Chapter 4
Chapter 4: A Humble Past?
Luc returned home late at night to find the lights dimmed. A wave of annoyance swept over him–had she not come home yet, or had she gone to bed early? He had deliberately chosen to return in the middle of the night, intending to give Emma the cold shoulder. However, instead of upsetting her, he ended up upsetting himself.3
Even if he arrived home late, there was usually a light left on in the living room for him. Emma would wait for him on the sofa, rubbing her eyes as he stepped through the door. She would approach him, asking with concern, “Honey, you’re home?“>
“Honey, have you eaten?“$
“Honey, you must be tired!“>
“Go wash your hands; I’ll serve dinner.“”
Their house felt empty lately, with Mayline taking a few days off. When he spotted Emma’s slippers still by the door, he knew she hadn’t come home.
After changing into his house shoes and loosening his tie, he sank into the sofa and dialed Emma’s number. How wonderful–she hadn’t come home or called or texted him. He had returned home hungry, hoping to enjoy the meal she had prepared. But…was he the joke here? How utterly absurd!!
Emma was busy researching medical information, with several textbooks laid out on her desk. Wearing a pair of black–framed glasses, she typed vigorously on her laptop.
Her phone was on silent, and the screen flashed with the words “Beloved.”
Emma focused solely on completing the theoretical report that her supervisor, Director Fred, had tasked her with, completely failing to notice the incoming call on her phone. The line kept ringing until the message, “The number you have dialed is currently unavailable, please try again later!” appeared, before he hung up.”
Luc then texted Emma on Messenger, [Why haven’t you returned yet?] Feeling it was too direct, he deleted it and edited it to: [Where are you?]
On the other end, Emma had finished checking the materials and writing her report, but she had fallen asleep at her desk from exhaustion, not paying attention to Messenger.?
Luc waited for a long time and still didn’t get a reply. Anger was visible in his eyes. He held his clenched fists but somehow felt an inexplicable fear in his heart.
At six–thirty, Emma woke up. The hospital’s on–call room had a simple bed for short naps, which she had crawled onto at four and slept until half past six. She pulled out her cell phone, pressed it once, and saw a black screen; the phone was out of power. After charging and turning it on, a message popped up. Whenever a red notification appeared on Messenger, she hoped it was a reply from Luc.”
Looking at it, it was indeed Luc’s avatar, which made Emma’s heart pound, but calm soon returned. It turned out that seeing his name would still make her heart skip a beat, but… she no longer expected anything.
This pounding was because she had been chasing him for three years. Whenever she sent him a message, she looked forward to his reply. Each time there was a new notification, her heart would race, and she would eagerly set aside whatever she was doing to see what he had replied.”
Sometimes Messenger would show that someone was messaging her, but it wasn’t Luc, which left her disappointed. Eventually, she set all her colleagues and friends to ‘mute notifications, so that if there was a red notification, there was a 90% chance it was Luc.0
Remembering her foolishness from the past made her smile, but the smile felt empty and cool. Every time she sent numerous messages, he would either not reply or respond with a simple “Yes,” “Busy,” or just a period.
She was always the one chattering, her passion for him seemingly inexhaustible. Now she knew that not replying or sending a single period meant he didn’t want to engage because he found her annoying. But out of basic courtesy, he would send a “Yes” or a period to end the topic.
His Messenger avatar showed Luc walking on a tree–lined path with a backpack, which she figured represented his sunny personality. Unlike his current cold demeanor, just looking at the brand of his backpack, which had a slogan of ‘With the Light; represented vitality.
Once, she had asked him with a smile, “Why do you use this image of your back as your avatar? Does it have any special meaning?” Luc simply replied coldly, “No.“@ Emma opened the message he had sent her. Suddenly, several words appeared: [Where are you?] [Are you busy?] [……???] It was unprecedented for her to receive three consecutive messages from Luc. This must be the most he had ever replied to her in the past three to four years.
She didn’t reply, just scrolling through the chat history at the top of the screen: [Honey, when will you be back?] [A new colleague joined the department today. She and my dad are from the same hometown…] [Honey, Grandma is asking why you didn’t come. I told her you had surgeries and a conference due to work.] [Cute emoticon, honey, where are you?] [I made a soothing dinner for you. Remember to have it when you come back.] [Take care of yourself. Love you~]
When she reached the top of the chat history, she couldn’t hold back her tears any longer, which fell onto the screen. Seeing so many messages she had sent him, and how he either wouldn’t reply or would just respond with a word, she felt so pathetic. Why was she so lowly?!
If someone didn’t want to reply to you or pay attention to you, then why keep throwing herself at them?”
“What flower has bloomed? It’s nothing but a disgraceful ‘flower of shame.” A feeling of humiliation welled up. She cleared the screen, deleting all of the chat records. The chat logs could be deleted, but how could she wash away the humiliation etched deep into her bones?!
Once, she lost her mobile phone. Although she reclaimed the SIM card, the chat records could not be recovered even after reinstalling Messenger. She cried for a long time because she couldn’t retrieve the original conversations. For this, she even bought software online, trying to restore the lost chat records, but still did not retrieve the complete record.
She wanted to block him, to eradicate him from her life. But it would take time. Maybe in two months, it would be completely over. She renamed Luc in her contacts as “ZNGB, both for his number and Messenger.
She didn’t want to live in eternal darkness. Once, she believed he would be her light, illuminating her future direction. Without him, she would fall into the dark abyss… She was her light. She didn’t need anyone else’s light to shine brightly.
Emma went to the bathroom to wash up. She had spare toiletries at the hospital. She bought breakfast from the cafeteria and sat in a corner quietly enjoying her meal- toast, coffee, and fruit, no more sweets.”
Luc came to the cafeteria. He brought his breakfast to her table–croissants, juice, and pastries. Emma glanced at him, then lowered her eyes. “Good morning!“&
Luc’s tall figure blocked her view. “Not checking Messenger?“>
The light in his eyes varied in depth, but they were filled with a cold fury.
“No one will look for me, so I didn’t bother checking.”
16.29
Luc frowned, looking cold. “Am I not a person?”
“Why didn’t you answer when I called you multiple times?”
Luc put down the food tray, sitting opposite her, staring at her with deep eyes, his face ice cold. Emma didn’t look at him again, her demeanor indifferent as ice. She calmly said, “Sorry, my phone was on silent.”
These past couple of days, Luc had felt that something was off with Emma. Her attitude towards him wasn’t as enthusiastic as before. No, one could say she was paying him lip service. His thin lips pressed together as annoyance accumulated in his chest–an anger he couldn’t vent.
He unconsciously clenched the cutlery in his hand. “Emma, let’s go to my parents‘ house this weekend.”
“Mm.” Emma seemed to have little to say to him. Perhaps she thought she had been too noisy in the past. It was only after ‘dying‘ once that she learned the meaning of
silence.‘
But it was quite strange. Why was Luc eating breakfast in the cafeteria? And why was he sharing a table with her? In the past, she had pestered him, wanting him to bring her to the cafeteria for meals. It was a small plot of hers; she just wanted to announce to the world that he was taken, to keep other women from fancying him. But Luc had never agreed, not even once. For three or four years, she had always been the one moving closer to him, while he maintained an aloof and indifferent demeanor.
