Ning Zhen served as an invigilator for once.
She felt inexplicably excited and nervous, sitting next to Meng Xianwen, watching the time slip by bit by bit. She wasn’t sure if he believed she was his girlfriend, or if he saw her as some nobody who posed no threat. He browsed through important work emails on his computer, and she watched from beside him without him bothering to hide anything.
Because of work, she understood all the terms mentioned in his emails.
The more she saw, the deeper her understanding of his decisions grew.
He truly loved Hengxing with all his heart.
“Is this project set to launch two months from now?” Ning Zhen lay on the desk, resting her face on her hands as she asked him, casually reminding him, “You have two minutes left before you need to shut down your computer.”
Meng Xianwen shifted his gaze from the screen, glanced at her, and nodded casually.
“I don’t want any unnecessary trouble in these two months,” he said succinctly.
A project involved too much money, talent, and effort to let anything hinder Hengxing’s forward momentum.
A memory loss, that’s all.
Even if he were lying in a hospital bed today, life hanging in the balance, this news had to be firmly suppressed. So, waking up with an extra girlfriend—and that girlfriend being Ning Zhen—was absurd to Meng Xianwen, but not a huge deal.
As long as he kept things under control, nothing was a big issue.
Ning Zhen naturally caught the subtext. This was precisely the leverage she had to act out and stir trouble while he was suffering from amnesia.
What a person.
He hadn’t forgotten a single work-related thing, replying to emails swiftly, yet he had completely erased the past year of his personal life from memory.
He forgot that Meng Jiaran had returned home long ago.
He also forgot everything about that night. It had to be said, Meng Xianwen was essentially a born workhorse.
She pressed her lips into a smile and tapped the desk with her finger. “One minute left.”
Meng Xianwen initially didn’t plan to pay her any mind, but the faint ache in his jaw reminded him of her considerable destructive power when she lost her temper.
He reviewed the documents leisurely.
Ning Zhen counted down in his ear like a loudspeaker: “Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight—”
The sound irritated him, making his temples throb.
Meng Xianwen slowly let out a breath and closed his laptop.
Ning Zhen silently cheered, “Yes!” This was her small trial run as his “real” girlfriend. It was indeed better than pretending—had it been fake, she would have had no grounds or courage to make him shut down his computer and stop bothering himself in the hospital room.
“That’s right,” she said sweetly.
After a moment’s thought, she added sarcastically, “You’re not young anymore, you know. You need to take better care of yourself. Work can wait—just because you don’t handle it tonight, will the world stop spinning tomorrow?”
Amid a heap of fake pleasantries, Ning Zhen slipped in one piercing truth.
In her mind, twenty-nine—especially for a man—was really no longer young.
So, whether in the original story or in real life, she never thought of bypassing Meng Jiaran to flirt with him.
For one, she was a bit intimidated by him.
For another, he was six years older than her.
What did six years mean? When he started elementary school, she was just born. When she started elementary school, he was already in middle school. It felt like they weren’t even from the same generation.
“…”
Meng Xianwen gave her a dismissive glance. “I’m curious too.”
“About what?”
“How I ended up with you.” He set the computer aside. “You’re too young.”
The smile at the corners of Ning Zhen’s lips froze for a second.
She demanded, “So you had someone else in mind? Am I just your consolation prize? Who is it—someone more mature than me, isn’t that right?”
Over the past three months, she had suffered no small number of silent losses at his hands.
She was all too familiar with his tactics.
Dealing with Meng Xianwen, she could never justify herself—he had a thousand ways to dig out the information he wanted. Yes, three months ago, she was naive, simple, and almost had her bank card PIN drawn out by him!
To counter his serious or casual doubts, she had to turn the questions back on him. That was the trick—mess with the master.
Unfortunately, the amnesiac Meng Xianwen didn’t know.
He was her teacher, and her understanding of him came at the cost of hard lessons.
Meng Xianwen paused, looking away. “It’s late. Let’s rest.”
“Why won’t you answer?”
“I lost my memory. I can’t answer.”
Ning Zhen was left speechless.
Was he being shameless now?
Still, she managed to stifle a laugh, her inner self practically cackling with hands on her hips. Bastard, who says karma doesn’t catch up?
She only feigned indignation and said, “I won’t forget this. We’ll talk about it when you remember. I’ll let you off today.”
…
Until she lay in the same bed as Meng Xianwen, Ning Zhen’s excitement from turning the tables ebbed away like a tide, replaced by a surge of awkwardness.
Playing the part of a couple naturally came with plenty of physical contact.
