Three days had passed, and the familiar reading nook beside the window overlooking the bamboo grove had yet to see the tall, aloof figure of Lu Chenjue. Shen Shuhe let out a soft sigh and set the book in his hand down on the wooden table. The other man's sudden absence felt like a strange emptiness in the steady orbit of his daily life. He remembered the sharp academic debates they had shared, the warm, steadfast handclasp beneath that night's rain, and their lyrical comparisons between classical poetry and quantum physics. Lu Chenjue's silence made him feel as though some invisible thread had been stretched to its absolute limit—a phenomenon the other man had once called quantum entanglement, in which a change in one particle's state would immediately disturb the other, no matter how far apart they were.
Recalling Qin Zhao's worried account over the phone that morning—that Lu Chenjue had locked himself in the laboratory after receiving the peer reviewers' comments—Shen Shuhe couldn't help feeling a quiet ache. He knew Lu Chenjue's personality well: proud, exacting, and always demanding absolute perfection in science. A stumble like this could sometimes be more brutal to a brilliant mind than any physical wound.
After a moment's thought, Shen Shuhe decided to clear the things off the table. He returned to his small apartment in a quiet alley near the research institute. The first thing he did was step into the kitchen and take out the ingredients he had prepared in advance. He wanted to make a traditional osmanthus cake himself. The gentle sweetness of golden osmanthus blossoms steeped in honey and rock sugar mingled with fine white glutinous rice flour, smooth as the first snow of the season, gradually spreading throughout the small kitchen with the steam billowing from the bamboo steamer. To Shen Shuhe, making cakes was more than a habit; it was also a way to soothe and regulate his state of mind. He hoped the refined, comforting sweetness of this homespun treat might ease, at least somewhat, the coldness and exhaustion in the soul of the physicist trapped among those lifeless numbers.
When the osmanthus cakes were just done, Shen Shuhe carefully arranged them in an elegant dark-red lacquer box. Then he slipped on an ash-gray overcoat and hurried toward the Institute of Theoretical Physics.
The Institute of Theoretical Physics appeared before him, its modern architecture of glass and reinforced steel reflecting the blood-red sunset of the dying day. Inside the main lobby, the white fluorescent lights and the low hum of the ventilation system created an atmosphere that was somewhat sterile and distant. Clutching the lacquer box tightly, Shen Shuhe walked down the long corridor toward Lu Chenjue's office at the end of the third floor.
As soon as he reached the corner, he saw Qin Zhao standing outside the office, his face filled with worry and helplessness. When Qin Zhao saw Shen Shuhe appear, his eyes immediately lit up as if he had seen a savior. He hurried over and lowered his voice. “Professor Shen, you finally made it! Chenjue has locked himself in there for two days and two nights. He won’t eat or drink anything. No matter how I knock, he won’t answer, and his phone is turned off. I’m really worried he’ll collapse from exhaustion.”
Shen Shuhe gave a small nod and smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Professor Qin. Let me try.”
He walked up to the thick oak door. Rather than pounding on it insistently as Qin Zhao had, he merely tapped three short, even, unhurried beats with his slender knuckles, creating a rhythm like the tempo of an ancient melody.
Inside the room, Lu Chenjue, who had been sitting with his eyes tightly shut, suddenly moved his eyelashes. The knock was far too familiar. It carried none of the crude urgency of the outside world, only the distinctive gentleness of the person he had been longing for. He stood, his joints giving off faint cracks after being held in the same position for so long. Then he walked over and turned the doorknob. The door opened a narrow crack, and warm hallway light poured in, illuminating Shen Shuhe's refined, gentle face. Their gazes met in the air: one filled with profound weariness and gloom, the other with boundless concern and understanding.
“Shuhe, why did you come here?” Lu Chenjue rasped softly, his voice hoarse from going so many hours without water.
Shen Shuhe did not answer at once. He gently pushed the door open and stepped inside, carefully avoiding the paper coffee cups on the floor. He set the lacquer box on an empty corner of the desolate desk, then turned and looked straight into the other man's eyes. “I brought you some freshly made osmanthus cake. It’s still warm. No matter how difficult the research gets, Chenjue, you can’t neglect yourself like this.”