novelraw Chapter 206 Unsent Emails
Chapter 206 Unsent Emails
Lu Xiran stared at her phone screen; the message, "Don't come. I'm ashamed to see you," was still lit up, like a thorn piercing her heart. She didn't send any more messages or make any more calls. She knew Jin Qiqi too well—the more guilty she felt, the less she wanted to see her. Not because she didn't care, but because she cared too much. Cared so much that she felt unworthy of forgiveness. Lu Xiran sighed, placed her phone face down on the table, leaned back in her chair, and looked out the window.
She needed time. She needed to pull herself out of the swamp of self-blame, little by little. Trying to pull her out would only make her sink deeper. Lu Xiran could only wait. Wait until she had cried enough, thought things through, and came to her. She believed Jin Qiqi would come. Because they were best friends, and that had never changed.
Sunlight streamed in through the French windows, landing warmly on the back of her hand. She looked down at the faint ring mark on her ring finger. It had faded, almost invisible, but she knew it was still there. Just like those memories, those she thought she had forgotten, but were actually buried deep within her heart—they were always there, waiting to be awakened.
She remembered what he had said. She remembered that mermaid wedding dress.
Those were their most beautiful memories.
That wedding dress always hung in the most prominent position in the master bedroom's walk-in closet. His obsession with it was so deep that it made her cheeks burn.
master bedroom.
If Gu Yanshen has always loved her, then in the master bedroom, is it as she once guessed, that he hides his deepest love for her? Those things she thought Song Zhihe would replace, those traces she thought had been cleaned up and would never exist again—were they actually still there all along?
She stood up, picked up her phone, and walked out the door. The numbers on the private elevator ticked up, and her heart pounded with each step. She reached the top floor, the door opened, and the corridor was quiet except for the sound of her footsteps. She walked to the door, placed her hand on the handle, and took a deep breath. The door wasn't locked. She gently pushed it open.
Nothing has changed.
It was exactly the same as when she was there. She walked into the walk-in closet, where her clothes were still hanging, one by one, neatly arranged, in the exact same order. Her usual jeans, the white shirt he complimented, the sweater she had half-knitted—they were all still there. On the recliner lay her pajamas from the night before she left, folded neatly, as if waiting for her to return and put them on.
It was as if she had only gone on a three-year trip, and now that she was back, nothing had changed.
Her rag doll was still on the bed. The rabbit, whose ears she'd pulled crookedly, the one that'd kept her company through countless sleepless nights, lay quietly against the pillow, as if waiting for her to come home. She went over, picked up the rabbit, and pressed it against her face. The fabric was soft and old. Tears fell silently, drop by drop, onto the rabbit's ears.
She slowly walked into the room, touching every trace of her life there. Her skincare products were still on the dressing table, expired, but he hadn't thrown them away. Her book was still on the bedside table, the bookmark stuck on the page she had been reading.
He was also secretly loving her in the time she didn't know.
She went to the desk, sat down, and entered her password. The screen lit up, still displaying her emails. Every single email she'd sent him lay quietly in his inbox, arranged chronologically, from three years ago to yesterday, not a single one missing. She opened the oldest one. She didn't know he'd received it, didn't know he'd read it, didn't know he'd read it over and over again late at night. How many times had he read each email late into the night? She dared not think about it.
Beside the desk, she saw the rolled-up blueprint. It was rolled into a tube, secured with a rubber band, the edges worn, as if repeatedly unfolded and rolled up. She picked it up, untied the rubber band, and unrolled it. It was the design of the villa. Floor-to-ceiling windows, a starry sky ceiling, a nursery, and the hydrangeas and blue plumbago she loved in the yard. The villa he gave her, according to her preferences, her dream villa. A collaborative creation of his vision and her design. Looking at the lines, the lines she had drawn herself, the lines he had revised himself, she suddenly understood—it wasn't for Song Zhihe, never had been. It was for her. From the very first stroke, it was for her.
She pressed the drawing to her chest, tears welling up and almost blurring the paper. She quickly removed it, reaching for a tissue, but her fingertips touched a strip of paper tucked beneath the drawing. It was yellowed, with slightly curled edges, folded into a small square.
She opened it.
The above is his handwriting, written with a fountain pen, each stroke carefully and meticulously:
"A home for Ranran."
The date on the document was three and a half years ago. It was before her birthday. It was a birthday gift he had prepared for her, before she miscarried, before he pushed her away, before anything could be said.
Lu Xiran's tears flowed uncontrollably, blurring her vision. She sobbed uncontrollably, her shoulders trembling, pressing the note to her face, to her heart. So he had prepared everything three years ago. He loved her so much.
It turns out that the reason he pushed her away for the past three years was not because he didn't love her, but because he loved her too much.
He loved her so much that he was afraid she would get hurt, loved her so much that he would rather bear it all alone, loved her so much that he would push her away, make her hate him, and make her safe.
She carefully put away the note and drawings, wiped away her tears, and sat back down at her desk. She began to read through the emails one by one—those she had written to him and those he had received. Then she opened her sent items folder. There was a pile of unsent emails, each one addressed to her, and none of them had been sent.
She clicked on the top one.
"Ranran, I'm sorry. I made you cry again today. I don't know how to comfort you, I don't know how to make you believe me. I only know that I can't live without you."
She scrolled down.
"Ranran, it's snowing in Switzerland. The photos you took are beautiful. I thought about the way you smiled in the snow all night."
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"Ranran, you asked me why I'm always checking my phone. It's because I'm waiting for your emails. You told me what you ate today, where you went, and who you met. You said you missed home. You said you dreamed about me. You don't know, I dream about you too. Every single day."
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He replied to every single one. He wrote each one carefully. Each one remained in the drafts folder, unsent. She didn't know how many he wrote, how many words he wrote, or how many late nights he spent typing and deleting, deleting and typing again, only to never press the send button.
All she knew was that he had always been there. He had never left.
She suddenly noticed an open window, minimized and tucked away at the bottom of the screen, with a camera icon. She paused for a moment, then clicked on it.
The screen popped up with CCTV footage from the walk-in closet—