24 Chapter 24

◎A Shared Sleepless Night◎

In an instant, countless thoughts raced through Zhan Xinyue's mind: confusion, bewilderment, helplessness...

She didn't know how to respond.

Having spent so much time with Xu Shen, her subconscious reactions were always influenced by him. For example, right now, in the silence, all that came to her mind were some rather inappropriate and vulgar thoughts. For example:

"Should I care? I'm neither the class monitor nor the dean of students. If it were Lao Fang who opened the door, I might care more."

But when she looked at Shi Ziqian beside her, his eyes were downcast, his taut spine clearly showing the lines under his school uniform, and his bangs slightly covered his eyes. All the nonsensical thoughts in her mind suddenly vanished.

He looked really sad.

Shi Ziqian, who is usually looked up to by others, shouldn't be showing such an expression.

Her heart skipped a beat, perhaps because of an unconscious feeling of guilt, or perhaps because she was too easily empathetic and felt sad along with them; she couldn't figure out the reason herself.

Zhan Xinyue guessed that she should apologize to him at this moment, but she didn't even know what she had done wrong, let alone dare to ask.

He never looked at her, and his words were so soft they sounded like a sigh, as if he wasn't really seeking an answer from her, but rather muttering to himself.

After a thousand thoughts swirled in her mind, Zhan Xinyue finally managed to utter a meaningless sentence.

She said, "It's better not to smoke; it's bad for your health."

Shi Ziqian slowly raised his eyes and looked over again. The bright incandescent light in the classroom cast a clear spot of light in his eyes, and the expression on his face seemed to finally look less sad.

"Okay," he said. "I'm sorry."

That night, Zhan Xinyue lay in bed for a long time, unable to fall asleep, her mind replaying Shi Ziqian's expression when he said those words to her.

This was the second time; this was the second time Shi Ziqian had said things to her that she couldn't understand.

She wasn't oblivious; by now, she could sense that there was definitely something wrong between the two of them.

She had a vague feeling that she had forgotten something, something very important to Shi Ziqian.

But more than a decade has passed, and time has gone by; no matter how hard she tries to recall, she has no clue.

Despite repeatedly warning herself: "Don't get involved in this, Zhan Xinyue, you can't even take care of yourself, let alone others," she couldn't convince herself. A heavy weight remained in her heart.

After a long while, she finally couldn't bear it any longer and sat up in bed, deciding to try to subtly probe Xie Wanzhi the next day to see if she could find out anything.

The night outside the window was deep; it was already past midnight. She picked up the glass from the bedside table to get a drink of water, but it was empty. So she got out of bed to go to the living room to get a glass of water.

She gently opened the bedroom door, and as soon as it was cracked open, she saw a dark figure standing straight in the middle of the living room in the moonlight, which startled her.

Was your house broken into?

She didn't dare to move rashly. After confirming that there were no strange noises coming from the living room, she forced herself to look out through the crack in the door again, suppressing her horror.

There was indeed a figure in the living room, standing motionless in front of the sofa.

Her hand was already reaching for the phone lying on the bedside table when the figure suddenly moved. It took a few steps, bent down and sat on the sofa, tilted its head back, and then let out a deep sigh.

Zhan Xinyue hesitated, then withdrew her hand, stared at the door quietly for a while, and closed it again.

The person in the living room was Zhan Wei.

Looking back, her father had come to pick her up from school with her mother as usual tonight, and even suggested they grab some barbecue before heading home when they drove past the night market—no matter how she tried to recall, nothing seemed amiss. So why was he still unable to sleep so late, sitting alone in the living room?

Zhan Xinyue pondered for a moment, then sat cross-legged on the bed and carefully calculated the time before finally realizing what had happened.

This is precisely the most difficult period for Dad's business recently—something he has never mentioned before; these things were only brought up by Mom many years later in my previous life.

After her rebirth, Zhan Wei had actually mentioned many times that the new store was about to open, but she hadn't paid much attention to it.

The biggest turning point in Zhanwei's business in his previous life was this new store. Before that, although he had already opened several stores, they were all selling affordable home improvement brands, focusing on good quality at low prices. This new store was his first attempt to transform into a high-end brand, and it was from then on that his business began to grow bigger and bigger.

