Chapter 47 My heart beats forty-seven times, wanting to hug him
He already had to be on guard against Lu Zhixue in the company, and now Dong Chen showed up.
He didn't realize that they had such good taste.
Xu Youjing stopped at the intersection and asked, "Did Peak provide any benefits to its employees in previous years?"
Wen Huai thought for a moment, "Does the salary increase and year-end bonus count?"
He was more specific: "For single employees."
"Yes, there are subsidies for single employees to rent housing and travel."
He shook his head, feeling it was difficult to have both.
But compared to them, he should think more about what to eat in the evening.
As the car drove out of Zhongshan Road, Xu Youjing asked her, "What do you want to eat?"
"Hmm..." Wen Huai was a little embarrassed.
This was their first dinner together since they knew each other's feelings for each other, and she was looking forward to it. But she couldn't bear to refuse Lu Miaomiao on the other end of the phone.
I had to say first: "My good friend just told me that she met her ex-boyfriend."
Xu Youjing thought of Nandi that afternoon and asked, "Can't let it go either?"
Wen Huai didn't notice the "also". "Do you remember the last time Nandi and Xi Guan came to our house?"
"Yeah." He added, "Remember that time when he said he would drink three cans."
Wen Huai: "..."
"Nandy asked me if I knew his girlfriend, and I said no. Actually, I lied to him."
Xu Youjing realized something.
Wen Huai's voice rang out: "Not only do I know her, she's also my best friend since childhood, my only good friend."
She concealed the truth when Nandi pressed her, also to protect her friend. Nandi's behavior at the time made it impossible for Wen Huai to consider him a rational person.
Xu Youjing can understand.
As soon as he finished speaking, Wen Huai's phone vibrated.
Seeing the note, she said, "It's Miaomiao."
Then I picked up the phone and the voice from the other end could be clearly heard inside the car.
"Are you working overtime at this hour, or are you on your way home?"
Wen Huai said truthfully: "I just got off work, where are you now?"
"It's the Western restaurant on the street northeast of our house. It's the old place, you know."
Just as he was about to ask Xu Youjing, Wen Huai turned around and saw his slender fingers tapping on the navigation screen, and the final destination shown was the western restaurant.
Seeing that Wen Huai seemed to be asking for his opinion, Xu Youjing raised an eyebrow at her and whispered, "I'm OK with everything."
Perhaps because his voice was still hoarse and muffled due to the mask, the abrupt male voice fell clearly into Lu Miaomiao's ears on the other side of the receiver.
She was stunned for a moment before she realized, "Your upstart husband is right next to you!" Then her mood dropped. "So you can't come?"
"Wait for me." The navigation showed twelve minutes, and Wen Huai went there at the same time.
"Woo woo, Ai Bao has to be you. I knew you weren't the type to forget your friends for the sake of a beautiful woman! Although I unintentionally disturbed your world of two, it shows that your husband is still a good person! You can give him a reward when you go back. Your bestie approves!"
"Ahem!" Wen Huai hurriedly read the reply, "Okay, okay, then you wait for me there, I'll be right away."
After the call ended, Wen Huai didn't know whether Xu Youjing had heard her or not. Believing she could get away with it by not saying anything, she apologized naturally.
"Sorry, I stood you up today."
"It's okay." He drove slowly. "Is the address correct?"
"right."
"Um."
Feeling the car's speed increase significantly, Wen Huai looked at the night view outside the window, feeling an indescribable mixture of emotions.
Xu Youjing was thinking about something else: "Is your friend still obsessed with Nandi?"
"I've let it go." She was sure.
Xu Youjing didn't understand: "Then..."
Wen Huai knew what he wanted to ask.
Since Lu Miaomiao has let go of her ex-boyfriend and is not feeling sad because of the reunion with her ex, why does she still seek comfort from her best friend?
Wen Huai put it succinctly and concisely: "Miaomiao was sad for a long time when we first broke up, but the problems between us were there, and sadness wouldn't change anything. Miaomiao has a free and easy personality and can let go easily, so the few times she wanted to fall in love, or heard about him from mutual friends, she would drag me to this Western restaurant."
“What’s the story behind this Western restaurant?”
"I guess so. Maybe Miaomiao thinks this is the only place with an accent near her home, and once inside, she inexplicably becomes reserved in her posture and speech. Whenever I feel like crying, I think about the looks of the people around me, and I can hold it back and not feel so sad anymore."
