Xiao Yuan asked Qian Fei, "Have you noticed that handsome guy from the partner company has been coming to our office frequently again lately?"
Qian Fei replied with just five words: "Haven't noticed. I'm blind."
Xiao Yuan said, "Why do you think he keeps coming here?"
Qian Fei answered, "Maybe he's interested in you."
Xiao Yuan covered her face in surprise. "No way! I always thought we should save him for you, so I've been holding back from making a move. If that's the case, I might not be able to control myself anymore!"
Qian Fei rolled her eyes. "Go ahead and take him then. I can't handle such a proud young master."
As she said this, she noticed Xiao Yuan frantically winking at her. After a moment's thought, she turned around and saw Li Yifei standing behind her with a face like thunder.
She nodded primly and greeted, "Manager Li," then hugged the freshly copied documents to her chest and headed back to her workstation.
As they passed each other, the frowning Manager Li decisively blocked her path. "Manager Qian, could we have a word?" he said before entering the meeting room first. [Note: Project manager is the most junior position, not a high-ranking title.]
Qian Fei frowned and followed him in.
"Close the door," Li Yifei said to her as she entered.
Qian Fei closed the door.
"Come sit down," Li Yifei motioned with his chin for her to sit across from him.
Qian Fei walked over, sat down briefly, then immediately stood up again.
"'Close the door,' 'come sit down'—that's two sentences. Conversation over, I'm leaving." Without giving Li Yifei a chance to speak further, she turned and left the meeting room.
Li Yifei sat in his chair, watching Qian Fei's retreating figure through the glass door, both angry and frustrated.
The way she walked those few steps—who was she showing off for with that slender waist and long legs swaying so gracefully? It was downright infuriating.
He felt he was becoming increasingly pathetic. Being given the cold shoulder like this and still not losing his temper—all his principles as a person might as well have been fed to the dogs.
●︶3︶●
After chatting briefly with Qian Fei's supervisor, Li Yifei was heading toward the elevator to leave when Qian Fei unexpectedly intercepted him.
"Li Yifei, let's talk."
Li Yifei halted his steps toward the elevator faster than lightning.
He immediately turned back and walked up to Qian Fei.
She looked up at him and said, "Don't make me go to your company anymore, and don't come to ours either."
After succinctly delivering these two sentences, Qian Fei turned to return to the office but was stopped when Li Yifei grabbed her arm.
"What about the third one?"
Qian Fei paused, frowning. "'Don't make me go to your company,' 'don't come to ours either'—that's two sentences, isn't it?"
Li Yifei said seriously, "There's a comma between those two, so they count as one sentence. Say one more."
Qian Fei looked at him, the corner of her mouth lifting in a mocking smile. "You're really boring. That's it, can you leave now?" She turned to go again.
Li Yifei grabbed her once more.
"'You're really boring' is the second sentence. 'That's it, can you leave now?'—that's already the third. You've overspoken."
Qian Fei was speechless.
"Li Yifei, what do you want?"
Li Yifei raised an eyebrow. "Simple. I want you to listen to two sentences from me too."
Qian Fei took a deep breath. "First one."
"Let's make up."
Qian Fei shook her head. "Second one."
"I want to eat stir-fried eggplant strips."
Qian Fei looked up at Li Yifei. "Finished? Don't come again tomorrow. If you do, I'll resign."
●︶3︶●That evening, when Qian Fei returned home, she inexplicably found herself stir-frying eggplant strips for dinner. As she ate, for some unknown reason, she ended up crying over her own cooking.
She thought perhaps she had added too much salt, making her eyes water.
●︶3︶●
When Li Yifei got home that night, he inexplicably bought a large quantity of eggplants. He stared at them blankly for a while before picking out a few of the better-looking ones and taking them to Dajun's place, begging his housekeeper to cut them into strips and stir-fry them.
When the housekeeper served the dish, he took just one bite before pushing it away.
It wasn’t the same flavor.
He thought sadly that he had lost that taste.
He wanted to get it back.
But how?
●︶3︶●
Dajun squatted nearby, watching Li Yifei.
"That look of deep sorrow—I’ve only seen it once before, back in kindergarten when your mom left. What’s wrong? Missing her?"
Li Yifei rolled his eyes. "Missing your sister."
