Fishbone
Li Zhao left, leaving Gu Jiahe feeling relaxed and immediately crawling back into bed for a little more sleep.
The curtains in the room were all drawn, casting a dim light, and the air conditioner was blowing cold air while the ventilation system replaced the room’s air, making everything feel comfortable.
It had been a long time since he had slept so soundly. He even had a pleasant dream where he won the lottery. After claiming the prize, he went to the hotel lobby and booked two presidential suites. He lay on the chaise lounge in the suite, drinking hot milk and looking at the sea view outside the window, feeling very comfortable.
Until he was awakened by the phone ringing, he looked at the screen and was startled, feeling like his soul was about to leave his body.
He had overslept and was almost late!
He counted on his fingers, fifteen minutes. He had only fifteen minutes left to rush to the training venue, where a large group of middle and senior managers from the new factory were waiting for him.
Gu Jiahe’s forehead broke out in a cold sweat.
He quickly put on his clothes and rushed to the elevator hall, but the elevator was stubbornly stuck on the ground floor and wouldn’t come up. Gu Jiahe paced back and forth anxiously.
Finally, when the elevator doors opened, Li Zhao and a colleague from the audit department were inside. It seemed they had just finished their morning visit, chatting and laughing inside.
Gu Jiahe glanced at his watch again, only fifteen minutes left. If he had to walk to the new factory, he would definitely not make it in time.
After a moment’s thought, he stepped into the elevator and spoke to his colleague, Polo, “Um, excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but could you give me a ride to the new factory? I’m running out of time.”
Polo would have liked to help him, but she was also a bit hesitant at the moment, “Ah? I just lent my car to another colleague… Why don’t you ask Lawyer Li to take you?”
Gu Jiahe felt like he had been struck by lightning.
As soon as Polo stepped out of the elevator, she waved goodbye to him apologetically.
“Um…” Gu Jiahe scratched his head, embarrassedly asking the only person left in the elevator.
“You have poor time management,” Li Zhao said quietly.
Gu Jiahe felt like burying his head on the elevator floor. He admitted his fault, letting Li Zhao win the argument this time.
Two minutes later.
Gu Jiahe once again sat in the passenger seat beside Li Zhao. This time, Li Zhao drove like a spaceship, stepping on the accelerator, and the car sped along the wide road. The glaring sunlight shone through the window and onto Gu Jiahe’s cheek. Gu Jiahe felt like half of his body was burning up.
Soon, the car arrived at the entrance of the new factory.
“You don’t need to see me in,” Gu Jiahe quickly opened the car door and got out, thanking Li Zhao.
But Li Zhao gestured with his eyes for him to hurry and close the door. “Did I say I would escort you in?”
Gu Jiahe clenched his fists and replied politely, “Thank you.”
Then he slammed the door shut and ran to the training room.
At the last minute, Gu Jiahe found the seat arranged by the administration for him and sat down, panting heavily. Wu Mou, who was on the stage, cast a stern look at him. Gu Jiahe quickly lowered his head.
It seemed he couldn’t escape a scolding again.
Fortunately, his trip yesterday wasn’t in vain. He had already seen the entire training process yesterday and had prepared his speech according to the schedule. As soon as the host mentioned his name, he went up on stage and smoothly finished his presentation on the training materials.
It wasn’t until evening that today’s training ended safely.
However, after the meeting, Wu Mou left first, and Gu Jiahe, as the only legal representative, was intercepted by a group of middle-level leaders. He explained various legal issues and key points of risk control to them.
Wu Mou received a message from the leaders of the new factory, saying that Xiao Gu worked responsibly. In the future, all supplier contracts for the new factory would trouble him to help review.
Wu Mou, accustomed to going with the flow, quickly agreed.
When Gu Jiahe received screenshots of the conversation between the two, he felt like he was about to jump into the sea and end it all the next second.
Walking out of the new factory in the setting sun, Wu Mou had already left by car. He didn’t have a car to ride, and it was even harder to get a taxi in the factory area than at the hotel, so he could only walk back reluctantly.
But just as he crossed an intersection, his phone rang. An unfamiliar number.
As soon as he answered, it seemed the signal wasn’t very good on the other end. Gu Jiahe asked several times before the other side finally spoke.
“Hello? Is this Manager Gu?”
As soon as Gu Jiahe heard this title, he was 80% sure it was a colleague from the company. Even though he was on a business trip and had changed his status on the company email and chat software to “on a business trip,” someone actually called him. It must be something urgent.
