Chapter 42 A Man Pursuing a Woman: A Mountain Away
Jian Zhen shook off his shoulder and broke free, her face flushed with embarrassment in every sense of the word. She just wanted to get rid of these awkward people and situations as quickly as possible, her words flying like a machine gun: "Me, chasing someone? Who did I chase? You don't mean I'm chasing you, do you? Ha! Haha! I'm sorry, you really misunderstood. If I did something that made you think I was chasing you, then I'm sorry. I was young and ignorant; I was a beautiful flower stuck in cow dung. I'll change my ways from today onwards, okay? Please, just pretend we never met."
Xu Weisheng continued to smile at her, saying tolerantly, "Hey, if someone else insulted me like that, I would have slapped them already."
Are you fucking crazy?!
“Terminal illness, lovesickness.” Xu Weisheng answered fluently.
Jian Zhen almost fainted, placing her hand on her chest to help her breathe. It took her a while to calm down before she looked at him and said, "I don't care how old Jasmine is or who she is to you. Even if she's a man, I don't care, because the problem between us isn't about a third party."
What is that?
Jian Zhen's chest heaved as she used great determination to say, "When I walked towards you, you only wanted to ignore my questions."
When Jian Zhen said those words, they sounded strangely melancholic. She lowered her head, pursed her lips, and continued, "Let's go our separate ways from now on. I won't fall in the same place twice."
At this moment, Xu Weisheng realized that the beautiful chase scene just now was about to be shattered. The other person was serious with him, and the situation was much more complicated than he had imagined. He stood there somewhat helplessly and asked, "How can you forgive me?"
"What's the use of me forgiving you? I don't like you anymore. Haven't I made myself clear enough?" Jian Zhen sighed helplessly, looking at him as if he were a parent looking at a student who was at the bottom of the class.
Xu Weisheng never expected her to say such a thing. Her tone didn't seem fake, so within three seconds, his heart shattered into eight pieces. "It's over," he thought.
"I really need to go home now. I beg you, please don't embarrass me in public anymore, okay?"
Xu Weisheng was speechless. Now it was his turn to blush. Jian Zhen rolled her eyes and turned to leave. Xu Weisheng subconsciously lifted his leg to follow, but before his foot even touched the ground, Jian Zhen turned back and glared at him. Xu Weisheng had the illusion that they were actually playing "Red Light, Green Light".
He silently withdrew his foot, landing on the spot, and asked, unwilling to give up, "Aren't you going to continue Pingping's story?"
Jian Zhen ignored him, turned around and walked away.
She hailed a taxi at the school gate to go home. The driver was a local. Seeing the girl sitting alone in the back seat, resting her face on her hand and staring blankly, sometimes crying and sometimes laughing, he couldn't help but comfort her, "Hey, what's wrong, girl? Is there something so hard to get over?"
"It's nothing." Jian Zhen rubbed her nose and took a deep breath.
"Oh dear, we've only just met. We'll be strangers after we get off the bus, and we might never see each other again in the future. What's there to be embarrassed about? Tell me, and I'll give you some advice."
Worried that she might be hesitant to speak, the driver took the initiative to ask, "Did you have a fight? Did you break up?"
"We didn't even talk about it, so how can there be a breakup?" Jian Zhen said indignantly.
"Then why are you so sad!"
“I just gave him a piece of my mind—he came to apologize to me. Actually, if I just accepted his apology, the matter would be over, and we could naturally get together. But Master!” Jian Zhen pouted and complained, “I’ve been suffering under his thumb for half a year, enduring so much injustice. How can I let him get away with it so easily!”
The driver clicked his tongue in complete agreement, patting the steering wheel as he said, "That's true! When a man pursues a woman, there's a mountain to climb. If he gives up after one or two setbacks, then we might as well not have him."
Jian Zhen smiled and wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye. Her phone, which was in her pocket, started ringing incessantly. She took it out and saw that it was her mother calling: "Your father is coming home!"
So sudden! Jian Zhen instantly forgot all about love and romance. She was so excited on the phone that she couldn't contain herself and urged the driver to hurry up before she even hung up.
When she got home, Director Jian was already there. The father and daughter were stunned to see each other for a moment, then Jian Zhen ran forward and threw herself into her father's arms, tears welling up in her eyes: "Old man, you scared me to death, old man!"
Director Jian returned home after being away for half a month, with many more gray hairs and looking much older. His daughter was swaying in his arms. He patted Jian Zhen's back and comforted her, "Isn't that why you're back? Hey, you're such a grown-up now, your mother and I haven't even had a chance to hug you yet!"
