The moment Ruan Mian heard the voice, she vaguely felt it was somewhat familiar. But upon further thought, she felt it was impossible. In the few seconds she was stunned, the other side asked again, “Can you hear me?”
Ruan Mian hurriedly responded, “Yes, I can hear you. May I ask about this phone…”
Before she could finish her sentence, the other end suddenly laughed lazily, with a hint of nonchalance, slowly overlapping with the voice in her memory.
Caught off guard by the interruption, Ruan Mian’s heart thumped as she unconsciously tightened her grip on the phone. The thought that surfaced in her mind was confirmed the next second.
“Is this Ruan Mian?”
He said, “This is Chen Yi, is this your phone?”
She was stunned for a moment before Lin Jiahui, noticing her odd behavior, came over and sat down beside her. Only then did Ruan Mian come to her senses and say, “It’s me. How did you get my phone?”
“You left it in the car.”
After sending everyone to the airport, Chen Yi and his group went back to the disaster area to reorganize and prepare for the main force’s return journey. At that time, the phone was wedged in a crevice on the edge of the car seat and was picked up by someone in Chen Yi’s team and handed over to him.
They didn’t carry their phones while on duty. Apart from the medical staff, no one else had ridden in that car. When Chen Yi got the phone, it was already turned off and couldn’t be turned on. They were already on the road then and couldn’t contact anyone for the time being.
Now, after returning the borrowed power bank to the service station, Chen Yi walked out with the phone, “We can only get back to City B tonight. If you’re not in a rush, I can deliver the phone to you tomorrow afternoon.”
“I’m not in a hurry.”
Ruan Mian scratched her forehead, “Then drive safely.”
“Okay.”
He laughed, “Then take down my phone number and send me a text message. I’ll contact you again tomorrow.”
“Oh, wait.”
Ruan Mian bent down to take out pen and paper from the drawer under the coffee table, “Okay, go ahead.”
Over the receiver, Chen Yi reported a string of numbers in groups of three and four. Ruan Mian wrote them down one by one and repeated, “Correct?”
He hummed in affirmation. He was probably outside as the receiver was full of wind noise.
Ruan Mian pressed the pen cap as they fell silent for a while. Chen Yi said, “Your phone’s almost out of battery. I’ll hang up first and get back to you later.”
She held her breath for a moment and said, “Okay.”
After hanging up, Lin Jiahui, who had been holding back next to her, couldn’t help but ask, “You found your phone? Where was it?”
“I left it in the car that sent us here.”
Putting down the old phone in her hand, Ruan Mian’s palms were a little sweaty. “It’s with Chen Yi now.”
“Wow, should I say this is fate?”
Lin Jiahui rubbed her hair dry, “So how does he plan to give you back the phone?”
“He said he’ll deliver it here tomorrow.”
Ruan Mian had originally thought of just asking him to mail it over to save the trouble of traveling back and forth. But on second thought, it was after all someone who had picked up her phone, so she ought to show her gratitude properly. It would be inappropriate and impolite to overlook these social niceties.
Seeing her lost in thought, Lin Jiahui didn’t say more. “Alright, don’t think too much. Wash up and sleep early. Don’t meet him tomorrow with two big dark circles.”
She went back to the bedroom. Ruan Mian sat in the living room for a while. Thinking of tomorrow’s meeting made her feel a strange nervousness, much like the mood she had when she found out she would be going hiking with Chen Yi the next day during that winter break in high school.
Nervous yet somehow full of anticipatory excitement.
The balcony sliding door was not closed. The wind whipped the clothes drying outside, clattering noisily. Ruan Mian went out to take in the clothes then came back inside with the notebook containing Chen Yi’s phone number and returned to her room.
The master bedroom had an attached bathroom. After her shower, she sat at the desk and sent a message to that number, typing and deleting in the input box over and over.
It was a long time before she finally sent the message. After sending it, she waited a while before remembering he couldn’t see it now. She breathed a sigh of relief, put down her phone and turned off the lights to sleep.