“Yes, who is this?”
“I’m Xiao Li from the business department. The thing is, we’re currently negotiating a procurement contract with a supplier.”
“Okay, please continue,” Gu Jiahe listened, realizing it was a serious matter, so he let the person continue.
“Well, let me get straight to the point. The thing is, this supplier wants to cooperate with us long-term, and he said he can give our business department a certain rebate…”
Gu Jiahe was completely confused.
“And then, I hope we can write this rebate into the contract. So that he won’t back out later when the deal is done. After all, once we sign the framework agreement, it will be for two years.”
Gu Jiahe was furious, feeling like he was about to explode at any moment. Holding his phone, he turned up the volume: “Do you know that taking rebates from suppliers violates company regulations? And you want to write it into the contract?! If the company finds out, we’ll both be in trouble. You for seven years, me for three, do you understand?!”
The other party was stunned, not expecting Gu Jiahe to be so angry, explaining, “No, I just want to see if there’s a way to guarantee…”
Gu Jiahe’s tone rose again: “Guarantee? Guarantee my ass! It’s illegal! Do you understand?!”
“Aren’t you from the legal department? Can’t you think of a solution?” The other side still wouldn’t give up.
Gu Jiahe was so angry that his head was spinning. He felt like he was about to explode at any moment. He took his phone and opened the speaker: “I’m from the legal department! Not a magician!”
After saying that, he hung up the phone with a bang.
Couldn’t this Xiao Li from the business department have a little common sense?
As soon as Xiao Li was mentioned, he thought of that poker face. Why couldn’t any of these people surnamed Li make him feel at ease?!
Gu Jiahe couldn’t help but vent his frustration and bit his teeth angrily.
He was so angry that he skipped dinner and went back to his room alone.
He pushed open the door with a bang and sat down irritably in the chair in front of the desk.
The only downside of the room was that it had two single beds but only one office chair.
After only sitting for two minutes, the door was pushed open by another person. Li Zhao saw him sitting in the office chair and raised an eyebrow.
He walked over and tapped Gu Jiahe’s arm with the documents in his hand. “I need to work.”
Gu Jiahe was already very angry, so he couldn’t help but retort when he saw Li Zhao’s presumptuous manner, “Are you the only one who has work? I’m staying in this room too.”
“What work do you have?” Li Zhao asked, raising his eyes.
“Some people don’t understand the work of legal affairs, and I need to clarify and explain it to them,” Gu Jiahe took out his laptop from his suitcase, opened it with a snap, and muttered angrily.
Li Zhao was not a fool and could hear the sarcasm in Gu Jiahe’s words.
He took a step back. “Please, go ahead.” Then he took his own laptop and started working while leaning against the head of the bed.
Gu Jiahe did have something to do. In the afternoon, Wu Mou had just agreed with the leaders of the new factory, and he received a processing cooperation agreement tonight.
He had more experience with procurement contracts before, and he had seen fewer agreements purely for manufacturing and processing. This document was a bit outside his comfort zone, and he spent a long time reviewing it. By the end, he felt his eyes getting a bit dry and rubbed them with his knuckles.
An idea popped into his head, and he turned to look at Li Zhao. But when he saw his face, he quickly dismissed the thought.
No matter how he thought about it, he felt like he had lost the upper hand in the morning. After pondering for a moment, he took out a hundred yuan bill from his wallet.
To maintain his dignity, he decided to spend some money.
He walked to the bedside, unfolded the bill, and handed it to Li Zhao.
Li Zhao looked up at him. “What’s this for?”
“Today’s car fare,” Gu Jiahe said coldly.
“No need,” Li Zhao didn’t take the money, or even look at him again. He continued typing on his keyboard.
Since he didn’t accept it, Gu Jiahe walked back to his office chair and directly sent a hundred yuan red envelope to him on WeChat.
The default title on the red envelope was: Congratulations and good luck.
It seemed a bit dark humor.
Li Zhao saw the screen light up, took a look from the bedside, then locked the screen and put it back.
He didn’t accept it.
Two minutes later, Li Zhao’s phone lit up again.
He opened it and saw that he had received a hundred yuan transfer on Alipay.
Li Zhao frowned slightly, tapped on the screen a few times with his finger.
Ding—Gu Jiahe saw Li Zhao transfer the hundred yuan back.
Throughout the process, no one said a word, but both of their phones lit up twice. However, the atmosphere in the room became even stranger.
