Chapter 34 "He almost got married before"...
Wen Jia fled the office in a disheveled state. Fortunately, she was dressed modestly today, so few people noticed her. Glancing left and right, she slipped into the break room next to her workstation.
I leisurely made myself a cup of cold brew.
I took a small sip, and just as I sat down on the stool, two young girls wearing name tags walked in, each carrying a mug, whispering to each other as they went.
Wen Jia felt very guilty whenever she saw anyone. She turned her face away and pulled her hat brim down even further.
The girls were engrossed in their gossip. They glanced at her for a few seconds out of the corner of their eyes, and one of them nudged her companion with her elbow but said nothing. The two of them then looked away in unison and continued chatting.
"Was that Chairman Zhao who just arrived?"
"It should be her. Who else would dare to barge into the Chairman's office like that?"
"She takes really good care of herself. It's true that women who have money and don't have to work look young. I'll be grateful if I can stay like this when I retire."
...
It was lunchtime, and employees were pouring into the break room. Wen Jia, clutching her phone, quickly escaped this troublesome place. With nowhere else to go, she strolled into the restroom.
She huddled in the corner of the cubicle, texting Xu Shaoting. She thought it would be peaceful here, but she, who had never had a proper office job, obviously didn't expect that the bathroom was the perfect place for gossip.
Slightly hurried footsteps and voices rushed in.
"...I was so suffocated just now. Did you see that woman in the break room? I think I vaguely remember her."
"Do you remember?"
"Yeah, I just happen to be sitting at the workstation closest to the chairman's office. I remember this woman came here a while ago."
"...How did you recognize me when I was so well covered up?"
"Are you stupid? It's precisely because you're covered up so well that it's easier to recognize you. Since you joined the company, have you ever seen anyone come to see Chairman Xu so secretively? Chairman Zhao always comes in openly and honestly, doesn't he?"
"That's true. You mean this woman is someone you can't show your face in public?"
The girl chuckled, her laughter echoing loudly in the restroom. "You're being too blunt. It's not that I'm ashamed, I guess it's just that I don't want the public to see me."
A laugh-sounding yet absurd remark rang out:
"She looks very young. Could she be an illegitimate child? If Chairman Xu were to make a mistake, she might be able to have one."
The large bathroom fell silent for a full five seconds.
"...I'm really impressed. If you said she was a secret marriage partner or the mother of the child, that would be more convincing."
Wen Jia leaned back against the wooden board and closed her eyes tightly.
"..."
Despite wearing a mask, she still covered her mouth tightly with her palm, shrinking into the corner and not daring to move, afraid of making any noise that might disrupt their bizarre thought process.
She took out her phone, carefully typed a few words, and then decisively pressed the send button:
"Chairman Xu, when your company hires people, shouldn't you screen out some who aren't mentally sound first?"
"What did you hear now?"
"Your employees"
"Say I'm your illegitimate daughter."
"And the mother of your illegitimate daughter."
...
At his desk, Xu Shaoting frowned slightly as he looked at the bizarre three-part message on the screen, but a smile was hidden in his eyes, which Helen caught.
"Have you found a girl you like lately?" Helen asked bluntly.
Why do you ask that?
"Otherwise, why do you think I came here today?"
It was such a perfect timing.
"Didn't you say you were just coming to see me?" Xu Shaoting said with a half-smile.
Helen: "Of course I'll also inquire about your love life."
Xu Shaoting looked up from the screen and said seriously, "Not yet."
Helen smiled and hummed in agreement, "It's up to you. As for your father, I can only try my best to persuade him."
After saying that, she quickly turned around, took out her phone, and sent two messages to her husband.
-
Wen Jia couldn't stand staying in the restroom any longer. She wanted to text Xu Shaoting to say she was going home, but the girls outside the stalls kept gossiping so persistently that she couldn't move. She listened for a while, but eventually decided it wasn't as interesting as gossip in the entertainment industry. Tired of it, she tried to walk out casually, but as soon as her hand touched the door lock, the girls' focus shifted back to Xu Shaoting:
"...I heard that Chairman Xu almost got married before. Now that you mention it, it's possible that he had a secret marriage partner." The girl lowered her voice.
"Almost got married? Well, that just means it didn't happen."
