Episode 39 Uninvited Guests
Lin Ying was naturally surprised when she received the resume from Jiang Shu, but thinking about what happened in his house last time and the gallery's current predicament - once Cen Shuo left, the position would be vacant, so she naturally had no reason to ignore it.
When she clicked on the resume and saw the education section, she couldn't help but frown. But when she saw the dense social experience below, one of them really piqued her curiosity——
Xu Yiwei participated in the international art exchange exhibition three years ago as a university volunteer.
That art exhibition was open to the general public, with university art majors and interest clubs as its core force. It was initiated by several universities with excellent art resources, and then cooperated with large and well-known media and cultural companies. Even the sponsors included several major ones, including Jianglin Group. It was a grand and flourishing carnival comparable to an art festival.
For such an event, she was 18 years old at the time, a junior college student from a non-professional and non-famous university, and she was responsible for publicity planning and copywriting coordination. The attachments also contained the content she had done at the time. When you click on it, you can see that for a layman, her level was quite good.
But her academic qualifications were a major flaw, so Lin Ying had a special talk with Wang Duo about this.
After hearing this, he readily agreed to Lin Ying's arrangement of this interview.
"Didn't you say before that for non-technical positions like administration, the most important thing is to be able to lead by example within the team? With the current environment, academic qualifications aren't a big deal.
Besides... since it was recommended by President Jiang himself, his ability shouldn't be too bad, right?"
Xu Yiwei received an interview invitation from Tengchun and was so excited that he almost fell down while going up the stairs.
In her excitement, she forgot to knock. She pushed open the study door and reported to the person in front of the computer: "Tengchun notified me to go for an interview! Thank you, Mr. Jiang, for the recommendation!"
At that time, Jiang Shu was in a temporary video conference, wearing a Bluetooth headset, explaining his arrangements expressionlessly. Jiang Yueling and Lin Jidong were also in the meeting. The lock of the study had been damaged due to theft, which led to Xu Yiwei's accidental intrusion. This voice-over obviously caused the atmosphere on the Internet to become inexplicably stiff for a moment.
She quickly expressed her apology to Jiang Shu with her eyes, closed the door and slipped away quickly.
Jiang Shu did not tell his mother about the theft at his villa. When the meeting was over, he turned off the camera as usual. His mother Jiang Yueling immediately questioned him:
"Are you in love again?"
Although he asked about "dating", Jiang Yueling had already known the nature of this relationship. Whenever she heard the news that he had dated a girl in the past, she would definitely come to ask about it.
He didn't want to pay attention to it, but thinking about the last time the mother and son parted on bad terms, and the little tricks she had with the Song mother and daughter, Jiang Shu simply followed her words and pretended to admit it.
"Yes, I'm serious this time."
He has found a new place to live and will officially move in today.
The next morning, the housekeeping staff who had been contacted in advance came to load the goods and gradually moved out the large daily necessities, valuables and even the safe in the villa. Jiang Shu was personally collecting the scattered books in the study when he was suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Mr. Jiang, I'm going to the interview later."
Xu Yiwei's outfit and makeup today are very simple. She is not wearing heavy makeup, but she also does not lose her temperament and color. Her clothes are even more plain, a tight T-shirt with hiking pants, simple but energetic. She carries a medium-sized backpack, which seems to contain all her wealth - as if she is still a student.
Maybe she was like this at the beginning.
"Have you found a new place to live?"
She nodded. "I'll move in right after the interview. Thank you for your care during this time. I wish you all the best in the future!"
After the villa was robbed, Jiang Shu told her to be careful about finding a place to stay. He thought she would play the victim again, but now it seems that she can still be forced out...
Despite many changes, they did not develop any revolutionary friendship, and they were not even ordinary friends.
At this moment, as they were about to part ways, Jiang Shu had nothing to offer in lavish consolation. He simply politely replied, "You too," then leaned forward and continued to tidy up the bookcase...
Xu Yiwei hesitated for a few seconds, wanting to say something but stopping for a moment, and finally went downstairs.
