Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Qi Mo and I met in June the year before last. This year marks exactly two years since then.

The year before last, I resigned from my previous company for some rather unpleasant reasons.

For two months after leaving that job, I lived in a daze, like a member of the walking dead.

During those two months, I had two phones stolen, lost a USB drive, misplaced 370 yuan, and shattered five glass tumblers.

I survived on takeout and snacks in my rental apartment.

Eventually, Xu Qian couldn’t stand to watch me anymore. She dragged me out of my apartment and took me out to have some fun for two days.

She said, “You should find another job.”

I told her I wasn’t in a hurry. I’d wait until I got my driver’s license, then head for a first-tier city like Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou.

Xu Qian asked me why it had to be one of those cities.

I told her it didn’t actually have to be one of them; I just wanted to go to a city where I was a total stranger.

That was my plan.

But things didn’t go as I’d hoped.

I failed the road test three times.

My driving instructor said, “Try again? Are you the type who gets more determined with every failure?”

I waved him off. “Let me take a break!”

I felt like I wasn’t going to get that license anytime soon.

So, I took Xu Qian’s advice and started looking for a job.

I submitted a lot of resumes online.

Every response I received was an invitation to come in for an interview to discuss things further.

Having been listless for so long, I didn’t want to move, and I didn’t want to go.

There was only one company where the person added my QQ account and chatted with me directly online.

He asked about my work history and then explained their benefits and compensation package.

He said, “If you’re interested, you can come by our company to check out the working environment.”

It was quite funny.

Everyone else wanted me to go so they could evaluate me, but this person was inviting me to evaluate the company.

Chatting with him was very pleasant.

I imagined what he looked like in my head.

I pictured a man in his thirties, a bit chubby, with a face full of smiles-someone like a Maitreya Buddha.

I felt sure he must have a ring on his ring finger.

He was definitely a man in the prime of his life, with both a wife and children.

He left me his phone number.

He said his surname was Qi.

He told me that if I wanted to come over, I could call him.

But the truth was, I didn’t want to go.

However, my instructor called me to go practice driving.

And the driving school was very close to this company.

I hesitated.

Maybe I should just go.

Since I was already heading out anyway, I might as well kill two birds with one stone.

I got off the bus at the address he gave me.

I tried calling him, but the number was out of service.

The sun was blazing, and I was feeling irritable; I didn’t want to do the interview anymore.

But a second before I left, I stopped in my tracks.

I thought, whatever, I’m already here.

So I sent him a message telling him his number was out of service.

He asked me for my number instead.

Then my phone rang. The number on the screen was only one digit different from the one I had saved.

It was pretty embarrassing.

He asked, “Where are you? I’ll come pick you up.”

My ears tingled. His voice was deep and slightly raspy.

It sounded very nice.

And very young.

When I finally saw him, I was even more surprised.

He looked nothing like I had imagined.

He was tall and lean, dressed in light-colored casual clothes.

Most importantly, he was incredibly handsome.

He was exactly my type-like the kind of upperclassman on a college campus who makes everyone turn their heads for a second look.

Later, I thought countless times about how unlikely it was for Qi Mo and me to meet.

If any single part of that sequence had gone differently, I never would have met him.

We finalized the details of my employment in half an hour.

The whole process was very pleasant. My impression of him was that he was bright, kind, and approachable.

But once we actually started working together, I realized I was wrong.

He was a wicked capitalist-fierce and strict.

The people in the sales department were often yelled at until they questioned their very existence, feeling like death would be a mercy.

They all lamented that before they joined, he called them “sweetheart,” but now that they were hired, they were just “useless trash.”

Men are so fickle.

As it turned out, I wasn’t the first person he had “tricked” into the company.

Later, after we got together, I complained to him about it.

He spread his hands helplessly. “I didn’t have a choice. This branch had just been established, and it was hard to get the business going. It was difficult to keep people and even harder to recruit them. So, I could only resort to using a ‘honey trap.'”

As he spoke, he pinned me down beneath him, raising an eyebrow as he said, “Weren’t you attracted by my good looks?”

I told him he was shameless.

He replied, “What do I need shame for? I have you!”