"They didn't get married, but that was a thing of the past. Who knows what will happen in the future? People like them always like to make their love lives so complicated and mysterious, like they can't be seen by others."
Another girl clicked her tongue thoughtfully, "Why didn't it work out?"
"I don't know. Apparently, they even released news about the wedding back then, it was a huge affair, and Chairman Xu personally notified the media. In the end, it all fizzled out, causing quite a stir at the time. But soon all the news was taken down. I heard it from Lao Yuan," the girl said with a hint of smugness in her voice. "I have to say, my spot was the best, both secluded and perfect for watching the drama unfold..."
"Is it possible that the parents don't approve?"
"I don't know. Old Yuan also said that he hasn't heard anything about Chairman Xu's love life since then, except that Chairman Xu arranges blind dates for him every day. It's hilarious. People like them can't escape blind dates either."
"Oh dear, what they call arranged marriages, what we do is called blind dates..."
...
The sound of the faucet stopped completely, the footsteps faded into the distance, and the girls walked out talking. Wen Jia didn't hear the rest of their conversation clearly. She breathed calmly, processing what she had heard in her mind for a while.
It turns out he almost married someone else, and he even personally notified the media.
She always knew he was engaged, but she never imagined he had gone to the point of marriage with someone else.
It was a very grand occasion.
Wen Jia gripped her phone tightly with her fingertips. The screen remained on her chat with Xu Shaoting, then gradually went dark. Her face, hidden by her mask, seemed expressionless, except for her eyelashes, which drooped low.
She took a deep breath, and for some reason felt as if tiny icicles were piercing her heart. At first, it was just a slight chill, but then a dense, stinging pain arose.
It's probably just that the drive here was too dangerous; I almost crashed into someone, and I'm still a little shaken. I'm just afraid to die, it's nothing.
She thought this to herself, both urgently and absurdly.
She suddenly felt suffocated by the huge bathroom. She ripped off her mask, exhaled deeply through her nose, and looked down at her reflection in the black screen. Only then did she realize that her lips were stiff and taut.
After hearing that there was no more noise from the bathroom, Wen Jia went out. Her legs were numb from standing for so long. She composed herself in the mirror, then left Yunxi alone without telling anyone, preparing to drive back to the villa.
The warm sunshine that felt pleasant on the way here now felt strangely glaring on her eyelids. She didn't drive often, so she didn't bring sunglasses. She could only keep her brows furrowed the whole time, until her brows started to ache slightly.
She took an hour and a half to drive a journey that should have taken an hour.
After being followed by stalkers, Yu Kaiqing was still shaken and was already waiting at the villa entrance. Wen Jia tossed her the car keys.
"Kaiqing, I feel a little sad."
Yu Kaiqing turned her around and scrutinized her carefully. "Another stalker chasing the car?!"
"It's not that I'm physically uncomfortable, it's that I'm emotionally distressed."
Feeling sad? Why?
Wen Jia nodded, "Because I suddenly realized how terrible my driving skills are."
Kaiqing chuckled, "Why are you upset about your bad driving skills? Didn't you have a driver..." She suddenly realized something was wrong, her mind racing, and grabbed Wenjia's arm, "Where did you go? Why are you upset as soon as you get back?"
"You went to see Zhou Jingcheng?"
Wen Jia snapped out of the dazzle of the sunlight, her gaze unfocused, and shook her head. "Quite the opposite."
The door to the master bedroom was locked. She buried her head in the silk sheets and let out a long "mmm".
After relaxing my whole body, the feeling in my heart became more and more obvious. The bitterness in my heart spread quietly in the dark cracks of my heart, like moss in the rainy season.
This shouldn't be happening. She had clearly built a defense line in her heart long ago. Although her heart often pounded back and forth between the two sides of that line, almost completely succumbing to the opposing camp, the white contract with black lettering always managed to pull her back to reason at crucial moments.
But contracts are dead, but people's hearts are alive. She seemed to still hold onto a little bit of his love without hesitation, and hoped that this love would always be unique.
The defenses in her heart were crumbling little by little, leaving deep, bitter wrinkles.
I wonder how grand his wedding would be if it were real; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to describe it as a grand affair.