"Really?" Jian Zhen pushed her father's shoulders away, a snot bubble popping with a thud. She looked at her mother with teary eyes and offered her place: "Mom, you hug me first."
“I, your father and I have been married for decades, we can’t—” The mother was about to wave her hand to refuse when Jian Zhen pulled her over. The three of them hugged each other, and everyone fell silent. Some people choked up, and some sobbed softly. In the end, it was the mother who broke the silence. She touched one of her heads with each hand and said in a hoarse voice, “It’s okay, it’s good that everything is okay.”
Another half week passed before the family was able to calmly recount the details of their ordeal at the dinner table.
By this time, the online outcry against Jian Zhen had subsided because news later broke that the interviewee in the widely circulated article was Qi Li's outsourced employee named Fei Fei. Fei Fei failed to get his wages and betrayed his colleagues, exaggerating the facts and making a fortune from the media. Not only did he make the money, but he also kept it all for himself, showing no awareness that he should share the spoils with his colleagues. No wonder others followed suit, selling him out to the media and rushing to bleed him dry.
Old Jian—he has now been transferred from his original position. Although it's a lateral transfer, everyone with eyes can see that he has been kicked out of the center of power and given a sinecure with no real benefits. Jian Zhen was eating hot pot at the dinner table when he casually asked his father, "So did you really make a mistake?"
"Can I still go home after making a mistake?" Old Jian added a spoonful of sesame paste to himself, stirred it to dilute it, and licked the tip of his chopsticks with satisfaction. "You'll understand slowly in the future. The right and wrong of the same thing are not absolute. You can't predict your future stance in the present, and there are many possibilities for your future stance. You want to always walk the right path, but that's impossible."
"Then how should I choose?" Jian Zhen asked.
"How to choose..." Old Jian counted on his fingers for her: "Choose something that doesn't break the law, something that won't kill you, something you won't regret. That's all there is to it."
Jian Zhen thought of Pingping; a colleague in the project team had sent her a work message, but she hadn't replied yet.
If there's anything she'd definitely regret not doing right now, it's this little side quest in "The Hundred Demon Records." From mediocre and uninteresting to unique, this ordinary side quest has been completely transformed in her hands. It's no longer a dispensable minor character. Jian Zhen is certain that once the game is released, someone will notice this little snake demon whose courage is inversely proportional to her cultivation level.
Now that the sideline repairs are more than halfway complete, letting go would mean handing over all the hard work she's put in to someone else.
Thinking about this, Jian Zhen already felt a little regretful. Relationships are relationships, and career is career. How could she let a disagreement in her relationship prevent her from advancing in her career? She had been far too impulsive. Xu Weisheng was truly a blockhead; didn't he know to try again after she rejected him once?
Have you never received any New Year's money?
Jian Zhen lay on the sofa, randomly pressing the TV remote, switching from TV1 to "Society and Law," and then back to CCTV1. When her husband came home from his workout and saw her throwing a tantrum at the TV, he asked, puzzled, "What did the TV station do to you?"
Jian Zhen threw down the remote and sat up, muttering, "Dad, do you think if someone grows up without a mother and their father remarries early and doesn't like them, would they really never receive New Year's money?"
Old Jian immediately sounded the alarm and pressed, "Girl, whose child have you taken a fancy to?"
Jian Zhen scoffed, fell down, bent one leg, and said, "I didn't fancy anyone, I fancy a snake demon."
"Is there a new version of 'The Legend of the White Snake' to watch? Let's watch it together." Old Jian rubbed his hands excitedly.
"This is an old TV series from so many years ago..." Jian Zhen complained as she searched for the old version of The Legend of the White Snake, and she actually found it. Thank goodness for the internet.
"Turn the volume up!" Old Jian commanded his subordinates. Jian Zhen didn't listen and tossed him the remote control, telling him to do as he pleased. Just as she threw it away, her phone rang again. She took it out and saw that it was Yang Damei calling.
"Hey, what's up, Director Yang?"
"Zhenzhen, how have you been lately?"
"It's alright, I can eat and sleep well, and I've gained two pounds." Jian Zhen laughed, "Stop beating around the bush, just say what you want to say."
Yang Damei chuckled softly on the other end of the phone: "I knew I didn't need to waste words with smart people. Xu Weisheng said he couldn't persuade you to come back even after visiting you three times, so he asked me to come and get you out of retirement. Have you thought it through? If you don't come back soon, Pingping's 'Hundred Demon Records' will be on fire."
Jian Zhen looked down and played with her nails, wanting to laugh but holding it back, and muttered, "He's quite good at calling for reinforcements."
Rest today, thank you~
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