TIMO - Chapter 61

Chapter 61

After that day, Fu Zhao didn't seem to miss Shi Nan as much.

This unstoppable longing seemed to last only a day.

It wasn't that she stopped missing her, but rather that all subsequent feelings of longing seemed to become controllable as she gradually grew accustomed to this new way of communicating with Shi Nan.

Just as many people say, you only feel the separation on the first day. The longer it goes on, the less you seem to miss them.

Besides, every day that followed was exceptionally busy for Fu Zhao.

Fu Wanqing left Nanke Island alone, carrying Gu Shubai's last wishes, to travel across the stars. She eventually settled on an island with no winter, because Gu Shubai had left this world in winter.

Fu Zhao inherited Nanke Island, officially becoming its Island Master, and remained there with Kong Weiyan.

Jiang Wenqing and Ye Er both went to RT University. One studied Pheromone research and interned at the top interstellar research institute; the other studied broadcasting and communications and, as she had wished, went to the Omega Rescue Center to become an intern reporter, following the center's footsteps to various planets across the stars to report on all sorts of social issues.

Shi Nan was also very busy. Because her project was questioned by the board of directors and the StarNet public, less than a month after taking charge, she went with the Omega Rescue Center to various planets to establish local project management organizations.

And so, Shi Nan, who had promised to return to Nanke Island, did not come back for two full cycles of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

However, you couldn't say she broke her promise.

As if waiting for Shi Nan, Fu Zhao's susceptibility period was also late in coming.

A typical Alpha would experience their first susceptibility period within three months of differentiating, and then once every six months after that.

But Fu Zhao's first susceptibility period had yet to arrive.

Sometimes she even forgot she was an Alpha. Although she had made all the theoretical preparations to welcome the headaches, fever, and irritability of the susceptibility period, and had even prepared inhibitors of various strengths well in advance.

But she had yet to have the chance to put any of it into practice.

And so, Nanke Island welcomed its third winter since Shi Nan's departure.

Perhaps due to its location, Nanke Island had winters, but it almost never snowed. It hadn't snowed in the past two winters, and this year's winter wasn't over yet.

She suddenly found herself looking forward to seeing snow on Nanke Island.

The moment Fu Zhao pushed the door open, she felt a blast of cold air. A chilly wind snuck down her collar, making her shiver.

Night had fallen. The evening lights swayed, and the crowds were sparse.

A cold, crescent moon hung in the sky, surrounded by a vast, twinkling river of stars, brilliant and dazzling.

Fu Zhao wrapped her coat tighter, shook her groggy head, and decided to walk back to sober up.

The year-end celebration banquet had just ended. She was the Island Master now, no longer the Little Island Master who had Fu Wanqing to handle everything. There were some occasions she naturally couldn't refuse.

On top of that, Kong Weiyan had been away on business on another planet for the past few days and hadn't even attended the year-end banquet. With no one to share the burden, many people came to toast her. She kept each toast brief, but by the end, she was still a little drunk.

Perhaps it was more than a little drunk; she already felt top-heavy and unsteady on her feet.

Fu Zhao walked slowly, the cold wind on the road dissipating some of the drunkenness. She felt much better.

The walk home from the hotel near the Island Resident Department wasn't far, but ever since becoming the Island Master and starting work there, she had never walked home. Her commutes were always hectic, busy with signing various documents and handling matters for different departments.

But since she had the next two days off, she was in the mood for a leisurely stroll home.

Just like how she and Shi Nan used to walk and ride the little electric scooter home together after band practice.

She hadn't done something like this in a long time.

The little electric scooter was covered in dust, old and worn.

The motorcycle sat in the garage, its equipment never updated.

She took the sports car out from time to time, but she was always the only one going for a drive. Occasionally, Kong Weiyan would join her, but unfortunately, even with the two of them, it was still dull.

