TIMO - Chapter 55

Chapter 55

Regrettably, Shi Nan couldn't quite remember which occasion was the first time she and Fu Zhao had met.

Before this reunion, most of Shi Nan's memories of Fu Zhao were from after she came to Nanke Island to break off the engagement in her previous life.

Her memories of junior high were not very clear.

She only vaguely remembered that such a person existed in her class, and she vaguely remembered lending Fu Zhao an umbrella once.

That was all.

So when Fu Zhao asked that question, she felt a little sad-sad that she couldn't remember these things clearly, and sorry that there was yet another thing that only Fu Zhao could remember distinctly.

"It seems you don't remember..."

The sudden, soft voice interrupted Shi Nan's thoughts. She bit her lower lip gently and stared over, only to be met by Fu Zhao's eyes, which held a faint smile. She parted her lips, wanting to say something, but the only word that came out was,

"Sor-"

"You don't have to feel sorry." Fu Zhao cut her off, her gaze landing in Shi Nan's eyes. Her own gaze flickered gently, as if she felt no regret about this matter at all. "Because for the me back then, just being able to meet the you of that time was already a stroke of luck."

Although Fu Zhao's tone was light, Shi Nan still felt a pang of heartache. Her heart felt as if it were soaking in the seawater before them, salty and swollen. Her eyelashes trembled, and her throat was a little dry.

"When was that? Did I do something?"

"You did a lot. Many things that I am grateful for even now." Fu Zhao curved her lips into a gentle smile and looked away from her, her gaze shifting to the waves that were lapping just right at the shore. Her profile was cast in a hazy glow by the moonlight above, and her voice was softened by the sound of the crashing waves.

"It was a rainy day. I just so happened to not have an umbrella, and I just so happened to be pushed into a puddle and get a small injury. You just so happened to pass by, cleaned my wound, and left the umbrella for me."

Fu Zhao spoke quietly, her tone relaxed. The "just so happeneds" in her words seemed like little jokes she had deliberately added, if not for the fact that these "just so happeneds" were not nearly as lighthearted as Fu Zhao made them sound.

So their first meeting was that time she lent her the umbrella.

A gust of boisterous sea wind blew past, dislodging the strands of hair Shi Nan had tucked behind her ear, hiding most of her profile and the downward cast of her eyes upon hearing those words.

She silently tucked the hair back, her gaze lifting slightly. "And then?"

"And then..."

Fu Zhao's fingertips, which were wrapped around her knees, twitched. Her gaze wavered slightly, and only now did a hint of regret surface in her eyes. "Unfortunately, I was stuck in my own head back then. Those people said a Beta could never compare to an Alpha, and I actually believed it. After that, I never dared to proactively find you to return the umbrella."

"Otherwise, you might remember lending me the umbrella now."

"I do remember," Shi Nan replied, biting her lower lip. "I just don't remember that it was our first meeting."

"It's okay. We have to allow for things in this world that only one person remembers." Fu Zhao looked over, a slight smile on her lips. "For example, that time I had originally given up on my eligibility for the scholarship selection. But just one day after the selection, the A-class Alpha Liu Shan was reported for gender-based bullying and the school revoked his eligibility. I was awarded the scholarship."

Scholarship and reporting.

Once these keywords were extracted, forgotten memories in her mind began to stir. Shi Nan remembered that Liu Shan was a well-known bully in their grade at the time. Relying on his privileged family background, he had gathered a group of lackeys. After they all underwent their differentiation pre-tests, he became even worse, stopping Betas and Omegas on the street and doing things she couldn't stand to see.

At that time, she had established a student rights center at school, collected a great deal of evidence of students being bullied, and reported every single student who bullied others by relying on their influence. Liu Shan was among them.

As Shi Nan thought of this, her thoughts gradually cleared. She softened her breathing, waiting for Fu Zhao to continue.

Fu Zhao let out a soft breath, calming the slightly chaotic rhythm of her own breathing that came with recalling those events. "The person who was originally bullied by Liu Shan and had their spot taken, and who then regained that spot because Liu Shan was reported, was me."

