14 Regret

After getting into the car, Zhou Suirong calmed down a bit. Looking straight ahead, he adopted a businesslike, indifferent tone: “Don’t blame me for not warning you in advance. If you don’t tell me what you’ve done, I won’t pry. But if the police issue a wanted notice for you, I’ll take you straight to the station to surrender. I don’t want to be known as Zhou, the accomplice suspect in a police bulletin.”

Fang Qingzhao leaned back into the soft seat, her tense body and spirit gradually relaxing. A wave of drowsiness swept over her, clouding her mind, though she still harbored a lingering resentment about the distance he had mentioned earlier. She responded half-heartedly, “Alright, Mr. Zhou.”

“Are you angry with me?” Zhou Suirong asked in disbelief. “Why?”

Fang Qingzhao lifted her eyelids slightly, her expression blank but revealing her innate coldness through the fatigue. She spoke mildly, “I’m giving you a chance.”

Zhou Suirong blinked, puzzled.

Her gaze, especially the casual glances from the corner of her eye, often conveyed an inexplicable pressure. Unaware of this, she said leisurely, “Take a guess.”

Zhou Suirong was silent.

In his heart, he knew it was those two sentences—“We’ve already broken up” and “Treat your ex-boyfriend properly”—that upset her. She hadn’t yet come to terms with the blow of their breakup.

Since their meeting, Fang Qingzhao’s words had been evasive and ambiguous.

The high-speed train to City B only took seven hours; a flight took two and a half hours. Yet she had deliberately sought him out to drive her, enduring the exhaustion and wasted time of a one- or two-day journey—completely against her usual dislike of hassle and preference for efficiency. She couldn’t even come up with a suitable excuse, repeatedly dodging the topic.

She now deeply regretted their breakup but lacked the understanding to reconcile. So she resorted to various awkward methods, unaware that she was only making things worse.

But the breakup was a fact. Her cold indifference while he was injured and hospitalized was truly heartless. Zhou Suirong had lived alone in the hospital, lonely and confused, confronting sudden changes and the harsh reality of his injuries. It took him two months to force himself to accept it, and he still had a mountain of emotions and doubts to process. He couldn’t just forgive Fang Qingzhao without resentment.

She had offered no apology, only clumsy excuses to stall. Zhou Suirong wasn’t so weak-willed.

Even a dying ember needs a gust of wind to rekindle.

He gripped the steering wheel tightly, restraining himself from arguing back.

The glaring sunlight pierced through the windshield. Fang Qingzhao squinted, her nerves reawakened, carrying the anxiety and restlessness of severe sleep deprivation. She prompted him, “Do you understand now?”

Why on earth should I?

Worried he might lose control and swerve into the greenery, Zhou Suirong quickly activated the driver assistance system.

Fang Qingzhao watched his every move, hoping he would retract the unfavorable remarks, and immediately said, “Okay, you can speak now.”

Zhou Suirong took a deep breath, then exhaled sharply, but laughter escaped him in frustration.

Anger was a relatively rare emotion for Fang Qingzhao. She sensed Zhou Suirong’s rejection, felt a slight void, then decided to be accommodating, taking a step back to negotiate: “If you don’t want to answer, you can skip one question. But you’re not allowed to ask about what happened at the door earlier. No fishing for more.”

Zhou Suirong reluctantly agreed, “Fine.”

She immediately threw out another equally thorny question: “Why did you break up with me?”

Uh-oh. Fang Qingzhao realized her situation was quite precarious. Half of her sluggish thought processes jolted awake. Sitting up straight, after a few seconds, she blurted nonsense: “More than two months ago, you came to me asking for a long-term paid leave. If I refused, you wanted me to approve your resignation. I discussed it with the company’s finance department…”

Zhou Suirong thought: Here we go again. Whenever Fang Qingzhao faced a question she didn’t want to answer but had to, she resorted to dull, verbose, and useless rambling, hoping to knock the other person out or anger them into storming off within three sentences. It only escalated their conflict.

Irritated beyond measure, Zhou Suirong interrupted, “Speak clearly. Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

“No,” Fang Qingzhao replied.

