Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Qiao Lian lifted her head and sized up the room. The moment she did so, she saw someone walking outside.
She paid it no mind and continued waiting, all the while staring at the entrance.
Five minutes passed.
She looked at her cell phone. Zi Chuan had not arrived and had not called her either.
She silently stared at her cell phone. After another five minutes passed, she impatiently dialed Zi Chuan’s phone number again.
She could hear his ringtone over the line, but even after a long while, nobody picked up the call.
Qiao Lian frowned. Could it be that he was still on the way and thus could not hear his cell phone ring?
She sat patiently and kept waiting.
Half an hour had elapsed since the agreed-upon time.
However, he had still not arrived.
Qiao Lian held her cell phone and continued calling his phone number.
Her calls could get through, but throughout the entire process, no one picked up any of her calls.
She froze on the spot and an unprecedented sense of panic rose up within her.
Did this mean that… Zi Chuan had gotten into a car accident on the way here?
She widened her eyes and walked out of the cafe. Then, she stood at the entrance and craned her neck to check out the surroundings.
Zi Chuan had said that he was only ten minutes away from the cafe. Even if he had been driving, in Beijing, he could not have driven a long distance in ten minutes.
She impatiently walked back and forth near the cafe, occasionally raising her head to check out her surroundings, hoping to catch sight of him. She also kept calling his phone number using her cell phone.
Another half an hour passed.
Nobody picked up her calls and nobody passed by the cafe.
Qiao Lian could no longer stay seated. She has always had a vivacious personality, so it had already been extremely difficult for her to sit in this cafe for one and a half hours.
Furthermore, the fact that his phone number always rang meant that his phone had not run out of battery.
As she continued to call him, she flagged down a cab and asked the cab driver a question that he found extremely strange, “Could you randomly drive me around this cafe and stop at any place which can be reached from the cafe in exactly ten minutes?”
She worriedly stared through the car window. However, she did not see any car accidents along the road.
She got even more worried.
In the end, she went directly to the nearest police station and asked if any car accidents had happened nearby.
The answer she received was as follows, “There was a tailgating accident. However, they have settled their respective car insurance issues, so they left the scene.”
Zi Chuan couldn’t have been involved in that accident.
Zi Chuan had always been both punctual and meticulous.
Whenever she agreed with Zi Chuan to log in at a particular time, he would send a private message to inform her when he was late, even if it was by a single minute.
She walked out of the police station and called Zi Chuan’s phone number again. However, he had already switched off his cell phone.
Qiao Lian hurriedly went back into the cafe and didn’t dare to step out again.
She was afraid that Zi Chuan would arrive at the cafe and not be able to find her. Thus, a habitually impatient person sat at a cafe for an entire afternoon.
She stared at every customer in the cafe. Every time she saw someone who fit his age profile, she would approach them and ask, “Excuse me, are you Zi Chuan?”
No.
Still no.
Still… the answer was no.
It was already 8pm, yet Zi Chuan had still not arrived.
She sat dejectedly inside the cafe and a single thought kept popping into her mind. “He’s probably not coming anymore.”
Given what she knew of his personality, he would never let her wait at a cafe for this long.
She bit her lip and silently stared outside the cafe.
It was already dark here in Beijing, and cars drove to and fro on the road.
At this moment, her cell phone finally began to ring.
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