Jia Zhi Qing rushed out of Yimate, his face still burning and his entire mind in chaos.
He rummaged around in his pocket for a long time before finally pulling out his phone. The wallpaper was a photo of him and Le Qing, though Le Qing had covered her face with her hands, revealing only her eyebrows and the corners of her eyes. Even so, he could perfectly picture the face hidden beneath those hands.
He took a deep breath, then dialed.
The phone rang only twice before she answered.
Le Qing’s gentle voice came from the other end.
His heart suddenly settled. “Are you at work?”
“Mm. I’m a little busy today.”
“……” Jia Zhi Qing’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Forcing a smile, he said, “It’s nothing. I actually just called because I wanted to hear your voice. It’s fine. Go ahead and work.”
The other end of the line fell silent.
Jia Zhi Qing thought she would hang up impatiently as she usually did, but she merely remained silent.
He could not hear her breathing, yet somehow he could sense that she was deep in thought, as though hesitating over some decision.
Suddenly, Jia Zhi Qing did not want to know what decision she would make at all. He hurriedly said, “Actually, I’m really busy today too. Let’s leave it at that. We can talk next time.”
“Zhi Qing.”
“……” His hand tightened sharply around the phone.
Le Qing said calmly, “Let’s meet and talk.”
Jia Zhi Qing slowly closed his eyes, then heard an utterly helpless “Okay” leave his own mouth.
They agreed to meet at a café downstairs from Le Qing’s magazine office.
Jia Zhi Qing suddenly thought mockingly that this seemed to be their first time going to a café together. He had always wanted to bring her somewhere like this and create a little romantic atmosphere, but Le Qing always said it was a waste of money and that they might as well just grab something simple to eat.
He had originally planned to wait until her birthday to bring her here. He had never expected that wish to come true early.
By the time he arrived, Le Qing was already waiting for him.
She wore a crisp business suit and old-fashioned black-rimmed glasses. The Le Qing before him now looked vastly different from the gentle, charming woman he knew.
He relaxed the muscles in his face, walked over with a broad smile, and sat down. A bottle of mineral water and a plate of peas were already waiting in front of him.
“Water and peas. The things you like.” Le Qing smiled faintly.
Jia Zhi Qing lowered his eyes slightly and smiled. “Right.”
A brief silence followed.
Each of them stared at the cup in front of them.
In the end, Le Qing was the first to speak. “You must have seen the magazine.”
Jia Zhi Qing’s heart sank. He laughed stiffly. “It’s nothing serious. I’ll take care of it.”
“I was the one who leaked it.”
“……” Jia Zhi Qing’s smile froze.
“You told me that Yan Su Ang and Xiao Bai were going to the amusement park, so I passed the information to my colleague,” Le Qing said in one breath. “And because I couldn’t use you and then keep pretending nothing had happened and go on a date with you, I canceled…”
Jia Zhi Qing cut her off. “You could have chosen not to use me.”
Le Qing did not answer him directly. In an almost dazed voice, she said, “I was Zhang Fu Man’s mistress.”
Jia Zhi Qing forced himself to endure the pain twisting through his chest and said softly, “I know.”
“I love him.”
“……”
“Even after he kicked me aside and threw me away like garbage, I still love him.” Le Qing suddenly pulled a pack of cigarettes from her handbag. The cigarettes were long and slender, as white as the fingers holding one.
Jia Zhi Qing had never known she smoked.
“When you met me at the hospital, I had just broken up with him. At the time, all I could think about was how to make him regret it, how to make him realize he couldn’t afford to lose me. So when I saw Yan Su Ang at the hospital, I knew my opportunity had come.”
Jia Zhi Qing clenched both fists against his thighs and sat utterly still as he listened to her describe a past he had participated in, yet had never truly been part of.
“Yan Su Ang is Zhang Fu Man’s biggest ace. If something happened to him, Zhang Fu Man would get angry, upset, and completely overwhelmed. That was why I approached you. The moment I saw Yan Su Ang making such a huge scene by coming to the hospital, I knew his feelings toward Xiao Bai were definitely unusual.”
Bang.
