I’ll Be There 25

Chapter 25

She parted her lips, but they were so dry they clung together. The afternoon sunlight flooded the entire hospital room, filling her vision with dazzling white. Even Su Li’s face seemed increasingly unreal.

Qi Yang blinked in surprise. “Huh? You’re all acquainted?”

Before he had even finished speaking, Xi Luoyu knocked and entered the room. He paused slightly when he saw Su Li, greeted him politely, then turned to Song Jianan.

“I’m sorry. Something urgent came up at the law firm. I have to rush back now.”

A huge weight lifted from her heart. Desperate to escape the awkward atmosphere, Song Jianan said in relief, “I’ll walk you out.” She picked up her bag, then said to Qi Yang, “I’ll come back up later. You two chat first.”

She simply didn’t dare look at Su Li.

After they had left, Qi Yang clicked his tongue in puzzlement.

“Bro, how do you know Sister Jianan?”

There was no answer for a long while.

With some effort, Qi Yang turned onto his side to look at Su Li. At some point, the window had been blown open by the wind. A gentle breeze lifted the hair over his forehead. Beneath those strands, his long, cool eyes were fixed on some unknown point outside the window. His brows were slightly furrowed, his expression cold and distant.

Only when something weighed heavily on his mind did he ever look like this.

“We were classmates in high school,” Su Li answered quietly. “Same school, different classes.” He shifted slightly, but his gaze remained fixed somewhere in the distance. “The man who was with her just now… who is he to her?”

Qi Yang thought for a moment.

“I’ve only seen him two or three times. The last time was at the hospital, and now it’s the hospital again.” He paused before muttering to himself, “What a stupid sentence. It’s no different from Lu Xun’s line, ‘There are two trees in front of my house. One is a jujube tree, and the other is also a jujube tree.'”

“I’m asking you a question. Stop rambling.”

Though Su Li’s calm voice carried a faint trace of impatience, Qi Yang failed to notice it.

“Her boyfriend, I guess. No one would bring someone unrelated to visit a coworker in the hospital. They probably just got together recently. The last time I saw them, they weren’t nearly this close. Ah, seriously… winter’s here, but spring arrived even earlier.”

He kept talking to himself, completely unaware that the man standing by the window had quietly closed his eyes, the faint smile at the corner of his lips gradually fading into coldness.

After a while, noisy voices echoed from the hallway. Then Song Jianan pushed the door open, gestured to Qi Yang, and smiled toward the people behind her.

“Director Li, Chief Editor, this way.”

The visitors were the president of the newspaper group, the head of the Metro section, the editor-in-chief, and two or three others.

Qi Yang grinned mischievously.

“Uncle Li, Chief Editor, judging by this lineup, you’re not here to personally tell me I’ve been fired, are you?”

The president burst into laughter.

“Of course not! We’re here to visit a comrade on the front lines of journalism.” He carefully examined Qi Yang’s injuries before joking, “Should we have Old Zhang take a commemorative photo for you?”

“Oh, come on, Uncle Li. The doctors already took much more thorough pictures—they even photographed the inside of my bones.”

Seeing everyone looking toward Su Li, Qi Yang hurriedly introduced him.

“Chief Editor, everyone—this is my cousin, Su Li.”

Song Jianan easily caught the flicker of amazement in everyone’s eyes the instant they saw Su Li. Secretly amused, she thought, Well, looks like you’re all just as ordinary as I am.

She couldn’t help stealing another glance at him, only to meet Su Li’s indifferent gaze.

It was the kind of look that seemed capable of seeing straight through her.

Su Li smiled politely.

“Uncle Li, Chief Editor, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to visit Qi Yang.”

The president waved his hand at once.

“Listen to you—why are you being so formal with me?” Then he turned to the Metro section chief. “Old Zhang, this is Su Li—Su Jin’s younger brother and Governor Su Haibin’s son.”

Qi Yang added from the side, “Thought he looked familiar? They’re real siblings.”

Everyone immediately understood.

The Metro section chief sighed with emotion.

“To be honest, the moment I walked in and saw him, three words instantly popped into my head…”

“What words?” someone asked.

“‘The Young Master.'”

Everyone burst into laughter.

Even Su Li couldn’t suppress a smile.

Song Jianan quietly turned her face away, laughing to herself. The comparison couldn’t have been more fitting. The Metro chief truly excelled at reading the room—humorous without being disrespectful, and effortlessly likable.

She stole another glance at Su Li from the corner of her eye.

She couldn’t help imagining him dressed in white robes, holding ledgers and scrolls in his hands, with those aloof, emotionless eyes, an air of effortless nobility, cold lips, seated upon an intricately carved rosewood chair.

What a breathtaking sight that would be.

Perhaps, that first fleeting glance across the crowd years ago had captivated her precisely because of that unique aura.

The president and the others didn’t stay long.

After seeing them off, Song Jianan was also preparing to leave when Qi Yang motioned for her to stay.

She looked at him in confusion.

“What is it?”

“You still haven’t answered the question I asked earlier.”

The smile faded from his face as his dark eyes fixed steadily on her.

She froze, her brows knitting slightly.

“I…”

She didn’t know how to explain her original motivation.

