Quite a few of her colleagues had attended the wedding and witnessed the entire farce with their own eyes.
So when Shen Nianyi returned to Qin Group, everyone from the front desk to the various departments looked at her as though she were a monkey in a circus.
They whispered and laughed at the sorry spectacle of a secretary who had tried to climb into her superior’s bed and rise through the ranks, only to fail.
Shen Nianyi paid them no attention.
She had been running after Qin Jiming since her second year of high school. What humiliation had she not endured?
Although he never responded to her feelings, he had never rejected her either. When people mocked her because Su Mingxin had remarried, he had even shielded her behind him.
She had thought that this man was simply cold and indifferent by nature, not that he disliked her.
As long as she loved him passionately enough and gave him her whole heart, they could still grow old together.
But reality was cruel and blunt.
Qin Jiming knew how to care for someone. He had patience, and he understood tenderness. He simply did not show any of it to her.
Shen Nianyi sat at her workstation and skillfully tapped away at the keyboard, printing out her resignation letter. After checking it carefully, she signed it and took it to Qin Jiming’s office.
She then assigned all the work on hand that needed to be handed over.
Amid the hesitant looks of the people in the secretarial department, she gathered her personal belongings and left the company.
After stuffing everything into the trunk, she could not help looking up at the office building behind her.
This place had once been where she stood closest to her dreams and happiness, where her heart had burned with hope as she looked forward to walking beside the person she loved.
Now, looking at it again, she saw nothing but a fleeting illusion.
As she stood there distracted, a sharp pain stabbed through her abdomen.
She let out a muffled groan and doubled over, bracing herself against the back of the car as she took shallow breaths to ease the pain.
The death of Qin Jiming’s younger brother had plunged Qin Group’s projects into a sudden, devastating crisis.
For the past two years, she had accompanied Qin Jiming to countless drinking engagements, drinking until she had nearly perforated her stomach.
Since the wedding, she had not even had a sip of water.
She thought it was just her usual stomach pain and that she could endure it until it passed.
But the agony in her abdomen swept over her with the speed of a tsunami.
Her face turned deathly pale, and beads of sweat the size of beans poured from her forehead.
She tried to move to the car and sit down, but her body had no strength left. Wave after wave of dizziness washed over her.
Realizing that something was wrong, she pulled out her phone with trembling hands and instinctively called her emergency contact.
The call rang for half a minute before someone finally answered.
The pain had already muddled her thoughts, and an undertone of grievance crept unconsciously into her voice.
“Qin Jiming, my stomach hurts so badly. I can’t drive. Can you come pick me up?”
Before she could say that she was in the parking lot outside the company, a woman’s voice on the other end poured a bucket of cold water over her.
“You’re looking for Brother? I’m hungry, so he went to cook noodles for me. Do you need me to call him for you?”
The woman’s spoiled, triumphant tone was an unabashed provocation.
It was Lin Jiujiu.
Shen Nianyi’s hand, braced against the car, clenched tightly.
Qin Jiming had a slight case of cleanliness obsession and could not stand the smell of cooking fumes.
Even when her menstrual cramps were severe and she had asked him to make her a bowl of brown-sugar ginger tea, he had never once turned on the stove. He had simply ordered takeout for her.
So it turned out that for someone else, he could enter the kitchen after all.
Shen Nianyi said nothing more and slowly ended the call.
She was truly an idiot.
At a time like this, she had actually still thought to ask Qin Jiming for help.
The pain, sharp enough to feel as though it were piercing through her body, pulled her consciousness away. She wanted to dial 120 for an ambulance, but her trembling hands could no longer even get the phone out properly. Darkness abruptly swept over her.
Before she lost consciousness, she vaguely heard someone calling her, the voice urgent.
Through her blurred vision, she saw Huo Yuqing’s handsome face. His eyes were filled with concern, and he kept saying something to her.
But she could no longer hear a word.
When she woke again, she was lying in a hospital bed with an IV in her hand.
A nurse was recording her vitals nearby. When she saw Shen Nianyi wake up, she asked, “Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere?”
Shen Nianyi opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She could only gently shake her head to indicate that she was fine.
The nurse slipped her pen into her breast pocket.
