Chapter Eighty-Five: The Cat Catches the Mouse

  It's been three days since I returned home, and Qin Kei still hasn't contacted me, but I know she had already returned to China before me and went back home to retrieve her phone.

  During this time, I called Qin Ke Yi several times, but either her phone was turned off or no one answered. So I gave up on this futile action and began to quietly reflect on the relationship between Qin Ke Yi and me over these three days.

  I love her, that's undeniable, but recalling the few times we argued, it was always because of some trivial matters. Her stubbornness and strong will clashed greatly with my personality, although our every argument would eventually be settled, it added cracks to our relationship and accumulated some unsettling factors. Perhaps this time's argument is actually an explosion of the many problems that have been accumulating under our seemingly calm emotional life, and due to the nature of our two personalities, such an explosion was bound to happen sooner or later.

  I suddenly feel very tired, perhaps it was covered up by the sweet feeling of being together before. I didn't pay much attention to this "tiredness", but after all the accumulated contradictions burst out, when I quietly recalled the things between us, what appeared in front of me were more scenes of our quarrels. At this moment, I suddenly thought of that sentence from the song "At Least I Left Earlier" which is so familiar to me: "I didn't expect your goodness, but remembered the arguments with you..."

  "Maybe you already know that I've returned to the country. You don't have to hide from me, these past few days I've been quietly reflecting on our situation, maybe you're also thinking about it like me. I don't know if you're hiding from me to give everyone time to make a decision, or if you've already made one. If you think we need to take some time apart, I agree, because I think this is the best way to solve our problems right now..."

  After thinking for a long time, I made a decision that required great courage in my opinion, picked up the phone and typed out the message above word by word. Maybe in many people's eyes, not continuing to pursue my happiness like a man is a sign of cowardice, but I think sometimes it takes more courage to suggest breaking up, especially when you still love her but find that your relationship is full of conflicts...

  I held the phone, hesitating to press the send button. I didn't want to end things with Qin Ke like this, but I knew my decision was necessary. In our current situation, we both needed some time for reflection. Maybe a temporary separation would be beneficial for us to calm down and think about the problems between us.

  This may be a hurdle that we must face in our emotional lives. If we can get over it, our future emotions will have one less major obstacle, and the road to our emotions will also become much smoother. But if we are tripped up by this hurdle, we may find it very difficult to get back up again in the future, and even if we finally manage to get back up, our bodies will still bear the scars of this fall.

  Just as I was lying in bed thinking wildly, the phone rang.

  "Hello! I'm Zhang Wei! You're finally back!!" Zhang Wei's slightly excited voice came from the phone.

  "Really? Just got back yesterday, miss me?" I said weakly over the phone.

  "Can you come over for a bit!" Zhang Wei said somewhat anxiously.

  "Where are you going?"

  "I was detained at the police station, can...can you help me pay the fine and get me out of here..." Zhang Wei said somewhat awkwardly.

  "What?! You've been detained! What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into?! Why didn't you look for your wife?!" I asked Zhang Wei in a series of astonished questions.

  "It's not clear over the phone, you come over quickly now!" After I hung up the phone, I took a taxi to the police station according to the address Zhang Wei told me. When I walked into the police station, I found Wang Li sitting at the reception desk, and after seeing me coming in, she was first very surprised and then quickly regained her composure.

  "Are you here......?" I showed the same surprise as expected when I saw Wang Li.

  "I was assigned here after graduation." Wang Li said calmly to me, making me even more confused, not knowing what kind of avant-garde game the two of them were playing.

  "Na Zhang Wei..." I asked Wang Li in a somewhat confused tone.

  "Are you here to pay the fine for him? You can pay it here, a total of 3,500." Wang Li said seriously with her head down and handed me the receipt. Seeing this scene, I became even more confused, at that moment many questions wanted to come out all at once, but ultimately stopped myself from asking due to feeling there must be some reason, and paid the fine in a daze.

  "Take him to get the people." Wang Lihua said to a female police officer next to her after she finished giving me the receipt, so I followed the female police officer in confusion to the right corridor.

  "Wait a minute, Kang Jian!" Wang Li suddenly called out, "Give this to him!" Then she stood up, took off the ring on her hand, walked over and handed it to me.

  "What's this..." I asked even more confusedly.

  "Just hand it over to him, he knows what to do!" Wang Li seemed to say with some anger, then turned around and walked back to the reception. I followed the policewoman with many questions and arrived at the detention room, opened the door, and Zhang Wei came out from inside.

  "This is what Wang Li asked me to give you..." When I saw Zhang Wei come out, I handed the ring over to him, and he took it with a expressionless face.

  "What's going on?" I asked him eagerly, hoping he would reveal the answer quickly.

  "I'll tell you in a minute! Where is Wang Li?" Zhang Wei asked the female police officer next to him, and when he heard that Wang Li was in the hall, he quickly ran out.

  As I followed Zhang Wei to the hall, Wang Li was no longer at the reception desk, so Zhang Wei started shouting out Wang Li's name loudly in the hall.