Out of tricks, she lightly pinched her palm, words running dry as she added, “I’ll make you remember, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to accept it.”

Because Zhou Suirong was too fragile, many blunt statements would easily hurt him. Fang Qingzhao had yet to grasp the exact limits. The matter should be handled in a calm, stable environment, meticulously arranged by her, allowing Zhou Suirong to gradually accept it within a sufficient margin for error—not blurted out recklessly like this.

She wanted to negotiate further, but Zhou Suirong turned on the music, clicking a few times. The rhythm and beats reverberated through the car.

Fang Qingzhao was rudely rejected, so she shut up, lowered the volume, crossed her arms, and turned her head away.

The car entered the highway, leaving the city behind. The scenery suddenly broadened.

Yet the atmosphere between them was unusually stagnant.

Distant, winding, majestic mountains swept past the window. As the shadows shortened, the temperature began to climb bit by bit.

Zhou Suirong tapped the steering wheel and, out of nowhere, said, “There are clothes in the backseat.”

“I’m not cold; I’m hot,” Fang Qingzhao replied.

Zhou Suirong spoke more forcefully, “Then turn on the air conditioning. I’m turning it on.”

Fang Qingzhao bent down to grab the jacket left on the backseat by Zhou Suirong. She put it on and switched on the air conditioner.

After a while, she looked up with a serious expression and scolded, “You’re in a bad mood now. You weren’t like this before.”

Zhou Suirong was puzzled.

Fang Qingzhao’s eyes stung, a dull ache at her temples. The drowsiness vanished completely. She took out her phone, tilting her head to read through dense documents, occasionally switching to draft a speech. After less than half an hour, she let her hand drop and leaned listlessly against the window.

Zhou Suirong immediately recognized that she was feeling car sick. He parted his lips to say something, recalled her earlier accusation about his bad temper, and silently smiled in exasperation.

This tug-of-war silence was almost unbearable for Zhou Suirong. He felt he was once again failing to understand what Fang Qingzhao was thinking.

The noise in his ears was distracting and irritating. He switched off the music. Hearing her faint breathing, his gaze drifted back from the distant horizon to her.

Regret gnawed at him—why did he have to be stubborn with Fang Qingzhao? Maybe she simply didn’t understand.

The navigation system announced an upcoming rest area. Zhou Suirong cleared his throat to speak when Fang Qingzhao’s phone rang.

She opened her eyes and saw the caller ID: Liang Ming.

Liang Ming had been released from prison last year. He was still uncomfortable with using a phone, treating it more like a bank card, reluctant to charge it weekly, often disappearing without contact.

A few days ago, Fang Qingzhao had called the teacher’s wife, asking her to have Liang Ming return the call when free, but he had probably forgotten, as there had been no response for several days.

Fang Qingzhao answered cautiously, “Hello.”

Unexpectedly, those two words hit a sore spot for Liang Ming, who then vented loudly on the phone: “What’s good about that? I’ve been fishing all day and haven’t seen a single fry! The guy next door keeps catching fish. Why? It’s the same pond! I suspect he’s drugging the fish. Have they developed such stuff outside? If lowering fish IQ harms humans, I demand a ban!”

He clearly didn’t want to admit he was bad at fishing.

Fang Qingzhao’s ears itched from his shouting. She held the phone away and switched to speakerphone.

Liang Ming shouted and began cursing without restraint: “Look! Look! A big fish was about to bite just now, but it got scared off because I was on the phone with you!”

Zhou Suirong, gripping the wheel, glanced several times in their direction, frowning as if annoyed by the noise. He asked unhappily, “Who?”

Liang Ming thought he was hallucinating. His voice grew rough: “Who?”

“Liang Ming,” Fang Qingzhao lowered the volume slightly. “Can’t you develop some other hobbies?”

Liang Ming answered, “Who in their right mind likes fishing? I’m here accompanying my mom at the farmhouse. She’s busy catching chickens in the backyard. I’m just obeying orders and fishing.”

He complained, “It’s no fun at all. Mosquitoes lined up knocking on my window all night. I’m bleeding out here. Ten chickens won’t make up for it.”

