Chapter 38: N. Transparent Barrier

Ever since he agreed to let Ning Yixiao move back into the apartment, a strange, eerie atmosphere had enveloped Su Hui, leading him to regret his decision from time to time.

He was curious about what had happened in these six years to make Ning Yixiao change so much. In the past, he was like a spring breeze to almost everyone, revealing his cold, heartless side only to Su Hui. But now, he didn’t even bother to pretend; he maintained a cold face during work hours, and since he spent most of his time working, he almost never smiled for the entire day.

Su Hui was actually a bit afraid when he did smile; his sense of humor was even more bizarre than the atmosphere between them.

He regretted the decision to live under the same roof because it made Su Hui realize more clearly that he could never truly shed his past feelings. It was like a whirlpool—the closer he got, the stronger the inexplicable urge to just jump in became. He hoped to be a rational person who wouldn’t live solely by his feelings or be as willful as he used to be. After all, their breakup had been too tragic. Now that they had collided again, Su Hui couldn’t tell if it was an accident or a stroke of luck.

Ning Yixiao was a very, very good person. Having possessed him for a while was something Su Hui was already content with, but losing him was just as deeply etched into his soul as holding him. If he had to go through it again, he would surely fall apart completely.

Back in his room, he called Kofi again. This was the third time in four days; he wanted to know when Kofi would be back. But Kofi’s answer left Su Hui feeling helpless.

“I can’t make it there for now. I really can’t get away from home. Eddy, take good care of yourself.”

Su Hui felt as though he had fallen into some kind of trap, though he wasn’t entirely sure. He spent most of his time in his room, but if more than two hours passed, Xue Gao or the robot vacuum would try to open the door, forcing Su Hui to go out.

Like right now.

As soon as Su Hui opened his door, he saw Ning Yixiao sitting at the dining table working. He didn’t understand why—there was a huge study upstairs, large enough for Xue Gao to play frisbee in, so why did he have to work on the first floor?

Ning Yixiao seemed to be on a conference call, mostly listening and occasionally offering suggestions or requirements in English. Su Hui stood at the door, watching him quietly for a moment, and lost his train of thought before he knew it.

Suddenly, as if sensing something, Ning Yixiao turned his head, met his gaze, and raised his eyebrows, as if asking, “What’s the matter?”

Su Hui snapped out of it, shook his head, and tiptoed into the kitchen to place his cup under the water dispenser. In the short gap while waiting for water, his elbow felt a bit of pain, so he pushed up his sleeve and found a bruise on the inside of his elbow, and it wasn’t small. But he bruised so easily that he didn’t pay much attention to it; he just pulled his sleeve back down, rubbed it gently, and pretended not to see it.

After getting the water, Su Hui turned around and saw Ning Yixiao typing away at his code. He glanced at his cup—his tea was finished.

“Do you want me to refill it?” he asked from across the kitchen island.

Ning Yixiao looked up and said directly, “Yeah, thanks.”

Su Hui picked up his cup, turned to press the hot water button, and placed it down to wait. He suddenly remembered the hand cream he had bought but hadn’t given to Ning Yixiao yet, so after hitting the stop button, he went back to his room.

When he came back out, Ning Yixiao was staring at him with a faint, indiscernible smile. It wasn’t until Su Hui walked into the kitchen and set his cup back down in the exact spot it had been before that Ning Yixiao spoke: “I thought you’d forgotten.”

Su Hui took a moment to react, blinked, and pulled a tube of hand cream from his pajama pocket. “I wanted to give this to you.”

He explained, “A student at school recommended it. They said it keeps your hands from hurting in the winter and it doesn’t have any irritating ingredients.”

Ning Yixiao picked it up to look at it and took off one side of his headset. “What student?”

“Just…” Su Hui didn’t know how to describe it. “A student I’m teaching.”

Ning Yixiao nodded and said calmly, “Then thank you, Teacher Su.”

Su Hui’s heart skipped a beat, but he pretended to be composed, took a silent sip of water, and quickly returned to his room.

What he didn’t know was that these conversations were heard clearly by the subordinates on the conference call. Although they couldn’t understand the content, anyone could tell the change in tone of their cold, aloof boss—the same boss who had just reprimanded an employee for not being responsible.

In a group chat without their boss, people started gossiping:

[Is Shaw in New York lately? He’s probably staying in that Manhattan apartment, right? Why does it sound like there’s someone else at home?]

