Back Then, I Adored You

It was quiet. The sunset’s last light brightened the wall in front of him. The breeze rustled through the trees and blew in through the open windows.

Gu Yusheng felt relaxed after having laid there for a while. His eyes opened and slowly roamed around the room until he saw the needle. He stared at it for a few seconds before starting to gain consciousness.

I had agreed to meet little troublemaker at Shanghai Pudong Airport. And there was an accident… Trying to save two drowning boys. And then I heard the voice of little troublemaker. She was comforting me as I was grabbing her hand…

While recalling what had happened, Gu Yusheng moved his hand but nothing was in it. He reached for little troublemaker’s delicate wrist, but it was not there. He frowned and then suddenly, anxiously, he sprang up in the bed yelling, “Little troublemaker!”

Lu Bancheng had been playing with his cell phone on the sofa. His hand shook when Gu Yusheng yelled out. The phone slipped and crashed loudly on the floor.

Gu Yusheng immediately turned around. He thought it was little troublemaker, but he frowned again with disappointment when it was only Lu Bancheng.

“You woke up?” Lu Bancheng bent down to pick up his phone, looked at the screen, and walked to Gu Yusheng while waiting for his second life in the game. He pressed the alarm to call the nurse and doctor and then turned around to ask Gu Yusheng, “How do you feel?”

Gu Yusheng hid his disappointment and slowly leaned back on the headboard. He didn’t answer Lu Bancheng’s question but instead asked his own. “Where’s little troublemaker?”

“Xiaokou?” Before he could add that “Liang Doukou” had texted him, Gu Yusheng interrupted. “It’s little troublemaker, not Liang Doukou, I’m talking about.”

Was there any difference? Wasn’t Liang Doukou the little troublemaker?

Lu Bancheng knew better than to argue with Gu Yusheng. Instead, he responded, “She texted me this morning that she had an urgent job to do. She asked me to come to A city to take care of you.”

“Texted you?” Ordinarily, Gu Yusheng would not have been alarmed, but this time was different.

“Yeah, look, the text message is here,” Lu Bancheng said as he passed his phone to Gu Yusheng. “I called her back, but she said she couldn’t pick up the call just then.”

Gu Yusheng studied the screen without saying anything. He read the conversation between “Liang Doukou” and Lu Bancheng, handed the phone back, and stared out the window.

Lu Bancheng put his phone away and asked, “What’s wrong? What’s the problem?”

Gu Yusheng shook his head without answering Bancheng’s question. He searched around his pillow for his cell phone. He texted “Liang Doukou,””Are you done?”

Qin Zhi’ai’s cell phone rang on the table right after she left room 201 at the Ladies Club.

Liang Doukou picked it up and looked at the screen, while Zhou Jing cast a doubtful look at her. “Yusheng texted and asked me if I’m done.”

Liang Doukou texted back, “Not yet.”