Fang Qingzhao guessed they wouldn’t catch any fish today and offered a token encouragement, “Keep it up.”

Liang Ming said, “Alright, I’m hanging up.”

“???” Fang Qingzhao quickly said, “I haven’t told you why I’m calling yet.”

“Oh, go ahead.”

Fang Qingzhao glanced at Zhou Suirong before asking, “Do you know if anyone might have accessed the ‘Abnormal Assessment’ documents after Teacher Liang’s death?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been in his study since. I didn’t sort through his belongings either. Weren’t all the documents given to you?” Liang Ming’s mind wasn’t on the conversation. As he answered, background noises rustled—he was busy changing feng shui spots. “I’ll ask my mom later, but she probably doesn’t know either.”

Zhou Suirong’s lips tightened thinly. When he turned, their eyes met briefly before sliding away. The topic involved him, and his expression darkened.

Fang Qingzhao asked, “Have you met any suspicious people recently?”

Liang Ming replied without hesitation, “Lots. I think you’re pretty suspicious right now.”

Fang Qingzhao, hearing none of his words made sense and growing increasingly absurd, mimicked Zhou Suirong’s tone: “Can you speak properly?”

Liang Ming was like a dominant rooster in the forest, flapping and diving at any humanoid creature, pecking wherever he could, climbing quickly: “No, if I spoke seriously, you’d hang up immediately. This deep mountain forest is driving me crazy. I’m this close to grabbing a chicken and chatting with a duck. Hey, don’t hang up—I’ll show you my new duck. It can sing.”

Under normal circumstances, prison wouldn’t cause such social detachment. Fang Qingzhao, baffled, asked, “Did the mosquitoes bite you with a hallucinogenic virus?”

Liang Ming immediately performed an on-site impression: “Quack quack quack quack—”

Amid Liang Ming’s bizarre noises, Fang Qingzhao hung up and quickly silenced another incoming call. After waiting and confirming he didn’t insist on calling again, she abandoned the impulse to block him.

She mused that his name suited him well—this comrade was always making a striking impression.

Zhou Suirong had spent the entire morning in a daze. Woken before dawn in a fright, opening the door thinking he was sleepwalking, still half-lost in the neighborhood by the time he got in the car.

Now, hearing Liang Ming’s strange duck calls, his rational mind was oddly pulled back from hundreds of kilometers away. He noticed it was almost eleven o’clock.

He glanced at Fang Qingzhao, who still looked listless and worn out. His voice tightened as he asked, “Have you eaten breakfast?”

“No,” Fang Qingzhao put down her phone, rubbed her eyes, and emphasized, “And I haven’t slept. I’ve only slept six hours in three days.”

Zhou Suirong canceled the navigation, his face stern: “Then why didn’t you say so?”

Fang Qingzhao blinked slowly, replayed the sequence in her mind, and said weakly, “We broke up, didn’t we? I was afraid you’d think I was troublesome and send me straight to the police station.”

She turned slightly, facing the window.

Zhou Suirong was choked up. He knew it was a pretext she found, yet he felt led astray. He couldn’t help but say, “Fang Qingzhao, aren’t you a bit unreasonable being angry with me?”

Fang Qingzhao turned back, trying to explain she wasn’t really upset. Then she added subtly, “You see, if I’m angry, at least you pay attention to me.”

“You can find other things to talk about yourself.” Zhou Suirong felt his heart burn with anger, on the verge of exploding, yet he had to follow her unusual logic and swallow his pride: “I haven’t given you the silent treatment. You just don’t like talking. And you speak too harshly.”

Fang Qingzhao asked, “I quite like listening to you talk. If your voice is pleasant, why don’t you talk more?”

Zhou Suirong was speechless.

In his heart, he thought bitterly: Then you can stay hungry.

He exited at the next highway toll, took the ramp, and stopped in a roadside clearing. Before Fang Qingzhao could say anything that sounded like a jab, he unbuckled his seatbelt and swiftly said, “I’m going to the restroom. Stay in the car and don’t move.”