Chapter 36
No career, no friends, no lover, no relatives.
How could someone who had lived for almost thirty years end up with nothing? She had once been able to compete with Yu Zhe, but now she wasn't even qualified to do so. Tang Ruxin admired herself for being such a complete failure in every aspect.
When she got home, Tang Ruxin looked at her messy bed and remembered that she had left in a hurry last night and had not had time to clean up the snacks and paper airplanes piled on her bed.
She didn't struggle, but went to Tong Jiayu's bedroom, closed the curtains, and fell asleep. Worried that she wouldn't be able to sleep, she took two sleeping pills.
She slept from dawn to dusk, and then from dusk to dawn. She seemed to have intermittent dreams, but she couldn't recall what they were. When she woke, she felt extremely tired, and her temples ached as if someone had drilled them. She calculated the time and slept for nearly twenty hours.
There were several missed calls from Tong Jiayu on her phone, as well as calls from Song Mu and Yu Lei. After a moment of daze, Tang Ruxin put her phone down and went to the bathroom to wash up. In the mirror above the sink, she reflected her dejected face. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes were dark circles, her face was pale, and her expression was numb.
——This is her, Tang Ruxin who lived for twenty-nine years.
In her life so far, she'd been attached to three people. The first was dead, the second was gone, and the third, lost yesterday, too. She'd long ago understood that no one was indispensable in life; everyone's coming and going was merely a matter of fate. Given enough time, all wounds could be healed.
But the more beautiful the fate is when it arises, the more painful it will be when it ends.
All the memories of her past with Tong Jiayu flashed before her eyes, making it hard for Tang Ruxin to breathe. She bent down, resting her elbows on the sink, burying her face in her arms. It was nothing but deception and betrayal, nothing new.
It turns out that tears can flow even when people close their eyes.
“Do what you want to do, and if you don’t have it, do what you should do.”
——A voice suddenly sounded in her mind. This was what Luo Yi told her when she was fifteen years old.
Luo Yi was her mentor in investment, and the only man she had ever loved. However, her love was rejected by him. Not a rejection, but a denial. He simply didn't acknowledge her feelings for him as love, because she had confessed her feelings to him when she was less than sixteen. After being rejected so many times, she began to doubt herself.
Tang Ruxin suffered for two years, trapped in constant self-doubt and a burning love. On the day before she turned eighteen, the day she could finally put an end to her self-doubt, Luo Yi passed away.
As if he had never appeared, he left completely and cleanly, severing everything connected to her with a single stroke of a knife. She frantically searched for him, asking for his whereabouts and even calling the police. Only then did she learn that Luo Yi had resigned and gone to Canada.
He chose to leave the day before her eighteenth birthday, and the intention was self-evident - this time it was a rejection, not a denial.
The only thing he left her was endless chicken soup. The nonsense she had once despised and ignored would always pop up in the years that followed, pointing her to an uncertain future when she was at a loss.
Luo Yi never gave her answers, he only gave her directions.
In his words, the answers given by others are the most destructive things in the world. She didn't understand it at the time, but later she realized that he was right. Especially in life, if you blindly believe in a fixed answer, you will be ruined.
The thought of Luo Yi calmed Tang Ruxin down and sobered up. If Luo Yi saw her at this moment, he would probably regret taking her in as his apprentice - what a loser.
After washing her face, Tang Ruxin looked up at herself in the mirror. Her face looked exceptionally pale under the bathroom light, her eyes were bloodshot, and her lips were dry and chapped. Fortunately, her skin was still smooth and her hair was still intact.
She had no career, no friends, no love, no family, but at least she still had herself. Most importantly, she was healthy and well-off. Compared to those struggling with illness and the need for food, her current sadness seemed almost hypocritical.
Tang Ruxin puffed out her cheeks and slapped her face, trying to cheer herself up. She opened the mirror cabinet and wanted to spray her face with moisturizing spray, but then she remembered that this was the bathroom in Tong Jiayu's room.
She closed the mirror cabinet door, turned around and walked out of the bathroom, but stopped before reaching the door. Tang Ruxin turned slowly, her brows furrowed.
