Zhou Wei only learned that Xie Yunli had left his other phone in the car when he received Xie Yunli’s call. This was truly a rare occurrence for Xie Yunli, because his phone was something he never let out of his sight. He had always been a very cautious and meticulous person.
But as long as one is human, accidents will happen. Zhou Wei sighed that he had finally experienced his boss leaving something behind.
“Yes, it’s on the back seat. Has the high-speed rail already departed? Is it too late to deliver it now?”
“Too late, the train doors have already closed.”
Xie Yunli’s tone was unusually agitated. “I have a new phone I can use. Help me check the screen now to see if there are many unread messages.”
He had set most of his contacts to silent mode, so incoming messages wouldn’t show notifications. Only some important people wouldn’t have their instant messages filtered.
This included Wen Ran. Under normal circumstances, he would reply to her messages within five minutes.
“The screen shows eleven unread messages from three contacts, boss.”
The screen didn’t show who the messages were from.
Zhou Wei of course knew that logging into a different phone would cause those eleven messages to be lost, and with thousands of contacts in Xie Yunli’s address book, only a few important contacts would have their messages displayed, while the rest were mostly set to silent for reply when convenient.
“President Xie, what do you need me to do?”
Without any hesitation, Xie Yunli said: “Go buy a ticket for the next high-speed rail and bring me the phone. These messages might be very important.”
Not might be, definitely were important, otherwise Xie Yunli’s tone wouldn’t sound so agitated.
This kind of emotion was rarely displayed by him. After all, someone who had been in business for so many years had long learned to keep his emotions hidden.
“Alright, President Xie, I’ll head over as soon as I park the car.”
Obviously, Xie Yunli still didn’t feel comfortable giving his phone to someone else, and it was impossible for him to let others see his private messages.
If it were messages from ordinary people, he wouldn’t care so much. After all, he would be back in the evening. However…
What if Wen Ran had sent him messages? Then his failure to reply might cause her to become emotionally sensitive, leading her to be unwilling to communicate with him anymore.
So thinking of this, he knew this phone had to be in his hands as soon as possible, not a minute could be wasted.
Zhou Wei bought a ticket for the next high-speed rail forty minutes later. Xie Yunli, who arrived at the destination first, waited at the high-speed rail station for over an hour.
Zhou Wei ran all the way to find him. Xie Yunli was sitting in a coffee shop inside the station.
The place was packed with people. Zhou Wei spotted Xie Yunli immediately and happened to see a young woman who had just left his side.
It must be said that in the crowd, Xie Yunli in his sharp suit still stood out quite prominently, not to mention the expensive watch on his wrist and that cold, eye-catching face.
But more importantly, his tall frame of over six feet sitting at the small table and wooden stool in the corner of the coffee shop, with his long legs unable to stretch out comfortably, really created a sense of incongruity.
He was more suited to sitting on the large sofas of upscale coffee shops.
Zhou Wei hurried through the crowd toward him, asking jokingly: “President Xie, were you just… approached by someone?”
“What, haven’t you been approached before?”
Xie Yunli extended his hand toward him, indicating he should quickly hand over the phone.
Zhou Wei quickly took out the phone and handed it over with both hands.
“To be honest, with my looks, I’d only stand out if placed among a bunch of ugly men. Your standard is the type young women like to approach.”
Just as he was joking around, Zhou Wei saw Xie Yunli’s expression change slightly.
This didn’t look good…
Zhou Wei decided to leave first. “Well then, boss, if there’s nothing else, should I take the next high-speed rail back? Or go with you to the client company?”
Xie Yunli didn’t speak, but stared at his phone, obviously too busy to answer him.
Wen Ran’s message to him was already over an hour old.
A moment later he looked up and said: “Zhou Wei, go back now, pick up something from the place I’ll send you, and deliver it to Aunt Zhu. Tell her it’s a gift from me to Wen Ran.”
Zhou Wei was somewhat surprised, but he didn’t say anything and nodded. “Alright boss, I’ll go right now.”
Xie Yunli picked up his phone, stood up, and walked away, moving even faster than Zhou Wei.
Zhou Wei looked down at his own legs, also wearing sharp suit pants, just shorter than his boss by a bit. Indeed, tall people take bigger steps.
Zhou Wei could only trot behind him as they left, watching him head toward a less crowded area while picking up his phone, apparently calling someone.
On the other side, Wen Ran was staring blankly at her easel when her phone suddenly started vibrating.
The vibration startled her. She hurriedly got up to check and discovered it was actually Xie Yunli calling.
Wen Ran’s eyes immediately widened.
What should she do?
What should she do?
What should she do? What should she do?
She didn’t dare answer the phone and hadn’t answered a phone call in many, many years. But this was Xie Yunli’s call. In her panic, Wen Ran grabbed the phone and ran downstairs. “Aunt Zhu… Aunt Zhu!”
Hearing her voice, Kaka also jumped out of its bed and ran to her side. It didn’t know what was wrong with her, but it also sensed its owner’s anxiety and started whimpering nervously along with her.
Aunt Zhu heard the commotion and came out of the kitchen. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”
Wen Ran hurriedly showed her the phone. “A call… there’s a call, for me, it’s… it’s… Xie Yunli! What should I… what should I do?”
Just as she was panicking and Aunt Zhu was stunned, the vibration stopped.
“Ah…”
Wen Ran was on the verge of tears, her eyebrows knitting together in distress: “What should I do… I didn’t answer… didn’t answer his call. What if… what if he was looking for me for something important? What if… what if he’s not feeling well, or needs me to… help him?”
Aunt Zhu quickly comforted her. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. If it’s really important, he’ll call back.”
