Five years after my wife's death, she came back!

"Shang Chen inkstone?"

Shi Ying was wearing a pink nightgown, half-lying on the bed, only revealing her small face and a section of her fair neck, where there were still traces of the previous night's indelible marks.

She tilted her head: "I knew you weren't asleep yet. Why didn't you call me?"

Shang Chenyan's handsome face showed a hint of fatigue. He had been busy since arriving in Lin County at noon today. He was very tired, but he couldn't fall asleep at all.

I wanted to call you, but I was afraid you'd be asleep.

Shi Ying shifted her body and lay face down on the bed: "I've been wanting to call you for a while, but I was afraid of disturbing your work, so I asked Secretary Jiang first. He said you just got back to the hotel, so I called."

Looking at the girl's vibrant smile on the screen, Shang Chenyan felt much of his frustration dissipate. Just seeing her through the screen made him feel content.

Shi Ying's voice was very soft, which Shang Chenyan noticed immediately, so he asked, "Is Niannian nearby?"

Shi Ying nodded and moved the video slightly. Then Shang Chenyan noticed a small bump in his usual sleeping spot.

Shang Nian had already fallen asleep, hugging her rabbit plushie, her head buried in the blanket.

"Niannian is clinging to me and wants to sleep with me. She's grabbing my clothes, and I can't get away, so I'm talking to you in a low voice."

Shang Chenyan frowned: "How old are you and you're still so clingy?"

Shi Ying couldn't help but chuckle: "How dare you say that? You're even more clingy than her. You don't let her sleep with me at home, but as soon as you leave, she comes running over with her pillow."

Shang Chenyan smiled helplessly: "It's too early for us to have children."

They never got enough of their time together; there was always someone else interfering.

But without Shang Nian, he didn't know how long he could have persevered during those five years.

Shi Ying changed the subject: "Shang Chenyan, is the situation there very troublesome?"

The man shook his head: "It's not too troublesome, but Linxian is a very small county town, and these workers are all related, so they took advantage of this accident to band together and cause trouble."

Shi Ying asked with some concern, "Has someone really gone missing and gotten into trouble?"

Shang Chenyan explained to her, "No one was killed. The heavy rain that day caused several people to go missing, but the police found them all. The most seriously injured person lost an arm, and we will discuss subsequent compensation according to the contract."

It's not a big deal, but the difficulty lies in the fact that even a powerful dragon can't suppress a local snake. The people here are very united, and we want to take this opportunity to squeeze some money out of them.

"Oh..." Shi Ying understood a little bit. Looking at the weariness between the man's brows, she said with heartache, "Then take care of yourself and get some rest."

"I saw in the weather forecast that it will be very cold there, so you should wear more clothes. I packed a windproof jacket for you in your suitcase, remember to wear it when you go out."

Shang Chenyan smiled and said, "Okay, I've got it all."

He was reluctant to hang up and kept trying to find topics to talk about with Shi Ying, but as they chatted, Shi Ying became sleepy and her eyelids started to droop.

The phone fell next to the pillow, and Shi Ying groggily lay down on the pillow and fell asleep.

She only turned on a small table lamp, and in the dim light of the night, the girl's face looked very soft and beautiful, with her long eyelashes casting small shadows under her eyes.

Before she could hang up, Shang Chenyan watched her on the screen from a great distance.

His anxious heart, which had been restless all day, finally calmed down at this moment.

Shang Chenyan placed his phone beside him, lay on his side and looked at her, and surprisingly felt sleepy without taking sleeping pills.

In addition to the things Shi Ying packed for him, there was also a set of Shi Ying's loungewear that he had stuffed into his suitcase before leaving in the morning.

He held the set of loungewear that was still imbued with her scent, looking at the girl on the screen, and for a moment it felt as if she were really right beside him.

Shang Chenyan buried his face in his clothes and gradually fell asleep.

*

The next day, when Shi Ying woke up, she found herself still holding her phone.

She rubbed her eyes and found that her phone was dead and turned off. After charging it, she saw that she had actually video-called Shang Chenyan for six hours last night.

She fell asleep halfway through the call, but Shang Chenyan didn't hang up.

Shi Ying scratched her hair, wanting to get up, but found that Shang Nian was still holding onto her clothes.

She sat on the bed and sighed.

What a clingy little thing!

Shi Ying sat back down. She wanted to put on her headphones and play on her phone so as not to disturb Shang Nian, but she couldn't find her headphones anywhere after searching for a long time.

She clearly remembered putting it in the bedside table drawer.

After searching her own side, Shi Ying got up and went to rummage through the cabinet on the other side. She didn't find the earphones, but she did find a bottle of sleeping pills in the cabinet.

She was somewhat stunned. Was Shang Chenyan taking sleeping pills?

The medicine bottle was almost empty. It said there were a total of one hundred pills, and no more than one pill at a time. The production date was six months ago.

In other words, even though she has been back for so long, Shang Chenyan is still taking sleeping pills and has never told her.

Shi Ying looked downcast. She slept soundly at night and never knew that even when she was by his side, he often held her anxiously all night and couldn't sleep.

She was being too naive. She thought that with Ji Huanzhou's psychological counseling and medication, he would get better. So, during this business trip, she thought that as long as she called him frequently, everything would be fine.

He didn't tell her about taking sleeping pills because he was afraid she would worry, nor did he complain on the phone. He just couldn't bear to hang up and watched her all night.

Shi Ying felt a slight sting in her nose. She stared at the nearly empty medicine bottle, sat there blankly for a long time, and then found Pei Yanchuan's contact information.

*

At 11 p.m., the heavy rain in Linxian finally began to subside.

The wind was so strong that umbrellas were useless, so the group had to wear raincoats to the factory. As Shang Chenyan and Jiang Wen walked into the hotel lobby, rainwater dripped from the edges of their raincoats onto the floor, quickly forming a small puddle.

Jiang Wen breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the rain gradually subside: "President Shang, the rain will stop tomorrow, which will make it easier to go to the construction site. Things have made some progress."

Shang Chenyan, however, wasn't as optimistic. As he took off his raincoat and threw it into the trash can, he made arrangements: "Is that foreman from Xia Village in Lin County?"

"right."

"Go and contact the village leaders, and arrange a meeting in the next couple of days."

It's not a big deal, but it's troublesome. These people are unreasonable and only care about money. Otherwise, they'll cut corners. If this is allowed to continue, the quality will be substandard next time, and with extreme weather, similar accidents will happen again.

Shang Chenyan frowned slightly and stepped into the hotel.

But just then, a familiar, gentle voice sounded from behind:

"Shang Chen Inkstone!"

The man turned around in shock.

Shi Ying appeared before him, looking travel-worn.

It felt like a hallucination, yet it wasn't.

Getting from Jiangcheng to Linxian is not easy. You need to take a high-speed train first, then transfer to a slow train, which takes you to Linxian, a hundred miles away. Then you have to take a bus or car and travel along bumpy mountain roads to get here.

She traveled a long distance alone to be by his side.