"Did you call me yesterday? What's up?" Willson's voice drifted over from a great distance.
"Ah, last night, yes, last night..."
"Never mind, I'll come pick you up for work later. You can tell me anything then." Willson interrupted me, told me the time, and hung up, leaving me staring blankly at the phone.
After a hurried wash and change, I came out and saw Yi Rou sitting in the dining room, dressed neatly, eating bread and reading the newspaper.
"Where did you go last night, Yirou? I called back late at night but no one answered."
"And you? What time did you get back? I found you weren't home yet when I got home." Yi Rou's question instead of answering made me a little uncomfortable.
"Something happened to me yesterday." For a moment, I didn't know where to begin.
"Forget it, you chose to jump into the fire pit yourself," Yi Rou said casually.
I don't know why, but since yesterday, I've felt that my relationship with Yirou has become a bit strange, which makes me very uncomfortable. Subconsciously, I feel that I should examine what I did wrong, so I think it's my responsibility to improve the situation: "WILLSON is coming to pick me up for work later, let's go together."
I was afraid Yi Rou would reject my efforts outright. Fortunately, she only paused briefly before saying, "Okay." This made me feel a little better.
When Wilson saw Yi Rou and me walking out together, he paused for a moment, but didn't say a word.
Sitting in the car, everyone was silent, which made me incredibly awkward. I never expected things to turn out this way. I'll never do anything so stupid again.
"By the way, last night..." I began, trying to break the awkward silence.
“Let’s talk about it back at the company,” Willson interrupted me mercilessly, leaving me no choice but to shut my mouth tightly. In the continued silence, I realized that I would never have acted this way in the past. I was becoming increasingly unfamiliar and strange. But perhaps, as the advertisements say, change isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I comforted myself.
Following Willson into the office, he glanced at his watch and said, "It's alright, I have ten minutes to talk about personal matters. May heard somewhere that things between you and me have gone wrong, and since last night until this morning she hasn't eaten or drunk anything, has locked herself in her room and won't see anyone, no matter how much I try to persuade her."
I was startled: "How could this be? Who could have told her?"
"That's not the point. The problem is that she didn't hear it from me, which changes the whole thing. She's stubbornly refusing to accept what I said, especially when I told her that I like her. Her reaction was beyond my wildest imagination."
"Then what should we do?"
"Her health wasn't good to begin with, sigh. But I've already had someone keep an eye on her, so there shouldn't be any major problems. I think we need to resolve this as soon as possible. I'll go to Seoul tomorrow to have a serious talk with my parents."
“But,” I hesitated, “are you really sure we want to do this?” For the first time, I truly saw how big, how many, and how difficult the problems between him and me were.
"Silly woman, you're not trying to run away, are you? Come here." I obediently walked over and let him hug me. I could feel his arms tightening around me, squeezing my body as if it were about to break. Although it was very uncomfortable, I closed my eyes and endured it. I heard him whisper in Korean above my head: "My love, give me strength. If I have to be a sinner because you need me, then let us live forever in hell."
I suddenly felt so heartbroken. Compared to the pain I brought him, the joy I brought was just a drop in the ocean. Did I do something wrong? Is this really the love I wanted?
"If one day you can't take it anymore and want to end it, just send me a text message. It's okay, I can accept it. After all, I've lived quite well without you for the past twenty-odd years. Just please don't tell me you want to break up in person," I said softly.
"What nonsense are you talking about?! I will never break up with you, not in this life, not in the next, never. And you are not allowed to break up with me, not even in the thought, do you hear me?"
I nodded, but he was still not reassured and insisted that I make a vow.
"Okay, if I ever think about breaking up with Lin Yingshuo, then let me be reborn as a spinach in my next life, exposed to the wind and sun, drenched in manure, and finally have my head and tail cut off and boiled in oil."
"The oath you made is certainly vicious enough, but why does it sound so unsettling to me?" Willson asked me, somewhat puzzled.
"How could that be?" I answered aloud while secretly chuckling to myself. The next life? So what if I'm a pig in the next life? What does it have to do with a thorough materialist like me?
