Back Then, I Adored You

She continued to lie awake as time slowly passed. When she saw the time on the screen change to 5:00 a.m. Time went by slowly until finally Xu Wennuan saw the time on her phone screen change to 5:00 a.m. Zero hadn’t been online all night, and she had never received her 3:00 a.m. joke from him. She held onto her phone until the sky turned bright outside the window, at which point she huddled in bed and closed her eyes.

Wait… I was supposed to meet Lu Bancheng under the bridge last night before everything fell apart… I can use this excuse to call him…

Xu Wennuan immediately grabbed her phone and called him. After the call went through, she heard the alert that indicated the cell phone had been turned off.

Turned off? Could he already be on a plane bound for America? So, he’s already left…

Xu Wennuan’s mood fell into the pit of her stomach, and she placed her phone down awkwardly. Although she hadn’t slept all night, she felt increasingly more awake as she stared at the ceiling for a long time, unable to recover from the realization that Lu Bancheng had left for America.

…

Xu Wennuan had always thought that once Lu Bancheng left for America, she would finally no longer ever have to deal with him again and that she would still have Zero as a man in her life. They could continue to chat and play the game together like they always had. He could console her when she was upset and send her gifts during festive occasions to make her feel as if she was not an abandoned person in the world.

But, in actual fact, she was too naive. At 3:00 a.m. on the third day, Zero still had not sent her any jokes, and Lu Bancheng’s cell phone also remained off when she had tried to call him. It was the same on the fourth, fifth, and sixth days, and it took a full month before Xu Wennuan was forced to accept the fact that both Lu Bancheng and Zero had completely disappeared from her life. Just like water, they have evaporated fully into the air without leaving any trace behind.

…

As April arrived in Beijing, the weather became increasingly warmer. One Saturday afternoon as Xu Wennuan was leaving the spa, she received a call from Wu Hao, who asked her out for dinner the next night. Even though she had no plans, she found an excuse to turn him down.

Two months after her abduction, Wu Hao was still asking her out for dinner, and she was running out of plausible excuses to turn him down. Wu Hao was aware that she was giving him excuses, but he had become much more patient with her now as compared to when they had been dating. When she would turn him down, he would graciously accept her rejection and casually mention that they could get together another time. He then would inform her that he’d be away on a business trip for a few days and ask if she wanted him to bring her anything back. He accepted her rejection graciously this time, too, and took her refusal of wanting anything as genuine.

After Xu Wennuan ended the call, she pulled open her car door, got in. and then drove along the familiar road toward her apartment. After stopping for dinner at a fast-food restaurant in her neighborhood, she continued home and began doing her laundry as soon as she got there. By the time she finished, it was already 11:00 p.m. and, having exercised that morning, she quickly fell asleep the moment she got into bed.

When her head was thick with sleep, she heard an inaudible but familiar voice next to her ear. “Nuannuan.”

She subconsciously frowned but then quickly realized that it was Lu Bancheng’s voice, which gently continued whispering into her ear.