Chapter 8 “What I can’t get, no one else can get.
Zong Chi did not go to see Lin Jiaoyu as promised, but the latter came to meet him with wine.
When Lin Jiaoyu arrived, Zong Chi was discussing the next day's schedule with his secretary. His secretary's surname was Huang, and Lin Jiaoyu only knew her English name as Mabel. Zong Chi was dressed in a robe and appeared to have washed up. The secretary had discussed a matter with him and sent him a reminder note, saying they would call again tomorrow half an hour beforehand. They were told Zong Chi should turn on his phone promptly.
Lin Jiaoyu listened to the conversation between the employer and employee, and occasionally interrupted, "Where is Miss Huang going?"
Secretary Huang ignored him and headed back to her room after finishing her report. Before leaving, she dutifully reminded her boss, "Mrs. Zong knows you've had a bit of a cold these past few days, and she told you to drink less. You shouldn't take your medicine for now."
Zong Chi didn't respond, but just sent his secretary away, "Happy New Year."
Secretary Huang knew what Bai said, so he turned around and left.
Lin Jiaoyu glanced at the arrogant Secretary Huang and slandered his old friend, "The people you raise are all like roosters. They have no other skills, but they are the best at clucking."
Zong Chi smelled the smell of cigarettes and alcohol on him and immediately stood up to open the window. He turned back and warned Lin Jiaoyu, "Don't mess with her. She won't fall for your tricks."
Lin Jiaoyu was unhappy with Zong Chi's evil attitude, so he blamed him. He even protected a secretary. Why are you pretending to be a saint? Everyone knows that you are a big-tailed wolf.
The next second, Zong Chi revealed his secretary's vacation schedule to dissuade his old friend from thinking, "She went to Hong Kong to see her girlfriend."
Lin Jiaoyu's jaw dropped, but after a moment's adjustment, he felt a second of regret before forgetting it. He went to find a cup and join Zong Chi for another round of drinks.
Zong Chi ignored him and said he didn't want to drink anymore, he had a headache and a little toothache.
Lin Jiaoyu's good mood for drinking was mostly gone after hearing him being so pretentious. He opened his mouth and cursed, "You're just a spoiled child. I don't want to play with you. Tell me the truth, what are you doing in Jiangnan?"
Zong Chi thought Lin Jiaoyu's smell was too strong, a mixture of alcohol, tobacco and several kinds of perfume. He kicked Lin Jiaoyu and told him to wash his face, otherwise he would start chasing him away in three minutes.
The last time they met was in Hong Kong. Lin Jiaoyu's cousin was getting married, and they drank a total of eleven bottles of strong liquor at the table. Lin Jiaoyu was immediately drunk and gave wedding cigarettes to everyone he met. Even the retired nanny who lived in the nursing home for the man's family was holding four or five cigarettes that he had given out for several rounds.
Zong Chi went back and lay down until noon the next day. He finally recovered after three consecutive meals of porridge.
Lin Jiaoyu stayed at his girlfriend's house that night, and the next day they broke up. He'd vomited so much that she couldn't stand it, and Lin Jiaoyu felt he was getting old, so they parted ways after a quarrel. He was clearly a drunk, yet he still hypocritically wanted someone to love him unconditionally, even for a second, when he was most unable to care for himself. He thought he was "dedicated" to each of his relationships, but in the end, they were either in name only or had no real connection.
Zong Chi never remembered the women who accompanied Lin Jiaoyu, from their names to their appearances. Anyway, next time would be different. He had hit old friends before. What you are fresh in your mind is only the face of love, not any specific person.
Lin Jiaoyu confessed to this. He washed his face in the inner room and came out with a wet face and a pearl earring in his hand, clearly a woman's thing. Lin Jiaoyu never tried to suss out Zongchi's private life. Even if the old dog in his parents' old house, whose eggs had been castrated, went out to steal dogs, Zongchi wouldn't do that!
This guy is pure pervert. Lin Jiaoyu always sabotages Zong Chi behind his back. Master Zong hates women, or at least is annoyed by them, with one exception. That woman dumped him, so Master Zong went crazy.
"Don't tell me this thing was left by your secretary?" Lin Jiaoyu weighed a pearl in the palm of his hand.
Zong Chi was sitting on a sofa, using his cell phone to buy medicine. The blue light from the phone shone on his pale face. He didn't look at Lin Jiaoyu, but just told him to put it back where he took it.
Lin Jiaoyu asked him, "Whose?"
"Put it back!"
The two had been playing together since they were seven or eight years old. Back in private school, Lin Jiaoyu would do whatever Zong Chi urged him to do. Later, when Zong Chi's father transferred him to No. 1 Middle School, Lin Jiaoyu had considered going along. However, the intensity and sheer number of people at No. 1 Middle School made him afraid of getting infected.
