Qilan’s face burned. Using Liang Jianshi for support, she slowly descended from the ladder, her eyelashes lowered the entire time, not daring to look at him.
“I was worried that suddenly speaking might startle you, so I came over to hold the ladder without saying anything.”
“It’s alright, Mr. Liang…”
The ladder behind her had already been unsteady. When Liang Jianshi safely set her down on the ground, the ladder, no longer supported by her weight, crashed to the side, and somewhere nearby, something shattered.
Qilan flinched, her body tensing slightly. Instinctively, she leaned toward the person in front of her to avoid the danger. Not knowing where the threat was coming from, Liang Jianshi raised a hand to protect Qilan’s head, his broad shoulders shielding her. His fingers were still a short distance from the back of her head, and the stray strands of hair that had escaped her hair tie brushed against the calloused pads of his fingertips.
Hearing the noise, Assistant Wu rushed in from outside and spotted the fragments on the floor to the right.
The ladder had knocked over a vase on the cabinet when it fell.
“I’ll handle this, I’ll handle this. Please don’t come over,” he said in a fluster before going to get a broom.
The room fell quiet. Qilan and Liang Jianshi stood there in silence, the atmosphere delicate.
Liang Jianshi glanced toward the door, then his gaze returned to Qilan. The dark brown in his eyes seemed to shift. “This wasn’t your fault. No need to apologize. What matters is that no one got hurt.”
“Thank you for understanding, Mr. Liang.” Qilan didn’t dare meet his eyes. She pressed her lips together slightly and looked down at her toes.
Her racing heart had been leaving her breathless for a while now. Qilan felt that if she didn’t put some distance between them soon, something even more embarrassing might happen.
Feeling dizzy, she muttered a farewell that even she didn’t fully understand and left Liang Jianshi’s house.
Liang Jianshi seemed to want to say something more, but the door had already closed softly. His gaze lingered in the distance, not withdrawing for a long time.
ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
Back in her room, Qilan sat at the small wooden table, chin resting in her hands, staring into space.
Because this dormitory was in the basement, it had no windows or natural light. The petals of the rose in the glass bottle were wilted and yellowing.
Tong Tong was organizing clothes behind her. Qilan looked at the rose, unable to hide the longing in her eyes. “Tong Tong, who is this big shot pursuing you? A rose is left at our door every day, and no name is ever written. It’s so mysterious.”
Tong Tong chuckled mischievously. “With such a romantic way of courting, are you sure it’s not your foreign pen pal?”
Qilan paused in her fiddling with the rose.
In one of her drawers, a stack of envelopes was piled up, letters from the foreign pen pal she had been corresponding with for two years.
When had they become friends who only knew each other through letters?
It seemed to have started when he found a pen she had lost. He mailed the pen to her, and she wrote back to thank him. They had continued communicating in this most old-fashioned way for two years.
Qilan felt a hint of melancholy when she thought about it. “How could it be him? He doesn’t know I work at Zana Hotel. Besides, he hasn’t written to me in a long time.”
Tong Tong said regretfully, “So the plan for him to come to Yicheng to meet you, that’s off too?”
Qilan smelled the rose’s faint, fading fragrance. “Yeah. His last letter said he would come to Yicheng to meet and would let me know where, but there was never any follow-up. I’d almost forgotten about it, honestly. Let it go.”
Back then, she had been young and thought she was feeling something. That foreign pen pal had been gentlemanly in his wording and had given her a lot of encouragement during difficult times. But as their correspondence decreased, her feelings faded. Looking back, maybe it had just been the novelty and fondness of youth, not really love.
At least, compared to the intense emotions she felt now, those old feelings were like lightly scented tea meeting thick, sweet syrup, suddenly seeming a bit dull.
When Tong Tong hugged her from behind and said it was a shame, Qilan’s fingers traced the soft thorns on the rose stem. “It is a shame. Without sunlight in this dorm, the roses always wilt too quickly.”
A petal fell delicately. Tong Tong’s tone suddenly became low and soft, with a pitiful quality. “I got into trouble today. I lost a guest’s valuable item.”
That was serious. “Where did you lose it? Can it be found?”
Tong Tong looked dejected. “I can, but it’s in the general manager’s office. If I go looking for it and he asks what I’m doing there, what would I say? That’s walking right into a trap. Losing a guest’s valuable item is a huge mistake. I might as well just resign.”
“Is the guest in a hurry for it?”
“They’re staying for a few more days, so no rush.”
Qilan thought about how she could turn into a cat and might be able to retrieve the item for Tong Tong without anyone noticing. “Leave this to me!”
ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
Liang Jianshi’s security was airtight, but when Qilan was determined, she could still find opportunities to slip out.
It was a bit difficult, but in the dead of night, the hotel’s public areas were deserted. Qilan snuck into the general manager’s office, crawling along the narrow gap under the row of cabinets against the wall. Just as Tong Tong had said, the earring was behind the large vase.
She successfully retrieved it, carrying it in her mouth back to the dorm and placing it on the table. Tong Tong would see it when she returned from work the next day.
Qilan had expected to see Tong Tong’s surprised and delighted face. But Tong Tong seemed to have encountered an even bigger problem. She hurriedly took the earring, asked for time off, and went home one day, disappearing for many days.
One afternoon, Xiao Xi came to pick up the ladder and said a friend in the transportation department had given him some Munich sausages from Germany. They were delicious, and he insisted on taking Qilan to try some.
Qilan, who had nearly become a starving ghost, heard the word “food” and automatically found herself walking along.
Xiao Xi returned the ladder to the storage room while Qilan waited outside the French restaurant.
Not long after, she heard the elevator “ding” as it opened. A tall, handsome man passed through the left corridor and entered the terrace restaurant with the best view in the city.
