Chapter 10: The Capitalists Finally Find Love
Chapter 10t
"You two know each other?"
Gao Qiongwen clapped her hands excitedly, "I was just worried about how to get you two to get to know each other. Now that you know each other, it's easy."
Bian Lin's eyes crinkled, and he seemed to be in a good mood. "Teacher Xiaoyu's videos are really interesting, but there are too few of them. It's not enough to watch."
Gao Qiongwen teased Xia Zhiyu, "Look, you said your self-media work was just so-so, and Bian Lin has come to urge you to update in person."
Fang Xinle chuckled and teased Xia Zhiyu, "I think it's more than just urging for more updates."
Bian Lin's ears turned red, and the skin exposed above the collar of his T-shirt was completely red. He made an excuse to go get some wine, and before leaving, he made sure to ask Xia Zhiyu what flavor she liked.
Sima Zhao's intentions are obvious to everyone.
Gao Qiongwen whispered mysteriously in Xia Zhiyu's ear,
"Look, that kid heard we were classmates, so he bought me a rather expensive bag just so I could bring him to this gathering."
After saying that, she winked at Bian Lin, the mischievous look in her eyes clearly visible.
Xia Zhiyu said helplessly, "You know I have a boyfriend."
Gao Qiongwen raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with having a boyfriend? You two both work in social media, so you must have common ground in shooting and storyboarding. Does being in a relationship mean you can't have friends of the opposite sex?"
"And in my opinion, if you haven't had any contact with someone for almost a year, then you're basically assuming they're your ex."
One sentence left Xia Zhiyu speechless.
Everyone had had a few drinks, and they became closer as they chatted and laughed. Fang Xinle quickly joined in the socializing. She worked in personal finance, and her classmates were also part of her target group.
A voice suddenly came from across the table, "Didn't our class representative date a really rich young master back in school? Why didn't she bring him today?"
The class representative was Xia Zhiyu. It took her a while to remember who the man was.
The guy's name is Zhao Song. He pursued Xia Zhiyu for two weeks during his sophomore year. He gave her gifts like keychains and three stuffed animals that cost ten yuan each at the wholesale market. After being rejected by Xia Zhiyu, he became angry and started targeting her.
It looks like a toad; it's not scary, it's disgusting.
He had always liked the sarcastic and scheming Xia Zhiyu when he was in school, and the malice in his words was even clearer in this conversation.
Zhao Song, his yellowed fingertips holding a cigarette holder, leaned back in his chair, thinking himself very cool and relaxed, pouting as he smoked, his nostrils flaring out like exhaust pipes.
“I’m not working as a public relations manager in Jiangyuan right now. I happened to run into your rich boyfriend a while ago. He also has a student, and they’re quite close. I think her name is… uh, Liu Miaoqi. The two of them work together perfectly on cases, and I heard they’re even planning to get married.”
"I thought the guy looked familiar, and then I remembered that he was our class monitor's boyfriend after I saw his name."
He smiled at Xia Zhiyu, seemingly oblivious to the tense atmosphere, and with a sigh, offered his suggestion.
"But all rich people are like this. They keep their wives at home while having affairs on the side. If I dared to do that, my partner would skin me alive. It would have to be our class monitor, who is magnanimous and can tolerate it."
He then gave a thumbs-up.
There was a moment of silence at the dinner table. Xia Zhiyu unconsciously tightened her grip on her wine glass. Several classmates who had been talking quickly exchanged glances, and then silently looked at Xia Zhiyu in unison.
The atmosphere became awkward.
Xia Zhiyu was in an even more awkward position.
If this were Xia Zhiyu from her university days, she would have thrown a glass of wine in Zhao Song's face to wake him up and shut him up. Even if he died, was buried, or burned to ashes, Jiang Zhiyan would never cheat on him.
But what's truly disheartening is that after two years of working, Xia Zhiyu can't even utter a single word of rebuttal.
Alcohol fermentation caused my mind to go blank.
Xia Zhiyu seemed to have developed the ability to predict the future using teacups without any formal instruction. Staring at the wine stains on the transparent glass, she suddenly sensed that Beicheng and Jiang Zhiyan would ruthlessly steal away her life force.
As long as she still wants to control her own life and wants others to stop humiliating her with scandalous love stories, Xia Zhiyu cannot stay here.
She was unwilling to live in Jiang Zhiyan's shadow, like a parasite eking out a living in someone else's life.
