Chapter 58: Goodbye
This very old model of phone had been used for a long time. The system could barely keep up with the updates, and the running speed had visibly slowed down a lot, which was annoyingly slow.
He Mu Qing restlessly swiped away the annoying advertisements in the message bar and tapped on the chat software on her desktop. Perhaps it was not a good day, but the loading interface was ridiculously long. She waited patiently, but her fingers were restlessly rubbing against the desktop, and a wet sweat spread.
A few small red dots appeared in her light pupils. She roughly scanned them. Because of the statement she had posted in her moments, almost no one had sent her any messages except for some group chat messages.
He Mu Qing was very familiar with the boy’s profile picture. The conspicuous light spot was lying in the third row of the message bar. The boy had actually sent her a message, and the date was still on Christmas Day.
Her heart stopped for a moment, and her eyes could no longer hold anything else. Her fingertips trembled as she tapped on the chat box. It was a message that the boy had sent her on the day after Christmas. Perhaps he had thought that she had seen it and had not mentioned it when he came back for the New Year, which had inadvertently caused a small misunderstanding.
He Mu Qing carefully read the rather long message, almost not wanting to miss a single word. She curved her eyes and laughed out loud.
“Mu Qing, are you done yet? Come out and eat.”
“Okay, I’m coming.”
He Mu Qing shouted to the outside of the room and held her phone, deleting and revising the message in the message box, but she still couldn’t follow her throbbing and rippling thoughts at this moment.
“Oh, why are you holding on to your phone as soon as you finish the exam? I’m afraid your eyes will be ruined after a summer vacation.”
She casually grabbed a chair under Mother He’s muttering and sat down, but her mind was still on her phone and she couldn’t let go.
“Mom, look. What do you think of this photo? Is it good?”
He Mu Qing puffed out her pink cheeks like a spoiled child and held her phone, swiping through the photos in the group album. She chose a group photo from the eve of graduation. The photo was taken under the large camphor tree in front of the teaching building.
She had some thoughts of sending it to the boy after the college entrance examination. She was standing on a higher step, leaning against the tall and thick tree trunk.
That day, she was wearing a plain goose-yellow dress, and her hair was divided into two strands and tied into a playful pigtail on her shoulders. A unique small flower hairpin was hidden in her dark hair, exuding the unique youthful and beautiful vitality of a girl of her age.
The warm wind gently brushed against her cheeks, and the leaves above her head rustled, and a flickering and extinguishing light and shadow fell. The hem of her skirt gently fluttered, and it swayed in the wind.
The smile on her lips was at the moment the shutter was pressed. She had finally graduated. She wanted to quickly convey this thought to the person she cared about. It might be a little naive and simple, but she was still stubbornly wanting to do so.
“It’s beautiful. How could my daughter not be beautiful?”
Mother He stared at the photo for a long time before she came back to her senses and nodded repeatedly. She vaguely seemed to have noticed something obscure, and the words that were stuck in her throat became more and more unspeakable. How could she pretend to be indifferent and say those bloody and cruel facts?
“Then let’s go with this one. I’ll send it to Su Yu to have a good look. I’m also a prospective college student. Let’s see if he still laughs at me for being a little kid who can’t grow up.”
“Cough cough, Mu Qing, Dad has something to tell you.”
Father He seemed to have seen Mother He’s difficulty. He poured a full glass of white wine and drank it in one gulp. The bitter and spicy alcohol burned his throat. He coughed twice and said in a muffled voice, “Xiao Yu is in Qingchuan…”
“Huh? What’s wrong with Su Yu? Isn’t he in Qingchuan?”
He Mu Qing frowned, and her fingers, which were hovering on the phone screen, stopped. She looked at her parents with an innocent expression, and they were both hesitant and unable to speak. A faint sense of unease arose in her heart. She subconsciously added to her guess, “Is he sick? Or is he going to move with Uncle Su and his family? Is he not coming back for the summer vacation?”
“Xiao Yu had a car accident a while ago. We saw you were taking the college entrance examination, and we were afraid of affecting you, so we kept it from you.”
“Huh? A car accident…”
He Mu Qing was stunned, and her heart skipped a beat. Her brain was as if it had been stuck by a few hard steel wires. The last big question on the math test paper in the examination room had not even made her stop for so long and unable to react. It was as if she didn’t quite understand the deep meaning hidden behind this simple and easy-to-understand word.
