Chapter 13

Ruan Nianchu was sent to the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia. Perhaps considering her situation during this period, the person receiving her was a female official, around forty years old, who appeared friendly. Upon arrival, Ruan Nianchu asked the official to borrow a phone and made a call to her mother.

After a prolonged silence on the other end, the call connected. Mother Ruan’s voice emerged from the receiver, hoarse and conveying traces of fatigue, “Hello?”

Before Ruan Nianchu could speak, as soon as she opened her mouth, she burst into sobs and choked. After being trapped for twenty-one days, her strength and composure collapsed in this moment. Mother Ruan was initially puzzled, then realized something, and hesitantly called out Ruan Nianchu’s name.

Ruan Nianchu responded, and Mother Ruan burst into tears of joy.

Mother and daughter remained silent, holding the phone and crying. After a while, the female official took the phone, comforted Mother Ruan, and informed her that Ruan Nianchu was safe in the embassy, and they would soon send her back home.

Mother Ruan was overwhelmed with joy, continuously expressing gratitude.

Later, Ruan Nianchu cried for a long time before gradually stabilizing her emotions. The female official took her for dinner, arranged accommodation, and patiently chatted with her. She told Ruan Nianchu that when she went missing in the outskirts of Phnom Penh, HELP BRIDGE had reported to the police, and the Cambodian authorities, after filing a case, promptly notified the embassy.

Ruan Nianchu asked if the HELP BRIDGE team was still in Cambodia.

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Slvwadkdt bsxl, obyv y zwmwakswp rbaypl.

Mbl sqqknkyz pxkzle, “Zsw okzz cl yczl vs ts bsxl pssd yp olzz.”

Swyd Lkydnbw dseele yv bla osaep.

“Qsse nbkze, vyjl y pbsola yde tlv y tsse dktbv’p pzllr. Msxsaaso usw’zz cl yczl vs pll uswa ryaldvp,” vbl ekrzsxyv pyke okvb y pxkzl yp pbl pvsse wr, “Gzps, altyaekdt obyv usw lmrlakldnle vbkp vkxl…”

Swyd Lkydnbw jdlo obyv vbl sqqknkyz oydvle vs pyu. Fbl pxkzle, “Psd’v osaau, R osd’v vlzz ydusdl. R rasxkple psxlsdl vbyv obld R ts cynj, R’zz qsatlv lhlauvbkdt ycswv blal.”

*

Mbl lxcyppu oyp hlau lqqknkldv; vbl dlmv eyu, Swyd Lkydnbw kdelle csyaele y qzktbv cynj vs bla bsxlvsod. Tla ryaldvp, kdqsaxle sq vbl dlop, bye yzalyeu yaakhle yv vbl ykarsav lyazu vs rknj bla wr.

After waiting for a few hours, when their daughter’s figure appeared, the eyes of Nianchu’s parents turned red.

Compared to her parents’ excited emotions, today, Ruan Nianchu appeared much calmer. In the airport, a young mother was making a call, a mischievous child was tugging at her dress; an elderly couple was supporting each other, shakily walking into the waiting hall; the airport announcer’s voice echoed in the air, fluently speaking in Mandarin…

Ruan Nianchu hugged her mother tightly, “Mom, I’m back.”

Mother Ruan’s eyes were swollen from crying, and she asked her, “Where have you been during this time? Do you know how worried your father and I were? I called your volunteer team, and they said you might have been kidnapped by local armed groups…”

“These things don’t matter,” Ruan Nianchu choked, “I can come back safely, and our family can be together. That’s what matters the most, isn’t it?”

Her father and mother exchanged glances. Seeing that she didn’t want to talk about it, they didn’t press further.

In the tradition of welcoming someone back to their hometown, they had a feast. To wash away the bad luck for their daughter, Father Ruan booked a private room at a high-end restaurant in Yuncheng and invited a large group of relatives and friends.

While lively gatherings were enjoyable, with many people, conversations naturally became mixed.

At the table, aunts and uncles, playing the role of expressing concern, kept asking Ruan Nianchu about her whereabouts during those twenty-one days. She calmly ate her food, and when asked repeatedly, she replied, “I was kidnapped.”

When this statement came out, there was a few seconds of silence in the entire private room.

