late at night
After entering the bedroom, Bai Yi covered herself with the blanket.
Although no one in her family had ever mentioned it to her, she knew that Zhong Yunxi would come every morning and evening.
Zhong Yunxi's perseverance and patience were so great that it was difficult for her to persist in her refusal.
He repeated his harsh words over and over again, even hurting himself, but Zhong Yunxi remained unmoved.
She had been back in Xiangcheng for many days. If Zhong Yunxi hadn't come with her, her life would have remained as peaceful and quiet as before.
The past few months have been like a dream that is both too beautiful and dangerous, which can only happen under bizarre and specific circumstances.
She and Zhong Yunxi were never from the same world.
For every pie falling from the sky, there's a trap on the ground.
The more love Zhong Yunxi gave her, the more hurt he would bring in return. She shouldn't hold any resentment.
From the beginning, she naively believed that Zhong Yunxi had helped her escape an arranged marriage, and she promised him a two-year marriage contract.
She wasn't without her worries about falling into a hormonal trap, but her predicament and wishful thinking at the time led her to take a desperate gamble.
Humans should not sacrifice themselves to make a deal with fate.
When her grandmother knocked on the door, she ruffled her hair, tied it into a low ponytail, took a tissue to wipe the corner of her eye, and then opened the door.
Zhong Yunxi turned to look at her bedroom door. The moment the door opened, Zhong Yunxi felt a tremor in his heart. After holding his breath, he breathed a sigh of relief.
He watched as Bai Yi lowered her head slightly, slipped on her slippers, and headed to the dining table. She didn't speak or get angry; she seemed as light as a balloon.
Grandpa looked at him and stood up: "Let's go eat."
Zhong Yunxi went over and sat down next to her.
Bai Yi is usually easily distracted while eating, and I wonder if it was because I was sitting next to her, but she seemed to be spacing out for an unusually long time today. Her grandparents had finished eating and gone back to the living room to watch TV, but there was still half a bowl of porridge left in her bowl.
Zhong Yunxi said, "Xiaoyi, the porridge is getting cold. I'll go heat it up for you."
Bai Yi raised his hand and hugged the bowl, a clear gesture of rejection.
He got up, went to the kitchen, got a cup of hot water, and brought it over to her.
After she finished eating, the old man and the caregiver, Aunt Sun, had already gone back to their bedroom to rest, and the living room and dining room were quiet.
Even the bubbles, having eaten their fill, burrowed into their little wooden house.
Zhong Yunxi asked her, "Xiaoyi, is there something you want to tell me?"
She's acting a bit strange today; if she didn't want to talk to him, she wouldn't be like this.
She put on a coat and a hat, changed her shoes at the door, and Zhong Yunxi silently followed her out.
After going downstairs, she hadn't gone far when she finally spoke. Her voice, in the still and rainless winter night, seemed to be filtered by the temperature, making people's hearts turn cold.
“Zhong Yunxi, I’ve been regretting it a lot lately. I regret going back to Yuegang. I know I can’t handle the people and things there, yet I still dared to provoke you for Zhou Qi’s sake.”
Zhong Yunxi reached out and took her hand without saying a word.
This was the first time since Bai Yi returned to Xiangcheng that she hadn't immediately shaken off his hand while he was holding hers. But Zhong Yunxi felt inexplicably flustered.
Bai Yi turned her head to look at his profile. His jaw and nose were still clearly defined, and he still had that familiar sense of authority. In the biting cold and under the dim streetlights, he seemed even more cold and aloof.
"It would be a lie to say I never loved you. I did love you, but it was painful, it was terrifying, it was beyond my capacity to bear."
Every word Bai Yi spoke calmly made him feel even more powerless than when they argued.
Several streetlights were hidden by the tall tree canopy, casting a shadow. The two stopped in their tracks, and Zhong Yunxi pulled her into his arms.
She looked up at him and said, "You must know how willful I may seem, but I am actually very weak."
Zhong Yunxi didn't want to hear her say any more, "Xiao Yi..."
"Don't interrupt me."
Zhong Yunxi's embrace was warm; she felt like she hadn't hugged him in a long time, and she seemed to have paused for a long time as well.
"You lied to me and schemed against me about Zhou Qi and Tian Sheng, but I convinced myself to believe you because you said you loved me so many times. I felt that as long as you loved me, I could be okay again."
"Is it because I've never mentioned Wen Ying to you that I'm too weak? Actually, I'm very afraid of her. When I lose at cards, I have to give up your things to bolster my courage, which gives me the illusion that you're on my side."
“It’s not a misperception. I’ve always been with you. I love you,” Zhong Yunxi corrected her.
Bai Yi continued, "I know I shouldn't mind your work partner. I think as long as you love me, that's enough. But then I saw how well you two worked together, and how you would hug her like that. I felt really ridiculous."
