Chapter 61: The Safe Embrace

Payday at Tengyuan Company had arrived; the twentieth of every month was the time for the collective distribution of grain.

And after Zhou Xiaoru signed what she considered to be an indentured servant contract, she brazenly skipped work for several days.

Until the day of the payroll...

She waited and waited, waiting for an entire day, but she never received a transfer notification message.

Could it be that she had filled in the wrong salary card number when she registered it before? Having not received her salary, Zhou Xiaoru could only suspect this.

She had made a mark on the calendar in her notebook.

She had joined Tengyuan in the middle of March, and by April, she still hadn't processed the matter of her salary card.

The company had a rule that new employees could only go to the Finance Department to fill in and submit their salary card information in their second month of employment.

She remembered that at the time, after filling in the information, she had checked the bank card number back and forth over a dozen times; there shouldn't have been any mistakes.

Regardless, she had been working for over two months, so she should have received her salary by now.

These past few days, after experiencing the hotel incident, she hadn't gone to work, but had instead been staying with Jiang Bufan the whole time.

It wasn't that she had watched too much crime news; she was genuinely afraid that the person would do something desperate and send herself to report to the King of Hell ahead of schedule.

Although Jiang Bufan had repeatedly stated that this matter had nothing to do with her, she couldn't let Jiang Bufan face the darkest moment of her life alone!

Just like that, Jiang Bufan slept in the dormitory for several days, and Zhou Xiaoru stayed in the dormitory to accompany her for those same days.

In the process of keeping her company, she took the opportunity to revise her thesis, which she had changed several times but had never passed, once again.

This time, it finally passed.

The defense was almost here, and she had been stuck on her thesis for so long; she was truly afraid she wouldn't be able to graduate.

Meanwhile, Jiang Bufan lay in the dormitory for several days under the strange gazes of Xiao Lan and Yao Xiang every day.

Zhou Xiaoru, who knew everything, felt a little more guilty every time she saw them looking at Jiang Bufan with inquisitive eyes and asking questions from time to time.

Her heart grew a little heavier with guilt.

These past few days, not only had her phone been blown up, but so had Jiang Bufan's.

The people calling were nothing more than those few individuals.

Gu Liyan, Su Poyang, and Du Feng.

And today, she, who should have received the salary transfer notification, ultimately did not wait for any news.

Instead, she received a greeting from her good friend in the Personnel Department, Zhang Yao.

Just seeing the content of that text message, Zhou Xiaoru almost fainted from anger!

At first, she received a WeChat message from Zhang Yao, which was just a short greeting: "Xiaoru, how are you? Are you okay?"

She felt a little touched in her heart; in Tengyuan, besides Du Feng, there was also a friend like Zhang Yao who cared about her.

But before she could reply, Zhang Yao sent another message immediately after.

The content of the message was: "Please accept my condolences. We all know about your situation. I've been wanting to send you a message to comfort you, but I was afraid of making you sad. You must take good care of yourself and come back to work soon."

Reading this, Zhou Xiaoru was first confused, and then her face twitched as if she were having a cramp.

What "please accept my condolences"!

She knew it must be that bastard Gu Liyan who had used some inexplicable reason to ask for leave on her behalf again.

She had long known that the previous two times she skipped work, it was Gu Liyan who had called the Supervisor's office to ask for leave for her.

No wonder that Supervisor Mao Mao would suddenly pay attention to her movements in the Personnel Department.

It turned out that it was all the disaster Gu Liyan had planted early on!

Facing Zhang Yao's concern, Zhou Xiaoru followed the clues and replied with an ambiguous message.

"How did you know about my situation?"

Immediately, there was a reply on WeChat.

Zhang Yao told her that the Supervisor had come to their office early a few days ago and said that the grandmother who had raised her since she was little had unfortunately passed away, and that she needed to take leave to return to her hometown for a few days.

And her work would be temporarily taken over by Zhang Yao and another colleague until she returned.

Seeing this, Zhou Xiaoru almost crushed her phone!

Her grandmother passed away?!

Her grandmother hadn't even met her father! How could she have raised her, and now she had passed away?!

Damn it!!

This is the drawback of having a boss who knows the ins and outs of your family!

Zhou Xiaoru had already greeted all eighteen generations of Gu Liyan's ancestors in her heart.

And she felt that hiding like this forever wasn't a solution either.

These past few days, Su Poyang had already sent her countless messages, wanting her to bring Jiang Bufan out to talk with him.

But, facing the darkest moment of one's life, how could she bring herself to say to Jiang Bufan, "Why don't you have a chat with the person you had a one-night stand with?"

Just as she was struggling, the certain Fan who had been lying there for three days and three nights finally got out of bed early on the fourth day.

Although she had gotten out of bed to take care of her basic needs these past few days, she would lie back down immediately after finishing.

But today was different; after she got out of bed, she took a long shower in the bathroom and even changed into a set of clean, new clothes.

After tidying herself up, Jiang Bufan took advantage of the time when everyone else in the dormitory was still in dreamland, and left the dormitory alone with her bag on her back.

Zhou Xiaoru, who had been watching her, had by now drifted off to who knows what world.

