14. I love you like a tulip

Waking up hungover from a celebratory banquet, Yu Chuanbei lay in bed, staring blankly at a painting of tulips on the opposite wall. It was a painting by Ling Ling. Before seeing her with Long Jia, he had always felt that this portrait perfectly reflected Ling Ling—single, solitary, elegant, resolute yet not stubborn, reserved yet not dull. The swirls of orange, like rays of light, soft and radiant. He purposely hung the painting by his bed so that he could see it every morning, a reminder of Yan Jidao's poem: "A smile dispels sorrow, a woman knows how to put on makeup." Tulips in lotus silk sleeves. The snow and clouds drag, keeping guests drunk, and accompanying the madness of spring. But now, he hadn't expected Ling Ling's deliberate distance to be because she was already taken. All the beautiful feelings he had for her had turned into a farce. But he still couldn't believe Ling Ling would conceal her feelings from him when he had confessed his feelings, and he didn't want to doubt his own judgment. He recalled that Longjia's original question had been, "Do you have any floss picks?" This meant he wasn't familiar with her place and they weren't "living together." Lingling had only referred to Longjia as a "friend," never as a boyfriend. He felt like a wistful, abandoned woman, his hesitations like this, and he was frustrated by his own situation. But only by abandoning his trust in her could he escape his longing for her. A WeChat message dragged him from the swamp into the ice cellar. Someone requested to add him as a WeChat friend, and upon seeing it was Longjia! He sat up abruptly and quickly accepted. Longjia quickly sent a message: "Hey, I'm Lingling's friend Longjia. We met the day before yesterday. I told you I had a project I could help you with. I'm sending it to you now. How about a face-to-face meeting?" Longjia sent him a push notification and an address. Yu Chuanbei glanced at the project information. It was a public welfare project organized by an NGO, rescuing wildlife harmed by industrial pollution. Yu Chuanbei responded without hesitation, "I'm leaving now, I'll be there shortly." He'd taken the subway to meet Longjia, because he couldn't resist scrolling through his social media feed. Besides posts about public welfare projects and anti-pseudoscience, he'd been posting pictures of beautiful cars and women, frequently changing profiles but never deleting the old ones. He actually explained, "Now that I have you, I won't forget her; just as I have her, I haven't given up on you. I can't give you eternity, but I can give you honesty." Yu Chuanbei felt that Longjia was too divided, and none of the fragments fit Lingling's needs. He was too obsessed...

Waking up hungover from a celebratory banquet, Yu Chuanbei lay in bed, staring blankly at a painting of tulips on the opposite wall. It was a painting by Ling Ling. Before seeing her with Long Jia, he had always felt that this portrait perfectly reflected Ling Ling—single, solitary, elegant, resolute yet not stubborn, reserved yet not dull. The swirls of orange, like rays of light, soft and radiant. He purposely hung the painting by his bed so that he could see it every morning, a reminder of Yan Jidao's poem: "A smile dispels sorrow, a woman knows how to put on makeup." Tulips in lotus silk sleeves. The snow and clouds drag, keeping guests drunk, and accompanying the madness of spring. But now, he hadn't expected Ling Ling's deliberate distance to be because she was already taken. All the beautiful feelings he had for her had turned into a farce. But he still couldn't believe Ling Ling would conceal her feelings from him when he had confessed his feelings, and he didn't want to doubt his own judgment. He recalled that Longjia's original question had been, "Do you have any floss picks?" This meant he wasn't familiar with her place and they weren't "living together." Lingling had only referred to Longjia as a "friend," never mentioning him as her boyfriend. He felt like a wistful, abandoned woman, his hesitations like this, and he was deeply frustrated by his situation. But only by abandoning his trust in her could he escape his longing for her. A WeChat message dragged him from the swamp into the ice cellar. Someone requested to add him as a WeChat friend, and upon seeing it was Longjia! He sat up abruptly and quickly accepted. Longjia quickly sent a message: "Hey, I'm Lingling's friend Longjia. We met the day before yesterday. I told you I had a project I could help you with. I'm sending it to you now. How about a face-to-face meeting?" Longjia sent him a push notification and an address. Yu Chuanbei glanced at the project information. It was a public welfare project organized by an NGO, rescuing wildlife harmed by industrial pollution. Yu Chuanbei responded without hesitation, "I'm leaving now, I'll be there shortly." He took the subway to meet Longjia because he couldn't resist scrolling through his social media feed. Besides posts about public welfare projects and anti-pseudoscience, he posted pictures of luxury cars and beautiful women, frequently changing photos with different people, never deleting the old ones. He even explained, "Now that I have you, I won't forget her; just as I have her, I haven't given up on you. I can't give you eternity, but I can give you honesty." Yu Chuanbei felt that Longjia was too divided, and none of the fragments would be suitable for Lingling. He was so anxious to see Longjia that he practically ran from the subway to the Michelin-starred restaurant Longjia had booked. Arriving downstairs, breathless, he saw another woman panting—Longjia was kissing a woman with long hair cascading down her shoulders, a woman with a bust and hips, and exposed waist and legs.

