Chapter 4
My best friend took us to a seafood buffet.
Then she drove us back to her spacious, single-level apartment.
Ever since deciding that every man would eventually fall for someone else,
she had stopped dating.
She had thrown herself into her career instead.
Now she was the general manager of a publicly listed corporate group.
Xiaoxiao and I stayed at her place for two days.
For two whole days,
Jiang Heng never went home.
He spent the days helping Xia Qiu look for an apartment.
At night, he had to coax her to sleep.
All sorts of people lived in the old campus housing.
Xia Qiu kept worrying that the man from before would come back.
She refused to let Jiang Heng leave.
He took out his phone and messaged me.
Xia Qiu’s afraid to sleep alone. I’ll be back once she’s asleep.
He sent it, and again a red exclamation mark appeared.
The sight of it made Jiang Heng’s chest tighten.
But Xia Qiu’s voice soon drew his attention away, and he busied himself with something else.
He thought Song Qingyao must just be sulking.
After all, she had made a fuss about him and Lin Mo before.
But he had forgotten.
I had only ever fought with him over Lin Mo once.
There had been a downpour that day, and I had asked him to pick Xiaoxiao up.
He had agreed readily enough, only to leave her waiting at school for over an hour.
When I got there, Xiaoxiao clung to me and cried for a long time.
I had a huge argument with Jiang Heng when he came home.
He explained that Lin Mo had suffered an acute attack of appendicitis.
With the rain so heavy, an ambulance would have taken half an hour to arrive.
He could drive her to the hospital in fifteen minutes.
So he had taken Lin Mo first.
He hadn’t expected to get held up at the hospital.
After she recovered, Lin Mo came to our home with gifts specifically to thank Jiang Heng.
More than anything, Jiang Heng had been completely open about Lin Mo.
And the number above his head had never changed.
Three days later,
Jiang Heng finally finished helping Xia Qiu move.
Her new place was in a new residential complex.
The rent alone was six thousand yuan a month.
Xia Qiu’s monthly salary was only four thousand.
Jiang Heng paid a whole year’s rent for her upfront.
He told her she could settle in without worrying.
To thank him,
Xia Qiu insisted on taking him out to dinner.
They stayed at the hot-pot restaurant until ten.
On his way back,
Jiang Heng bought durian and little cakes.
He thought about how he hadn’t been home for days.
He would have to make it up to those two little tyrants.
Only when he opened the door did he realize the house was dark.
“Yaoyao, Xiaoxiao, I’m home!”
Changing his shoes, he headed for the bedroom.
When he found no one there either,
he truly panicked.
An unaccountable fear closed around him.
Until he saw the divorce agreement on the living-room coffee table.
With trembling hands, he picked it up.
After barely a glance, his breathing grew rapid.
“No! This can’t be happening!”
He took out his phone and started calling me again.
Still blocked.
“Why? All I did was help an employee move, and now she wants a divorce?”
“When did Song Qingyao become so unreasonable?”
Jiang Heng’s eyes were bloodshot.
The number above his head shifted again.
This time, it fell to 60%.
The threshold.