Everyone looked at each other, not knowing how to respond. In fact, Ruan Nianchu’s relatives had heard some rumors about her being kidnapped in Cambodia, but they didn’t expect the person involved to talk about it so candidly.

Her parents’ expressions also changed slightly.

The relative who asked the question earlier felt a bit awkward. After a pause, she continued, “So… did you manage to escape on your own?”

Ruan Nianchu glanced at her and said, “Yes.”

The relative quickly found a way out for herself, “I knew it. Our Nianchu is smart. You see, she’s so clever! She could save her own life in a critical situation!”

As the conversation moved on, relatives started to congratulate Ruan Nianchu on escaping danger. She accepted all the good wishes. They say that there’s good fortune after surviving a disaster; she hoped it would be true.

Life gradually returned to normal.

Ruan Nianchu resumed her normal routine, spending three days a week playing games at home, three days singing and watching movies with friends, and the remaining day dedicated to sleeping. She felt that youth, especially during summer vacation, should not be wasted.

She was still the same as before, and it felt good.

The twenty-one days in the Cambodian jungle and the person whose name couldn’t be mentioned seemed to fade into her memories. Like that, the summer vacation quickly came to an end.

One week before the start of the new school year, Ruan Nianchu’s friend Qiao Yufei returned from vacation in the Maldives and invited her for a meal.

She went.

After a few bites with chopsticks, Qiao Yufei’s curiosity couldn’t be contained, and she whispered, “Hey, there’s something I really, really want to understand.”

Ruan Nianchu, engrossed in clearing the delicious dishes on the table, casually responded, “Hmm. What’s the matter?”

“After you were kidnapped in Cambodia… did you really manage to escape on your own?” Qiao Yufei was full of disbelief, “Are you that amazing? It’s so legendary; how come no media interviewed you for a special feature?”

The words of her friend actually voiced the thoughts of many. Ruan Nianchu found it a bit amusing. The twenty-one days of fear and despair, in the eyes of others, had been romanticized into a legend.

Her hand paused as she was picking up food, “Didn’t I say I don’t want to talk about that?”

Qiao Yufei stuck out her tongue, a bit disappointed, “Alright, don’t be mad. If you don’t want to talk about it, let it be.”

Ruan Nianchu lowered her head, putting the grilled meat she had picked into her bowl. After a moment, she whispered, “Someone helped me.”

“Someone helped you?” Qiao Yufei, a lively and curious friend, was immediately surprised, “Who? What’s their name? Why did they help you?”

Ruan Nianchu shook her head, “I can’t remember.”

This statement wasn’t a brush-off or a lie. Regarding those events and people, her memories had indeed become somewhat fuzzy. In ancient romance stories, there was always the element of selective forgetting, and Ruan Nianchu, who used to not believe in it, now found herself leaning towards acceptance.

People have two extremes. Some remember the most unpleasant things, causing psychological trauma, while others forget those things to heal the trauma.

Ruan Nianchu thought that she might belong to the latter, as the whole concept of lingering in sadness didn’t suit her.

*

That day was the last time Ruan Nianchu mentioned Cambodia. Since then, that country and the person associated with it had completely turned a new page in her life. At the age of nineteen, that incident was an unexpected deviation, and afterward, her anxious parents abandoned the idea of sending her abroad for further studies after graduation, instead arranging a different path for her.

Her life followed a routine, without any further deviation.

Internship, graduation, farewell dinner, attending the degree award ceremony – that was the entirety of Ruan Nianchu’s student life.

On the day of departure from the university, her roommates packed their belongings and gathered for dinner. In a private room of a Chinese restaurant, a table accommodated seven people. Except for Ruan Nianchu, three other female students brought their families. Among those family members were legends of the boxing ring and tycoons of the business world, all considered high-profile.

In fact, with her appearance and artistic talents, Ruan Nianchu naturally attracted admirers. Unfortunately, she didn’t feel a connection with any of the male students. So, Ruan Nianchu remained single from the beginning of her studies to graduation.

One of her roommates had a low alcohol tolerance and started speaking nonsense after two or three drinks. She clicked her tongue and said, “Ruan Nianchu, do you know my biggest regret in university? It’s not witnessing this beautiful lady getting into a relationship.”