Chen Yi and his team only arrived in City B late into the night. After getting there, they had a meeting for another half hour. By the time they tidied up and got to bed in their dormitory, it was already 3 am.
He shared a room with Shen Yu. Within minutes, snores could be heard from the bed across. City B had clear skies these days and the moon was round and bright at night. Moonlight streamed in from outside and Chen Yi leaned against the headboard, strangely alert.
He reached out and took the phone from the desk, a domestic brand with a green dinosaur phone case, looking somewhat out of character for Ruan Mian.
The lock screen was a popular God of Fortune image. Chen Yi stared at it for a while, laughed softly and turned off the screen, putting the phone back down before pulling up the covers and lying down.
He slept until daybreak the next day. The morning assembly bugle in the troops never failed to sound on time. They didn’t have much to do today. In the morning, they debriefed and reported on the relief mission at the military district headquarters. The top leaders had granted them two days off.
After lunch, Chen Yi went to find Uncle Song Huai to ask for his phone and reported that he would be going out in the afternoon.
Song Huai looked at his nephew slowly sipping his hot tea. He smiled and asked lazily, “Oh? Going somewhere?”
“Something came up.”
Chen Yi stood ramrod straight. His brows and eyes resembled Song Huai a little. “Don’t ask, it’s nothing bad.”
Song Huai took Chen Yi’s phone from the drawer and placed it on the table. “When you’re done, come home for dinner if you have time. Your grandparents miss you.”
Chen Yi took his phone first before saying, “I may not have time tonight. Let’s do it tomorrow.”
Song Huai made a disgusted face. “Go on, scram.”
“Yes sir!”
At the door, Chen Yi turned and shouted crisply again, “See you, Uncle!”
Song Huai jumped, startled. After the person left, he shook his head with a wry smile and sighed, “This kid.”
The military district did not actually control Chen Yi and the others’ mobile phones as strictly as when they first enlisted. But Song Huai was still worried that having mobile phones would affect them, so the first thing he did after they returned from leave was collect their phones.
After being soldiers for many years, whether Chen Yi and the others had mobile phones didn’t really make a difference. Sometimes they would get their phones back and they would still be off for half a day.
But this time, as soon as Chen Yi came out of the office, he turned on his phone. It had been nearly half a month since he had turned it on, and as soon as he turned it on, it was full of various spam messages and sales pitches.
He was afraid of accidentally deleting other messages, so he could only delete them one by one. By the end, the only message left in his inbox was a text received yesterday.
There was no contact name, and the content of the message looked very formal.
“Chen Yi, this is Ruan Mian, this is my phone number.”
Chen Yi stood there and laughed softly. A passing teammate saw him like this and asked, “What are you laughing about, Squad Leader Chen? You look so happy.”
“Do I?”
He put away his phone and walked on, chatting idly. When they reached the first floor and split up, the person who had spoken to him earlier asked again, “Let’s go play basketball on the court this afternoon, haven’t sparred with you in a long time.”
“Can’t today, I have to go out later.”
Chen Yi patted him on the shoulder, “Next time. I’ll give you three points.”
“Bullshit! Why would I need you to let me win?”
Liang Ye pretended to swing a fist at his face. Chen Yi leaned back slightly and drew his hand back as well.
He smiled and said, “Gotta run, something to do.”
“Alright, go on.”
After Chen Yi had walked far away, Liang Ye said to the others, “Don’t you think Chen Yi seems a little different today?”
“Didn’t notice anything. What’s different?”
Liang Ye clicked his tongue, unable to pinpoint what exactly was different for the moment. Later, when he heard from Shen Yu what Chen Yi was up to that afternoon, he remembered what was different.
If the previous Chen Yi was a peacock, then today’s Chen Yi was like a peacock with its tail fanned out, heart blooming gloriously, a dazzling sight.
Chen Yi returned to the barracks, changed clothes, and took Ruan Mian’s phone number with him as he left. As he stood under the canopy of trees at the foot of the dorm building, he called the number back during the ringing tone.
In the distance was the bustling training ground, and the spring breeze of late spring blew gently and meaningfully.