"And the person who reported Liu Shan was the young lady of the Shi Corporation at the time, Shi Nan."

"Because of you, the unfair treatment I received was reversed."

It was as if a tightly wound string in her mind had snapped. Shi Nan could almost feel a "ding" in her ear, reminding her of a fact she had deliberately ignored.

She was stunned for a few seconds. When she came to her senses, she couldn't help but ask, "Did you hear it? What my mother just said to me."

Fu Zhao didn't answer Shi Nan's question right away. She just released her hands from her knees and propped them behind her, speaking softly as if in casual conversation. "I really envied you back then. I felt you had the power to fight against these things."

"And I was just the tiniest speck of dust at the bottom of the pyramid. I didn't have the power to fight against the status quo. Whether in terms of physiological makeup or family background, I was a very useless person."

She grew sad as she spoke and fell silent for a while before recovering enough to continue. "But looking back now, my biggest problem back then was not having the courage to fight against it all."

"Even I looked down on myself, couldn't accept myself."

"Rather than saying I didn't have the power to fight it all, it's more like I..." The more she spoke, the sadder she became. Although she was unwilling to admit the words she was about to say, she closed her eyes, trying her best to suppress the regret. "Never even thought about fighting back."

"In fact, aside from powerlessness, I only felt acceptance of such a status quo."

After recovering those memories, she had thought it over and over, and could only find the word "acceptance" to describe her cowardice and timidity at the time.

Even much later when she became the Little Island Master of Nanke Island and had the power to make changes, she was still self-deprecating and self-loathing, unable to accept that she was just a Beta. In truth, it was a fundamental acceptance that in this world, Alpha authority was equivalent to absolute power.

The most tragic part was that she was a victim of it, yet she never thought to change it.

It wasn't until she lost her memory and went to a world without ABOs, when she stepped out from under Gu Shubai's expectant gaze, when these inequalities happened to others, when she saw others suffering from unequal discrimination, that she was able to break free from that sorrowful mood and develop the desire to make a change.

It wasn't until she returned from that world to Nanke Island, back to her world, and had even greater power to change everything, that the sense of powerlessness welling up from the bottom of her heart was greatly diminished.

It turned out that many things would only get better if you actually did them.

Shi Nan beside her was quiet, just watching her peacefully, listening until she had finished speaking before looking over, the light in her tea-brown eyes shimmering slightly. "But you've already done so much now. At the very least, Nanke Island has already changed a lot."

"But it's still not enough. We still need to work hard."

Fu Zhao paused after saying this, closing her eyes to quickly compose her turbulent emotions. She smiled at Shi Nan, and only then did she answer Shi Nan's first question. "Yes, I heard."

"President Shi said she hopes you'll take this opportunity of going to the tribunal to return to the company on RT Planet and take over that project."

Shi Nan's gaze trembled slightly. "Then... do you want me to go?"

Fu Zhao looked over frankly, her eyes curving into a gentle, soft smile. "You've already made your decision, haven't you?"

"I'm telling you all this tonight just to share a bit about the Shi Nan I used to see, and because I don't want to be the person who influences you against doing what you want to do."

"No matter what happens in the future, no matter what you're worried about..."

"I don't want to become an obstacle on your path to realizing your ideals." She softened her voice. "That would put pressure on me, and you would feel unwilling yourself."

"Besides, it's not a big deal."

Fu Zhao smiled relaxedly. "Interstellar travel is so advanced now. RT Planet and Nanke Island aren't that far apart. A round trip by starship is only four hours."

"I'll come see you... all of you. Aren't Jiang Wenqing and Ye Er also going to RT Planet? It's perfect for the three of you to be there together. You can look out for each other."

"A future reporter, scientist, and entrepreneur. It sounds like a pretty good combination. Maybe you'll all become invincible figures in the future."

"What about you, then?" Shi Nan pursed her lips and looked over. "It'll just be you and Kong Weiyan left here."

