Chapter 70 Part 2

She clearly looked like such a proud and commanding person, dressed impeccably in a suit, yet here she sat, speaking in a gentle tone as if afraid of startling someone, negotiating softly. “Don’t break up with me, okay?”

Meng Ning’s nape tightened. She wanted to bury her head, but she was afraid Wen Zenian would notice something off.

She just sat there rigidly. Wen Zenian stayed silent with her for a long time before gently placing a hand on her nape, only to pull it away soon after.

It was a comforting gesture.

Yet it was so restrained that it hurt to witness.

Meng Ning took a shallow breath. Wen Zenian said, “Meng Ning, don’t rush. You don’t have to give me an answer today.”

Meng Ning thought, How are you not rushing now?

In the past, when facing Shi Yang, she had always told herself it was nothing. Cen Meigui had left, but Shi Yang could still meet someone else she liked. By the time she grew up, she could support Shi Yang through it.

But some crossroads, once missed, were missed for life.

When Shi Yang had watched Cen Meigui leave, had she known that some crossroads, once missed, were missed for life?

Meng Ning’s heart clenched painfully. No, Shi Yang hadn’t known—just like Wen Zenian didn’t know now. Would passing up Paris this time be a fork in the road for her own life?

Meng Ning wasn’t even sure when she would fully recover. If Wen Zenian skipped Paris this time, Cologne the next, and kept putting things off again and again, what would happen to her position in the group? Would Wen Zenian’s life, once soaring ahead, start to decline?

The thought alone terrified Meng Ning for her.

Wen Zenian seemed to read her mind completely. “Me not going to Paris for now is my own calculation. The situation there is tricky—complicated personnel relationships. Delaying lets me sidestep the battle. I’m not some lovesick fool. You don’t need to pin all the blame on yourself.”

Was that true?

Meng Ning stared at the traffic light as it flickered from red to green. Sparse pedestrians drifted by.

She kept wondering, just like the time Wen Zenian had slapped that investor. Wen Zenian had said it gave her the perfect opening to withdraw from the partnership, but what if there hadn’t been a contract to cancel? Would she still have slapped him?

Meng Ning was afraid she would have. Meng Ning didn’t dare bet on it.

The guilt weighing on her shoulders toward Shi Yang was already so heavy. She couldn’t take another round.

She parted her lips, then regretted not buying herself a Green Mood too, because her mouth felt parched.

She tugged a bit to separate her sticking lips. “Actually…”

Wen Zenian called her name from behind, soft and unhurried. “Meng Ning.”

Don’t rush to turn me down.

Meng Ning didn’t dare parse even a hint of pleading in that voice. God, how could she link “pleading” with Wen Zenian? Wen Zenian was so strong. Even if emotions had her in a chokehold right now, objectively, everyone knew her life would be better without Meng Ning.

Hello, top luxury hotel! Hello, yacht! Hello, helicopter!

Those thoughts helped Meng Ning swallow Wen Zenian’s call of her name whole, without daring to dwell on it. She said, “Ha.”

Wen Zenian didn’t laugh, and Meng Ning felt a bit awkward.

Her lips slowly drooped, no longer smiling. Her voice grew calm and steady. “I said I’d let you go, and I won’t go back on that.”

“Parting forever”—what a clever phrase. “Parting” stole the thunder of “forever,” making it sound like a promise.

Some things that seemed gentle were actually the cruelest. Like fourteen-year-old me becoming your friend. Like twenty-seven-year-old me trying to hold you back.

Some things that seemed cruel were actually gentle. Like fourteen-year-old me not waiting for you to count to three before running off. Like twenty-seven-year-old me sticking to my word about letting you go.

How did that lyric go? “Not bothering you is my gentleness.” Ha, well sung.

No matter how Meng Ning rallied herself inside, she couldn’t muster a real smile.

Slowly, she turned her head, afraid of seeing Wen Zenian’s Green Mood melted into a mess, dripping like tears over those pale, slender fingers.

But it wasn’t.

Wen Zenian sat perfectly upright, the popsicle crisp and clean in her grip. She looked composed, just pursing her lips lightly before asking Meng Ning, “Wait until I finish eating, then we’ll go. You’re not in a hurry, right?”

“Not at all.” Meng Ning turned back to the traffic light across the street, feeling like a broken record. “Not at all, not at all.”

Wen Zenian said nothing more.

The summer night grew profoundly quiet, quiet like autumn. Meng Ning gripped the edges of her chair. Just as the toe of her sneaker brushed the ground, Wen Zenian spoke from behind her. “Let’s go.”

In that moment, the words Meng Ning nearly blurted out were, “When are you leaving?”

But what would be the point of asking?

She simply stood up with Wen Zenian, watching as Wen Zenian walked to a nearby trash can to toss the little wooden stick, then lightly tugged at the hem of her suit, as if straightening it.

The gesture was a bit superfluous, really. No matter the time, Wen Zenian always looked poised and sharp, never the least bit disheveled.

Wen Zenian stood by the trash can, head down as she typed something on her phone, then walked back to Meng Ning’s side. “I asked the driver to pick me up downstairs from your place. Could you trouble yourself to bring down my suit and bag later?”