Gu Jiahe sighed, even wondering if it would have been better to just spend the two thousand five hundred yuan at that moment.
He no longer insisted on winning this time and locked his phone screen, tossing it to the back of the desk, and continued to prepare work materials.
After working on the bed for a while, Li Zhao directly turned on the TV in the room. This time, he showed a bit of conscience and lowered the volume.
Late at night, the TV was broadcasting the World Cup. Gu Jiahe couldn’t help but glance up.
France was playing against Argentina, and the game had just begun.
Gu Jiahe felt a bit nostalgic seeing the French team enter the field.
Li Zhao used to like the French team very much, but they were eliminated in the South Africa World Cup and didn’t advance from the group stage. At that time, they were still living in a rented house together, and Gu Jiahe said the game was played terribly. Li Zhao was depressed all night and finally pressed him down and had sex with him all night.
By the end of that day, Gu Jiahe struggled to stretch out his hand from under the covers, crying and saying, “I didn’t play the terrible game. What does it have to do with me?”
The current French team was no longer the same French team. And he and Li Zhao were no longer the two people they used to be.
He subconsciously glanced at Li Zhao, who was lying on the bed, but their eyes met.
Thud—Gu Jiahe felt his heart sink suddenly.
To this day, the only tacit understanding between them was to cover up the past and let time turn the pages.
Their eyes lingered for a second, and then they both turned their heads away at the same time.
Gu Jiahe didn’t want to stay here anymore. He got up and went to the bathroom to wash up and go to bed.
The sun in Lingang was indeed fierce. After just two days of exposure, there were tan marks on his arms. The thin, long cut on his arm caused by the tiles had scabbed over, but the scab hadn’t fallen off yet.
He brushed his teeth in front of the mirror and was rinsing his mouth when the phone on the marble countertop rang.
Gu Jiahe thought it was another call from that person in the business department and didn’t answer. But the ringtone continued relentlessly for several seconds.
He picked it up and saw the caller ID, it was from Pingcheng.
Gu Jiahe was puzzled. Apart from his grandmother, he had no contact with relatives in Pingcheng.
He walked into the inner shower room, closed the glass door, and answered the call.
But when he heard the voice on the other end for the first time, his heart sank even more fiercely than before. He immediately recognized that voice.
The other end said hello a few times.
Gu Jiahe suppressed the fluctuation of his emotions, took a deep breath, and said to the person on the other end of the phone, “Where did you get my phone number?”
The person on the other end began to speak rapidly and even sounded a bit excited.
Gu Jiahe moved the phone away from his ear and after half a minute, he spoke with a suppressed voice, “That’s enough.”
“I don’t want to hear you say these things.”
“I won’t give you a penny.”
“Don’t bother me anymore.”
After hearing Gu Jiahe’s words, the other end was silent for a few seconds before finally throwing down a harsh sentence.
Gu Jiahe’s Adam’s apple moved. After a moment, he hoarsely said, “You better have the patience for this.”
Then he hung up the phone and blocked the incoming number.
Gu Jiahe felt his legs go weak. He had been standing against the glass wall of the shower, but gradually, he sat down on the edge of the shower stall.
His eye sockets felt sore, and his throat felt like it was choked by a fishbone.
Unable to spit it out, unable to swallow.
He sat for only a short while before there was a knock on the bathroom door. Gu Jiahe’s mind was blank, and he didn’t respond in time when the door was pushed open.
Three seconds later, Li Zhao pushed the door open directly.
Gu Jiahe only reacted when he pushed the door open, standing up in that instant and wiping the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand, pretending nothing had happened as he walked out of the shower.
He deliberately kept his head down, wanting to walk past Li Zhao sideways.
But Li Zhao still noticed his unnatural expression.
For the first time in these few days, Li Zhao took the initiative to ask him, “What’s wrong with you?”
Gu Jiahe brushed past his shoulder and said two words, “Allergies.”
Then he reached out and closed the door heavily.
Click—The exquisite dark wooden door separated the two.
Gu Jiahe walked back to his own bed, wrapped himself tightly in the blanket, leaving only a pair of eyes exposed.
Li Zhao probably didn’t notice anything unusual. He heard the sound of washing coming from inside.
Gu Jiahe’s mind was in chaos. After a few seconds, he lifted his arm and snapped off all the lights.
The whole room plunged into darkness again, giving him a little peace of mind in the darkness.