“Of course not. Where would I even find a son-in-law to move in with us? Besides, I have to correct and criticize you seriously: I haven’t even turned twenty-nine yet, let alone thirty. You’re exaggerating too much.”
Mother Ye: “How is it an exaggeration? You said the same thing to me when you were twenty-five. In the blink of an eye, two or three years have passed, and now you’re saying it again. If you blink again, won’t you be thirty?”
“Mom, can we talk about this when I go home for the New Year? I’m busy with work right now.” Ye Tong rubbed her brow with her index finger, feeling a headache coming on from her mother’s late-night matchmaking efforts.
“Stop working so late at night. I picked out a few young men for you a few days ago. They are all young, promising, and handsome. I’ll send you their photos to take a look at.”
“Fine, whatever makes you happy.” This wasn’t the first time she had been sent photos of potential suitors, and Ye Tong knew she couldn’t stop it, so she let it be. A few minutes later, her WeChat pinged several times.
Ye Tong put the phone on speaker and swiped to the WeChat interface to open the so-called photos. She glanced at them absent-mindedly; her mother had picked out five men. Each was dressed in a suit and tie, looking decent enough, but none of them caught her eye or felt right.
“Tongbao, did you look? What do you think? Mom has pretty good taste, doesn’t she?” Mother Ye laughed proudly on the other end.
Ye Tong tried a different tactic. “Mom, there’s a serious generational gap between us. Why don’t I just marry one and bring them home for you?”
“Sure, you’re our only precious daughter, and Mom wouldn’t be able to bear it if you married out. But it’s not easy to find a husband willing to move in with the bride’s family these days,” Mother Ye said earnestly. “But Tongbao, can’t you stop working so hard all the time? Just stop and take a good look at the people around you; there must be someone you like. It would be such a pity to miss them. Mom is still counting on you to bring someone home for us to meet during the New Year.”
Having had plenty of experience dealing with this, Ye Tong kept her patience. “Alright, I’ll remember what you said and make sure to complete the task you’ve assigned. Mom, it’s really late, you should sleep now.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll listen to you. We haven’t even talked for a few minutes and you’re already chasing me to sleep. Tongbao, you little ingrate, I’ll deal with you when you get home.” Mother Ye chided her daughter a few times, gave her several more reminders, and then reluctantly hung up.
Ye Tong could already imagine the grand, elaborate scene of her mother rallying all the aunts and relatives in the clan to take turns pressuring her to marry once she got home for the New Year…
It was no wonder Mother Ye was in such a rush. The Ye family was a large clan, and Ye Tong was the only one left who was unmarried at her age. Through her own efforts, Ye Tong had achieved career success and was considered very promising among the younger generation, which drew quite a bit of attention from her relatives. Even if her parents weren’t in a hurry, her uncles and elders would ask about it from time to time; now, they were all getting anxious.
Ye Tong clicked on WeChat and deleted the photos of the suitors one by one. She knew her parents were only anxious because they cared about her, but at least for now, she couldn’t bring herself to accept the traditional path of marriage and child-rearing.
After deleting the photos, Ye Tong felt a sense of relief. As she picked up the proposal from the coffee table and set her phone down, she looked up and saw Lin Su standing near the stairs.
Lin Su was wearing a pale red bathrobe, the ends of her long hair draped over her shoulders and loosely tied at the ends. The hem of the robe only reached her knees, revealing her fair, slender legs. She was smiling faintly, and seeing Ye Tong look her way, she raised her teacup. “I came to get some water.”
Ye Tong nodded and asked casually, “It’s so late, General Manager Lin, aren’t you going to sleep yet?”
“Mm, soon.” Lin Su said this to Ye Tong, but her actions were quite different; she walked over and sat down on the sofa next to her. “If there’s anything you don’t understand in the proposal, feel free to ask me.”
“None for now.” Ye Tong caught a glimpse of Lin Su from the corner of her eye and opened the proposal to continue studying the details of the fashion show.
Lin Su asked, “I was drunk last night; I didn’t do anything excessive, did I?”
Ye Tong’s fingers paused. “No.”
Lin Su chuckled. “That’s good. Thank you very much for taking such good care of me, Director Ye.”
“You’re welcome.” Ye Tong turned slightly and waved the proposal at Lin Su. “I helped you, and you helped me. We helped each other, so we’re even now.”
Those words again, that they owed each other nothing. Lin Su frowned slightly and asked her earnestly, “Do we have to be so clear about everything between us?”
“Isn’t it good to be clear? Keep public and private matters separate. Even brothers need to account for their debts,” Ye Tong replied calmly.
Lin Su raised an eyebrow. “I thought our relationship had gotten a little closer.”
Ye Tong found this laughable. When did Lin Su learn how to be so unreasonable? Aside from work discussions, she didn’t want to get tangled up with Lin Su in private.
Ye Tong stood up. “General Manager Lin, it’s late. I’m going back to my room.”
Her hand, holding the proposal, was suddenly gripped by Lin Su, who had also stood up. “I just accidentally heard your mother say that you should stop and take a good look at the people around you, that there must be someone you like, and that it would be a pity to miss out.”
“Fate cannot be rushed; there’s no such thing as missing out or not,” Ye Tong said, pursing her lips into a polite, faint smile at Lin Su, then prying Lin Su’s fingers off one by one. “General Manager Lin is so much older than me, you should worry about yourself first.”