Zhong Yunxi had no idea what she had seen. "I didn't."
Bai Yi wouldn't listen to a word he said; she had her own closed-loop logic.
“My senior always explains the project to me as a coincidence. I know that. But, Zhong Yunxi, even misunderstandings and coincidences can make me so panicked. How can I love you?”
"I'm sorry." Zhong Yunxi finally couldn't answer her.
“Your armor is so thick, your heart so cold and hard, you are all-powerful, but I am not. You don’t know my panic. I’m not good at confronting people. You don’t know how I escaped from Yuegang back to Xiangcheng.”
“You’ve never been like me. When I knew about Wen Ying, I just wanted to avoid her. When you knew about Yu Shiyuan, you came to question me. I turned my blade inward, but you turned yours against me. Zhong Yunxi, someone as weak as me really can’t afford to love you.”
"I'm sorry." Zhong Yunxi's voice trembled as he held the person tightly in his arms.
"Let's get a divorce." Bai Yi's voice was even softer than her breath, but Zhong Yunxi felt as if she had stripped away his layers of armor and thrown him into the freezing cold.
He couldn't refuse. Even though he was so careful, he still couldn't protect her. "Winter is too cold. Let's wait until next year, and pick a day when the flowers are in bloom, okay?"
Bai Yi tried to break free from his embrace, but he held her hands tightly. "Give me a few more months."
She finished speaking and said nothing more. But Zhong Yunxi knew that she had agreed.
She looked up at him for a few more seconds before turning around and walking back. She didn't cry today. The one who cried was Zhong Yunxi.
Zhong Yunxi stood there, watching Bai Yi enter the building.
When Bai Yi entered the room, her grandfather was sitting in the living room and asked her, "Aren't you cold? You've been outside for so long."
She used to sit next to her grandfather, resting her head on his shoulder, and he patted her hand.
"Have you finished speaking?"
She hummed in agreement, leaned over to pick up the hand cream from the coffee table, and said, "Grandpa, did you forget to apply hand cream again? Didn't I tell you? Winter is so dry, and as you get older, your skin's ability to retain moisture is poor. You must remember to apply body lotion and hand cream, otherwise your skin will itch."
"I remember."
Bai Yi applied hand cream to her grandfather's hands. "Grandpa, do you guys think I'm clumsy?"
Grandpa laughed and said, "You're only realizing this now?"
Bai Yi: ...
Grandpa comforted her: "Only by talking about feelings can you truly see yourself. From childhood to adulthood, everyone said you were spoiled and willful, but your grandma disagreed the most, saying you were only a bully at home. Now it seems, aren't you the dumbest and your grandma the smartest?"
Bai Yi snorted, "I didn't."
Grandpa glanced at her and said, "You haven't yet. In your own family, regardless of right or wrong, they will naturally favor you. But outsiders, even husband and wife are outsiders. If they don't favor you, how can you protect yourself with your fierce but weak appearance? If you don't suffer, who will?"
Bai Yi pouted: "I've learned my lesson, I definitely don't want him anymore."
Grandpa was silent for a moment, then said, "As for Zhong Yunxi, I was indeed not satisfied with him at first either."
Grandpa didn't say anything more. He wouldn't give Bai Yi too much interference or advice. "Grandpa won't say anything bad about him or speak up for him. Good intentions are one thing, but problems are another. You have to think it through yourself. Whether you get married or divorced, Grandpa and Grandma will support you."
Bai Yi hummed in agreement.
*
On Tuesday, Zhong Yunxi was already in his office before 8 a.m., which startled Xue Meng when he arrived.
After making an iced Americano for the boss, Xue Meng gave a detailed and thorough report on his work.
"Boss, there are still three weeks before the New Year. There are three important tasks. First, we need to visit some elders and leaders in Beijing before the New Year, which will take about three or four days. We can go there over the weekend. Second, the 10th Xiangcheng Traditional Chinese Medicine Scientific Research Achievement Transformation Conference, which will last two days, but we need to go there two or three days in advance to visit the leaders in the Xiangcheng TCM industry with the investment team in charge of Southwest China from Dongchen Fund. Finally, there are the various summary meetings and annual meetings at our Lingchuang side."
Zhong Yunxi jotted something down on a sticky note and nodded. "I understand. Take care of these things."
"I'll change my schedule. I won't need to apply for flights to Xiangcheng every weekday. I'll just free up two nights to go there. If I don't have anything else important to do on weekends, I'll still go to Xiangcheng."
Xue Meng quickly replied, "Okay, boss."
Xue Meng left the office, and Zhong Yunxi picked up his phone. The screen saver still showed a photo of Bai Yi, which he had taken in northern Xinjiang. Bai Yi was playing in the snow in the yard with a sheepdog.
