novelraw Chapter 183 Never See You Again
Chapter 183 Never See You Again
After saying goodbye to Xin Mubai, Lu Xiran walked very slowly.
She lowered her head and moved forward step by step along the sycamore trees lining the street. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, scattering golden fragments on the ground. She stepped on them, not knowing where she was going.
My mind is filled with Xin Mubai's last words—"Have you ever considered that your senior might be someone close to you?"
Besides Xin Mubai, she only saw one other person yesterday.
The man sat by the island counter, a glass of ice-cold water in his hand, and looked at her, saying, "That's good." He added, "What if he weren't my senior?" Every time he said "Have a safe trip," her plane could never escape his grasp.
An idea she never dared to believe suddenly popped into her mind.
She stopped and stood on the side of the street, as if struck by lightning.
No, that's impossible.
How could he possibly be her senior? He never mentioned it. Those emails, those late-night replies, all the time they spent together—how could he not have mentioned it at all?
She started to tremble. It started in her fingers and went all the way up to her shoulders. She hailed a taxi, and her voice was hoarse when she gave the address.
When she got home, she practically burst through the door. The computer took an eternity to boot up. She opened her email, opened the villa blueprints that Gu Yanshen had revised, and opened every email her senior had sent. She compared them one by one, line by line.
The lines were drawn in the same way. The labeling was the same. Even the descriptions of light and shadow were exactly the same. Those similarities she thought were coincidences, those connections she thought were the unspoken understanding between geniuses—it turned out they were never coincidences at all.
She stared at the two windows side-by-side on the screen, and tears suddenly streamed down her face. One drop, then two, fell onto the keyboard, splashing into tiny droplets.
She typed a few words with trembling hands: "Meet me on the top floor. Immediately. Right now."
send.
The moment she sent the email, she leaned back in her chair, feeling completely drained. It turned out the senior she'd been searching for was him. All those late-night companionships, those gentle replies—they were all from him.
He'd always been there. He'd never left.
But why didn't he tell her? Why didn't he say a word when she said last night that her senior was Xin Mubai? Why did he choose to watch her misunderstand and mistake another man for the one who had been with her for three years, without explaining anything?
She stood up, pushed open the door, and stepped into the elevator. The numbers ticked by, and she stared at the changing number, tears streaming down her face. She didn't know why she was crying. Was it resentment, anger, or something else she couldn't explain, something stuck in her chest, threatening to explode?
Ten minutes. She sat on the sofa and waited for ten minutes. Every second felt like it was stretched a hundred times longer.
The door opened.
He stood in the doorway, his coat still on, his tie loose, as if he had rushed back from somewhere. He looked at her red-rimmed eyes and tear-streaked face, his lips moved as if he wanted to call out to her.
She spoke first.
"Gu Yanshen," her voice trembled, "is it fun to play with me like this?"
He froze. "Ranran—"
"Don't call me!" She stood up abruptly, tears streaming down her face, landing at his feet. "You hate me that much? You're so eager to push me onto other men?"
"I am not—"
"Not what?" She took a step forward, staring into his eyes. "Yesterday when I said you were Xin Mubai, didn't you feel especially relieved? Finally, finally you could get rid of me, didn't you? Finally you wouldn't have to see me anymore, right?"
"Ranran, calm down—"
"How can I stay calm!" she yelled, her voice echoing in the empty living room. Tears streamed down her face, but she didn't care anymore; she couldn't care about anything else. "Gu Yanshen, you've kept this from me for so long. More than three years, a full three years. You watched me act like a fool, searching everywhere for that senior, saying thank you to thin air, mistaking someone else for you—didn't you find that incredibly funny?"
"I don't--"
"You have it!" she interrupted him. "You have everything. You have Song Zhihe, you have your own difficulties, you have your own reasons. You pushed me away, hurt me, treated me as a substitute, a burden, a nuisance. I accept it, I accept it all. But why didn't you tell me? Why did you keep even this from me?"
Her voice shattered into fragments.
"Do you know how grateful I am to that senior? Do you know what those emails meant to me? In my saddest moments, when I thought the whole world had abandoned me—he was there for me. That person is you, it has always been you. But you would rather watch me mistake someone else for him than tell me the truth."
She raised her hand and pointed to the door. "Do you think that as long as you push me to Xin Mubai, you'll be free? You won't have to face me anymore? You won't have to feel guilty towards me anymore?"
"That's not how it works—"
"What?!" she practically screamed, tears streaming down her face and landing on the back of his hand, hot and wet. "Gu Yanshen, I hate you. I hate that you kept it from me, I hate that you watched me act like a clown, guessing what was going on in front of you. Every time you saw the emails I sent you, did you think—this woman is so stupid, right?"
"Ranran!" He stepped forward and grabbed her arm.
She broke free. "I hate you. I hate how you toy with me, how you trample on my love, my dignity. I've decided I don't want you anymore." Her voice suddenly softened, as if she were saying it to herself. "I never want you again."
She took out her phone and tapped his profile picture. She deleted him from her contacts. His number popped up; she pressed delete. On WeChat, she pinned the chat and deleted it. All chat windows were cleared. Every movement was swift, as if she were fleeing.
"Ranran—" His hand covered hers, trying to hold her fingers.
She dodged it.
"I'm going back to Switzerland the day after tomorrow." She looked up into his eyes. There were no tears in those eyes, only a calm that frightened him. "Don't worry, I won't be coming back. I had already decided not to."
She took a step back, then another. "From this moment on, we have nothing to do with each other."
She turned around and walked towards the door.
"Never again."
The door opened. She went out.
Gu Yanshen stood there, watching her disappear into the light outside the door.
He raised his hand to block it. His fingers were trembling.
In the corridor, Lu Xiran leaned against the wall, panting heavily.
She looked down at the empty contacts on her phone screen.
His number is no longer available.
There are no more senior students.
There will never be those late-night emails, those gentle replies, or those people she thought would always be with her again.
There's nothing left.
She clutched her phone tightly in her hand, her knuckles turning white. Tears started falling again, drop by drop, hitting the screen and shattering into invisible mist. She raised her hand to wipe them away, but the more she wiped, the more tears streamed down her face.
She squatted down and buried her face in her knees.
The corridor was quiet.
Only her own suppressed, broken breathing could be heard.