“Why didn’t you tell me something this big happened?”
Ju Cixin was the vice president of Chenhun Group, and since Jin Fuxiao’s attendance at the island banquet was for business networking, Ju Cixin had other tasks assigned to her.
Jin Fuxiao was originally supposed to return to headquarters the next day, but Yu Yan informed Ju Cixin of a schedule change.
Ju Cixin originally thought Jin Fuxiao simply didn’t want to revisit the first factory to avoid triggering painful memories, but she had no idea that bastard Peng Hu was back.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
Ju Cixin was the same age as Jin Fuxiao. Although she hadn’t met Jin Fuxiao at the fish ball factory like Peng Hu did, she was still considered a fellow townsperson.
Back when Jin Fuxiao was setting up a street stall selling handmade fish balls, she panicked while running from code enforcement officers. It was Ju Cixin, who was selling fruit with her parents next door, who helped push her cart away.
These were all stories from the company’s early founding days. Ju Cixin would occasionally bring them up, meaning nothing more than that those miserable days were finally over.
Explicitly and implicitly, she advised Jin Fuxiao to move past this chapter, find someone new, and take a look at the matchmaking profiles she forwarded to her inbox.
The executive staffing quota for Chenhun Group was fixed, and Jin Fuxiao’s variety show appearances were entirely arranged by Ju Cixin.
She was dedicated to tying Chenhun Group directly to Jin Fuxiao herself, even wanting to launch a sub-brand called Fuxiao Time, which specialized in selling seaweed.
Even the jingle had been custom-composed.
Jin Fuxiao listened to it once and was immediately brainwashed; after work, her head was filled with: Fuxiao Time, Fuxiao Time, Fuxiao seaweed is so delicious.
Jin Fuxiao put a hard stop to that proposal, which made Ju Cixin unhappy for quite a while.
“Still not talking?”
Wearing summer clothes, the woman’s wide-leg trousers swayed as she walked, looking like white ocean waves.
Ju Cixin wore her hair very short. The clinking sound of her necklace against the sunglasses hanging off her tank top made Jin Fuxiao even more irritated.
“What else do you want me to say?”
Jin Fuxiao rubbed her temples. Her headache-inducing ex-wife had taken the child to the suite to rest.
The general manager of the Zhoulie Hotel, who claimed to be Peng Hu’s relative, seemed to have gone to a meeting.
Her attitude toward Jin Fuxiao was mediocre; she stated that all fees were waived and that Jin Fuxiao could get fully reimbursed at any Zhoulie Hotel anywhere on Earth in the future.
In the eyes of the secretary, Yu Yan, who had witnessed the entire ordeal, this oddly named general manager indeed closely resembled Chairman Peng’s relative.
Just as Vice President Ju was blatantly on Chairman Jin’s side, hinting subtly and overtly that Jin Fuxiao should hurry up and dump her amnesiac ex-wife along with the child of unknown origin.
Ju Cixin was a workaholic. Although she was only the vice president, many of Chenhun Group’s key projects were won by her.
After Chenhun Group entered its Series C financing round, Peng Hu completely stopped participating in any business activities.
Yu Yan’s impression of Peng Hu later on bordered on distant and cold. When Peng Hu stood next to Jin Fuxiao, it even gave off the illusion that they were drifting apart.
Everyone said it was easy to fall in love but hard to stay together. They had survived their toughest times, yet when their material conditions grew better by the day, business trips became second nature.
Jin Fuxiao enjoyed career success and accepted compliments from others with grace.
As for people unconsciously making comparisons whenever she and Peng Hu entered various occasions together, she was never angry about it.
Her wife’s beauty was part of her own glory, something she took immense pride in.
However, after reviewing it many times later, the second half of this marriage was spent together less and apart more. Even if Peng Hu hadn’t suddenly vanished, the outcome likely would have been the same.
“Talk about Peng Hu,” Ju Cixin urged, having rushed over only to find the event here had already wrapped up.
She had only caught a distant glimpse of the woman by the pool with the child. Even with a head of dyed light blue long hair, it didn’t stop her from recognizing an old acquaintance from that somewhat altered face.
Ordinary people wouldn’t suspect Peng Hu wasn’t human; they would only wonder if she had gone to some remote corner to get cosmetic work done all these years.
She was preserved too well, practically reverted to her early twenties.
She looked even more like the clear-headed, silly idiot who was chased down the street by code enforcement officers while busily picking up fish balls that fell on the ground.
“I have nothing to say.”
Jin Fuxiao closed her eyes. Peng Hu’s innocent gaze floated into her mind, and she knew she couldn’t resist her.
Whether in the past or the present, no matter how many years of separation lay between them.
Her hatred grew from love, and it was also because of love. Confirming her identity countlessly made her breathe a sigh of relief; at least the person was back.
“Then talk about that child.”
“Do you really think that’s your and Peng Hu’s child?”
“She definitely found someone who looks a lot like you to have it.”
