Chapter 2

Chapter 2

My cousin had no choice but to drive back.

On the way, she received a call from one of Shen Haixin’s friends, urging him to hurry.

“Brother Xin, you’re still not here? Jiang Qian is practically losing her mind!”

My cousin’s heart lurched.

“Who? Which Jiang Qian? Shen Haixin’s ex-girlfriend?”

The person on the other end realized he’d called the wrong number and stammered in fright, then made up some random excuse and hung up.

“No, sis-in-law, I… I’m drunk. I’m talking nonsense.”

My cousin was so furious her hands shook. She pulled over to the side of the road and contacted Shen Haixin.

Shen Haixin had once been in a very long relationship. Seven whole years, from the age of nineteen to twenty-five, he had been with that girl named Jiang Qian.

When they started dating, Shen Haixin had laid everything out for my cousin. He said that because his and Jiang Qian’s social circles overlapped too much, neither of them had deleted the other’s contact information.

“We still treat each other like ordinary friends. But normally, if there’s nothing going on, we absolutely don’t contact each other.”

My cousin had accepted that.

But they were getting engaged tomorrow. What did it mean for him to run off and see his first love at a time like this?

With red-rimmed eyes, my cousin called Shen Haixin over and over again, but he didn’t pick up once.

She was so upset she didn’t sleep the entire night.

The next morning, she held in a breath of anger and thought, if Shen Haixin didn’t come and explain himself clearly, then they could forget about this engagement.

To her surprise, Shen Haixin really didn’t come.

At this point, my cousin clenched her fingers tightly, and her gaze slowly grew unfocused.

“He was supposed to come at six eighteen to deliver the betrothal gifts.”

“I was angry, so I didn’t put on makeup. I was still in my pajamas, waiting for him to come coax me, to beg for forgiveness.”

“But I waited all the way until eight. My house was dead quiet. There wasn’t a single sound.”

“He didn’t come. He regretted it. He didn’t want to marry me.”

A huge tear rolled down her cheek. My cousin raised a hand to cover her face, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.

Ling Ling handed her a tissue and patted her shoulder comfortingly, then continued, “There was no engagement banquet.”

“After my cousin got up, she stormed downstairs and told my uncle and aunt that she and Shen Haixin had broken up. They weren’t getting engaged anymore.”

“My uncle and aunt looked completely shocked. They said, ‘What’s gotten into you, child? Who is Shen Haixin? What engagement? It’s still early in the morning-are you not fully awake yet? Are you still dreaming?'”

At this point, Ling Ling’s expression turned a little hesitant.

“My aunt and my mom are extremely close. They call each other every day and talk about every bit of gossip.”

“My parents had never heard anything about my cousin getting engaged either-”

“A little over a month ago, I even heard my mom complaining. She said my cousin was already thirty and still hadn’t found a boyfriend, and my aunt was worried sick over it.”

“I do have a boyfriend! Shen Haixin is my boyfriend!”

My cousin suddenly became agitated. She grabbed Ling Ling hard by the shoulders.

“You’re just like everyone else. You think I’m crazy too, don’t you?”

“Why won’t any of you believe me? Why don’t you believe me!”

Ling Ling was so frightened she kept apologizing.

“I’m sorry, cousin. That’s not what I meant.”

“If I really didn’t believe you, I wouldn’t have brought you to Master Qiao.”

“Let go of me. You’re hurting me.”

My cousin stared at her, then turned to look at me, and her emotions slowly stabilized.

Clutching the tissue, she wiped away her tears and snot viciously.

“I know. The way I look right now, I seem like a madwoman.”

“Anyone who went through what I did would go mad.”

Her parents had suddenly lost their memories. They said they had never seen her boyfriend and had never even heard his name.

My cousin found it utterly absurd. At first, she thought her parents were angry too, angry that she’d found such an unreliable man.

She called Shen Haixin to confront him. But to her shock, when the call connected, a stranger answered.

The stranger insisted my cousin had dialed the wrong number. He said the number had always been his and that he didn’t know any Shen Haixin.

My cousin stared at the three words “Shen Haixin” in her contacts, and an enormous sense of absurdity welled up inside her.

Then she opened WeChat. This time, for some reason, Shen Haixin’s name was no longer in her contacts.

But just last night, she had clearly sent Shen Haixin a huge string of messages.

Realizing something was wrong, she ran to Shen Haixin’s home.

The people who opened the door were Shen Haixin’s parents, but the two of them also looked as if they didn’t know her.

“Young lady, who are you looking for?”

My cousin broke down, her words coming out in a jumbled mess.

The couple listened for a while, then looked at her with some sympathy.

“What’s your parents’ phone number? I’ll have them come take you home.”

The neighbors who had gathered nearby to watch began whispering among themselves.

“Since when did Old Zhou and his wife have such a grown son?”

“What son? If they were having an engagement, would we neighbors not know about it?”

“Exactly. Young lady, the two of them are DINKs. They don’t have children.”

“What DINKs? Using such fancy foreign words. Old Zhou can’t have kids. He was injured before-cough, cough, cough. That’s not what I meant, haha. Old Zhou, nice weather today, huh?”

Some people even pointed at their own heads and signaled to each other.

“Something’s wrong with that young lady up here.”

“She looks perfectly put together too. What a pity.”