He doesn’t come home and doesn’t sent me a message, which is rare.

Although Mingcheng loves to work, he never works overtime, and does not support employees working overtime either.

What’s more, even if he had to work overtime, he would have told me.

I wait until seven o’clock. The candles on the table have burned out, white wax flowing down softly, and the dinner on the plate is cold. I’m worried about him, so I give him a call.

The call goes through, but no one answers.

“Hello, the user you dialed is currently unavailable.”

The voice prompt sounds. I hang up and call again.

Nobody answers, and the call automatically hangs up.

I look at the dark mobile phone screen, and my upper eyelid suddenly begins to twitch.

As the eldest son of the Wen family, he has a lot to do every day as the president of the company. I shouldn’t bother him, but perhaps I’m sensitive, because after my eyelid twitches, a strange and ominous feeling arises in my heart.

So after enduring it for a while, I finally send a message to Mingcheng’s secretary.

“Ms. Li, is your boss off work?”

The secretary quickly replies to me: “Mr. Wen has not left work yet and is currently holding a board meeting.”

I feel relieved.

When I see the message, my dangling heart finally returns to my chest.

I am in no mood to eat all night, but now I have finally lost my worries. I go to the bar to get myself a glass of hot water, which warms my stomach and dissipates the strange discomfort I had felt tonight. When I return to the sofa, I find that Ms. Li has sent me a message.

“Since Mr. Wen went out for something during the day and will get off work late, please let me know if you need anything.”

She is always very considerate in her work. I reply to her: “Thank you for your hard work. It’s just that it’s late and I got worried.”

Knowing that Mingcheng will be home late tonight, I stop waiting for him and heat up my dinner to eat, and take his portion to heat it and keep it warm.

After eating, I drift off to sleep. This nap is short, but I sleep extremely well. I haven’t slept deeply and peacefully like I did before for several days. Even though Mingcheng and I slept together the day before, I felt a bit of unreasonable panic, but now I sleep very comfortably alone on the sofa.

However, late at night when I’m deep in my dreams, I suddenly hear an almost broken cry.

“A-Zhen—”

This shout is deafening, like it is exploding in my ears, and instantly wakes me from my deep sleep.

I abruptly open my eyes and get up from the sofa, knocking the water glass on the coffee table to the floor. I gasp wildly with my mouth half open. “…..Mingcheng?”

But Mingcheng is not here, and my response disperses feebly in the room. I look around in disbelief and call for him again, “Mingcheng, is that you?”

There is still no response.

At this time, the wall clock shows that the time is 22:00, which is around ten at night.

Mingcheng hasn’t come home yet, but I actually heard him calling me.

I don’t think I heard wrong. This shout was really loud, and contained urgent emotions. I even heard fear, and it was so forceful that it was almost hoarse.

At this point, my ears are still ringing.

I cover my ears, and my heart continues to palpitate after waking up from my dream.

But there is really nobody inside.

Auditory hallucinations?

I have never had auditory hallucination symptoms before, and have never tried to learn about them. Would auditory hallucinations cause me to wake up? Would they make my ears ring?

Could they still be heard even when I was sleeping well?

I get off the ground and walk over to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Opening the huge curtains, I look into the small courtyard.

The beautiful flowers in the courtyard are sleeping quietly under the moonlight. Although there is nothing there but them, I still turn on the courtyard lights and check every corner. After ensuring that nobody is there, I look through the peephole to the front yard.

Perhaps because it is dark at night, the peephole is black and I can’t see outside.

So I turn on the front yard light and look out again.

I don’t know why, but the peephole is still blurry and I can’t see anything clearly. I can only see that there is light outside.

Having confirmed that I am the only one at home, I can only classify the shout as an auditory hallucination.

It seems that my recent condition is indeed not good. I should go see Dr. Zhao for a follow-up consultation tomorrow.

“It seems that due to the influence of Professor Wei, the topic chosen by the Beihua Academy of Fine Arts last summer was ‘Midsummer.’ This topic sounds very beautiful, ah. Yes, yes…..this kind of theme not only examines artistic conception, but also examines students’ color coordination…..”

On the TV, the host is talking with an education expert about last year’s university entrance examination for art students. My eyes watch the TV, but my mind is somewhere else.

Because of the different nature of my work, I spend most of the time waiting for Mingcheng to come home. This is the first time he’s come back so late.

I really want to call him again, but fear that he will be driving on the road.

At eleven o’clock in the evening, my eyelids begin to flutter. In a daze, I hear the sound of men’s leather shoes on the floor, followed by the sound of a key being inserted into the door.

Yes…..Mingcheng is back home!

I stand up from the sofa, run to the door, and lean toward the peephole to take a look. Unfortunately, the peephole is still blurry, and I can only vaguely see shadows swaying. “Mingcheng, is that you? You came back?”

I wait for him to push the door open, so I can hug him and ask him why he didn’t call me back and made me worry all night.

But after he turns the key in the lock, he doesn’t come in.

“Mingcheng?”

“A-Zhen.” The person outside speaks in a tired tone, “Today was beyond my expectations. I encountered some trouble on the way back.”

He lets out a long sigh, seemingly exhausted. “With me coming back so late, will you blame me? Will you still let me in?”

I had already forgiven him when I heard the word “trouble” from his mouth. I feel sorry for being angry that he was so late, so I open the door from the inside before he can open it himself. “What are you talking about? Come in quickly, what trouble did you run into?”

The man outside the door is dressed as usual, but I notice that the shoulders of his black suit are a little dirty and that a few strands of hair on his temples have fallen in front of his ears. He still smiles softly at me when he sees me, his skin emitting a soft, pearl-like light in the dim illumination under the eaves.

The corners of his naturally raised lips curve elegantly: “Are you sure you want me to come in?”

“Of course.” I comb the hair on his temples neatly with my fingers and take his hand through the door.

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Chapter 4 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 6