Chapter 1262: Liu Xiaoyu’s Guilt
Because she’d gone to sleep way too late—basically only crashed this morning—when Zhou Chengchen answered the call she could barely open her eyes. She fumbled under the pillow, forced one eye open and hit the answer button. "Hello?"
"Zhou Chengchen, it’s me, Liu Xiaoyu."
Zhou Chengchen almost drifted back off, but the person on the other end didn’t seem to notice how sleepy she was and went on: "Sorry, I only just saw your text. Are you free at noon? Let’s grab a meal together?"
Zhou Chengchen’s muddled brain finally cleared a little. She pushed herself up and sat. "Mm, okay."
After that brief reply, Zhou Chengchen hung up. She sat on the bed for quite a while longer before slowly dragging herself up, washing up, changing, settling on a meeting place, and heading out.
This time they’d picked a home-style restaurant with good privacy. In the small private room for four, Liu Xiaoyu was already there.
He was wearing a dark green T-shirt and a pair of knee-length cargo shorts with more pockets than she could count—classic programmer getup.
His complexion didn’t look great, and under his eyes were two heavy dark smudges. Zhou Chengchen frowned. "You out robbing people last night?"
Liu Xiaoyu was clearly showing the signs of an all-nighter, his whole state of mind just wilted.
Liu Xiaoyu chuckled twice. "Ran into some trouble at work last night, had to work through the night."
Zhou Chengchen didn’t ask further. She knew Liu Xiaoyu was running a company with a friend now, but who that friend was she’d never asked, and what exactly they were doing she hadn’t asked either.
After getting drunk that night, Liu Xiaoyu had been dragged out of bed early the next morning. The company’s system had crashed; everyone in the company was working overtime, and he, as the core of the tech department, had been busy for a full day and night, directly spending the night at the office.
It wasn’t until after five this morning that they finally got it fixed. He collapsed onto the company sofa, too exhausted to even move a finger.
He dozed off in a daze for a while, then unexpectedly rolled off the sofa, which jolted him awake. He saw Zhou Chengchen’s text and then called her.
After they ordered, Liu Xiaoyu seemed a bit ill at ease. Zhou Chengchen, on the other hand, didn’t have that much time to waste with him; her flight back to the United Kingdom was tonight, and it was already noon.
"That day you said you owed me an apology—what did you mean?"
She had heard him say it, she’d just brushed it off at the time. But yesterday, the more she thought about it the more she felt she should probably ask.
Liu Xiaoyu took a sip of water, pushed up the glasses on his nose, glanced at Zhou Chengchen, and sighed. "The God didn’t want me to tell you, but I really feel like I owe you two a ’sorry.’"
Zhou Chengchen immediately knitted her brows. Owe them... them... her and Xi Siyan?
"What do you mean?"
Liu Xiaoyu pressed his lips together. He’d always been shy, a science-and-engineering guy, not good with words. He held it in for ages before finally starting to talk, like reciting a list.
"It was that day, your end-of-year dinner after finishing tenth grade—our tenth-grade class was having a dinner at that same place. And I ran into the God. He was in a hurry to leave and asked me to pass a message to you, said he had something to deal with those few days, so if you couldn’t reach him you shouldn’t worry, and once he was done he’d come find you."
Zhou Chengchen’s frown tightened. The guilt in Liu Xiaoyu’s voice deepened too. "But that night I got drunk and totally forgot about it. Later, my parents took me abroad on a trip. By the time I remembered, you two were already..."