Three Years and Three Years

Chapter 2: Cold and Empty

When Zhou Mushi returned home, there was nobody there. Despite the heating being on, he still felt the chill in the vast empty house.

He sighed and put the groceries in the fridge, but he didn’t feel hungry at all. He changed into some comfortable clothes and went to bed.

When he woke up, he could hear the rain and snow outside. Out of habit, he reached out to hold the person next to him, but found that there was nobody there. The other side of the bed was flat and cold, reminding him that nobody had slept there. He got up and went to the living room, where he found a tidy table with only a few teacups.

Ever since Zhou’s mother died in the hospital two months ago, he had been alone at home, eating, washing dishes, watching TV by himself. For Zhou Mushi, it was a terrible thing to be alone like this.

He grabbed a soft jacket and dialed a familiar number. Nervously, he listened to the ringing sound, his heart beating faster and faster. But in the end, nobody answered the call.

He wanted to call Jin Yang, but realized that after all this time, he didn’t even have Jin Yang’s phone number.

Memories flashed before his eyes, and the promises they made to each other now seemed like a joke.

Zhou Mushi felt cold. He suddenly realized that the happiness he had always believed in might have slipped away because someone had let go.

The rain outside tapped against the window, and he quietly deleted the menu and grocery list that he had prepared a week in advance.

After finishing the last punctuation mark, Zhou Mushi’s eyes had turned a little red. He tried to sniff back his tears and looked up to stop them from falling.

He opened the fridge, thinking of what to eat, but couldn’t help but remember that there was once someone who loved him so much that he never let him go hungry or cold.

In the fridge, there were some dumplings he had frozen a few days ago, but he didn’t even eat them…

He closed the freezer door and took out a box of instant noodles from the side. The rain and snow outside were still pouring heavily, and a box of instant noodles couldn’t give him much warmth.

Zhou Mushi poked at the green soup in his bowl with his chopsticks, but he had no appetite.

He pouted and felt a sense of grievance spreading from his chest. He reached for his phone and opened the food delivery app, feeling like ordering from ten or eight different places and throwing everything out after taking one bite.

He had already placed the order when he remembered his bank balance. He silently put his phone away and cancelled the order.

Winter break was coming, and he had to pay the tuition for the second half of the semester soon. But for the past two months, Jin Yang hadn’t been depositing money into his account every month.

Zhou Mushi sniffed and felt a little pathetic. He had never realized that his extravagant spending habits could one day lead him to this kind of life.

The smell of the instant noodles rose up and entered his nose. Zhou Mushi had a shallow stomach recently, and even a glance at leftover dishes or the smell of a hotpot made him want to vomit. He couldn’t hold it in anymore and started dry heaving again, unable to bring up anything. He couldn’t eat the noodles anymore, so he sealed the package and ate two slices of dry bread to fill his stomach.

After eating dinner, he curled up in bed and watched two movies. He still felt idle, so he looked at his phone and saw that it was already 2:30 in the morning. He turned over, but still couldn’t fall asleep.