“After carefully laying out such a grand scheme, she actually chose to give up this job. Didn’t all your efforts just go to waste?”
After Xu Mian left, Ji Yuanhang remained standing in the exact same spot. Song Di had approached from behind him at some point and spoke those words.
Ji Yuanhang pulled back the gentle smile he had worn in front of Xu Mian, his eyes turning dark and gloomy in an instant. “I managed to frustrate Jiang Yuanchuan and ruin his peace of mind. How can that be considered a waste?”
Ever since Jiang Yuanchuan received his text message while dropping off their child this morning and rushed back home in a panic, Ji Yuanhang knew Jiang Yuanchuan was utterly infuriated.
Song Di hit the nail on the head: “Yet she still cares about Jiang Yuanchuan’s feelings. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have rejected this job so decisively.”
“Enough!”
Ji Yuanhang’s mood was terrible, a far cry from the calm demeanor he had displayed in front of Xu Mian just moments ago.
He knew very well how desperately Xu Mian wanted to work, so he had been certain she would seize this job opportunity. Who could have foreseen that she would choose to walk away after seeing him?
He growled in a low voice, “She doesn’t care about Jiang Yuanchuan; she’s afraid of him!”
“She’s afraid he will target me out of despicable spite!”
Ji Yuanhang’s expression bordered on hysterical. Song Di frowned slightly, truly at a loss for what to say.
Xu Mian might have harbored a slight crush on him in her youth, but as she got married, had a daughter, and ended up with someone as possessive and controlling as Jiang Yuanchuan, there was likely no romantic feeling left for him in her heart.
Yet when it came to matters of the heart, the person involved was always the blindest. Thus, Song Di could only try to advise him, “Yuanhang, it wasn’t easy for you to achieve everything you have today. I don’t want to see you ruin it all for a woman.”
Having said that, he turned around and walked away.
The company belonged to Ji Yuanhang; he was merely hired to manage it, serving as a smokescreen so that Xu Mian, as a job applicant, wouldn’t be on her guard.
The position they offered catered to Xu Mian’s preferences in every aspect, making her application part of the plan.
What went beyond the plan, however, was that Xu Mian actually chose to give it up.
*
Xu Mian had no idea that this morning, right after dropping their daughter off at kindergarten, Jiang Yuanchuan received a text message: Jiang Yuanchuan, in another hour, she and I will be meeting. Guess whether she will choose you this time?
The content was extremely provocative.
All she knew was that she felt completely flustered and irritated right now.
When her phone rang, her car had just driven out of the building where the interview took place.
It was a call from Jiang Yuanchuan. She was in no mood to answer his call, and since she was driving, she hit decline.
Inside a black Maybach not far away, Jiang Yuanchuan glanced at the declined call, then looked up at the white BMW driving away, his stern, cold expression tightening even further.
So she started finding him annoying right after seeing her old flame?
With a somber face, he called her again while pulling up behind her car. The less she wanted to pay attention to him, the more he intended to pester her. He would absolutely not allow her mind to be filled with Ji Yuanhang right now.
Xu Mian was utterly exasperated by Jiang Yuanchuan’s persistent phone barrage, so she had no choice but to pick up the call.
The man’s voice on the other end sounded calm: “How did the interview go?”
Xu Mian paused for a moment before replying, “It went smoothly beyond belief.”
In truth, she usually didn’t like going against Jiang Yuanchuan. But she was frustrated today as well; despite having already given up on the job, she intentionally spoke that way just to provoke him.
Sometimes, she really couldn’t understand why Jiang Yuanchuan was so awkward and petty regarding Ji Yuanhang. Since he knew in advance that she would run into Ji Yuanhang at the interview, why didn’t he just tell her straight out?
If he had mentioned even a single word to her, she wouldn’t have gone to today’s interview at all. Yet he said nothing, choosing instead to toss her around in bed early this morning.
