CH 12

Chapter 12: Black Umbrella

Lately, Ruan Zhizhi had been a little stressed. The press release she had spent two nights rushing to complete was criticized by her boss on the grounds that her manuscript’s description of the case suspect’s mental illness was not accurate enough. 

When Ruan Zhizhi received her boss’s feedback, she was speechless. From childhood until now, her main field of study had nothing to do with the Department of Psychology. In regards to her personal point of view, the point of a press release was to assert the key facts. There was no need to be so precise about supplementary information. However, in the eyes of her boss who always pursued perfection, only declaring the facts was insufficient. 

Since she had only just obtained a full position, Ruan Zhizhi didn’t dare make a wrong turn at this juncture. Therefore, she could only take the manuscript back, meticulously scroll through resources on the Internet, and make revisions by herself.

Now, it was already the end of January. After this month, it would be February, the beginning of spring.

In recent days, the weather had been extremely chilly. Outside, it was bitterly cold. If it wasn’t that she couldn’t find the feeling at home, Ruan Zhizhi wouldn’t have gone out in such awful weather at all.

Currently, she was sitting in a café she frequented. Due to the frigid weather, the café—which was usually very lively—had few customers at present. It was exceptionally deserted.

But it was also good like this. It was happy and quiet. 

Ruan Zhizhi ordered a cup of American-style coffee and a small box of macarons. Afterwards, she habitually walked to the window seat on the left side, sat down comfortably, and opened her laptop.

The main content of this press release was to state that a young girl had become pregnant before marriage and was forced to marry due to family pressure. After marrying, her husband had a bad temper and regularly beat and scolded her. Her husband’s parents displayed even more contempt towards her. Not only was she not given the care she deserved as a pregnant woman, but she was not even guaranteed three meals a day. Later, one could imagine that the child in her stomach naturally miscarried. In the end, the girl couldn’t bear the distress. One night when her husband was away on a business trip, she killed both of her in-laws in their sleep. Soon after, she went to the police station to surrender by herself. 

However, when it was time to record her transcript, the girl behaved very abnormally. One moment she claimed to have killed her father-in-law and mother-in-law, but then the next moment she completely negated her entire testimony. She erratically told the police that she’d accidentally heard her mother-in-law privately tell her husband that it was foolish and pointless for her to stay in this home. Her mother-in-law wanted her son to divorce her, or directly find a way to make her disappear.

Later, after a forensic evaluation, she was believed to have severe schizophrenia. Therefore, the case was still pending now.

Ruan Zhizhi couldn’t help heaving a sigh at her laptop. She had already looked up many reference materials about the symptoms of schizophrenia online, but to her exasperation, the long list of terms was really difficult to make sense of for a layman. 

Just as she was looking miserably at the returned press release in her hand, she suddenly heard a jingle of wind chimes at the door of the café.

Ruan Zhizhi didn’t care much. She was feeling a little dizzy, so she took out a peach-flavoured fruit candy from her backpack, peeled off the candy wrapper, and stuffed it in her mouth. 

“Hello sir, what would you like today?”

“A box of macarons, packed.”

“Okay, please wait a moment.”

……

This voice was…

Ruan Zhizhi doubted her own ears and subconsciously turned her head. Sure enough, she saw a slim man in a black coat standing quietly to the side of the counter. Both of his hands were in the pockets of his coat, and his back looked tall and straight. Very casual.

Because it was raining outside, the ends of his hair were somewhat soaked. Drops of water trickled down his forehead, yet he didn’t seem to find it embarrassing and was still inconceivably graceful.

Ruan Zhizhi watched him and further verified her previous guess.

Look, this man really did have a special fondness for the macarons in this shop.

He seemed to notice her gaze and turned his head nonchalantly. His eyes happened to meet Ruan Zhizhi’s examining stare.

When he saw her, his eyes suddenly softened.

If Ruan Zhizhi could still tell herself that it was a misperception in the past, now that the two of them met more and more frequently, she could no longer continue the charade. Because every time Shi Yan saw her, his apathetic and gloomy expression always turned tender.

She didn’t know why, but it was truly like this every time. 

The down jacket Ruan Zhizhi was wearing today was the same one she’d worn at the bar in Lijiang with Shi Yan and Chen Jiayan before. She watched Shi Yan take the macarons from the server’s hands and unconsciously put her fingers in the pockets of her down jacket. In the next second, she felt the paper rose.

The paper rose he had gifted her a long time ago. Although she hadn’t kept it properly, she also hadn’t thrown it away.

What did it represent?

Ruan Zhizhi didn’t dare think about it. She didn’t have the time to think about it, because she saw the man who possessed a strange charm once again coming to her.

It left her with nowhere to run.

“Working?”

Shi Yan carried the box of macarons in hand and walked over gracefully. He greeted her as if it was no big deal and sat across from her naturally. 

Of course, she didn’t have room to refuse him, so she had no choice but to follow along with the pleasantries: “Yeah. You don’t have class today?”

“Morning class, just finished.”

As he spoke, out of the corner of his eye, he inadvertently saw Ruan Zhizhi’s press release on the table.

Ruan Zhizhi noticed his line of sight and was struck with inspiration. Her tone suddenly became one of fawning: “Right, Shi Yan, I’ll ask you. You’re in psychology. For schizophrenia, do you have a more detailed explanation of the cause and symptoms and so on?”

Shi Yan took her press release with ease, glanced at it casually, and then came to the conclusion: “Indeed, it’s not very professional.”

“……”

Did he need to say it so bluntly?

“Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow at five o’clock in the afternoon, I’ll be talking about some of the symptoms and causes of schizophrenia in my class. If you’re interested, you can come and sit in.”

Sit in?