Zhan Xinyue had never been interested in business matters; she only knew that he had opened a new store, and that business had been good since its opening. But she later learned that it was actually a very risky investment. For that new store, Zhan Wei had invested almost all of his working capital, with over two million yuan already advanced for the rent of the thousand-square-meter shop alone, bringing the total investment to over ten million yuan. Later, the new store failed to open for a long time, making it difficult to recoup funds, and the cash flow almost dried up completely.

“Back then, your father was so worried that he often couldn’t sleep at night,” Pang Yun later recalled. “During the most difficult period, he couldn’t even pay the employees’ wages at several of the old stores. Your father secretly borrowed money to cover the wages. Fortunately, business was good after the new store opened, and that’s how we got through it.”

She brought this up a long, long time later, and when she did, she simply remarked that Zhan Wei's journey hadn't been easy.

Zhan Xinyue remembered that her family had always been financially well-off, so she was somewhat surprised to hear this. However, by then everything had already settled down, Zhan Wei had successfully overcome his difficulties, and his business was thriving. So, after listening to it for a while, she quickly put it out of her mind again.

Now that she's back in the thick of it all, she truly understands the weight her father is carrying. For her, everything is a calm acceptance of the known outcome, but for Zhan Wei, the future is uncertain, and one wrong move could mean total defeat.

Zhan Xinyue silently opened her eyes in the darkness, recalling the silent figure on the sofa, and was overwhelmed with mixed feelings. Zhan Wei had started from scratch, and the setbacks and pressures he had encountered in his business must have been more than just this one, but he had never brought it up, nor had he ever brought business matters home. In front of her and her mother, he was always cheerful and happy.

Her life was smooth in her previous life because her father shouldered all the burdens of life alone.

When Zhan Xinyue woke up again in the morning, Zhan Wei was already busy in the kitchen as if nothing had happened. Zhan Xinyue strolled over and saw him staring at the rice cooker with his head down, so she went over to take a look as well.

“Look—” Zhan Wei said.

Zhan Xinyue listened intently.

“Look at the color.” He turned his head and gestured for Pang Yun to come over as well. “I told you the millet I bought this time was exceptionally good. The millet I bought before could never produce this color. Look at this layer of rice oil on top; this is truly a fine product.”

"It's not bad." Pang Yun was mixing a cold dish when she saw Zhan Xinyue come in and asked her, "Has Yueyue finished washing up? We can eat soon."

"Go right away." Zhan Xinyue walked out again.

Back at the table, breakfast was already laid out. Zhan Wei ladled out a bowl of millet porridge and stirred it with a spoon, remarking, "My Chinese stomach still needs to eat Chinese breakfast. Every time I travel for work and stay in a hotel, eating sandwiches or salads makes my stomach feel cold."

He placed the slightly cooled porridge in front of Zhan Xinyue, then reached out to peel an egg. "Look at this egg. I specially asked Xiao Min from the shop to bring it from the countryside. It's a free-range egg."

Zhan Xinyue held a spoon in her left hand and asked curiously, "How can you tell they're free-range eggs?"

Zhan Wei broke open the peeled egg: "See? The inside of a free-range egg is golden yellow. The eggs sold outside aren't this color." He then handed the egg to Zhan Xinyue, saying, "Be careful, it's hot."

Zhan Xinyue reached out to take it, glancing quickly at his face. He was focused, peeling a new egg, but his eyes were clearly dark.

The egg in her palm was tender and fresh, and the yolk was indeed golden, just as he had said. Zhan Xinyue took a bite, but couldn't really taste anything.

When she first entered university, her counselor criticized some students in the class, saying, "Some people are spoiled at home and can't do anything at school. They can't even peel an egg." Of course, the counselor wasn't talking about her, and she wasn't so bad at peeling eggs, but she couldn't help feeling guilty and taking it personally.

At home, the eggs were always peeled, the porridge was cooled down, and the noodles were always mixed before being placed in front of her... Sometimes when she didn't eat breakfast at home, Zhan Wei would buy her a bag of steamed buns downstairs before taking her to school, and he would always cool them down by blowing them into the air conditioner vent in the car before handing them to her.

Because it was so trivial, and because it had always been this way, she never realized that in the eyes of outsiders, this was actually a form of pampering.