"Who says it'll just be her and me?" Fu Zhao said with a smile, releasing her propped-up hands and holding them in the air, feeling the sea breeze on her face. "I still have so, so many island residents, and my mother. I have the entire Nanke Island."

"Don't be afraid."

"Okay, I won't be afraid." Shi Nan responded softly. The decision in her heart settled, and her tone became much more at ease. "I'm just afraid I'll miss you."

"I'm just afraid that without me, your fiancée, keeping an eye on you, you'll start to let yourself go wild again."

"I'm just afraid that the connection we've finally managed to build..." Shi Nan stared at Fu Zhao's hands suspended in the air, then gently reached out, took hold of Fu Zhao's wrist, and clasped it in her palm. She spoke softly, "I've finally managed to chase you down a little. I'm afraid that once I leave, all my previous efforts will be wasted."

"What I'm more afraid of is that I'll lose you again."

A palm, cooled by the sea breeze, covered her wrist. Fu Zhao felt that among all of Shi Nan's "fears," probably only the last one was serious. She automatically ignored the word "chase" in the sentence and, after some thought, seriously answered Shi Nan's final "fear."

"You won't lose me again. I promise."

Shi Nan's fingertips, clutching Fu Zhao's wrist, twitched. It was just like that day when Fu Zhao promised her that the fireworks on Nanke Island were beautiful, just like that time Fu Zhao promised her she would never see that fugitive on Nanke Island again.

Fu Zhao's promises were always effective.

She nodded lightly, her eyes shimmering. "You promised. You can't break your word."

In her past life, the point in time when Fu Zhao died saving her was three years after she came to Nanke Island and reunited with Fu Zhao.

But this time, the timeline had completely changed. Many things were different, and even the culprit had been caught. So she had reason to believe that Fu Zhao could protect herself and that nothing would happen to her.

Fu Zhao's gaze fell on Shi Nan's slightly wavering eyes, and she softly replied, "Okay."

Having gotten her answer and made her decision, Shi Nan seemed to let out a sigh of relief. Her entire demeanor visibly relaxed, and a smile finally appeared on her lips. She was even in the mood to start chatting with Fu Zhao about the past.

The night was steeped in moonlight, silent yet dotted with specks of light, mingled with the pleasant ambient sounds of the seaside.

Shi Nan began to talk about her other mother.

"She passed away before I started junior high. Back then, she was practically the founder of the Omega Rescue Center. Despite the opposition from everyone around her, she still chose to do it. Later, she encountered a natural disaster while doing rescue work on a remote planet, and she passed away."

Fu Zhao wanted to say something to comfort Shi Nan, but she couldn't find the right words. Her mouth opened and closed, and she only managed to say, "My other mother also passed away after I graduated from junior high."

Shi Nan looked over, silent.

Fu Zhao was also silent.

After a long while, she spoke again. "Do you still think about your other mother now?"

"I do." Shi Nan hugged her knees and rested her face on them, her eyes downcast, her hair tousled by the wind. "It's just that no matter how much I think about her, the memories are hard to recall as clearly as before. It's been too long, and she didn't like having her picture taken. Sometimes I can't even remember what she was doing in those memory fragments, or what expression she had on her face..."

"I only remember her voice," Fu Zhao continued along the same lines, the light in her eyes flickering. "It's the same for me. Sometimes when I go to the cemetery, I feel that the person in the photo on the tombstone is a bit of a stranger."

"Sometimes when I think back on memories of my time with her, the most familiar thing is still her voice."

"They say that when you truly forget someone, it starts with forgetting their voice..." Shi Nan said this softly. "So, the fact that we can still remember their voices so clearly is already very lucky."

"When we miss them, at least we still have their voices left in our memories."

"She was busy all year round, always coming back in the winter. She loved driving that old clunker of hers. The winter wind was boisterous, like ghosts crying and wolves howling in your ear, and the sound of her old car starting up was also very loud, rumbling..."

