Chapter 3

Chapter 3

By the time I had gathered my documents and my composure and returned to Lu Cheng’an’s side, he was preparing for the meeting.

His gaze swept indifferently over my bleeding wound, then he asked, “What’s the meeting schedule this afternoon?”

Without changing expression, I gave him my report. The afternoon meetings would run long, and I had already figured out every attendee’s preferences so I could prepare coffee, tea, and refreshments accordingly. I listed the points that needed attention one by one. He listened in silence, then finally looked up at me with a hint of surprise.

I knew why he was surprised. He had probably always taken me for a spoiled young lady: ignorant, arrogant, and idle.

But back then, when he left home to start his own business, I had been the one who stayed by his side.

I had gone with him to meet clients, drunk at business dinners, worked as his secretary, and taught myself accounting.

When Lu Cheng’an and I first started negotiating deals, a client even played dirty and cheated us. We advanced the costs on our end, but after the deal went through, he refused to pay the balance.

That money was Lu Cheng’an’s and my first startup fund. I blocked that boss at the entrance of a bar and smashed a red wine bottle down on him, splitting his head open. Amid the rising screams around us, I didn’t so much as blink. I said, “Those with nothing to lose don’t fear those with everything to protect. Next time, what I’m holding will be a knife.”

That boss stared at me in terror and obediently paid up.

After Lu Cheng’an found out, he pulled me hard into his arms and held me there, his eyes red as he told me that money could be earned again if it was lost, but if anything happened to me, what was he supposed to do? After that, he stopped letting me step forward for matters like that.

I had weathered all those storms with him for years. My stomach cancer had been the result of draining myself dry the same way.

I had been the birch tree standing shoulder to shoulder with him. We had fit together so perfectly: comrades fighting side by side, lovers with no distance between us.

If someone else possessed the body I used to have, did that make her me?

Lu Cheng’an, do you know? You have disappointed me. Deeply.

The meeting did not end until late into the night. After I had handled everything properly and seen everyone off with the right decorum, only Lu Cheng’an and I remained.

I stood beside him in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. Outside, office towers of uneven heights glittered with lights.

We chatted for a while.

He turned his head to look at me, appraisal in his eyes. After a long moment, he said, “You’re not what I imagined. But I still want to tell you plainly, Song Yao, don’t waste your time on me.”

I said nothing.

He probably thought what I said when we first met had been nothing more than a young lady’s passing whim.

In truth, if I had known then that he had found a substitute who looked like me, I would not have exposed my feelings for him so quickly.

Because before I had even gotten close to him, he had already put up his guard against me.

But the truth was, the words I said to him when we first met were only because, back when we were together, he had said those words to me.

At that time, Lu Cheng’an and I were still in college. He was reserved and aloof, impossible to read. He seemed interested in me, but he never confessed.

Later, my roommate couldn’t stand it anymore and dragged me to a university mixer, telling me there were plenty of fish in the sea.

I didn’t know how Lu Cheng’an found out. When he came to the mixer with a dark expression to look for me, I was drunk. I introduced myself to everyone I met: “Hello, my name is Tang Wei. I’m from Class Two of the Economics and Management Department, class of 2013…”

When I got to him, he held my hand with a cold face and said, “I know your name is Tang Wei. You’re my future girlfriend.”

Everyone gathered around us and cheered. That was how we got together.

So many years had passed. As I looked at him, it felt faintly as if I were looking at the Lu Cheng’an from back then, standing before me, young and tall, his face cold, yet still unable to hide his shyness.

That nostalgia made me lose control. I did something very unwise, something that angered Lu Cheng’an.

I looked at him and spoke calmly, asking with complete sincerity, “Lu Cheng’an, you say Su Luo is your girlfriend. Do you love her, or are you merely treating her as someone else’s substitute?”

I smiled and went on, “Tell me, if your dead girlfriend knew you had found a substitute who looked so much like her, how do you think she would feel?”

I knew those words would anger him, but I had not expected him to lose his temper to such a degree.

He was someone who kept his emotions deeply contained, but the instant I finished speaking, his pupils contracted sharply and his breathing quickened. In that moment, I had no doubt at all that if murder were not against the law, he would have killed me.

In the end, he let out a cold laugh. There was no emotion in his eyes, and his gaze carved into me like a knife. He said, “Don’t mention her in front of me. You don’t know anything.”

No. I quietly looked at Lu Cheng’an and sighed in my heart, thinking, The one who knows nothing is you.

My gaze shifted to the ring finger of his left hand. The ring I had exchanged with him back then was still sitting silently there.

That was why, when we first met and he told me he had a girlfriend, I hadn’t believed him.

Because no one who had a girlfriend would still wear the ring he had exchanged with his ex on his ring finger.