🌸Chapter 5: Relative Stillness
Qi Ye stared at the CAD drawing on his computer screen, the cursor jumping back and forth between the red and green lines. He was the only one left in the office. Under the midnight lights, the screen glowed blue, like a frozen lake surface.
“Engineer Qi, you’re still here?” Security guard Old Zhang poked his head in. “This is already my third round.”
“Almost done.” Qi Ye didn’t lift his head, his fingers tapping out a hurried rhythm across the keyboard. Three different drainage plans were spread out in front of him, each covered in dense circles and notes in red pen all written in Cheng Shubai’s impeccably neat handwriting, neat to the point of being maddening.
Old Zhang shook his head and closed the door. Only then did Qi Ye release the tension in his jaw. He pulled some antacids from the drawer and swallowed them dry. The pills scraped down his throat, leaving a bitter trail, exactly like Cheng Shubai’s flat “I suggest you redo it” from the afternoon project meeting.
His phone lit up with notifications from the office group chat. Qi Ye glanced at it, then froze—someone had forwarded a press release from Huanyu Group. In the photo, Cheng Shubai was speaking at a charity banquet. The platinum ring on his left ring finger gleamed sharply under the flashes.
Qi Ye slammed the phone down on the desk, the sound startling even himself. His eyes fixed on the red-circled rain garden node on the drawing, but suddenly every line seemed twisted into a mocking smile.
So this is how it is…
Seven years is enough to change many things. Cheng Shubai had gone from a talented architecture student to a vice president of a conglomerate. Qi Ye had gone from a naive university kid to a prickly designer. And that ring… it represented a life he could never touch.
He shut the laptop abruptly, grabbed his coat, and left the office. In the elevator mirror, his disheveled hair and reddened eyes made him look like a drenched stray cat. He tried to straighten his collar, only to brush against the ginkgo-leaf pin hidden under his shirt the same style as Cheng Shubai’s cufflinks, that ridiculous thing he still carried.
The elevator chimed and reached the ground floor. Qi Ye strode quickly through the empty lobby, but right at the door, he nearly collided with someone. Leaning against a Maybach was Cheng Shubai, holding a paper bag with a congee shop logo. His white shirt sleeves were rolled to his elbows, his watch gleaming under the streetlight.
They stared at each other from three meters apart. The air seemed to freeze.
“Passing by,” Cheng Shubai spoke first, his voice lower than usual. “I saw your light was still on.”
Qi Ye forced out a professional smile. “President Cheng doing late-night inspections? Truly considerate of us subcontractors.”
Cheng Shubai didn’t answer. He simply held out the paper bag. “Eat while it’s hot.”
Qi Ye didn’t take it. His eyes locked onto Cheng Shubai’s left hand, the ring was gone, but the pale indentation around his finger proved it had been there for a long time.
“I’m not hungry.” Qi Ye stepped back. “If you don’t have any official business, I’ll be on my way.”
Cheng Shubai’s hand lingered in the air before slowly retracting. “Go easy on the antacids. They hurt your liver.”
The words pierced Qi Ye’s chest like a needle. He snapped his head up. “Cheng Shubai, what exactly are you trying to do?” His voice shook in the night breeze. “Seven years of silence, and now you show up pretending to care? Is this congee supposed to be from a friend… or from something else?”
Or maybe marriage got boring, and you came looking for fun.
The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Cheng Shubai’s expression froze, his eyes widening slightly behind his glasses as if he had been stabbed.
Silence stretched between them. A distant ambulance siren wailed closer, then faded away again, like their brief reunion and long separation.
“…Sorry.” Cheng Shubai finally spoke, barely audible. “I crossed a line.”
He turned, opened the car door, movements still elegant, but the faint tremor in his fingers betrayed him. Qi Ye stood frozen, watching the Maybach’s taillights disappear at the corner. The pill packet in his hand was crumpled out of shape.
Rain began to fall.
Cold drops slid down his neck into his collar, making him shiver. He kept his gaze fixed in the direction the car had gone, until the last trace of red light was swallowed by the night, then turned slowly toward the subway station.