Life is short, only a hundred years. She must live with dignity and integrity. Even if Jiang Zhiyan could pluck the stars from the sky for her, so what? Love is not about material things or control. If he doesn't learn to respect her autonomy, everything is in vain.
Whether it's Jiang Jing, her colleagues, or her classmates, their contempt for her stems from her dependence on Jiang Zhiyan, a feeling that is too painful.
She can't live like this, and her parents wouldn't want her to live such a humiliating life.
She is their darling, there's no reason for her not to love and cherish herself.
My heart suddenly calmed down.
The malice grew with the silence, and Zhao Song's expression became more and more pleased and satisfied. He was getting extremely happy after defaming Xia Zhiyu.
Xia Zhiyu loosened her grip on the wine glass and watched Zhao Song hopping around like a grasshopper. "I followed up on the Jiangyuan case from beginning to end and dealt with the public relations manager a few times. How come I've never seen you before?"
"Otherwise, I'll go back and ask Wang Li if he forgot to mention you when he introduced me to a few managers. We're going through bankruptcy proceedings recently, so I don't want to underpay you or upset my wife when I get home."
"After all, it's not easy for your wife to live with your face every day."
Her sharp and sarcastic tone was exactly the same as Jiang Zhiyan's.
Xia Zhiyu stared coldly at Zhao Song, her beautiful face naturally showing a hint of contempt, as if she were looking at trash.
The dinner table was unusually quiet.
Zhao Song's puffed-out cheeks gradually turned red, and his swollen eye bags bulged like a frog's. When the cigarette burned to the end and reached his fingertips, he cried out in pain, finally finding an excuse to hide in the bathroom.
As soon as he left, the atmosphere became lively again, as if the farce had never happened.
"Wow, Yu Yu, you were so cool when you were sarcastic to Zhao Song just now," Gao Qiongwen whispered in her ear, "I remember you cried during your argument before, but now you can retaliate so scathingly. Society really is a big dyeing vat, it has even changed the color of my innocent and cute Yu Yu."
Xia Zhiyu smiled and gave a few perfunctory replies, but the image of Jiang Zhiyan mocking her flashed through her mind.
There were no lessons from society; she became the way she is now entirely because of how Jiang Zhiyan treated her every time she made a mistake at work.
She's sharp-tongued, critical, and full of arrogance. She's not stupid; after being hurt so many times, she'll naturally learn how to hurt others.
Xia Zhiyu took a sip of wine, the bitter liquid flowing down her throat.
Looking back on these past few years, it really is true what Lele said.
Aside from her deteriorating health, she had nothing left.
Beautiful love has faded into the past.
I haven't even been able to spend much time with my parents.
It's utterly useless.
-
As they chatted, they couldn't help but talk about work again. The industry has been sluggish for the past two years, and salary cuts have become the norm, while prices are rising day by day. Many of the classmates who are good-looking are working in the self-media industry, and a few of them are quite well-known.
This also includes the summer juvenile fish.
When Xia Zhiyu heard her familiar voice coming from the computer, she almost spat out her drink.
The heat suddenly hit my cheeks.
How can attending a class reunion involve public execution?!
"I said back then, it's such a waste that Zhiyu's face isn't that of an internet celebrity."
Song Ran smiled like a Maitreya Buddha, her eyes narrowed into slits. "I've noticed that the couple blogger category is quite popular lately. A lot of companies are having their bloggers copy couples, and that's how the buzz starts, isn't it?"
"The ambiguous period, the passionate period, the cold period, the quarrel, the breakup, and the reconciliation could all be made into a TV series."
"You should try it too, Zhiyu. You have a good sense of the internet, you're sure to become popular."
Gao Qiongwen laughed and replied, "Little handsome blogger, you have one right here. Zhiyu, do you think our Bian Lin is handsome enough?"
The two of them sang in unison as if they had planned it all along, and Xia Zhiyu wished she could disappear into a crack in the ground.
Song Ran thought that it was fine since she had broken up with her boyfriend, but how could someone like Gao Qiongwen, who knew the situation, speak up for her?
What if someone in the know heard this and thought they would think of her?
"Xia Lu, what a coincidence, you're having dinner here too?"
Liu Miaoqi stood at the entrance of the small hall, her long hair tied up on one side of her shoulder, wearing a white spaghetti strap dress. She looked very casual and didn't seem like she was going to work.
She was arm in arm with a beautiful woman, who appeared to be her mother.