[They were speaking Chinese, too. Shaw seems like a completely different person when he switches languages.]

[I think so too! He’s kind of fierce when he speaks English…]

Carl, who was slacking off, caught the chat and chimed in:

[Is it possible it’s not the language, but who he’s talking to?]

[Fine, I guess we don’t deserve a gentle boss.]

[So who is he talking to, anyway?]

Carl almost typed [His younger brother], but then he thought: if this got out, the blame would definitely fall on him, and Ning Yixiao would definitely lecture him. So, he suppressed his urge to share.

[What’s there to gossip about? It can’t be his girlfriend.]

[Oh, yeah. I think I heard a guy’s voice.]

[Whatever, let’s just work. Be careful, Shaw might lose his temper again in a bit.]

Ning Yixiao finished carefully reviewing the results reported by the laboratory researchers. “The identification accuracy can still be improved. It’s not enough to support the product launch yet.”

The researcher on the other side agreed and then asked, “Shaw, we’ve expanded the database text again. Do you want to continue recording?”

Ning Yixiao paused and replied, “Yeah, send it to me.”

“Record it when you get back to San Francisco,” the other person suggested. “When are you coming back? We might need to discuss some parts in person.”

Ning Yixiao glanced at the tightly closed bedroom door and paused for a moment. “I will as soon as possible.”

The meeting ended two hours later. The sky had darkened, and Ning Yixiao walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. He pulled back the curtains and found it was snowing again outside—large, heavy snowflakes, like bacterial filaments falling from an experimental vessel, soft and long-lasting.

He had already used the robot to wake Su Hui up too many times; it might stop working if he kept doing it. He thought about it and decided to let Xue Gao take the lead.

Xue Gao understood Ning Yixiao’s thoughts perfectly. He only needed a tilt of Ning Yixiao’s chin, and the dog scurried to Su Hui’s door, raising a paw to scratch at the handle.

Within five minutes, Su Hui did as Ning Yixiao expected and pushed the door open. However, this time he didn’t pat Xue Gao on the head as usual; instead, he quickly returned to his desk, seemingly busy with something.

Ning Yixiao had been pretending to be busy, but seeing Su Hui didn’t come out, he walked to his open door.

Su Hui seemed to be using his computer for a group video call. The audio was on speaker, and Ning Yixiao could hear several young voices. One boy’s voice was particularly prominent; he kept calling him “Eddy” as if he were pouting, constantly asking: “When are you coming back?”

Su Hui’s voice sounded a bit helpless as he smiled. “Soon. As soon as I’m feeling a bit better.”

“Have you entered a depressive episode again?” the boy continued to ask. “God, I hope you get well soon. We still want you to join us for the competition.”

The other students chimed in as well.

“I’ll try my best not to be absent.” Su Hui tilted his head, seemingly noticing something. “Ryan, did you get another ear piercing?”

The boy who talked the most immediately took the bait, very excitedly. “Yeah! Look, I got it on my ear cartilage!”

Ning Yixiao’s mood began to sour, bit by bit.

He leaned against the doorframe, raised his hand, and knocked on the door—not softly.

Only then did Su Hui turn his head back, like a kitten that had done something wrong but was completely oblivious, opening his big eyes innocently. “Is something the matter?”

Ning Yixiao hadn’t thought of an excuse beforehand, so he grabbed one at random, like drawing lots.

“I can’t find my phone. Did you see it?”

Su Hui was a bit puzzled. Why would he come to my room to look for his phone if it’s lost? How could it possibly be here? He hasn’t even stepped foot in here… And why was he speaking so loudly? His hearing was fine.

Su Hui turned back first and apologized to the students on the video call. “I have to step away for a second.”

The boy named Ryan immediately said, “Remember to come back! Also, do you want to eat pizza with us today? We’ll wait for you!”

“We’ll talk later.” Su Hui stood up and walked toward Ning Yixiao.

“Have you looked everywhere already?”

Ning Yixiao was brazen; you couldn’t see a single flaw in his expression. “Yeah, couldn’t find it.”

Su Hui grabbed his hair, which was sticking up, in distress. “Where did you last use it?”

Ning Yixiao replied instantly, “Forgot.”

