Chapter 1
Before my future self could answer, a clamor of children’s voices broke out beside her.
“Mom, why are you hiding in the bathroom on your phone again?”
“Dad works so hard out there, and you don’t even care about him!”
“Exactly! Grandma and Grandpa told you to stop buying so much stuff online. Dad works hard for his money. You shouldn’t keep wasting it.”
The two little boys had clear, childish voices, but they made no attempt to hide their reproach.
The video image jolted.
My future self hastily lowered her phone, seemingly unwilling to let the children see the screen.
Just moments ago, as she analyzed industry trends and technological change for me, she’d been calm and perceptive, every sentence precise and decisive.
Yet faced with two small children, a flicker of embarrassment crossed her eyes.
She instinctively tried to explain.
“Mommy isn’t wasting money. I work too…”
“But Grandma says you just do odd jobs at Dad’s company.”
The child’s words were innocent and cruel.
“Dad said it too… He says you’re stupid, Mom, and you couldn’t do anything without him. He told us we must never turn out like you!”
On my end of the call, my brows drew together before I knew it.
Something seemed lodged in my chest, making it hard to breathe.
In the top-right corner of the screen, the call timer had only three seconds left.
The signal began to break up. The image kept freezing.
My future self looked at me. Her lips moved several times, but her voice came through in fragments.
Just before she disappeared completely, I finally caught her last words:
“Wen Xiyue, whatever you do, don’t give up on your dreams!”
The screen went dark, reflecting my reddened eyes.
Tomorrow was the day I was supposed to report to Qin Yue’s company.
To make it easier to build the business with him and save money, I’d already packed my things, ready to move into his rented apartment.
Two job offers lay side by side on my desk.
The one on the left was from Qin Yue’s newly established company.
General manager’s assistant. Monthly salary: 6,500 yuan.
The one on the right was from Xinghan Technology, one of the country’s leading internet companies.
A developer position. Monthly salary: 32,000 yuan, with fifteen months’ pay a year.
Xinghan Technology’s deadline for accepting was midnight tonight.
For days, I’d been wavering over whether to take it.
The compensation was excellent, and the prospects were good.
More than that, the job was exactly what I’d worked toward throughout my four years at university.
But Qin Yue said big tech companies were simply paying high salaries to work young people to death.
He said there was no need for a girl like me to push herself so hard in a technical role.
His company was only just getting started, but if I stayed by his side through the hardest part, he said,
when it grew, I’d be the boss’s wife and a founding shareholder—far better than being a corporate workhorse who could be “optimized” out of a job at any moment.
Most of all, we would walk the road ahead side by side.
The future we were heading toward would belong entirely to the two of us.
He’d convinced me.
I’d even been about to log in to Xinghan’s recruitment portal and turn down the offer that had made so many of my classmates green with envy.
But now the children’s self-righteous accusations kept replaying in my head, along with the regret and resentment filling my future self’s eyes.
What was my dream?
To become a top programmer at a big tech company, or… to become Qin Yue’s devoted helpmate, taking care of his company’s chores?
I sat there blankly for a long time, until my phone buzzed.
The screen lit up with a message from Qin Yue.
[Tomorrow’s your first day at the company. Don’t be late.]
[Remember to pick up breakfast for the team on your way. I’ve sent you the list.]
A breakfast list followed, so detailed it bordered on demanding.
[Zhao: egg-stuffed flatbread, no cilantro.]
[Liu: beef rice noodles, extra spicy.]
[Sun: two pork buns and an iced soy milk.]
[Zhou: pork and century-egg congee, from that place in the south of town.]
[Li: an Americano, no sugar, and a tea egg.]
…
The list went on and on. Seventeen people in all.
Qin Yue had singled out the final line.
[Xu Jiarou: whole-wheat bagel, no tomato, low-fat cream cheese. Hot latte with oat milk. She has a sensitive stomach, so don’t get anything iced.]
Qin Yue had personally recruited Xu Jiarou.
She was a year below us at university and had belonged to his student club.
She had no relevant work experience, and her degree wasn’t in the field.
Yet Qin Yue had still made her a product manager, paying her three thousand yuan more than other new graduates in the same role.
I’d argued with Qin Yue about Xu Jiarou before.
She was always messaging him late at night, their conversations drifting from work questions to the smallest details of everyday life.
When Qin Yue was having dinner with me, ordinary work messages always annoyed him. But he never missed a single message from Xu Jiarou.
By the end of our arguments, he would accuse me of making a fuss over nothing, of having a filthy mind and twisting their innocent working relationship into something sordid.
After that, he never forgot to compare me with her.
“Jiarou’s a year younger than you, but she’s much more mature.”
“Once you join the company, learn a thing or two from her about getting along with people. Stop acting as if you’re above everyone.”
Back then, I really believed I’d been in the wrong.
I even felt guilty for suspecting Qin Yue.
Looking at the breakfast list now, I suddenly realized that out of seventeen people, the only one whose sensitive stomach he remembered was Xu Jiarou.
He even remembered that she wanted oat milk in her latte.
Yet after three years together, he still couldn’t remember that I was allergic to peanuts.