"It's because I couldn't contact you at all!"
Ji Shuhe's voice trembled. The tightly wound string inside her snapped. Her perceived drunkenness gave the pent-up emotions a reasonable outlet.
"And what do you want from me?! You're the one who's been avoiding me. Last time at Tuowei, you wouldn't even see me. You refused to come to the family dinner. It's you who's been treating me like a stranger, you who won't say a word to me. What am I supposed to do!"
Tears fell harder. Ji Shuhe wiped them messily with her sleeve. She didn't want to cry, especially in front of Wen Shaoyu—he had already seen her cry too many times. She didn't want her first breakdown back home to be because of him.
She didn't want to face him, but she couldn't break free. So she stubbornly turned her head away, looking down, still sobbing uncontrollably, her shoulders trembling, her voice thick with tears.
"Wen Shaoyu, it was hard for me to come back to China. It was hard for me to find you all. But if you treat me like this, I'll regret coming back..."
All the sharp confrontation, the rehearsed sarcasm—they crumbled before Ji Shuhe's tears and her honest complaint.
Wen Shaoyu stayed close, seeing her trembling shoulders and the falling tears. His heart stung as if burned by those tears, and against his will, regret surfaced.
Acting on impulse, he pulled Ji Shuhe into his arms, locking her shoulders tightly.
"I'm sorry."
"I wasn't thinking straight. I scared you earlier... no, I've been scaring you all this time. I apologize. I can apologize for everything. But please, don't regret this. Don't disappear again..."
Don't go silent for years again. Don't abandon Lizi and... him.
In that moment, Wen Shaoyu felt a surge of fear.
He questioned himself: What right did he have to act proud? Did it really matter what answer Ji Shuhe had chosen eight years ago?
What mattered was that Ji Shuhe was back. Right now, she was real and present in his arms. But she could leave anytime—once work was done, she'd go back to the UK. Even with Ji Shulang as a go-between, there was no guarantee that under the threat of her mother, they wouldn't lose contact again.
Hadn't they learned from last time?
Relying on others was useless. Only by themselves.
Beg her to stay. Or leave with her.
Even if there might be someone else by her side.
Ji Shuhe didn't catch the last part. She just buried her face in Wen Shaoyu's chest, not caring how expensive his sweater was, wiping all her tears on it.
One hand clutched his sweater at his waist, the soft cashmere now wrinkled beyond recognition. As the drunkenness and sadness faded slightly, a moment of clarity made her feel pathetic.
A hug, an apology. That's all it took for Wen Shaoyu to make up for all her grievances these days.
It wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. But she couldn't articulate what she wanted from him. The hug, warm and strong, was already enough to make her cling to it.
"You owe me an apology," Ji Shuhe said, her voice muffled.
Wen Shaoyu had no intention of letting go. "I'm sorry. I was being impulsive. It was my fault."
When she didn't respond, he looked down at the top of her head and continued, "I was wrong for not talking things through and solving them properly. I was wrong for sulking and saying hurtful things, for putting on a cold face and pretending not to know you, and for driving recklessly to scare you."
"It's all my fault. Every bit of it."
He asked again, "So now, can you stop regretting?"
Ji Shuhe pulled back from his embrace. For the first time in eight years, their eyes met without pretense, raw and unguarded.
Wen Shaoyu still held her hand. "Ji Shuhe, these past eight years have been hard for me. In every moment I felt tormented, I thought of you. I remembered you telling me everything would be alright."
He let out a bitter laugh. "Liar. Everything only got worse. How could it get better? But when I wanted to find someone to blame, the one who lied to me was nowhere to be found."
"Sometimes I really think I hate you. There are so many ways to contact someone, so many apps. We're not living twenty years ago! But for eight whole years, you left me not a single word!"
"I even thought, maybe there'd be an end to this. Maybe one day you'd suddenly show up, leave me a message—even if it was just telling me to stop waiting, that you won't come back. That would have been better than me waiting like an idiot, too afraid to admit I can't forget you, can't forget those two years in Yong'anli, yet never daring to hope too much."
"I couldn't contact you at all!"
At this, Ji Shuhe felt even more wronged. "She had planned to take me away all along, but she told me nothing. When I went to see my mother, I took nothing but my phone. The moment we met, she smashed it and pulled out the SIM card. She took me from Xinhai to Yuanjing, and as soon as my visa came through, I flew straight to the UK."
"For the first six months, I only had a short-term study visa. I had to go to language school and take the IELTS. My mother watched me like a prisoner. I had no SIM card, so I couldn't log into any of my messaging apps. I even thought of writing letters to Yong'anli, but the alley had been demolished. The letters were returned to me, and when my mother found out, she locked me up for a while again..."
The more she spoke, the angrier she got. She clenched her fist and punched Wen Shaoyu hard on the chest. "And after all that, when I finally found you, you ignored me!"
Wen Shaoyu didn't feel the pain. He reached out and wrapped her fist in his hand, pressing it against his chest. "Didn't I make you memorize my phone number? So you were too lazy to memorize it, right?"
Ji Shuhe's righteous anger suddenly deflated. "How was I supposed to know it would come to this..."
Even though she felt guilty, she always had countless excuses for Wen Shaoyu. "Besides, if I got lost in Manchester and called you, could you even come find me?"
"I would come find you." Wen Shaoyu spoke firmly. "I would definitely find you."
After all, Wen Shaoyu had been considering putting the company's development on hold to study an EMBA in the UK. The Chinese community was small; he figured as long as he had the right connections, he could eventually pick up some news about Ji Shuhe.
He had almost gone at the beginning of the year, but the old dog Lizi's health held him back.
"So you still blame me, don't you?" Ji Shuhe's eyes welled up again. She looked up but could only see his sharp jawline.
"No. It was my fault."
Wen Shaoyu lowered his head, tentatively cupping her face. Seeing she didn't pull away, he used his thumb to wipe away the lingering tears.
In the distance, the crowd's New Year countdown cheers rose faintly, indistinct.
But all Wen Shaoyu could see and hear was Ji Shuhe.
"It doesn't matter. The past doesn't matter anymore."
"As long as you're back." It didn't matter who was by your side, or where your future plans lie.
Wen Shaoyu thought, he could wait.
Sooner or later... there would be a chance.