The engagement was with the younger brother, but I've fallen for the older brother.

In first class, Si Yimian adjusted her seat to lie flat and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

Outside the porthole was the tarmac, and ground crew wearing fluorescent vests were swaying back and forth under the plane.

She took out her phone and opened WeChat.

The pinned profile picture is a simple line drawing of a crane, a white silhouette, as plain as its owner.

The last message was from yesterday.

She stared at that profile picture for a long time, so long that the screen automatically dimmed and then brightened again.

My finger hovered over the delete key for a moment.

He Sichen, this guy, even his breakups are so easy.

There was no clinging, no attempt to salvage the situation, not even a simple "Have a safe trip" was sent.

"A thirty-year-old man's vision is smaller than the eye of a pin."

She muttered softly to herself as she stared at the black screen.

"May you encounter difficult patients in the future, have every takeout meal arrive an hour late, and have the water cut off halfway through your shower."

After she finished yelling, she suddenly felt her eyes welling up with tears.

"Never mind, I wish you all the best in your surgeries and in everything you do."

A good ex should be like they're dead, and he certainly lived up to that.

He died a little too suddenly, without even saying goodbye.

What a jerk! When he's nice to you, he'll treat you like royalty; when he's cold, he'll give you frostbite.

A stubborn person inherited from his ancestors, always talking tough.

She swiped her thumb to the left and deleted.

confirm.

The screen flickered, and the dialog box disappeared.

The top bar is empty.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Then lock the screen and flip the phone over onto the small table.

She pulled the blanket over her face and curled up into a small ball.

The cabin announcement began playing safety instructions, and the flight attendant's voice was sweet and pleasant.

Si Yimian bit her lip under the blanket.

Life is vast; it's time to embark on a new chapter.

A man cannot slow down her speed in drawing her sword.

……

Terminal, VIP parking area.

He Sichen sat in the driver's seat with the window rolled up, stroking a small sheep pendant hair tie in his hand.

It was the first time she borrowed the bathroom at his house that she forgot.

When he picked it up, a strand of her hair was still wrapped around it.

Later, I simply didn't return it to her, and I never let her see it.

Later, it became something you carried with you everywhere.

He would occasionally hold it in his hand and spin it around a couple of times, the sheep ears wedged between his index and middle fingers, and with a gentle rub, the hair tie would flip over, but his expression remained blank.

It looks exactly like when she's asleep.

He suddenly felt something stuck in his throat, something he couldn't swallow or spit out.

He saw everything, from the check-in hall to the security checkpoint, and from the security checkpoint to the boarding gate.

She laughed carefree when she was playing around with Huo Siyue, and she was very reluctant to say goodbye to her parents.

I saw her turn around for the first time, her gaze sweeping past the crowds and towards the entrance.

He was standing on the second floor of the departure hall at the time, but she didn't see him.

She turned back a second time when she was about to go through security.

She turned her head and glanced at the security checkpoint through the glass wall again.

This time he took half a step forward, wanting her to see him.

Then it paused.

So what if she sees it?

What can I say if I walk over there?

She'll definitely ask, "Didn't you say you weren't coming?"

He couldn't answer.

He had already given the answer definitively this morning.

Going back on his word now is not his style.

So they withdrew half a step.

Just then, my phone vibrated.

He Sichen snapped out of his daze and picked up his phone to take a look.

This time it was a push notification from the airline's app.

[The CA983 flight you were following has departed. Have a pleasant journey.]

He stared at the push notification for a full minute.

Then he pulled the hair tie off his index finger.

"Mianmian, have a pleasant journey."

He looked at the notification and said softly.

"You'll definitely be happier without me."

He clenched the hair tie into a ball in his palm.

"But I'm not happy."

"Very unpleasant."

……

For the next two weeks, He Sichen continued to go to work, perform surgeries, and attend meetings as usual.

The calendar is filled with a dense schedule that makes every day fit together perfectly.

Arrive at Yu'an earliest and leave latest every day.

His overtime hours plummeted to a vertical line during those two weeks.

He can stand on the operating table for ten hours without frowning, and he can still analyze data clearly and logically even when he's in a meeting until the early hours of the morning.

No one found it strange; Dr. He was a workaholic.

The more he fills his schedule, the fewer empty spaces there are.

But gaps can't be completely sealed.

Boston and Beijing are twelve hours apart.

He Sichen doesn't need to adjust to the time difference, but he's been waking up earlier and earlier lately and experiencing more and more insomnia.

Humans are like this: reason can control schedules, but not inertia.

Everything is normal when I'm at work, but as soon as I have free time, I unconsciously open WeChat to look at her profile picture and updates.

There is no new information.

When ordering food, I would subconsciously add extra spice and oil, only to remember that I would never have touched it before when it was served.

I only remembered when I put it on the table that he never used to touch this stuff.

He would even deliberately avoid the door to 2702, turning left as soon as he exited the elevator, without even glancing to the right.

But back in my empty home, the 300-square-meter house was eerily quiet.

He realized that when he lived alone, his house was very empty, but he didn't feel empty.

She lived there for three months, pried open his shell and crawled in, warming up all the cold places.

Now that she's gone, the wind blows through the cracks, and everywhere you look, you see traces of her presence.

He thought he could adapt.

After all, I've been alone all these years, so I should be immune by now.

In the end, it was nothing at all.

My tongue remembers the sweetness, my stomach remembers the spiciness, but my heart doesn't know where to go.

He used his thirty years of experience to teach her how to move forward.

She taught him something in return: once someone has tasted sweetness, their tongue will never tolerate bitterness again, and even drinking water will taste astringent.

That day, He Sichen performed a highly complex skull base tumor surgery that lasted eight hours.

After the surgery, I stayed in the ICU for another two hours until the patient's vital signs stabilized before leaving.

He pushed open the door to the duty room, turned on the tap, and splashed water on his face.

Looking up, the person in the mirror had bloodshot eyes and a layer of stubble on their chin.

Turning around, my gaze fell on the bowl of peach eggs on the desk.

On the day Si Yimian started working at Yu'an, she brought this pot of things to his office.

She said that if you take good care of it, it will turn pink, and if you don't, it will turn green.

Just like people.

I almost killed it; the leaves wrinkled like raisins, and the color faded from light green to grayish-green.

He took a picture on a whim and sent it to a friend at the Institute of Botany.

The other party replied with a 60-second voice message.

He listened to each point one by one and did as instructed.

Control watering, supplement light, change soil, and prune roots.

After two weeks of effort, the leaves swelled up again, with a light pinkish tinge at the tips.

But it never turned into the pink she described.

Not pink enough.

It's like love has arrived, but it hasn't fully arrived yet.

He Sichen leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples.

Then he took his phone out of his white coat pocket.

The screen lit up, and the little sheep avatar pinned to the top of WeChat had been quiet for the past two weeks.

He hovered his thumb above the input box and typed a few words.

Are you adjusting well over there?

The cursor is blinking at the end.

He moved his thumb over the send button and paused for about ten seconds.

Then I selected all, deleted them, and typed two more words.

【Mianmian】

In the end, I chose to delete it.

He simply locked the screen and placed the phone face down on the table.