After delivering the dog, Shu Chi called Yu Xinyi.
The car stereo was playing pop music from a decade ago. Back when Shu Chi drove for a ride-sharing service, passengers would always say things like, “Driver, your music taste is a bit…” Shu Chi would usually just smile.
Yu Xinyi’s child was naturally frail, and hospital stays had become routine.
Shu Chi had originally been having dinner at Yu Xinyi’s place tonight, but halfway through the meal, the host had to rush to the hospital.
Shu Chi: “Sister Yu, I delivered the dog to her.”
Shu Chi wasn’t very familiar with this area. Although her company was now rooted in Bramble City, she’d spent the previous few years doing business in another city.
It was only as her career took off and her company’s brand recognition grew that she discussed it with her partner, Jing Yuqi, and moved to Bramble City to develop further.
Now that the company was stable, Shu Chi looked a lot less rough around the edges than she had a few years ago.
Yu Xinyi was one of her early clients. The company’s current address in Bramble City had even been recommended by Yu Xinyi.
Shu Chi had a good relationship with her; they’d get together during holidays and such.
Delivering a dog was a trivial matter.
Yu Xinyi had just gotten her child to the hospital. She gave an “Mm,” sounding less panicked than before.
Shu Chi asked, “Is Nini okay?”
Yu Xinyi: “She’s fine. Same old condition. I’ll be here at the hospital with her for the next couple of days.”
Shu Chi murmured an “Mm.”
Yu Xinyi and Shu Chi were from the same hometown, though Yu Xinyi had married early and was currently busy with her dessert business.
Raising mongrel dogs was one of her more enduring hobbies.
Shu Chi thought of the girl who’d taken the carrier earlier. She looked young. Casually, she asked, “How old is the young woman who adopted the puppy?”
Yu Xinyi let out an “Oh.” “She’s already working. I have her Weibo. But she does seem pretty busy.”
Shu Chi: “And yet she’s getting a dog.”
Yu Xinyi chuckled. “I finally picked her out from a bunch of applicants. This kid is living and working here all alone. She said she’d treat the dog like family.”
Shu Chi didn’t dwell on it. Her car passed the district’s landmark building, heading toward the Central Ring Road.
The face reflected in the car mirror was initially rather plain. Her skin tone, naturally deeper than most, didn’t affect her spirited look. Even the scar on her face, which its owner never bothered to conceal, gave one an impulse to take a second look.
Shu Chi made an “Oh” sound.
Yu Xinyi, recalling that this dog had originally been meant for Shu Chi, added, “Our Zhu Zhu had five puppies in one litter. I specifically saved a white-furred, black-pawed one for you, and you still won’t take it.”
Shu Chi refused outright. “I don’t keep dogs.”
Yu Xinyi sighed. “You don’t seem to like cats either.”
Yu Xinyi had known Shu Chi for almost ten years. She’d noticed that besides being a woman of few words, Shu Chi also disliked living creatures. She was cold, just like her face.
Shu Chi: “I wouldn’t be able to take care of it well.”
Her voice was naturally low. If she hadn’t become a boss now, she might have chosen to remain a mute.
Perhaps because she actually had lived as a mute for many years, even after she later gained the ability to speak, Shu Chi still habitually chose not to start a conversation unless it was necessary.
Yu Xinyi: “Come on, I think you just don’t like me.”
The woman’s voice was delicate, and she wasn’t tall, her appearance similar to many girls who’d come from rural Puxi to work in factories, her chin a bit short.
But she maintained herself well and was adept at handling people. Her socializing was always perfectly measured, and such playful jabs never crossed a line. Shu Chi was used to them.
Shu Chi: “Sister Yu, you’re joking with me again.”
She turned the steering wheel. WeChat messages streamed in one after another. E-commerce workers had no off-hours, and with so many end-of-year promotions, she still needed to rush back to the office.
Yu Xinyi: “I won’t tease you anymore. Go on, get back to your busy life.”
Shu Chi murmured assent and was about to hang up when Yu Xinyi added, “Nini said she wants you to take her to the amusement park next time.”
Shu Chi: “Once she’s out of the hospital.”
Shu Chi had been in the clothing business for nearly ten years.
She hailed from a small town in Puxi and could be counted among the millions of teenage girls who’d dropped out of school to work in factories. Her current development far exceeded any expectations she’d had when she first left her hometown.
The confusion she’d felt upon arriving in Bramble City years ago had long since dissipated. The GPS’s female voice guided her car into the office building’s underground parking lot.
She bought a coffee at the café on the ground floor and went upstairs, running into her business partner, Jing Yuqi, in the elevator.
Jing Yuqi’s hair resembled a turkey, and her earrings were as terrifyingly large as a fist.