"She would be downstairs, shouting my name in a loud voice. She was still very young then, and her voice was full of vitality, like a lark, crisp and clear. Her laughter was also very cheerful. She was the most un-Omega-like Omega I had ever met, and she was always my role model."

Fu Zhao knew Shi Nan must be thinking about her mother again. She felt a little envious-envious that Shi Nan grew up surrounded by love, envious that Shi Nan's other mother was her role model.

Because to her, Gu Shubai was not a role model, but more like a negative example.

Just a reminder not to become someone like Gu Shubai.

But she didn't hate Gu Shubai, nor did she dislike her. She just felt it was a bit of a regret, a pity. A pity that Gu Shubai couldn't think things through and fell into a swamp.

Shi Nan wasn't crying, just hugging her knees with her eyes downcast.

But this time, Fu Zhao still patted Shi Nan's back gently. When the other woman looked over with misty eyes, she smiled again and answered Shi Nan's first "fear."

"Then when you go to RT Planet, if you miss me, will you think of my voice first?"

Shi Nan tilted her head, her eyelashes fluttering as she bit her lower lip. "I suppose so. But I'll probably call you, a video projection call... and have you turn on that watch..."

Her voice trailed off as she spoke, because Fu Zhao had suddenly leaned in very close-so close she could feel the clean fragrance lingering at the tip of her nose, could see the faint blue veins on Fu Zhao's neck, could hear the heartbeat from the chest that had just drawn near.

It was slowly accelerating, very steady.

Then, something cool was placed in one of her ears. The slightly warm fingertips that covered it even helped to tidy the hair by her ear.

Soon, the distance was pulled back again.

The sound of the surrounding waves began to surge in.

Shi Nan was startled. Just as she was about to speak, the warm fingertips touched her again, placed vertically between her lips.

Fu Zhao blinked and whispered, "Shhh~~"

The fingertips quickly moved away, the warm touch swiftly dispersed by the sea breeze. Shi Nan froze, only able to quietly watch Fu Zhao's movements, watching as Fu Zhao raised her wrist and pressed a finger on her watch.

It was quiet in her ear.

Fu Zhao was smiling, the mirth in her amber eyes made even fainter and clearer by the moonlight.

A pleasant curve rippled across her lips.

Her hair was slightly messed up by the sea breeze, falling against her cheek and swaying with the wind.

The corner of her white shirt fluttered up slightly. The collar was slightly open, and the cuffs were rolled up to her forearms, revealing her fair, slender wrists right before Shi Nan's eyes.

The next second, the sound of a slowly beating pulse came from her ear. Thump-thump, thump-thump, beating one after another.

It was exceptionally clear, overpowering all the other clamorous sounds in her ear.

On one side were the sounds of the surging waves, the howling sea breeze, the crunch of pebbles being washed ashore by the waves, and the sound of her own heartbeat in her chest-it was very rich.

On the other side, completely and wholly, was the sound of Fu Zhao's beating pulse.

These two completely different sounds mingled together, yet they made the person before her seem incredibly real, and made the sounds in her ear even more real.

It was tranquil, yet it was rich.

Fu Zhao just looked at her like that, pointing to her own ear, where a blue object was worn, which looked to be the same as the one in her ear.

Fu Zhao's gaze reflected the bright moonlight, a smile on her lips. Her voice was soft, like a gurgling stream, refreshing and heart-gladdening, and like the wind brushing the coast, gentle and warm.

"This is a custom smart pulse listener. It's linked to the watch. It was made a little later than that pillow, so I'm only giving it to you now. I thought it was too late, that I couldn't find a good time to give it... but now I think, maybe this is a good time."

"You said that when you think of your mother, you always think of her voice, the winter wind, the rumbling of her old car... that reminded me that, at least for tonight, this gift is appropriate."

"It lets me create some sounds that you'll think of when you think of me."

"But this is also... the sound of me missing you."

Author's Notes

This time they had a proper farewell. Don't worry, after they separate, I'll use my time-skip magic, whoosh whoosh whoosh-it'll pass quickly.

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