  "Alright! Stop arguing! If she wanted to see you, she would have come out already! This is a police station!" The female officer who was escorting Zhang Wei said.

  "Alright! Let's go back first, bro! We can talk about it when we get home!" I said as I pulled and dragged Zhang Wei out of the police station, hailed a taxi and headed to his place.

  "Tell me! Which part are you singing?" I couldn't help but ask Zhang Wei in the car.

  "Shut up! I'm so screwed! That day, I went out to eat with a few friends and got drunk. They wanted to go get a massage, but I didn't want to go. They dragged me along anyway. Who would have thought that as soon as we walked in, the cops showed up for a raid? And Wang Li was there too! I hadn't even taken off my pants yet when they caught us!" Zhang Wei said with a scowl, leaving me feeling nothing but an urge to burst out laughing at the absurdity of it all. It seemed that this dramatic turn of events had somehow managed to spice up Zhang Wei's dull life. I couldn't help but wonder if it was good luck or bad luck that this emotional crisis had descended upon not just my head, but our entire group's lives.

  "That's not right! Logically speaking, if your wife caught you, it should be easily resolved! It's an internal family conflict that can be handled internally! How did they still detain you for several days?" I asked Zhang Wei, suppressing the urge to laugh.

  "Drop it! Without her... I would have been out long ago!! My friends just paid the fine and that's it, but she insisted on keeping me in for a few days before letting me out! I... felt too embarrassed to call my friends, so I looked for you!" Zhang Wei said with some embarrassment.

  "Haha……! What is this! Abuse of power!? Or bending the law for personal gain? If you feel wronged, go and sue her. Believe that the government will take care of us ordinary people!" I finally couldn't hold back my laughter and said to Zhang Wei.

  "Are you still human?! If we're brothers, then we should be crying together!" Zhang Wei said with some resentment, trying to evoke my sympathy.

  "What are you going to do now? Who let you be so unfaithful! You have a wife and still go out and fool around! It's hard for me to feel sympathy, only hatred!"

  "Whatever! I'm done! I've had enough! Nothing more to say! Just a mistake in making friends!"

  "Alright! No more joking around! What are you planning to do?" I started seriously discussing Zhang Wei's future emotional destination with him.

  "I don't know what to do either! She even gave me the engagement ring! It seems like things are going badly!" Zhang Wei said with some disappointment.

  "Aren't you going to do anything? Can't you just be clear about it?"

  "I just wish I could make myself clear! You don't know her temper, when she gets angry, nothing can be said to her, and I never thought I'd be treated like this by a woman!" Thinking of Qin Ke Yi's personality, I now understand his feelings and emotions.

  "Don't worry, she's still in a huff now. After she cools down for a couple of days, I'm sure she'll be fine. You didn't do anything after all!" Suddenly, I felt a bit ridiculous at this moment. My own problem was still unresolved and I was still in a state of confusion, yet here I was discussing his emotional life with him as if I were an experienced person.

  "It's like this! But where? She is at home!"

  "We're... broken up..." Upon hearing Qin Ke Yi's name, my emotions immediately fell again. After a moment of silence, I began to tell Zhang Wei about my recent emotional experiences.

  "How can it sound like a fairy tale!?" Zhang Wei looked at me with a complex gaze after listening, as if there was some sympathy. "What were you thinking!! To break up just like that!? You're also too unmanly! Why didn't you keep chasing!?"

  "There are things you don't understand! What we need now is for both of us to calm down and think clearly!! Making a decision like this takes more courage than continuing to chase!"

  "My goodness! I really don't know what you're thinking! You've read too many romance novels, haven't you? Forget it! I won't say anything else. You think about your own affairs yourself! Don't go back today, come with me to take a bath first, and then let's go out and relax properly, we can't always be so stifled!"

  "You're still going for a massage!? I'm not going with you!"

  "Damn it! If I ever go to that kind of place again in this lifetime, I'm a turtle egg!" Zhang Wei seemed to be making a vow about his future romantic life, with a tone of determination, which made me realize that love is completely capable of saving a wayward youth...

  Zhang Wei went back home and got into the bathroom to take a bath, while I sat in the living room watching boring TV. Soon, Guo Cheng's phone call came in.

  "Hey! Kangjian! Where are you?" Guo Cheng asked over the phone.

  "What's going on? Is something wrong?"

  "Can you take the train arriving at Ha Station tomorrow morning at 1 o'clock! Are you going to pick her up?"

  "Is she coming back tomorrow morning? So late!?" After hearing Qin Ke Yi's message, I suddenly felt a bit excited, but immediately started to feel down again.

  "Yes! I'm not in Ha city now, can't pick her up! Are you going or not?"

  "We've already broken up!" I thought for a moment before saying to Guo Cheng, with a hint of resentment in my tone.

  "I know! But you all told me! You're so ungracious, can't even be friends!! Go or not, think for yourself..."

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