However, when she walked to the entrance and opened the door, she saw a girl in a sports suit and a high ponytail standing at the door. Her wheat-colored skin was particularly eye-catching. She looked not much older than herself, but her temperament was much more mature and sophisticated.
After seeing each other, they were both startled... The other party also quickly looked at Xu Yiwei, withdrew the hand that was about to press the bell, and smiled, revealing a row of neat teeth -
"Hello, does Jiang Shu live here?"
Her Mandarin is basically standard, but you can still hear a Hong Kong accent in the ending tone.
Xu Yiwei was stunned: "He is still living here now."
The man frowned, as if trying to understand what was said, but Jiang Shu's voice just happened to ring out from behind him - "Song Qi, why are you here?"
His tone and expression were slightly annoyed, and it was obvious that this person's appearance was beyond his expectations.
"Aunti told me your address before, and I see it's so close to my apartment, but I've never come to visit you... Are you moving now?"
Her voice was light and airy, completely opposite to Jiang Shu's reaction. However, Xu Yiwei sensed some ambiguity in the tension...
"You forgot something."
Jiang Shu stretched out his hand and handed her thermos cup over.
"Ah...thank you!"
She doesn't have many things, and this thermos is the "luggage" that has been with her the longest. She almost forgot about it.
"You go first, take care."
After urging Xu Yiwei to leave, Jiang Shu's expression remained grim. He then turned to Song Qi in a cold tone and asked, "What are you doing here?"
She pointed in the direction Xu Yiwei left and said to him:
"New sp?"
"I'm asking you."
"Why are you so fierce?" She complained in her tone and said slowly,
"I recently heard from a neighbor that a nearby villa had been burglarized, but I couldn't find any information online. I asked the neighbors and found out it was your house, so I came to express my condolences to you. I didn't expect it to be such a coincidence that I would catch you moving."
"I'm afraid someone might take advantage of this, so I've limited the number of people. As you can see, you came at an inopportune time. I'm busy moving and don't have time to entertain you. Please make yourself at your own convenience."
Jiang Shu invited her in to talk, and took a bottle of purified water from the cupboard that had not yet been cleaned. Just as he was about to throw his arms around and continue upstairs, he didn't expect Song Qi to have a backup plan:
"Don't you want to know the real purpose of Mommy and I coming to Shanghai?"
He paused and looked around warily - there was nothing to move on the first floor, so the housekeeping staff were upstairs at the moment.
"Just say what you want to say, don't keep me in suspense."
Song Qi curled the corners of his lips and said generously——
"Mommy came to Shanghai this time, ostensibly to help Daddy expand his business, but in reality, she wanted to invest on her own. My Daddy has many illegitimate children, some of whom are outstanding. Over the years, he has helped them both openly and secretly, established many trust funds, secretly transferred assets and shares, and even secretly updated his will every year..."
Although he would never mistreat me, his only daughter, he wouldn't necessarily treat Mommy badly. That's why Mommy wants us to get married, splitting up the large assets behind our respective families, diluting our equity, and then investing and expanding our business in mainland China under the names of husband and wife. This is a shortcut."
"Don't tell me you came here in person today just to lobby for a marriage."
Song Qi burst into laughter, her eyebrows curved in a shrewd and charming way:
"I'm here to lobby, not to arrange a marriage. My ex-boyfriend was a third party for love and ended up being a loser. I'm not that cheap to cling to someone like that..."
Jiang Shu snorted coldly, his tone obscure but not unhappy: "Same here."
The trigger for their breakup was a scandalous story Jiang Shu had read in the media: a popular movie star was secretly dating a mysterious woman. The attached photo was a paparazzi photo. While the quality was comparable to porn, the limited-edition baseball cap on the "mysterious woman" still gave him a clue to her true identity...
When Song Qi returned home that day, he put the photo and the hat he bought for her when he went shopping with her together.
Seeing the truth coming out, Song Qi was not panicked, but was unusually calm, saying indifferently:
"Don't worry, this young actor just starred in a movie that my dad invested in. They won't dare do anything to me."
At such times, the calmer the cheating party is, the more indignant the cuckolded party will be.