Even though it was just a brief glimpse, Qilan recognized Liang Jianshi immediately.
The custom-made dark black suit was his usual style, and the gleaming silver tie clip was the one Qilan loved to paw at.
Curious, Qilan took a few steps closer and saw the distinguished man take a seat across from a woman on the terrace.
That woman was none other than Lin Anyuan.
Qilan didn’t know how long she stood there. In the distance, a waiter came from the terrace.
The intern shared what he had just seen with a colleague, a hint of envy in his expression.
“That woman is stunning. No wonder Mr. Liang would have dinner with her.”
“What are you talking about? That’s Miss Lin, a real heiress. You think she’s some kind of gold digger? That woman has status.”
“So they really are a couple…? They’re just eating together, it’s not like they’re doing anything. Besides, Mr. Liang hasn’t already…”
“You don’t know about this, but Liang Jianshi recently ordered a large batch of top-grade Juliet roses, the variety known as the ‘Three Million Roses’! The meaning is pretty clear, isn’t it? Last time, Miss Lin took two full carts of flowers from Mr. Liang, right through the hotel’s main entrance.”
“The terrace garden in the penthouse suite is Miss Lin’s favorite. Mr. Liang specially renovated it for her, and it’s almost finished.”
“Great talents always have great beauties by their side. You can’t expect someone like him to be consistent.”
Qilan’s hands and feet went cold. Her gaze toward the terrace seemed to tremble.
The name Lin Anyuan, she had first heard it from colleagues, always accompanied by the most dazzling adjectives in the world.
In contrast, Qilan had just been a lowly intern then, doing the hardest work in the hotel. Lin Anyuan, surrounded by her friends, stepped out of a Lamborghini and, with the lobby manager’s courteous reception, made her way up to the top floor with quite a fanfare.
Qilan only remembered that despite being the center of attention, Lin Anyuan smiled gently and kindly, was polite to the staff, and tipped generously. Everyone at the hotel spoke highly of her.
“What a lovely girl”, Qilan had thought as she pushed her cleaning cart out at that moment.
In the instant they passed each other, the aura around Lin Anyuan seemed to completely overshadow Qilan.
Every female employee at the hotel envied Lin Anyuan. The hotel sat atop a row of luxury boutiques. The new collections that Qilan didn’t even dare look at on her way to work were merely backup clothes for Lin Anyuan when she spilled red wine on her outfit. Qilan had stood there, mouth agape, looking like a bumpkin who had never seen the world.
This was the gap.
It was like when she was in school, the girls in her class always complained that the uniform rule prevented them from wearing their pretty clothes. Meanwhile, Qilan, who constantly had to alter her uniform to make it fit, was always worried about her tuition fees.
Qilan had missed out on the years when girls got to wear beautiful clothes. She had struggled and scraped by to reach today.
She wanted to leave that life behind. She wanted to walk down the street with the same ease as other young women. She wanted to have a little home of her own in this big city through her own efforts… So Qilan worked tirelessly, saving money, paying off debts, using every moment to earn.
But that goal always seemed so far away. She didn’t know when she would finally be able to breathe.
Qilan tried hard to appear confident and cheerful, but every step from childhood to young adulthood gave her no foundation for that confidence. She tried to be content and happy, focusing on achieving one small goal after another. But what she had just witnessed had cut through her armor, tearing apart the light she had so painstakingly woven.
Inferiority was like a flood, a beast, making her dizzy and confused.
The scene on the terrace stung her eyes.
But Qilan had been knocked down by fate more times than most. So even when reality dealt her a blow, when Xiao Xi came to call her to eat sausages, Qilan could still put on a smile and stuff her mouth full of Munich sausage.
“You’re not happy,” Xiao Xi observed. “Did you see something at the restaurant?”
Qilan was slightly surprised. She was usually so good at hiding her feelings. How had Xiao Xi seen through her so clearly?
He leaned against the counter, his expression concerned. “We’re friends, aren’t we? We haven’t met many times, but we hit it off right away.”
Xiao Xi was sincere, but Qilan had long developed a habit of being guarded with people. Even so, they chatted pleasantly until the sun went down.
ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
Qilan lay listlessly on her side in the dorm, the air filled with the smell of dampness and mold.
She couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason for her low mood.
It was like a pile of different kinds of silt had been stirred up at the bottom of the lake in her heart, each grain representing a different emotion. She crouched at the shore, sifting through them.
She didn’t know how long it was before she fell asleep.
She was awakened by the sound of car horns.
Opening her eyes like a cat, she found herself on the busiest road in the city. Cars roared past her like charging steel beasts.
What was going on? Shouldn’t she be in Liang Jianshi’s house? How had she ended up on this road?
Qilan tremblingly stretched out a paw, trying to run to the sidewalk. But just as she was about to do so, a large truck came thundering toward her, its hot exhaust fumes making it impossible for her to open her eyes.
ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
On the terrace, the chef who had been cooking at the table had been dismissed earlier. All that remained in front of Liang Jianshi was a clean, empty plate.
“If there are any further developments, please have William tell me personally. You’re not a professional in this area; it’s really asking too much to have you relay the information.”
The distant tone made Lin Anyuan uncomfortable. She understood the implication. Before he could rise to leave, she took a desperate chance and called out to him.
“Brother Jianshi!” Lin Anyuan’s fair chest rose and fell rapidly, whether from nervousness or sadness. “Is it true that I’ll never have a chance?”
Liang Jianshi frowned. “I’ve said before…”
“That was the past!” Lin Anyuan clearly didn’t want to hear those words again. She stood up excitedly, knocking over the cutlery on the plate. “Things are different now. It’s been three years, three years! I just…”
“Mr. Liang! Mr. Liang!” Assistant Wu and the head of security rushed into the restaurant, panic written on their faces. “Your cat is gone!”