You have to know, when Jiang Bufan got up, it wasn't even four o'clock.

This time was exactly when everyone was sleeping the soundest.

For a certain Xiaoru whose nerves had reached their limit, she was sleeping even more soundly!

Perhaps because she was truly worried about Jiang Bufan in her heart, Zhou Xiaoru had set several alarms for herself, forcing herself to wake up at different time intervals to take a look at the person sleeping on the bed opposite her.

Summoned by the several alarms, she would squint her eyes to look each time, and when she saw that the quilt on the opposite bed was bulging, she would continue to sleep with peace of mind.

However, it wasn't until she had a night's worth of urine, and could no longer hold it, that she got out of bed...

She went to the restroom to relieve herself, and in her dazed state, she wore her slippers and stepped onto the somewhat wet and slippery tiles.

Then, with an "Ouch!", she—the magnificent one—fell directly into the squat toilet in the restroom!

With this, she wasn't just completely awake; even the night's urine she had been holding for so long was gone thanks to that fall!

Falling into a latrine first thing in the morning—such bad luck was actually encountered by Miss Zhou.

She really is not only brainless, heartless, and lungless, but also severely lacking in the Five Elements; she is lacking the Five Elements!

Before she could even complain, she discovered a serious problem!

Looking at the wet restroom, a bad premonition flashed through her mind.

She hurriedly crawled back to the dormitory, not even caring about her already wet pants.

Standing on the stool under Jiang Bufan's bed, in the somewhat dark room, she reached toward the raised quilt on the bed.

The more she felt it, the more something felt wrong!

She pulled the quilt back directly and saw that there was no one on the bed at all!

What was covered under the quilt was the plush toy that Jiang Bufan hugged to sleep every night!

A cold sweat broke out on her back, and her heart panicked along with it! She almost fell off the stool!

At this moment, she didn't dare to disturb the other two people in the dormitory.

After all, it involved Jiang Bufan's privacy, so she couldn't ask Xiao Lan and Yao Xiang for help.

She hurriedly changed her clothes as fast as she could, grabbed her phone, and ran out of the dormitory without even washing her face or brushing her teeth.

And in her panic, she didn't even realize she had forgotten to change her shoes.

It is easy to imagine that at this very moment, Zhou Xiaoru was truly panicked...

As soon as she left the dormitory, she immediately called Jiang Bufan, but after calling several times in a row, no one answered.

There had been too many calls these past few days, so both of their phones had been set to silent mode.

At this moment, it was impossible for Jiang Bufan to notice her calling her right away.

Zhou Xiaoru ran anxiously, first checking the school playground, the gymnasium, and the cafeteria. She searched every place Jiang Bufan might go.

She didn't find anyone!

She had no choice but to leave the school gate and go outside to look.

She didn't know when Jiang Bufan had left, where she would go, or if she would do something desperate, just as she had feared before?

The more she thought, the more she panicked! What should she do!

Standing on the main road outside, Zhou Xiaoru clutched her phone in a panic, her whole body trembling slightly.

For the first time, she felt a sense of being at the end of her rope!

Staring at the phone screen, it was only a little past six; there were only two people she could think of to help!

One was Du Feng, and the other was... Gu Liyan!

After thinking it over, for this kind of matter, she could only turn to Gu Liyan.

The person who caused the trouble was his cousin, so he, as the younger brother, also had a responsibility.

Gritting her teeth, she dialed the number...

The phone rang for a long time, and just as Zhou Xiaoru was about to give up, the call was finally answered.

A hoarse and magnetic man's voice came from the other end of the line.

"Hello?"

For some reason, at a time like this, hearing this person's voice, Zhou Xiaoru suddenly felt a sting in her nose and an urge to cry.

"Gu Liyan!"

With a lump in her throat, she called out his name, and with this sound, her tears fell as well.

She was truly at the end of her rope and worried to death.

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line, then a voice came through.

"Xiaoru? What's wrong?"

At this, Zhou Xiaoru cried as she said, "Gu Liyan, can you help me find Xiaofan? She's gone, I..."

She was truly so anxious that her chest hurt; she had even wanted to call the police just now!

Hearing this, Gu Liyan was completely awake; he sat up from the bed and asked.

"Don't panic. Where are you now? I'll come find you!"

After Zhou Xiaoru said she was at the student activity plaza near the school, Gu Liyan immediately hung up the phone.

As she walked and searched, waiting anxiously, Gu Liyan arrived in less than twenty minutes, driving his BMW to find Zhou Xiaoru.

Perhaps it was the immense pressure of the past few days, but Zhou Xiaoru blamed herself for what happened to Jiang Bufan.

If something really happened to Jiang Bufan, how could she answer to her parents? She would truly never forgive herself for the rest of her life.

When Gu Liyan saw the person who looked disheveled, wearing slippers, with a haggard face and tears streaming down,

his heart ached, and he pulled the trembling person directly into his arms right there on the roadside.

He comforted her, "Don't be afraid, I'm here!"

For the first time, Zhou Xiaoru did not reject or feel disgusted by this person's embrace.

Perhaps at this very moment, feeling extremely terrified, she truly needed a safe embrace.