Upon hearing Xue Jing speak, Ha Yue immediately sat up straight.
She then smiled faintly in his direction and greeted him, "Yes, it's been a long time. How have you been?"
As if the pretense of not knowing each other in front of strangers had never happened, Xue Jing naturally continued the conversation, suppressing his indifference.
"I'm fine, how about you? How's life been lately?" Xue Jing deliberately spoke at a faster pace for the last sentence, trying to pronounce each word clearly.
How have you been lately?
Ha Yue opened her mouth, wanting to answer fluently, but couldn't find any suitable adjectives. It was just a greeting without any special emotional color. But Ha Yue suddenly realized that she had been too busy since returning to Suicheng. She had been so busy that she hadn't checked on her life status for a long time.
The last time someone inquired about her situation was when she was "resigned" from her company in Jicheng.
At that time, she slept fitfully in her rented room every day. Foreign trade was at a standstill, and even with her qualifications, she couldn't escape the unemployment window. She didn't want to lower herself to do odd jobs, but there was no better platform.
Starting a business is still just a nascent stage that people dare not put into practice.
Late-night emo often occurs when there is nothing to do. She doesn't have to work or go out, and has been staying at home for a month. Her social media feed is full of panicked messages about life. Her desire to consume plummets, and she always has the urge to not want to live, let alone buy groceries and cook. When people are in a bad mood, they have no interest in a healthy lifestyle.
The only pleasure is waking up and eating takeout. I am awake for no more than ten hours a day, eat only once a day, order from three or five different places at once, and chew the greasy food while staring blankly at the short videos on my phone.
The world inside and outside the short video screen is two different worlds. Inside the app, probably with the background music, everyone looks like they've been injected with adrenaline and are extremely excited.
After mechanically swallowing all the food, her sluggish mind begins to feel guilty. She immediately takes off her pajamas and stands in front of the full-length mirror on the wall to examine her arms and legs, vowing to abstain from certain foods the next day, only to break her vow again upon waking up.
It was really lonely back then. It's normal for working people to hate their jobs, but I never imagined that losing a job would mean being cut off from all contact with the world.
Without that mediocre job, she, an outsider, had absolutely nothing left in her rented room in Jicheng.
Online motivational quotes might tell young people struggling in big cities that the house is rented, but life isn't. But when landlords swagger into their properties to inspect the condition of the rooms, and when property management and landlords in special periods treat tenants harshly, Ha Yue deeply feels that her life in Jicheng is not only rented, but her self-esteem and sense of belonging are too.
So when her ex-colleague suddenly called her to ask how she was doing, she felt like she had grasped a lifeline to stay in Jicheng.
She's not someone nobody cares about; she'll be remembered, and she's still a useful member of society.
That afternoon, she finally went out, wearing her most expensive pair of red-soled high heels, dressed up, spent a full hour applying individual eyelash extensions, did a two-hour DIY manicure, and even carried the Chanel Métiers d'Art evening bag that she had bought with a six-month loan. It wasn't just to have a casual meal with a female colleague she didn't know very well, but also because she really needed to reconnect with this cold city.
Everyone in the city lives wearing a mask, and Ha Yue's mask is exquisite, from the strands of hair to the fingernails.
But she didn't receive the care she expected. The reason her female colleague asked her to meet was actually to invite her to a banquet. After Ha Yue paid the bill, the female colleague didn't forget to pick at her teeth with a toothpick and tell her that their boss hadn't actually gone bankrupt. He was a cunning man with many businesses under his control. When he dissolved the company, he talked to every one of his subordinates, but his sob story only moved Ha Yue, the only fool. The rest of his colleagues all got their due compensation through their own abilities.
For example, she herself took that money and went to Lijiang Old Town with her native boyfriend from Jicheng for half a month.
The female colleague said that she won over her boyfriend's eyes by offering two first-class tickets and a week's stay in a star-rated hotel. With her enthusiastic pursuit during the trip, her boyfriend, a top student who graduated from Jizhou University, finally agreed to propose to her, who only had a junior college degree. Soon, her name will also appear under the name of a courtyard house in their family that is about to be demolished.