Jiang Jing also stopped in her tracks, looking at Xia Zhiyu without the slightest surprise, as if she had known all along that Xia Zhiyu would be here.
A handsome man and a beautiful woman, from similar family backgrounds, they are indeed a perfect match.
Xia Zhiyu turned around and met Jiang Zhiyan's deep, dark eyes. The man's expression was also unusually bad, as if he was very unwilling to see her here.
She inappropriately thought of the words Song Ran had used when she brought them in.
"This hotel is very expensive. It costs nearly two million to host a wedding here. My wife and I have looked at it several times, but she still couldn't bring herself to book it."
It is indeed very expensive; she and Jiang Zhiyan had looked at this hotel before.
Jiang Zhiyan said at the time that he didn't like the lawn wedding style. He felt that a proposal could be romantic, but the wedding had to be solemn.
Xia Zhiyu always accommodated Jiang Zhiyan, so naturally she wouldn't get entangled in such matters.
Although her childhood fantasy of weddings consisted of lush green grass and colorful balloons swaying in the wind.
Behind her were her classmates and friends, two or three of whom had bumped into Jiang Zhiyan at school. At this moment, they all secretly looked at Xia Zhiyu, their gazes not intense, but their desire to spy on her was extremely strong.
Just like her colleagues at the institute, even though they didn't know the facts, they could arbitrarily label her as a mistress because of the difference in social status between her and Jiang Zhiyan.
How ridiculous! They're law students, yet they're more skilled at spreading rumors than anyone else. Anyway, the number of people affected won't exceed 500. She won't commit suicide, so it's hardly a serious case.
Nobody cared about her feelings.
She was busy all day long, but the meager money she earned was barely enough for her medical treatment, not even enough to cover compensation for emotional distress.
Sure enough, no matter how much you struggle, it's just not suitable.
She worked for two and a half years, but this year she couldn't meet as many of the demands as Liu Miaoqi, who had only been at the law firm for six months.
What does this prove? Does it mean she's worse than Liu Miaoqi?
Of course not. Jiang Zhiyan and Jiang Jing are just stuck in a mindset that has become entrenched in meritocracy.
This only shows that Xia Zhiyu is not suited for this profession. She cannot derive a sense of pride from the legal profession, so it is only natural that she is indifferent to her work.
In contrast, self-media is completely different. She enjoys creating, writing scripts and conceiving storyboards, and seeing the praise in the comments section and private messages makes her feel incredibly happy.
But Xia Zhiyu couldn't respond to the audience because she knew that this was a crooked path in Jiang Zhiyan's eyes.
In this relationship, she proactively adopted Jiang Zhiyan's values as the standard so that she could act according to Jiang Zhiyan's ideas without thinking.
He lived numbly, without questioning or thinking, in order to win the approval of Jiang Zhiyan and Jiang Jing.
What was the final result?
She helped Jiang Zhiyan devour her own independent personality and become a qualified dodder.
To hell with those crooked and evil ways.
She didn't agree with Jiang Zhiyan's logic.
What's wrong with self-media? She can already get an ad worth a thousand yuan, and her future is only bright.
Why haven't I seen Jiang Zhiyan gain 50,000 followers with just seven or eight videos?
Fish, you need to find yourself again.
She silently repeated it to herself, the smile on her lips remaining unchanged, her gaze calm and serene as she looked at Liu Miaoqi.
"Yes, what a coincidence, it's our college reunion. Is Lawyer Liu here to choose a wedding venue? I heard you and Lawyer Jiang are getting married soon, congratulations!"
It's not just her and the law that are inappropriate.
She and Jiang Zhiyan were the same.
And so, the wealthy finally became a couple.
A note from the author:
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Xiao Bian is our adorable second male lead!
Lately, while writing, I've been obsessed with the romance between Yu Yu and Zhi Yan. How can two people have such a captivating argument? They're crying while throwing darts at each other's hearts! I really want to share this with you all, but this damn VIP list still has one more character. Please, please, please add a few more likes and add it to your favorites quickly! I want to enjoy this romance with my readers!
P.S.: Oh my god, I suddenly thought of a really bittersweet line while taking a shower, and I'm going to write another book about "wife-chasing crematorium" because of this line.
Unrequited love is a secret girl's heart, while open love is a well-known joke.
But I've clearly loved you for many years.
I almost cried while typing this. This book is the first one I'm adding to my pre-order list. If you want to read more of my "wife-chasing crematorium" stories, please add it to your favorites!
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