"Don't ask me. Since you made such a decisive decision back then, you should face the problems yourself today."
I forcefully shook off Willson's hand and walked forward, my feet thumping on the ground. For the first time, I felt that autumn was a turbulent season, but the air was filled only with disappointment and anger, not passion. I forget who said it: life is short, like the time it takes to smoke a pipe, and fate, like ashes, flicks us away. But I was still grateful to Willson for saving "Blooming" in a moment of crisis, so I chose to turn and leave while I still had a sliver of reason left.
My dad readily agreed to continue chemotherapy, which relieved everyone. And the very next day, the oncology specialist came to us and told us that the hospital had acquired an imported alternative drug that could effectively reduce the side effects of chemotherapy.
"How much does it cost?" my mom and I asked in unison.
The expert smiled knowingly and said, "It's over a hundred yuan more expensive than the medicine we used before." I secretly breathed a sigh of relief; my wish had really come true. Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced at my mother and quietly patted my chest.
Seeing that my dad's side effects were significantly reduced after this round of chemotherapy, and that he didn't experience the dreaded persistent high fever the day after his treatment, and that his white blood cell count had decreased but was still hovering around the critical level, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. My dad also seemed less burdened, and only then did I feel at ease enough to prepare to return to Guangzhou. There was simply too much to do at the company, and some things couldn't be delayed any longer.
The day I left, it was drizzling. My dad was being discharged from the hospital that day, and the whole family was busy. I left alone with just a simple bag of clothes. It's usually hard to get a taxi near my house, but that day, an empty taxi was waiting for me as soon as I stepped out. It seemed like everything went smoothly.
Just as I was about to get on the bus, I suddenly felt a warm sensation on the back of my neck, as if something had burned it. I turned around, but there was nothing there. I touched my neck; the skin was intact, everything was fine. Strange, I shook my head. Suddenly, for some reason, my thoughts drifted to the time at the Lin Ya Island Resort, where a pair of eyes had been secretly watching me, and I had felt the same way without even knowing it. Thinking of those eyes, thinking of their owner, I felt a pang of pain, a pain in my heart. I adjusted my breathing and couldn't help but turn around again, of course, to look, but there was nothing there. What is he doing now? Suddenly, I desperately wanted to know, so much so that I almost cried. Impulsively, I picked up my phone and dialed all eleven numbers without even thinking. The headset remained silent, filled only with the pounding of my heart. Time seemed to crawl by, and I could feel my heart racing faster and faster… I abruptly pressed the hang-up button, collapsing into the car seat as if all my strength had left me. Only then did I realize my back was completely soaked with sweat. But I truly didn't have the courage to face the reality of Yin Tian hanging up on me. No, not now. I wasn't ready, ready to be rejected by him to my face.
Part Two, Chapter Thirty-Eight
The first thing I did upon returning to Guangzhou was to quickly decide on the promotional theme for this quarter. Liu Yiming and his team submitted several proposals, which, while somewhat creative, ultimately fell short of expectations. I spent the entire morning racking my brains but couldn't come up with a good idea. Sigh, if only I had the money, I could hire a professional company and just sit there and nitpick. But now I'm broke, so I have to figure it out myself. Money, why does my dearest friend always seem to keep its distance from me?
Unable to understand, I simply stopped thinking about it. I picked up a copy of the *Southern Metropolis Daily*, and it was all about money: house raids, suicide attempts to demand unpaid wages, phone bank scams… I skipped the social news section and flipped straight to the supplement. My eyes were immediately filled with a bunch of serialized articles; this truly is an age of information overload. That's why advertising is getting harder and harder. Suddenly, I saw a passage:
...
I can't bring myself to miss you in the subtlest way; the details of our time together constantly torment my memory, causing me pain. So I quietly stand five meters away from you. I've calculated that it only takes seven steps, about eight seconds, to get to you. If I live to seventy, that means I'll have experienced 275.94 million eight-second intervals in my life. I want to use one of those 275.94 million intervals to get to you, to tell you, "You forgot to take me with you," to tell you, "From now on, I will be your breath, let us be inseparable," to tell you, "Let's get married, let's have ten children," to tell you, "I don't know if you'll be happy marrying me, but I know I will be very happy"... But in the end, I can only spend ten times that eight seconds, like a fool, staring blankly at your retreating figure until it disappears. Admitting this is embarrassing, but I still have to admit that after countless such near misses and countless gazes ten times greater, your silhouette remains there, in the silence of my heart, inspiring endless wonder. This is the image that I find most pleasing, most familiar with, and most captivating of all.
