Chapter 19 You want money, care, and even more greedy, love
At eight o'clock in the morning, everyone from the company went to Dada Energy Company to bid on their largest project. The offices had been working overtime for two weeks, all night long, preparing the bid. Everyone had dark circles under their eyes, except for Li Wenjing, who had recently been on a business trip to attend to Dr. Gu's affairs. She looked healthy in a black suit and a bun with her hair up. Before the bidding started, Li Wenjing and Yu Di went to the café to buy coffee for the leaders. They happened to run into Gustav, walking between a man and a woman. They chatted as they approached the bar, where the waiter served coffee to the three of them. Li Wenjing asked Yu Di to bring the coffee and walked towards him alone, her heart pounding. Her stockings were slippery in her black leather shoes, making it difficult to get them on.
He looked up and noticed Li Wenjing. He exchanged a few words with the two people next to him. After they left, he greeted her: "Good morning, how was yesterday?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." Li Wenjing folded her arms across her chest. "I'm sorry, I really can't help you."
She took out the room card from her bag and said, "I can't do what we agreed on last time. As for this project, I'll give it to whoever deserves it. Fairness is the most important thing."
Before she even drank her coffee, Li Wenjing felt a sour and bitter taste in her mouth. She thought that if the people upstairs knew about this, they would pack up and send her back to China.
"It's okay. Charles has always had a strange personality. I know you tried your best. Just think of it as a joke. By the way, you look beautiful today."
He went to get the card, and his fingers accidentally touched the back of Li Wenjing's hand. They paused for a second, then crawled over like ants. Li Wenjing shuddered, but her hand seemed to be stuck to the dining table and couldn't move. She looked at Gustav, and he just smiled. She didn't know if it was a joke or if he was flirting with her.
"Do you like Dad more than Charles?"
With that, he left for a meeting. Li Wenjing stood there for a moment before reacting. She glanced around like a thief, fearing discovery, and retrieved the room card. It passed through several hands, between Gustav and Gu Weiyi, before finally returning to her.
She was practically dazed and out of focus all day, unable to hear anything. The room card inside her suit jacket pressed against her chest, burning, and she couldn't breathe. After the bidding process, the French said they'd announce the results next week. The dean summoned Li Wenjing, and several superiors gathered around her, asking what she had discussed with Gustav. For the first time, Li Wenjing felt incredibly important.
She looked at the people gathered around her, full of anticipation, and had a strange idea—let's disappoint them, it would be fun. Li Wenjing said that Gustav had asked her about Dr. Gu. They hadn't seen each other for several years and their relationship was not good. As for the project, it might not be awarded to the hospital. The dean was so anxious that he slapped his thigh and said, "Xiao Li, you have a good relationship with Dr. Gu, why don't you come and persuade him!"
Li Wenjing said: "He and I are just working colleagues."
Coming out of the boss's office, Zhang Zhaochuan asked, "Can't you give me the project?"
"I told Gustav that the most important thing is fairness."
Zhang Zhaochuan accused her, "You! You're hooking up with the boss, why don't you give us brothers some benefits? Whether we get the project or not is up to him!"
"What do you mean? What do you mean by 'hooking up with the boss'?"
When asked again, Zhang Zhaochuan waved his head. Li Wenjing glared at him, but he managed to evade the question by saying, "It was just a joke." Li Wenjing opened her mouth, and he laughed it off. That evening in the cafeteria, none of her colleagues from the institute were there. Li Wenjing stood at the entrance for ten minutes, unable to find anyone to eat with. After every project, they would go to "Xiaosha Xiaosha" to relax, never taking her along. This time, they didn't even bother. Yu Di wasn't there either, still at the energy company negotiating with the French about the bidding. She was all alone, so she simply left without eating anything, put down her plate, picked up her bag, and left.
It was already 11 o'clock in the evening when I saw Gustav again that day. They were sitting in the hotel restaurant. He only ordered wine and cheese. Li Wenjing was wolfing down stewed beef and risotto opposite her. He poured her some wine, and she drank it all in one gulp.
"Don't drink like that. Drink slowly. It's bad for your stomach."
"You'll choke if you eat slowly." After she finished the last bite of beef, Gustav asked the waiter to bring the dessert.
"Are you feeling down today?"
Li Wenjing bit the spoon hard and swallowed the ice cream. The coldness went straight into her stomach, bringing out a pain.
"Everyone in our company thinks you and I have a special relationship. They asked me if I won the bid, but I don't know..." The spoon tinkled twice in Li Wenjing's mouth like a coin. "Maybe they think I'm selfish."