——What is that?
Back in the bathroom, Tang Ruxin opened the mirrored cabinet on the sink. Inside, a few cosmetics, nail polish, and jewelry boxes were scattered throughout. In the corner of the top shelf, an unopened package of sanitary napkins sat, covered in dust, clearly untouched for a long time. She tiptoed to remove the package. The production date on the packaging indicated it was two years past its expiration date.
If she remembered correctly, she'd bought this on a trip to Europe. She hadn't used it all, so she brought it back and it was borrowed by Tong Jiayu. Tang Ruxin couldn't understand why. Four years had passed, and Tong Jiayu hadn't finished it yet. Or had she just thrown it here and forgotten about it? It was only half full when she'd given it to her, and it was still half full now. It hadn't been used at all.
Just as she was trying to recall, the doorbell downstairs suddenly rang.
Tang Ruxin picked up her phone and turned on the surveillance camera, only to see Yu Zhe's face. She clicked her tongue, flicked off the screen, put the half-packed sanitary napkin back where it belonged, and closed the door.
Then the phone vibrated and buzzed. It was Yu Zhe calling.
"Don't tell me you're not home. Your car is still at the door."
Tang Ruxin sneered and said, "If I don't open the door for you, do you still need to pretend you're not home?"
Just as she was about to hang up, she heard Yu Zhe say loudly, "Let's talk."
"About what?"
Yu Zhe was silent for a moment, then whispered, "Open the door first."
"Speak up or get out."
"Tang Jiulin wants to sell Donghe Refining."
Hearing this, Tang Ruxin was stunned for a while. This news was indeed beyond her expectations.
Donghe Refining and Chemical suffered a series of incidents in a short period of time, causing not only a sharp drop in its stock price but also alerting the provincial Emergency Management Department and the Public Security Department. The municipal government even issued a notice for rectification. The board of directors sacrificed Safety Director Tang Ruxin to stabilize the provincial department and gain time to delay the shutdown and rectification. Yu Lei also alleviated the pressure from the provincial Public Security Department by naming Zhou Jiyao as a suspect.
Originally, if they had simply followed the procedures and thoroughly investigated what needed to be investigated and convicted, the crisis at Donghe Refining could have been resolved. Even if it couldn't be resolved, it wouldn't have necessitated a sale. Furthermore, under current circumstances, liquidating the assets would result in a much lower market valuation.
It's impossible for Tang Jiulin not to understand all this, yet he still chose to sell the company now. Something must have happened that she didn't know about. But no matter what, the company was Tang Jiulin's, and as long as the board of directors had no objection, what right did she, a suspended security director, have to say?
She hadn't joined the company to fight for power or wealth; initially, she just wanted to make things difficult for Zhe. However, as she worked, she developed an inappropriate competitive spirit.
If Tang Jiulin selling the company would make Yu Zhe upset, then she would support it.
"Open the door." Yu Zhe's impatient voice came from the receiver of the mobile phone, interrupting her thoughts.
"Okay, some other time." Tang Ruxin hung up the phone. When she thought she would die if she didn't open the door one day, she would consider opening the door for Yu Zhe.
There seemed to be a few curses coming from outside the window, but Tang Ruxin was too lazy to pay attention to them and turned around and left the bathroom.
She hadn't been to Tong Jiayu's room for a long time, or rather, she hadn't been to this room since she moved into this townhouse and arranged the furniture.
Tong Jiayu favored sober colors, and her bedroom had a rather cool, rather chill style, a stark contrast to her cheerful and lively personality. Aside from the bed, which had been messed up by Tang Ruxin, everything else was kept neat and tidy. The angles and positions of things were arranged with an obsessive-compulsive meticulousness, a stark contrast to her carefree nature.
Tang Ruxin frowned slightly in annoyance. She was too thick-skinned. She had never noticed that Tong Jiayu had so many contradictions before. She only thought that she was considerate, hardworking, and gave enough emotional value.
Could it be that Tong Jiayu had been acting in front of her for longer than she thought?
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