Chapter 32
Over the past five years, Jiang Huaisheng had spent money, energy, and connections searching for Gu Tang, but the other party seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth, nowhere to be found.
He even followed various marathon events worldwide, trying to find Gu Tang among the participants.
Of course, he found nothing.
In fact, Gu Tang had participated in youth marathons at 18 and university marathons during his undergraduate years. But after graduation, he was busy with his studies, work, and life.
He still kept up his long-distance running, but no longer participated in competitions for prize money, especially those with live broadcasts. Participating would only lead people to him.
Jiang Huaisheng cropped the photo and messaged Miss He: “Which flight were you on that day?”
Miss He was clearly privacy-conscious. Many details in the photo were blurred, including the time and flight information.
She was surprised: “Why are you asking?”
Could it be that Jiang Huaisheng was interested in her? She knew she was excellent, but she really didn’t like men.
Jiang Huaisheng said: “Personal reasons, but it has nothing to do with you. I don’t need the specific flight, I just need the exact time you took that photo.”
Miss He was relieved that he hadn’t asked anything else, which would have made her seem presumptuous. She gave Jiang Huaisheng the precise information.
After all, he was a future business partner, she could do him this small favor.
Jiang Huaisheng found a contact in the aviation industry from his address book: “Can you do me a favor? I need to check something… the flights that morning, I need a passenger’s information.”
Miss He had returned three days ago, at 10:00 a.m. three days ago. Jiang Huaisheng didn’t know if Gu Tang was just briefly back in the country or had decided to return permanently, but the other party hadn’t appeared in front of him.
Having finally found a trace of him, he wouldn’t let him escape this time.
Back in City A, Gu Tang sneezed, wondering who was thinking about him.
On his first day back, Gu Tang went to the town, visiting his father’s grave first.
He hadn’t been back during his time abroad, only entrusting others to sweep his father’s grave and offer incense.
This time, he meticulously cleaned the grave, offered his father’s favorite food, and burned printouts of his achievements and the scenery he had seen abroad over the past five years, sharing them with his father.
He carefully extinguished the embers in the burning paper basin before packing up and leaving the cemetery.
After so many years, Gu Tang was no longer the child worried about not being able to afford school. He returned with a shining resume.
Before returning, through a referral from a senior in his program, he had secured a position as a psychiatrist in a renowned public tertiary hospital in the city.
In this field in the country, psychiatrists were different from surgeons who saved lives with scalpels. They mainly focused on mental diagnosis and counseling.
Others wielded scalpels, he wielded contracts and hypnotic clocks.
While studying abroad, Gu Tang had also trained at prestigious hospitals. But he wouldn’t stay in a large hospital long-term, it was just a temporary transition.
After settling down, he would open his own psychological counseling clinic.
After all, compared to being restricted by others and having a stable job within the system, Gu Tang preferred freedom, working for himself. More importantly, there might be many rules and regulations in large hospitals, and many practices might be deemed non-compliant.
And Gu Tang didn’t care much about the stable salary offered by a secure job. His income wasn’t limited to psychological counseling.
After all, if he sought stability, he wouldn’t have needed to study abroad. With his connections to the Jiang family, Gu Tang could have had an absolutely secure job.
But now, the wealth Gu Tang possessed was enough for financial freedom for most people, even in an international metropolis like City A.
He had moved those bulky old furniture to a house similar to the one in Lishui. Houses in Lishui were cheap, even a detached villa wouldn’t cost more than two million.
However, due to work and life needs, Gu Tang wouldn’t return to his hometown to live before retirement age.
He packed his belongings and photos into boxes and hired a moving company at a high price to transport them to his new home.
As for the USB drives and cameras containing the photo negatives, he carried them with him, taking the high-speed train back to City A.
This way, even if the photos were lost during transportation, Gu Tang could reprint them from the negatives. He also uploaded them to multiple cloud albums as a precaution.
Gu Tang always treasured the things he loved, afraid of losing them.
He was the same when he loved his mother, overjoyed by her smile, cherishing every word she said. Even a slight criticism would deeply affect him.
Her indifference would make him ponder late at night. Her frown felt like a mountain pressing on his heart, suffocating him.
It took Gu Tang a long time to learn not to care, but he didn’t truly not care. Leaving that oppressive environment during university,
He could breathe freely, but returning to City A, returning to the Jiang family, he was still easily affected by them.
