Mr. Su's Love Investigation Report
Chapter 301 - 291 Some Things Are Lost and Can Never Be Found Again

Chapter 301: Chapter 291 Some Things Are Lost and Can Never Be Found Again

He couldn’t afford to joke around with Deng Lin any longer. He sat upright and opened a document, his fingers tapping incessantly on the keyboard, but all his attention was on that voice, with the corner of his eye fixated on the doorway.

She had come in.

He heard her laughter, bright and clear. He saw a corner of her down jacket. Hmm, today she was wearing the black one; he preferred the gray-blue one. When she smiled at him from within that soft gray-blue cocoon, she was like a small iris flower, tranquil and beautiful, as if the bustling world ceased to exist, leaving only her and him.

"Hey, what’s that on your desk? Milk tea?" a colleague exclaimed in surprise, "Which shop’s open so early? Let me see, hmm, there’s no logo!"

He didn’t hear her reply.

The colleague continued, "Little Sha, I’m telling you, drink less milk tea; it’s too caloric. But you’re so thin..."

"That makes sense."

He finally heard her speak, but the following words...

"Let’s quit milk tea! No more! Throw it away!"

"... " Throw it away... throw it away...

And then he heard a plop, something falling into the trash bin...

This scene felt strangely familiar.

He smiled bitterly. This could be karma, what he had once done to her was now coming back to him.

He was willing to endure it.

He should endure it.

Whether or not she was willing to return to his side, he was ready to bear anything she gave him. But could he still hope for a glance back from her?

"Su Ronggui, what are you writing there? A password?" Deng Lin slipped past him again, glancing at his computer screen.

Su Ronggui merely pretended to type on the keyboard, unaware of what he was actually typing. Looking at it now, it was just a jumble of characters...

He closed the document directly.

Deng Lin left with a string of schadenfreude laughter.

His mind was restless the entire day, distracted, yet he managed to finish the draft before getting off work. But he couldn’t leave just yet; there was proofreading and editing to be done.

Colleagues left one after another. His focus was constantly on that small figure.

Hao Ren invited her to leave together, to clock out, but she didn’t go. She lay over her computer, occupied with who knows what. Gradually, the number of people dwindled, and those working late shifts went to the cafeteria to eat, leaving only the two of them.

He had a feeling she was waiting for him.

"Little Sha," he called to her from across several desks, "want to grab dinner?"

There was a moment of silence.

Just as he thought she wouldn’t respond and was about to say, "I’ll bring you something up," she indeed walked over to him.

He was very surprised. However, the surprise hadn’t even turned to joy, when he was drenched by a metaphorical bucket of cold water—she took out a bank card and tossed it onto his desk. "Sister Qian called me. Her wages haven’t been settled. You handle it."

After saying that, she was about to leave. He grabbed her wrist.

She didn’t speak, merely stared silently at his hand, her gaze indifferent.

"Little Sha..." he held her hand firmly, "what does this mean?"

"It means exactly what you see!"

He, who was usually quick-witted in interviews and skilled at steering conversations, found his mind blank, his head hanging in silence.

"It’s getting dark; I’m leaving." She tugged at her hand, but couldn’t pull it free.

"Have you given up on me too?" He suddenly looked up, his eyes slightly red.

Also...

What did he mean, give up on him too?

She turned her face away, gazing at the green plants by the water dispenser, which blurred into a green shadow in the distance, still cold, "I’m not your guardian; what’s there to give or not give? Let go, someone is coming, and I don’t want to lose face in front of colleagues."

Indeed, there were voices outside; colleagues returning from dinner.

Reluctantly, he let her go, and she left without hesitation.

"Tu Hengsha, leaving work?" a colleague asked her outside.

"Yes, thank you for your hard work."

He sat in his chair, the words on his computer screen gradually blurring.

Tu Hengsha went downstairs the same way as before. At the second-floor corner, a cleaning lady was sorting out the trash. A pile of garbage collected from upstairs lay on the floor, including those from the editorial platform, in a transparent bag. A bottle of milk tea was clearly visible inside.

She stopped, staring at the milk tea.

The cleaning lady glanced at her and continued her work.

"Auntie." She stood for a while but didn’t know how to start.

"What’s the matter?" The cleaning lady waited for her to speak.

"I..." She hesitated for a while, "I want to take a look at that milk tea."

The lady opened the garbage bag.

"I’ll do it myself..." She quickly reached out, but inside was dirty, the milk tea lodged among a heap of waste paper and takeout boxes, greasy.

She couldn’t bring herself to do it. "Forget it." What was there to see! What difference would it make?

The cleaning lady began to mutter, "What’s this nonsense? Throwing good things into the trash! And then coming back to retrieve them! Last time Xiao Su did the same!"

She was already about to leave when she heard this and paused, "Auntie, what about Xiao Su?"

"Last time on the Dragon Boat Festival! Came to rummage through the trash! Looking for zongzi! He’s even more daring than you! You hesitate to reach in, but he shoved his hand in, all greasy! Truly, aren’t they all the same, rummaging through trash as a family hobby!" The cleaning lady recalled vividly. She even thought of lending gloves, but couldn’t in time, as Xiao Su had already plunged his hand in the trash. She wondered, someone so clean and particular as Xiao Su, could that zongzi still be eaten after pulling it out?...

Only the sentence "a family hobby of rummaging through trash" resonated in Tu Hengsha’s ears.

She remembered herself as a little girl, picking up his various discarded items. She thought to herself, even the cleaning lady knew she and Su Ronggui were once a couple...

The cleaning lady was still talking, "Why throw away things you want? And come back for them! Especially food, such waste!"

"Yes, Auntie, you’re right. We were wrong," she admitted sincerely.

"You young people don’t know how to tidy up; that’s forgivable. Your trash bin’s full of all sorts of things. Sometimes people come to find documents or IDs. If it’s with me, you can recover it, but some things, once lost, can never be retrieved..."

Tu Hengsha’s lips moved slightly, "Yes..."

Su Ronggui worked overtime until the early morning, deciding not to go home. The next day, he continued working without rest, and when he returned home at night, he paid Sister Qian’s wages. Sister Qian even asked, "Where is Miss Tu?"

He had the same question!

"When you called her, what did she say?"

"She said she understood!" Sister Qian replied.

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing..."

He nodded, intending to return to his room.

"Oh right, Mr. Su, the stuff you asked me to buy, I bought it yesterday. The tapioca starch and all, but as for the cream or whatever, they were out of stock. I’ll go to a place further out today, but they mentioned it’s available online. Would you like to check online?" Sister Qian asked eagerly.

"No need," he replied.

"..." Sister Qian was momentarily confused. No need? No need to buy it at all, or no need for her to go further out to get it? "So... should I not go buy it today?"

"Hmm." He reached his room’s door and said, "Thank you for your hard work," before going in.