Shu Yi'an touched her slightly protruding belly, her eyes filled with tenderness.
"Of course it's manageable, the little one seems to be getting used to it."
Julie sighed, moved by the woman's transformation. She'd received the call while in a meeting, initially assuming the woman was unwell or traumatized by the fire, only to later learn she was hospitalized. Julie waved for the meeting to pause while still on the phone, then turned and walked out the door, repeating incredulously, "..."
"Transfer? Why? What happened?"
Shu Yi'an didn't know how to explain to Julie on the other end of the phone, so she could only express her thoughts concisely.
"Due to health reasons, I can no longer stay in Beijing."
Julie glanced at the murky sky outside and took a deep breath. She had so many questions and curiosities about Shu Yi'an. Whether as her boss or a friend in the company, Julie felt it necessary to understand her better. She wanted to see if she could truly help her, because the woman's voice on the phone didn't sound good.
"How about this, Yi'an, if you trust me, let's sit down together sometime."
Considering that Shu Yi'an had just been discharged from the hospital, Julie specially chose a coffee shop outside the lakeside garden as the meeting place. She even went to pick her up herself. In just half a month, Shu Yi'an really looked much more haggard.
Julie handed the menu back to the waiter and shook hands. "Could you please tell me what's wrong?"
Shu Yi'an looked at the hot milk on the table and calmly said a sentence.
“I’m divorced, and I’m pregnant now.”
Julie considered herself a seasoned career woman, capable of handling any situation with ease. But hearing Shu Yi'an's words, even someone as composed as Julie was taken aback.
"Divorced...divorced? Does that mean the child in your belly isn't your husband's?"
Shu Yi'an glanced at her with a quiet look, wondering how she had never noticed before that Julie, this aloof female boss, was so eccentric.
"What are you thinking..."
Julie realized she had said the wrong thing and quickly waved her hand in apology, "I'm sorry, that's not what I meant. I meant... there are rumors at the company that you were hospitalized because of a miscarriage, and... I'm so confused..."
Shu Yi'an smiled reassuringly at her, her expression forlorn. "It's alright, it's hard to explain."
"It was indeed because of a miscarriage, but luckily the baby survived. It was also because of this that I divorced my husband, so I thought... I would go through the formalities and leave Beijing to live somewhere else."
Julie's focus was clearly not on the job transfer Shu Yi'an mentioned. "You're taking the child and getting a divorce? Have you thought it through? Did your husband agree? He's so irresponsible!!"
If Julie admired Shu Yi'an's diligent and humble work attitude at the company, she was now filled with sympathy for the girl. Her tone became harsher, filled with indignation.
“He doesn’t know, this is my decision.” Shu Yi’an sat up straight and hurriedly explained to Julie, “I’m asking you for help today because I feel that my current mental state makes it difficult to continue working. So I want to transfer or quit this job.”
Since the company exports its products, it has many processing plants located in commercial ports or light industrial cities across the country. A job transfer is the best solution that Shu Yi'an can think of.
Julie calmed herself down before finally agreeing. "I'll go back and report to my boss, and try my best to get you a better job. Besides... you're pregnant, the company can't fire you."
The two chatted for nearly two hours in the coffee shop, and Julie gained a deeper understanding and new perspectives on Shu Yi'an. Before leaving, Shu Yi'an asked her for one last favor.
"Please don't mention our conversation to anyone, okay? If anyone comes to the company looking for me, just say you don't know anything about it."
Julie looked at her thoughtfully, then suddenly asked a question. "So you also conspired with the doctor to keep it from your family? Shu Yi'an, don't blame me for being blunt, but with your husband's methods, keeping your whereabouts a secret... must be incredibly stressful..."
After all, he was a man who had rendered Shaw helpless and repeatedly frustrated...
Shu Yi'an looked at the sky gradually darkening, put on her coat, and prepared to leave.