Xu Youjing said after a moment: "It is more free and easy than Nandi."
He told her what happened in the afternoon and said, "You don't have to tell her next time you see me."
What he said was that there was no need to tell Nandi that Lu Miaomiao was her best friend.
Wen Huai nodded, but he thought about the wedding. The two sides would have to meet each other eventually. By then——
Realizing that her thoughts had strayed, she hurriedly looked away, only to see Xu Youjing in the reflection of the glass.
The mask covered half of his face. From the side, his tall nose was half blocked, and the rest was buried under the mask.
Despite this, the lines are smooth and straight, and ordinary masks cannot cover the three-dimensional facial features with clear contours.
Seeing his thinness, Wen Huai lowered his eyes.
He'd been working non-stop lately, with no time to rest. He'd even had a fever of nearly 40 degrees Celsius that morning, and had barely slept for two hours while going to the hospital for an IV drip. He'd been in a long meeting that afternoon, and now he hadn't even had dinner, and now he had to go back to see her off.
In the silence, she suddenly said, "How about I take a taxi? You go home first to eat and take your medicine, so that you don't get sick again."
Xu Youjing didn't say yes or no. Wen Huai was unsure and was about to explain again when a muffled question came from beside him.
"Isn't it a reward?"
She was stunned.
The car slowly stopped, and the driver looked over, his eyes bright: "I don't want this reward."
“…”
It was the evening rush hour.
A constant stream of cars passed by, and pedestrians took over on their own, with the sounds of smiles and laughter from people holding hands and talking coming in from the car windows.
Unprepared to see the tenderness in his eyes, Wen Huai suddenly felt excited and wanted to hug him.
"Xu Youjing..."
"Just kidding." He changed the subject in time, the car lock fell, and he helped Wen Huai unbuckle his seat belt, "Don't drink."
"Yeah." Wen Huai pulled the door lightly and turned to look at him.
Xu Youjing still kept looking: "What's wrong?"
She didn't say "No need to wait for me" in the end, she just said: "Be careful on the road."
After saying that, without waiting for Xu Youjing to speak, he pushed the door open with force and got out of the car.
Done in one go.
As if she was running away, she didn't even look back at the black car.
Wen Huai knew that she was afraid.
Afraid he would say yes.
She secretly hoped that Xu Youjing could wait for her, but then she thought, it was still unknown when she would end it, not to mention that he was sick.
So she killed this idea as soon as it came up. Xu Youjing was not stupid, so she would not do that. The sentence "You don't have to wait for me" became a self-indulgent joke of hers.
Perhaps because she didn't want to show her funny side in front of the person she liked, and didn't want to face her selfish self, Wen Huai left in a hurry. It wasn't until the door of the western restaurant closed that she realized how ridiculous her one-man show had been.
The one-sided secret love turned into a two-way rush. She, who was in a passive position, took the initiative. Wen Huai's mentality had not changed, and he was caught in a dilemma.
She sighed and felt that she was really bad in terms of relationships.
The waiter led the way and Wen Huai saw Lu Miaomiao.
"Miaomiao."
Lu Miaomiao was distracted, and when she heard the words, the sadness in her eyes had not yet disappeared.
"So fast." She smiled, her complexion returning to normal. "Let's see what you want to eat."
Wen Huai took the menu and asked, "Do you want to order the same ones as before?"
"Okay." Lu Miaomiao looked through the menu when she arrived. There were no new dishes. "Let's order another dessert. Do you want one?"
"good."
Handing the menu to the waitress, Lu Miaomiao took the phone and showed it to her.
Wen Huai looked at the official account on the screen, but before he could scroll down, he asked, "Did you do this?"
"Look at this one."
She zoomed in on the photo and saw that the woman's face in the center of the screen was very asymmetrical.
Observing Wen Huai's expression, Lu Miaomiao said, "I recently resurrected my previously abandoned public account. As soon as I logged in, I saw the article that Director Mei's welfare home posted on Monday about attracting investors. I didn't want to click on it, but I also wanted to see what she looks like now. And when I did, look at her face."
"The left side of her face is so much more swollen than the right. Did she offend someone and get beaten up, or is she just angry?"
Dean Mei is what Lu Miaomiao calls Wen Huai's mother.
"have no idea."
Wen Huai recalled that everything was fine the last time they met.
