Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The two of them left with their suitcases, but they didn’t let me off completely.

Xu Jingnian was the first to call.

“Was I not good enough to her? I did most of the housework. After getting together with her, I forced myself to become a great cook. When she was sick, I waited on her hand and foot without even taking off my clothes to sleep. And what about her? She doesn’t remember our anniversaries, and she laughs and chats with her suitor. What decent man lurks around waiting to be the other man? I called that guy shameless, and she actually said I was…”

The resentment was so heavy I felt the air around me turn several degrees colder.

“Zhong Shuyu, tell me, whose side are you on?” Another question from the depths of the soul.

Xu Jingnian sounded like an aggrieved husband. “Your grades in high school were a disaster, and I was the one who tutored you up.”

“…”

The problem was, he hadn’t been the only one tutoring me.

My tone turned just as eerie. “How do you still have the nerve to bring that up? Back then, weren’t you and Song Yao using tutoring me as an excuse to secretly flirt with each other?”

Xu Jingnian fell silent.

After I finally got off that call, Song Yao came for me next.

“I already explained to him that there was nothing going on between me and anyone else. We work together. Am I supposed to avoid meeting him entirely? And he has the nerve to talk about me? He still hasn’t cleared things up with that junior of his…”

I carefully interrupted, “You didn’t cheat, and he didn’t either, right?”

Song Yao paused. “No. If Xu Jingnian dared to cheat, I’d castrate him.”

“…”

“Then why break up?”

Song Yao hesitated, then finally said only, “Forget it. What would you understand?”

?

If I remembered correctly, we were the same age.

It was just that my brain had never been as quick as theirs. Still, with their tutoring back then, I did manage to get into a pretty decent university after the college entrance exams.

I looked out the window at the bleak winter scenery and gave her a reminder. “Yao-jie, New Year’s almost here.”

The other end of the phone fell silent.

Our three families were close, and we always had dinner together for New Year’s.

The elders didn’t know Song Yao and Xu Jingnian had been dating. Whenever they went out on dates before, they’d often used me as their cover.

Great. Now that they’d broken up, they still had to go home and sit at the same table for dinner.

I really couldn’t interfere in my friends’ love-hate drama, especially when both sides had their own reasons and both sounded right.

All I could do was stay neutral.

Those two breaking up had dragged me into it so thoroughly that even my hair was falling out by the handful.

After the breakup, they kept asking me out for meals and drinks, and they often ended up overlapping.

When I drank with Song Yao and cursed out her ex, Xu Jingnian condemned me. “What happened to us being blood siblings born to different parents? And now you’re helping her curse me out?”

When I ate with Xu Jingnian and listened to him list all the ways he’d been oppressed during their relationship, he ended by calling Song Yao a heartless woman.

Unfortunately, the restaurant was one we went to often, so Song Yao caught us red-handed.

Song Yao sneered. “Men really do start badmouthing their exes the second they break up.”

Xu Jingnian said, “As if you haven’t badmouthed me?”

“I have. But everything I said was objective fact, so yes, I said it.”

“…”

Caught in the middle, I looked exactly like a helpless child after her parents’ divorce.

At last, the workweek began.

With dark circles under my eyes, I went downstairs to get coffee and accidentally bumped into someone.

A faint woody fragrance instantly filled my nose.

“Careful.” A warm palm steadied the wrist of the hand holding my coffee.

The man’s voice was low and textured, exactly like the “scumbag voice” Song Yao and Xu Jingnian had once lectured me about.

I lifted my gaze and saw the man in front of me clearly.

A stunningly handsome face came into view.

“President Qin, I’m sorry.”

The person before me was named Qin Duo, and he was basically my direct superior.

A young talent who had risen to management before even turning thirty.

Most importantly, he had an extremely good-looking face. Dressed in a suit every day, he gave off a mature, dependable charm.

According to my coworkers, seeing President Qin’s face every day made the psychological damage from work feel a lot lighter.

“Zhong Shuyu,” Qin Duo called me by name. “Have you not been sleeping well lately? Your dark circles are pretty bad.”

I was a little dazed, half my mind still stuck on that exhausting pair of friends and their breakup drama.

So, faced with Qin Duo’s sudden concern, I blurted out, “Do you think I should go with Dad or Mom?”

The moment the words left my mouth, I froze. Qin Duo froze too.

“I’m sorry, President Qin,” I apologized honestly.

Qin Duo said, “It’s fine. Be sure to get some rest.”

Qin Duo had always been gentle with me. For one thing, I was fairly competent at my job. For another, I had gotten into the company through connections.

The year I graduated, my advisor packed me off to his prized student’s company.

Qin Duo was my direct senior from three years above me.