In fact, Lu Bancheng didn’t have plans later that day, and he had been forcing himself not to disturb her and to stay away from her. He stepped on the accelerator without any hesitation and drove off. After driving quite a distance, he then stepped on the brake and stopped by the road before he leaned against the steering wheel motionlessly.
…
Xu Wennuan drove home after dinner at Gu Yusheng’s and Qin Zhi’ai’s place. Back when she had moved out of Lu Bancheng’s apartment, she had been tight on cash and even owed Qin Zhi’ai $800,000, thus she had not rented an apartment and moved back home to live with her parents.
For the past year, however, because the spa was in an ideal location, it had reaped high profits and, as a result, her salary had increased severalfold. At the start of the year, not only had she managed to pay back her debt to Qin Zhi’ai, but she had also even paid three months of rent for a small apartment.
Initially, she had merely wanted to responsibly manage her finances and had never thought about buying a house but, when she had casually mentioned the idea to Zero, he had encouraged her to buy one. He had told her that nothing else in Beijing would retain its value as much as property. With her limited savings, Xu Wennuan had initially wanted to buy something in the suburbs, but after Zero had analyzed the market, he had recommended that she buy a property in the heart of the city. After having paid the rent for her apartment, though, her savings were gone but, because property prices had recently skyrocketed, she decided to wait to buy a property, but she was still grateful for the advice that Zero had given to her.
After returning home to her apartment, Xu Wennuan jogged on her treadmill at the balcony for half an hour before she took a hot shower, drank a cup of warm milk, and climbed into bed to sleep. Perhaps because she had been caught off guard when she had bumped into Lu Bancheng that day, memories from the past, which had been locked away in the bottom of her heart, were fully reawakened.
That night she had a nightmare for the first time in eight months. She awoke with a start and clutched tightly onto her blanket as she sprang and sat up in bed. She inhaled deeply for several breaths before she scanned her surroundings. She only heaved a sigh of relief when she realized that she was in her own apartment.
Compared to the helplessness and fear that she had experienced when she had woken up from her nightmares in the past, she recovered much more quickly. After calming down, she tossed her blanket aside and got out of bed. She went into the changing room and changed her pajamas, which were fully drenched with sweat, before walking to the dining area to pour a cup of warm water.
As she leaned against the dining table and slowly drank her water, she held up her phone to glance at the time. It was 3:00 a.m. Suddenly, as if she recalled something, she tapped into the game. Sure enough, she saw a joke that Zero had messaged to her. Xu Wennuan didn’t respond and merely scrolled through their chat history to look at their previous messages. Every day, he had sent her a joke at 3:00 a.m. sharp.
The chemistry between them had only developed at the end of the summer the previous year. Back then, it had been two weeks since she had divorced Lu Bancheng. Because of her psychological problems, she had had nightmares every night. That day, perhaps because of her period, she had already been feeling down, so she had cried unusually hard in bed that night until her tears had dampened her pillow. Because she had been afraid that her colleagues would have found it strange if she had gone to work with a pair of red, bloated eyes, she had started the game to divert her attention. Unexpectedly, Zero had been online, and he had asked, “Why are you still awake when it’s so late?”
Feeling drained from all the crying, she had not replied to his message, so after a short while, he had sent her another one. “Having nightmares again?”
