Chapter 13: A Fleeting Glance That Year

He kept a cold face and called home, only to learn that Qin Shu had not returned.

No one knew where she had gone.

Gu Tingyan rubbed his throbbing temples, walked to the hospital entrance, and took out a cigarette to smoke; the curling, rising blue smoke made his brows and eyes appear all the more noble and cold.

The phone in Gu Tingyan's pocket rang; he answered it quickly, and upon seeing that the caller ID was Chu Sheng, his eyes darkened.

The familiar ringtone played for a minute before he finally raised his hand to answer: "Hello?"

Chu Sheng's voice was panicked: "Tingyan, there are so many reporters outside my hospital room, I'm so scared."

Gu Tingyan paused, his expression cold: "I'm coming over right now."

Gu Tingyan brought bodyguards over to drive away the reporters surrounding the area, and when Chu Sheng saw him, she threw herself into his arms with red eyes: "Tingyan, thank goodness you came."

Suddenly, the image of Qin Shu's cold, sorrowful eyes surfaced in Gu Tingyan's mind.

She stood there, watching him and Chu Sheng embrace with a calm and indifferent expression, her eye rims tinged with red.

Gu Tingyan's heart suddenly pained; he lowered his head, pulled away the hand Chu Sheng had wrapped around his waist, and said in a cold voice: "I'll take you back."

"Mm."

After the three of them finished their meal and walked out of the restaurant, Ji Yanli looked at Qin Shu and Su Tuantuan and asked gentlemanly: "Shall I take you both home?"

Qin Shu said: "You two go back first, I want to be alone for a while."

Su Tuantuan immediately looked at her nervously: "Huahua, don't do anything foolish."

She was afraid Qin Shu would lose hope and commit suicide.

Qin Shu said: "I am not Chu Sheng."

After saying goodbye to the two, Qin Shu took a taxi to First High School; after so many years since graduation, this was the first time Qin Shu had come back to take a look.

This was the place where she and Gu Tingyan first met.

She walked into the campus alone and went to the classroom they had been in back then; one by one, the young, unfamiliar faces were full of youthful vitality.

Without realizing it, she walked to the place where she first met Gu Tingyan.

She looked at the mottled corner of the wall, and her memory suddenly returned to that summer in the first year of high school before the classes were divided.

The day she met Gu Tingyan, Qin Shu was on her period, and her stomach was cramping severely; she went to the school infirmary to get medicine, and when she came out, it had started to rain heavily.

Qin Shu hadn't brought an umbrella and stood in the corridor waiting for the rain to stop, her face deathly pale.

"Classmate, are you alright?" The youth's clear, gentle voice sounded by her ear, and a large umbrella shielded the top of her head.

Qin Shu looked up slightly, and her heart trembled slightly when she saw that face, which was handsome beyond compare; a look of astonishment flashed in her eyes, as she had never seen anyone who looked so good.

The youth had an upright posture, a cold and stern face, broad shoulders and a narrow waist, deep brows and eyes, and thin, crimson lips; the school uniform worn on him made him look like a beautiful youth who had stepped out of a painting.

His voice was low: "You didn't bring an umbrella?"

Qin Shu nodded with a pale face.

The youth tilted the umbrella toward her slightly and smiled faintly: "Let's go together."

When he smiled, it seemed as if all the beautiful things in the world lost their color before him.

That one glance left a deep mark in Qin Shu's heart.

The youth and the young girl walked side by side, sharing the same umbrella as they returned to the classroom.

Until he left, Qin Shu didn't even know his name.

Later, Qin Shu learned that he was the cold, popular school heartthrob that the classmates were always enthusiastically discussing: Gu Tingyan.

The three words "Gu Tingyan" took root and sprouted in her heart from then on, and the young girl's heart began to stir.

Qin Shu sat on the chair outside the old school infirmary; she didn't know when the corners of her eyes had turned red, and when she turned on her phone, she saw dozens of missed calls from Gu Tingyan.

Qin Shu called back, her voice hoarse: "Gu Tingyan."

The person on the other end answered, was silent for three seconds, and said: "I am Chu Sheng."

Her voice was languid from post-intimacy: "Tingyan is in the bathroom taking a shower; do you need me to call him for you?"

Qin Shu felt as if her entire body were in an ice cellar, her hands and feet ice-cold.

With a "snap," the call was disconnected.

Qin Shu sat on the chair and wept loudly, her heart spasming with pain; her sobbing was filled with tremors, and she covered her face with her hands to cry, the scalding tears flowing from between her fingers, almost burning her skin.

Five years of marriage, and she had lost completely.

Chu Family.

Chu Sheng looked at the hung-up phone, her fingers moving slightly as she quickly tapped delete; she put the phone back where it was, her heart beating uncontrollably fast.

Gu Tingyan walked out of the guest room bathroom at the Chu Family home with a bath towel around his lower body; seeing Chu Sheng there, he paused slightly, then casually grabbed the bathrobe hanging nearby to cover his naked, muscular torso completely.

His voice carried a hint of displeasure: "Why did you come in?"

Chu Sheng said softly: "I came to bring you clean clothes."

"It's all the maid's fault for accidentally spilling red wine on you; I have already punished her."

Gu Tingyan said calmly: "There is no need to be harsh with her."

Gu Tingyan held the clothes from the pocket with his fingertips and looked at Chu Sheng: "I am going to change."

Chu Sheng paused slightly and walked out: "Then go ahead and change."

After walking out the door, Chu Sheng's heart pounded wildly, and she quickened her pace to leave.

Gu Tingyan finished changing his clothes and drove away from the Chu Family.

Qin Shu returned home, changed her shoes at the entryway, hung up her bag, and walked inside; she paused slightly when she saw Gu Tingyan, who had been sitting on the living room sofa for who knows how long.

Gu Tingyan looked as if he had been waiting for her for a long time, sitting there with a dark and uncertain expression while holding his phone, as if he had been waiting for her message the whole time.

Seeing Qin Shu return, he lowered his head to check the time.

It was already 23:00 at night.

He had waited for her at home for a long time, waiting until now, yet he hadn't even received a single phone call from her.

Even if she had called back just to scold him, he would not be suffering such torment in his heart.

From the time the incident occurred today until now, his wife had neither cried nor made a scene, nor had she even called once to question him.

Gu Tingyan did not know whether to praise her for being magnanimous, or to say that she actually did not care who he was with or what he had done with anyone.

"Where have you been?" He stood up, followed closely behind Qin Shu, and gazed at her with his pitch-black eyes.

After Gu Tingyan returned home, he learned that Qin Shu had not been home for these three days either, and the child had been sent to the Old Residence.

However, Qin Shu had not told him.

"Why have you not been home for these three days?"

Qin Shu's gaze fell upon him; the clothes on his body had been changed, and they were not the ones he had been wearing before.

Qin Shu did not even have the strength to speak; she walked into the living room, passed by Gu Tingyan without even glancing at him, and went straight upstairs.

Since she had already decided to divorce, there was no need to say another word to him.

Gu Tingyan stood up and followed behind her, his tone resentful: "Qin Shu, are you planning to give me the silent treatment?"

"I kept calling you, but you never answered."

His tone was quite like that of a disgruntled husband, as if she were the heartless woman who had done something wrong.

Qin Shu's fingers were tightly clenched together, her knuckles turning white; she took a deep breath, turned to look at Gu Tingyan, and her eyes were calm and indifferent: "Gu Tingyan, let's get a divorce."