An intense ideological struggle immediately began in Ruan Zhizhi’s brain. After thinking about it, she felt that this was a lucrative deal. Anyway, the main job at hand was to modify this press release. It would truly be beneficial for her to sit in on a psychology class taught by a professor of A University. 

Therefore, she nodded and agreed very cheerfully.

As the two of them chatted, the rain got heavier and heavier.

Ruan Zhizhi tidied up her things and walked out alongside Shi Yan. She soon realized the embarrassing situation she was in—when she had gone out today, she hadn’t brought an umbrella.

Shi Yan glanced over. Without any hesitation, he reached out and handed her his own.

Ruan Zhizhi was stunned for a moment, then quickly shook her head and declined: “No need, my house is very close by. It’s a ten-minute walk at most. Anyway, I can just wait for the rain to stop before going back.”

Shi Yan was aloof, still maintaining the gesture of extending his hand. “It’s pouring, you’ll catch a cold.”

Ruan Zhizhi mulled it over, but still couldn’t accept Shi Yan’s umbrella with a clear conscience. She couldn’t let him go back in the rain, so she continued to refuse. “It’s really not necessary. Go back to school quickly, didn’t you say there are still classes in the afternoon?”

Shi Yan was quiet. The atmosphere became somewhat heavy for a moment. Neither of them spoke, and only the sound of raindrops pitter-pattering remained. After a long time, he spoke in a low tone that carried a thread of inexplicable disappointment: “Ruan Zhizhi, must you reject me?”

She didn’t know if it was raining too hard, or if the tone of his voice contained too much loss. Ruan Zhizhi bowed her head and looked at this extended hand grasping the umbrella. After a while, it was as if the demons and gods were at work. She unexpectedly took it.

“Thank you.”

Once she propped the umbrella open, Ruan Zhizhi walked a few steps and then turned back. She hesitated for a moment but still asked him tentatively, “How about we go together?”

She saw Shi Yan smile softly. Raindrops wet his smile, trickling down his chin into his neckline. He was a good-looking mess. His handsome appearance made her tremble in fear, her heart alarmed. And when he began to speak, his tone was awfully firm: “No need, I’m going back to school for class. See you next time.”

After he finished speaking, he didn’t give Ruan Zhizhi any chance to urge him to stay. He turned around and entered the downpour of rain alone.

Ruan Zhizhi stood in place, her fingers unconsciously clenching the handle of the umbrella. Her heart was full of guilt. 

Just now…she really shouldn’t have taken the umbrella out of her fear of disappointment. 

Altogether, it only took Ruan Zhizhi seven or eight minutes to walk back home from the coffee shop. She walked inside, found a clean umbrella cover, and carefully sheathed the black umbrella. As she placed it by the door, she thought about returning it to Shi Yan when she attended his class tomorrow afternoon.

Her home had always been cold and cheerless, without the slightest trace of warmth.

Due to her poor constitution, as well as the fact that it was overcast and rainy, Ruan Zhizhi’s hands and feet were freezing now. It was incredibly difficult to bear. She kneaded the space between her brows, walked to the living room, and steeped herself a cup of brown sugar ginger water. She held the cup as she sat on the sofa. The steam warmed her ice-cold body a little.

After sitting blankly on the sofa for a bit, she estimated that Shi Yan should have returned to the university by now. Ruan Zhizhi took out her cell phone, opened WeChat, and went to Shi Yan’s WeChat account. She hesitated for a long time, her fingertips going back and forth towards the keyboard repeatedly. In the end, she still opened the chat interface and sent him a WeChat message. 

“Did you get to school? Thank you for the umbrella.”

After about five minutes, Shi Yan answered: “I’m here, no need for thanks.”

Having received a reply from the other party, Ruan Zhizhi let out a sigh of relief. Her fingertips continuously deleted and edited from her phone’s keyboard before she finally sent out the lines: “When you get home, drink some banlangen. If you catch a cold, I will feel very apologetic.”

This time, the other party responded quite quickly: “If I catch a cold, will you look after me?”

The fingers resting over the keyboard froze. Ruan Zhizhi stared at her phone screen for a while, then tentatively replied: “As a friend, if you’re in need, of course I will take care of you.”

En…this kind of answer shouldn’t be wrong, right?

“If that’s so, it’s also very good.”

This was his reply. Ambiguous and vague.

That night, Ruan Zhizhi suffered from insomnia again.

She tossed and turned restlessly in bed, even trying all kinds of methods to resolve it, but she still couldn’t fall asleep.

Staring at her cell phone on the nightstand, Ruan Zhizhi thought about it for some time and finally couldn’t help stretching her hand out.

She unlocked the screen and opened the Weibo interface. Then, she found Li Sichen’s Weibo.

It seemed that she hadn’t peeked at Li Sichen’s page for a long time. So long that she almost thought she was a normal person. 

In her subconscious mind, she always felt that she should let go of Li Sichen. But every time she thought she was about to succeed, her previous efforts would go down the drain, and she’d once again follow a path that led to failure. 

Sometimes she also thought of abandoning herself to despair and surrendering herself to the person that she couldn’t forget. However, she couldn’t be reconciled to waste her precious time on someone who didn’t love her. 

Li Sichen hadn’t shared any news lately. His most recent Weibo post was still the one she’d seen last time: City A, I’m back.

Last time when they ate barbecue, Gu Nian had also told her that Li Sichen would be returning to China soon.

But two people who had no fate together, even if they lived in the same city, would not be able to come across each other very often.

If she didn’t see Li Sichen, that would truly be the best favour to her from the Heavens. But if they ever met, what should she do?

In truth, she was really worried that she would panic and run away. If she did, it would be too humiliating.

……

In this way, Ruan Zhizhi drifted into the land of dreams amidst such unrealistic entanglements and imaginations.