been solved. It was still there, waiting for someone to solve it.
"Wenxi, I didn't mean to avoid you. I just don't know how to get along with you. I'm afraid you'll treat me as a substitute for Chen Qingmian. I'm also afraid that you'll pour all your emotions and yearning for her on me. I don't like this feeling. I don't want to be anyone's substitute. I hope my friends are willing to get along with me because of who I am, not as a substitute for a non - existent person. Wenxi, do you understand what I mean?"
Lu Wenxi on the other end of the phone was silent for a long time. "You're Jiang Zhirou and also Chen Qingmian, but you're not anyone's substitute. We didn't just meet, right?"
"I know that after you were adopted by Chen Yu'an and after you met us, you actually showed up many times, right? It's just that you were still called Chen Qingmian at that time."
"If I'm not wrong, except for the year when you were eighteen, you've been there for every major moment in my life, right?"