Li Yixun admitted that she had deliberately provoked Chen Nian. Every time she asked him if he loved her, he repeatedly pierced her heart with the dagger of silence, leaving her heart shattered beyond repair.
Why could he not divorce her if he didn’t want to, and why could he pursue her again if he wanted to?
Whether Chen Nian loved her or not, his act of pursuing her without uttering a single word of confession was utterly ridiculous.
The Li Yixun of the past, driven by a reckless passion, could accept being with him without a confession, marrying him without a proposal. But now, wounded by his indifference, her body’s defense mechanisms would instinctively resist such a dangerous repetition.
Chen Nian left in a rather disheveled state that day, but Li Yixun didn’t care whether he was actually affected. Adults are always adept at seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages. If Chen Nian can’t even accept this level of incompatibility, then she believes he’ll wisely withdraw from her life.
*
Li Yixun has been extremely stressed lately.
It all started when a newly hired operations staff member posted brand promotional content that was suspected of plagiarism. The person involved was a blogger with considerable influence on a social media platform. After being alerted by fans, the blogger quickly posted online, accusing the company of plagiarizing his content. Although the company’s public relations department took immediate action, it still severely damaged the brand image.
After the incident, Li Yixun immediately instructed her staff to delete the content posted on all platforms and personally drafted an official apology letter. After review and approval by superiors and the public relations department, the apology letter was stamped with the company seal and published on all platforms immediately.
By the time she finished dealing with the aftermath, it was already 1 a.m. Li Yixun felt like a zombie, too exhausted even to say goodbye to her colleagues.
Having gone too long without food, Li Yixun was dizzy with hunger. Her low blood sugar made her need to lean against the wall to walk, and her initial thought of forcing herself to drive home and order takeout vanished instantly.
Stepping out of the building, Li Yixun felt a slight chill in the night air. A crescent moon hung in the sky, like a dim, misty guiding light.
Unfortunately, she had no time to appreciate it. She pulled her thin coat tighter around herself and, with unsteady steps, entered the 24-hour Lawson convenience store near her office. She didn’t even have the energy to choose what she wanted, so she simply ordered milk and a sandwich from the counter.
After wolfing down a sandwich in the convenience store’s dining area, Li Yixun finally felt her blood sugar return to normal. The world seemed normal and orderly again, no longer spinning and disorienting.
Just as she was lost in thought, a pale hand pushed an unopened rice ball towards her from her left.
Li Yixun followed the hand’s gaze and noticed a man sitting a seat away. Unlike Li Yixun’s tired and listless appearance, he looked energetic and neatly dressed, even in the late hour. His gentle, jade-like face seemed vaguely familiar.
“I didn’t mean anything by it, I just saw you looked quite hungry. I just bought this, it hasn’t been touched yet,” he explained, pointing to the large bag of groceries at his feet, noticing Li Yixun’s puzzled look.
Li Yixun’s ears flushed instantly. Had even a stranger found her ravenous appearance unbearable? She quickly waved her hand, her expression flustered and embarrassed: “No, no, thank you, I’m already full.”
Rejected by Li Yixun, he showed no embarrassment or awkwardness, calmly taking back the rice ball: “Okay.”
The man seemed to have no intention of continuing the conversation, turning his head to look at the street outside the floor-to-ceiling windows in front of the table, lost in thought.
Seeing that the man wasn’t just trying to strike up a conversation, but genuinely kind, Li Yixun was very impressed with this man of exceptional character.
Li Yixun couldn’t help but steal a few glances at him. Such a gentle and refined demeanor was quite rare in real life, and the more she looked at him, the more familiar he seemed. Li Yixun searched her memory for a while before remembering: he was the man she had met briefly at the gym before, the one who had overheard her conversation with someone because he wasn’t wearing headphones.
Li Yixun couldn’t guess why a man, fully dressed, was sitting quietly in a convenience store late at night, lost in thought instead of sleeping.
But in this vast world, who doesn’t have a few stories or quirks?
Thinking of this, Li Yixun felt a headache coming on again. The plagiarism issue had only temporarily subsided; putting aside the impact on the company, for her personally, there was still the uncertainty of potential punishment hanging over her head.
Not only would the employee who plagiarized the work be fired, but Li Yixun, as the employee’s direct supervisor, would also be held responsible. She just wasn’t sure what the company’s punishment would be. At worst, her almost certain promotion this year might be affected; at worst, her quarterly performance bonus would definitely be gone.
Adults are always trapped in the trivialities of daily life. Li Yixun’s savings over the years totaled only one million yuan. Subtracting the two hundred thousand yuan she gave to her parents, she was left with eight hundred thousand yuan, of which seven hundred thousand was tied up in the stock market and funds. This thirty-something-year-old adult only had one hundred thousand yuan in readily available cash.
Not to mention, the stock market is a deep and treacherous sea; Li Yixun even suspected that the seven hundred thousand yuan might eventually be lost entirely. But she truly couldn’t bear to sell it now, so she forced herself to become a prisoner of time, gambling that the money would come back in N years.
Since marrying Chen, Li Yixun hadn’t worried about money for a long time. Before, she could swipe her card to buy luxury goods without batting an eye, but now, with her salary, she simply couldn’t afford those brands.
