Farewell to the Sunset

In November, the northern region entered early winter.

Shen Youning was most annoyed at this time of year. The temperature had plummeted, and the sky was hazy. There was no heater indoors. It was very depressing outside. And the whole person’s state was also the same as the recent weather.

Today was Monday, and the subway during the morning rush hour was overcrowded. Shen Youning got on the train at the departure station. He was lucky enough to grab a comfortable seat.

It was interesting to say that Shen Youning, the deputy manager of the Engineering Technology Department of R.A. Construction Company, owned real estate next door to the company. Two private cars were driven alternately. Such an elite white-collar worker wanted to compete with the vast number of wage earners for a seat.

But he couldn’t be blamed either. Shen Youning’s parents lived in the eastern part of the city, and he had to go back every month for the weekend. On Mondays, his Volkswagen Phaeton just happened to be restricted. The most convenient way to reach the company located in the west of the city was to take Metro Line 1.

Then, why not drive another car? Because the other car was his birthday present, and the person who gave it was his best friend, Jiang Yi, the little boss of Anjiang Group.

It was not that how precious the other person’s heart was, but….

Driving a Lamborghini Aventador to work was a bit of an exaggeration, right?

Shen Youning was a low-key person. He would rather squeeze into the subway than drive a sports car to show off. Moreover, he had a great deal of bitterness and hatred across his face at this moment. He really missed the soft backrest of his Lamborghini very much.

The third stop was the transfer station. There were more and more people coming and going. Shen Youning leaned on the back of the chair and closed his eyes to rest, thinking about how to deal with that difficult Party A for a while.

In the midst of the chaos, a strong fragrance suddenly surged from the tip of his nose. It was sweet and astringent. As far as the smell was concerned, he did not know what kind of flower it was. 

Shen Youning sneezed before opening his eyes.

“I’m sorry…” A young man’s voice was as clear as a silver bell.

Shen Youning waved his hand subconsciously. Before he could see the person in front of him clearly, the other person turned away one step ahead of him, and stood far away.

With his back to Shen Youning, he was dressed in black and looked a bit thin. The hand holding the railing was very white, with red knuckles, as if frozen. Above that, his dark chestnut hair, soaked in the winter cold, was slightly curled.

Shen Youning had fallen in love twice: one in middle school and one in college. Although he had been vacant for four or five years now, his aesthetic orientation had never changed, being delicate, petite, and fragile.

Like the person in front of him.

Despite not being able to see the young man’s face, just listening to the voice and looking at the back, the sense of atmosphere was already set off enough. A twenty-seven or twenty-eight-year-old man would not be easily moved, but when coming across the person he liked, he would inevitably linger his gaze there for a while. 

Shen Youning tidied up the collar of his hoodie and straightened his back.

The next stop was the Central Business District, where the first batch of commuters would arrive at the finish line, and start another round of seven busy days.

The compartment suddenly became quite empty, and the boy on the opposite side just sat down. Only then Shen Youning saw the bouquet of flowers that tickled his nose. They were small white flowers with green stems. Dozens of them were squeezed into a cluster, like an elongated hydrangea.

It also looks like a bridal bouquet.

Shen Youning was numbed by his own thoughts. He pretended to be inadvertent, and hastily swept across the other party’s face.

Unexpectedly, his gaze fell, and he couldn’t move it away for a moment. What a beautiful face it was.

The eyebrows were like spring mountains; the eyes like autumn water; the face like peach petals and the lips like painted vermilion, coupled with curly brown hair. It was so delicate that he did not look like a real person.

Even though WeChat was a good idea to pay attention to, it seemed too abrupt and offensive to him. In addition, coming up to the point of contact was strange between the two guys.

Shen Youning summarised his experience of being approached and came up with a proper and comprehensive solution.

He took out his tablet, opened drawing software, created a new drawing book, and tapped the pen tip on the screen.

Before high school, his family originally planned to let Shen Youning take the art exam. As a result, the child was too competitive with his classmates in the culture class. Consequently, even if he took the ordinary college entrance exam, he would still be able to qualify for the national TOP 2. Since he had a background in fine arts, Shen Youning didn’t waste it. Both his undergraduate and postgraduate studies were in the Department of Architecture at University A, and he had been working as an architectural designer at R.A. after graduation.

The tablet was like his workbook, full of various sketches, but never a portrait. Maybe this was the first time.