Su Hui frowned and walked slowly toward the dining room, checked the chairs, and then went to the kitchen. Taking the opportunity, Ning Yixiao took out his phone, shoved it into a gap in the sofa, and covered it with a throw pillow.

“It’s not there.” Su Hui was a bit lost, raising his hand to touch his forehead. “Could it be upstairs?”

“This isn’t a way to find it; the house is too big.” Ning Yixiao followed up with a request. “Call my phone, I have it on vibrate.”

Su Hui was very simple-minded most of the time, especially in front of Ning Yixiao, so he nodded without hesitation. In front of Ning Yixiao, he found that number in his call history and dialed it.

Ning Yixiao had originally just wanted to force him to hang up that video call, but he hadn’t expected that Su Hui actually didn’t have his number saved at all.

The vibrating sound started. Su Hui followed the sound and quickly found Ning Yixiao’s phone in the sofa. He picked it up and held it up. “Found it. How did it fall in there?”

But Ning Yixiao didn’t seem happy about it.

Su Hui didn’t understand what had happened; he walked over and handed him the phone.

“I thought you really considered me a friend,” Ning Yixiao said suddenly as he took it.

Hearing this, Su Hui’s eyes widened slightly. He tried to defend himself. “I do…”

But Ning Yixiao was faster, asking his next question. “Is your way of treating people as friends to not even save their phone number?”

He tilted his head. “Su Hui, you used to know how to share contact info, didn’t you? Have you lost interest in these things now?”

This barrage of attacks caught Su Hui off guard. He stood there, dazed, not understanding how Ning Yixiao had suddenly become so aggressive. He just blinked.

“I forgot. I’m sorry.” He didn’t know how to defend himself. Thinking about it, there really wasn’t anything to defend.

Because he was intentionally not saving it. At the time, he thought Ning Yixiao was about to marry someone else and that their relationship was limited to business cooperation. It was always sad in his heart—even just looking at him for an extra second was painful. As a result, things moved too fast, and he didn’t even have time to worry about the number.

“It’s fine.” Ning Yixiao reined in his tone, trying his best to look unbothered.

“I’ll save it now.” Su Hui lowered his head, created a new contact, manually typed the six characters [Ning Yixiao New Number], and clicked save.

Ning Yixiao had nothing to say. He even wanted to let Su Hui just upload his entire resume while he was at it—it was already distant enough, he didn’t mind making it more detailed. But realizing that this was a bit petty, Ning Yixiao held it back.

He hadn’t expected Su Hui to be indifferent to this degree, so he had said unnecessary things and felt regret for it.

“Done.” Su Hui even showed him the contact page.

Ning Yixiao unlocked his phone. His OCD flared up again; he couldn’t help but click on the missed call just to get rid of the little red dot.

He didn’t expect Su Hui to catch a glimpse of it.

“When did you save my number?” he asked, curious, standing on his tiptoes. “Can you show me the note you wrote for me?”

Ning Yixiao paused, but he still showed him his phone screen.

Because he hadn’t written anything else—he had very professionally written [Su Hui]. There was nothing that couldn’t be seen.

He simply automatically filtered out Su Hui’s first question.

The tiptoed feet gradually touched the ground, and Su Hui returned to his normal posture, feeling a surge of disappointment in his heart. He didn’t know what he was inexplicably hoping for. Just like Ning Yixiao said, their relationship now was that of ordinary friends. Someone with orderly habits like Ning Yixiao would definitely not pick out one person to save with a nickname in a sea of business-like and distant contact names. It just wasn’t “tidy.”

Perhaps it was because his past self had possessed some special rights—he could be a disruptor in Ning Yixiao’s orderly life—that he had expectations. Su Hui kept convincing himself: Times have changed. He needed to get used to being an ordinary friend.

“I’ll go inside and finish my work.” After saying this, he went back to his room.

Ning Yixiao couldn’t ignore Su Hui’s indifference. He returned to the table and opened his laptop again to work, but he couldn’t concentrate. The expression on Su Hui’s face when he said “forgot” was very ordinary, as if this wasn’t a matter of any importance.

He wouldn’t be like he was before, persisting in writing a message when Ning Yixiao didn’t reply and saying with a smile, “It’s fine, just contact me earlier next time.”

Ning Yixiao’s number wasn’t important; the act of [contacting him] itself had become unimportant.

He didn’t want to think about these things anymore. He just wanted to focus on work, until he saw an email come in from Su Hui.