She wore a crop top in the dead of winter, her outer fur coat extravagantly over-the-top, making her look at first glance like some kind of poultry spirit.
Jing Yuqi’s millions of Weibo followers and her fashionista label forbade Shu Chi from voicing such an indecorous opinion.
Shu Chi gave Jing Yuqi’s getup a speechless look and said nothing.
At this moment, the elevator only contained them, two, and an assistant. Jing Yuqi, carrying a small boxy bag, looked at the silent Shu Chi with her huge, fully lined eyes and asked in the tone of a streetwalker soliciting clients, “Boss Shu, where are you coming back from?”
She still didn’t forget her gestures, already leaning in.
Shu Chi watched woodenly as Jing Yuqi plucked a single hair from her coat collar and said, in a bizarre, affected tone, “You fickle, heartless scumbag of a woman—out fooling around again, caught red-handed by me.”
Even though Shu Chi had grown accustomed to her shrill voice over the years, she still found the woman’s flamboyant manner hard to comprehend.
Despite being in this line of work, Shu Chi still felt she didn’t understand fashion at all.
Jing Yuqi had said many times that with Shu Chi’s style, selling orthopedic shoes for the elderly might suit her best.
But Shu Chi had once been a street vendor selling small noodles, and to this day, she still secretly wanted to be a chef.
Assistant Zhang Xi, standing behind them, was almost dying of laughter.
She’d been working at the company “Wellpond” for several years now and was still amused by the two bosses’ interactions.
After upgrading, the company “Wellpond” was no longer the small operation it once was.
It was now medium-to-large, with a stable customer base and a recognizable IP image. Besides clothing, they’d also developed some peripheral products.
But the newly planned office building wasn’t finished yet, so employees were still working in this toilet-seat-shaped office tower.
If you compared the two bosses by age, Jing Yuqi was a few years older than Shu Chi, but when it came to reliability, Shu Chi far exceeded her.
Zhang Xi watched as Shu Chi unceremoniously pushed Jing Yuqi away and said earnestly, “I went to deliver a dog.”
The two of them had originally planned to go to Yu Xinyi’s house for an outdoor barbecue together. Jing Yuqi, however, had a sudden romantic entanglement and had dressed to the nines to go catch a cheater.
Shu Chi had been about to ask how it went, but seeing Jing Yuqi acting all crazy, it was clearly a decisive victory.
After all, back when this woman was heavily pregnant and running a street stall, she’d fought a woman in her forties over a spot without losing. Exposing a scumbag was child’s play.
Shu Chi glanced at Jing Yuqi’s assistant, Zhang Xi, signaling her to say something.
Shu Chi’s hair, at first glance, looked short. But the longer part was tied into a small bundle tucked into her collar. The shorter parts weren’t severe; they even looked quite soft.
Unfortunately, this softness did nothing to shake someone’s first impression of Shu Chi.
Because no matter how you looked at her, she had a somewhat fierce appearance. This was mostly due to the faint, five-to-six-centimeter scar on her cheekbone, and also because of her height.
Having worked here for several years, Zhang Xi knew that Shu Chi was very mild-mannered, even warm-hearted. She wasn’t at all the aloof, cold person she appeared to be.
She also had an unexpected kind of simplicity.
Zhang Xi couldn’t very well say “Sister Jing caught her boyfriend cheating red-handed,” so she put it euphemistically: “Sister Jing was drinking today.”
Shu Chi looked at Jing Yuqi, who blew the dog hair away and stared at the elevator floor numbers as they rose. “What? I just dumped that guy.”
Shu Chi gave an “Oh.” The moment the elevator doors opened, she managed to squeeze out: “Congratulations.”
Jing Yuqi snorted. “Why worry about me? I’ve got no problem finding someone. What about you? Are you really planning to become a nun or something?”
Perhaps because it was after hours, or perhaps because of the alcohol, Zhang Xi felt Jing Yuqi was saying things in front of her, an employee, that should’ve been kept private.
But Shu Chi seemed used to it. She just gave an “Mm” as she walked forward.
Jing Yuqi sighed, reached out to hook her arm around Zhang Xi’s shoulder, and said, “Let’s go, Little Zhang. Let’s check how the live streams are doing.”
With the company’s growth, Shu Chi didn’t need to hustle as much personally, but she still couldn’t stay idle.
Others in the industry, around Shu Chi’s age, had drive, but none treated the company like their actual home.
After Jing Yuqi made her rounds and returned, she found Shu Chi actually looking at marketing proposals for the upcoming holiday.
This month, the company was launching a collaboration with an internet app company. The proposal for this event had been drafted starting last year. Shu Chi had been traveling at the time; she was only aware of it, not familiar.