Wen Jia lifted her face from under the sheet. Her retina was briefly blurred after being squeezed, but she didn't have time to care because she seemed to feel a drop of hot, salty liquid sliding down her eye. She reached out to wipe it, but the more she wiped, the more liquid came out, until the thin skin at the corner of her eye was rubbed red and painful.
She finally managed to stop crying. She pulled a hard object from under her pillow. It was the diamond ring he had bought for her. This time, instead of putting it on her finger as usual, she held it in her hand. For some reason, it felt unusually rough on her hand. She didn't like this pain, so she rolled out of bed and locked it in the safe.
Beneath the diamond ring was a written contract.
The phone rang abruptly from the bed. It was a message from Xu Shaoting. Wen Jia didn't open it or reply.
Instead, they opened his Moments, eagerly searching for any clues.
He rarely updates his social media; his last post was half a year ago, a repost of financial news. He also rarely posts photos, and the few he does share are mostly landscapes.
Sea, trees, wind, clouds.
Since it wasn't specifically set up, all posts were visible. Wen Jia scrolled through all of his posts one by one, but ultimately didn't find the one she wanted to see.
She tossed her phone aside.
The liquid on my face kept increasing.
The water in the lake of my heart turned into tears and flowed out. When the tears were all gone, the lake dried up. I threw pebbles in again, but this time, there was only a dull thud, and no ripples appeared.
No one knows how Wen Jia spent the afternoon alone in her room. When Yu Kaiqing went up to look for her, the bedroom door was locked and she couldn't open it.
Thinking she was asleep, I could only knock on the door and say, "Dinner's ready."
Unexpectedly, she was awake and responded quickly. The door was opened from the inside the next second, and the drowsy look in her eyes from crying had vanished.
Yu Kaiqing was not without suspicion, but after observing her for several seconds without seeing anything unusual, she pulled her out of the bedroom and led her to the living room.
Wen Jia found the meal unbearable, chewing only a couple of bites before losing her appetite. In the end, Yu Kaiqing forced her to finish half a bowl.
Besides being salty, it was also bitter to a certain degree; she couldn't taste any other flavors.
It's the saltiness of tears.
After dinner, Wen Jia pulled up all the white gauze curtains in front of the villa's windows, turned off all the main lights, leaving only the faint blue light emitted by the projector.
The two snuggled together on the sofa, with Wen Jia holding a square cushion in her arms and resting her chin on it.
A movie was playing on the projector, and the light shone into her pupils. The romance film was just reaching its most tragic moment, and she watched it, her eyelashes blinking very slowly.
"Kaiqing," she called out abruptly.
"Um?"
"Tell me, if a man wants to get married, and even plans to have a wedding, but it doesn't happen, what would be the reason?"
Yu Kaiqing clearly only has experience in dating, so she's a bit embarrassed about this question.
“If you’ve reached the point of discussing marriage but haven’t gotten married, then it must be because of parental opposition,” she said, then immediately contradicted herself, “No, it seems like the wedding couldn’t have happened in the first place if the parents were against it.”
Kaiqing felt that matters of the heart were complicated and she couldn't understand them. "Oh dear, I've never been married."
"So do you think he'll be thinking about this fiancée for a very, very long time?"
Wen Jia clutched the pillow in her arms tightly, her hands sweating and soaking into the suede material.
“Maybe…” Kaiqing was against marriage, so her answer was a bit extreme, but Wenjia still listened. “I think those who can get married are those who are so in love that they’re dying to be together. But if they don’t get married, then they’ll have to think about it for a long, long time.”
Her unintentional words struck a chord with Wen Jia: "Honestly, if I didn't marry the person I love for any reason, I probably wouldn't want to marry anyone else in my life."
Wen Jia listened attentively, took a deep breath, and deliberately, in a moment of heart-stopping stillness, even forgot to control her expression.
But she's an actress, and she knows all too well how to hide her emotions. So she grinned and tried to appear generous.
Fortunately, the living room was dark enough that Yu Kaiqing wouldn't notice her stiffness.
Could it be that Chairman Xu wanted to cancel his other engagements because he was still thinking about this fiancée?
No wonder he said that night that he had another reason for not wanting to keep the engagement.
Wen Jia gripped the pillow tightly, sorting out her thoughts in her mind, without muttering aloud, afraid that Yu Kaiqing would hear her.
"Why are you suddenly asking this?" Yu Kaiqing sat up from the sofa. "You mean Xu..."