She suddenly wondered why Zhan Wei, who was always so busy with his business, had always taken such good care of her and her mother in her memory.

"By the way, Dad, when does the new store open?" Zhan Xinyue asked casually.

"It should be within the next two weeks." Zhan Wei handed the freshly peeled egg to Pang Yun, and then took a sip of porridge himself. "Actually, everything in the shop is all set up, but there are still a lot of things to do lately, so I have to go to the shop and keep an eye on them."

"Oh." Zhan Xinyue sipped her porridge. "Don't work too hard. You can't earn all the money in the world. Anyway, Mom and I don't need a lot of money. It's better for us to be healthy than anything else."

Pang Yun chuckled: "Why did you suddenly say something so old-fashioned?"

Zhan Xinyue was a little embarrassed and refused to say anything.

“Yes, you can never earn enough money.” Zhan Wei glanced at her thoughtfully. “When I first quit my job to start this business, I wanted to improve your and Mom’s lives, and that’s still my main motivation. But now that the business has grown, there are more things to consider. I have dozens of employees in several stores, and many of them have been with me for years. I have to be responsible for them; I can’t let them starve.” He sighed, “We still have to work hard!”

Zhan Xinyue thought for a moment: "The opening should be on a weekend, I'd like to go and help out at the store."

"No need." Zhan Wei was a little surprised. "The store is well-staffed. If you're free this weekend, ask your mother to take you out for a stroll."

“Yes, you’ve never liked going to the store. It’ll definitely be chaotic on opening day, and you won’t like that either,” Pang Yun also said.

"That's not necessarily true," Zhan Xinyue said. "I've recently become interested in doing business. What if I want to open a shop with my dad in the future?"

Zhan Wei and Pang Yun looked at each other for a long time. Pang Yun said, "Doing business is very tiring, especially for a girl like you..."

Before he could finish speaking, Zhan Wei smiled and said with a beaming smile, "I told you long ago, we'll follow each other every month."

In her previous life, because Zhan Xinyue had never been interested in doing business, Xu Shen ended up taking over Zhan Wei's business.

Xu Shen's parents had always been very satisfied with him, and he was indeed very outstanding in every way, only his family's financial situation was average. Private school tuition was expensive, and although few families at the school were as wealthy as Shi Ziqian's, most families were not poor. Xu Shen's mother was a music teacher, and his father also worked in the public sector, so they were considered a middle-class family. However, Xu's father had always dreamed of going into business, and in his forties or fifties, he listened to a friend's advice and resigned from his job to start a business, only to lose everything and incur hundreds of thousands of yuan in debt.

After Xu Shen graduated, he had to spend a large portion of his monthly salary to help his father pay off his debts, and it was difficult for him to save any money. During that time, he felt very guilty towards Zhan Xinyue. Fortunately, Xinyue didn't care about these things, and her parents were not people who looked down on the poor.

Later, as Zhan Wei got older, he couldn't manage the business anymore, so Xu Shen voluntarily quit his job to help out. In the end, these businesses would eventually be left to Xin Yue and her husband, so the father was happy to give Xu Shen a shop to learn how to manage.

Xu Shen had no experience in this area and suffered heavy losses in the first year. However, Zhan Wei didn't say anything and personally came to the store to train him, providing hands-on guidance. Xu Shen was indeed persevering, hardworking, and good at summarizing, and quickly turned the business around. Later, he completely took over Zhan Wei's business.

Last night, Zhan Xinyue suddenly figured out a lot of things.

Although Zhan Wei's business did well later on, he didn't want to devote too much energy to his career and neglect his family, so he didn't expand the stores further. Xu Shen, however, was different; he was more ambitious and enterprising. After taking full control of the business, he continuously tried new investments and franchise expansions. In just a few years, he not only easily helped his father pay off his debts but also increased the family's assets more than tenfold.

She thought of the mansion in the suburbs. Back then, he could easily afford expensive properties and support his mistress and illegitimate child. If Zhan Wei knew all this, would he regret teaching her everything he had taught her back then?

The home decoration store is Zhan Wei's life's work. If she could do it all over again, Zhan Xinyue would not hand over the fruits of his life's hard work to anyone, nor would she let everything her father had built become a weapon used by others to stab his only daughter.