The sound of a fist striking the table swallowed everything Le Qing had left to say.
Jia Zhi Qing said bitterly, “Do you know how happy I was that I’d managed to get myself a girlfriend who was both beautiful and smart? Do you know how much I treasured this relationship? Do you know I’d already started secretly planning to buy a house and a car? I’d even started asking people which kindergartens were good!”
Le Qing was speechless.
Jia Zhi Qing continued, “Maybe our feelings weren’t that deep yet, and maybe we hadn’t known each other very long, but I was genuinely thinking seriously about my life and my future. This was the first fucking time in my entire life I’d ever been this serious!”
Le Qing suddenly asked, “Are you sure you wanted to be with me because you liked me?”
“Of course! What, did I hate you so much I wanted to torture myself?!”
Jia Zhi Qing’s eyes were bloodshot.
“Do you know what kind of look you give me?”
“A pervert’s?”
“No. The look someone gives an antique vase from the Qing Dynasty.”
Some of Jia Zhi Qing’s anger subsided. “What? You wanted to be from the Song Dynasty instead?”
“……” Le Qing sighed. “What I mean is that nobody should treat his girlfriend like a beautiful vase. Fine, maybe some people like doing that, but it isn’t love. You try your absolute hardest to give me what you think is best, but you never ask what I actually want.”
“I have asked you. At the movies, I asked whether you wanted popcorn or potato chips!”
“The problem is that I like sunflower seeds.”
Jia Zhi Qing stared at her incredulously. “……You did all this to get revenge on me over one packet of sunflower seeds?”
Le Qing exhaled wearily. “We can’t even communicate with each other.”
“That’s a great excuse for breaking up.” Jia Zhi Qing was so furious he began speaking without thinking. “But nobody brutally uses her own boyfriend before dumping him, all because of a packet of sunflower seeds!”
“It isn’t because of the sunflower seeds! Using you was the reason I approached you in the first place!”
Everything around them suddenly went silent.
Only the café’s soft piano music continued drifting through the air.
Le Qing lowered her head, hiding the guilt in her eyes, then gently extinguished her cigarette in the ashtray. “I’m leaving.”
Jia Zhi Qing laughed bitterly at himself. “So we’re over?”
“Formally, yes. Emotionally, no.” She looked at the hope in his eyes and sighed. “We never started in the first place.”
How could two people who had never truly loved each other call it the end of a relationship? At most, they had tried being together for a while and ultimately failed to produce any chemistry.
As she brushed past him, Jia Zhi Qing said in a low voice, “I like Coke. I hate mineral water more than anything.” But because Le Qing wanted him to be frugal, he had forced himself to drink that tasteless stuff every single time.
Le Qing paused for the slightest moment, then continued forward in her high heels, step by step, until she disappeared through the door.
Outside, the blazing sun hung high overhead.
The damaged atmosphere was making those who had damaged it taste the bitter consequences.
Le Qing hurried back to her office almost at a run. Whether she had spent too long beneath the sun or the conversation had simply taken too much out of her, the entire world seemed to spin before her eyes.
Her secretary hurried over and grabbed her swaying shoulders. “Alice.”
The support seemed to set the blood flowing properly through her body again.
She closed her eyes for a moment, straightened herself, and pushed the secretary’s hands away. “Cancel my afternoon meeting.”
“Okay.” The secretary paused, then lowered her voice. “Mr. Zhang is waiting in your office.”
Le Qing did not ask which Mr. Zhang. There was only one Mr. Zhang who could openly appear here like this. In fact, in her entire life, there had only ever been one Mr. Zhang who could do so.
She opened the door. Sure enough, Zhang Fu Man was standing before the floor-to-ceiling window behind her swivel chair.
“I thought you’d never step foot in here again for the rest of your life.” Her voice was utterly flat, neither sad nor happy.
Zhang Fu Man turned around. His weathered face nevertheless carried an indescribable refinement and composure. “I thought you’d been looking forward to this day all along.”
The corner of her lips moved in what looked like mockery. “You thought wrong.”
“Why did you stop halfway?”
