Chapter 10
“What about a guardian or something like that? Isn’t there one?”
The director said with difficulty: “You know that Xiao Zhi is also autistic. He can stay here to work because he also needs special care. If there’s no guardian or other person to accompany her to sign the documents, it would be quite difficult…”
Aunt Zhu nodded: “I understand. I’ll go back and think of a way. Please give us some time and don’t let anyone else take Kaka away.”
“Don’t worry about that. Kaka still needs treatment for a while. We won’t let just anyone take it away casually.”
“Wen Ran!”
Before getting in the car, Wen Ran suddenly heard someone calling her name. She was startled and turned around in surprise to see Weiwei running over.
“This is for you.”
Weiwei stuffed something into her hand: “I’m so happy to meet you. I hope we can see Kaka together again next time.”
Wen Ran opened her palm and saw a very small plush puppy charm inside.
Weiwei and the others had brought many small toys for the animals. This was one she had specially picked out to give to Wen Ran.
On the way back, Wen Ran, who should have gotten car sick again, held that little toy and looked at it over and over, and surprisingly didn’t feel as uncomfortable as she had on the way there.
“Oh, right, Secretary Zhou sent photos of Mr. Xie. Ranran, do you want to take a look? They’re quite professionally taken.”
Aunt Zhu opened her phone, put on her reading glasses, and looked carefully: “Oh my, Mr. Xie’s looks, his figure, he’d be first-rate anywhere.”
Wen Ran tilted her head: “Are you saying he’s… very good-looking… very good-looking?”
Aunt Zhu looked at Wen Ran thoughtfully: “Ranran, have you never known what your husband… what Mr. Xie looks like?”
Wen Ran nodded: “It seems… I haven’t.”
Wen Ran indeed had never carefully looked at Xie Yunli’s appearance. Even when making eye contact with him, it was only for an instant, which was of course normal for her.
Xiao Zhi could make unrestrained eye contact with people but couldn’t express his thoughts correctly. Wen Ran couldn’t comfortably look directly at others, but didn’t have serious problems with expression and speech.
“Then you’d better prepare yourself mentally.”
Wen Ran spent the entire journey mentally preparing. When she got home, her complexion was still somewhat pale, but at least she hadn’t vomited as severely as on the way there.
Aunt Zhu had her sit on the sofa and solemnly handed her the phone: “Come, please take a look.”
Wen Ran took a deep breath and carefully held the phone in front of herself.
In the photo, Xie Yunli was wearing a white shirt and dark blue dress pants, standing sideways by a pool table, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a cue stick.
He had good proportions, about 184 centimeters tall, broad shoulders and narrow waist, long legs. The curve from his back to his legs was perfectly straight. His facial contours were also very smooth, and his eyes and brows carried a mature charm that had shed its youthful air, looking both steady and sharp.
Wen Ran raised a finger and gently traced the lines from his eyes and brows to his nose bridge through the air. She had never carefully looked at other men’s faces, but Aunt Zhu said Xie Yunli was first-rate handsome, so he must be better looking than many people.
“How is it, Ranran? Isn’t he very handsome?”
Aunt Zhu said with a smile: “Want to see a front-facing one?”
Aunt Zhu reached out and swiped, directly sliding to a front-facing photo of Xie Yunli.
Wen Ran unexpectedly met Xie Yunli’s eyes in the photo and immediately looked away instinctively. After a moment, she carefully looked back again.
The front-facing photo showed him not standing straight like before, but leaning lazily against the pool table, his eyes looking directly at the camera.
Wen Ran looked for a while, then suddenly said quietly: “Xie Yunli, today I… went to see Kaka.”
Hearing her suddenly speak, Aunt Zhu was somewhat surprised.
What Wen Ran often did was talk to her mother’s portrait, sometimes for a very long time. This was the first time she was communicating with someone else’s photo as if having a conversation.
“Kaka is very cute, very beautiful, very soft, but it’s also in pain, very pitiful.”
Wen Ran said softly to Xie Yunli’s photo on the phone: “What should I… do? Would it be better to bring it home? Can I take good care of it? Would it like me… taking care of it?”
Aunt Zhu watched from the side, almost wanting to answer for that photo: “Yes, yes, Kaka would definitely be very well cared for by you.”
Unfortunately, a photo was just a photo. Given Wen Ran’s condition, being able to communicate like this with a photo other than her mother’s was already quite miraculous.
She seemed to be gradually accepting that Xie Yunli was her family, even though they didn’t live together. Xie Yunli’s identity was ultimately that of family to her.
Aunt Zhu couldn’t help but want to wipe away tears. Just as she was feeling emotional, a phone call suddenly came in.
It was Zhou Wei.
Zhou Wei immediately asked: “Aunt Zhu, has Miss Wen seen Mr. Xie’s photos? How was it? Is she satisfied?”
Aunt Zhu: “She looked, she looked, but whether she’s satisfied or not, Ranran didn’t say, and we don’t dare ask.”
“Good that she looked, good that she looked,” Zhou Wei said quietly: “Aunt Zhu, I won’t hide it from you. I have several candid photos and short videos here. Miss Wen has definitely never seen Mr. Xie when he’s meeting with clients or drinking, right? I can secretly send them to you, but please don’t let Mr. Xie know I’ve been taking candid photos of him…”
Aunt Zhu: “That would be wonderful. Send them to me, and I’ll show Ranran. She really has never properly looked at Mr. Xie’s face. If they met outside, she probably wouldn’t even recognize him…”
Zhou Wei said in surprise: “They’ve been married for two years and she still doesn’t know what her husband looks like? Oh my, this is really… No, no, no, I don’t mean anything by it…”
“It’s fine, I understand,” Aunt Zhu said: “Thank you, Secretary Zhou, for helping us with this during work hours.”