His phone buzzed. A message from Cheng Shubai
“A Zone approved. On-site briefing tomorrow at ten.”
Impersonal, strictly business, not even an extra punctuation mark. Qi Ye stared at the screen. Raindrops blurred the words. He wiped them away, but the smudges only grew worse. Finally he locked the screen and shoved the phone into his pocket.
The subway car was nearly empty. Qi Ye slumped in a corner seat, his soaked jacket clinging cold against his skin, his stomach beginning to ache again. He closed his eyes, but all he could see was Cheng Shubai’s expression from earlier—that forced calm after being wounded, as if he had expected rejection yet still stood there stubbornly waiting.
“I crossed a line.”
Qi Ye let out a bitter laugh. Crossed a line? When had Cheng Shubai ever cared about lines? Seven years ago, he had disappeared without a word. Seven years later, he showed up as if nothing had happened. And now he put on this act of distance.
“Marriage too dull, so you need a distraction?”
The words stabbed right back, but instead of relief, Qi Ye only felt heavier. He raked his wet hair in frustration. He was insane to even care whether Cheng Shubai was married.
Whether he is or isn’t, what does it matter to you?
When Qi Ye got home, there was a parcel at the door. He frowned, picked it up, and opened it. Inside was a brand-new set of drafting tools, the exact brand he had used throughout university. Tucked inside was a note:
“Drawing straight lines by hand strains your wrist — C”
Qi Ye’s fingers traced the neat handwriting unconsciously. Cheng Shubai’s penmanship was still just as precise, as if afraid Qi Ye wouldn’t recognize it.
He inhaled deeply, crumpled the note, and tossed it toward the trash. But halfway there, he turned back, smoothed it out, and shoved it into the deepest part of a drawer.
Call it charity from the client.
The next morning, Qi Ye arrived at the construction site with dark circles under his eyes. Under the plane trees, Cheng Shubai was already speaking with the contractors. He wore a dark gray coat, his posture tall and straight, his left hand in his pocket, making it impossible to see if the ring was back.
Qi Ye instinctively touched his own left ring finger. empty, no mark at all.
“Engineer Qi.” Young Lin jogged over and lowered his voice. “President Cheng’s aura today is terrifying. The contractor tried to cut corners, and one look from him nearly made them kneel.”
Qi Ye glanced at Cheng Shubai’s profile as he read the construction log. His features were sharp and cold, completely different from the man who had offered him congee in the rain.
“Normal. He never had much patience.” Qi Ye pulled out the drawings. “Did you change the pipes for A Zone?”
“Yes, but President Cheng said…” Lin trailed off.
“What did he say?”
“He said if you’re still half-asleep, you can go home and nap.”
A vein throbbed at Qi Ye’s temple. He looked up just in time to meet Cheng Shubai’s gaze. Behind the glasses, his eyes were calm, as if last night had never happened.
“Tell him I slept just fine.” Qi Ye smirked, walked over, and slapped the drawings onto the temporary table. “President Cheng, the adjustments for A Zone are done. Please review.”
Cheng Shubai took the drawings, tapping lightly on the paper. “The rain garden slope was 5.8°. You changed it to 6°.”
“Six drains faster.”
“But it erodes the soil and damages the plane tree roots.” He didn’t look up. “Change it back.”
Qi Ye stared at his lowered lashes, suddenly recalling a fight in university over a roof angle. Back then, Cheng Shubai had carried him into the model room and forced him to test ten different slopes.
Now, all he gave was a cold “change it back.”
“Fine. You’re the client, you get the final word.” Qi Ye reached for the drawings, but suddenly his wrist was caught.
Cheng Shubai’s palm was warm and calloused, his touch achingly familiar. Qi Ye froze as the other man asked quietly:
“What happened to your hand?”
Only then did he realize the medicated patch on his right wrist, an old injury flaring up from sketching until dawn.
“It’s nothing.” Qi Ye pulled free. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll go supervise.”
Cheng Shubai paused, then nodded. “Eleven o’clock, meet at Zone B.”
Qi Ye walked away, but a few steps later, he heard his voice behind him.
“Don’t strain your wrist. The drawings can wait.”
