But what was he doing?
A second ago, He Jichen was racking his brain over what to do, and the next second, he shot a glance at his own car. Without even thinking about it, he pulled the car door open and got in. As he stepped on the gas and sped out of the parking lot and onto the main road, he drove aimlessly around the city and wandered recklessly.
He didn't know what road he was on exactly nor how fast he was going, but he knew to stop at a red light and to go at a green light. He drove like he was a mindless puppet up until his car ran out of gas and he was forced to stop. He didn't even realize he ran out of gas when he kept furiously stepping on the pedal. He furrowed his brows with the faint pain radiating from the soles of his feet. Finally, he snapped back to his senses, lowered his head, and glanced over at the meter. Ah, the car ran out of gas...
But he just topped his tank up that afternoon... With that thought, He Jichen slowly turned his head, stared at the night sky out the window and realized it was already quite late.
That was when he shot a quick glance at the time on the car; it was almost midnight.
He had actually been driving around Beijing aimlessly for almost three hours.
He rubbed his sore eyes from driving for such a long time. Then he pulled out a cigarette from his pocket, put it to his mouth, and lit it up. He didn't take a drag but let it quietly burn out between his fingers.
The car windows were shut tight so the smoke quickly filled the area around him, gradually calming his extremely tense mood. He then found his phone and called the insurance company to send someone over to top the tank up.
After he hung up the phone, He Jichen lowered his car seat and laid down. As he stared at the dazzling night sky out the window, he lit up one cigarette after another.
When he reached for the final cigarette left in the pack, he blindly reached for his phone on the front passenger seat and brought it to his face.
There were many unread We Chat message notifications.
After he clicked on them, the first message that popped up was sent by Tang Huahua an hour ago.
"He Xuezhang 1 , after Xiao Yi got out of bed in the early afternoon, she left campus and hasn't returned to the dorm."
"I gave her a call but she didn't answer. At half past ten, her mum called her at the dorms to say that she wasn't picking up her phone. I was afraid her mum was overthinking things, so I gave her a random excuse."
He took her to the Four Seasons Hotel and tore off her clothes. She wasn't back at her dorm yet, so she must still be in the hotel room...
He Jichen didn't reply to Tang Huahua's message but went straight to the company's WeChat group chat.
It was late so there weren't many people on, but when he casually scrolled through the group, he saw the messages some people left about Ji Yi...
He was always like that - no matter how upset he made her... how angry he made her... even if his rage made him want to kill her, there was no way he could let other people criticize her.
All throughout the past few years, he knew clearly that he wasn't in her heart, yet he still deeply loved her unwaveringly.
He appeared as someone who was calm and collected, but in reality, he had loved her with a burning insanity for far too long. It had been so long, yet he still hadn't seen the slightest hope she had any feelings for him, and her unintentional cuts always pierced the deepest corners of his heart, making him lose his senses.
Just like what happened tonight - when he saw those videos, saw her come out from the lounge Lin Zhengyi was in, and heard her say those things... he completely lost control.
[Honorific] Classmate