Overall, peeping is a relatively private matter, like adjusting your zipper or trimming your nose hairs to admire Jordan's extensive sexual characteristics. However, I still don't think it should be used as a negative example of moral depravity. I still imagine that one day, I can look into your eyes face to face, leave without making a sound, and tell you as I leave that my love has nothing to do with you.
...
For some inexplicable reason, I can't explain why, but reading this passage actually made me feel heartbroken. Being sentimental has never been my style; I've regretted it before. I've always been oblivious, and by the time I reached the age where I should have put on airs, it was too late, so I just kept being this rough around the edges. What's going on? Am I going through menopause so soon? I rubbed my nose and then noticed that next to the title was "Elopement Blog."
Blog? What does that mean?
Not wanting to give those guys another excuse to laugh at me, I turned on my computer and went online to check. Good heavens, I was shocked: blogs were incredibly popular online, no less so than the dolphin-like high notes of a Super Girl contestant. All sorts of colorful blogs were flooding every sense of the internet. After quickly browsing through them, suddenly, a brilliant idea struck me, and I called Fiona over.
"You're in charge of contacting this blogger named 'Runaway,' and telling her we're renting her blog. We require that from the 20th of next month—a week before our new flower collection launches—all her blog posts focus on the theme of our flowers. She can decide the format, but it must be related to topics stemming from our collection. Let her name her price, and we'll pay her. Simultaneously, all our promotional resources, including print media and radio ads, will be used to promote her blog. However, all articles must be reviewed and approved by us."
Upon hearing this, FIONA immediately said, "I'm quite familiar with the editor of the supplement section of 'Southern Metropolis Daily,' I'll go find her right now. I'll also try to reach her within 24 hours through her contact information on her online homepage. If I can't find her, I'll get back to you as soon as possible."
"Thank you." I nodded. Fiona had matured a lot without me even realizing it. Actually, not only Fiona, but Shan Jie, Liu Yiming, and the rest of the company were also growing at an astonishing pace. Every time I saw this, I felt happy, but I couldn't help feeling a little melancholy. As they grew, it seemed like there were fewer and fewer things in the company that required my direct involvement. Would it eventually come that one day I wouldn't have to do anything at all? Would that mean I could retire from the stage of history?
What am I thinking? I patted my head.
FIONA replied within five hours, telling me one bad news and one good news: the person was unwilling to take the job, but the editor-in-chief of Southern Metropolis Daily introduced us to another blogger who also serializes in the newspaper and has a high online click rate.
"Why didn't they want to elope?" I didn't quite understand.
"They say she writes not to make money, but just for fun." Are there really people in this world who don't care about money? I started to drastically reduce the goodwill I had towards her because of her articles.
After reading the blog recommended to us by the editor-in-chief of Southern Metropolis Daily, I felt it wasn't quite right for us. "This isn't what we're looking for," I said directly to Fiona as I pushed down the keyboard.
FIONA looked puzzled: "Really? I don't think so. It's pretty good, the click rate is quite high, and there are a lot of people commenting."
"Didn't you see her homepage cover is filled with selfies, using the golden signboard of a 'pretty girl' blog? How could it not attract a lot of fans? Don't forget that outside the internet, wolves will always put on a sheep's clothing and act all high and low, but once they're online, they don't even need the sheep's clothing anymore. They just pounce. High click rates are already a very subtle way for wolves to pounce. And look at what she writes: whining and pretentious, just throwing together a bunch of idioms that don't make any sense and thinking it's poetic language. It gives me goosebumps. It's utterly nonsensical." I almost choked on my words as I rattled off the list.
"It doesn't seem that bad, does it, boss?" Shan Jie stared intently at the computer screen. "I feel like there's a lot of acetic acid in your words."