He traced the outline of the other party with his eyes, and the vivid human figure with a slender neck, straight back, narrow waist, thin legs, ten fingers clasping the bouquet from time to time, and eyes that occasionally looked at each other and flashed quickly, jumped out on the paper.

The elder lady next to him probably had never seen such a grand occasion. So, she leaned over slightly to peek at Shen Youning’s painting. The lady didn’t understand art and simply felt that this young man was not simple, and his painting was really quite impressive.

“Young man, do you draw manga?” She couldn’t hold back her curiosity and asked.

“No, it’s just my hobby.” Shen Youning was generous and decent. He even tilted the tablet to one side when he saw the lady staring at his painting.

“Oh, then you are drawing really well.” The lady paused, lowered her voice and pointed to the opposite side. “The picture is… that young man, isn’t it?”

“En.” Shen Youning nodded, and found that the person opposite looked over.

“It really looks like a painting…” The lady gave Shen Youning a thumbs up, and Shen Youning smiled at her back.

The boy tilted his head suspiciously, probably thinking that Shen Youning wasn’t smiling at himself. So he lowered his head again and buckled the flowers.

When the subway arrived in the city center, the newly cleaned compartment became noisy again. There were a lot of passengers at this station, leaving only an aisle wide for one person in the compartment.

It’s not considered a sneak shot, right? Shen Youning comforted himself. It’s all for art.

He pretended to think seriously, but actually fiddled with his phone and adjusted the angle, trying to hide it.

Shen Youning had never done this kind of action. Before pressing the screen, his fingers shook a few times.

It was not too loud, but the phone flashed a blinding white light at the same time.

???

Shen Youning was shocked. Didn’t he turn off the flashlight?

The drowsiness pervading the compartment seemed to be awakened by this white light. In an instant, the eyes of the crowd all converged on Shen Youning.

At this moment, he should pretend to be stupid, because no one knew what he was shooting anyway. But Shen Youning was really guilty. He subconsciously looked for the gaze he cared about, and the two of them looked at each other. It was simply a way to force him to confess without duress.

The other party’s expression was very complicated because from his appearance, Shen Youning looked like a young student, with a handsome face and “good guy” written all over his body. It had nothing to do with the strange behaviour just now.

Taking pictures, smiling with an unknown meaning, frequent glances…

The boy looked at Shen Youning carefully, and found that the other person’s eyes were locked onto him all the time, which was really scary. He ignored Shen Youning’s hesitation to speak, and timidly slipped into another compartment.

Shen Youning pressed the phone and the tablet at the same time, and smiled helplessly.

His original idea was very good, early morning subway figure sketching, impressing his heart with the work, and under the pretext to send the painting to the other party, adding WeChat was simple logical.

Although Shen Youning originally wanted the other party to think he was just an artist, now…he appeared to be a troublemaker.

He wanted to explain, but people didn’t give him a chance at all. Four big characters were written on his face when he left: “Stay Away From Strangers”

For the first time in more than 20 years, who would have thought that the circumstances were overturned.

Full of resentment, Shen Youning got off the subway. Perhaps he was too inattentive, but he took the wrong exist.

Exit D was 500 meters longer than the normal route. Trying not to be late as much as possible, Shen Youning had to speed up his pace today.

Helplessly encountering another hard-to-wait- red light, Shen Youning frequently looked at his watch at the crossroads, and counted down the seconds until the light turned red.

30、29、28……

Ask WeChat directly, and act elegantly by expressing what you want.

20、19、18……

Just at this critical stage, I forgot to turn off the flash, which was not turned on once for eight hundred years.

10、9、8……

“Hello, may I ask where is the Huakang Building…”

Shen Youning was just about to step on his leg when a question rang out behind him.

He stopped and turned back.

This….

This isn’t like that…

The person he was still thinking about had just fallen from the sky, and the fragrance of flowers once again swirled around.

Also facing a familiar face, the expressions of the two were quite different. Shen Youning’s eyes were bright, excited and surprised. The boy took a step back and was vigilant.

“Please wait a moment!” Shen Youning saw that the other party wanted to run again, and said one step ahead of him, “I’m really sorry, but I don’t have malicious intentions.”