“Oh, sure.”

The two walked side by side toward the rental apartment.

No matter how the silence raged, making it feel endless to an introvert like her, to Meng Ning, the walk passed in the blink of an eye.

She hadn’t even had time to see how the streetlights painted the treetops like autumn. She hadn’t figured out exactly which perfume Wen Zenian was wearing today. She hadn’t decided whether to ask when Wen Zenian was leaving.

Her rundown, gray old rental building was right there in front of them.

Wen Zenian said nothing, just came to a gentle stop.

Meng Ning’s mind was a whirl; she kept walking on momentum before realizing the person who had been walking shoulder-to-shoulder with her would never again climb those narrow, cramped stairs in fine high heels.

She said, “Wait here. I’ll go up and grab your bag.”

Wen Zenian murmured an “Mm.”

Meng Ning went upstairs alone, unlocked the door, picked up Wen Zenian’s suit and bag from the sofa, took a deep breath, and headed back down.

Wen Zenian stood under a tree, her figure half-shrouded in shadow, no phone in hand, lost in thought about something.

Meng Ning averted her gaze, because in that light, Wen Zenian looked so lonely. Yes, it must have been the sparse tree shadows. It must have been.

She walked over and handed off the suit and bag. “Has the car arrived?”

She regretted the question as soon as it left her lips. Why say that? It sounded like she was rushing her to leave. People had self-preservation instincts, after all—the more you feared something, the more you asked about it to pretend nonchalance.

Wen Zenian was calm about it. “Not yet. Soon.”

“Oh.”

“You go on up first.”

“…Oh.”

Meng Ning didn’t know what she was dragging her feet for and turned slowly.

“Meng Ning.”

She looked back.

Wen Zenian’s face was faint in the tree shadows, her real expression unreadable. “The fried beans are still with you.”

“Oh.” Meng Ning realized she’d been clutching the bag of fried beans the whole time—up the stairs and back down. What an idiot, planning to take them up again.

She handed them over, joking lightly with Wen Zenian. “I’m not trying to keep them for myself or anything.”

Wen Zenian looked at her but didn’t smile. Two seconds later, she looked away.

Standing there, her suddenly free hand slipped into her sweatpants pocket, twisting the lining. Had Wen Zenian’s thin lips parted slightly? Was it Meng Ning’s imagination, or had she really wanted to say something for a moment?

Then nothing.

A beam of headlights swept over, and Wen Zenian’s phone buzzed at the same time. She slung the bag over one shoulder with the suit draped over her arm and tapped her phone with the other hand. “Driver’s here. I’m off.”

“Okay.”

“The linked family card on your WeChat—don’t unlink it. Keep using it, and pay me back once you find a job.”

Meng Ning had wanted to refuse, but she said, “Okay.”

Wen Zenian pocketed her phone and lightly tugged at her suit hem again.

In fact, right up to the end, Wen Zenian maintained her restrained elegance.

Wen Zenian walked forward, into the dim, slanting glow of the streetlight, toward the waiting beam of headlights.

She gripped the exorbitantly expensive handle of her bag tightly.

Don’t look back.

Wen Zenian, not even once.

Meng Ning returned home and curled one leg up as she sat on the edge of the bed for a while.

Only then did she understand why she’d been so calm when Wen Zenian had come looking for her earlier. In her heart, their last breakup talk had been too peaceful for it to be the end.

Wen Zenian coming to find her this time felt like the other shoe finally dropping after a long wait.

So, that was that.

Her fingers traced absent circles on the bedsheet, over and over.

Suddenly her phone buzzed. Meng Ning glanced at the unfamiliar number and picked up. “Hello?”

“Your delivery’s here.”

Meng Ning stood and opened the door. The pharmacy bag made its contents obvious.

Back in her room, Meng Ning sat on the bed’s edge again, opened the bag, and took out a tin of mint ointment for mosquito bites. She quirked her lips.

Wen Zenian was ruthless.

Even the mosquito bite on Meng Ning’s ankle from their very last meeting—she wouldn’t let it linger even two more days.

Two days later, Qi Xiao had her day off and came home. Thanks to daily applications of the mint ointment, the mosquito bite on Meng Ning’s ankle had vanished without a trace.

Before Qi Xiao went to her room to drop her luggage, she glanced at Meng Ning.

When she came out to do laundry, she glanced at Meng Ning again.

After finishing the laundry and heading to the balcony to hang it up, she glanced at Meng Ning once more.

Meng Ning set down the mop and, unable to take it anymore, smiled at her. “Stop staring. We just broke up.”

“Broke up.”

Meng Ning silently chewed over the words between her teeth.

Somehow, saying them felt more natural now. Somehow, after that outwardly calm but bone-deep painful night, she had the confidence to voice them.

Her romance with Wen Zenian had been too short— not enough joy, so sorrow filled in.

Sorrow was heavy, weightier than joy, adding ballast to their relationship that had fizzled out without fanfare. It gave her a twinge of pain, and a touch of relief, letting her finally say “broke up.”

Yes, they were restrained, rational adults. No matter how turbulent the emotions, they called it “just a bit.”