Ning Zhichu, in your eyes I am less than a dog.
Late autumn in Shanghai always carries a sticky, damp chill. The air conditioning in the editorial office was blasting, the warm air making even the ink smell from the printers seem thick and sticky. Ning Zhichu stared blankly at the first draft of the report on the computer screen. The cursor blinked for ten minutes after the title "Follow-up on Huayu New Energy's Rectification," but she hadn't typed a single word. Her fingertips unconsciously caressed the pearl necklace around her neck—a one-year anniversary gift from Wei Ting. The curve of the pearls warmed her palms, like a piece of warm jade against her skin, yet it couldn't warm the melancholy in her heart.
“If you don’t finish revising this manuscript soon, the editor-in-chief will be coming with a coffee cup to urge you.” Su Xiaoran came over with a pile of interview outlines, pointing her chin at Ning Zhichu’s computer screen. “Your eyes are practically glued to the screen, but your soul has already flown away, hasn’t it?” She lowered her voice and poked Ning Zhichu’s arm with her pen. “Wei Ting messaged Lu Zexu again last night, asking if you had eaten dinner. His tone was as pitiful as a large dog abandoned by its owner.”
Ning Zhichu's pen left a long mark on the interview notebook, the ink spreading into a small patch of grayish-black. She wasn't intentionally giving Wei Ting the silent treatment; she simply didn't know how to face him—the image of President Li kneeling in the editorial department lobby that day was like a thorn piercing her heart. Wei Ting's ability to manipulate events at will had shocked her, but even more so, it had left her with an indescribable sense of suffocation. She remembered the sunflower cup Wei Ting had mended; the crack would always remain, just like the rift between them—no matter how much it was repaired, the traces were always visible.
"I understand." Ning Zhichu closed her interview notebook and got up to walk towards the break room. As soon as she pushed open the glass door, she saw the young woman at the editorial office reception standing by the coffee machine, nervously giving her a meaningful look. She turned her head following the woman's gaze and froze instantly—Wei Ting stood by the break room window, wearing a well-tailored dark gray suit with an emerald green cufflink—a souvenir she had picked up in Florence. His back was to the door, a cigarette between his fingers, the smoke creating a blurry white haze on the glass, even obscuring the neon lights of Lujiazui outside.
"Why is President Wei here?" Ning Zhichu's voice was a little tense, and she subconsciously pulled her knitted cardigan tighter around herself—it was a cream-colored cashmere cardigan that Wei Ting had bought for her last year, as soft as a cloud.
Wei Ting turned around and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. His eyes were bloodshot, with faint dark circles under them, clearly from several sleepless nights. His usually meticulous hairstyle was somewhat disheveled, with stray hairs falling across his forehead, obscuring the emotions in his eyes, revealing only his tightly pursed lips, carrying a suppressed rage. "Can we talk?" His voice was hoarse, as if it had been sanded. "Just ten minutes."
The editorial staff were all secretly glancing over, and Su Xiaoran quickly came over to smooth things over: "Oh dear, President Wei must be here to deliver a special lunch to Zhichu, right? That new Japanese restaurant downstairs is pretty good; Lu Zexu and I just ate there yesterday." She winked at Ning Zhichu and pushed her out, "Go quickly and come back soon. I'll tell the editor-in-chief about the manuscript for you first."
Stepping out of the editorial building, a chilly autumn wind, carrying fragments of sycamore leaves, blew past, causing Ning Zhichu to instinctively shrink back. Wei Ting took off his suit jacket and draped it over her shoulders; the jacket still carried his familiar scent of cedarwood mixed with a faint smell of cigarette smoke—a scent she recognized, yet it inexplicably made her heart flutter. The two walked slowly along the sidewalk, neither speaking, only the rustling of fallen leaves beneath their feet.
"How long are you going to give me this silent treatment?" Wei Ting broke the silence first, his voice trembling almost imperceptibly. He stopped and turned to look at Ning Zhichu, the bloodshot veins in his eyes clearly visible. "I make you breakfast every morning, wait for you to come home every night, I queue up at the alley entrance to buy your favorite crab roe xiaolongbao, I spent three nights fixing the cup you broke, you said your tablet screen was broken, I drove all night to find a repair shop..." His voice grew louder, his knuckles turning white from gripping the metal. "What did I do wrong? Why are you treating me like this?"