After a while, the ringing stopped, and the voice that came through the receiver seemed even more gentle than the spring breeze. “Chen Yi?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
He walked down the steps toward the front. Shadows of sunlight fell on the ground. “Are you at the hospital today?”
“No, I’m off today. You’re in City B now?”
“Yes, on my way over.”
As Chen Yi approached the entrance, the sentry on duty did a routine check. He said to the phone, “Hang on a sec.”
“Oh, okay.”
The whole thing only took about ten seconds – checked, saluted, and let through. Chen Yi picked up the phone again and said, “Send me your address, I’ll come find you after I change my bandages at the hospital.”
“No need to go to the trouble.”
Ruan Mian said, “Let’s just meet at the hospital. I’ll wait for you by the dressing change room downstairs from the surgery department.”
Chen Yi chuckled softly, “Sounds good, see you later then.”
“Mm.”
The weather was great that day. Down south cars parked and people wandered, while up north in a small complex, someone was ransacking drawers and closets but couldn’t find a suitable outfit.
Lin Jiahui came out of the living room with a glass of water, and seeing Ruan Mian’s door wide open, walked over with the glass. Seeing clothes strewn all over the bed, she laughed and said, “What are you up to?”
“Picking out clothes.”
Ruan Mian gathered her hair behind her ears and hung the few items she had taken out back in the closet. “Aren’t you going out to see your boyfriend today?”
“He’s working, won’t be free until the evening.”
Lin Jiahui stood in the doorway for a bit, and just as she was leaving, said, “Stop agonizing over it, just wear that second set you hung back up.”
Ruan Mian was thoroughly embarrassed. She sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her slightly flushed face for a good while before getting up to wash her face in the bathroom. By the time she headed out, it was already 2pm.
End of March in City B wasn’t too hot yet. The streets were full of cars, and having missed rush hour in the afternoon, she arrived at the hospital just before 2:30.
Ruan Mian sat in the first floor lobby for a bit, and halfway through received a text from Chen Yi saying he still had ten minutes to drive.
She replied with an “okay”.
The outpatient building wasn’t crowded in the afternoon. As soon as Chen Yi walked in, Ruan Mian saw him. He wasn’t wearing his uniform or fatigues today, dressed all in black – shirt and pants. The collar was unbuttoned halfway down, revealing clear, smooth lines of his clavicle, and above that, his prominent Adam’s apple.
Further up, full lips with a slight prominence on the lower one, nose high and straight, eyes deep-set, and pronounced laugh lines at the corners.
Compared to his dirty, disheveled look at the disaster site, today he was exceptionally neat and tidy.
Ruan Mian stood up from the side as he came in, and Chen Yi spotted her in the next second. He put away his phone and strode over. “Have you been waiting long?”
“No, just a short while.”
Ruan Mian clutched her bag strap and looked up at him.
Chen Yi took out his phone and handed it to her. “It turned off automatically already, didn’t get much charge yesterday.”
“That’s fine, I can charge it when I take it home.”
Ruan Mian said, “Let’s go, dressing change first.”
He nodded. “Alright.”
The dressing change room was on the third floor. The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and the two of them stood abreast in front of the elevator entrance. The glossy mirrored elevator walls reflected both their figures.
Ruan Mian wore a grey blue satin skirt today, paired with a navy open front cardigan, and light colored flats on her feet.
Standing there, she barely reached Chen Yi’s chin.
She pursed her lips slightly and shifted over an imperceptible amount, as if that made her seem not so much shorter than him.
There were others in the elevator, so they entered one after the other, Chen Yi standing diagonally behind Ruan Mian, his arm leaned against the wall of the lift.
Ruan Mian pressed 3. Just as the elevator doors were about to close, they heard someone yell from outside, “Wait up! Hold the door!”
She reflexively moved to press the door open button, but Chen Yi behind her reacted faster, his arm reaching past to press and hold the door open button. His chin brushed the top of her head in the process, abruptly closing the distance between them.
Caught off guard, Ruan Mian’s hand touched his on the button, warm meeting cool, like an electric shock, and they both quickly drew their hands back.
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