Chapter 22 Part 1

The teeth grated against the plastic straw, producing a sour, teeth-chilling sound. One more push, and the straw would crack right open.

Fang Nianchen stared at her in a daze.

What did that count as?

As friends, of course it was nothing, but adding “first love” and “secret crush” made it her entire youth.

That heavy weight had pressed a deep mark into her heart—one still clear even after five years.

Her heartbeat sped up without warning, her throat choked off before she could even speak. And she had done it to herself.

“Count as…” Fang Nianchen stammered, unsure what title to give her.

The simplest option, “friends,” had already been auto-eliminated by her own foot-in-mouth moment.

Why did she have to be so brutally honest…

Fang Nianchen helplessly buried her head. She had banked on Yu Wan not pressing the issue before blurting it out—the old Yu Wan never showed this much curiosity, much less dug into the root of things.

Her brain stung like a needle prick, and enlightenment hit.

She kept comparing the current Yu Wan to the “past” one, but Director Yu now wasn’t Senior Yu from back then.

A superior’s moods were always hard to read.

“I treat you as…” Fang Nianchen’s mind was a riot, like a thousand brain cells lining up to mock her.

Half of them were egging her on to spill the truth.

Time ticked by, second by second, and she started to waver.

Even if saying it out loud was tough, it was all five years ago. Who would care about the truth now?

The WeChat call ringtone wasn’t obvious amid the noisy dinner tables, but Fang Nianchen reacted like she’d been shocked, picking up immediately. “Hello?”

She did care.

She cared like crazy!

“Not bad, you actually follow through.” Yin Chi had no idea about Fang Nianchen’s current predicament; she only knew the girl was obedient, answering the call without any more excuses.

She was quite satisfied with Fang Nianchen’s performance so far. Of course, if she’d dared not pick up… well, that would be a whole other story.

She always meant what she said—if the other party wasn’t afraid of total social death.

“What’s wrong?” Fang Nianchen waited for Yin Chi’s reply while shooting Yu Wan an apologetic look, pretending it was some super important call she had to take.

Yu Wan graciously nodded her understanding and bent down to play with the shop’s little dog, ignoring her.

Yin Chi heard the background noise and keenly picked up that she wasn’t home—maybe hadn’t gone back at all, or had gone out again after. She demanded, “Where are you?”

“Out.”

“Doing what?”

“Eating a midnight snack.” Fang Nianchen answered mechanically, one question at a time, no extra chit-chat.

But she could guess the next one: who was she with?

Sure enough, Yin Chi paused, then gritted out two words: “With who?”

There was no one more averse to trouble than Fang Nianchen. If she wasn’t willing, ten oxen couldn’t drag her into it. The post-rain streets were full of annoyances—no traffic jams at night, sure, but you couldn’t escape the summer bugs buzzing around.

Fang Nianchen hated bugs too.

So Yin Chi was curious who could drag her out like this—and jealous.

“A senior from my university days.” The words slipped out naturally this time, with far less hesitation.

Eh?

A lightbulb went off in Fang Nianchen’s head. Explaining suddenly didn’t seem so hard.

“A senior?” Yin Chi paced around her place in her pajamas, unease gnawing at her. “That’s years ago, and how come I never knew you had a senior in North City?”

She walked to the door, her gaze suddenly catching the long-handled umbrella in the wooden bucket.

Her heart clenched tight, and she fell silent for a long moment.

“Just calling to let you know I got home safe.” Yin Chi suddenly lost the will to keep pressing. “I’m going to bed. You head home soon too—don’t stay out wilding.”

“I won’t.” On this one thing, Fang Nianchen felt Yin Chi had no right to lecture her.

Miss Yin at the company was the iron-fisted career woman who called all the shots, but Yin Chi in daily life seemed utterly incapable of taking care of herself.

The nanny’s laundry left out in the rain was never brought in; even with a dishwasher, she wouldn’t bother loading the bowls after dinner; rest days at home meant flipping night into day.

On top of that, she loved teaching Fang Nianchen all sorts of debauched tricks—drinking, clubbing, the works.

It was Fang Nianchen herself who just wasn’t interested, so no bad habits took root.

“Then get some rest. Goodnight.” They bid each other goodnight—the most they’d talked all day in these two years.

After hanging up, Fang Nianchen’s world went quiet again. She prayed a hundred times that Yu Wan had a bad memory and would forget that question from minutes ago.

“You still haven’t answered me.” Fat chance—Yu Wan broke character and started urging her on.

Fang Nianchen wasn’t as panicked now. With her thoughts sorted, she said slowly, “You’ve always been my most respected senior. You took such good care of me back then, and you’re Xiao Ning’an’s sister too, so we were closer than most.”

No more blundering into that friend trap and spinning endlessly. If Yu Wan wanted a positive answer, she’d give her one close enough. Knowing they were tight was good enough.

“Took care of you? So can I take that to mean…” Yu Wan’s hand kept rubbing the little dog’s head without pausing, “…all your kindness toward me was just paying back a debt?”

Finally rounding out the lie, Fang Nianchen breathed a sigh of relief. “Pretty much?”

Yu Wan replied coolly, “Oh.”

…

Fang Nianchen frowned. What kind of reaction was that?

Before she could dwell on it, the boss lady came over with a huge plate of skewers, booming, “Figured you might starve, so I grilled these first. Eat ’em hot! Holler if you need anything else.”

Fang Nianchen took the plate. “Thanks.”

Yu Wan smiled and nodded too.

But once the boss lady turned away, she just said politely, “Eat up.”

She still showed no sign of wanting to chat.

Now Fang Nianchen couldn’t focus on the food at all—hunger felt feather-light compared to Yu Wan’s sudden chill.

Everything felt like summer’s fickle skies: glaring sun one moment, blinding you, then suddenly overcast the next.