Just before I was about to leave work, the sky suddenly turned pitch black. Even the cars on the road had to turn on their headlights by 5 p.m., and a torrential downpour began in an instant. This damn weather, it changes its mind so suddenly, without even a warning. Wilson had a business dinner and left early in the morning. He drove there and there, so he should be fine without an umbrella, right? I frowned as I looked out the foggy window and returned to my desk to continue writing the budget report to be submitted to the Hong Kong headquarters.
"Good sister!" Yi Rou suddenly jumped in front of me, startling me.
"You brat, you scared me to death!" I scolded her, clutching my chest.
"It's time to go home together after get off work?"
"I still have work to do, you go first." I was eager to pick up where I left off, having been startled by Yi Rou, and waved for her to leave.
"Then I'll wait for you here, since I didn't bring an umbrella anyway."
"I don't know what time it will be, you'll be starving."
"It's okay. The business development department treated us to afternoon tea today. I ate two Portuguese egg tarts and I'm still full."
"Feeding you is like feeding a cat. Fine, then you can play on the computer over there by yourself." After saying that, I ignored her and entered a state of complete absorption.
By the time I finished writing the report and returned to reality, two hours had passed. I then remembered that Yirou was still waiting for me. Looking around, I found the little girl asleep on the desk next to me, her cheeks flushed. This girl, she can really sleep. I went over and patted her awake. "Sweetie, wake up, let's go home."
Yi Rou stretched languidly: "Heh--, I can't believe I'm hungry even when I'm asleep. Dear sister, what time is it?"
"It's nine o'clock." I glanced at the clock on the wall. "Let's go eat."
"But I'm so hungry, I can't walk anymore. Is there any instant noodles I can eat? Let me take care of this first."
Seeing her shameless expression, I said helplessly, "Serves you right, who told you to wait for me? You're lucky, I still have a few boxes of fried noodles I planned to eat while working overtime, I'll get them for you right now."
I busied myself in the break room, soaking the fried noodles, draining them, and preparing the sauce. But then I realized they'd be too dry and wouldn't taste good. After searching high and low, I actually found a packet of seaweed and dried shrimp soup mix in the cupboard. Perfect timing! I quickly made some and gave each of us half.
"Lunch is ready!" I shouted as I carried a steaming bowl of soup and noodles into the office. Yi Rou rushed over to take it from me, asking, "Why did it take so long?"
"Are you starving? We don't have much food, so make do with this to fill your stomach first." I was starving too, and I quickly finished the fried noodles, then poured the soup down my throat, and only then did I feel like I was coming back to my senses. Looking at Yirou, she had been complaining about being hungry, but now she only ate half a bowl of fried noodles and said she was full, though she drank every last drop of the soup.
"Sigh, if I were a farmer, I would rather starve than sell my grain to you if I saw you wasting it like this." I felt very sorry for you.
"I can't eat it. If you force me to finish it, I'll throw up." I can't resist Yi Rou's coquettishness. I'm the kind of person who responds better to gentleness than force.
Back home, after showering, I pulled out my favorite anime, *City Hunter*, to watch, while Yi Rou, feeling bored, went back to her room to play on the computer. Just as I was watching Meng Beixiang chasing everyone around with a giant hammer, the phone rang. It turned out a customer had seen the unique slippers I was consigning for sale on my online store and wanted to buy them from me. After some haggling on the phone, we finally settled on a price five percent higher than my bottom line. Because the website takes full responsibility for the transaction's credit, the customer readily asked for my bank account number, saying they would transfer the money the next day and ship the goods upon receipt of payment. As soon as I hung up, I was practically bursting with joy. This was my first sale in the month since I opened this online store, and it was quite a big one. Although when I begged and pleaded with my classmate in Beijing to buy the distribution rights for this brand of unique slippers in South China, I was confident that these products would have a market in Guangzhou, the long period of silence had almost made me give up. I never expected that someone would finally buy from me today. I grabbed the thug and showered him with kisses, leaving him drooling all over his face. In mid-air, the thug started scrambling to wash his face.
The phone rang again. Wait, another business opportunity? Is tonight some kind of lucky night for me? I grabbed the phone: "Hello, how many pairs of slippers do you need?"
"What slippers?" Willson asked me on the phone, puzzled.