Seeing that she had no reaction, Lu Miaomiao took back the phone and planned to end the topic: "Who cares? She must be feeling very uncomfortable anyway. It's her own fault!"
"How are you getting along with your husband?" She pointed at the watch on Wen Huai's wrist and smiled wickedly, "Brother, you got some gold coins again."
"I think you're doing pretty well now. You're married, and your husband is willing to spend money on you. He's often away on business. Although he doesn't spend as much time with you, at least he's willing to spend money on you. I—"
"Miao Miao." Wen Huai couldn't bear to interrupt her.
"Um?"
She pursed her lips.
The two had been close friends for years, so Wen Huai naturally knew what Lu Miaomiao looked like when she was happy or sad. From the moment she sat down, she wasn't talking about anything personal; it was clear she was deliberately avoiding a certain topic.
Wen Huai sighed, "If it's really uncomfortable, we can change places."
Lu Miaomiao always put away her smile, her back slumped, "It's not uncomfortable, it's just..."
It was hard to describe the feeling. In short, her chest felt tight, and she had no interest. She was always distracted and thinking about a lot of things that happened between them in the past.
Just like—
"It's like losing something you loved so much and suddenly finding it back. You're subconsciously overjoyed, but then realize you don't need it anymore, but you can't bear to part with the thing you once loved."
Lu Miaomiao exclaimed softly, "Don't say it, it's true, how did you know?"
"Don't I know you? A phone case I really liked broke, and I wanted to buy another one, but the store had sold it. I've tried several replacements, but none of them felt the same as the first one, and now I'm stuck with a bare phone."
Lu Miaomiao felt a little guilty, "It's not that I don't need the one you bought, it's just that I used it for two days and I still prefer the bare metal one."
Wen Huai didn't dwell on this little thing, and only asked her: "Do you still like Nandi?"
The person opposite paused, thought about it seriously, and shook his head.
"Maybe it's just like you said. What I can't bear to give up is the love I once gave him. I don't have any feelings for him anymore." Lu Miaomiao recalled her first feeling after seeing him today and shook her head again. "It's been a long time since we last met, and he's still the same. He must be eating and spending money at home again. How boring."
Wen Huai opened her lips, and when the words came to her lips, she found that Nandi seemed to be doing just as she said.
Xi Guan is a jewelry designer who now owns a bar. But Nandi, on the other hand, leaves her with the impression of a playboy who can't let go of his past. He reveals their past relationship to everyone who might know Lu Miaomiao, which is very unseemly.
"There's a very nice colleague in our group who wants to introduce me to someone. I think it's time for me to find someone to date." She propped up her chin and asked, "Ai Bao, what do you think?"
Wen Huai had only one request: "Find someone you like."
"Of course." She laughed.
The food was served and the two of them ate while chatting.
The topic ranged from childhood playmates to a friend's circle of friends, and finally, when the dessert ran out, Lu Miaomiao added, "Anyway, I won't have children. What about you? Will you?"
Wen Huai had never thought about this question, but Lu Miaomiao saw the clue.
"Have you and your husband been using contraception?"
Wen Huai choked on the cream.
It’s neither yes nor no, and it’s not right to say no either.
She covered her mouth and her eyes were red.
"Okay, I won't tease you anymore. Your birthday is coming soon. What birthday present do you want?"
Before Wen Huai could speak, Lu Miaomiao had an idea and gave her a wicked smile: "This birthday gift will definitely satisfy you!"
Wen Huai had a vague sense of foreboding.
Lu Miaomiao was still worried that it would be unsafe for Wen Huai to go back at night, so the two of them didn't chat too late.
The temperature was a bit low on a September night, and the air conditioning blasted through her as she left the restaurant. Lu Miaomiao was wearing few clothes today, and Wen Huai was afraid she would catch a cold, so he didn't ask her to accompany him in a taxi.
Wen Huai waved goodbye to her and walked to the side of the road. Before she could see if there were any drivers to take the order, a bright light suddenly hit her shoulder, and her entire arm was numb from the impact, and she could hardly hold the phone.
"Excuse me."
The words that came out of his mouth also made Wen Huai see the man's face, and his pupils trembled.
She wanted to leave, but her way was blocked.
The man's cloudy eyes narrowed, and his rough voice seemed to pull her back to the dark memories of the past:
"Long time no see, little intern."
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