Hearts Will Remember

Chapter 23

The loud ringing of his phone jolted him awake.

Confused, he looked around his surroundings and realized he fell asleep on top of the covers of the hotel bed. The last thing he remembered was going straight to the bedroom after entering his suite and falling on top of the bed after taking off his suit jacket. Jetlag and the scotch must have finally caught up with him because he fell asleep right after.

Looking at his watch, he realized he was asleep for a little over an hour before the ringing woke him up.

The phone was now silent.

Shancai!

Scrambling from the bed, he saw where he threw his jacket on the floor and made a dive for it, rooting out the phone from the inside pocket. Anticipation ran through him as he opened his phone and looked at the missed call display.

It turned to disappointment when he saw Ximen's number instead.

Getting to his feet, intending to take a hot shower, a knock suddenly sounded from the suite's main door. Not really looking forward to facing his friends but knowing that he could't ignore them either, he walked out of the bedroom and opened the door to see the trio standing in front of him.

"Ah Si! Sorry, did we wake you up?" Ximen asked, but it's apparent he didn't really care if he did, including the other two people next to him.

"What is he doing here?" He barked the question, recalling the lies Qinghe spouted in the bar.

"Dao Ming Si, I insisted on coming up here. I want to apologize. They told me everything. I hope you don't mind, but I asked Ximen and Meizuo to tell me the truth," Qinghe interjected. "Also, I have something to tell you."

He looked at Qinghe for a long moment, then at his friends.

Resigned to the fact that they are not moving from where they stood, he left them by the door and walked to the mini bar to pick up a bottle of water. He didn't realize how thirsty he was until he drained it. Putting the empty container on the small counter, he turned around to find the three of them already seated in the couch and chairs in the suite's living area.

"Speak. I'm tired and I am not in the mood to have this discussion, or whatever it is you are here for." He remained standing opposite them with his back against the bar.

Qinghe looked between Ximen and Meizuo before he spoke.

"Dao Ming Si, I'm sorry for what I said earlier in the bar. You're right, I didn't know anything. I had been very busy these past few weeks that I haven't had a chance to connect with Shancai or Xiaoyou," he started. "To be honest, Shancai and I haven't been in contact as much as we probably should have. Life just went on, I guess. But in the times I talked to her, I knew that she was doing very well, which made feel less guilty about not telling her about the memories she lost."

Qinghe warily regarded his stony expression before he continued. "I thought that she was better off without those memories especially when I was convinced all these years that you faked your amnesia just like you did once before."

He felt his hackles rise again at his words. "You think I would fake something like that after all all we had been through? After London and coming back to Shanghai together and openly going against my mother to fight for her, you really believed I would just leave her like that and not look for her?"

Qinghe looked at him penetratingly, as if looking for something from his expression.

"You're right," he agreed. "My only excuse is that I just found it so incredulous that both of you would lose your memories at the same time. And when some time had passed and you still didn't come back to Shanghai to find out what happened to her, I was more convinced that it was all a ruse," he explained with a shake of his head. "So when I saw you in the bar and recognized me immediately, it just proved it all over for me and things just flew out of my mouth. I shouldn't have said those things, especially about the.... baby. I'm so sorry."