“You had a perforated appendix due to acute appendicitis. The surgery went very smoothly. But you gave your husband quite a fright. His face had gone white when he carried you in, and he kept shouting for the doctor to save you. He refused to use a stretcher.”
Recalling the hazy memories from before she had passed out, Shen Nianyi turned to look around the ward, but Huo Yuqing was nowhere to be seen.
The nurse quickly explained, “Your husband spent quite a while after the surgery asking the doctor about how to care for you. Once he learned that you’d need something to eat soon, he went to buy you some food. He’ll be back shortly.”
With that, she left.
Shen Nianyi leaned against the bed. As the anesthetic gradually wore off, her memories slowly grew clearer.
She thought she had heard Huo Yuqing calling her “Niannian.”
That was her childhood nickname. Only her father and a few elders who lived near her old home called her that.
But before the wedding, she was certain she had never met Huo Yuqing.
Could Gu Youran have told him?
As she was thinking about it, the phone on the table began to vibrate.
It was Qin Jiming calling.
She did not want to answer and ignored it.
But after ringing once, it quickly rang a second time, followed by a third.
During all the years they had known each other, Qin Jiming had never once called her so persistently.
Thinking that she would have to tell him about her resignation sooner or later, she answered when the phone rang for the fourth time.
“Qin Jiming…”
Before she could say anything else, Qin Jiming let out a faint, displeased sigh on the other end.
“Yiyi, stop throwing a tantrum. There’s a problem with the coordination for the Sanjin Project. It’s very difficult. Go talk to the person in charge and finalize the details as soon as possible. I’m tied up here and can’t get away.”
“He likes to drink, so have a few extra drinks with him. Get the contract signed first—don’t drag it out any longer. When the drinking session is over, call Fang Zhou and have him pick you up.”
It was the same familiar set of instructions, delivered like a domineering yet considerate arrangement made for her sake.
Yet from beginning to end, he showed not the slightest concern that something might have happened to Shen Nianyi because she had not answered his calls.
In the past, Shen Nianyi had thought this was Qin Jiming’s absolute trust in her—his trust that she was capable of handling anything.
She would do everything in her power to complete every task, striving to prove herself worthy of that trust.
But now, as the anesthetic faded and the fine, stabbing pain from her wound became clearer, she understood that loving someone was not supposed to be like this.
Qin Jiming did not love her. In fact, he had never once felt sorry for her.
Bitterness spread across her tongue. She knew that even if she told Qin Jiming she was resigning now, he would only assume she was throwing another tantrum. She might as well let him see the resignation letter for himself.
She spoke calmly. “President Qin, don’t come to me about anything related to the company again.”
Then she hung up.
The beeping disconnected tone left Qin Jiming stunned for a moment. His faintly furrowed brows drew together more tightly, but he patiently called again.
“The number you have dialed is not in service.”
A mechanical female voice informed him that he had been blocked.
This was the first time Shen Nianyi had ever brought their work into a personal quarrel with him.
Her willfulness and inability to separate public from private matters sent an inexplicable flame of anger surging through his chest. Irritated, he tugged loose his tie.
At the same time, he called his assistant, Fang Zhou.
“Is Shen Nianyi at the company? Put her on the phone!”
Fang Zhou sounded somewhat uneasy.
“President Qin, Secretary Shen left after placing her resignation letter on your desk and packing up her things. Given her relationship with you, I didn’t feel I could stop her.”
She had even dared to resign?
“Shen Nianyi!”
Qin Jiming ended the call, left, and returned to the home across the street. He strode into the living room, not even having time to change his shoes, but he did not see the familiar figure anywhere.
“I explained what happened at the wedding. How long are you going to keep acting out?”
He shoved open the bedroom door. Everything inside was as neat as usual, but there was no one there.
The fury filling Qin Jiming’s body instantly froze, leaving him somewhat dazed.
Aside from the company and home, Shen Nianyi had nowhere to go.
He was about to have someone look into it when he noticed that the pair of ceramic piglets on the bedside table was gone. Even the only photograph of the two of them from their university days had disappeared.
They were Shen Nianyi’s most treasured possessions.
The anger suspended inside him seemed to burn a pitch-black hole through his chest, leaving behind an emptiness that made him panic.
Shen Nianyi had left!