This was a false recovery, self-deception, escapism.
He wasn’t strong enough back then and could only escape the mire in another way. Only by facing them again and becoming truly indifferent to him, like Ms. Wen Xinyi, could he be considered truly healed.
So, Gu Tang returned after graduation. Compared to abroad, he missed the country more, its scenery, culture, and the food of his hometown. No matter how good it was abroad, it couldn’t compare to home. Gu Tang was inherently sentimental.
Besides organizing his new home, he also had to meet with the senior he had made an appointment with. Before that, he needed a haircut and to tidy up his appearance.
But there was no rush, he had plenty of time, he could take things one step at a time.
Gu Tang turned on the vinyl record player, soft music filling the large apartment, and started unpacking the boxes with a new and sharp utility knife.
Inside one of the boxes was an old mobile phone, bought five years ago.
Gu Tang had always used domestic mobile phones. Even after becoming wealthy, during university, he mostly bought phones around 2,000 yuan, replacing them every two years.
After starting work, he was more willing to spend money on electronics, but usually on computers or tablets.
But he also had expensive phones. When Jiang Huaisheng was studying, all his electronic devices were the latest and greatest, often gifted by manufacturers or business partners.
Those unopened products were sometimes casually given to him by Jiang Huaisheng.
Jiang Huaisheng had one phone he bought himself, his personal phone, and a more expensive one for communicating with the Jiang family, his work phone.
The SIM card for the work phone wasn’t registered under Gu Tang’s name. It was an unregistered card, a number he had since elementary school. The small SIM card inside had a fifteen-year history.
He used to separate himself from the Jiang family in this way. Thinking about it now, it seemed a bit childish.
This five-year-old phone was given to him by Jiang Huaisheng. Gu Tang kept both the phone and the SIM card. After going abroad, he hadn’t used that number or paid the phone bill.
Perhaps the number had already been deactivated due to unpaid bills, even canceled.
After all, this kind of unregistered SIM card, once no one paid the bill and the balance ran out, would be canceled by the carrier within three months at most.
Gu Tang charged the phone and was surprised to find it still had a signal after turning it on.
It hadn’t been turned on for five years, and the apps inside were all from five years ago, looking both familiar and unfamiliar.
He clicked and checked, finding many missed calls on this number. Logging into the messaging app, many people had sent him messages.
Most of the messages were from Jiang Huaisheng, both in the messaging app and text messages. The messages from Jiang Huaisheng’s number exceeded 99+.
Mm… the earlier messages were still polite, but the later ones became quite harsh.
However, Gu Tang wasn’t angry. Looking at these messages, he even felt a bit nostalgic.
Five years had passed, and he occasionally saw news about Jiang Huaisheng. After all, knowing your enemy and yourself was crucial for victory. Gu Tang had always paid attention to the development of Mingyuan Group.
Currently, seeing news related to Jiang He online, Gu Tang’s heart was like a calm lake, ripples gradually subsiding into stillness.
But the internet and reality were still very different, so Gu Tang wasn’t sure how rational he could remain after returning.
Not long after Gu Tang read the messages and was about to turn off the phone, a call suddenly came in.
He looked at the caller ID: The Difficult Young Master Jiang.
Gu Tang paused for a moment, then answered the call.
“Gu Tang? You dare to answer my call?”
Jiang Huaisheng’s voice was slightly distorted on the phone, but his anger was still evident.
Gu Tang replied calmly: “Should I hang up then?”
“Don’t you dare!” Jiang Huaisheng asked him, “Are you back?”
Gu Tang replied: “Mm, I got my doctorate, so I’m back.”
The other end snorted coldly, seemingly uttering a threat: “Just you wait!”
After the threat, the other party hung up. Hearing the beeping sound from the phone, Gu Tang felt a bit baffled.
He continued to unpack. About three hours later, the doorbell rang.
Was it takeout? So fast?
Gu Tang had just returned to this apartment today, and there was only some water, bread, and drinks in the refrigerator. He didn’t want to eat instant noodles, so after thinking about it, he ordered some expensive takeout.
Without thinking much, he got up to open the door and saw a familiar face standing in front of him.
As if afraid he would subconsciously close the door, the person who had come to settle the score with him forced his way in and grabbed Gu Tang’s arm tightly: “I’ve got you!”