“You were kept in the dark, and she doesn’t respect you either. Don’t be soft-hearted.”
“So what?”
Jin Fuxiao’s body reclining on the lounge chair was graceful. In her teens, her skin had been dark and her frame skinny; she was truly far from pretty. People at the factory even called her ‘Black Girl’, ridiculing her skin tanned dark by the sea breeze, looking like an ugly duckling that hadn’t shed its feathers.
The effect of time and money was astonishing. In her thirties, she was at the prettiest point of her life. Peng Hu was indeed not wrong.
The present her was prettier than Fufu.
“What do you mean ‘so what’? This is very important, okay?”
“If you ask me, she’s just pretending to have amnesia, teaming up with outsiders, and bringing a child over planning to snatch away your hard work.”
Standing to the side, the executive secretary thought to herself: Here we go again. The Vice President’s desire for control over the group is way too high. No matter how high her shareholding ratio is, she can’t beat Chairman Peng.
“But she calls me Mom,” Jin Fuxiao said.
“You…”
Ju Cixin looked as if she were about to faint from anger. She pulled out the fast-acting heart pills she carried with her and swallowed them. “How come I never noticed before that you wanted to be a mother?”
“Didn’t you hate kids the most?”
Zhou Qi was chubby and had a sharp, articulate mouth; that noisy demeanor of hers was a ten-out-of-ten match for how Jin Fuxiao was when she was young.
This child only resembled Peng Hu in the upper half of her face; everywhere else looked more like Jin Fuxiao.
“Didn’t you see her? Doesn’t she look like me?”
Jin Fuxiao tapped her finger on the photo album. This was a picture Zhou Qi had taken with her phone during the chaos earlier.
The little kid’s bangs were messy, and the casually snapped photo was taken with nostrils pointing toward the sky.
Her eyes, identical to Peng Hu’s, appeared adorable due to her young age, allowing Jin Fuxiao to see the shadow of Peng Hu’s childhood.
“Don’t show me. I only just realized you have a reproductive urge too.”
“Even someone like me, whose sexual orientation gets attacked by everyone, doesn’t have a child. What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m infuriated.”
Among the upper management of Chenhun Group, just looking at their work ID photos could reveal their personalities.
Jin Fuxiao had naturally striking features with sharp facial bone structure. Her daily look featured full tightline eyeliner and a subtle smoky eye, with enhanced eyelashes making them appear even denser. Many employees didn’t quite dare to make eye contact with her, feeling as though even her blinks carried overwhelming pressure.
“Don’t look then.”
Jin Fuxiao leaned back, the fatigue of not sleeping well written across her face.
Ju Cixin knew her mood must be even more complicated, yet she still couldn’t hide her anger: “Then she suddenly came back now, what is she trying to do?”
“She forgot everything. What can she do?”
Besides her necklace, a very old bracelet hung from Jin Fuxiao’s wrist.
It wasn’t a famous brand, but rather a silver-plated gold bangle Peng Hu had given her back when they were at the fish ball factory.
The paint had flaked off long ago, making it look mottled, relying entirely on her current aura to pull it off.
Many times, her deep affection served as a business tactic; some criticized her for faking it, while others praised her devotion.
Only Jin Fuxiao knew the taste of lying awake all night.
“Even with memory loss, she managed to precisely team up with a relative to climb into your bed. As I see it, she just wants to swallow the whole company.”
Ju Cixin was so angry she couldn’t catch her breath. Yu Yan poured her a glass of water and reminded her, “Vice President, don’t you have other matters to discuss with the Chairman?”
“What matter bypasses Yu Yan to find you directly?”
The business-focused variety show Jin Fuxiao attended before was also packaged by Ju Cixin.
At that time, Peng Hu had already been missing for many years. A lot of the old background material online had been provided by Ju Cixin behind Jin Fuxiao’s back, all to make her more famous and to make the company more famous.
“It’s not going to be another variety show, is it? We just recorded one six months ago.”
“No.”
Ju Cixin had received the news not long ago.
At the time, she found it strange: since Peng Hu could be considered a widely known missing person, why would the show crew approach Jin Fuxiao?
As it turned out, this whole incident happened the very next day. No matter how you looked at it, it seemed deliberate.
She hesitated slightly. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Did I guess right?”
They had worked together for many years and knew each other’s family backgrounds inside out; Jin Fuxiao also understood her personality. “Speak directly.”
“It’s a message from the producer of the previous variety show. She said because of your high popularity, coupled with the startup documentary, the station received a lot of viewer feedback wishing to see your current life.”
With the company growing to this scale, Jin Fuxiao had poured a lot into promotion.
Including her own startup story, she had provided video archives from her time at the fish ball factory back then.
Daily life recorded using a digital camera bought with Peng Hu’s salary, interspersed with work and life more than ten years later, made for a documentary of sorts.
Although a video like this was uploaded to video streaming sites, even internal staff couldn’t be bothered to watch it.
