Chapter 9

With all the paperwork smoothly completed, I boarded a plane to New York.

To my surprise, I had no difficulty at all adjusting to life in an unfamiliar country.

The coursework was demanding. My life was full.

Every day was a ponytail, a white T-shirt and jeans, coffee, bread, and plain ‘white-people food’. If Jiang Dai hadn’t occasionally liked my Moments posts, I might almost have forgotten I’d once strayed into the world of the untouchable elite.

During my master’s, my supervisor was very supportive of my research direction, and I successfully applied to do a PhD with him.

I posted the good news on Moments.

Xu Lang heard about it from someone and sent me a friend request from another account.

Is there any chance we could get back together?

I declined and replied, You’d have to ask my boyfriend first.

My boyfriend was my neighbour.

A breathtakingly handsome face. The brain of a complete goofball of a dog.

The first time I met him was quite a scene: he’d locked himself out wearing nothing but a bath towel.

Those abs were beautiful. I looked for a long time.

On the day of my master’s graduation ceremony, I received two bouquets.

One was from my boyfriend.

The other had no name attached.

But I knew who it was from.

I held that bouquet and took a photo with my boyfriend, then sent it to Jiang Dai.

My boyfriend leaned his goofy head into view, held down the voice-message button, and thanked Jiang Dai in his halting Chinese.

Jiang Dai didn’t reply.

I thought the next time we spoke would probably be when I repaid him.

If I’d never had feelings for him, perhaps we could have been good friends after all the help he’d given me.

Unfortunately, my conscience wasn’t clear.

After my PhD, I chose to return to China for work. The salary was high, and I paid back everything I owed Jiang Dai in my first year.

By then, his career was flourishing.

Perhaps he’d finished drawing up his grand plan. He and Zhou Mingxi parted amicably, each getting what they wanted.

My boyfriend and I ended our long courtship too, settling happily into the everyday business of married life.

Only much later did I hear from a friend.

Jiang Dai had come on my wedding day.

He’d stood among the guests, watched the ring go on my finger, then quietly left.

I thought that perhaps life had no right or wrong, only choices.

Fortunately, so far, I’d been able to bear the consequences of every choice I’d made.

The End

Extra

The first time Jiang Dai saw Su Ying, she still had that hacked-off fringe.

A slight girl, hiding in a corner with her schoolbag in her arms, crying.

He wanted to ask what had happened. He’d barely started towards her when she bolted like a startled rabbit.

The next time they met was another matter entirely.

All teeth and claws, she seemed like a different person. She even wanted to make a deal with him.

Whenever he remembered that day, Jiang Dai felt as though he’d been acting in some melodramatic prime-time soap.

Normally, he wasn’t the sort to waste time on anything so pointless.

He had plenty to learn every day: schoolwork, courses to prepare for studying abroad, and matters at the company.

Yet, for some reason, he’d been willing to indulge her nonsense.

Perhaps it was because he’d never met anyone like her.

Jiang Dai wondered.

How could someone like that exist?

She had nothing to back her up, yet dared to play all those little tricks, apparently unafraid of being found out with no one to clean up the mess.

Su Ying was neither innocent nor kind. She was always calculating gains and losses, could lie without hesitation if she really needed to, and could come up with a wicked idea in the flick of an eye.

But she’d never been the first to hurt anyone, either.

After his thoughts wandered yet again while he was sitting in on a company meeting, Jiang Dai decided he ought to stop indulging his fascination with this soap opera.

So after going abroad, he never contacted her again.

As for why he hadn’t disconnected the number they’d exchanged,

the reason he gave himself was that you couldn’t simply abandon a rabbit in your care.

After all, Su Ying had no one behind her.

If she needed help, he wanted her always to be able to reach him at that number.