Le Qing shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“A photo of two people sitting together eating hot dogs doesn’t amount to much.” Zhang Fu Man looked at her meaningfully. “The Le Qing I knew would never have been this impatient. She would have proceeded step by step until she had something that could make the other party unable to recover for the rest of their life.”
Le Qing lowered herself onto the sofa. “I’m vegetarian now.”
Zhang Fu Man lowered his head as though asking casually, “Because of that guy named Jia Zhi Qing?”
“What?”
“A simple, enthusiastic young man. Sometimes his sincerity is enough to make other people ashamed of themselves.”
Le Qing adjusted her glasses. “It’s working hours right now. I don’t intend to cheat my employer out of my salary. If President Zhang has nothing else to say, the door is over there.”
Zhang Fu Man slowly walked up to her and held out a hand. “What if I told you I came here to win you back?”
Le Qing looked up at him and gave him a seductive smile. “Then I’d kick you out, exactly the way you kicked me out back then.”
Zhang Fu Man burst out laughing.
She watched him without reacting.
After his laughter died away, Zhang Fu Man stared at her for a long moment. “You mean that?”
“No. Actually, I’d rather sweep you out with a broom.”
Zhang Fu Man slowly walked toward the door. “If I leave today, I’ll never come back in here again.”
“This isn’t a reform-through-labor camp. There’s no need to swear some terrible oath to me.”
He smiled faintly and walked out with perfect composure.
Downstairs—
The phone in his pocket rang.
“How did it go?” Yan Su Ang phrased it as a question, but there was not the slightest trace of uncertainty in his voice.
“She kicked me out of her office.”
“And then?”
“And then she picked up the confidence and dignity she threw away back then. You’re safe now. At the very least, the next scandal involving you definitely won’t appear on the front page of Confidante or Star-Chasing Times.”
Yan Su Ang sneered. “Am I supposed to thank you?”
“This was only a minor accident.” Zhang Fu Man smiled faintly. “I guarantee I’ll handle it properly next time. But shouldn’t you pay a little more attention to your own behavior too?”
Yan Su Ang choked, then immediately changed the subject. “You really ought to find time to go to the hospital and get your kidneys checked.”
“My sweethearts have never complained.”
“Because you stuffed their mouths with money.”
“Money is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?” Zhang Fu Man ended the call, then suddenly looked back at the building. A trace of loneliness flashed through his eyes. A moment later, he turned and walked toward the parking garage without looking back.
By the time Xiao Bai finally managed to get through to Jia Zhi Qing, the alcohol Jia Zhi Qing had drunk was already starting to hit him.
By the time Xiao Bai finally reached the bar where he was drinking, the alcohol had already taken possession of his entire brain.
Xiao Bai laboriously supported his weight and finally managed to get him out of the bar, but every passing taxi that saw Jia Zhi Qing’s drunken state immediately sped away as though fleeing for its life.
After several taxis refused them, Xiao Bai finally thought of calling for help.
Jia Zhi Qing peered at him through blurry eyes as he scrolled through his phone. “Who… are you calling?”
“Brother Gao Qin. I’ll ask him to…”
Smack.
The phone was violently knocked to the ground.
Jia Zhi Qing shouted angrily, “Don’t call him!”
“……” Xiao Bai picked up his phone with a pained expression. Fortunately, it could take a beating and was completely unharmed. “Then I’ll call Yan Su Ang. That should be okay…”
Jia Zhi Qing’s hand swung over again. Xiao Bai was caught off guard and struck hard across the face. “Don’t call him! Don’t call Gao Qin! They’re both bad people. They both look down on me… They said I’m a dog… a dog… I’m a fucking wolf! A wolf! Awoooo…”
At first Xiao Bai was stunned by the slap. Then he was stunned again by Jia Zhi Qing’s wolf howl. It took him quite a while to remember that he still needed help, and he lowered his head to search the names in his contact list.
There were pitifully few numbers saved in it.
Feng Ya Lun, Gao Qin, Yan Su Ang, and the recently added Lian Jue Xiu.
Although he was not close to Lian Jue Xiu, under the circumstances, there really was no other choice.
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