Now, the marketing department head had resigned, and the new hire hadn’t started yet, so Shu Chi had simply taken over the role herself.
At this hour, everyone who should’ve been off work was off. Only the shift-change streamers were still working.
Jing Yuqi pushed the door open. “We’ve both reached this level. Can’t you relax just a tiny bit?”
Shu Chi wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses, her chin propped in her hand as she stared at the screen. She murmured an “Mm.”
When Jing Yuqi first met Shu Chi, Shu Chi was still a street vendor. Her dream back then was to keep running her noodle shop—one that she actually owned.
There was less than a five-year age difference between the two of them. Both had built their businesses from nothing, yet both were equally far from having a family.
After all, the year Jing Yuqi met Shu Chi, she was pregnant and Shu Chi had just failed at running a noodle shop and was tens of thousands of yuan in debt.
They were both down and out, utterly pathetic. One sold hand-pulled noodles from a cart, the other sold clothes. They could never have imagined that years later, they’d become bosses in an office tower, rumored CEOs.
Jing Yuqi called out, “Hey.” “Are you going to Willow Garden tomorrow night? Someone gave me an all-access pass.”
Jing Yuqi wasn’t exceptionally beautiful, but she was fair-skinned. However, her face didn’t look like that of a kind person—she was a bit too shrewd and not quite benevolent enough.
Shu Chi’s gaze was still fixed on the proposal. Her education was even lower than Jing Yuqi’s; she’d only finished junior high before going out to work. Over the years, with the company, she’d barely managed to attend some courses and self-study exams.
A small business could grow to this scale. But when it came to keeping up with trends, some of the professional stuff was a real struggle for Shu Chi.
She had absolutely no desire for fun or leisure.
In Jing Yuqi’s eyes, Shu Chi was like a Zen Buddhist who’d severed all seven emotions and six desires.
Shu Chi was about to say no when Jing Yuqi declared, “You have to go, even if you don’t want to. I’ve arranged to meet Mu Ling tomorrow night. Don’t you dare waste this—it’s more than five hundred per pass, you know.”
She was absolutely certain this cheapskate wouldn’t squander money.
Left with no choice, Shu Chi gave a resigned “Mm.”
Jing Yuqi was used to Shu Chi’s taciturn nature and didn’t say more, leaving on her own.
Shu Chi didn’t get home until the early morning hours. The male singer on the car stereo was singing a massively popular song from the early 2000s.
The elevator reached the high floor. As she habitually did at the end of a workday, she clicked open that gray avatar.
She took a look at the profile page, the one that had remained unchanged for many years.
It looked a bit non-mainstream by today’s standards, with pixel-style decorations and a song that auto-played.
The Yellow Diamond subscription was still auto-renewing. Back then, Shu Chi, who delivered takeout outside University Town, earned only six hundred yuan a month. She would spend it on multicolored virtual diamonds for her online “wife.”
At this very moment, Ding Ya was holding her newly arrived puppy, sitting before her computer. She opened a music app and searched for an old song—one she’d loved listening to back in middle school.
People these days, when they mention that phase, that era, always feel it’s drab and dusty.
She didn’t find it embarrassing. It was just that a single song often carried too much. So many memories.
That somewhat awkward online romance that had died upon meeting in person.
Finding out that the “husband” in countless chat logs was a woman.
Back then, Ding Ya had dozed on a long-distance bus heading to that person’s city, only to discover that everything was a lie. It was enough for her to understand, for the first time in her life, what utter disbelief truly felt like.
What happened after that?
After the college entrance exams, her grades were poor, so she repeated a year. She completely cut ties with those things.
Didn’t think about them, didn’t touch them, as if she’d gotten used to it.
But why did the adopted puppy look like this?
It was the puppy that her “husband”—the one named “Book Late”—had given her in the game. White as snow, but with all four paws looking like they wore little black gloves.
So much so that the moment Ding Ya saw that Weibo post, she desperately wanted this dog.
A single person’s life, living alone—it was also a bit boring.
Ding Ya thought: Am I still missing that person?
The face of her digital “husband” hadn’t changed much, though she was dressed far better than before. She wasn’t playing the university-student-gone-noodle-shop-owner anymore, was she?
Could she be… married now?
Ding Ya clicked onto the platform. She’d entered the wrong password so many times. An account she hadn’t logged into for years required a ton of verification.
When she finally got online, she felt an overwhelmingly surreal dizziness.
At the same time, Shu Chi stared at the now-lit gray avatar, stunned for a very long time. Her hand, gripping the mouse, trembled as she clicked open the chat window.
Her hands rested on the keyboard for ages, but she couldn’t type a single word.
