As the temperature fell, several days of torrential rain followed one another. The prepared filming location was more than half flooded, causing the crew’s hard work to go down the drain. The production was forced to halt, and it seed the director planned to take the lead actors to a temple to pray for better luck once the rain stopped. After all, with Xu Xia’s accident and now the violent storms, the shooting schedule had been negatively affected; things were not going smoothly.
Before this, Shen Zhiyi had gotten a few days of rest, but because of the torrential rain, she could not go anywhere and stayed at Huating chatting with the butler and flipping through the script.
Her work was on hold, but Pei Yu still had matters to attend to, needing to make a trip to Washington. He had to seize a chance when the rain slightly weakened and leave at dawn.
When he awoke, Shen Zhiyi was still sleeping, so he didn’t disturb her. He got up to wash and change his clothes, but while he was in the dressing room, he suddenly heard footsteps from behind.
"Why are you up?" Pei Yu was slightly surprised. His shirt buttons were still undone, and he pulled her robe’s collar closer together, "Did I wake you?"
"No," Shen Zhiyi was still sleepy and nestled in his arms, mumbling, "I’ll see you off."
Pei Yu smiled lightly, "Can’t bear to part with ?"
The indoor heating was turned up high. She was soft and warm in his embrace, and Pei Yu did not want to let go. He let her help him with his buttons, teasing her as he looked down, "Why don’t you co with ?"
Shen Zhiyi actually wanted to, but with the storm almost over, the crew would be starting up again soon. Even if she accompanied Pei Yu abroad, she could not stay for long.
"I can’t go," she said, a bit regrettably, "You’ll just have to co back early."
After sending Pei Yu off, Shen Zhiyi went back to bed for so more sleep, waking up only when daylight filled the sky.
After she was done washing up and ca downstairs, she saw the butler coming in from outside, holding so things that were covered with a layer of thin dust.
"What’s this?"
Since the items were dirty, the butler didn’t let her touch them and handed them off to another servant, "They’re from the loft of the other pavilion; so tea sets that have been stored for a long ti and are covered in dust. I took them out to see if we should sell them."
Shen Zhiyi, sitting and having her al, beca a little interested in the other pavilion ntioned by the butler, as he said it was a place where Pei Yu had stayed for a while.
"Do you still go there? I would like to co with you to have a look."
The rain had just stopped outside, so the butler nodded, "Alright, but it’s very dirty since no one has cleaned it in a long ti."
It was only these last few days that Pei Yu had arranged for soone to clean and sort it out. Before then, people were not allowed to touch it.
This other pavilion was quite unimpressive compared to the entirety of Huating and rather cramped. Shen Zhiyi had not expected Pei Yu to have lived in such a place.
"Didn’t he always live in the main building?"
Compared to the main building, this pavilion was indeed sowhat narrow and rudintary.
"He mostly lived in the main building," answered the butler, who had heard about it from the other old folks at Huating, "It seems he was put here for a period when he was sixteen or seventeen."
The servants didn’t know much about it either. They guessed that Pei Yu was sent here because he had angered Father Pei, as a lesson, while others said it was Pei Yu’s own request to move out of the main building. Regardless of which story was true, it was agreed that there was a lot of tension between Pei Yu and Father Pei at the ti.
The butler only moved things around in so of the rooms, not touching Pei Yu’s bedroom. Shen Zhiyi was quite curious about the room with the tightly closed door.
"May I go in to take a look?"
She wanted to see the place where Pei Yu once lived.
"Sure," the housekeeper did not hesitate, knowing that even if Pei Yu were here, he would not refuse Shen Zhiyi.
After the door was opened, Shen Zhiyi went in alone to look around.
It was quite empty inside because Pei Yu had only stayed temporarily; he moved away later, leaving nothing behind. Shen Zhiyi casually flipped through and unexpectedly found a stack of docunts in an inconspicuous cabinet. They appeared to be diagnostic reports from a private doctor.
"Pei Yu is allergic to pollen?" Shen Zhiyi heard this for the first ti.
"Yes," the housekeeper was quite familiar with this, "His allergy to cherry blossoms is quite severe, while he’s better with other flowers and grass, just coughing. I heard that when he moved in here, his face was still covered in red rashes from the allergy."
Cherry blossoms?
Shen Zhiyi couldn’t help thinking of those cherry blossom trees in her hotown. The last ti she visited, those trees had long been cut down, and she felt it was a pity—the blossoms were beautiful when they blood en masse.
Her attention returned to the diagnostic report in her hands, which, in addition to his allergies, also recorded multiple fractures in his arms and legs. The dates seed to coincide with the ti of his allergies.
She frowned; the only person she could think of who would lay hands on Pei Yu was his father.
It seed that the conflict between him and his father was indeed deep at the ti, but she didn’t know why.
Having lost her initial mood upon seeing this, Shen Zhiyi didn’t continue searching and put the stack of docunts back in its place. A photo, caught between them, happened to fall out, landing at her feet.
The photo must have been taken a long ti ago; the edges were slightly curled and yellowed. The father and son in the photo looked very different from now and might not be recognized at first glance. Shen Zhiyi’s gaze fixed slightly—she felt the young man in the photo looked familiar.
The photo was likely taken when Pei Yu had the allergy. He was wearing a mask to cover the rashes on his face, only revealing his eyes. His facial features were more youthful and sharper than now, with an unrestrained youthful air about him.
He stood next to his father, with a vast cherry blossom forest in the background, holding a baseball cap in his hand. Sothing caught his attention, and he was not looking at the cara but slightly tilting his gaze towards sothing outside of the fra.
Both the cherry blossom forest and the young man’s masked figure felt familiar to Shen Zhiyi.
She turned the photo over and saw the date and location written on the back with a fountain pen.
It wasn’t her imagination.
The photo was taken in the place where she grew up, so, of course, it felt familiar to her, and Pei Yu when he was young... Shen Zhiyi found a vague figure in her long-sealed mories.
She rembered that one sumr vacation, the town suddenly saw many new faces to build roads and other constructions. She only wanted to earn so tuition money quickly and hide it from her alcoholic father, so she was completely uninterested in those events. Hence, when that city boy, who looked strange in a hat and mask even in the sumr heat, approached her, she didn’t pay much attention.
That sumr vacation seed unusually long but wasn’t too hot. The boy never showed his face, like a mysterious and elusive wind. They actually t many tis and even spoke a few words, but Shen Zhiyi had too many other things to care for at the ti. She only retained a vague impression and did not firmly rember that boy.
Therefore, she did not realize that years later, what she thought was their first eting was actually a reunion.
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