Chapter 63: Cosmic Latte (15) Everyone thinks their...

A lot happened after Christmas.

First, Song Ci returned home.

When Song Ci left Shenzhen, he bought a flight ticket for an early morning flight. Bao'an Airport is very, very large. If you are unlucky enough to board the plane at the satellite terminal, you will have to take the train inside the station, so you must leave early and leave enough time.

Although Lin Xia still had to go to work today, she still got up early to send Song Ci to the airport. It was still dark and the subway was not running, so the two of them took a taxi. On the way, they were both drowsy and even lost consciousness at one point.

After arriving at the airport, Lin Xia got out of the car to help Song Ci with the luggage. The two stood on the side of the road and hugged each other goodbye for the last time.

"I really don't want to leave you. I don't know when we will meet next time." Lin Xia said regretfully.

"As long as we both want to see each other, there will always be a chance."

Song Ci smiled faintly and said to Lin Xia slowly:

"Xia Xia, I know you're going through a very confusing and chaotic period right now. It's like that for everyone who steps out of school and into the workforce, the first few years of their careers. You're experiencing a dramatic shock to your outlook on life, your values, and your worldview. Everything you knew has come crashing down. You don't know what you should want, what you should believe in, or what you should stand for. This is perfectly normal. I was like that when I first started working, too. It's just that I started working right after graduating from college, and it's been seven years now. I've already been through this phase, and you're still in it."

"I rarely try to persuade others, because I've always believed that people can't be changed by others, only by their environment. Of course, there are also people who are easily influenced by others and follow the crowd. They have no independent thinking or judgment ability and are just empty shells. But I know you are not like that. We are the same at heart, otherwise we wouldn't be friends until now. So, during this period of confusion, you can only rely on yourself to figure it out and get through it. This is growth, transformation. Once you go through painful struggles and difficult thinking, and truly understand what you want, what you want to stick to, and what kind of person you want to become, you will gain a brand new life."

"I know you hate this ever-changing world, and you hate being shaped by the environment. I hate it too, and at one point I couldn't accept it. But we can't completely avoid it, because humans are social animals and can't live alone in the mountains. We can't change others, and we can't change the world. So the only thing we can do is, amidst this constant change, hold onto what truly remains unchanged. That's the foundation of our soul, the true nature of our heart. It's these things that determine who I am and who you are, rather than someone else who has been completely distorted."

"Xia Xia, I hope you are happy."

That day, Lin Xia cried inconsolably on the way back by car.

There are many kinds of friends in the world: some are fair-weather acquaintances, some exploit each other, some are hypocritical, sharing joys but not hardships, and some are as pure as water, like Boya and Ziqi meeting their soulmate. There will never be another person in the world like Song Ci, so far away from her, yet their souls resonate so deeply.

Maintaining a youthful friendship is incredibly difficult. People fall in love, get married, and start families. Once time is taken up by other, closer relationships, friendship is always the first to be neglected and abandoned. No one dares to make the solemn promises of childhood: "We'll be friends forever, forever." Looking back years later, I wonder which turn of events marked the last time we saw each other.

Goodbye my friend, I know this won't be our last farewell.

The second step is to change the contract.

After Christmas, Lin Xia's project team officially separated from MT and became a subsidiary. All employees terminated their old contracts and signed new ones.

In fact, apart from the ownership of the labor relationship, everything else will not change, including salary, work content, and even office location. However, it is impossible to say that everyone is indifferent to this. It is the end of the year, and everyone has their own considerations on whether to stay or leave.

Then, Mika resigned.

She hadn't found a new job, so she was essentially quitting her job. She planned to return home to study for the IELTS, then go study in France to fulfill her dream. Before leaving, she and Lin Xia had one last meal together. Lin Xia admired her and was reluctant to let her go, as Meijia was her closest colleague at the company. Her departure had significantly weakened her motivation to go to work.

Two other designers also resigned one after another. At this time, the project team's operating capacity has reached its limit. If one more person is missing, there is a high probability that there will be problems.

The owner specifically sought out Lin Xia for a conversation, testing her intentions. He offered her promises of promotions, salary increases, stock dividends, and all sorts of benefits before the company even went public. Lin Xia neither agreed nor objected, her reaction indifferent because she had already made up her mind.

Then, He Chuan returned to England.

His mentor while studying in London, a highly respected law professor who had taken great care of He Chuan during his time at school, had passed away. He Chuan traveled to the UK to attend the funeral and to handle some work matters, with an uncertain return date.

All this was written in the note He Chuan left for her before he left. He seemed to think that this way of leaving messages on paper was good, and never mentioned asking her for any modern contact methods again.

After the kiss on the rooftop restaurant that Christmas Day, she stood in front of him and cried until she couldn't breathe, like a little child. It was terrible.

He Chuan cried so hard that he was in a panic and at a loss. Finally, he drove her back home.

When he left, he said to her:

"Xia Xia, I won't force you. I don't want you to be sad. I want you to be happy."

Another person said this to her.

How wonderful it is that there are at least two people like this in this world. I hope she will be happy.

.

After a short period of overtime before New Year's Day, Lin Xia's work entered a period of leisure. She no longer needed to work overtime for the holidays and only needed to complete her weekly routine tasks on time. She planned to use this time to organize and improve her portfolio.

