Chapter 4

Chapter 4

After that day, I didn’t go back to the set.

Zhou Jinyan found a new assistant for Lu Sisi and then moved me into his company, making me his personal assistant.

“From now on, you’ll be following me.”

He toyed with the fountain pen in his hand and looked up at me, his tone softening slightly.

“That day on set, Lin Jia was intentionally trying to drive a wedge between you and Sisi. I’ve already spoken to the right people; no one will cast her in anything ever again.”

Seeing that I remained expressionless and silent, Zhou Jinyan’s face darkened.

His voice carried a warning: “Yu Ning, don’t push your luck.”

Was I the one pushing my luck?

Lin Jia had only been frustrated because her role was snatched away, so she deliberately needled Lu Sisi.

Both Zhou Jinyan and I knew exactly who the real culprit was.

However, because I had provoked his temper that day, he had ignored the fact that I was soaking wet and deliberately tormented me in the car for a long time.

I had been running a low-grade fever for the past few days.

Drowsy from the medication, I didn’t have the energy to argue with him.

I simply lowered my head slightly. “I understand.”

In the evening, after Lu Sisi finished work, I drove Zhou Jinyan to meet her for dinner.

The moment she saw me, her voice turned cold. “Ah Yan, I don’t want to fight with you, but don’t bring something so eyesore-inducing to ruin my appetite.”

Zhou Jinyan glanced sideways at me. “Go wait in the car.”

I nodded and turned to leave.

On my phone was an email from the professor at the school I had applied to.

“Ning, your admission letter has been mailed to you. When can you report to the university? After reviewing your resume, I have already applied for the maximum scholarship for you. I look forward to teaching a student as talented and hardworking as you.”

I curled my hand into a hollow fist in the air.

As if, by doing so, I could catch the fragments of the admission letter that Zhou Jinyan had torn to pieces and thrown away.

That night, Zhou Jinyan didn’t come home.

He sent me a message: “I’m taking Sisi home. Don’t wait up for me.”

“Are you staying the night there?”

He responded bluntly: “Yu Ning, that is not something you have the right to ask.”

I drove the car to the cemetery in the suburbs.

My grandmother had been buried there for over two years.

The photo embedded in the tombstone was taken during her final days.

Back then, she was gravely ill.

I had used the money she’d saved over the years by living frugally, and I’d swallowed my shame to borrow from teachers and classmates.

Even with all that combined, I was still short by over three hundred thousand yuan.

To Zhou Jinyan, that amount was nothing more than the cost of a night’s worth of drinks with friends.

Or a single handbag gifted to a female companion.

But to me, it was an insurmountable chasm.

After the surgery, my grandmother had gripped my hand and urged me repeatedly.

Just because that money was insignificant to Zhou Jinyan didn’t mean we should treat it lightly ourselves.

So, for the past three years, I had been obedient to Zhou Jinyan, agreeing to even his most unreasonable demands.

“But… am I going to continue wasting the rest of my life, my dreams, and my pursuits here?”

The cemetery was empty, filled only with the sound of the wind and the chirping of insects.

From the tombstone, my grandmother watched me in silence.

She would never be able to answer me again.