She just smiled, “Don’t worry. If I haven’t found someone suitable by the age of twenty-five, my mom knows to arrange blind dates for me.” At that time, Ruan Nianchu didn’t recall the idiom “one word makes a prophecy.”

Whether her standards were too high or the suitors were lacking, for the next few years, Ruan Nianchu still couldn’t bid farewell to her single status. To her, who was indifferent to these matters, it was nothing to be concerned about, but it caused great anxiety for her parents. Seeing that she wasn’t interested in interacting with male students, they suspected that the trauma from that incident in the past had affected her sexual orientation.

They were extremely worried.

So, Ruan Nianchu found herself arranged for a blind date at a meeting organized by her parents. There, she met her first boyfriend in life.

He was twenty-nine years old, a high-ranking executive in a large private enterprise, a workplace elite. He had a decent appearance, tall stature, and both Nianchu’s father and mother were satisfied with him. Ruan Nianchu didn’t have a good impression of this elite, nor did she dislike him, but she agreed to the elite’s request for a relationship.

The elite was a gentleman and generous. Every time he took her out, they went to high-end places. To match Ruan Nianchu’s simple mindset, he tried to keep their conversations in a direction that was easy to understand.

Ruan Nianchu was somewhat moved by this.

But it was only to a certain extent.

Finally, after a month and a half of dating the elite, twenty-five-year-old Ruan Nianchu had her first realization about love between men and women. That realization was that relationships cannot be forced.

She hadn’t expected this brief so-called first love to be so short-lived, and she certainly hadn’t expected that she, who had always been in control, would become the one being cheated on.

Ruan Nianchu still found the whole situation quite dramatic when she looked back on it now.

It was a weekend, and the elite, following the routine, sent her a WeChat message, inviting her to lunch. Same old place, a French restaurant. Ruan Nianchu prepared the words to break up with him and calmly went to the appointment.

Upon reaching the restaurant, Ruan Nianchu’s eyes flickered.

The elite was still the same, dressed impeccably, but his expression was a bit unpleasant. On the seat next to him, there was a girl, around twenty, sitting. The girl wore a red dress, high heels, and had long legs, a standard beauty.

Ruan Nianchu walked over with a smile, “You brought a friend, and you didn’t even tell me in advance. How rude.” She nodded towards the girl, “Hello.”

The girl, who was initially arrogant, was puzzled by Ruan Nianchu’s friendly smile and looked at the elite with some strange eyes.

The elite cleared his throat and awkwardly said, “Uh… Nianchu, actually, the reason I called you out today… is to talk to you about breaking up.”

This time, Ruan Nianchu was genuinely stunned. Her lines for breaking up were unexpectedly stolen.

Misinterpreting her stunned expression, the elite and the beauty thought she was showing extreme sadness. The beauty revealed a triumphant look, while the elite looked full of guilt, “Nianchu, it’s my fault. But you have to understand, I’m a normal man. We’ve been dating for over a month, and you won’t even let me touch you… Nana is already pregnant, and I can’t… I know what I say won’t help, but I still hope… you can forgive me.”

Listening to his words, Ruan Nianchu finally realized what was going on. She nodded, putting on an understanding expression, “So that’s how it is. It’s okay, it’s not a big deal. Don’t feel too guilty. Take good care of your wife.”

The elite frowned, “Nianchu, if you have any grievances, just vent them on me. Don’t hold it in.”

Ruan Nianchu really had no grievances. She even thought that the timing of your affair was quite interesting. So, she smiled and said, “Alright, I have something to attend to. I’ll take off.” While speaking, she stood up and smiled at the woman in red, “Goodbye, take care of yourself and the baby.”

The woman in red: “…”

Her footsteps gradually moved away. Ruan Nianchu walked to the door, carrying her bag. She opened the door, and outside, the sun was shining brightly, its golden rays piercing into her eyes. She tilted her head to block the sunlight, and in the corner of her eye, she seemed to catch a glimpse of someone.

Ruan Nianchu suddenly stiffened. Focusing her eyes, she carefully looked, and the Western restaurant was spacious and bright, with no sign of the figure from her memory.

It seemed like an illusion.

She lowered her gaze and suddenly chuckled. It had been almost seven years. Originally, she thought she had completely forgotten.

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