Back Then, I Adored You

After hesitating for a split second, he committed to completing his left turn; however, he made a U-turn at the next intersection and headed back to where he had seen her. As he approached her, he slowed down to a crawl and rolled down the window. She was too engrossed in her phone call to notice him, but he could clearly hear her speaking as he inched past her.

“I thought you were asleep so I only texted you instead of calling you… Did Little Peanut not feel good? Did you take her to the doctor?… Okay. She’ll be fine if Dr. Xia came over… Yeah, I need to come over and see her…”

“Little Peanut?” Is she talking to Xiao’ai?

Lu Bancheng then heard Xu Wennuan talking again. “Okay, I gotta go. Something urgent I have to handle.”

She sounded hesitant but continued in an embarrassed tone. “Xiao’ai, can I borrow some money?… Yeah, to pay him back… Even though you guys are married, it’s still not your money. It’s Bro Sheng’s, and it’s a lot of money. I feel bad asking you. I worry this might affect your relationship with Bro Sheng…”

The “him” she mentioned must be me, right?

Lu Bancheng’s hands gripped the wheel harder.

“I know Bro Sheng doesn’t mind lending me money… Okay. I’ll buy you dinner… Well, I still need $800,000. Xiao’ai, it might take a while for me to pay you back. I know you wouldn’t need it soon, but I still want to be clear about that. I’ll write a receipt for you tomorrow.”

She borrowed money from Xiao’ai to pay back the rest of her debt to me.

Having just seen her squatting by the curb, I felt so bad for her that I drove back around… I’d never imagined that she would be making calls for help to cut every possible connection with me. I know she doesn’t care about me. No matter what I do or say, she never pays attention to me.

Lu Bancheng finally punched the accelerator with his foot and sped away.

……

Lu Bancheng received the money but not from Xu Wennuan. Qin Zhi’ai gave it to him when he went to Gu Yusheng’s house. Of course, she did not say Xu Wennuan had borrowed the money from her, only that Xu Wennuan had wanted her to pass the money to him.

……

Twenty days after the night Xu Wennuan had moved out, Lu Bancheng had still not run into her. At the beginning of May, he had gone on a business trip to America for two weeks. By the time he returned, it was already summer in Beijing, notable by the hot, steamy evening that enveloped him when he exited the airport.

On his way home, Lu Bancheng drove past two car accidents, making the already congested traffic even worse. By the time he made it to downtown, it was already 10 o’clock at night. Wanting to sleep in the next morning, he stopped at a restaurant to grab some dinner and then went by his office to tend to some urgent documents that had been waiting for his attention while he was gone. After those matters were settled, he finally headed home.

After parking the car and entering his apartment building, Lu Bancheng took the elevator to the 12th floor. On his way up, he received a message from his mother and, when the elevator door opened, continued texting her back while walking out and to his apartment door. Standing at the door and entering the passcode, he heard someone say, “Lu Bancheng.”

He froze for a full minute before he turned around to the person calling him.