She was interrupted abruptly by Wen Jia before she could finish speaking, as if she was afraid of hearing her finish her sentence.
"Nothing, just curious." Wen Jia slowly shook her head, her voice so soft it seemed to float away.
She listened to the movie lines, but they went in one ear and out the other. What truly resonated in her mind were the words spoken by the two girls.
The images kept surfacing, forcing her to recall them. She listened to each word in her mind, and suddenly, her brow furrowed as a thought flashed through her mind.
She grabbed Yu Kaiqing's arm, "Kaiqing, do you remember when I broke up with Song Yanlin and it made the trending topics?"
Yu Kaiqing stopped chewing her snacks, looking blank. "Isn't that what happened before? What, you miss him? You have a boyfriend now, so be careful what you say. Just think about it silently, don't let a hundred million go down the drain."
"No," Wen Jia quickly denied her, a strange thought becoming clearer and clearer, making her hair stand on end. "Do you remember, the day I broke up with him, there was another trending topic?"
She swallowed hard, as if she were swallowing a huge, unbelievable thing.
The living room was dark and deathly silent. Upon hearing this, both figures on the sofa were startled.
Yu Kaiqing didn't make a sound. She just thought about it carefully for a moment, and then slowly nodded.
This statement also deeply shocked her.
Wen Jia trembled violently. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again, as if she couldn't get the words out.
She remembered that day; on the trending topics, two entries were side by side, one about separation and the other about marriage.
The contrasting styles are stark: on one hand, netizens express their regret and sighs, while on the other hand, they offer their heartfelt blessings.
She clicked on it herself and took a look.
She didn't remember whose wedding it was, only that it wasn't someone in the entertainment industry. Being a celebrity, she only cared about what people said in the comments section, so she remembered that the comments section of that post frequently contained words like Tianxu Group, heir, wedding, fiancée, blessings, and congratulations.
At that time, she didn't know him and forgot his name as soon as she saw it. She just wondered which young master and young lady had gotten married.
It made her breakup-related trending topic seem awkward, out of place, and embarrassing.
It was him.
It turned out that she had already witnessed his love affair with someone else when she was down and out and in pain.
Her heart was clenched, but she couldn't touch it or soothe it. She could only slowly loosen her grip on the pillow and gently smooth out the wrinkles.
Given Mr. Xu's family background and circumstances, it's normal for him to have loved ones, it's normal for others to love him, it's normal to be in love but not reciprocated, and it's normal to linger on those feelings. It doesn't matter; I've experienced relationships myself, and it's nothing to worry about.
The movie ended, and she didn't want to see the post-credits scene, which she usually looked forward to the most. She went back to her room alone, turned off her phone, and pulled out an eye mask that she hadn't used for several days to cover her eyes.
Finally, darkness enveloped everything as I had hoped.
Therefore, she could not see the notifications containing more than ten missed calls from the same person, as well as several unread messages.
-
Inside the hillside manor, the large study was quiet, with the overhead light illuminating the figure of a man writing calligraphy at the table.
Xu Shaoting took off his suit jacket, and his dark tie fell naturally onto the table, swaying slightly with his movements.
With the final stroke, black ink seeped slightly onto the rice paper.
The strokes penetrate the paper with tremendous force, demonstrating immense power.
Four large characters are presented──
Be cautious from beginning to end.
He placed the brush back on the brush holder, walked to the French windows and leaned against them. The manor was quiet in the dead of night, but his mind was in turmoil. His brows were furrowed more than ever before, and the calligraphy that usually calmed him could not soothe his chaotic thoughts.
He loosened his tie, one of his habitual actions when he was extremely frustrated, the other being to smoke, but at this moment, he clearly had no desire to even smoke.
The two butlers who were waiting were sent away by the man.
He was alone in the study, and he finally began to show signs of disarray and weariness.
He took out his phone, tapped it lightly, and frowned in thought.
Looking down,
His fingertips swiped across several unanswered messages and a number of missed calls. Finally, the screen stopped at a chat interface with the contact name 'Xu Yishu', displaying the message he had sent a few minutes earlier:
"What does it mean when girls suddenly stop answering their phones?"
-----------------------
Author's Note: Xu Yishu: What? Am I going to have a sister-in-law?
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