Je ne serai pas ta poupée

Chapitre 19

A sense of alarm suddenly rose in Qiqi's heart!

This order today has been strange from beginning to end.

Qiqi doesn't want to have any contact with a man like Boss Qiu unless it's for work.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Qiu, but I have a department meeting at one o'clock that I must attend. I'm afraid I won't have time for lunch. How about we reschedule?"

Mr. Qiu was taken aback. There probably wasn't a single girl in Shanghai who wouldn't be interested in eating at the Shangri-La.

However, he wouldn't insist, and simply said, "Then I'll send a driver to take Miss Yang home. Also—"

Mr. Qiu reached into his suit pocket, pulled out a thick red envelope, and handed it over: "This is just a small token of my appreciation, Miss Yang, for your hard work."

Qiqi has been given red envelopes by customers more than once, and she can tell at a glance that the red envelope is no less than 10,000 yuan in cash.

Qiqi took a step back and said, "Mr. Qiu, you're too kind. Our company has regulations that prohibit us from accepting cash and gifts. I'm sorry."

Mr. Qiu withdrew his hand somewhat awkwardly and said, "What a great company! Multinational corporations are just different... Actually, I have important matters to discuss with Miss Yang at dinner."

Qi Qi had long since avoided this money-grubbing businessman like the plague. She turned around, hailed a taxi, opened the door, and said to Boss Qiu, "You have to go to a banquet, and the car isn't empty, so don't bother. I'll take a taxi back myself; it'll be quick."

Before Boss Qiu could say anything, Qi Qi had already gotten into the car and closed the door.

For several days in a row, Qiqi was not very happy.

On Friday morning, Gao Jinze called her to tell her that the negotiations were going smoothly, and then hung up in a hurry.

On Friday, Qiqi was actually working all day, only taking a few moments to look at case studies.

This weekend night was just like any other; no one invited me to dinner or go to a bar together.

On Saturday, Qiqi didn't go anywhere; she stayed in bed reading Eileen Chang's "Half a Lifetime Romance".

It's elusive, as if waiting for someone's call.

Youyou used to bother me every Saturday.

Mu Feng didn't promise to meet up with me on the weekend. Maybe he did make plans with someone else, but it was Youyou.

Gao Jinze was busy with something, I don't know.

Everyone else had their own shows, but he was the only one left out.

Thinking about this, Qiqi got very annoyed and angrily turned off her phone.

On Sunday, she spent the whole day shopping alone at Longemont Mall, and in the end, she only bought a box of pork belly at Carrefour.

Mom said this morning that she wanted to eat "steamed pork with rice flour".

Her phone was always switched off.

It wasn't until I got to the office on Monday morning that I realized I hadn't turned on my phone.

She opened her phone and saw two text messages from yesterday. The first was from Youyou, inviting her to afternoon tea; the second was from Mufeng, asking if she was home. The two messages were sent less than ten minutes apart, leading Qiqi to suspect they were sent one after the other while they were together. Therefore, she didn't want to reply to either and deleted them immediately.

Ever since I talked about Weiwei last time, this little girl has been acting strangely towards me and hasn't spoken to me much in the past week.

Qiqi was both annoyed and amused. She never expected that Weiwei, who was usually so carefree, would actually hold a grudge.

She can be childish, but I can't be.

As Qiqi passed by Weiwei's partition, she noticed her desktop wallpaper, which featured a picture of two almost completely naked long-haired boys kissing. Qiqi blushed and her heart raced. She nudged Weiwei's shoulder and said, "Change your desktop wallpaper right now, look at what you've done!"

As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized they were a bit harsh; I had originally come here to try and make peace with her.

Sure enough, Weiwei twisted her body dramatically, shaking off Qiqi's hand. Turning back, she glared at Qiqi and snapped, "American companies value employee freedom; we don't need you old-fashioned meddlesome nonsense!"

Qiqi froze, and instantly, a surge of heat rose to her head, and tears welled up in her eyes.

She silently turned around, walked back to her cubicle, lowered her head, and remained sad for a long time.