"See that? There's only half a sheepskin left," I said, pointing to Shan Jie, who was zooming in on a photo of a beautiful woman looking down. Fiona suddenly walked over and slammed the computer shut.
"What?" Shan Jie stood up abruptly.
FIONA seemed very angry: "Why are all you men like this?! Why do you only ever see the surface? What is it about women that you care about?"
I'd never seen Fiona act like this before. I quickly pulled her away and kicked Shan Jie, saying, "Exactly! These men are all talking about beautiful women all the time, without even considering their own character. Beautiful women? Even a demon is still a beautiful woman! Can you even handle them?!"
To everyone's surprise, Shan Jie stood there motionless, looking like he wanted to say something but couldn't. Instead, Liu Yiming tugged at me and whispered, "Let's make room and let them argue."
But seeing Shan Jie's unfriendly expression, I was afraid Fiona would suffer, so I wanted to persuade her again, but Liu Yiming pulled me away without saying a word.
"You still haven't figured it out? Those two are just playing around." Liu Yiming looked at me with an expression that said I was hopeless.
"Playing with spears? What spears? Why would they get so angry over playing with spears? Besides, those two...playing with spears?!" I stared in disbelief. "When did this happen?"
"It's been more than two months, and you're the only one in the company who doesn't know. Sigh, boss, your intelligence has always been a mystery."
"What's so hard to understand? It's just that we're not on the same wavelength." I didn't take it seriously. But I couldn't help feeling a little wistful. Youth is so wonderful; you still have the energy to play games. In my two relationships, I don't think I've ever experienced anything like that. The first time was because of my inferiority complex; I felt I wasn't qualified to play games. The second time, it was over before I even had a chance to play games. As for the third time… well, I've already become a seasoned young woman without even realizing it; I don't have the energy for playing games anymore. But at least I've come to one conclusion: those who have played games have definitely experienced love, but those who have experienced love haven't necessarily played games. Typing these two sentences out on the computer makes them sound a bit profound. In a moment of impulsiveness, I decided to secretly use a picture of Zhang Tianxian to start a blog, because after browsing around, I discovered that it seems that no matter which website a blog is on, as long as the number of hits is high, you get paid.
Part Two, Chapter Thirty-Nine
When the finance department notified me that there was a problem with the account that had received the investment, I had no idea that things would develop in such an unpredictable way, like the flight path of a startled bird.
I called Mr. Sun and told him that the interest payment due couldn't be deposited into that account. Mr. Sun told me that the account was suspended due to an audit and a different account had been assigned. This time, I was more cautious and had the finance department check. They discovered the account didn't belong to Mr. Sun's company. Remembering what Zhu Jiahua had mentioned, I decided to investigate further to see which company Willson used to pay me. After some effort, the result was unexpected—it was a private account, but the owner wasn't Willson; it belonged to someone surnamed Hu, named Hu Zhuoxi.
The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. Although the trail ended there, it at least confirmed one thing: the loan wasn't a company transaction. I didn't want any further entanglement with Willson, so I decided to find the evidence myself and confront him. I had no reason to accept his kindness anymore. However, contacting Zhu Jiahua was definitely not a good idea, so...
He made another call to Mr. Sun, deliberately speaking in a slurred manner: "Hello, Mr. Sun, this is Li Hao. I just figured out the details of this money through Mr. Hu Zhuoxi, and I've already spoken to that person. Although the money came from his side, I still want to thank you for all the help you've provided."
Mr. Sun was clearly caught off guard, but being a businessman, he quickly laughed it off: "Ms. Li, you flatter me. This is just a small favor for me. Besides, it's something Hengwei assigned me, so why would I have any objections..."
Hengwei? I wondered if I had misheard, so I mustered my courage and continued to probe: "Yin Tianyu said that I should transfer the money directly to Mr. Hu's account from now on, so as not to bother your company."
"Oh, okay then." Mr. Sun hung up the phone without any suspicion, and I finally remembered that Hu Zhuoxi was the executive general manager's assistant at Hengwei. Back then, Yin Tianyu was elusive, and being able to meet with Mr. Hu Zhuoxi was one of the things that excited me for a long time.