Chapter 2 The rabbit pulls the grass near its nest
Mr. and Mrs. Ye Siheng were both returnees. They announced that they would not have a wedding night prank, and no one had any objections.
After the wedding, the two returned to Ye Siheng's residence.
That was the wedding house that Grandpa Ye allocated to his son. He also sent an aunt named Chen to take care of their daily life. Fortunately, it was a small townhouse and the aunt lived downstairs. I didn't know that the two of them lived in a room upstairs.
I have to say, Ye Siheng is a good roommate.
He seldom came back, and Cheng Ti hardly saw him except when he went to see his parents. He was also quite reliable. Once, Cheng Ti fell in the bathroom, and later she casually mentioned it to him. The next day, someone came to replace the anti-slip tiles in all the bathrooms, even the bathtub.
Cheng Ti immediately called to express her gratitude. On the other end of the line, there were voices, laughter, the sounds of mahjong, and soft classical music. Ye Siheng said, "That house has been renovated for over ten years. Almost everything that should be broken is broken. I just can't stand it. If you find anything else wrong, tell me everything and I'll replace it."
Cheng Ti suddenly realized: "So you are using me as a human flesh inspector and supervisor."
Ye Siheng laughed out loud. Cheng Ti hung up the phone and casually changed his note to "community property management".
He did come back that night, and at around ten o'clock he said he was hungry. Aunt Chen cooked him a midnight snack without saying a word, and then said, "Young Madam, please come and have some with the young master."
"I don't want to eat, Aunt Chen, you can just call me Xiao Cheng."
"Okay, Madam."
Ye Siheng was lying on the sofa watching TV, changing channels but feeling bored. Upon hearing this, he leaned back on the sofa and sneered. Cheng Ti had no choice but to close her Kindle and go upstairs.
Ye Siheng called her casually: "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to sleep. You should get some rest early. Aunt Chen, you should get some rest early too."
"So early?"
"I have a morning tea date with a friend tomorrow."
The person she made an appointment with was Zhao Yu, her good friend since high school.
It was a Cantonese-style teahouse, tucked away in an alley. It looked unassuming from the outside, but inside, the atmosphere was authentically Cantonese. Waiters trundled dim sum carts around the front hall, stopping at a wave. Only a "little gourmand" like Zhao Yu could find a place like this. In high school, she'd refused to eat in the cafeteria, dragging her for a kilometer to find a stall selling authentic takoyaki.
Two cups of specially blended herbal tea were served first. Zhao Yu took a big gulp and hesitated for a long time before speaking in a mysterious whisper.
"Cheng Cheng, I saw Shao Mengdong."
Cheng Ti's reaction was surprisingly calm. She just tilted her head slightly, sucking on the straw with her pale pink lips. Her lips were particularly plump and her chin looked more pointed. She was wearing a cream-white turtleneck sweater, like a fox that heard some confusing sound.
"Really? He's still alive."
"More than that! Without you, that burden, he'd be thriving." Zhao Yu sighed. "He had a full house of guests, and a beautiful woman by his side. It was at the Cuiyuan on the ninth floor of the Four Seasons. I saw it with my own eyes two weeks ago."
"So you're telling me now?"
"Your wedding was last weekend. Let me tell you, what would have happened if you had run away?"
After a moment of silence, Cheng Ti smiled sweetly, "Don't be ridiculous, he's my brother." She decided not to tell Zhao Yu about what happened at the wedding, so she pushed the menu in front of her and urged, "Come on, come on, order some food quickly. I agreed to pay today."
Zhao Yu snorted, indicating he wasn't buying it. He knocked on the table and changed the subject: "Okay, now it's your turn to confess. Tell the truth! Why didn't you let us go to your wedding?"
Cheng Ti had a headache and sighed: "Things are not what you think..."
"What's that like? Back then, you ran off to Canada without a word, and now that you've grown up and become powerful, you're not even allowing us to attend your wedding. Cheng Ti, do you still consider me a friend?"
The more Zhao Yu spoke, the angrier he became, and the more aggressive he became;
Cheng Ti knew she was in the wrong and accepted everything with a guilty conscience.
She asked herself and felt that it was too absurd - just three weeks ago, she suddenly told Zhao Yu that she was about to return to China to attend a wedding.
Zhao Yu didn't understand at first: "Attending a wedding, a relative's?"
"…My own."
“?!!!”
But time was tight at the time, and Cheng Ti really didn't have the energy to tell Zhao Yu the whole story. She only promised to explain the whole story to her in person, and firmly disagreed with her participation, which made Zhao Yu very angry and curious.
Now that they were face to face, there were so many things to talk about, where to begin?
After all, a week before deciding to "get married", Cheng Ti sent a message to Ye Siheng in the terminal hall of the flight from Vancouver to New York: This time I have exchanged a large sum of US dollars to give you a red envelope, see you tomorrow, and I wish you a happy wedding in advance!
However, when the plane landed, along with the welcome text message from US Customs, came Ye Siheng's reply: "Congratulations. Signing (marriage registration signature) cancelled, I hope you save some money."
… …
Cheng Ti sat in his seat, looking at his phone from side to side, looking so confused that it seemed as if he didn't recognize any Chinese characters.
After everyone on the last plane got off, the flight attendant had to come and ask her to leave.