She scratched her hair, and the hair that had been specially grown to her shoulders and neck was a little messy. She suddenly put on an understanding look and pulled at the corners of her lips. “Then the injury should not be serious, right? He just wants me to let him go. Don’t worry… he’s injured. I definitely won’t bully him. I’ll ask him for interest when he’s recovered.”
“No. The car accident was very serious. A few days ago, your mother and I were not actually on a trip. We went to Qingchuan and attended Xiao Yu’s funeral.”
“Hey, a funeral? How could there be a funeral…”, He Mu Qing repeated. She stared at Father He with her light and beautiful eyes, and her expression was as if it had lost control. Her eyes were filled with a sadness that was almost tangible, but she was still forcing a smile.
“Dad, how can you say such things when nothing is wrong? It’s so unlucky. You’re so old, but you’re still as insensible as me.” He Mu Qing turned her head and looked at Mother He, who was not saying anything. She pulled Mother He’s hand. “Mom, look at Dad. You should talk to him, talk to him. Mom, why aren’t you speaking?”
“Mu Qing… what your father said is…”
“Enough. I don’t want to play such a boring joke with you. Su Yu has already agreed with me. I did so well this time, and I can definitely go to Qingchuan. He promised to treat me to milk tea every day. How can he go back on his word?”
He Mu Qing interrupted them, but the forced smile on her lips could no longer be maintained and collapsed. She was futilely making a false testimony that was not established at all. She held up the message that the boy had sent her on Christmas Day and showed it to Mother He.
“Look, Mom. He even sent me the best milk tea shop near Qingchuan University. Look… he even said that he would definitely take me to this one when I came. He had to. I’ve never been to Qingchuan before. If he doesn’t show me the way, how can I find it…”
“Mu Qing, I know this is hard to accept. I still feel heartbroken now. But this is the reality. Xiao Yu is unlucky… he was fine. How could such a disaster happen?”
Mother He wiped the tears that she couldn’t stop from the corners of her eyes. She held He Mu Qing’s hand with a heavy heart and carefully advised her daughter, who had fallen in love, to accept the reality as soon as possible.
“No, no. How could it be such a coincidence? When I was a child, he said I didn’t look at the road and always held my hand to cross the road. How could it be a car accident? Liars… you are all liars.”
A cold and chilling feeling rushed from the soles of her feet through her spine and into her brain. Her limbs were so stiff that they didn’t seem to belong to her. Her throat was tight, and she couldn’t even say a word.
“I’ll go and ask him myself!”
He Mu Qing shook Mother He’s hand off. She didn’t even have time to put on her shoes. She ran to the entryway barefoot and opened the door, and she ran downstairs in a daze.
She stepped on the cold and dirty, rough steps and ran to the old iron door that was deeply engraved in her memory. The afterglow of the setting sun shone through the lattice window in the old building, and a bright and dazzling light created a hazy halo, as if this were just a false trick.
“Su Yu, come out. Come out quickly.”
He Mu Qing desperately knocked on the door. Her palm hit the cold iron door one after another, and a dull and painful sound made her palm spread out with a blood-red halo. She didn’t care and kept hitting the door.
It must not be true. It must not be.
The house behind the door was still empty and silent. No matter how many times she repeated the monotonous action, there was only that rusty iron door in front of her, which was separating her from the boy, like an insurmountable chasm.
It hurts… it really hurts so much.
Her palm was red and swollen. She had almost shouted herself hoarse, but she had not received a single response from behind the door.
Her body was in so much pain that she couldn’t support herself. He Mu Qing leaned against the door as if she had lost her strength and slowly squatted down. She stared at the dim screen of her phone numbly. Her chat history with the boy had stopped on Christmas Day, but it seemed that it would soon become forever.
Tears filled her weak eyes. She desperately covered her face, but it was useless. The tears seeped out from between her fingers and wet the phone screen, creating a colorful and hazy halo.
Perhaps it was because of her stubbornness, or perhaps it was because she was holding on to a glimmer of hope. She sent the photo with her trembling fingertips, but the words she wanted to say were swallowed in her throat.
“I’ve already graduated, but… it seems I still can’t catch up with you.”