Dajun blinked. "Missing the tomboy, then?"
Li Yifei poked at the eggplant strips with his chopsticks, his movements radiating desolation.
"How can I get her to cook eggplant strips for me again?"
Dajun scratched his cheek. "You’d probably have to admit to whatever mistake she thinks you made."
Li Yifei said, "But I don’t think I did anything wrong."
There was absolutely nothing between him and Jin Tian. Forcing him to admit fault would make it seem like there was, and he couldn’t accept that, neither emotionally nor in terms of his pride.
Dajun scratched his cheek again. "Then you’ll just have to make do with my housekeeper’s cooking from now on! Accept your loss and move on!" He patted Li Yifei’s shoulder and returned to his computer, immersing himself in online gaming.
Li Yifei narrowed his eyes at his retreating figure.
Before leaving Dajun’s place that night, while the "phone bill prince" was in the bathroom, Li Yifei gave away all his top-tier in-game equipment—randomly, irreversibly.
That same night, Dajun chased him halfway across the city with a kitchen knife, screaming about severing his hand and officially cutting ties.
●︶3︶●
Two days later, members from both Qian Fei and Li Yifei’s companies working on the hotel project gathered on-site for an intermediary coordination meeting.
Both Qian Fei and Li Yifei attended, along with Zhao De.
Returning to the familiar setting, Li Yifei couldn’t help but reminisce about last year’s lunch breaks when the three of them had happily played cards together. Now, he and Qian Fei could barely exchange nods, let alone hold a conversation. The thought left him wistful and somber—an emotion he had never experienced before.
During the meeting, by sheer coincidence, he ended up sitting next to Qian Fei. At one point, her pen fell to the floor. Reflexively, he picked it up before she could even bend down.
When he handed it back, she politely said, "Thank you."
His heart ached sharply.
She had become so distant. If this continued, she might as well treat him like a stranger.
As the meeting ended, everyone gradually filed out of the room and headed to the restaurant.
He deliberately lingered, hoping to walk with her.
But she ignored him entirely, packing up her things and leaving without a second glance.
Running a hand through his hair, he stood and followed silently behind her.
Her phone rang, and she answered as she walked.He heard her ask, "Wang Ruohai, what did you want to talk to me about?"
His heart skipped a beat.
She stopped walking.
He halted behind her as well.
He heard her say, "Are you asking about that bank card we opened together at the old company ages ago? You're still using that card? Oh, the account number was so familiar, and the money got transferred to the old one by mistake... Ah, you forgot the password, didn't you... Let me think, what was the password again... Was it the first three digits my birthday and the last three yours? No? Then reversed? Still wrong? Let me think again... Oh, I remember now—the first three digits were my solar calendar birthday, and the last three were my lunar calendar birthday. Did that work? Hehe, no need to thank me. Well, I guess that's it for now. Bye!"
After hanging up, she continued walking forward.
He remained rooted to the spot, his chest tight and aching as if stabbed by a knife.
Her ex-boyfriend had asked her about the password to their old joint bank account. And that password—all six digits—had been her birthday.
He was seething. That bastard Wang could've just taken his ID to the bank and paid a small fee to reset the password. Why did he have to call Qian Fei? What gave him the right? And her—why did she still remember that damn password? Was she planning to carry memories of her ex with her for the rest of her life?!
Fuming, he stewed over it until suddenly, his chest clenched violently.
If he couldn’t even stand her remembering her ex’s bank password, how could he expect her to accept him keeping a former romantic interest around as a "little sister"?
Looking at it this way, he really had been in the wrong.
A vague understanding began to dawn on him.
In matters between men and women, just because he thought he wasn’t wrong didn’t mean he wasn’t. Right or wrong depended on whether it hurt the person he cared about.
If something he did caused her pain, then no matter what, he had done something wrong.
●︶3︶●
Over the weekend, Li Yifei felt suffocated and wanted to blow off steam by hitting the bars with Dajun. But Dajun told him over the phone, "My mom says compared to you, I’m a useless loser who can’t attract women! To prove her wrong, I’ve signed up for a three-minute speed-dating event today! I’m gonna bring home eight or ten girls and make her apologize to me in tears!" Dajun hung up, buzzing with excitement.