She didn't go to the hotel, but took a taxi straight to Ye Siheng's apartment. The location was perfect, the Manhattan night at her feet, the lights glittering and shimmering like black velvet sprinkled with diamonds. Compared to her dusty appearance, Ye Siheng, wearing a loose sweater and trousers, was slicing orange peels and brewing mulled wine at the counter, gentle and relaxed, as if he had just listened to a five-hour musical and was a little tired.
"what happens?"
"Nothing, Bella and I broke up."
"Why?!"
"Bella suggested it, and I said yes."
Such understatement and nonchalance, just like when Cheng Ti asked him why he got married, he also said, "Bella proposed, and I agreed."
"Didn't she give a reason?"
"I feel like I don't love her."
"So do you love her?"
Ye Siheng shrugged.
Cheng Ti was irritated by his nonchalant attitude and scolded him for being irresponsible. He smiled and slowly dusted off the ashtray. The ashtray seemed to be made of old brass, which matched the Chinese gold-painted lark screen behind the sofa. It was very elegant and beautiful.
"Why is Bella bringing up marriage now? Do you think it's because of love? — She's got her eye on a five-bedroom house in Long Island and is preparing to bid on it, and she needs someone to pay the mortgage urgently."
"Then why did you agree?"
"As for me," he frowned slightly, then quickly relaxed, "I think that house is nice too. Besides, men who wear wedding rings get promoted faster in law firms."
He didn't love her, and didn't even believe she loved him. Cheng Ti seemed to be unable to bear it any longer: "What a ridiculous reason!"
"That's the truth."
She still found it incredible: "Getting married for this? Are you being reckless or pragmatic?!"
"It doesn't matter. This is New York, Chelsea. Marriages are either based on impulse or profitability." He looked at her with a half-smile. "Love is unimportant, unreliable, and non-existent."
"That's ridiculous. You're born cold-blooded. You don't know what love is. You can't love others, and therefore you can't feel love. You know you're a bad guy, but you still mess with other girls." Cheng Ti sneered, with a bad attitude, "So Bella came to her senses and dumped you!"
"Are you scolding me, or are you scolding me on her behalf?" Ye Siheng was not angry. Instead, he laughed heartily, unrepentant and hopeless. "But it wasn't me who provoked her."
Bella came two or three times later, but Cheng Ti wasn't there, so the circumstances were unknown. She only heard the elevator attendant and the front desk gossip, saying they saw the model leave in tears. She always wore sunglasses when she came. The last time, she brought someone to retrieve the items she had left in the apartment.
A lifelong promise dissipated like a light dream. Ye Siheng got over it quickly and never seemed to suffer any pain. The only trouble came from his family in China - his grandfather was a respected and virtuous person in his hometown. The wedding in China was almost ready, but the bride ran away before the banquet even started. If the news got back, his family would be laughed at for thirty years.
He drove her back to the hotel that day and told her the story.
Cheng Ti gloated over the misfortune and clapped his hands in joy: "That's good now. Let's see how you will face the people of Jiangdong when the time comes."
Ye Siheng glanced at her casually and said, "Just borrow one, just for the wedding."
"Borrow? Can you borrow from your wife? You think you're borrowing a rice cooker."
He just smiled.
She was even more proud: "Unless you go to a mental hospital and find a fellow patient, I don't believe there is a normal person to accompany you in this ridiculous farce."
Cheng Ti never dreamed that he would be so wicked as to set his sights on her, a "grass in the backyard", and the conditions he offered were so ruthless.
… …
"You don't have much contact with your family, so this plan won't affect your family, and it will save both you and me a lot of unnecessary trouble."
"You lost the internal strife between your VP and the merger, which resulted in the layoff of the entire technical team. Now you're in a career hiatus, exhausted both physically and mentally. You're planning a vacation, but you also want to use that generous compensation to pay off your mortgage early. This time when you return to China, I'll reimburse all your travel expenses for three months."
"And the most important point: We've known each other for five years, and you've never returned home, yet you clearly feel nostalgic—is there someone you don't want to see, or are afraid to see, right? You're from S City, and my family has some businesses and connections there, so we could be of considerable help."
"In short, no one is more suitable than you to be my mentally ill friend."
Clearly organized, sharp and cunning, he planned every step carefully. Ye Siheng, in working condition, looked completely new, unfamiliar to Cheng Ti. He smiled, "How about it, Chelsea, would you like to consider it?"
Cheng Ti was stunned and speechless for a moment.
… …
"No wonder." Zhao Yu understood. "No wonder you asked me a few days ago if I wanted to go to Yunnan. It turns out you made this windfall." She thought about it, but still found it unbelievable. "It's like a novel."
"The drama of life sometimes far exceeds the creator's imagination." Cheng Ti picked up a piece of fried squid and put it in her mouth, as if she had some experience with this. Zhao Yu also remembered something and asked her, "Your father's matter... do you want to continue investigating?"
Cheng Ti nodded slowly and sighed, "His death was so strange. I always feel that there is more to it than that... This time I came back, I also want to give it one last try. No matter what the result is, I can accept it... I will go back to Qi Town first after a while, at least to clean up the old house and see if I can find any more clues."
"Why don't you contact Shao Mengdong to go with you? You're all from Qizhen." Zhao Yu looked worried. "To be honest, I always feel that place is quite evil."
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