Shen Yuan stared at the green notification text, pressed a hand to her tight chest, and let out a long sigh of relief.
Two hundred yuan was very little.
So little it couldn’t buy a decent pair of shoes.
So little it couldn’t repay all those messy debts from the past.
But starting today, she would slowly, piece by piece, separate herself completely from the Shen Yuan of the past.
Cleanly. Clearly.
And hopefully, one day, even the way Xu Anran looked at her would no longer be like she was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.
After all that, the pain in her heel finally hit her full force, belatedly.
Shen Yuan pulled out a chair and sat down, gritting her teeth as she tried to peel off the old band-aid.
The adhesive and dried blood had fused firmly to the wound.
She gave it a tentative tug.
“Ah!”
The pain nearly made her soul leave her body on the spot.
Tears swirled uncontrollably in her eyes. She quickly tilted her head back and forced them down.
“Shen Yuan, Shen Yuan, you’re really something.”
She muttered to herself.
“Other women walk in high heels like queens on the runway. You walk in high heels like a prisoner on death row.”
She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and ripped the band-aid off in one swift motion.
The sudden, searing pain made her entire body shudder.
She found a cotton swab, dipped it in iodine, and began cleaning the wound.
The moment the dark brown antiseptic touched the raw, broken skin, a sharp, agonizing sting shot straight from the sole of her foot to the top of her skull. Her shoulders hunched up tight, and even her breathing lost its rhythm.
…
On the other side, Xu Anran was sitting in the break area of the 4S dealership’s sales department, eating breakfast.
Calling it a break area was generous—it was really just a small space partitioned off behind the showroom with frosted glass.
Inside were a few worn-out sofas, some metal lockers, and a sales target chart on the wall with this month’s numbers highlighted in bold red marker.
The air smelled overwhelmingly complex—a mix of cheap instant coffee, the new-car fragrance from the showroom, and the unmistakable aroma of a colleague’s just-opened pickled cabbage instant noodles.
Very invigorating.
Xu Anran sat alone in the corner chair.
His cheap suit jacket was draped casually over the back of the chair, and his employee badge still hung around his neck.
In his hand was a steamed bun that had gone completely cold.
The bun’s skin had hardened, dry and tough as he bit into it.
He chewed slowly, expressionless.
A few sales colleagues nearby were chatting among themselves, their voices neither loud nor quiet—just loud enough to drift into his ears.
“That BMW customer last night was something else. Complained the engine was too aggressive during the test drive, then complained the specs weren’t top-tier enough during negotiations. Wasted over two hours of my time.”
“That’s nothing.”
Another colleague slurped his instant noodles. “My customer yesterday was the real piece of work. Read through the loan plan three times, then asked if I could throw in two extra free maintenance visits.”
“Free maintenance is fine. My customer straight-up asked if I could just waive the purchase tax.”
“Hahaha, if the store manager heard you say that, you’d be gone before you could blink.”
Xu Anran didn’t join their conversation.
He’d always been a man of few words—practically invisible in the store. His colleagues had long grown used to his silence, and their chats never expected his input.
Just then, his phone buzzed twice in his pocket.
Buzz.
Buzz.
Xu Anran swallowed the bite of bun, pulled out his phone, and glanced at it.
Two bank transfer notifications popped up on the screen.
First: 1,000 yuan transferred in.
Second: 200 yuan transferred in.
His brow furrowed immediately.
Who would send him money? It wasn’t payday yet.
He tapped to open the details.
When the name “Shen Yuan” abruptly jumped into view, he froze completely.
The sales department was still noisy, colleagues still trading complaints about difficult clients.
But in that instant, all the sound was sealed off behind an invisible wall, pushed far away from him.
She transferred the money back?
Xu Anran’s first reaction wasn’t happiness.
Nor was it the relief of a weight lifted.
It was deep suspicion.
What does she want now?
Is 1,000 yuan too little for her?
Or is she trying to remind him, through this game of playing hard to get, that she’s dissatisfied with the amount he gave?
The moment this thought surfaced, a wave of irritation welled up from the depths of Xu Anran’s heart, making the cold bun in his hand even harder to swallow.
With a grim expression, he slid his finger down the screen.
Then he saw the note below the second transfer of 200 yuan.
【What I owed you before—I’ll pay it back slowly, bit by bit.】
Xu Anran’s gaze locked onto those words.
The air around him froze.
The glow of the phone screen reflected in his dark eyes, and that short line of text was like a stone dropped into still water, sending out a ripple of jarring discord.
Pay it back slowly?
With what?
Xu Anran stared at the screen for a long time—so long that the phone screen dimmed automatically from inactivity.
He didn’t light it up again, nor did he put the phone away.
He just sat silently in the corner, slowly clenching the remaining half of the cold bun in his hand.
The dry, hard dough was crushed out of shape under his grip, but the rough texture against his fingertips couldn’t suppress the faint, creeping strangeness stirring in his chest.