Ning Zhen offered hot pot as payment and asked a colleague at the next desk to make an off-site visit in her place, accompanying her senior colleague, Zou Shan, to Hengxing Group to deliver New Year gifts to Sheng Ming, who had accepted an exclusive interview with Shengdu a few months earlier.
“You’re treating me to hot pot. I’d go even if knives were falling from the sky.” Her colleague slid over, chair and all, bumped Ning Zhen’s elbow, and lowered her voice. “Don’t tell me you’re busy. I know perfectly well whether you are or not. Come on, what’s going on?”
These days, no one was particularly interested in hearing about how loving a couple was. But a fight? That was another matter. Everyone’s ears perked up at the sound of juicy inside information.
Ning Zhen was both amused and helpless. She answered frankly, “Nothing’s going on. I just don’t want to go.”
After ten minutes of careful consideration, she had still decided to stay away from Hengxing. There was no particular reason. Six words summed it up perfectly: She didn’t want to go. She wasn’t willing to.
It was, objectively speaking, a trivial matter.
It could even be considered part of her job. People were always warned against mixing business with personal affairs, but how much did she earn in a month? Did she really need to force herself to do something she didn’t want to do just to prove her loyalty and dedication to Shengdu?
She couldn’t do it.
Unless her boss promoted her to editor-in-chief or increased her salary several times over.
Otherwise, she would simply admit that she was someone who couldn’t separate business from personal matters, someone who brought her private emotions into her work. So what?
Right now, she didn’t want to see Meng Xianwen at all.
Even though the chances of running into him at Hengxing were slim, she still didn’t want to go.
Just imagining him looking at her with that half-amused, half-mocking expression—as if to say, “Who was it that promised never to appear in front of me again?”—was enough to make her chest feel tight.
“Did you and your boyfriend have a fight?” her colleague asked, clearly eager for gossip.
Ning Zhen lowered her voice mysteriously and leaned closer. “Whether we fought or not, I really don’t want to see him. But think about it—Hengxing is his territory, right? We’re in the middle of a quarrel. If we run into each other and I pretend not to see him, Sister Zou will be embarrassed. But if I call him Mr. Meng, where am I supposed to put my dignity?”
“Dignity comes first, no matter what. You absolutely cannot go!”
Her colleague teased her, “Since you’ve been honest with me, I suppose I can reluctantly agree to eat hot pot at a conveyor-belt restaurant and help you save some money.”
Ning Zhen burst out laughing. “No need. I just got paid and I have money. If it’s less than one hundred and fifty yuan per person, it won’t be enough to express my gratitude.”
After her senior colleague and her friend left, Ning Zhen rested her chin in both hands and stared blankly ahead. Her thoughts drifted back to two nights earlier. She had just come out of the shower when she unexpectedly saw a missed call from Auntie Qian.
Before she could decide whether to return it—after all, Auntie Qian was technically part of the Meng family—her fingers had already dialed the number back.
She asked what was wrong.
Auntie Qian hemmed and hawed for a long while before merely saying that everything had already been taken care of.
Ning Zhen could sense that Auntie Qian wanted her to press for details. In fact, the question had already reached the tip of her tongue, but through sheer force of will, she swallowed it.
She didn’t need to ask. It was obviously related to Meng Xianwen. Thinking back to how much he had drunk the previous day, he had probably felt unwell but stubbornly refused to let Auntie Qian report it to the main residence.
Auntie Qian had no way to deal with him, so she had secretly called Ning Zhen instead.
But yesterday, her relationship with him had ended. And she had never been his real girlfriend in the first place. What use was there in Auntie Qian calling her?
Besides, this was probably Auntie Qian acting on her own initiative. Meng Xianwen himself hadn’t sent her a single message or made a single call. She certainly wasn’t going to Yuyuan. She would have to be out of her mind to go.
And if, out of a sudden fit of kindness, she took the initiative to message him and ask how he was, he might very well turn around and mock her.
So, after remaining silent for a few seconds during that call, she politely said goodbye and hung up.
…
The twenty-third floor of Hengxing Group.
Sheng Ming was holding a file that required a signature when he knocked on the general manager’s office door. The moment he walked in, he couldn’t help laughing.
Meng Xianwen, who was handling business at his desk, picked up a mask from the side and put it on as soon as he saw someone enter. Then he muffled a cough behind it.
It was rare for him to get sick, but this time he had come down with a fairly serious cold.
He had every symptom imaginable.
“I was wondering what was going on.”
Sheng Ming walked over and placed the file on the desk. In a teasing tone, he said, “Someone from Shengdu came to deliver my New Year gift today. Ning didn’t come because she wasn’t feeling well. So the two of you came down with the same illness, huh?”
Although he and Ning Zhen could hardly be considered close, they had met several times during the interview, so they would exchange a few words whenever they ran into each other.
Given his status, calling her Ning was perfectly natural.
“New Year’s is almost here.” As if bringing the brief topic to an end, Sheng Ming reminded him, “Take care of yourself and get plenty of rest.”
“Mm.”
Meng Xianwen answered with a frown. He quickly signed the file with a flurry of strokes, looking somewhat distracted. It seemed as though he wanted to ask something, yet didn’t.
“Is there anything else?” Sheng Ming asked, puzzled.
“Nothing.”
The office soon fell silent again. Irritated, Meng Xianwen took off his mask and threw it into the trash. The contents of both his computer screen and the documents in front of him became impossible to process. The dizziness brought on by his cold left him unable to read a single word.
At the annual party, she had complained that it was cold. He had assumed she was merely being perfunctory.
