90: Chapter 90 Psychological Counseling

The aroma of coffee wafted between them, and the afternoon sun, filtering through the glass window, cast a soft golden glow on Liu Ye’s profile.

Zhou Xinyu looked at the face before him, now matured beyond its youthful shyness and radiating a brighter charm. The secret, exhilarating flutter he felt in high school resurfaced, like a slightly yellowed old photograph in a dusty album, bringing with it a warm, blurry sensation.

“Liu Ye, I really didn’t expect to run into you in ZJ.”

Zhou Xinyu’s voice held genuine emotion, his fingers unconsciously tracing the warm rim of his coffee cup.

Liu Ye smiled, a smile that vaguely resembled the brightness of sunlight filtering through leaves onto her face back then.

“Me too! That day at the mall, when you called my name, I was stunned for several seconds, my mind scrambling to figure out which old classmate it was, and only recognized you when I turned around!”

She winked playfully.

“You’ve changed quite a bit, Top Student Zhou.”

“Haha, I guess I have sharp eyes, right?”

Zhou Xinyu also laughed, a rare moment of relaxation.

“I spotted you in the crowd at a glance.”

He remembered the sudden thumping of his heart when he saw her back in the crowd.

Liu Ye pursed her lips and smiled, not taking the bait.

She elegantly shifted her posture, crossing her legs, and picked up the delicate white porcelain cup, taking a gentle sip of the rich coffee. Her natural movements revealed the composure of someone who had returned from studying abroad.

“Are you also working in ZJ? What exactly do you do?”

She put down her cup, her eyes filled with genuine curiosity.

“Yeah, I’m slaving away,”

Zhou Xinyu gave a bitter laugh, with the self-deprecating humor typical of a research grunt.

“I’m doing some software compilation work at the institute, staring at code all day, it’s a headache.”

He unconsciously rubbed his brow, where the fatigue of late nights seemed to linger.

“Oh, come on,”

Liu Ye interrupted him with a laugh.

“You were the academic god of our graduating class, a regular in the top three of the entire grade!

If you’re complaining about being tired, then what about us Poor Students who you left miles behind? We should be ashamed enough to crawl into a hole!”

Her tone was light, with the familiar teasing of old classmates.

Zhou Xinyu was amused by her words, as if he was transported back to that high school classroom, piled high with textbooks and test papers, where he could always find a moment of ease beside Liu Ye.

Sunlight, chalk dust, and the faint rustle of her hair brushing the desk when she occasionally turned her head.

“What about you? I remember you flew off right after the college entrance exam, and we couldn’t find you at any of the class reunions later,” he asked.

Liu Ye gently tucked a strand of hair that had fallen onto her forehead behind her ear, revealing her smooth forehead and elegantly sculpted jawline.

“Yes, it was quite sudden back then,”

Her tone carried a hint of wistfulness.

“My family arranged it. As soon as the visa came through, I was practically on the plane without a moment’s delay. Later, I studied psychology abroad, and now…”

She paused, a confident smile gracing her face.

“I’ve returned from studying abroad to contribute to my homeland! I’ve opened a small psychological counseling studio here in ZJ, specializing in psychological counseling.”

“Psychological counseling?”

Zhou Xinyu’s eyes instantly lit up, like a light source suddenly found in the darkness.

He leaned forward slightly, his voice carrying a subtle urgency.

“That’s really… wonderful!”

He realized he was a bit flustered and quickly tried to recover.

“Ahem, I mean, what a coincidence!

I… happen to have something that’s really bothering me. I don’t know if it counts as a psychological problem, but I just feel so choked up inside.”

Liu Ye looked at him, slightly embarrassed yet hopeful, as if seeing the Top Student classmate from high school again, who was focused when solving problems and occasionally blushed when talking to her.

She blinked, her smile gentle and professional.

“Oh? Well, that’s perfectly suited to my profession then. Care to tell me? Just think of it as old classmates chatting to relieve boredom.”

Zhou Xinyu took a deep breath, as if steeling himself to push open a heavy door.

The soothing background music in the cafe flowed, yet it couldn’t suppress the turmoil churning in his heart.

“It’s… about my girlfriend.”

He began, his voice lower, tinged with a hint of fatigue.

“We met… quite by chance, actually.”

Zhou Xinyu’s gaze fell on the dark brown liquid in his coffee cup, his thoughts drifting back a year.

“One time, a project at the institute went online, and I worked overtime for a week straight, almost collapsing. On the weekend, a few colleagues dragged me out to relax, to a quiet bar near the university town. She… Wang Siyu, was at the next table. Her laugh was incredibly infectious, like a little sun.”