[Eddy: I got tickets to my student’s competition exhibition. If you want to go, I can give them to you.]

Not long after, he sent another one.

[Eddy: Although they are students, they are actually very talented. Because you said last time that you were interested in these things, I got an extra one. But it’s okay if you’re busy.]

Ning Yixiao felt inexplicably annoyed. Su Hui seemed to treat a “stranger” with much more heart than he did him—at least he remembered what the other person had said.

He intentionally let it sit for a while before replying.

[Sean: Thanks. I didn’t expect you to still remember these. I’ll check my schedule; I’ve been too busy lately, not enough time.]

Soon, he received Su Hui’s email.

[Eddy: Remember to eat even when you’re busy.]

So you still know.

Ning Yixiao felt a bit helpless. He realized Su Hui was a classic example of “easier said than done,” so he intentionally asked him:

[Sean: You’re right. So, what are you eating tonight?]

After waiting a few minutes, the email arrived on time.

[Eddy: My students want to treat me to pizza. They seem to be nearby, but I actually don’t want to go because my state is average today, I look a bit haggard, and I’m a bit afraid to see them. But they invited me so enthusiastically, I feel it’s a bit rude to refuse.]

[Sean: Don’t worry about that anxiety. You only need to consider what you want to eat tonight.]

Su Hui seemed to be thinking. It took a long time to reply.

[Eddy: I want to eat ice cream :)]

He even foolishly sent a smiley face, as if he could hide his pickiness this way.

Ning Yixiao didn’t realize he was smiling. He sat there thinking for a moment, then directly threw on a coat, took Xue Gao, opened the door, and went downstairs.

When he came back, just as he opened the door, he discovered that Su Hui was also just coming out of his room, and he had changed into outdoor clothes—a cream-colored lamb’s wool coat with a blue wool beanie. He could only be described as pure and cute.

The moment he saw him, Ning Yixiao truly doubted Su Hui’s definition of the word “haggard.”

Su Hui blinked, looking very confused that Ning Yixiao had just returned from the outside.

Ning Yixiao spoke first, his tone not particularly friendly. “Going out?”

Su Hui stood a bit straighter and nodded. “Yeah, just about to.”

Ning Yixiao couldn’t bring himself to ask, “Going out for what?” He just walked inside, closed the door, placed the bag in his hand on the ground, and changed into slippers.

“In a hurry?” He casually placed the shopping bag on the dining table without looking up. “I bought ice cream. You want some?”

Su Hui was stunned. Like a kitten seeing a can of wet food, he approached silently. “You went downstairs just to buy this?”

“Went down to walk around. Bought it while I was at it.” Ning Yixiao portioned out the vanilla Oreo flavor to him, intentionally saying, “Eat fast. Don’t keep people waiting.”

Su Hui was pleasantly surprised to find that it even had extra freeze-dried strawberry bits on top. He didn’t pay attention to Ning Yixiao’s prickly tone; after unwrapping the spoon, he realized something and a sound like a small animal escaped from his nose.

“Hm?”

Ning Yixiao held the chocolate flavor and dug out a spoonful. “Hm what?”

“Who’s waiting for me?” Su Hui was a bit confused. “Are you talking about Xue Gao?”

Ning Yixiao was also a bit confused. “What’s Xue Gao waiting for…”

It was obviously that person named Ryan, along with his pizza.

Just as he finished speaking, Xue Gao did indeed come to their side, wagging his little tail.

Su Hui patted Xue Gao on the head and forgot what he was about to say. He took a bite of the ice cream, and his eyes lit up. “So good.”

After eating, he looked at the box and felt very surprised, unable to help but smile. “I was just thinking about going to this store to buy ice cream. Luckily you came back one step earlier, otherwise I would’ve had to make another trip.”

Buy ice cream?

Ning Yixiao’s mood was like a balloon floating in the night, gradually rising.

As Su Hui said this, he took off his hat and his coat, sitting down on the dining chair quite contentedly, using his spoon to tease Xue Gao.

“Great. I don’t have to go out today.”

“Hungry?” Ning Yixiao asked suddenly.

Su Hui raised his eyes. “Hm?”

“Not cooking.” Ning Yixiao raised an eyebrow. “Let’s order pizza.”

__

Author’s Note:

Stop ordering pizza, Ning Yixiao—order a bottle of vinegar instead!