"This is just a personal request I'm making to you, it has nothing to do with business, and... maybe I'm overthinking it, there's hardly anyone who would come to me."
Julie followed behind her, bag in hand, looking utterly helpless. "Shu Yi'an, you're the most stubborn person I've ever met. Let me give you a piece of advice: girls, it's better not to be so inflexible!"
Under the streetlights, Shu Yi'an's eyes were crystal clear. She turned around and winked mischievously at Julie.
“There are some things that we persist in even though we know they are hopeless, not for anything else, but for the peace and stability here.” Her pale fingers pointed to her heart, gentle and composed.
In that instant, Julie suddenly understood Shu Yi'an's actions. She hadn't expected that this unassuming girl would know about her suppressed feelings for Xiao Ke over the years. She really was quite clever.
Under the streetlights, Shu Yi'an's figure receded into the distance. She walked step by step back to Huyuan, her thoughts slowly returning to the day she was wheeled into the operating room. It was the first time she had entered that place while still fully conscious. Shu Yi'an closed her eyes, thinking bitterly: at eighteen, she was wheeled in there, injuring her leg and losing her parents; at twenty-four, this time, she lost her baby. The hospital truly was a cold and heartless place.
A green curtain was drawn back, obscuring her view. Only the female head doctor and her assistant were by the operating table, with two or three nurses passing instruments around them, making soft noises with each movement. Time seemed to drag on endlessly… so long that Shu Yi'an was almost driven to the brink of collapse by the feeling of time slipping away, when she heard the female head doctor's voice, tinged with relief.
"Don't be afraid. If the bleeding is only due to signs of miscarriage, the baby can be saved."
In that instant, Shu Yi'an finally felt her previously light body land heavily on the ground. As she was being pushed towards the exit, she grabbed the female director's sleeve and did the most outrageous thing she had ever done.
"Doctor, could you please not tell anyone about this?"
“The person outside is not my husband; we are divorced. He is only here out of a sense of morality, so do I have the right to demand that you not reveal my true situation to strangers?”
Initially, the female doctor naturally disagreed with this request, but considering the patient's own insistence and what Shu Yi'an had said to her, she reluctantly agreed. After all, she hadn't hidden the patient's condition from the family; the miscarriage was a fact.
This was probably the biggest lie Shu Yi'an had ever told in her life. So much so that when the female director was explaining the illness to Chu Mu, she took a few extra glances at him. In fact, she didn't believe that this young and handsome man in front of her would do something so irresponsible.
In the following days, since the medicine she was taking was nothing more than nourishing and anti-inflammatory, and quite by some strange twist of fate, Chu Mu did not notice the tiny word "pregnancy" on the medicine bottle. Shu Yi'an kept telling herself to stay calm and eat on time, because she was not only doing it for herself.
The day after her divorce from Chu Mu, she received a text message from Julie informing her that their export subsidiary in Suzhou Industrial Park was short of a copywriter position, and that she could start work anytime if needed.
And so, Shu Yi'an arrived in Suzhou the next day, with Su Ying accompanying her throughout. The two rented a nice and safe apartment together. When Shu Yi'an handed over the rent to the landlord, Su Ying clicked her tongue a few times in a teasing tone.
"That's a generous alimony! Five thousand a month, Mrs. Shu, can you call this 'disabled but determined'?"
Shu Yi'an silently put the receipt away and carefully examined it inside the house. "It's not alimony, it's my own money!! Be nicer to yourself instead of complaining. Otherwise, we could just rent Miss Chen's basement apartment!"
"He didn't give you money?!" Su Ying was shocked. "Holy crap, the god can't be that much of a jerk!"
How could that be? The day after Chu Mu saw all the agreements left in the study, he went to the bank and transferred a large sum of money to Shu Yi'an's account. So much so that when Shu Yi'an received the transfer, she stared blankly at the numerous zeros in the text message for a while.
The memories are so long that even though so much time has passed, Shu Yi'an still feels lingering fear when she thinks about them.