It was the same with her and Meng Xianwen—holding hands, linking arms, even hugging was common. At events requiring a female companion, she accompanied him, and in public, they had to put on a strong show of affection. He, more calculating, loved to cultivate the image of a devoted boyfriend, doting on her excessively.
But no matter how well they acted, they had never performed co-sleeping…
“You…”
Only a soft nightlight was on in the hospital room, casting a quiet ambiance. Ning Zhen, unaccustomed to the silence, was the first to break it, but she faltered, not knowing what to say.
The bed wasn’t small, but with two adults lying on it—especially him with his long limbs and broad shoulders—it was impossible to ignore his presence, his scent.
She barely got out a word when Meng Xianwen, without hesitation, got up to leave the bed.
His voice was low and deep. “You sleep first. I’ll take the sofa.”
“How can that work?”
Panicking at his words, Ning Zhen sat up too and grabbed his arm. “I know this is hard for you right now, but didn’t you say everything should stay the same as before?”
She was speaking to him, and to herself.
To walk the path of turning pretense into reality, she first had to fool herself and treat him like a real boyfriend. Otherwise, given his cunning nature, if she didn’t get into character, he’d never believe her.
“Does it have to be today that I get used to it?”
Meng Xianwen looked at her and asked.
Ning Zhen froze.
“Sorry, I’ll go along with anything else, but I can’t manage this,” he sighed helplessly, raising a hand to rub his forehead, avoiding the injured area. The light hit his profile, showing a hint of fatigue. “Give me some time.”
“How long?” she asked quickly.
As soon as the words left her mouth, her face stiffened.
Why did this scene feel like a commercial for male health supplements?
The husband is powerless, and the wife pushes relentlessly.
Meng Xianwen seemed surprised that even after his sincerity, she wasn’t letting it go.
Ning Zhen immediately said, “Let’s drop it for today. I know I’m being impatient, but I’m too scared. You understand, don’t you? I’m afraid of losing you. I can’t even bear to think about what I’d do if you never remember the memories we shared.”
Meng Xianwen pondered, then said slowly, “Do you think I won’t remember?”
He looked at her thoughtfully, his voice low. "I have faith in modern medicine. What about you?"
Ning Zhen's heart skipped a beat.
She kept her expression calm, but her hand involuntarily grasped the bedsheet as she replied with composed agreement, "Of course!"
Meng Xianwen gave her a deep, lingering look. He gently freed his hand from hers, stood up by the bedside, and turned to glance at her as she sat up with the quilt wrapped around her, her gaze following him—watchful, almost tense.
He chuckled. "Alright, get some sleep."
Ning Zhen hummed in reply.
She watched him turn and walk toward the sofa.
That sofa was more than enough for her to sleep on, but for him to lie down, it was far too cramped.
She stared for a while, then lay down and pulled the covers up. She thought she wouldn't be able to fall asleep—after all, there was a breathing man in the room—but before long, her eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and she gradually drifted off.
Meanwhile,
Meng Xianwen, lying on the sofa, sat up.
In the soft glow of the room's lighting, his eyes darkened as he gazed at Ning Zhen, already sound asleep in bed. After a long moment, he picked up his phone and unlocked it. The entire day had been a flood of chaos; from the moment he woke up, only now—free from outside distractions and others' influence—could he search for traces of the past year.
In the modern world, human relationships left digital footprints on phones.
Opening WeChat, he saw a stream of messages from friends and business partners.
As Meng Xianwen scrolled through, he tapped into his chat history with Ning Zhen.
He wanted to trace back a year, but the messages went on and on, endless. Scanning hastily, he found nothing but her one-sided ramblings and quick notes—he had rarely replied—
[Stop by the supermarket for half a watermelon on the way home]
[Image]
[Image]
[Image]
When he opened those, he frowned. They were all photos of a mall parking lot, mostly focusing on the painted parking spot numbers on the ground. He could barely make out that it was her car—a pink sedan. The reason he remembered it at all was because, on the day she picked it up, Ning Zhen had posted ten moments on her feed, thanking her mom, her dad, and herself.
It must have been her graduation gift.
Then, during rush hour, she got rear-ended, and she still managed to post ten moments cursing out the reckless driver. Probably from then on, she rarely drove that car to work.
What was the point of her sending these photos?
He continued scrolling—
[Cloud password: N5903468Z]
[Water bill account: 98073456]
[Link: Best share ever—5 must-have super-popular eye creams]
[Ingredients to buy tomorrow: beef, lamb, beef balls, vegetables, hotpot base, dipping sauce]
[Video: A heretic's weight-loss method—no diet, no exercise, no pills]
Meng Xianwen's expression remained calm. He locked the screen, flipped the phone face-down, and set it aside.
It wasn't just his head that ached—his eyes hurt, too.