The band was missing members. Jiang Wenqing was busy reporting from various planets, Ye Er stayed in his lab and almost never returned to Nanke Island, Fu Wanqing lived abroad and only came back occasionally to see her, and Shi Nan was even busier with the Qixing Project. Sometimes the planets she visited had no signal, and they couldn't even make a holographic call.

So every year at the Mid-year Celebration, the standing performance was once again her piano solo.

She became the 25-year-old Fu Zhao, and Shi Nan became the 26-year-old Shi Nan.

Sometimes she would wake up from a dream at night and, for a moment, couldn't recall when it was that Shi Nan had come to Nanke Island, joined their band, held the fireworks festival, fought off thugs, and stopped Lu Jingmo at the starship port.

"Hello, citizens of the StarNet. I am currently in Xiangchun County, Nanchuan City, on YT Planet. At approximately 20:34 on December 21st, the Omega Rescue Center discovered 124 female Omegas who had been imprisoned here by local residents..."

A clear, powerful young woman's voice rang out, a familiar tone yet with a hint of maturity.

Fu Zhao stopped and looked at the holographic screen across the street. In the center of the image was a female Alpha with a bright, pretty face, her hair tied in a ponytail that revealed a full forehead. Her expression was serious as she reported the newly acquired information word by word.

It was Jiang Wenqing.

Fu Zhao's gaze lingered on the screen for a moment. Although her current state wasn't exactly suited for listening to serious news, she didn't move.

The breath she exhaled formed white puffs in the air.

Ripples stirred in her eyes. She decided to sit down at the bus stop by the road. Her head was a little dizzy, so she leaned it against the adjacent information screen and listened to the entire news segment.

Above her was a sky full of stars, a brilliant river of light.

Fu Zhao raised her eyes and stared for a long while, trying to find YT Planet among the twinkling stars in the night sky. In the past two years, she had learned the locations of some of the more common planets and had practically memorized the names of all the ones visible to the naked eye from Nanke Island.

She raised a finger to point, but the brightest star on the horizon dazzled her. Only then did she remember that YT Planet was very remote and couldn't be seen from Nanke Island.

She blinked blankly. Her raised hand fell to her side. She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking she must be truly drunk for her mind to be working so slowly, unable to recall that fact.

The news report soon ended, and another one began.

It was a progress report on the research of a new type of Omega inhibitor. The project team Ye Er was interning with was said to be developing an inhibitor that could minimize physical harm to Omegas.

Ye Er was on RT Planet.

Fu Zhao glanced at the stars and quickly found the location of RT Planet. When she was memorizing the positions of the planets, RT Planet was the first one she learned.

Because in the beginning, Shi Nan was on RT Planet.

The fingertip pointing at the stars paused abruptly, then clenched into a fist before relaxing again.

It was a little cold.

Fu Zhao pulled her hand back and stuck both hands into her coat pockets. She gazed quietly at the river of stars, tilting her head absently.

Her heart trembled slightly, and a thought surfaced unconsciously.

Which planet would Shi Nan be on right now?

Right, Shi Nan was also on YT Planet. A planet she couldn't see with her naked eye from Nanke Island.

Realizing this, Fu Zhao simply closed her eyes and leaned back to rest.

She'd go back when she was a bit more sober, when her brain wasn't working so slowly.

There was no rush, anyway.

As she thought this, her breathing gradually evened out, and the heat in her face subsided.

A long time passed, until she felt an icy-cold touch drift onto her cheek, melt into a drop of water, and slide down into her collar, bringing a wave of coolness.

She forced her eyes open to look.

The night was dim. Under the white halo of a streetlight, snowflakes as large as goose feathers swirled down, drifting softly on the wind, gently landing on the streetlight and on the people coming and going across the street.

A few even drifted in, landing on her face and shoulder.

So, it was snowing.

Realizing this, she watched quietly for a moment before closing her eyes again. The dizziness hadn't improved; perhaps she could only appreciate the view after she had rested.

People seemed excited about the first snow in years.

The sound of a car engine turning off, a car door closing, and excited voices all reached her ears, carried by the quiet snow.

It seemed someone was talking beside her.