Lin Xia planned to look for a new job after the Spring Festival. Firstly, she wanted the year-end bonus, and secondly, spring is a prime time for job hunting, with strong recruitment. While there aren't many illustration positions at major companies, finding the perfect fit isn't easy. Thirdly, she needed more time. An artist's portfolio is the best resume, but Lin Xia felt she wasn't fully prepared. The reason was the same old story: she'd been so focused on work in recent years that she'd produced very few pieces she was satisfied with, leaving little to show for herself.

Ordinary days always pass by quickly. In a blink of an eye, more than two weeks have passed and it is less than ten days away from the Spring Festival. On the night of the 21st day of the twelfth lunar month, Lin Xia suddenly received a message from Lin Xuedong, asking her if she would go home for the New Year this year.

She hesitated for a long time with her phone, deleting and reducing in the input box, and finally replied:

I'm busy looking for a new job, so I won't be going home this year.

Lin Xuedong didn't say much, just told her:

【Be careful when you're out there alone, and make yourself something delicious. 】

Including this year, this is Lin Xia’s fourth Spring Festival spent in Shenzhen, and it is also the fourth year that she has not returned to Wangchun.

Lin Xuedong and Zhao Qianyi divorced the year Lin Xia graduated from her senior year. No one told her at the first time. She only realized it when she returned home during the summer vacation and found that all of Zhao Qianyi's things were missing from the house.

It was Zhao Qianyi who proposed the divorce. She finally left Wangchun and went to the provincial capital forever and never returned. Three months later, she remarried. Her new husband was Zhang Lijie, who was the ex-husband of her good friend Li Wen.

The demographics of a small town are simple, but social relationships are complex. Everyone you meet is a relative, and the relationships between men and women in the same circle are extremely chaotic. Although adults often avoid discussing these matters with children, Lin Xia has heard rumors from childhood through those subtle conversations: someone cheated with an old classmate, someone had an affair with someone's sister-in-law, and after a divorce, it's common to look for the cause among the people around them. But she never imagined that such a thing would happen to her own family one day.

Regarding the divorce of Lin Xuedong and Zhao Qianyi, the divorce of Li Wen and Zhang Lijie, and the remarriage of Zhao Qianyi and Zhang Lijie, the timing of these three events is no longer traceable. Lin Xia did not dare to pursue the matter, and did not want to see any of them at all. The two families were shattered like this.

During her first year in Shenzhen, Zhao Qianyi had come to see her. She was adorned with gold and silver, radiant, her whole demeanor transformed. The apartment Lin Xia rented then wasn't as good as her current apartment; it was small and shabby. Zhao Qianyi complained about everything, grumbling that she'd worked so hard to support her art studies and get into Tsinghua University, yet after graduation, she was earning so little and living in such a place. She'd rather go back to the provincial capital with her and get a good job at her uncle Zhang's company.

She said that Zhang Lijie was very nice to her, and this time the two of them were going to travel to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand together and passed through Shenzhen, so they came to see Lin Xia.

She said that she would invite Lin Xia and Zhang Lijie to dinner together in the evening. Her uncle Zhang was the general agent of a certain brand in the Northeast region and was very capable. She asked her to say some sweet words to curry favor with him. After she refused, he scolded her for being as stubborn as Lin Xuedong and being rigid and inflexible.

She said Lin Xia's room was a messier mess than a pigsty, and she couldn't take care of herself. How would she ever get married? She needed to hurry up and find a partner. If she put it off, no one would want her because she was too old. If all else failed, she could ask Uncle Zhang to introduce her to a business partner's son... Since she still hadn't found a partner, could she really have had something going on with that bitch He Ping's son and still be waiting for him?

In fact, Lin Xia was extremely reluctant to admit that there was a time in her young heart when she secretly decided to take Zhao Qianyi as a role model. When she was young, Zhao Qianyi was talented and idealistic, beautiful and bold, and she was full of restlessness and publicity that could not be contained in the closed small county of Wangchun. She was so beautiful and restless.

What has transformed her into who she is today? Is it the passage of time? Is it marriage and childbirth? Is it setbacks and failures? In the midst of such turbulent change, has she forgotten her former self, finally become unrecognizable? Or is this the life she truly desires?

At that moment, Lin Xia sadly discovered that the Zhao Qianyi of the past no longer existed. The woman standing in front of her room, pointing fingers at her and attacking and belittling her life, was no longer the mother she once regarded as a role model.

Facing Zhao Qianyi's constant nagging and showing off, Lin Xia only replied to her coldly:

"Why are you in such a hurry to find a partner now? I can get old like you and steal my friend's husband. Isn't that great?"

After that, they had a big fight, and Zhao Qianyi eventually slammed the door and left alone. The mother and daughter have not been in contact since then.

Lin Xuedong also remarried in the same year of his divorce and started a new family. His remarried wife was a dozen years younger than Lin Xuedong. At that time, he called Lin Xia to explain that although she was his colleague, they only officially got together after his divorce.

He said, Xia Xia, we are not what you think.

This sounds so familiar. Lin Xuedong said it, Zhao Qianyi said it, and it seems Lin Xia said it too. Lin Haisheng and He Ping must have said it to others back then. Everyone thinks their love is unique, the most tragic and greatest, but in fact, to outsiders, it all seems the same and bloody.

Lin Xia didn't want to define anything, nor did she want to deconstruct anything. She only knew that from now on, she had no home.