If You Could Hear My Heart

Shen Chi’s Maybach stopped in front of the door, and he, dressed in a black coat, got out of the passenger side.

He walked while answering the phone, “It’s been half a year, what explanation are you going to give me, Xiao Mo?”

“Mr. Shen, I’m sorry, I’ve almost turned over the entire Sumatra Island, and there isn’t a single clue. Moreover, as time goes on, it becomes less favorable for…”

The words were cut off halfway, not continuing further.

It’s a truth known to all that as time passes, even dripping water can wear away a stone, let alone a clue.

“Keep searching.”

“But, Mr. Shen, to continue searching like this might be endless…”

“As long as I’m alive for one more day, you’ll have to search for one more day!”

“I understand.”

Shen Chi entered the house, took off his black gloves, and threw his cell phone on the sofa.

The butler Ling approached tentatively to take Shen Chi’s coat and gloves, witnessing the change in his temper over the past half year.

The current Shen Chi had an increasingly bad temper.

She hadn’t seen Shen Chi smile for a full half year; every day he returned, his face was colder than frost.

Not daring to speak further, Butler Ling hurried to serve the steaming hot meal.

In the past, Xu Chaomu and Shen Chi would dine together, but for the past half year, it had always been just Shen Chi alone.

When Chaomu was around, no matter how large the living room, it never lacked liveliness.

She could chatter nonstop, jumping from topic to topic, from their mathematics teacher to little hamsters.

Even then, Shen Chi wouldn’t speak or join in, and he might even yell at her a few times. But Butler Ling could see the faint smile that always lingered on the corners of Shen Chi’s mouth.

The best kind of love in this world is when she’s acting up, and he’s smiling.

Now, however, the living room had only Shen Chi by himself.

He didn’t have much of an appetite, in fact, ever since Chaomu left, his stomach had never been quite right.

He barely touched the food, sometimes not even eating at all.

It worried Butler Ling to see this, for over the past half year, she had to call old Cheng several times in the middle of the night, saying that the young master’s stomach was upset again and urgently needed to be taken to the hospital.

He would always drink a lot of alcohol in the middle of the night, only stopping when he caused his stomach to bleed.

Yet, not many days after being hospitalized, he would forget and resume smoking and heavy drinking.

Butler Ling watched as Shen Chi grew thinner and thinner, feeling completely helpless.

Sure enough, today, after only a few bites, Shen Chi put his utensils down and, without turning his head, walked upstairs.

“Young Master, please eat some more; you didn’t have breakfast this morning either,” Butler Ling said, truly worried.

“I have no appetite,” said Shen Chi, his thin lips parting to leave behind those three cold words.

Butler Ling didn’t dare to press further, knowing all too well the temperament of Shen Chi and unable to think of any solution.

Once Shen Chi went upstairs, his steps paused outside Chaomu’s room.

An ingrained habit of many years, hard to break.

He reached out to push open her door, but the thought of her absence brought a fresh wave of emptiness.

He withdrew his hand and returned to his own room.

In front of the floor-to-ceiling window, he pulled back the curtains to see the world blanketed in snow, a flurry of snowflakes.

The Shen family’s villa had long turned white, with the garden’s few plum trees buried in snow, everything covered in a white mist.

This year’s snowfall was indeed heavy.

He knew she loved snow. When it snowed in winter, she would rush outside to build snowmen, no matter how cold it got.

He remembered one time when she couldn’t find anything to use for the snowman’s eyes, she secretly tore off two buttons from the sleeve of his suit.

After much difficulty in getting the buttons off, just when she was gloating, she was dragged indoors by him and severely reprimanded.

Not long after the scolding, she forgot all about it and continued to build snowmen the next day.

He watched her face turn red with cold and felt pity, so she slipped her icy hands into his pocket, “Fourth Brother, warm them for me. Your pocket is so cozy, I think…”

Before she could finish, she slyly smiled and quickly lifted his shirt to reach into his chest.

He was faster, slapping her hand away and coldly reprimanding, “Young lady, have some shame.”

At the memory, he lit another cigarette…

While C City was covered in heavy snow these days, Paris was also experiencing snowfall.

In the biting cold, it seemed that even a few steps could lead to a fall.

Passersby hurried along, bundled in scarves and masks, heads down and umbrellas open. Everyone wanted to get home quickly so they could sit in front of a fireplace to warm up.

The snow fell so heavily that it stung and chilled one’s face.

Xu Chaomu used the little money she had to buy a cotton coat; she was nearly out of food.

Shivering, she cupped her hands to her lips to warm them with her breath, braving the heavy snow to look for part-time work from one place to another.

Half a year ago, she had run away from the hospital in the middle of the night and, upon reaching the harbor, clandestinely boarded a ship bound for parts unknown. At that time, she hid on the ship for many days, not knowing where it was headed.

Fortunately, she had brought medicine with her when she left, allowing her wound to gradually heal, but leaving an ugly scar on her back.

The scar made her once-smooth back seem particularly jarring.

Xu Chaomu thought it was a relief it wasn’t on her face.

When the ship docked in Paris, her joy was uncontainable because this was the city she wanted to reach.

What she was even more grateful for was that she wasn’t dead, she was still very much alive.

But her elation didn’t last two days before she encountered a serious problem: she had no money.

The bank card Shen Chi gave her had long been lost, and her pockets held only enough change for a few meals.

She began looking everywhere for odd jobs, minding shops, administering injections to pets; she had done almost every kind of work available.

But these jobs were often both tiring and low-paying, and moreover, they wouldn’t last more than a few days before she was out of work again.

So she continued piecing together odd jobs here and there, until winter arrived and she barely managed to find a place to stay.

Weather like this brought out a strong dislike in Xu Chaomu.

Previously, at the Shen residence, she was as joyous as a little rabbit on snowy days.

She would bounce and hop into the garden to build snowmen, an activity she did every winter. Playing until her face turned red and her hands grew stiff, she wasn’t scared as the Shen home had plenty of heating and people to prepare all sorts of warming devices for her.

But now, snowy days were her nightmare.

In such weather, it was difficult to move even an inch, and finding part-time work was especially hard.

She didn’t have central heating, a thick cotton coat, or even enough food to eat.

Thinking back on her days in the Shen family, a bitter smile touched her lips. But she had no regrets about leaving, not one bit.

Because the person she once loved most didn’t want her anymore. He was annoyed by her, hated her, misled by her…

She would rather walk alone in the bitter cold of winter; she wouldn’t go back to the Shen residence to see him.

She wanted to slowly forget him, erase him completely from her heart, as if she had never met him in this lifetime.

She knew there would come a day when she could do it, and it wouldn’t be very hard.