A nostalgic curve appeared at the corner of his mouth. Back then, Wang Siyu was vibrant and youthful, her eyes filled with the clear innocence of someone new to the world.

“I was a bit tipsy, and my colleagues egged me on to ask for her WeChat. On a whim, I went… and to my surprise, she actually gave it to me.”

“And then, we slowly started chatting.”

Zhou Xinyu’s fingers unconsciously traced circles on the table.

“She’s a local, from a good family, with a lively and outgoing personality, completely different from the dull atmosphere of constantly staring at computers in the institute. At first, I was incredibly happy; she was like a ray of light shining in. My work was busy, but whenever I had a bit of free time, I wanted to ask her out, even if it was just for a meal or a walk. She liked watching movies, so I tried my best to accompany her to midnight screenings. She liked checking in at trendy internet-famous spots, and I was happy to queue until my legs ached. Back then, I felt like I had something to look forward to every day.”

His tone gradually deepened, and that glimmer of nostalgia faded.

“But later… work got busier and busier.

The project compilation tasks were immense, often requiring closed beta testing and urgent fixes.

Overtime became the norm, and sometimes I couldn’t even reply to her messages for days.

At first, she understood, saying, ‘Work is important,’ but after a long time…”

Zhou Xinyu’s brows were tightly furrowed.

“The complaints grew. She said I only had eyes for code, that I didn’t care about her, that other boyfriends were so much better. I understood she needed companionship, so… I could only try to compensate her materially. The institute’s salary wasn’t low, but it wasn’t exceptionally high either. She liked new handbags, okay, I saved up to buy them. She set her sights on limited edition sneakers, fine, I found channels through connections. She wanted to go to trendy spots with her girlfriends, to high-end restaurants, and as long as the bill was sent, I’d transfer the money… I thought this would make her happy.”

He picked up his coffee and gulped it down, the bitter taste spreading on his tongue, but unable to suppress the sourness in his heart.

“But I found that her appetite… seemed to grow bigger and bigger. Expenses soared, thousands of yuan for cosmetics, new phones, without batting an eye. And that’s not all…”

Zhou Xinyu’s voice carried a hint of suppressed pain and bewilderment.

“She changed.

Before, she would at most drink some low-alcohol fruit wine, but now she skillfully orders whiskey, her fingernails are dyed in various colors, changing every few days, and her hair is dyed that eye-catching gray-purple.

I don’t particularly like these things, but I could tolerate them. What I couldn’t stand the most was…”

He paused, as if it was difficult to speak, but finally said it.

“She started smoking. I accidentally found women’s cigarettes in her bag.

When I confronted her, she casually said she was stressed and just smoking for fun, and even asked me, ‘Why are you being so nosy?’”

“The other day, she told me again that she had arranged with some new friends to go to the newly opened Nightfall Bar this weekend and party all night, asking me to transfer her money to book a booth.”

Zhou Xinyu’s voice conveyed a deep sense of powerlessness.

“I really couldn’t take it anymore and had an argument with her. I said, ‘Why are you like this now?

Bars are such mixed places, and drinking and smoking all night are so bad for your health, and the expenses are huge!’

She responded by calling me stingy, saying I was too controlling, that I didn’t understand her life, and that her friends’ boyfriends were all very generous… then she slammed the door and left.”

Zhou Xinyu let out a long sigh, as if to release all the pent-up frustration in his chest.

He looked up at Liu Ye, his eyes filled with confusion and exhaustion, like a precise instrument that had jammed, unable to find a repair path.

“Liu Ye, tell me… what exactly is going on? Is it because I was too busy and neglected her, causing her to become like this?

Or… was she always like this, and I just didn’t see it clearly back then? I’m really… very tired and confused now.”

He spread his hands, as if the thick stack of project code was less complex and difficult to unravel than this emotional relationship before him.

Liu Ye listened quietly, the gentle smile on her face long gone, replaced by the unique focus and understanding of a psychological counselor.

She looked at the former academic god who once commanded the sea of math problems, now burdened by an unbalanced relationship, his brows tightly furrowed, and she couldn’t help but feel a pang of melancholy.

The sunlight slanted across him, but it couldn’t dispel that heavy weariness.

“So,”

Liu Ye’s voice was soft, yet it was like a small stone dropped into a calm pool.

“You feel like you’ve been using money to buy her happiness, to buy her silence, and even… to buy off your own guilt.

But the result is that you’ve discovered it’s a bottomless pit that can’t be filled, and she’s moving further and further away from the person you initially fell in love with?”

She paused, her clear gaze directly meeting Zhou Xinyu’s somewhat evasive eyes.

“Most importantly, Zhou Xinyu, are you still happy in this relationship?”