Chapter 14

Chapter 14

On the day of the liquidation meeting, Zhou Yan arrived early.

He wore a dark gray suit, as if he were attending one last respectable funeral.

Before the meeting began, he called me over to the window.

“Jianwei, I’ll sign.”

I looked at him.

His eyes were bloodshot. “I’ll sign the divorce agreement. I’ll cooperate with the company’s recovery claims too. I only ask one thing of you-don’t send me into a criminal case.”

I said, “That depends on the audit results, not on me.”

He gave a bitter smile. “You really sound like legal counsel now.”

I didn’t respond.

After a moment of silence, he said quietly, “Yesterday, I went to see that little apartment we used to rent. The wonton shop downstairs is still there. The owner still remembered us. She said back then, you were always revising my PPT while you ate.”

His eyes reddened.

“Back then, I really did want to give you a home.”

I looked out the window.

The traffic below flowed like a slow river.

“Maybe.”

Maybe he had been sincere once.

It was just that later, he came to believe more and more in his own success, and he grew to hate that I knew all the ways he had once been miserable. He needed someone like Xu Nianchu-someone to worship him, look up to him, and remind him that he was still the male lead of the story.

And I was too clear-eyed.

So clear-eyed that it embarrassed him.

Zhou Yan asked hoarsely, “Can we really never go back?”

At last, I looked at him.

“Zhou Yan, the reason we can’t go back isn’t Xu Nianchu.”

He froze.

“It’s because when you slapped me, there was no place for me in your heart.”

His tears fell.

This time, I didn’t hand him a tissue.

After the meeting began, he signed the divorce agreement and the handover confirmation.

The tip of the pen scraped lightly across the paper.

Like a relationship finally breathing its last.

The liquidation meeting lasted four hours.

Finance listed the expenses Zhou Yan had approved in violation of policy. Legal listed the losses caused by Xu Nianchu’s leak. Group HR announced Zhou Yan’s removal from his position as vice president of Xinglan Technology.

Every item was cold and clinical.

Yet each one was sharper than any argument.

Zhou Yan sat in his chair, his back bending lower and lower.

Xu Nianchu did not attend.

Her lawyer submitted a statement that still tried to explain the leak as “an unintentional mistake caused by insufficient understanding.”

But Shen Yi had already submitted the complete transaction records.

The two hundred thousand was not a loan.

It was the first payment.

There had also been a promise afterward: if Qiming won Qingqiong, Xu Nianchu would join the marketing department with an annual salary of eight hundred thousand.

When Zhou Yan heard that, he closed his eyes.

At last, he understood that he had merely been a stepping stone in Xu Nianchu’s plan too.

At the end of the meeting, the group’s board representative asked me, “President Lin, can the takeover by the new entity be moved up?”

I said, “Yes. The core team has already completed the letters of intent. Client communications will be sent out tonight, and the server migration window is set for the weekend.”

The board representative nodded. “Thank you for your hard work.”

Zhou Yan suddenly lifted his head and looked at me.

The look in his eyes was complicated.

There was regret, resentment, and even a little of the awe he had once refused to admit.

I did not look away.

When the meeting ended, everyone left one after another.

Zhou Yan was the last to stand.

He walked up to me, his voice so low it was almost inaudible. “Jianwei, I’m sorry.”

I put the signed documents into a folder.

“I’ve received your apology.”

A faint glimmer of light rose in his eyes.

Then I continued, “But I don’t forgive you.”

That glimmer went out.

I walked past him.

Before the elevator doors closed, I saw him still standing there.

Like an old building whose power had finally been cut.