"Is she awake or not?" a crisp, pleasant female voice asked, tinged with curiosity and inquiry.

"I don't know." A low male voice, refreshingly cool in the cold night, replied, "Maybe she's awake, maybe she's not."

"Isn't that just stating the obvious?" the female voice retorted.

Fu Zhao's head was splitting. It felt like these two people were standing right in front of her. She furrowed her brow and slowly opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry, but she knew someone was standing before her.

The person wore a long, camel-colored coat. Narrow shoulders, a slim waist cinched smoothly by a belt that highlighted an alluring waistline, and superior, perfectly balanced proportions.

Her skin was very fair. Her black, chest-length hair was lifted by the wind into a beautiful arc, made hazy by the moonlight and the evening lamps.

Snowflakes drifted down, landing on her shoulders and accumulating in a thin white layer.

She couldn't quite see the face, only a pair of tea-brown eyes looking at her, holding a faint smile, the light within them swirling round and round.

Fu Zhao shook her head, trying to see the person's face more clearly, but a snowflake seemed to have landed on her eyelashes, weighing them down and blurring her vision. She reached up to brush it away.

But the person before her was faster.

A cool fingertip, pulled from a coat pocket, touched her eyelashes with a light, ticklish pressure.

Accompanied by a soft, gentle breath.

The tea-brown eyes instantly drew closer. The edges of the pupils glowed with a soft light, reflecting her own image perfectly.

Fu Zhao blinked her still-ticklish eyes, glanced down at the camel-colored duffle coat with a hood that she was wearing, then looked at the coat the person in front of her was wearing.

It didn't have a hood.

It was different from hers.

Fu Zhao secretly breathed a sigh of relief. She pursed her lips and spoke, "Why are you dressed so much like me?"

The moment she finished speaking, she heard a stifled laugh beside her.

She didn't look toward the source of the laughter, keeping her eyes fixed on the person in front of her.

The corners of the person's lips also curved into a beautiful arc, their eyes twinkling. Then, they reached out a hand to brush the snow from her shoulder, their voice lazy, soft, and light,

"Silly~~"

"Don't you know this is what they call a couple's outfit?"

Fu Zhao was stunned for a few seconds. As if in response to those words, the blurry figure before her suddenly came into sharp focus.

Her skin was very fair, the lines of her beautiful eyes slightly elongated. Her lips were full, their color a natural, translucent red, and the smile at the corners of her mouth was radiant.

Fu Zhao watched quietly for a few seconds, the fingers in her pocket clenching tighter and tighter. She opened her mouth,

"Shi Nan?"

"Mm."

Shi Nan responded, straightening up. She patted Fu Zhao's head gently, her voice much softer,

"I'm back, Fu Zhao."

Fu Zhao's breathing grew ragged, and she felt her heartbeat quicken. She tried to get her rusty brain working, wondering what she should say first now that Shi Nan was back.

After so long, she had originally planned to tell Shi Nan everything that had happened on Nanke Island when she returned-the good and the bad.

But now Shi Nan was back, standing right in front of her.

All the things she had stored in her mind exploded into a blank slate in an instant, leaving only emotions rampaging through the emptiness.

What should she say?

Should she say she missed Shi Nan terribly, or should she put on a brave face like before and say she didn't really miss her that much?

Yes, she should put on a brave face.

She was always worried that her longing would affect Shi Nan's journey to farther places, that it would prevent Shi Nan from concentrating on completing the tasks she needed to do.

So, she always suppressed her feelings of longing, no longer expressing them as easily as before.

By suppressing it for so long, she herself had almost come to believe this brave lie.

Fu Zhao stared blankly at the Shi Nan before her. Shi Nan didn't rush to speak either, just watched her with a gentle, soft gaze, her lashes fluttering as she blinked, as if waiting for her to say something.

"Shi Nan..."

She first called Shi Nan's name softly. After waiting for the light in Shi Nan's eyes to tremble slightly, she met her gaze and stared intently,

"Can I miss you?"

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