novelraw Chapter 101 The Waiting Chapter
Chapter 101 The Waiting Chapter
In front of the villa.
The outline is complete, the facade is finished, and only the interior decoration remains.
Lu Xiran stood at the door, hesitated for a few seconds, and then pushed the door open and went in.
The unfinished house was empty, with a cement floor and exposed pipes. Yet, walking through it, she could imagine everything from the blueprints.
The living room. The floor-to-ceiling windows face the distant snow-capped mountains. Sunlight pours in unobstructed, casting huge patches of light on the floor.
She stood there, with her eyes closed.
Imagine waking up in the morning and the first thing you see is this snow.
The kitchen. An open-plan island; she once said she liked to chat with people while cooking.
The staircase. There's a small window at the corner, marked on the blueprint as "Place greenery here".
Second floor. Master bedroom.
The starry sky ceiling has a recessed groove in the ceiling. Lying here at night, you can see a whole Milky Way.
Third floor. Nursery.
Facing south, the sunniest corner.
Lu Xiran stood there, looking at the empty wall.
There was nothing on the wall. No giraffes, no colors, nothing of everything she had ever imagined.
But as she stood there, it was as if she saw it.
I saw a tiny crib, I saw sunlight falling on that tiny face, I saw him bend down and kiss the child's forehead.
If... if that child were still alive.
If everything were different.
Lu Xiran stood there for a long time.
Then she turned around and went downstairs.
My footsteps pounded lightly on the cement steps.
I had just reached the first floor when I bumped into someone.
Song Zhihe.
"What are you doing here?" Song Zhihe's gaze swept across her face, filled with undisguised contempt.
Lu Xiran didn't speak.
She didn't want to talk to her.
As she turned to leave, her arm was grabbed.
"This is the wedding room Yan Shen prepared for me." Song Zhihe's voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear. "I don't want to see you here again."
The wedding room.
Those two words were like a bucket of cold water poured over my head.
Lu Xiran stood still.
Those barely suppressed feelings of excitement, those thoughts that almost made her rush back to ask him—why he remembered the giraffe, why he designed the starry sky ceiling—
Everything has cooled down by now.
Yes.
They got engaged.
His villa had nothing to do with her.
Those thoughts she once had, those sketches she once drew, those dreams she once shared with him in the dead of night—
He simply gave it to someone else.
Lu Xiran suddenly found it somewhat ridiculous.
How could he do this?
How could he give her dream to someone else?
She shook off Song Zhihe's hand.
"This is our company's project," she said in a flat voice. "I'm here to see the site."
Song Zhihe's face darkened.
Anything else you want to say?
"Teacher Song!"
The assistant came running from a distance, panting heavily.
"We need to continue filming, the director is urging us—"
Song Zhihe glanced at Lu Xiran, her gaze carrying a warning.
Then she turned around and left in her high heels.
Lu Xiran stood still.
She looked up at the villa.
Floor-to-ceiling windows, starry sky ceiling, nursery.
The things that had just made her heart race now seemed like they were separated by a thick layer of glass.
good looking.
But it has nothing to do with her.
She withdrew her gaze and walked into the twilight.
Lu Xiran returned to the company and went straight to Shen Hanchi's office.
"I probably can't take on this project."
Shen Hanchi was drinking tea when he heard this. He looked up, his face innocent: "Why?"
"I have some personal issues with the client."
"Personal matters?" Shen Hanchi put down his teacup and smiled. "Emma, you know I've been on the phone with Bella since I started trying to borrow you."
Lu Xiran looked at him.
"And I gave her the bottle of wine I've been saving for ten years!" Shen Hanchi gestured. "Just that one bottle, I couldn't bear to drink it, I was saving it for our wedding. Bella personally agreed, and I convinced her to let you stay."
He stood up and walked over to her.
"Besides, this project is a key focus for the company this year. If the final touches on the Ruijing project are done well, it can become a flagship project for the branch. Can you bear to see the fruits of our three years of hard work go to waste?"
Lu Xiran opened her mouth.
Unable to win the argument.
Besides... she has already agreed.
"...I tried my best."
Shen Hanchi patted her shoulder with satisfaction: "That's more like it."
Lu Xiran returned to the temporary office and opened the thick stack of documents.
Igloo. Auditorium. Villa.
Ten versions of the plan were proposed, and each one was rejected.
She flipped to the feedback from Gu Yanshen that her assistant had compiled.
Hit the nail on the head.
The lighting and shadows are incorrect.
The snow house isn't about being bright, it's about being translucent. You missed the point about the texture of light filtering through the snow walls.
[For the auditorium's dome, I want flowing light, not static light.]
Flowing light.
She recalled the dome designed by her senior—sunlight passes through a specific angle, moving slowly throughout the day, as if the entire starry sky had been contained within the building.
Gu Yanshen provided his senior's first draft as a blueprint; that's probably the effect he wanted, right?
She hesitated for a few seconds before opening her email.
I haven't been in touch with that address for four years.
The senior never replied to any of her emails—except for the first one.
But she still wanted to give it a try.
[Dear senior, I hope you are well.]
She typed the first line.
I'm so sorry we haven't been in touch for so long. A lot has happened in these four years. It's also a great coincidence that I saw your manuscript. But I have a few questions about the first draft that I'd like to ask you.
send.
Lu Xiran stared at the screen for a few seconds, then shook her head and continued flipping through the documents.
There will be no reply.
He never replied to any of the emails except the first one.
She opened the next document and began to sort out all the questions Gu Yanshen had raised earlier.
Light. Material. Structure.
Every piece of feedback was frighteningly accurate, as if it could only be written by someone who had personally designed it countless times.
As Lu Xiran read and took notes, she didn't realize that the time in the lower right corner of her computer had jumped to 2 a.m.
She rubbed her eyes, preparing to close the laptop.
"bite."
New email.
From: Gregory.
Lu Xiran was stunned.
She opened the email.
The senior's reply was very long, filling the screen with dense text. He listed all the questions she had raised, drawing diagrams for each and labeling them with detailed data and principles.
What surprised her even more was that she had only casually mentioned a few of Gu Yanshen's feedback, yet her senior was able to accurately point out the design direction behind that feedback—in some places, even she hadn't figured it out.
The lighting and shadows on the dome need to be adjusted to match the light transmittance of the igloo; it is recommended to adjust the structural angle by three degrees.
The auditorium's layout needs to be redesigned; the root cause of the problems you mentioned lies in conflicting circulation patterns.
The villa's floor-to-ceiling windows face the right direction, but the sunshade design needs to be changed, otherwise it will be too sunny in the summer.
As Lu Xiran stared at the words, something suddenly lit up in her mind.