Back then, in high school, she had always been the insecure girl who instinctively lowered her head in a crowd. She had simply been holding onto a stubborn determination to climb higher, to become more outstanding, just so that one day… he might notice her.

Qi Yang spoke first.

“I’m asking why you majored in foreign languages but interned at a newspaper, and why you wanted to apply for graduate studies in journalism.”

She shook her head.

Standing behind her, Su Li also looked at Qi Yang with interest.

“Sister Jianan, do you remember when senior Xinhua reporter Zhang Yanping came to your university to give a lecture a year ago? I sneaked in to listen. I went out of simple curiosity, but that lecture completely changed my decision.”

How could she ever forget?

It had been a lecture organized by the university. Zhang Yanping—the petite woman with long hair—the only female reporter who had ridden horseback alongside Wang Shunyou through the winding mountain paths carved into sheer cliffs. She was the reporter who had watched the footage of former Huijiagou Village Party Secretary Guo Xiuming’s funeral late into the night and cried until dawn.

For the first time, Song Jianan had felt deeply moved—not only by the people being interviewed, but also by the dignity and sacredness of journalism itself.

She nodded gently.

“I remember it very clearly.”

“When I got home that day, I skimmed through Why Are the Soma Flowers So Red and The General Never Left. By the end, tears just wouldn’t stop flowing. I kept asking myself, if one day I had the chance to stand where she stood, what would I do? Before that, I’d chosen my major simply because everyone else did. But from that day on, I started asking myself what I truly wanted and what I really wanted to do. I thought about it for a long time, and finally found my answer—I want to become a journalist. A journalist who can move both myself and the world.”

“But Qi Yang,” Song Jianan said softly, “being a journalist often isn’t what you imagine.”

“I know.” Qi Yang nodded. “On my very first day at the newspaper, people were already gossiping behind my back about my family background. The paper had clearly announced that it wasn’t hiring anyone this year—not even interns. It hurt, but I wanted to prove myself through my work.” His words came rapidly, his shoulders trembling slightly from the effort of speaking. “I know I’ve idealized this profession too much. Reality is cruel. But this is the goal I’m pursuing. How can a person live without hope? Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve always done, has been to pursue the kind of journalist I dream of becoming. Only what you’ve personally experienced is real. Only what’s real can be written. And only what moves you can truly move your readers.”

He breathed lightly, his determined eyes shining as he looked at Song Jianan and then at Su Li standing behind her.

Finally, Su Li spoke.

“Qi Yang, I understand what you mean. Leave Su Jin to me. I’ll help you.”

Qi Yang smiled in relief. He already looked exhausted.

“Sister Jianan… why did you become a journalist?”

She smiled faintly.

“I used to be timid and lacked confidence. Look at me now—I can stand in front of a camera doing live interviews, and I can finish a feature story about a hero in just an hour. Isn’t that reason enough?”

“So that’s why you…” The cool voice behind her suddenly spoke before abruptly stopping.

Song Jianan turned around.

Su Li calmly explained, “It’s nothing. Sorry.”

The afternoon sunlight streamed through the glass windows at an angle, dazzlingly bright.

Their eyes met.

Song Jianan found her emotions impossible to describe.

For the first time, she looked at Su Li without restraint, as though trying to make up for all the years that had slipped away. Yet her heart gradually settled into calm.

She said earnestly, “I was the one who brought Qi Yang into the Metro section. He really works incredibly hard. I’ve never met anyone who could work three consecutive overnight hotline shifts without once complaining of being tired. I’ve never met someone who would argue with me over a single sentence. I’ve never met someone who would risk his life just to chase a story. He works harder than anyone. One day, he’ll become an outstanding journalist.”

“I know,” Su Li replied softly.

A fleeting warmth passed through his cool eyes and brows. For an instant, Song Jianan thought she had imagined it.

Her heart stirred, tinged with an unexpected ache.

On the bed, Qi Yang let out an enormous yawn, his eyelids drooping.

Song Jianan hurriedly said, “Qi Yang, get some rest. I’ll come see you again tomorrow.”

Qi Yang burrowed deeper beneath the blanket and rolled onto his side, mumbling,

“The medicine’s kicking in… I can’t stay awake anymore. Sister Jianan, come early tomorrow, okay? And bring that day’s newspaper if you can. Bro, I won’t keep you either. I’ll leave everything with my sister to you.”

Song Jianan glanced at Su Li.

He quietly closed the window, raised the air conditioner’s temperature, placed the remote beside Qi Yang’s left hand, bent down to remind him of a few things, then stood and said to Song Jianan,

“Song Jianan, let’s go.”

His tone was casual and astonishingly gentle.

It carried the easy familiarity of old friends.

As though, a very long time ago, he had once spoken to her in exactly the same way—

“Classmate, it’s your turn.”

Back then, he hadn’t even known her name.

Yet she had silently written his name in her heart a hundred times every single day.

Now he knew hers.

In fact, he knew far more than she had ever imagined.

He called her Song Jianan.

A form of address she had waited ten years to hear.

Casual. Familiar. Warm.

She gently closed the door and followed behind him.

Twenty centimeters between them.

Ten years of time.

At last, the distance had become so small.

And she had finally heard those three words—

“Song Jianan.”

She wanted to laugh and cry all at once.

In that single instant, everything became crystal clear.

Only then did she realize…

Love had already come and gone.