Li Yifei stared at his phone for a full minute.
What should he do now?
He turned on the TV to a financial news channel. The commentator rambled on about his economic outlook, but the more Li Yifei listened, the more agitated he became.
He muted the TV, picked up his phone, opened WeChat, and scrolled to his chat history with Qian Fei.
Their last exchange had been days ago—the night he took Jin Tian home. He had texted: Done with my errand and back home. Young Master has studied the heavens tonight and predicts excellent mood tomorrow. Thus, I decree we feast.
He had planned to take her out for stinky mandarin fish after her business trip, but unexpectedly, that meal had been delayed—until now, it still hadn’t happened.
He scrolled down, slowly revisiting their past messages.
Reading her old texts, he could almost hear her voice and picture her expressions in his mind. As he went through them one by one, he couldn’t help but smile—then, just as quickly, his heart ached.He felt like he was really going to have intermittent angina.
Rubbing his chest to disperse the suffocating feeling welling up from his heart, he pressed the home button and entered the dialing screen, then without hesitation held down the number 1 key.
That was her speed dial.
He had set her in this position—the one and only spot—without telling her, and without analyzing his own actions too much.
He used to think it was just for convenience. But only today did he realize it was a sign that she had already entered his heart and occupied that important place at its very core.
He kept holding down the number 1 key. Just as he expected, after two short rings came the busy tone of a rejected call.
He felt both frustrated and irritable.
She still refused to answer his calls.
Rubbing his temples, he wondered: If she never answers his calls, would he eventually die from angina?
Unwilling to give up, he picked up his phone and used his old trick—spamming her with WeChat messages.
"Answer the phone." Copy, paste, sent five times.
"Can we talk properly?" Copy, paste, another five times.
"There's a restaurant on Wanshou Road that makes amazing stinky mandarin fish! Let me take you!" Copy, paste, five more times.
After sending fifteen messages, Li Yifei paused, hesitated for a moment, then chose to follow the most genuine feeling in his heart. He honestly typed into the chat box: "Talk to me, okay? I was wrong, it's my fault, okay? Jinjin, I miss you!" After typing, his finger hovered over the screen for five seconds before he finally gritted his teeth and hit send.
So what if it hurt his pride? He could live without it.
But then, the WeChat notification informed him that the recipient had blocked him.
Li Yifei threw his phone onto the sofa in frustration.
●︶3︶●
That evening, Li Yifei lay motionless on the sofa like a corpse, not even bothering to think about whether to eat dinner or what to eat if he did.
Just as he was pondering how fucking dull life could be, Dajun called him.
He answered lifelessly with a "Hello," but before he could utter another word, Dajun's unusually excited voice blasted through the speaker.
The excitement level was comparable to when Dajun got caught by his mom playing online games.
"Bro! You'll never guess who I ran into at that three-minute speed dating event today!!! The second person I rotated to was actually the tomboy!!! Holy shit, I was scared out of my mind! I felt like I was secretly hitting on my big bro's girl behind his back!"
Li Yifei sprang up from the sofa like a carp leaping out of water, his face dark and voice low as he nearly crushed the phone in his grip. "Say that again. Who did you meet?"
Still excited, Dajun repeated, "The tomboy! Your Qian Fei!"
Li Yifei froze.
She had actually started dating again!!
He wasn't even dead yet!!! And she was already dating again!!!
One hand gripping the phone, the other pounding his chest.
He felt like he was really fucking about to have a heart attack.
Author's Note:
I think the training is about done, what do you guys think? ^_^
The Grand Chancellor seems to have a lot of fans, hmm... [Girls, you know who I'm talking about, right? 00]
Q&A:1. Why do comments need to be at least 25 characters to earn points? [Because that's the rule set by the JJWXC system. Comments shorter than 25 characters won't have the "send points" button.]
What can points be used for? [Points can be used to read VIP chapters. The longer your comment, the more points you'll earn!]
Why haven't I received points even though I comment on every chapter? [That probably means I haven't seen your comment in the backend yet. Sweetie, you can bump your comment up, and I'll send you the points once I see it ^_^]
Author, are you male or female? [TT guess!]
Thanks to all the generous readers who threw grenades and mines!!!!!!!! I love you more than tea eggs, you know that right!!!!!!!!!!
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