This shift from luxury to frugality was probably one of the aftereffects of the divorce from Chen Nian; she estimated it would take her a long time to process this drastic downgrade in spending.
A sudden sound beside her interrupted Li Yixun’s reverie—the man leaving.
Seeing him walk out the door, Li Yixun suddenly noticed that the shopping bag she had placed at his feet was gone.
She quickly picked up the bag, intending to ask the clerk to return it, but when she reached the counter, she saw the clerk on duty looking drowsy. Overwhelmed by sympathy as a fellow working person, she changed her mind and chased after him herself.
Luckily, Li Yixun was wearing flats today; she really wouldn’t have been able to keep up with a man with long arms and legs.
“Hello.” She gently tapped his shoulder from behind, getting his attention.
He stopped as expected, turning around with some surprise to see her. He only looked on with realization when he saw the shopping bag in her hand.
“Sorry, I accidentally forgot.” His voice, like his demeanor, was a gentleness refined by time.
“It’s alright, thank you for your kindness earlier too.” Li Yixun laughed heartily, handing him the bag.
He thanked her, then reached for the shopping bag. For some reason, she sensed a momentary hesitation in his movements, but he quickly recovered and smoothly handed the bag over.
The man gave her a faint smile, his eyes shimmering with a gentle light, as if saying goodbye to a friend, “It’s so late, be careful going home alone.”
“Goodbye.”
Li Yixun nodded and said goodbye to him as well, “Okay, thank you, goodbye.”
The company’s punishment for the plagiarism incident was not much different from what Li Yixun had expected. As a co-responsible party, Li Yixun was held accountable for the errors in review and management. Her performance score for the quarter was directly reduced to 0, meaning her entire performance bonus was forfeited. At the same time, a major incident notification email was sent to the company’s group chat, detailing the incident and its handling results, as a warning to other employees.
In addition, Li Yixun was also given a severe scolding by her direct supervisor.
After slinking out of the manager’s office, she calculated her deducted bonus and checked her stock account, which was showing a sharp decline in value. The emotional and financial trauma combined made her look even worse.
When misfortune strikes, even drinking cold water can cause problems, and her long-lost parents suddenly appeared to join in the misery.
When she answered the phone to a stranger’s number and heard her father’s voice on the other end, her already furrowed brows twisted into a deep knot.
“What’s wrong? Didn’t I make myself perfectly clear last time?”
The person on the other end of the line clearly sensed her bad attitude and knew she was still angry and wouldn’t communicate properly, so he hung up abruptly.
“…” Listening to the dial tone, Li Yixun felt inexplicably irritated.
Chen Nian received the call from Li Yixun’s father on his way to his mother’s house.
“Hello, Dad, what’s up?”
Although they were divorced, Chen Nian believed he and Li Yixun would eventually get back together. Besides, he didn’t know how much Li’s father knew about their divorce, so he answered the phone using his usual form of address.
A fawning, tentative laugh came from the other end of the phone: “Chen Nian, how busy have you been lately? Haven’t seen you in ages.”
In fact, he hadn’t even seen his own daughter, let alone this son-in-law, who rarely showed up.
Chen Nian smiled and exchanged pleasantries: “Pretty busy, I’ll definitely come visit you sometime.”
But the other end wasn’t going to mince words, cutting to the chase: “How are things with Xunxun lately?… That brat, I can’t get in touch with her.”
Chen Nian wasn’t sure how much the Li family knew about their affair, so he cautiously remained silent, waiting for Mr. Li to continue.
Mr. Li heard a silence on the other end, and his heart sank: “You two are really divorced?”
On his end, the only sound was Chen Nian’s breathing.
Having come this far, what was there left for him to understand? He quickly pressed, “Have you two completed the formalities?”
Since it was ultimately Li Yixun’s own matter, Chen Nian finally spoke, but still didn’t directly answer Li’s father: “You can ask Li Yixun for details.”
Upon hearing this, the other party became agitated: “You cheated? Then how much property did you, as the party at fault, leave to Li Yixun?!”
Chen Nian wasn’t prepared for such a blatant display of greed and calculation. After his initial shock, he quickly showed displeasure.
Upholding the principle that caring for one’s partner’s family is also a duty, Chen Nian had never been particularly concerned about money. Even when the Li family demanded a large dowry during their marriage, and even when his father-in-law asked him to lend him a school district apartment for Li Yixun’s younger brother, he readily agreed, considering it a minor matter.
However, he hadn’t expected that Li’s parents, upon hearing of their daughter’s divorce, would first express concern about whether their daughter had been hurt, but rather inquire about the division of property.
Combining this phone call with Chen Nian’s memories of Li Yixun’s youthful complaints about not being favored, her part-time jobs to earn her own tuition in college, and even her recent outburst over borrowing a house, Chen Nian gained a clearer understanding of Li’s parents’ character.
Chen Nian suddenly felt the oxygen in the car thin, a look of guilt and pain welling up in his eyes. He felt sorry for Li Yixun, but even more so, he blamed himself for not understanding her emotions.
“Not much, just the house and car we live in now.”
“She has no money, don’t bother her!”
For the first time, Chen Nian felt a shared sense of indignation with Li Yixun, not wanting to say another word, and quickly hung up the phone.