Chen Lizhou suddenly felt a sensation of soreness and swelling filling his chest.

His hand instinctively reached into the inner pocket of his suit, as if to jot something down.

But after thinking it over, he put it down.

The voice of Shen Xuecheng in front of him grew quieter, his head lowered, barely daring to meet Chen Lizhou's gaze: "I know it must still be hard for you now... If you feel uncomfortable, we can stop here..."

"Yanyan is doing well, during the day she's looked after by teachers at school." Chen Lizhou interrupted Shen Xuecheng.

But after answering about his daughter's current situation, he avoided questions about himself: "You don't need to be so formal, since you're Fangfang's student, just... don't be so distant."

Shen Xuecheng blinked his eyes and suddenly raised his head.

He let out a sigh of relief, a smile finally lifting the tension from his face: "Thank you, Mr. Chen, it's just... Teacher Su was always very good to me, and I felt really bad when I heard about her, I always wanted to offer my condolences but was afraid it might be inappropriate at the time."

"Teacher Su was really a very, very good teacher..."

A nostalgic expression appeared on Shen Xuecheng's face: "I don't know if Teacher Su ever mentioned it to you, but I was among the first batch of students she taught. She was only in her early twenties then, but she was so dedicated and gentle with us. We were quite naughty back then, often upsetting her, yet she never truly scolded us..."

This student inexplicably started talking about the past.

Clearly, he had come to "console" Chen Lizhou, but instead began recounting his own memories, as if venting his own regrets to Chen Lizhou to ease his feelings.

You could say he was very inconsiderate.

But for Chen Lizhou, this was an experience he hadn't had in a long time.

Those around him had always avoided the topic of his wife in various ways; even his daughter had sensibly stopped saying she "missed mommy."

Only during psychological consultations did he talk to Nan Zhubin about his wife.

It felt as if he was the only person in the world still mourning his wife—though Chen Lizhou knew this wasn't true.

After a few seconds of silence, Chen Lizhou softly responded to Shen Xuecheng: "She was quite dedicated back then."

...

The agreement was brief.

However, after receiving Chen Lizhou's response, Shen Xuecheng became even more at ease.

The nostalgia in his eyes deepened: "Yeah, Teacher Su was truly, truly, truly responsible back then."

Shen Xuecheng used three identical adjectives consecutively.

"I remember once, I wrote an essay that was so poor it embarrassed even me, and I didn't dare to submit it. She called me to her office and taught me to revise it sentence by sentence, and she told me that as long as I was serious, there was no essay I couldn't write well..."

"Speaking of which, Teacher Su actually made me misunderstand, made me think that perhaps language teachers were gentler than math teachers or others, and made me believe all language teachers were like that..."

Shen Xuecheng's words were likely sincere, but they stirred no emotion in Chen Lizhou.

At least, Chen Lizhou felt no waves of emotion himself.

He didn't speak, only picked up his chopsticks and began to play with the rice in front of him.

This action was taken by Shen Xuecheng as a friendly signal, and he became even more relaxed, picking up his chopsticks, taking a bite of rice, and placing it in his mouth.

Meanwhile, Chen Lizhou only played with the rice without eating, because the canteen's food didn't look appealing, and the taste was even less so.

Shen Xuecheng seemed to enjoy it, and after swallowing, he sighed: "Back then, we didn't know any better; we didn't understand Teacher Su's hard work. We knew she graduated from a school in Beidu, so we always teased her—asking why she didn't stay in Beidu but came back home to teach instead."

Chen Lizhou's hand paused as he played with his food.

"She often said back then that she liked the quiet life back home, enjoying the tranquility. She also said that once things settled down, she wanted to buy a small courtyard near our school, as our elementary school was built by the mountains, with a good environment."

"But recently, the housing prices in our area have gone up a lot... I heard that you and Teacher Su bought a house in Beidu, it's impressive..."

...

After the initial mourning and remembrance, the conversation now seemed to have naturally turned into casual mealtime chatter.

However, gradually, Shen Xuecheng's movements stopped.

The person in front of him was almost rigid.

"Quiet life... buy a courtyard?" Chen Lizhou softly repeated the words.

He thought of before he got married, his wife was a teacher back home.

Back then, because of the long-distance relationship, their parents had opinions about their relationship. His wife once tried to persuade him to go back home together for a "quiet life," planning to "buy a courtyard once they had money in the future."

These two sentences were exactly what his wife had once said to him.

But Chen Lizhou himself was unwilling to leave; he felt that since he had managed to enter a school in Beidu, experienced the bustling life there, he ought to stay and plant roots in Beidu.

He took the initiative to join a company in Beidu, first working in technology to accumulate experience; then switched from technology to sales for quicker profit, climbing step by step.

In this process, he finally secured a teaching position for his wife in Beidu, so they could marry and settle there.

And so, topics like "quiet life" and "buying a courtyard" were never discussed again.

However, his wife's initial thought was indeed to stay back home, not to come to Beidu. Her life planning could be said to have been adjusted for him.

So, in their subsequent life together, did his wife's thoughts remain the same as before?

["Actually, if you insisted on staying in Beidu and your career didn't progress smoothly... maybe we'd have broken up, not gotten married, and wouldn't have had Yanyan."

"Oh come on, don't get mad, just kidding..."]

"Tsk..." Suddenly a wave of soreness washed over Chen Lizhou's head, making him press his temples.

These were all small matters, trivialities that shouldn't weigh on his mind.

They shouldn't evoke physical reactions, shouldn't be thoughts that he repeatedly dwells on, shouldn't haunt him.

Yet, Chen Lizhou suddenly realized a problem—

After his wife's death, people who came to comfort him seemed to only say good things.

And his memories of his wife over the past years seemed to reflect only sweet aspects of their life.

Yet... were there times his wife was unhappy, were there conflicts between them?

Even more—did his wife's departure truly leave him with nothing but grief, pure grief?

"Mr. Chen, what's wrong?" Shen Xuecheng was startled by Chen Lizhou's actions.

"I'm thinking about dissociation," Chen Lizhou said.

He vaguely recalled Teacher Nan once saying during a consultation that previously, at work, he had mild, covert dissociation, which was only completely reinforced after his wife's death.

What was his work like before?

Chen Lizhou strained to recall.

The higher the position, the busier the work became, and he returned home later and later, sometimes not coming home for days on end.

The communication between him and his wife grew less and less. During meals, they sat at the same table, yet had little to say, making the atmosphere at home feel rigid and stiff, like it was filled with glue.

He still remembered coming home late one night, seeing his wife waiting for him on the couch, seemingly wanting to argue but eventually just smiled.

It was around that time—before or after, he couldn't remember exactly, just around then—he felt himself "floating."

Sometimes when his wife spoke beside him, it felt like watching a movie, the images clear but the sound distant, unable to genuinely immerse himself, unable to feel her emotions. Sometimes, he even forgot who he was, lost in the mechanical repetition of daily tasks, meetings, and negotiations.