The calm tone made Qi Ye stop for just a moment. Same as before, still terrible at hiding his concern.
He didn’t turn around, just lifted his hand in acknowledgment.
Sunlight filtered through the plane trees, dappling the ground. They stood in the same patch of shade, yet it felt as if a whole galaxy lay between them.
Later, Qi Ye checked logs at Zone B. Absentmindedly, his pencil scratched short lines on the page. Lin leaned in and whispered, “Engineer Qi, did you and President Cheng fight?”
“No.” Qi Ye didn’t look up. “There’s nothing to fight about between client and contractor.”
“But the atmosphere… Even the old foreman said President Cheng’s eyes today look ready to skin someone alive.”
Qi Ye’s pencil jabbed a hole in the paper. He remembered the warmth of Cheng Shubai’s grip, the soft “the drawings can wait.” The words sounded cold, yet carried a restrained concern.
What an act.
“Engineer Qi!” Foreman Liu ran over, panicked. “Problem! The underground pipes don’t match the drawings!”
Qi Ye frowned and hurried to the pit. The workers had dug open a section, revealing a maze of pipes half a meter off from the plans.
“If we build as designed, the whole drainage system is useless.” Liu wiped sweat. “Do we stop work and wait for new plans?”
Qi Ye crouched to inspect. The rain garden was right here. If the pipes were shifted, the slope design had to be scrapped and Cheng Shubai had only just ordered it back to 5.8°.
“Hold off. I’ll talk to him.”
He had barely stood when footsteps approached. Cheng Shubai was already there, looking calmly into the pit, mud staining the hem of his coat.
“The city redid the pipes last year. These drawings are old.”
Qi Ye blinked. “But our terrain map is the latest.”
“The terrain map is new. The underground pipeline data wasn’t updated.” He adjusted his glasses. “My oversight.”
He admitted fault? Qi Ye stared at him, but Cheng Shubai’s face was calm, only a slight crease between his brows as he calculated solutions.
“We can still fix it.” Qi Ye pulled out the drawings, sketching quickly. “If we shift the rain garden two meters east, we avoid the pipes. The slope stays between 5.5° and 6°. Drainage efficiency won’t suffer much.”
Cheng Shubai leaned in to look. Their shoulders nearly touched. Qi Ye caught a faint scent of cedar from him.
“That works.” Cheng Shubai nodded. “But the old locust tree on the east side—the root zone has to be recalculated.”
“I’ll do it now.” Qi Ye grabbed his phone to check guidelines, but Cheng Shubai handed him a folder.
“The root scan report. I had it done last week.”
Their fingers brushed as Qi Ye took it, the touch cool. His heart skipped, though he quickly lowered his head to read.
He had anticipated this?
He always anticipated.
“President Cheng, Engineer Qi!” Lin rushed over, breathless. “Forestry Bureau inspectors are here to check the tree protections!”
The two men exchanged a look and headed toward Zone A together. Their strides matched, yet they instinctively kept half a meter apart, like two parallel lines.
Halfway there, Cheng Shubai’s phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID, frowning slightly, and stepped aside to answer. Qi Ye hadn’t meant to overhear, but the wind carried his words clearly.
“Yes… I know… good that the ring was found… I’ll try to make next week’s flight…”
Qi Ye’s stomach twisted violently, as if punched. He quickened his pace, leaving Cheng Shubai’s voice behind.
So he really is married. Maybe even planning to travel with that person.
Qi Ye clenched the drawings so tightly the paper crumpled. What a joke—his heart had raced over a simple “the drawings can wait.”
Idiot.
“Engineer Qi!” Lin caught up. “You look awful. Do you need to rest?”
“No.” Qi Ye forced himself steady. “Where’s the inspector? I’ll handle it.”
He strode toward the plane trees, back ramrod straight, as if proving something.
Behind him, Cheng Shubai ended the call, his gaze lingering on Qi Ye’s retreating figure. His left hand unconsciously rubbed at his right ring finger—bare now, with only a faint mark remaining.
The sun shone bright. The shadows of the trees swayed on the ground, just like the day they first met seven years ago.
But now, an invisible wall stood between them.
And who would explain it? Who would know why?
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