Lin Su let Ye Tong pry her fingers away and fell silent for a moment. “My parents have passed away; no one is in a rush to pressure me into matchmaking.”
Ye Tong felt a sharp pang in her heart and slowly released Lin Su’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
Lin Su lowered her eyes, looking at the beautiful, clear face right in front of her. A ripple of emotion rose in her eyes and quickly returned to calm. She took the document from Ye Tong’s hand. “It is indeed late. I’ll give you this proposal again tomorrow. Get some sleep.”
Hearing Lin Su say this, Ye Tong could only nod. “You too.”
As Ye Tong walked past Lin Su, she looked back at her. “Good night, General Manager Lin.”
Their gazes met. A flash of complex emotion crossed Ye Tong’s eyes, but the cold, indifferent look in Lin Su’s eyes faded, softening quite a bit. She curved her lips and smiled gently. “Good night.”
Lin Su watched as Ye Tong turned, entered her room, and closed the door. Only then did she sit down, lift her teacup, and take a few sips of tea. Her right hand, resting on the proposal, tapped its fingers against the cover in a rhythmic beat. She knit her brows and murmured two words: “Matchmaking.”
When she was making tea earlier, the living room had been close to the dining room, so she had vaguely heard Ye Tong and her mother talking about matchmaking. Lin Su didn’t have that kind of pressure, but Ye Tong was no longer young, and it was unavoidable.
Meanwhile, Ye Tong, who had returned to her bedroom, lay in bed tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. She inadvertently rolled over to the spot where Lin Su had lain the night before. A faint fragrance lingered on the sheets and pillow, and the tip of her nose seemed to be surrounded by that familiar, subtle scent.
For a moment, Ye Tong felt confused and inexplicably troubled. Constantly interacting with the woman she had once poured all her energy into loving even though she had let go still brought a sense of awkwardness and discomfort.
On the other hand, Lin Su was just as she had always been; whatever she was like before, she was still the same now. It seemed that for Lin Su, there was nothing she couldn’t get past, even though Ye Tong was someone she had once treated with such tenderness.
They were both women, and she could be calm and composed as well. Any emotion was just a lie—only the rewards earned through hard work were truly real. Her current goal was to successfully complete Project A and become the CFO of the XM Group, creating value for the group and realizing her own worth. Everything was for her work goals; she wouldn’t think about anything else. Ye Tong angrily pulled the quilt tight, buried her head in the warm bedding, and gradually fell asleep.
As for the reason Lin Su had abandoned her back then, and why she had suddenly turned cold Ye Tong actually understood it perfectly well now. Xiao Ziyu had come to find her and told Ye Tong all about the misunderstanding from back then.
It was more melodramatic than a soap opera.
At that time, the innocent and lively Ye Tong was like a spice in Lin Su’s life. The process of transitioning from “spice” to falling in love with that spice was perhaps Lin Su’s happiest and most unforgettable memory.
Ever since she became the assistant to the LT president, Ye Tong, lacking work experience, had repeatedly run into walls and suffered under Lin Su. Many people advised her to just quit, but Ye Tong was stubborn and refused to concede easily.
So, she stomped her feet, steeled herself, and continued to be ordered around mercilessly by Lin Su—serving tea, pouring water, and delivering documents and materials of all kinds.
It was an endless torment.
Ye Tong gradually learned Lin Su’s personal style and became accustomed to her various forms of harassment.
After a long time, they had finally become a little more familiar with each other. Just when Ye Tong thought she could finally catch her breath, she was ordered around by Lin Su to do all sorts of housework at her home.
It couldn’t be said who liked whom. If one really had to say who fell first, perhaps it was Ye Tong.
Following Lin Su every day, watching that formidable, decisive, and capable woman every day in the naive and ignorant youth of Ye Tong, how could she have resisted the blooming heartbeat within her chest?
Perhaps, it was Lin Su.
…
For her 11:00 AM flight, Ye Tong got up early to pack her bags. Once she finished, she opened her bedroom door just as Lin Su happened to be walking by. The two of them were caught off guard and stared at each other.
Lin Su curled her lips. “Morning.”
“Morning.” Ye Tong felt caught in a bind. Seeing that Lin Su was still standing at the door, she simply walked past her to the dining room table to pour herself a glass of hot water.
“Did you pack everything?”
“Mm.”
Ye Tong replied, then turned to look at Lin Su, who was sitting on the living room sofa reading a business journal. After a moment of thought, she set down her teacup, poured a fresh glass of warm water, and walked over to Lin Su to hand it to her. “Drink some water in the morning.”
Lin Su was somewhat surprised; the “thank you” that reached her lips wasn’t spoken. She nodded, took the cup, and took a few sips while picking up the document on the table. “The proposal, returned to you.”
Seeing Ye Tong take it, Lin Su said: “If there’s anything you don’t understand, you can ask me.”
Ye Tong sat on the sofa opposite Lin Su. She wasn’t stingy with her praise. “General Manager Lin is very meticulous; you considered every single detail.”
The business journal blocked Lin Su’s face, but the corners of her lips couldn’t help but curl upward.
Neither spoke again after that. They each did their own thing in silence. Ye Tong was quite focused on the proposal, while Lin Su’s heart wasn’t in the business journal; every now and then, she would quietly move the journal aside to steal a glance at her.