One evening, the two were on the sofa in the living room. Bai Yi lay in his arms, flipping through his photo album one by one, and picked out the one she liked best to set as his screensaver.
He swiped his phone to call Lu Lin and asked him to have dinner with him that evening.
Since Bai Yi returned to Xiangcheng, Zhong Yunxi hasn't visited Runhe again. However, there's something he needs Runhe's cooperation on right now.
He was sincere enough that he specially asked Lu Lin to bring Meng Shuang along, and they arranged to meet at the rooftop garden of the East Tower on Hong Kong Island.
Lu Lin couldn't figure out what he was thinking, so she smiled and asked, "You shouldn't spend your time and money on things that don't pay off, right?"
"Don't worry, I'm the one who asked you for help."
His words only fueled Lu Lin's curiosity, and he readily agreed.
Lu Lin went to Meng Shuang's office and told her he was going to a banquet that evening. He also asked her if she had heard anything about Bai Yi recently and why she had suddenly returned to Xiangcheng. Meng Shuang glanced at him and said, "We broke up."
He was taken aback, and asked first, "It wasn't Shang Xinlan who did this, was it?"
Meng Shuang chuckled: "Does she have that ability? It's Wen Ying. I talked to Lu Xin about it at the last marketing department academic conference. He mentioned it. It's about Wen Ying's affairs with Si Jian."
Lu Lin didn't gossip any further: "Did Lu Xin mention anything else? We're going to have dinner with Zhong Yunxi tonight. The admission ticket and food alone will cost five figures per person. Do you think that's a decent meal?"
Meng Shuang raised her eyebrows slightly: "Not only can we eat him, we can also squeeze him out of money."
Lu Lin: ...
"Take it easy."
"What's there to be afraid of? Boss Zhong is so poor that all he has left is money. What he lacks is people who can help him."
When Lu Lin and Meng Shuang arrived at the top floor that evening, they were quite impressed. In the depths of winter, the rooftop garden not only featured various winter ornamental bonsai, but also a greenhouse of over 300 square meters for cut flowers. The entire greenhouse had fewer than twenty seats for reception.
Even Lu Lin, a rich second-generation, was amazed.
He asked Meng Shuang, "Do you like this environment? Will you come here often in the future?"
Meng Shuang shook her head and said with a smile, "This is probably a place Bai Yi would like. I'm not that delicate and don't deserve it. You should treat me to hot pot more often."
Lu Lin teased her, "You don't even know how to enjoy good fortune."
When Zhong Yunxi arrived, he brought a document and sat down: "Is President Meng satisfied with this place? I specially invited you today. President Lu is just here to freeload."
Lu Lin laughed and scolded him, "You really are like a panda ordering takeout, that's really insulting. Why don't you call me then?"
Zhong Yunxi laughed and said, "We need you to pass on the message. Without this process, how can we reflect President Meng's status?"
He had a knack for praising people, and with a few jokes, both of them felt happy.
Meng Shuang sighed, "Boss Zhong, don't force us to do this. If you set the bar too high, what if we can't handle it?"
Zhong Yunxi stated directly: "No, Leading Innovation will support us."
Meng Shuang felt half relieved: "Oh? That's truly an honor."
The waiter poured red wine for the group and served two appetizers to each person.
Lu Lin tasted a shrimp, finding it quite fresh and delicious, and asked, "Could you introduce it to me first?"
Zhong Yunxi handed him the document: "A week later, at the 10th Xiangcheng Traditional Chinese Medicine Scientific Research Achievement Transformation Conference, I hope Runhe will go there and secure the project that Professor Wu's research team terminated with Sijian."
Having been in frequent contact with Lu Xin recently, Meng Shuang had already figured out Zhong Yunxi's purpose. "Boss Zhong, if I were Bai Yi, given your status at Runhe, I definitely wouldn't cooperate with you."
Zhong Yunxi smiled and said, "President Meng is indeed very insightful."
He didn't mince words: "Funding operations are no problem for me at all. I invited you two here so you could persuade Xiaoyi. She used to work at Runhe and has a good relationship with President Meng. I've said before that it's a pity President Meng is staying in the marketing department. With your brains and your persuasive skills, you can convince her."
The waiter came forward, replaced the cold dishes, and served each guest a bowl of soup.
Lu Lin exposed him: "I'll use my company and Meng Shuang's connections to help you win over your wife."
Zhong Yunxi rested his forehead on his hand, his smile faint. "I will be living in Xiangcheng from now on, and I will be involved in the entire Southwest China's traditional Chinese medicine industry. The Lu family has been deeply involved in the traditional Chinese medicine industry for thirty years, and we will inevitably have in-depth cooperation in the future. President Lu, I owe you this favor, and you won't lose out."
Meng Shuang picked up her wine glass.
Lu Lin glanced at Meng Shuang and also picked up his wine glass.
The three wine glasses clinked together with a crisp sound.
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