"Two questions, who does this belong to, and why did you come back this time?" Lin Jiaoyu mischievously threw the pearl to him as if it were a basketball from school.
Unexpectedly, Zong Chi was serious or he had no intention of catching it at all, and let the little pearl fall onto the carpet.
The living room fell silent for a moment, and the people who were making the fuss realized that Zong Chi was in a bad mood today.
Something had fallen under the couch, and Lin Jiaoyu tactfully came over to help him pick it up. Zong Chi coldly told him to get up, pretending he would do it himself, but he didn't kneel down to reach out and grope for it.
He was angry with himself and wanted to move the sofa away, so Lin Jiaoyu had to help him. They each moved one end of the sofa away. Zong Chi squatted down in the long-haired carpet and searched carefully for a while before he found it.
During this time, Lin Jiaoyu suddenly understood, "It's He Dongli's, right?"
Zong Chi refused to admit it, "No one."
"You came to Jiangnan for her too?"
"Excuse me, I'm here to discuss the acquisition."
"That's what you said on the surface. I want to hear your dark side."
"My dark side is that I don't welcome you. Please get downstairs and take a taxi!"
Lin Jiaoyu wasn't buying it. Back in school, they'd already settled their arguments, neither of them willing to give in. "Why should I leave? If I leave, who's going to remember you, this shady, creeping, wicked person?"
Zong Chi lost all his words and directly greeted Lin Jiaoyu's entire family and told him to get out!
Lin Jiaoyu said rudely, as if he had been scolded enough to enjoy it. He sat down on the sofa and said, "How did you meet her? I heard she's in the surgery department of the First Affiliated Hospital now. Gotta say, her personality is perfect for being a doctor. But, this He A Li..." When they were in school, Lin Jiaoyu always joked with He Dongli, calling her A Li, which made Zong Chi jealous. "She's so boring. If I see her again, unless she says a hundred words to me, I won't talk to her before she says a hundred and one words."
The reason was that after He Dongli and Zong Chi broke up, she immediately cleaned up her circle of friends and deleted all the people who were on the same side as Zong Chi.
Lin Jiaoyu had sent her a message during some festival that year, only to find she had blocked it. The person who was talking to himself suddenly remembered, "Oh, it's Qingming Festival."
Zong Chi's bitterness took over immediately after hearing this. "Why did you send her a message? It's Qingming Festival, and what are you sending? Qingming Merry Christmas! I'll accompany you to visit your father's grave, huh?"
Lin Jiaoyu smiled a little awkwardly. He had no doubt that if Zong Chi was still the "main wife" at this moment, he would have turned against him.
Lin Jiaoyu poured himself a glass of wine, holding it to his lips with one hand while supporting the back of his head with the other. Even when being called a thief, he remained shamelessly calm. Not to mention that he didn't have that intention, even if he did, even if He Dongli took the initiative to provoke him, Lin Jiaoyu wouldn't dare. Because Zong Chi would definitely not let him off easily. There was no doubt that if a woman made a mistake, it must have been a man who instigated her. He would not dare to touch her even if he really wanted to kill her, even if he killed a thousand wild men. Zong Chi was such a fool.
"Don't mention it. Even though you two broke up, you're still the same kind of people in principle." Lin Jiaoyu knew how to appease Zong Chi. "You liked her and wanted to keep her for yourself, but He Dongli said she wasn't satisfied with you, and in the end, she broke up with you and banished everyone associated with you. Tell me, are you the same kind of people? Oh, without you, Zong Chi, I'm not even an independent person in society anymore. This He Dongli is really boring."
Zong Chi snorted for no reason, "Because in her eyes, those who are with me are all of the same kind, and she is the outlier. Isn't it normal to make a distinction?"
Lin Jiaoyu held a mouthful of wine in his mouth, and after hearing what Zong Chi said, he smiled strangely and swallowed the liquor. He almost pointed his finger at his old friend's nose: What can I say about you? With this kind of character, your ex-girlfriend can lie to you a hundred times when she comes back, and it will be different every time.
Then again, Lin Jiaoyu felt that Zong Chi's obsession with He Dongli was simply because he was a picky person and didn't believe in meal replacements. Few women could truly fathom his personality. No woman would dare to defy him, and if she did, she wouldn't easily yield to him.
He Dongli was the exception. Lin Jiaoyu had witnessed it with his own eyes. The cold and distant, undisputed school beauty of No. 1 Middle School at that time, got drunk, spoke in a soft tone, and there was only one name in her eyes and heart: Zong Chi. I feel so bad.