"Oh - ma chérie, you have some personal relationship with me, but the bidding doesn't rely on you alone. You don't need to reflect on anything. You are a very good girl."
“Actually, I’m not good at this. I can’t do many things well.”
Li Wenjing had just drunk some wine, and the alcohol made her head feel dizzy. She had always been able to drink a lot, but for some reason, every time she drank with Gustav, she always wanted to get drunk.
"And Dr. Gu, he's the most hypocritical. He used to say I helped him, and he never blamed me no matter what I did." Li Wenjing's eyes began to sore as she spoke, and she couldn't help but cry in front of Gustav. "He's been angry with me all these days, and even told me that he doesn't want to be friends with me anymore."
“Do you care what other people think?”
"No! I only care about some people, my family, my friends. Once they say something against me, I feel uncomfortable. So I would rather stay out and work abroad. I don't want to stay at home and be scolded all the time."
"This isn't your fault. This is my fault, Charles's fault."
Gustav handed her a tissue. She cried and her head became heavier. She thought she sounded like a spoiled girl when she spoke to him. "I'm sorry."
"Do you feel better?"
"Much better."
After crying, the emotions that had been accumulated for many days were released. She stood up and staggered a few steps as if her head was heavy. Gustav held her arm. His hand was cold, but his body was warm.
"I'm sorry we hurt you. Stop blaming yourselves."
Li Wenjing looked at him with tearful eyes. They were very close. If he just lowered his head slightly, he could kiss her. In fact, she was not drunk. It was just that the pain rose from the soles of her feet, making her unable to walk. Instigated by the alcohol, she stared at him straight. He touched her cheek, just wiping away the tears in her eyes, without the kiss she had imagined. Li Wenjing kept staring at him. His profile looked very similar to Gu Weiyi, but with a few more wrinkles, like the look of Gu Weiyi's cheeks after they were shriveled. The shadow of the eyelashes folded his eyes into a triangle, and the curvature of the nose was almost exactly the same.
Time is a cruel thing, this thought flashed through her mind.
"I should kiss you... I still have Charles. I shouldn't be doing this with you. I've never been a good father."
"I have nothing to do with him. He's not my boyfriend. I've figured it out. It was me who wanted to date you and have dinner with you. No one forced me. Maybe the matter with Dr. Gu was just an excuse to find you."
"You're right. The problem is that I have a relationship with Charles," he helped Li Wenjing sit down again. "I don't want to upset him. He's my child. If you two don't know each other, I think I'll give you a bouquet of flowers, give you a kiss, and take you to my room. We'll spend a very romantic night. I'll give you everything you want."
"You know what I want?"
"Of course, you want money, you want attention, and even more greedy, you want love."
"Dr. Gu has already given me the flowers." Li Wenjing choked up, "You're very good, really very good... Why does Dr. Gu hate you? I really hope to have a father like you."
"I hope you can think carefully about whether you like me as a lover or as a dad. On this point, I respect your choice."
"Dad or lover?"
Li Wenjing shook her head. "I don't know. I just want to stay with you for a while. If I tell you everything directly, I'll feel better."
"Child, you must think this through before you start a relationship with me."
The musician in the restaurant played a familiar song. Her tears welled up in her eyes with the notes. She wiped away her tears and asked Gustav what song he was playing.
"Casablanca."
There were almost no customers in the restaurant. She listened to the song quietly and drank the wine on the table. An ambiguous atmosphere arose in front of the table in the dim light of the night.
"I'll think it over carefully, thank you." Li Wenjing said, "Guess what I want now?"
"I'll give you a hug, goodnight, Wenjing."
Li Wenjing nodded, and they hugged and kissed goodbye. Gustav asked the driver to take her home. The bustling streets of the day were now deserted. In the car, she was already mostly awake. She looked up at the sky. The moon, unobstructed by the city lights, shone as brightly as the lights, and it felt a chill on her arm. With the car window open, the wind blew past her tearful eyes and into her head, buzzing like a leaky draught. Her emotions, like a tangled web of adventures, raced through her mind. She couldn't make sense of them—was she attracted to Gustav as a person, or the car he drove, or his money? Without these, she certainly wouldn't have been attracted to him. Perhaps all this was just a way of rationalizing her desire through love. It was the same with Gu Weiyi. She loved his still fresh cheeks and youthful body. But would she still love him when he was older? Then it would all depend on what he possessed: wealth, social status... He would become a man like Gustav, with many young women throwing themselves at him.
Li Wenjing felt stupid.
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