Zhou Wei smiled and said: “You’re welcome, you’re welcome.”
Hearing Aunt Zhu’s words, Wen Ran suddenly said: “I can recognize him.”
Aunt Zhu: “Huh?”
Wen Ran said seriously: “Even outside, I can… recognize Xie Yunli. He’s different from… others.”
Aunt Zhu hung up the phone and asked her: “How do you think Mr. Xie is different from others?”
Wen Ran was slow for a moment, as if thinking, then said after a while: “Footsteps.”
Aunt Zhu: “Footsteps? You mean you can recognize him by listening to his footsteps?”
Wen Ran stood up and raised her hand, gesturing a distance: “His legs are this long, 112.5 centimeters.”
Then she changed her hand position and said: “His waist is this wide, his arms are this long. Hmm… his feet should be this big…”
She stated every measurement of Xie Yunli’s body proportions, of course everything below the neck.
Clearly, accurately, just like every time she painted, she could calculate the measurements of objects.
They had specifically calculated that Wen Ran’s grasp of measurements when drawing could be accurate to decimal places.
So even without looking at someone’s face, she could determine their identity based on their body measurements. After all, everyone’s body proportions were different, and even if body proportions were similar, the lengths of hands and feet would definitely differ.
When she said she could recognize Xie Yunli even without looking at his face, she definitely could, even though they had met very few times.
She never lied like ordinary people, so every word she spoke was genuine, without any falsehood.
Aunt Zhu put the phone back in Wen Ran’s hands, smiling: “Our Ranran is really amazing. Come, talk to Mr. Xie a bit more. When evening comes, remember to say goodnight to him.”
Wen Ran was stunned: “Besides Mom, I also have to say goodnight to… Xie Yunli?”
Aunt Zhu said: “Say it if you want to, don’t if you don’t want to. But Auntie thinks that Mr. Xie is the person taking care of Ranran in place of Mom. He’s also very good to Ranran, isn’t he? So Ranran can also be a little good to him.”
Wen Ran said seriously: “Aunt Zhu, he can’t hear what I’m saying. This is just… a photo.”
Aunt Zhu smiled: “You can practice first. Maybe in the future you’ll be able to say it to his face.”
Wen Ran looked at Xie Yunli’s photo again.
“Then how can I be good to him?”
Two days later, Zhou Wei received another call from Aunt Zhu. This time he didn’t delay and immediately found Xie Yunli.
“Mr. Xie, Aunt Zhu says she needs to go to the hospital tomorrow morning for a follow-up and to get medicine…”
Before he finished speaking, Xie Yunli said: “I understand.”
Zhou Wei was stunned, then heard Xie Yunli say: “Push tomorrow’s work back. I’ll go home once.”
Zhou Wei hadn’t reacted yet when he heard him say: “Give Aunt Zhu my contact information. She can contact me directly if there’s anything.”
Zhou Wei immediately understood.
Actually, what Aunt Zhu had said was that she needed to go to the hospital tomorrow for a follow-up and to get medicine, and wanted Zhou Wei to tell Xie Yunli to ask for leave for her, but she hadn’t asked Xie Yunli to come home to accompany Wen Ran.
After all, it was very difficult for Xie Yunli to get away during work hours. In this regard, Aunt Zhu had never made things difficult for him.
It could be said that everyone who knew about their relationship, including Aunt Zhu, didn’t hold much hope for Xie Yunli and Wen Ran’s relationship.
Maybe someday when Wen Ran’s condition improved a bit, when she emerged from the shadow of losing her mother, or when she could live as independently as possible, Xie Yunli might divorce her.
Zhou Wei said: “Aunt Zhu should have Mr. Xie’s contact information. She probably thinks it’s better to contact me first.”
Xie Yunli glanced at him.
“Is that so?”
Zhou Wei quickly said: “I’ll tell her to call you directly if there’s anything in the future.”
At Aunt Zhu’s age, having served so many well-off families for so many years, her choice to contact Zhou Wei first each time had her considerations.
After all, she was also worried that Xie Yunli would be annoyed by her interruptions during work hours, which would further affect his impression of Wen Ran.
It was fortunate to have such a thoughtful caregiver, otherwise there would be no one to constantly accompany Wen Ran.
Wen Ran only learned that Aunt Zhu was going to the hospital the next day. As soon as she heard, she became nervous: “Going to the hospital again? Is it… is it serious? Do you need to be hospitalized? What did the doctor say? Should I… should I accompany you?”
Aunt Zhu comforted her with a few words, indicating that she was just going for a normal follow-up and to get medicine. However, when Wen Ran heard that Xie Yunli would come over, she suddenly stood up: “Why is he coming? Why ask him to come? He has to… he has to work. He has to work, he doesn’t have time… no time to come here.”
Actually, Aunt Zhu knew the reason for her agitation.
Wen Ran’s father had once felt tremendous pressure from his busy work and having to care for an autistic daughter. Having experienced her parents’ arguments as a child, Wen Ran always became very anxious about this issue.
Whenever her parents had conflicts, her emotions would easily collapse too.
Because she couldn’t control or stop the current situation from happening.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, Ranran. This is also Mr. Xie’s home. It’s normal for him to come back. If he’s too busy with work to spare the time, he definitely wouldn’t come.”
Wen Ran frowned. Her expression suddenly became agitated, and she couldn’t help but start hitting her own head with her hands, constantly saying: “But work is very important, work… work is more important than me. How can he… delay work because of me? It’s not allowed, not allowed, not allowed…”
She must have remembered when her parents argued about work and companionship issues. Once her emotions couldn’t be suppressed, she would show this kind of self-harming physical behavior.