She simply couldn't understand why Weiwei would act this way. She was, after all, Weiwei's direct supervisor; how could she speak to her like that...?

The phone rang, softly.

Qiqi answered the phone and weakly said "Hello".

Youyou's voice was filled with excitement: "Qiqi, what's wrong with you again? Where did you go yesterday? Why isn't your phone on? Hey, find a quiet place, I have something to tell you, hurry up!"

Qiqi had no idea what tricks Youyou, who always liked to startle people, was up to this time, so she got up, left the office, and said at the corner of the corridor, "Okay, go ahead and say it."

"Yesterday, Mu Feng accompanied me to look at houses. Guess where we looked?"

Sure enough, Mu Feng accompanied her.

Qiqi had no interest in guessing and said listlessly, "Love is love, it's love. Anyway, you'll buy a house on Mars sooner or later."

"What's wrong with you, Qiqi? You look like you've lost your soul... Let me tell you, the apartment I looked at was in Tianyuan Apartments, didn't expect that, did you?"

Youyou's words were startling, and Qiqi immediately snapped to attention: "What?! A house in Tianyuan Apartment?! Are you kidding me, Miss? Your Fenghe Shuiyuan building just collapsed, and you're already going to buy another one that's about to collapse? Are you addicted to collapsing buildings?!"

"Hey Qiqi, don't be so anxious. Listen to me, I'm not buying this to live in myself. It's up to me whether it collapses or not. If it collapses, that's even better. I'll get compensation, even more! You know, in just a few days, the compensation for my apartment in Fenghe Shuiyuan has increased to 16,000 yuan. You didn't expect that, did you? Luckily, I didn't listen to you and canceled the purchase, otherwise I would have suffered a huge loss!"

Youyou was actually blaming her... Qiqi felt very upset.

She calmly said, "Buy it if you want, you have plenty of money anyway."

Youyou laughed wildly on the other end and said, "See, you're unhappy again, aren't you? I want to buy a house in Tianyuan Apartment, but I need your help, little sister."

"What can I do to help? The housing prices have gone up these past few days, and I don't even have enough for a down payment," Qiqi quickly said.

Youyou burst into laughter again: "Silly little sister, no matter how poor I am, I would never ask you for money. Don't worry, I'll sponsor whatever you need for the down payment."

Qiqi felt a warmth in her heart. Of course, she wouldn't actually let Youyou pay for the house for her. She softened her tone and said, "No need. My mom still has some money. She said she wanted to add to it, otherwise she wouldn't feel at ease living in the house."

"Come on, now that you've got the money, is the old lady still going to trade stocks? The market's doing just fine, selling stocks is a waste of money! A hundred thousand or twenty thousand, I can afford it... You're quite familiar with Gao Jinze from Qianqiu Real Estate, aren't you? Introduce him to me, I hear he's quite handsome, and a graduate of MIT... I've introduced you to plenty of rich and handsome guys, this time I'm asking for one, you can't refuse..."

Qiqi suddenly felt very uncomfortable.

Youyou has plenty of "boyfriends," she could bring one to her every week. But she only knows Gao Jinze, and even though things are starting to look promising, Youyou has already set her sights on him.

However, rejecting Youyou would be too petty, and besides, Gao Jinze and she really had nothing going on. If he were so easily tempted, he would have found other girls even without Youyou…

Thinking of this, Qiqi calmly said, "Okay, whenever you're free, I'll make an appointment with him for you."

On the other end of the line, Youyou suddenly burst into laughter, almost choking on her breath: "Seven... Seven... You're not planning to give up Mr. Gao to me, are you? It's easy for me to steal someone's boyfriend. But as for you, little sister, I can only watch and not touch... Don't misunderstand, I contacted him to get an internal price for a Tianyuan apartment. The money I save will be enough for your down payment. I'm the one asking him for a favor. You should ask him when Mr. Gao is available. I'll be there whenever he calls!"

Qiqi agreed and hung up the phone.

That's fine, since I can't usually help Youyou much.

When I dialed Gao Jinze's number, his voice was very soft, but I could hear people talking on the other end, as if they were in a meeting.