Yu Chuanbei really wanted to grab Long Jia's shoulders, punch him a few times, and then call him a bastard. It was like every movie trope where the leading actress becomes a patron saint—cliché but effective. But he sadly realized that in this scene, he was just a supporting role, not even supposed to have any lines.

Long Jia saw the angry Yu Chuanbei from the corner of his eye. He smiled playfully, but his expression seemed even more shameless in Yu Chuanbei's eyes.

"Does Lingling know that you are like this?" Yu Chuanbei asked, staring into Long Jia's eyes. In his heart, he really wanted to tear apart his face with that cynical smile.

"Do you think Lingling wants to know?" Long Jia saw the rage in Yu Chuanbei's pupils that was almost burning him, and he smiled even more playfully.

Yu Chuanbei no longer wanted to beat Long Jia, but wanted to crush him to death.

But Long Jia shamelessly took a selfie with the woman with an internet celebrity face, and then sent the picture to Ling Ling with his mobile phone in front of Yu Chuanbei.

Ling Ling quickly replied to Long Jia with these words: "Aren't you afraid of being stabbed to death by being so close to that pointed chin?"

Long Jia enlarged the screen and showed it to Yu Chuanbei, who slowly relaxed his fists.

"Okay, buddy, there's no way I'm going to interfere with your relationship. Let's go to the hotel and talk business first!" Long Jia put his arm around Yu Chuanbei's shoulders in a gangster-like manner, then sent the woman away to park the car.

After settling down at the hotel, Long Jia completely ignored Yu Chuanbei's adaptability to strangers and got straight to the point: "Ling Ling and I were college classmates. Counting on my fingers, we've known each other for six or seven years. She's lonely, fighting alone, and self-admiring. She really has nowhere else to go, so she's temporarily staying in my cloakroom. She has zero romantic experience and negative social experience, and her only talent isn't beneficial to our relationship, so I haven't paid much attention to her. To sum up, we're basically in a relationship where she despises me, and I don't love her."

"Why are you telling me this?" Yu Chuanbei could finally ask the question calmly.

"Because you are the first man I feel is particularly suitable for Ling Ling."

"How do you say it?"

Long Jia didn't answer him directly. Instead, he took out his phone and pulled out a picture. It was a stick figure drawing of a boy making a heart shape with his hands towards a girl across the platform.

"What do you think of this picture?" Long Jia asked him.

"It's hard and sad for lovers to separate." Yu Chuanbei answered seriously.

Long Jia said nonchalantly, "As far as I'm concerned, men will do anything stupid just to get into bed with a woman. So you and Ling Ling are the same kind of people, while you and I are from two different worlds. I'm only controlled by my hormones and don't believe in true love or love at first sight."

Yu Chuanbei said, "I think there's nothing wrong with falling in love at first sight. Everyone's temperament is the result of long-term accumulation. If the other person attracts you, it means that he meets most of your dreams. So I don't understand why Ling Ling resists me so much." He was at a loss.

Long Jia really thought this guy was pretty good, so he took the initiative to enlighten him: "Ling Ling's death was caused by her parents. She changes her personality whenever her parents are mentioned. So whenever she encounters keywords related to her parents, such as car accidents, seclusion, and true love, she becomes very paranoid..."