Normally, he wouldn’t have quarreled with her over such a minor matter. She could wear whatever she wanted. But in that moment, she had managed to provoke his temper, and he had insisted that she dress according to his wishes.
Meng Xianwen spent the entire afternoon in a state of agitation.
It was the depths of winter. Just after six, the world beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows was already pitch-black. He picked up his phone, then put it down again, repeating the motion several times. Finally, as though his emotions had reached their breaking point, he capped his pen, stood up, and strode out of the office with a dark expression.
If she had gotten sick because of him, then it was only reasonable for him to go and check on her.
Meanwhile, Ning Zhen and her colleague left the hot pot restaurant after eating their fill. It was already eight in the evening.
The restaurant was close to Shengdu and was a favorite for department gatherings. There was a bus stop right outside.
After watching her colleague board the bus, Ning Zhen moved a few steps to the side and took out her phone, intending to call a car home.
The winters in Beicheng were brutally cold. Even the brief transition from a warm indoor space to the outdoors was enough to leave her fingers stiff with cold. Before she could summon a car, her phone rang.
It was a call from Meng Jiaran.
After the annual party, she had barely replied to any of his messages.
In fact, even without Meng Xianwen’s warning, she had already begun keeping her distance from Jiaran over the past year, gradually reducing the number of times they met.
The city was a big place, and she was slowly fading out of his circle of friends. She believed that before long, once Meng Xianwen told his family and friends that they had broken up, she and everyone in the Meng family would naturally become strangers.
Ning Zhen took a deep breath and lowered her head, waiting for the call to end on its own.
Who would have thought the man would keep at it? When she didn’t answer, he called again a few seconds later, forcing her to stop trying to book a car.
She was already full of pent-up anger with nowhere to vent it. Since he had insisted on provoking her, she finally couldn’t take it anymore. She answered the call and, without giving him a chance to speak, shouted, “Are you annoying or what? If I don’t answer, it means I don’t want to!”
Meng Jiaran had long been used to her temper and didn’t take it personally at all. “Seriously? What did I do to you? Why won’t you answer my calls?”
“Just say what you want!”
“How’s my brother feeling these days?” Meng Jiaran explained why he was calling. “If he’s in a better mood, I’ll give him a call and ask whether he can let me start my holiday early. New Year’s is almost here, after all.”
“Ask him yourself. Don’t ask me!” Ning Zhen least wanted to hear anything about Meng Xianwen right now.
“What’s gotten into you? You’re his girlfriend. Who else am I supposed to ask?” Meng Jiaran found her reaction completely baffling.
Ning Zhen opened her mouth, wanting to say that she wasn’t—she wasn’t his girlfriend!
The cold wind cut across her face like a knife, making it sting. She tossed out, “Ask anyone but me,” and hung up.
This time, Meng Jiaran didn’t call back. Instead, he sent her a message:
“Did you two have a fight? I’m so unlucky.”
Meng Jiaran: “Please be kind to a man in his twenties.jpg”
He had completely ruined Ning Zhen’s good mood. She didn’t even bother calling a car. She didn’t know who she was angry with, but she marched toward home, taking quick, furious steps.
After nearly forty minutes of walking, her whole body had warmed up. A few hundred meters from her apartment complex was a dessert stand. She walked past it, then stopped and stood there for several minutes. Finally, she turned around, went back, and ordered a sundae.
It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet, but the complex was already quiet. Ning Zhen ate her sundae as she headed toward her building. She was only a few steps away when, suddenly, two beams of headlights came on, illuminating the path at her feet. Instinctively, she took two steps back.
Inside the car, Meng Xianwen sat in the driver’s seat, his face impassive. He had been waiting since seven. Just as he was about to dial her number, a familiar figure appeared in his line of sight.
She walked with light, springy steps, eating ice cream. She seemed to be in a good mood, her eyes curved into crescents, her face filled with delight.
He watched her quietly, then suddenly smiled.
She hadn’t been feeling unwell. She simply didn’t want to see him anymore.
Once she recognized the car, Ning Zhen was startled, and her heart began to race. If they had run into each other somewhere else, she could have treated it as a chance encounter.
But this was right downstairs from her apartment.
The only reason he could have come was to see her. Could there be some problem with the money? She had already completed the deposit process, and the bank had said it would take one or two business days for the funds to arrive…
Could it really be that?
One person sat in the car, the other stood outside. They stared at each other across a distance that was neither near nor far, each waiting for the other to make the first move—she waited for him to get out, while he waited for her to get in.
The ringing of a phone shattered the silence inside the car. Meng Xianwen finally looked away from Ning Zhen and turned toward the phone in the center console. It was a call from his family doctor, who had been calling at a set time every day these past few days to remind him to take his medicine and monitor his temperature.
Everything should end here.
The previous few days should have been the last time he came to see her.
Meng Xianwen’s expression settled into calm, as though he had returned to the composed, rational, unruffled man he had once been. He started the engine, gently pressed the accelerator, and drove past her, leaving.
Ning Zhen had no time to process her shock. His decision to leave without saying a word only left her more bewildered and at a loss.
What on earth was he trying to do?
She stood frozen for a moment, then slowly made her way into the building. Her thoughts were a tangled mess, and she rode the elevator upstairs almost on instinct.
A neighbor happened to be stepping out to throw away the trash. Seeing her return, the neighbor said casually with a smile, “Your boyfriend came by. He rang the doorbell for quite a while. I told him you might not be home, but he didn’t respond. He looked pretty anxious.”