He even put on a generous front, letting her go see Ji Yuanhang, only to turn around and speak to her with sarcastic cynicism.
Take right now, for instance. He first gave a chuckle, then said, “Is that so? How about we have lunch together at noon to celebrate?”
That sour tone of his, along with that coolly distant laugh, clearly showed he minded that she had met Ji Yuanhang. Yet he insisted on pretending nothing was wrong.
Xu Mian felt mentally exhausted and rejected him without a second thought: “Sorry, I have plans with Su Can.”
In fact, she had no plans with Su Can. She simply used Su Can as an excuse to turn down invitations from both Ji Yuanhang and Jiang Yuanchuan, purely because she didn’t want to see anyone right now.
Jiang Yuanchuan remained relentless: “Then I’ll celebrate with you tonight.”
“We’ll talk about tonight later.”
“I’m driving, hanging up now.”
Xu Mian hung up the phone as soon as she finished speaking, not wanting to say another word to Jiang Yuanchuan.
Afterward, she indeed drove to see Su Can. Su Can was her senior from university and her best friend.
Coming from a family of legal professionals, Su Can had a wealthy background. However, she didn’t rely on her family; instead, she opened her own styling studio, specifically catering to various celebrities, and her business was booming.
Inside the spacious, brightly lit studio, after hearing Xu Mian’s complaints, Su Can gave an unreserved evaluation: “Jiang Yuanchuan can turn clouds into rain with all his scheming tactics in the business world, so how does his IQ drop to zero when it comes to you? I really don’t get why he’s acting so awkward and overly dramatic every single day!”
Let alone Xu Mian as the party involved, even as an outsider over the past five years, hearing about Jiang Yuanchuan’s jealous and possessive antics made her feel exhausted.
Grit her teeth tightly, Su Can ultimately chose to comfort Xu Mian in a gentle tone: “He probably cares about you too much, which is why he feels so insecure and anxious all day long. You know how it is; in a relationship, whoever loves more tends to be more sensitive and suspicious.”
In truth, she really wanted to advise Xu Mian to get a divorce and stay away from that domineering man, Jiang Yuanchuan. But there was still a daughter between them, especially such a bright, cute, and exquisitely beautiful little girl; how could she have the heart to let the girl end up in a single-parent family?
Xu Mian let out a self-deprecating laugh: “To be honest, Senior, his so-called ‘love’ is so heavy it suffocates me.”
“To him, it might not even be love at all. He just feels that once I married him, I became his exclusive possession, and he won’t allow anything about me to slip beyond his control.”
Su Can was momentarily at a loss for words.
As a bystander, she could actually see that there were many problems in Xu Mian and Jiang Yuanchuan’s marriage.
The most fatal point was the gap in their status and background. Jiang Yuanchuan was mature, wealthy, and held great power, whereas Xu Mian came from an ordinary middle-class family. This caused Xu Mian to constantly feel she wasn’t worthy of Jiang Yuanchuan, always suspecting he married her merely for her youth and beauty in a moment of impulse, and that he would inevitably grow tired of her in a few years.
Because of this mental knot, Xu Mian never gave her whole heart in this marriage.
Since it was a marriage destined not to last, why should she let herself fall too deep to pull herself out?
How could an old fox as cunning as Jiang Yuanchuan fail to notice that Xu Mian was holding back in this relationship?
As the most sought-after business tycoon today, Jiang Yuanchuan was naturally proud. Facing Xu Mian’s half-heartedness, aside from his annoyance, all that remained was an increasingly obsessive desire to win her heart.
Their cohabitation over the past few years had been relatively stable, mostly because Xu Mian became pregnant right after marriage, leading them into the phase of raising their daughter together. Any occasional friction was swallowed up by the trivialities of child-rearing.
Now that their daughter was in kindergarten and the two of them had vast amounts of time alone together, the underlying problems had come to light.
And the return of Ji Yuanhang served as yet another spark added to their already precarious relationship.