Long Jia wanted to say more but was interrupted by Yu Chuanbei.

"You don't need to teach me some tricks on how to get along with Ling Ling. My goal is not to win her over, but to make her accept me first."

Longjia nodded in admiration.

Yu Chuanbei slowly picked up the public welfare project plan that Longjia had placed on the dining table. As he flipped through it, he said, "I think your wildlife protection project is feasible. Build an exhibition hall in the habitat of the invaded wildlife and find a rising star in the architectural world to design it. This will save money, serve as a landmark, and attract support from the local government. Then, find a few niche public accounts of hiking enthusiasts to promote it and organize charity events. Keep all accounts public, and the financial process for investing in wildlife protection will be shorter. If your project turns that place into an ecotourism destination, perhaps the local government will consider removing the industrial zone with obsolete production capacity - of course, the possibility is very small. But if you want to try, I'll accompany you."

*~*~*~*~*~*~

After a difficult written test, Ling Ling finally got the interview with Tuo Wu.

She and more than thirty other people were waiting in the lobby of Tuowu, even though the position only vacated three people.

Maybe it was a gene from her parents, but she always liked to be alone and wanted to avoid any group activities. So whenever there were a lot of people and noisy gatherings, she would look for a quiet corner.

Since it wasn't her turn yet, she exited the lobby's emergency exit and wandered over to the sky garden behind the company. Unexpectedly, the area was under construction, and a Nordic-style pointed-roof wooden house had been erected in the small square.

She was about to stop and admire the scene, but was interrupted by a harsh insult. It turned out that a man in a suit was pointing and scolding a migrant worker.

"I paid a fortune to have my roof designed, and you painted it like this? I wanted ivory white, not the pale white of plaster! You're color blind, so why are you still working as a painter? Why don't you go move bricks? Oh, I forgot, bricks are moved by machines now. Cheap labor like you isn't even fit to move bricks! I just messed up a perfectly good roof like this. Do you have the three thousand you asked for?"

Ling Ling watched from a distance as the young migrant worker, head bowed and visibly on the verge of tears, was scolded. Before her interview, she was buying mineral water at a convenience store when she encountered this young man in line ahead of her. He'd bought five bags of preserved mustard tubers, but when it came time to pay, he couldn't muster the cash. She offered to pay for him, but he returned one bag and hurried away.

Ling Ling has a sense of chivalry in his bones, even if it is often inappropriate.

She walked to the construction elevator, picked up a few colorful paint buckets, pressed the start gear, jumped, and sat on the bright yellow chair that was slowly rising.

The elevator reached the rooftop, and she picked up the paint buckets and poured them onto the rooftop, bucket by bucket. Red poured on green, blue poured on purple, orange poured on pink... The bright sunlight reflected the rainbow-colored roof, and also reflected Ling Ling, who was shining brightly against the light.

The man in the suit, who had been cursing and foaming at the mouth, was stunned. It wasn't until Ling Ling handsomely jumped down, walked gracefully to him, and stuffed a wad of cash into his hand that he began to react.

"He's just an unqualified worker, and you're an unqualified person. I'm here for an interview. If the money you just mentioned isn't enough, come back to me. This is all the cash I brought today. A company that houses a scumbag like you can't be any better, and I'm too lazy to apply for the job."

This is what chivalry is all about. Even if you bow your head ten thousand times in the predicament of life, in order to help someone who cannot raise his head out of the predicament, it can burst out and bloom brilliantly in an instant.

But Ling Ling, despite her heroic figure, was simultaneously thinking: the money she had originally intended to send back home had been donated, and now it would be deducted from her own food allowance. If she had rejected Tuo Wu, two months of hard work would have been wasted. So a hero not only has to withstand the blows, but also the hunger.

But Ling Ling didn't realize that Fang Tuowu, who had been watching her feat from upstairs, was saying to HR Luo Hao behind him, "Find this girl from today's interview list and have her come to work next week."

Author's Note

Liu Qiu

author

04-18

I'm always happy to see new friends voting in the voting history scrolling by. I was also very happy to hear another reader praise me today. Beijing had its first spring rain today, and the air smelled of fresh rain, as well as your kindness.