The umbrella she’d struggled to hold up swayed wildly in the wind.

Fang Nianchen poked at her skewers, eating at the pace of a toothless old lady.

Truth be told, she and Yu Wan had pretty different tastes in a lot of things. Like, Yu Wan hated cilantro while she loved it; Yu Wan dipped hotpot in oil sauce, while hers was always sesame paste.

She remembered all of Yu Wan’s preferences, had once hoped to show off that she did—but Senior Yu never brought it up, so she’d assumed she was oblivious.

She must have known, then. So why no reaction back then at all?

Why dwell on this stuff…

Fang Nianchen turned to look elsewhere, hearing distant thunder drawing near. Rain was coming again.

Unlike the nearby guests’ rowdiness, neither of them wanted to speak first—the mood hit rock bottom. Yu Wan occasionally fed treats to the dog beside her, warmer toward it than to Fang Nianchen.

They finished eating as a drizzle started pattering down. Each under their own umbrella, they walked in silence toward Fang Nianchen’s place.

After agonizing hesitation, Fang Nianchen mustered her courage. “Senior.”

“Hm?” Yu Wan’s voice stayed perfectly even.

“When I said you don’t count as a friend… are you upset because of that?” After racking her brain, it was the only possible reason.

Yu Wan wouldn’t snap at someone for no reason, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have feelings.

Anyone suddenly told they weren’t considered a friend would feel down—maybe even mad. It was human nature. So it was normal for Fang Nianchen to feel a bit off-balance now too.

Yu Wan slowed her steps, stopped, and turned to face her. “A little. But not mad—regretful. Regret that I never became your friend.”

She had no clue what the problem was or how to fix it.

Fang Nianchen huddled under her umbrella, eyes dropping to Yu Wan’s shoe tips.

The tiny umbrella cut off the chill, hot air bouncing around in the half-enclosed space.

She asked, “Does it have to be friends?”

Now it was Yu Wan’s turn to hesitate.

Night had deepened; the umbrella hid faces from view. All she could catch was a hint of grievance in the tone.

She started to reflect: had she gone too far? How could she cold-shoulder a much younger sister like this—no words for a whole half hour?

She admitted that when Fang Nianchen said she didn’t count as her friend, the bewilderment in that moment overshadowed any other emotion. All those past events she was reluctant to acknowledge didn’t even have a title to prove them.

When she later heard Fang Nianchen brush it off with “repaying a favor,” she willfully vented all her dissatisfaction.

Now, being able to reunite with someone she cared about and get along so plainly like this had nothing to do with that paper-thin friendship that was as good as dead.

In other words, what was so great about being friends? She didn’t really want to stay ordinary friends with Fang Nianchen forever either.

Pondering how to soothe her, Yu Wan sighed softly. “Not really.”

Her words carried no weight, scattered away by the rain.

These unspeakable feelings sank into the muddy ground—who was more helpless, she couldn’t tell.

Hesitating, Yu Wan spoke up. “I know, that’s all in the past. My attitude just now wasn’t great.”

With her impeccable demeanor in public, Director Yu admitted her mistake and apologized to her.

Fang Nianchen had been mulling it over forever, still hesitating, but hearing the apology, she finally couldn’t hold back. “Not friends… but you’re an important person to me.”

A breeze blew by, and Fang Nianchen tightened her grip on the umbrella handle, like she was psyching herself up. “Very special. Very important.”

Fang Nianchen was convinced she’d eaten something bad, because only then would she dare say something like that to Yu Wan.

A very special and important person—if President Yu weren’t so upright and unwilling to overthink her words, she would’ve picked up on the implication ages ago.

What was the difference between this and an indirect confession?

Two days had passed since that late-night snack, and she’d started avoiding Yu Wan even more aggressively, skipping the company cafeteria altogether and surviving on Qiao Yan’s handouts.

Not for any other reason—just this inexplicable fear.

She was scared that President Yu would take an interest upon seeing her and start pressing for details: exactly how special, and why so important in her heart. In reality, given her personality, she wouldn’t ask so bluntly.

But Fang Nianchen was already staging a full drama in her head, like she was tumbling around inside a massive fireball, dizzy and restless.

At lunch break, Qiao Yan showed up at Fang Nianchen’s side early as usual. “What does the little punching bag want to eat today?”

Suddenly hit with a new nickname, Fang Nianchen was baffled. “Why are you calling me punching bag?”

“Xiang Xiaoyun told me. She often sees President Yu grabbing you to talk work over meals. Staring at you and dragging you into stuff is one thing, but how come she won’t even let you eat in peace?” Qiao Yan cooed sympathetically, reaching out to pat Fang Nianchen’s head while calling her all mushily, “Little punching bag~”

Fang Nianchen ducked away with a headache.

She knew it—someone was bound to notice.

She might not stand out, but wherever President Yu went, she was the center of attention. Fang Nianchen was totally getting dragged into the spotlight.

The one piece of good news was that everyone saw President Yu as a workaholic and never imagined any special connection between her and Yu Wan. They just figured she was the unlucky one roped into labor.

Undeterred, Qiao Yan wasn’t mad and asked again, “What did you do to piss her off? Your work’s pretty solid… Xiang Xiaoyun also said Bodhisattva Yu is super strict with you, going over everything one-on-one. Scary stuff.”

Great, every bit of intel came from Xiang Xiaoyun. So, was silencing her the solution?

Fang Nianchen glanced fixedly at her workstation—empty, who knew where she’d run off to.

Qiao Yan analyzed earnestly. “President Yu’s gotta be at least thirty, right? What if she’s jealous of your youth and beauty?”

“Get real…” Fang Nianchen was speechless at her wild guess and reminded her, “Aren’t you hungry?”