He spoke quickly because he was afraid that if he spoke slowly, he would not be able to catch up with others. “I didn’t deliberately take a photo of you. I usually like to draw. Just on the subway, I was just sketching. The compartment was crowded later on. So, I took a picture in order to facilitate the continuation of drawing. I will delete it now …. “

Shen Youning was in a hurry. After deleting the photo, he handed the phone over to the other party to check. But the boy didn’t answer, and glanced at his mobile phone under the corner of his eyes.

It was deleted. The boy’s expression loosened slightly and he nodded slightly.

“That one.. I just painted. Would you like to take a look?”

The boy looked at Shen Youning again. He looked at the shape, with long legs and long spines; he observed the appearance. His lips were square and his nose was as straight as a peak. The most significant thing was that the other person’s eyebrows seemed soft. Even if his tone was short, those eyes were as calm as water.

Not like the bad guys.

The boy didn’t move. Shen Youning acquiesced to the other party’s consent. He opened the tablet and said embarrassedly “I didn’t have time to colour, it might be a little sloppy.”

Shen Youning had a single eyelid. When he lowered his head and his eyes, he appeared calm and handsome. When he raised his eyes, he looked like a male protagonist in Korean dramas. There were dimples on both cheeks, as well as a gentle breath around his body. 

When he handed over the tablet to the other party, the boy hesitated for a few seconds, and then took it.

The man on the screen was familiar but distinct. Based solely on his appearance, it was him. But the overall atmosphere was warm and full of sunlight.

Shen Youning held his breath. All his attention was on the other party’s expression. He saw that his eyes had lit up for a moment, and the petals in his arms trembled accordingly.

“The painting is really good…” the boy murmured, looking up at Shen Youning again, a little embarrassed. “It turns out that you are really a painter, I… just misunderstood you.”

Shen Youning breathed a sigh of relief, laughed twice, smoothed things over and said, “I’m just an amateur painter. I was rude at first, so I should apologize to you.”

As the boy continued to look at the painting, Shen Youning took advantage of the victory to pursue, “If you like it, may I…send it to you?”

“Can you send it to me?” The boy replied softly. “Thank you then. Should I… turn on the Bluetooth?”

“Oh…Bluetooth, bluetooth…OK”, it was not easy to salvage the image. Shen Youning didn’t dare to act rashly at the moment. He couldn’t say anything about adding WeChat, and sending pictures to the other party without distracting his mind.

“Did you ask for directions just now?”

“Yes, I want to go to the Huakang Building. Do you know where to go?”

Shen Youning was delighted, “I’m working at Huakang Building, R.A. building”, he took out the badge to confirm his identity, “Why not …. could we go together?”

“I’m an architect, so I usually paint,” Shen Youning added.

The boy thanked him again and followed Shen Youning. He was slow and always half a step behind Shen Youning.

Shen Youning slowed down and waited for him. He realized this half step was deliberate, and the other party was unwilling to stand beside him.

The gentlemanly manner in which Shen Youning walked on the left side opened the distance. He was speechless all the way, and when passing another exit, he pointed at the other party and told him to get closer from here.

“Do you have a temporary access code? Shall I help you with the gate?” Shen Youning said, walking down the floor of the Huakang Building.

“No, thank you.” The boy paused and said, “I won’t go in, I’m going to that store.”

He pointed to the left side of the building. Shen Youning noticed an orange-red signboard and asked: “What is this for? Why haven’t I noticed it before…”

“It’s a dessert shop,” the boy said. “Just opened on the weekends.”

” Does it only sell desserts? Is there any coffee, tea or something?”

“Yes, coffee is brewed by hand. Tea is brewed by hand. Desserts are also made by hand. There are cakes, toast, chocolate …” The boy said a series, and the words became more apparent.

“Exactly, I’m tired of the company’s instant.” Shen Youning thought that he was late and said, “I’m going to buy a cup to try.”

“Now … it may take a long time.” The boy said: “I am the only one working in the store, or … shall I send it to you after it has been made?”

Shen Youning was stunned, and quickly responded, “So do you work here? I thought you were also a customer.”

“No need to deliver, it’s too troublesome. I’ll come over at two or three in the afternoon. Still open?”

“It’s open,” said the boy.

“Then see you in the afternoon. My name is Shen Youning, and I work next door to you.”

“I…” The boy hesitated for a moment and said, “My name is Tang Nuo.”

Tang Nuo, Shen Youning muttered the other party’s name carefully. The name resonated in his voice, making his throat itchy.