She was a year younger than Zong Chi, but in their daily interactions, she couldn't detect any childishness in He Dongli. Only when her sanity was temporarily overtaken, she would tilt her head against Zong Chi's shoulder, eyes closed in a daze. As if no one was around, she reached out and stroked Zong Chi's face, down to his Adam's apple. But the person involved grabbed her hand and told her to stop.
He Dongli would obediently stop and bury her head in the water. If Zong Chi's words shocked her, she would raise her head, her hair tangled, and ask him to speak softly.
Zong Chi then whispered in her ear that He Dongli blamed him for being stupid, but that wasn't what she meant. In the end, the two of them had a huge fight. Lin Jiaoyu was incredibly jealous at the time, but he didn't realize anything else. Later, after seeing so many similar faces, he realized the rare charm of He Dongli's look: a sober debauchery, a pure sacrifice of innocence.
That night, the friends' drinking alone ended when the hotel housekeeper brought medicine to Zong Chi.
Lin Jiaoyu watched Zong Chi take out the medicine as if he was about to swallow it, and snatched it back. "You're dead, but you did it while I was away. You drank alcohol and took these antibiotics, and you have an ex-girlfriend who's a medical student."
Zong Chi was furious and cursed, "Are you sick? Why do you keep mentioning her? If you have a crush on her, go chase her!"
Lin Jiaoyu loved watching this kind of fun, "If I pursue you, will you agree? Ah!"
"I promise. Just let go and give me the medicine, and we'll be done with it. Isn't that what I promised?"
Lin Jiaoyu almost died from laughing. "I'm going to call that woman right now. How dare you provoke our Young Master? You're threatening to commit suicide. Their old family is going to be extinct..."
Zong Chi was fed up with Lin Jiaoyu's chatter, his rage boiling over with nowhere to vent. He simply crunched the medicine in his hand until it made a loud noise, then tossed it aside. He simply didn't care anymore. There was no need to act so politely in front of Lin Jiaoyu. Yes, he admitted, he was just trying to make her uncomfortable. He didn't understand why she would agree to go on a blind date at the Liang family if she really liked that guy. What kind of a loser would a man have to be to be willing to accompany her on a blind date!
Zong Chi told Lin Jiaoyu about the Liang family's affairs. Lin Jiaoyu completely deviated from the topic and scolded Zong Chi for being a businessman all these years. He just loved associating with Chen Xiangyang. "Why didn't you ask me to go? I can't even compare to Chen Xiangyang. Humph, that smiling tiger, who relied on women to get to the top!"
Zong Chi glared at Lin Jiaoyu, but Lin Jiaoyu refused to give in. "I said that Chen relied on women to get to the top, but I didn't mention Ah Li. Why are you so anxious? It's true. If he didn't want to help Ah Li, would you support him? You know, this guy is very cunning. When he first saw Ah Li, he might have thought she was your father's mistress!"
Zong Chi remained silent, but his cold gaze was more intimidating than words. Lin Jiaoyu swallowed his anger and started to leave. He knew Zong Chi wasn't the type to give someone a way out. He turned back a few steps and taunted, making small talk: "So you came back here with so many people just to reconcile with Ah Li?"
An instant message came into the work laptop at the desk by the floor-to-ceiling window, and Zong Chi stood up and went to the desk to check.
As if reviewing everything, he picked up his phone and called his secretary, saying in a firm tone, "Take down the front-facing photo. You decide on the main text of the press release."
With that, the call ended, and the phone dropped from his hand. Zong Chi, his head heaving with fatigue, hunched over, one hand resting on the table, the other swiping the mouse across the page. His self-absorbed demeanor was completely annoying, and that was just how he was. When he and his father started arguing, it was always Old Zong who teased him. The way Old Zong scolded his own son was spot-on: "A three-pound duck has a two-pound beak!"
The duck's feathers can be sold for money after they are killed, but some people only speak without thinking before they take their last breath.
"Aren't you leaving?" He drove Lin Jiaoyu away.
"I'm asking you a question!"
"What?"
Lin Jiaoyu refused to let him pretend to be dead, "You came back to beg them to reconcile."
"No, I'm here to see others have more than they deserve. What I can't have, no one else can have."
Lin Jiaoyu was annoyed by people who were stubborn, but he couldn't bear to see Ah Li suffer any more, so he pointed at the things on the ground and said, "No, you should take medicine."
The author has something to say:
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No update on Wednesday.
p.s. Let me emphasize again, the narrative is a flashback, a flashback, a flashback.
If you are not used to it or do not like it, please be careful and avoid it. [Please][Red Heart]
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