After An Rong said those words, she clearly felt the atmosphere turn strange.
An Rong added in a small voice, “Look, I only have a high school education right now. No matter what job I look for, I’m not really qualified. For someone like me, besides going out to find a shared apartment, what kind of place could I possibly find?”
An Rong continued counting on her fingers, “I took a look, if I work outside, I can make at least three thousand yuan a month.”
“Most of the money saved by moving out can be put away. As for my daily living expenses, don’t worry. I don’t spend much on my own.”
After finishing, An Rong smiled at Pei Chongxi. Her smile was exceptionally bright, as if she were stepping out to embrace a brand-new life.
By contrast, Pei Chongxi’s expression was far from good.
She stared long and hard at An Rong without saying a word. In the end, she simply got out of the car and had her assistant drive An Rong home.
Pei Chongxi stood alone in the cold wind.
Yu Shan stepped forward, cautiously checking her boss’s expression. “Did you and Miss An have a fight, Teacher?”
Yu Shan added from the side, “Miss An is only eighteen right now, she’s still young. There are plenty of things she hasn’t figured out yet. Don’t take it too much to heart, Teacher.”
Besides, when you’re keeping a young girlfriend, shouldn’t you be pampering her in the palm of your hand and coaxing her? How could you be getting upset with her every so often?
To be fair, it was also Teacher’s fault.
However, Yu Shan didn’t dare say a single word of that out loud. After all, Pei Chongxi was still her bread and butter.
Pei Chongxi looked at her manager for a few seconds and said, “She wants to move out and live on her own. I don’t want her living away from me.”
Yu Shan was struck silent for a moment. That was indeed a serious problem.
Yu Shan hadn’t been in many romantic relationships herself, but she knew that two people needed personal space, clinging together all the time bound to lead to issues.
Right now, Teacher’s state of mind was clearly off.
Pei Chongxi pressed her throbbing temples and said, “How could she possibly survive on her own outside?” After saying that, Pei Chongxi fell quiet for a moment.
In truth, An Rong’s ability to survive independently was far stronger than hers.
There were many things Pei Chongxi was unwilling to do, like dealing with large cockroaches, or working part time at an outdoor roasted fish restaurant.
An Rong had lived in an orphanage back then, and the conditions were far worse than they were now.
It was mostly because Pei Chongxi always considered herself different from others and better than others, so she looked down on many things.
Ever since entering high school, she hadn’t taken a single cent of financial aid, and she had gradually repaid all the help she had previously received.
She had excellent grades, so wherever she went, her tuition was waived and she earned scholarships… naturally, she possessed a certain pride.
An Rong was different.
An Rong grew up in a small village and worked hard to get into a school in the city, but her family offered no help at all…
Even her tuition was frequently paid late, and after her second year of university, they refused to pay it altogether.
Pei Chongxi lit another cigarette. She stood by the roadside, puffing out smoke, completely indifferent to her own physical health.
Yu Shan waited for the car alongside her and suggested, “How about you personally find an apartment for Miss An, Teacher?”
Pei Chongxi wasn’t worried about the housing issue, she found the situation absurd.
Because An Rong’s existence might actually be real.
And she herself might not have schizophrenia at all, nor was she seeing hallucinations.
“Help me pull a section of security footage,” Pei Chongxi said to the manager beside her, giving a specific date and time, the moment she and An Rong first met in the alley.
Previously, Pei Chongxi had never dared to look at the surveillance footage, fearing she would see that An Rong was merely a hallucination, leaving her without even a space to deceive herself.
Now, she needed a genuine result.
The manager noted it down. “I’ll find someone to pull the footage.”
The manager was already used to all kinds of requests from Teacher. Simply retrieving surveillance video wasn’t a problem for her.
The car came to a smooth stop in front of Pei Chongxi.
The association was holding a meeting today, and there was a charity art exhibition in the afternoon.
In the car, An Rong stroked the necklace around her wrist, pondering the events of the past.
Pei Chongxi’s fingers stroked over her ring one by one. Back then, she and An Rong had been so poor. If An Rong hadn’t supported her painting, today would never have come.
Now An Rong was telling her that her money had nothing to do with her.
How could it have nothing to do with her…
Pei Chongxi lowered her brows, a tangle of hard to describe emotions hidden deep within her gaze.
An Rong was all alone in the massive villa.
“Sigh, I don’t even have a single suitcase…”
An Rong gathered her clothes and toiletries together and realized they could all fit into a very small suitcase, but she didn’t even own one.
Pushing open the door to the walk-in closet, she did find the suitcases Pei Chongxi used. But one look at the texture told her they were extraordinarily expensive, and almost every single one bore brand logos she either recognized or didn’t.
An Rong grumbled in her heart: I wouldn’t dare use these. If I ask and hear some outrageous price, I won’t even dare touch them again.
An Rong sat before her pile of odds and ends, slapped her own cheeks with both hands, and finally let out a long sigh of foul air.
“I just hope when I look for a job later, they won’t ask me for a graduation certificate.”
An Rong had plenty of experience scrambling for a living in society. She knew that small, privately owned shops usually only required an ID card and a health certificate, while other requirements wouldn’t be enforced too strictly.
However, chain stores were a different story, you had to constantly keep an eye on office apps on your phone.
An Rong simply wanted to find a job outside to make a living.
She only needed a very small amount of money to get by.
But what about after that?
An Rong pressed her puffed-up cheeks, completely unable to imagine what kind of future someone like her could possibly have.
Subconsciously, An Rong ignored the idea of continuing her education.
Going to school was far too painful. She had to get up before dawn and couldn’t sleep until after midnight, getting only a few hours of rest a day while also having to work outside.
An Rong lowered her head and counted on her fingers, muttering, “I wonder how my parents are doing.”
In her memory, her parents had always favored her younger brother.
When she was in high school, her brother had just been born, and the family was short on cash, so they frequently delayed paying her high school tuition.
Her mother’s words echoed vividly in her ears. “For a girl like you, being able to read and write is good enough. You’re going to get married off anyway. When you get to someone else’s household, work hard and don’t be lazy anymore.”
An Rong hadn’t said anything back then. She looked at her baby brother nursing in her mother’s arms and wanted to argue that she wasn’t lazy at all, but when the words reached her lips, she couldn’t utter a single sound.
In her memory, her parents always wore stern, solemn expressions.
Fortunately, she had boarded at school since primary school, continuing through middle school and high school, so she had never stayed at home for long periods.
A portion of the money she earned working outside also had to be sent back home.
However, once she went to the city for high school, she stopped sending money back.
On one hand, An Rong felt she was grown up, perhaps thinking her wings had grown strong, or perhaps realizing that since her parents didn’t truly care for her anyway, the little money she earned was better saved for school fees, and then she could live a good life together with Pei Chongxi.
Growing up in a family like that, An Rong had learned from a young age that she had to give a lot.
Rather than giving the money to her parents without receiving a single kind word, it was better to buy good food and spend time with Pei Chongxi.
Besides, Pei Chongxi painted so well and did so well in school, she was bound to become a remarkable person in the future.
Unlike her brother, who couldn’t even speak clearly and could only babble while drinking milk.
An Rong always felt that looking out for an outsider like this was a bit selfish, so she never dared to speak of it.
Now, Pei Chongxi had indeed become a remarkable figure, which made An Rong seem as though she couldn’t do anything right by contrast.
In that case, she couldn’t keep staying here and causing trouble for Pei Chongxi.
An Rong stared at the carved glass window, then looked at the rows of expensive perfumes lined up on the vanity table.
In the past, she hadn’t even seen such beautiful things in magazines, yet now they were right before her eyes.