"This is the most successful investment of my life."
Speculating with 10,000 yuan can net you more than 2 million yuan. Not only that, but it can also secure your livelihood for the rest of your life.
As she spoke, the female colleague took out her phone, opened a photo, pointed to the graduation photo, and asked, "Ha Yue, you also graduated from Jida University, right? We were talking about you once, and he actually said you two were in the same year, and that you were the most beautiful girl in their foreign language department back then. Is that you in this group photo? I don't think it looks like you, haha. Have you gained a lot of weight since graduation? Your cheekbones are a bit sagging, your nasolabial folds are sunken, and your nasolabial folds look deeper."
"We women have to pay attention to our appearance. If you gain even a couple of pounds, it won't be easy to fit into a wedding dress. And don't just buy bags; you have to be willing to spend money on your face too."
As if anticipating that Ha Yue was about to tease her boyfriend, whose physique resembled a teapot, the female colleague quickly explained, "Men are different. They get things done through their abilities, and they don't have to serve in the U.S. Army."
"Oh, right! I almost forgot! How about you try blind dates? My fiancé has a cousin who graduated with a PhD from Jilin University. Like you, he's a humanities student, and he'll probably stay on at the university after graduating this year. He's been divorced once, but has no children. His family also owns a few houses, though not as many as my mother-in-law's..."
There is concern, but not much. The so-called peer concern is nothing more than a form of downward showing off. Ha Yue's predicament of being single and unemployed is more like a placebo for the other person's life anxieties.
Knowing that there are others in the world who are worse off than oneself always makes an individual feel incredibly fortunate.
Looking at her former youthful face on the other woman's phone screen, Ha Yue seemed to ignore the noise in her ears and hear the true sarcasm in her female colleague's heart.
Look, so what if she was the school beauty back then? She was still left behind after rounds of selection for marriage. So what if she had a great job? She was still ripped off by capitalists. If women want happiness, they still have to follow the old path. Outsiders have no other way to make a living here.
As usual, Ha Yue insisted on finishing the meal to maintain the face she had always cared about.
She suppressed her nausea and forced a smile as she told her former colleague that she was doing well and that the other person didn't need to worry about her.
After leaving her job, she had a lot of romantic opportunities, with many suitors. Now, she's not only not single, but she's also found a great job with a million-dollar annual salary. Her new job is in New York, and she's already got her visa and will be leaving Jicheng soon. She probably won't be able to attend her wedding.
"What about your boyfriend? Does he agree to you going abroad? It's so chaotic overseas, aren't you afraid as a woman? I really don't understand people like you. What's so good about going abroad? Is the moon rounder overseas?"
“My boyfriend’s family owns businesses in the United States, and he will be going with me this time. If all goes well, we will settle down there.”
This wasn't the first time she'd told a lie, so she was quite adept at it. At least, seeing her former colleague's constipated expression before they parted gave her a five-minute sense of satisfaction.
After the initial euphoria, she was quickly overcome with anger, unsure whether it was anger at herself, the other person, or dissatisfaction with society. In any case, Ha Yue's anger energized her, and she truly put her entrepreneurial aspirations into practice.
The boss didn't compensate her, but that was okay. She had that money herself. At the time, Ha Yue really thought she would earn her first million in a short time. But now that she thinks about it, she made a series of mistakes just to save face for her former colleagues.
Face might be important to Ha Yue, who pretends to be a socialite in Jicheng, but it's not a very precious thing to the female owner of Chunni's convenience store.
If she could, she would even knead the outer and inner parts together and stuff them into the stove to burn for warmth.
So when this question came to her ears again after several years.
Ha Yue didn't want to lie and say that she was doing well anymore. There was no need. If Xue Jing wanted to get back the face he had when they broke up, she felt that she could give him the sense of superiority he wanted out of consideration for their past relationship.
This is the reconciliation that the innocent victim deserves.
So she thought about it seriously for a moment, and then said in that lighthearted tone, "It's alright, it's passable, but as you can see, it's definitely not great. Let's take it one day at a time. We can't ask for too much at this stage."
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