Because Jin Fuxiao appeared on the variety show, the video was unearthed, and many people excavated her love story with Peng Hu, curious about how they managed to persevere during an era when two people of the same sex being together was considered abnormal.
“What’s so interesting about that?”
Jin Fuxiao felt a wave of apathy at the thought of Peng Hu’s current state.
Her mind was full of Fufu, yet she could kiss her uninhibitedly, stirring up unconcealable desire.
Which person was ever like that?
Ju Cixin never kept work-related information from her and directly CC’d the email to Jin Fuxiao in person.
“Made into a variety show?”
Jin Fuxiao caught the keywords. “Goodbye, Wife…“
She sneered. Yu Yan had quietly stepped behind her, her eyes widening in surprise as she saw the content.
“We’re already divorced, what’s the point of getting together to do a show?”
Even if she had appeared in company live streams to keep up with trends, or joined other corporate CEOs on variety shows, Jin Fuxiao still disliked this kind of life.
The busier she got, the more she missed Peng Hu.
Peng Hu could always wait for her; no matter how endlessly Jin Fuxiao complained, Peng Hu would listen to the end.
The Chairman of Chenhun Group had to be decisive and resolute, and over time, it became so very exhausting.
In the past, she could recharge with Peng Hu. In the years that followed, the thought of retiring to rest sprouted in Jin Fuxiao’s mind many times.
However, the company didn’t belong to her alone; a single move from her would trigger many unnecessary changes.
“Yeah,” Ju Cixin was also very annoyed. “This news came way too fast. Peng Hu appeared last night, and they sent me an email this morning. What kind of genius planning is this?”
Jin Fuxiao looked at the drafted twenty-day tour locations in the email attachment, her expression shifting slightly.
They were all places she had told Peng Hu in the past she wanted to visit, but never got the chance to.
She stared at the attachment for a long time, so long that Ju Cixin leaned over. “Is there a problem?”
The compensation wouldn’t be disclosed in the invitation document; with their status, all they cared about was the benefit brought by publicity.
If Peng Hu hadn’t gone missing, from a partner’s perspective, Ju Cixin would naturally be happy to have the two of them on the show to generate buzz and let more people know about the company.
But as a friend, she couldn’t tolerate Peng Hu leaving without saying goodbye for over six years and returning with a child.
Yet Jin Fuxiao was very stubborn; all the opportunities in her life stemmed from meeting Peng Hu.
Reviewing everything in the past, she could hardly offer any reproducible experience. On many occasions during private gatherings with friends, her eyes would suddenly fill with tears.
She simply couldn’t let go.
“Your friend isn’t directing this time?”
Jin Fuxiao pointed at the director listed in the bottom right corner: Wu Tou.
Ju Cixin had dated female celebrities before and knew many cast and crew members. She uttered a sound of surprise, “Why is it her?”
“What about her?”
“She’s a very famous documentary director who was nominated for a major award last year for a horror film she directed,” Ju Cixin was also quite puzzled. “Why did she switch careers to direct this kind of relationship variety show?”
Jin Fuxiao wasn’t very interested, but she knew Ju Cixin was somewhat profit-driven. “From a business perspective, do you suggest I participate?”
Peng Hu was sitting by the edge of the swimming pool while Zhou Qi splashed around in the water. “Mommy, I still prefer the deep sea. When can we go back?”
Her Mommy’s long hair shone brightly under the light, but she didn’t look particularly happy.
“We can’t go back right now.”
Dai Buyu walked over, handed Peng Hu a bottle of iced water, and said to Zhou Qi, “You were the one who said you wanted to find Mamma-chan.”
“But Mamma-chan doesn’t like me.”
“Really?” Dai Buyu looked toward Peng Hu. “She doesn’t like your child?”
Peng Hu played with her long hair, her eyelashes matching her hair color looking even more dazzling under the light. “She will like her.”
Zhou Qi swam over. “But she told us to scram.”
“I’m a jellyfish. I can’t scram; I can only float.”
Peng Hu’s memory was hazy; Fufu’s face and Jin Fuxiao’s face overlapped, and thinking deeply about it gave her a headache.
She clutched her head and let out a whimper. Zhou Qi sighed. “It would’ve been better to leave the memories with me, but Mommy insisted on taking them back.”
“If Mamma-chan still doesn’t make up with her like this, Mommy will die.”
Dai Buyu touched her face. “Little kids shouldn’t worry about this. I’ve already arranged everything.”
“Arranged what?” After turning human, the little jellyfish was curious about everything and even wanted to taste a passing duck, scaring the duck away.
“This time, we’re calling in your Auntie Wu Tou. She loves filming stories the most.”
Peng Hu’s phone received a new notification. She glanced at it twice and asked Dai Buyu, “Didn’t you say it was a dating show? Why is it a divorce show?”
The header read: Goodbye, Wife.
One-line synopsis: Twenty days with your divorced wife.
Dai Buyu cleared her throat. “Well, eating, living, and sleeping together for twenty days, how does that not count as dating?”