In fact, he wasn't surprised by Song Qi's behavior. She loved to have fun and had no worries about money. Taking advantage of her career and background, she could easily enter various circles and occasions. He had always turned a blind eye to it in the past, but ever since she mentioned marriage, Jiang Shu subconsciously thought that Song Qi would restrain herself...
That's why after he saw through this, he angrily exposed it—
"You even took the initiative to bring up marriage before. Is this your attitude towards marriage?"
"What's the point of getting married? You haven't even agreed..."
Song Qi reluctantly started speaking in Mandarin, then calmed down for a moment before switching back to Mandarin.
"Jiang Shu, do you know why I chose you to marry? Because you're just like me, you're not that serious about relationships. Didn't you say you didn't bother dating in the past? Why do you have to talk about 'loyalty' when you get married?"
He felt like he'd heard an old joke, one that was more intriguing than the joke itself. He mocked her, but it also seemed like he was mocking himself: "You mean, married but still in an open relationship? It doesn't matter whether you have each other in your heart, or whether you're sleeping with each other. As long as you're legally recognized as each other, that's enough, right?"
"What else? Just take what you need. Jiang Shu, I thought you could understand..."
"I don't understand."
Jiang Shu's face darkened. "I haven't considered whether to marry you in the first place, and I won't do that now. Let's break up."
After saying that, he was about to take his coat and leave, but this made Song Qi vent:
"You are only allowed to be a mistress to a married woman, but you are not allowed to be cuckolded by others, right?"
These words hit him like a brick, and he froze in his tracks...
"Over the years, you've always been talking about someone else when you had sex with me. One time, you were drunk and talked a little too much... Did I really guess the whole story?"
"you……"
"So what if I cheated on my partner? Didn't you? Or do you think mental infidelity is noble? Even though I changed boyfriends, I never ate one and thought about another. Unlike you, you kiss one woman's mouth while thinking about another woman's body. Do you think you are so affectionate and loyal?"
It's not that you haven't considered marrying me, it's that you don't want to get married at all. You just can't give in to the partnership we've built over the years. Seeing me cheating on you, are you relieved? Did I finally find a good excuse to get out of this?!
The argument that night ended with Yijiang running out of the apartment wearing only a single piece of clothing. Rain and fog were swirling outside the window. The yachts in Victoria Harbour were still bustling, but the lights were dim and depressing. A whistle could be heard in the distance.
He stood in front of a grocery store to avoid the rain, and lit a cigarette after a long time. The tobacco was disrupted by the rain. The background music in the store was the song "Under the Mount Fuji"——
"If you must marry me, we'll both be cremated in the end. Waiting for one day for a lifetime has a price."
The store owner yelled at him, "Excuse me, sir! It's not a good place to smoke! You'll be fined."
At that moment, he suddenly remembered the tearful look on the girl's face in Wuzhen's dock a few years ago... Perhaps Lin Ying had been similarly bored and disappointed back then? And he, back then, had actually ruined her mood, wanting to extinguish the flames of her passion.
He knew that he was not a perfect man, let alone a good man, at least that was true for most women.
He is always arrogant and conceited, and takes it for granted that he is the only one who is qualified to dominate a relationship, whether it is emotionally or sexually. He is used to being the absolute superior, so he easily starts a relationship, intervenes in a relationship, and then ends a relationship.
He was like this with his first love, like this with Lin Ying, and even with Song Qi. He was used to acting this way, used to the fact that women were destined to be attracted to him, and that he was the only one who had the right to control the timing, whether to advance or retreat, to stay together or to break up. The "each taking what he needed" principle that he had once regarded as his guiding principle was completely and ironically shattered by Song Qi's rebuttal tonight...
This is how he was back then, this is how Lin Ying saw him back then.
He simply had no ability to fall in love with someone, and he had never truly loved the person he thought he loved.
"Jiang Shu, you are a loser."
This was the last sentence Song Qi used to accuse him when they broke up, and it was also the sentence she emphasized again at this moment to bring him back to his senses and negotiate.
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