Of course Wen Ran didn’t understand that even if Xie Yunli had something that required calling someone for help, he would never call her, because Wen Ran herself was a little girl who could barely take care of herself and needed others to look after her.
Of course, Aunt Zhu wouldn’t mention this fact. She stared at the phone screen with Wen Ran, waiting for Xie Yunli’s call.
Xie Yunli didn’t call back, but he sent a message.
“Sorry, Ran Ran, I left my phone in the car and just got it back. I didn’t reply to your message in time.”
Wen Ran breathed a sigh of relief, but then thought of something else and looked somewhat dejected: “Aunt Zhu, I didn’t answer… his call. Will he be… unhappy? Will he never want to… talk to me again?”
Regarding any issues involving communication with others, Wen Ran’s thinking was very simple. She didn’t think as much as others, nor would she consider multiple aspects.
She hadn’t realized at all that Xie Yunli was telling her he hadn’t been able to reply to her message in time, so he felt sorry toward her. He had called her to explain this matter.
But what Wen Ran cared about was whether her failure to answer Xie Yunli’s call would make him unhappy and no longer want to call her.
Although she had fear and resistance toward answering phone calls, Xie Yunli was special to her after all. She really wanted to answer his calls, she just didn’t know how.
Aunt Zhu also sensed that recently, Wen Ran was actually increasingly caring about Xie Yunli’s presence, and even beginning to care about his mood.
Wen Ran began sending intermittent messages to Xie Yunli. This time he replied very quickly, basically within five minutes.
Xie Yunli asked her: What did you paint?
Wen Ran: I painted maple trees.
Xie Yunli: Is it that road where we walked together that day?
Wen Ran: Yes, that’s the place.
Xie Yunli: Then, could you give me that painting?
Wen Ran was stunned.
Xie Yunli had never seen that painting, so why would he want to ask her for it?
What if he didn’t like it, or thought her painting wasn’t good?
Should she still give it to him?
So Wen Ran didn’t know how to reply to this question. She asked Aunt Zhu in distress: “Auntie, Xie Yunli… he said he wants my painting. What should I do? Should I give it to him? Or… not give it to him? If I give it to him and he doesn’t like it, thinks it’s not good, what should I do? Will he want to… throw it away?”
Aunt Zhu felt somewhat helpless. This child really had no confidence at all in her talent.
Of course, no one could expect an autistic person to be very confident in themselves.
After all, she had rarely heard much praise from others. So many excellent creations were hidden away in the basement never to see the light of day. She also rarely looked at online reviews of her work, because where there were good reviews, there were also bad comments. So even when Aunt Zhu saw them, she rarely told her about them.
Wen Ran had never realized that she was actually already a well-known freelance illustrator with many fans, and she could have considerable confidence in her work.
But those things weren’t important to her either. She rarely cared about outsiders’ opinions—because if she really cared, she couldn’t bear those things at all.
Before Aunt Zhu could comfort her, Wen Ran went upstairs.
When Aunt Zhu went up to look, she was sitting in front of her painting, staring blankly at it. Perhaps she was looking for flaws in it?
But in Aunt Zhu’s view, that painting was already perfect enough. She believed no one would say this painting wasn’t good, because even though Wen Ran couldn’t sense many emotions from people and had no way to express her own emotions, her creations had soul and were full of feeling. Some paintings even just looking at them could make people feel moved or want to cry.
This was truly a wonderful thing.
Perhaps this was the kind of talent that ordinary people found hard to understand.
Wen Ran looked at that painting for a long time. Aunt Zhu didn’t disturb her anymore, because obviously, her attention was entirely focused on the painting.
In the evening, Zhou Wei came and brought gifts.
Aunt Zhu looked at the two beautiful flower baskets, one large and one small, that he was carefully carrying, somewhat surprised: “A gift from Mr. Xie? Isn’t he on a business trip?”
“Yes, on a business trip, but he’ll be back around midnight tonight.”
Zhou Wei wiped his sweat. Actually, the two flower baskets weren’t heavy and didn’t require much effort.
But he was obsessive-compulsive and couldn’t bear to see a single petal get damaged. Since it was rare for him to deliver flowers for his boss, not a single petal could fall!
So he had specially switched to a business van and drove very carefully the whole way.
The large basket contained beautiful arrangements of pink and white roses with decorative elements. The small basket contained delicate arrangements of baby’s breath and small flowers, plus a bouquet of sunflowers.
“The boss said the large basket is for Miss Wen, the small basket is for little Kaka, and oh yes, these sunflowers are for you, Aunt Zhu.”
“Even I get some?”
Aunt Zhu took the bouquet of sunflowers, immediately surprised and delighted. At this moment, Kaka also came over, wagged its tail at Zhou Wei, then ran to the small flower basket to sniff.
Aunt Zhu said thoughtfully: “I understand now, I remember.”
That day during their walk, Kaka seemed to really like the little wildflowers by the roadside, but Wen Ran couldn’t bear to pick those flowers, so this time, Xie Yunli simply had Zhou Wei deliver beautiful flower baskets.
She really hadn’t expected Xie Yunli to be so attentive to Wen Ran, even taking care of Wen Ran’s beloved little dog and her, the caregiver.
When Wen Ran came downstairs and saw the beautiful flower baskets, she was also somewhat surprised. She immediately remembered something and covered her mouth: “Ah… I forgot, I forgot to reply to… his message!”
Hearing this, Zhou Wei thought to himself, no wonder Xie Yunli seemed so agitated today.
Not receiving a reply from Wen Ran all afternoon while out, he was probably even more agitated.