Ning Zhichu stopped in her tracks, her suit jacket slipping off her shoulders and landing on the ground. She bent down to pick it up, but Wei Ting grabbed her wrist. His grip was strong, making her wrist ache, and the silver bracelet clinked softly between their skin. "I'm not giving you the silent treatment," she said, struggling to break free. "I just need time to think things through."
"Think it through?" Wei Ting suddenly laughed, his laughter carrying a chilling coldness. "Think about how you're going to distance yourself from me? Think about how my 'powerful methods' don't match your 'professional ethics'?" He abruptly released her hand, and Ning Zhichu staggered back a step, bumping into a sycamore tree by the roadside, a dull pain shooting through her back.
"Wei Ting, can you please stop being so extreme?" Ning Zhichu clutched her back, her voice trembling. "I never said you weren't good enough for me, I just..."
"Just what?" Wei Ting took a step closer, his tall figure casting a shadow that completely enveloped her. "Just that you think it was wrong of me to help you deal with President Li? Just that you think it was low-class of me to use my power to oppress people? Ning Zhichu, put your hand on your heart and tell me, that day when you ran out of the club, trembling all over, who arranged for a driver to protect you? Who investigated President Li's dirt overnight, making him never dare to lay a finger on you again?"
His words were like sharp knives, piercing Ning Zhichu's heart. She knew Wei Ting was telling the truth, but these truths only made her feel more wronged: "I didn't say you were wrong! I just wanted you to ask me what I wanted! I'm a journalist, I have my own battlefield, I want to expose President Li's true colors with my own pen, not rely on your power to ruin his reputation! What you've done makes me feel that all my efforts are worthless!"
"Worthless?" Wei Ting's voice rose, drawing the attention of passersby. He pointed to his chest, his eyes bloodshot. "For you, I haven't slept for three days, investigated evidence of President Li's embezzlement to the point of nausea, and almost fell out with my friends at the Swiss bank to freeze his overseas accounts. All that I did, you think it's all for nothing?"
Ning Zhichu's tears finally fell, streaming down her cheeks and landing on the pearl necklace at her chest. The cold touch sent a chill down her spine. "You've never respected me!" she cried out. "You think that making me breakfast and heating up milk is a sign of goodwill, and that I have to forgive you and greet you with a smile after a few days of that! You think that by humbling yourself to do these things, you're being aggrieved and can stand on your moral high ground to accuse me of emotional abuse! Wei Ting, you're too condescending! You've never truly understood that what I need isn't your protection, but your trust!"
"Trust?" Wei Ting felt like he'd heard the biggest joke in the world. He reached out to wipe away her tears, but she abruptly pulled away. This action ignited the anger he'd suppressed for days. He took a step back, leaning against the sycamore tree, his voice as cold as ice, "I trusted you, so I let you interview President Li; I trusted you, so I highlighted the traps in your interview outline; I trusted you, so I stood up for you the moment you were wronged! And what did you give me in return? A cold bench in the study, silence at the dinner table, and not even a second glance!"
His voice suddenly dropped, filled with a despairing weariness: "Ning Zhichu, in front of you, I live worse than a dog. A dog wags its tail and its owner will pat its head. What about me? I've done so much, and you won't even say a kind word to me, or give me a smile."
"What did you say?" Ning Zhichu looked up abruptly, tears blurring her vision, but she clearly saw the self-mockery in Wei Ting's eyes. These words were like a poisoned knife, stabbing fiercely into her heart, the pain almost suffocating her. She remembered the sunflower cup Wei Ting had painstakingly glued back together, his silhouette smoking on the balcony late at night, the warm milk he left by the study door—those warm details, all distorted beyond recognition by the phrase "not even as good as a dog."
“I said, I live like a dog.” Wei Ting looked at her, repeating each word carefully, his voice filled with a defiant, reckless rage. “In front of you, all my pride is worthless, all my attempts to befriend you feel like begging. I’ve had enough of this life, Ning Zhichu. Either you stay with me and live a good life, or we…”
"Either what?" Ning Zhichu interrupted him, her tears falling even harder. "Either we break up, right? Wei Ting, you never think you're wrong. You just feel that your attempts to be nice haven't been reciprocated, and that you've lost face! You never know why I'm sad, why I hesitate! You always think from your own perspective, always think that everything you do is for my own good, but you've never asked me if I want it!"