Sure enough, Gao Jinze said, "I'm holding a board meeting for the Shanghai branch. What's up?"

The fact that he answered the phone so promptly for such an important meeting proved that she held some weight in his heart. Qi Qi felt a little happier.

When are you free?

"Anytime is fine, except this morning. Let's eat at South Beauty in Zhengda Plaza at 6 pm. I'll hang up now."

Hearing the busy tone on the other end of the phone, Qiqi finally realized that she had foolishly made an appointment with Gao Jinze for no reason...

The weather suddenly changed in the afternoon, with thunder and lightning.

Standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in her office, Qiqi looked at the Lujiazui buildings across the Huangpu River, submerged in the cold wind and rain. Thinking that she could see Gao Jinze there that night, she felt a little restless.

As soon as she got off work at 5:30, Qiqi was the first to rush out, scanned her fingerprint to clock in, and squeezed into the elevator with a huge number of other people to go up and down the parking lot.

As we exited the intersection, the rain intensified, turning everything into a white mist.

Although it's just past the Yan'an Road Tunnel, the road was already packed with vehicles before we even reached the tunnel. Qiqi turned on the traffic radio and heard reports of flooding in the tunnel and a car accident.

I am extremely worried.

I checked my watch, it was already 5:50!

Qiqi closed her eyes and prayed that the tunnel would open soon. Just as she finished praying, the car in front of her started up. Qiqi was overjoyed and quickly started her car as well. But she felt a jolt. It turned out that the car in front of her had stalled as soon as it started up. Because of the slippery road due to the rain, it had reversed back to its original position, and its rear end collided with the front of Qiqi's car!

Qiqi was about to swear!

The driver in the car in front got out and started cursing loudly in Shanghainese.

Qiqi had no choice but to open her umbrella, push open the car door, and get out of the car in the pouring rain.

My shoes were almost completely soaked in water, and the rain was whipping my body like a painful lash.

The driver who had been swearing immediately stopped when he saw Qiqi's pitiful, tearful face. He stared at her blankly for a long time before asking, "Miss, are you alright?"

Qiqi's teeth chattered as she said, "N-nothing, I'm sorry I bumped into your car. Do you think we should call the traffic police...?"

The driver stared intently at Qiqi's rain-soaked, curvaceous body, and said, "No, and let's not worry about whose fault it is... My bumper has been in several collisions already, it should have been replaced a long time ago... Well, traffic is congested today, let's not cause trouble for the police. Here's my business card, let's have some tea sometime!"

As he spoke, the car owner reached into his pocket, pulled out a gold foil business card, and handed it to Qiqi.

Qiqi had no choice but to accept, and thanked them repeatedly.

Back in the car, I was soaked to the bone, utterly exhausted.

The car drove through the tunnel; it was already 6:10. Gao Jinze was probably getting impatient, so Qiqi put on her Bluetooth headset and dialed his number.

"Hey, Mr. Gao, I'm sorry, I might be about twenty minutes late."

Qi Qi said apologetically.

"Oh? Qiqi, you're coming too? I didn't prepare an invitation for you, it might be a bit troublesome..."

"You need an invitation to have a meal at South Beauty? That's unusual," Qi Qi asked with a smile.

"No, it's at the Hyatt Regency in Jinmao—oh dear, oh dear! Didn't I invite you to dinner tonight during that phone call this morning during the meeting? This afternoon, Mr. Pan from Shanghai Wanjia suddenly moved the signing banquet to today, look at me—"

Qiqi felt a chill in her heart.

At this moment, the temperature in her heart was lower than the temperature in her body.

Why did I take someone's casual remark so seriously?

They even drove all the way here!

Qiqi forced herself to say, "It's okay, you go ahead and do your thing. I can eat by myself."

Then, she hung up the phone, pulled the car over, slumped over the steering wheel, and began to sob silently.

On this day, she felt as if she had lost both Mu Feng and Gao Jinze at the same time.

For three or four consecutive days, Qiqi was restless and unable to concentrate on her work.

Youyou calls her every day, urging her to make an appointment with Gao Jinze.