She recalled the Xingneng data fabrication scandal last year, how Wei Ting stayed up all night with her to check data, helped her organize the evidence chain, and told her, "A journalist's battlefield is one where you have to win yourself"; she remembered in Piazzale Michelangelo in Florence, how he helped her adjust the camera focus, saying he would accompany her to see sunrises all over the world; she remembered when they first got together, how he would listen attentively to the difficulties she encountered in her interviews and respect every decision she made. Those tender details, and the man before her who spoke without thinking, seemed like completely different people.
"I don't think I did anything wrong!" Wei Ting's voice trembled with tears. He rarely cried; the last time was at the London hospital when he learned that Chen Jingming wanted to harm Ning Zhichu. "I know I shouldn't have attacked President Li without asking you. I know I shouldn't have solved the problem that way. I was even prepared to apologize and explain! But what did you do? You didn't even give me a chance to explain! You shut me out of the study, you ignored me, you made me feel like all my efforts were in vain!"
Autumn winds swept in, carrying fallen leaves that landed at their feet. Ning Zhichu looked at Wei Ting's reddened eyes, her heart aching as if being cut by a knife. She knew he was wronged, knew his attempts to be kind were sincere, but the phrase "not even as good as a dog" was like a chasm between them, one she couldn't cross.
"I don't want to argue with you anymore." Ning Zhichu wiped away her tears, her voice hoarse with exhaustion. "I'm going back to work now." She bent down to pick up her suit jacket from the ground and handed it to him. "Your jacket, thank you."
Wei Ting didn't take it, letting the coat fall to the ground. He watched Ning Zhichu's retreating figure; her steps were somewhat heavy, and the hem of her knitted cardigan swayed gently in the wind, like a wounded bird. He wanted to reach out and pull her up, to say "I'm sorry," to explain that he didn't mean to say it that way, but the words that came out were a cold "Whatever."
Ning Zhichu paused, but didn't turn around. She walked into the editorial building, and the moment the elevator doors closed, tears welled up again. She leaned against the elevator wall, clutching the silver bracelet in her hand. The star and moon pattern on the bracelet hurt her palm, just like Wei Ting's hurtful words, etched in her heart, lingering for a long time.
Wei Ting stood under the sycamore tree, looking at the glass curtain wall of the editorial office building, his disheveled figure reflected inside. He bent down to pick up his suit jacket from the ground, dusted it off, and found a sapling of a sycamore leaf stuck to the shoulder of the jacket, like a tear that had fallen on his heart. He took out a cigarette, but found that the lighter wouldn't light no matter what he did, and he couldn't control the trembling in his fingertips.
The office building in the distance rang its three o'clock bell, the crisp sound echoing in the late autumn air. Wei Ting finally gave up trying to light his cigarette, throwing it on the ground and stomping it out. He knew that what happened between him and Ning Zhichu was more than just an argument. The rift that had been created by the Li Zong incident had been torn even wider in this out-of-control confrontation.
Unbeknownst to him, Ning Zhichu locked herself in the break room and cried for a long time after returning to the editorial department. Su Xiaoran handed her a cup of hot cocoa, looked at her red eyes, and sighed: "You two, you take each other too seriously, that's why you say such hurtful things. His 'not even as good as a dog' comment was just said in anger, don't take it to heart; the way you refuse to back down is just like his stubborn temper when he challenges the board of directors."
Ning Zhichu held the hot cocoa, tears falling into the cup and creating small ripples. She knew Su Xiaoran was right, but the grievances and wounds in her heart couldn't be soothed by a mere "angry remark." She remembered the bloodshot eyes in Wei Ting's eyes, the sunflower cup he had painstakingly repaired, and the warm milk he had left by the study door. Those tender details and hurtful words intertwined, causing her heart to ache.
The autumn wind outside the window grew stronger, scattering sycamore leaves across the ground like a carpet of shattered gold. Ning Zhichu looked out the window, a sudden, intense unease rising within her—it seemed she and Wei Ting were truly on the brink of disaster. And the bridge connecting them, in this out-of-control standoff, teetered on the brink of collapse, ready to crumble at any moment.
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