Chapter 17: The Future Husband Feng Xiaohe Dreamed Of

“Hubby, look at the time! How are you still sleeping?” Feng Xiaohe kicked the bedroom door open domineeringly, addressing the man buried under the covers, snoring loudly. “I’ve already made breakfast for you. Didn’t you promise me you’d get up early today and come with me to the airport to pick up Xiaona?”

“Just let me sleep a little longer, okay, Wife? Even just five minutes…” A weak voice emerged from beneath the blanket.

“On normal days, I can understand you not wanting to go to work, but today Xiaona finally got a holiday to come back to our hometown. You’re seriously going to laze around in bed for something this important?” Feng Xiaohe planted her hands on her hips and stomped a black-stocking-clad foot firmly onto the blanket. “Get up this instant! Don’t make me resort to special measures.”

“Wife, she’s already a university student. She can definitely get home from the airport just fine on her own…” the man said, his voice tinged with the threat of tears. “Besides, I was writing until the crack of dawn last night. I barely made it to bed, and then you wouldn’t let me sleep. It’s really not an old wives’ tale, a woman at thirty is a tiger. I seriously have nothing left to give…”

“I’m only twenty-six, dammit! And handing over the marital grain is a husband’s duty. You married me, so you have to satisfy me! Get up right now!”

Feng Xiaohe yanked hard on the blanket.

“I really can’t do it. I’ve come down with a fatal illness: rising-from-bed-itis. Forcing me up would be spousal murder.”

The man exerted all his effort to hold onto the blanket.

Back and forth, they went, like a tug-of-war.

In the end, the man was on the losing side. Feng Xiaohe ripped the blanket away in one decisive motion.

Lying on the bed in his pajamas, the man bore an identical face to Gao Sijin’s.

Feng Xiaohe suddenly froze, stupefied.

Wait a minute. When had she exactly married Gao Sijin?

And when had Xiaona even started university?

The chaos in her memories gave Feng Xiaohe a headache—until a shrill phone ringtone erupted by her ear.

—Ring ring ring!

“Ah, it was just a dream…”

Feng Xiaohe rubbed her sleep-mussed, beautiful hair. The girl in her second year of junior high cuddled in her arms was Feng Xiaohe’s younger sister, Feng Xiaona.

They were still in that old, decrepit house, years past any repairs. Drafty windows, rusted pipes, cockroaches and woodlice as roommates. Sometimes, Feng Xiaohe was impressed by her own ability to survive here.

“Sigh, I had that dream again…”

“What did Big Sister dream about?” Feng Xiaona asked, her eyes blinking with pure innocence.

“I dreamed about life after marriage.”

“Did Big Sister dream about her future husband?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“I bet he was a handsome, filthy rich CEO of a major conglomerate, right?” Feng Xiaona swung her legs, asking with keen interest.

Feng Xiaohe shook her head and murmured pensively, “He was a poor loser. But as a person, he’s okay. Doesn’t have any real malice in him.”

“Who is he?”

“You don’t know him, Xiaona.”

“Come on, Big Sister, tell me about him! I want to hear all about it.”

“Stop being such a gossip. Go brush your teeth and wash your face. You still have math cram school soon.”

Under Xiaona’s relentless interrogation, Xiaohe ultimately forced the topic to a close.

Climbing out of bed, Feng Xiaohe went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

As she heated congee and fried two sunny-side-up eggs, Gao Sijin’s image surfaced in Feng Xiaohe’s mind.

Truthfully, Gao Sijin wasn’t on her hunt list. He was simply too poor.

She remembered that he was a year younger than her and had joined the company a year later as well. On a typical day, he barely spoke and was always spacing out around the office. His department had a Director Liu, a “mom-status” individual who would find some excuse to take leave practically every month. The workload beneath her was then routinely dumped straight onto Gao Sijin.

“Director Liu, you finished last year’s entire report in just one morning?” Minister Sun asked, utterly astonished. “That’s an incredible workload. You’ve really worked hard. I’ll try my best to get you a bigger bonus at the end of the month.”

“Thank you, Minister Sun, for your kindness. Please, take care on your way out.”

Director Liu put on a fawning, sycophantic smile.

Director Liu would never tell Minister Sun that all that work had actually been done single-handedly by Gao Sijin.

Once, while passing by the first floor, Feng Xiaohe saw Gao Sijin, head down and working furiously, without even a moment to grab a drink of water. He just kept at it, completely immersed.

Isn’t that just how companies are?

The bootlickers, the ones muddling through and coasting, often thrive in the workplace, while those truly willing to get things done are saddled with the majority of the work.

Diligent, conscientious, and obscure were the labels Feng Xiaohe had pasted onto Gao Sijin. He was a detached bystander, disinterested in worldly struggles. While others pondered how to gain an advantage over someone, he was pondering how not to be indebted to them.

In Feng Xiaohe’s eyes, a man like that was a useless good-for-nothing.

If it were Feng Xiaohe, she would rather fight to mutual destruction than ever be someone else’s bridal gown.

But what Feng Xiaohe never expected was that even a man like Gao Sijin had a day when his temper flared.

It happened when a newcomer joined the company. The task of training the new person naturally fell onto Gao Sijin’s shoulders. It was the kind of thankless, grueling job that only Gao Sijin would take on without complaint.

“You don’t clean up your own mess, and now that there’s a problem, you’re blaming the newbie? Does that make any sense to you?” Gao Sijin stood in front of a university grad who’d just started, shouting like a protective father. “Does Little Zhou owe you anything? He’s not even proficient in the work yet, and on top of that, he was helping you while still completing his own duties! But you? You gave Little Zhou faulty data, and now you turn around and blame him? What were you thinking? Have you no shame?”

“Couldn’t he just check it himself? I gave you the data. How could you miss such a simple problem? You’re the master, why couldn’t you just look out for your apprentice and help double-check it? You do nothing but cause me trouble all day long.” Perhaps leaning on her mom status, Director Liu spoke with an especially self-righteous tone.

The two went head-to-head like that right at the bottom of the stairs. Director Liu even threatened to squeeze Gao Sijin out of the department. Faced with that, Gao Sijin only sneered and fired back with biting sarcasm.

The matter was eventually dropped, but in the days that followed, Director Liu never stopped laying traps for Gao Sijin.

Now, Little Zhou has also become Director Liu’s designated bootlicker, treating Gao Sijin, the one who once stood up for him, like an enemy himself, never missing a chance to mock him with a snide remark.

Gao Sijin remained the same, a solitary figure, neither a sycophant nor a clout-chaser. He did his own job and practically never caused trouble for anyone.

“Breakfast is ready, Xiaona.”

“Coming, Sister!”

Feng Xiaohe, too, disliked the atmosphere of the workplace. Before stepping into the professional world, kindness was a choice. After stepping into it, kindness became a cost. Sometimes, for the sake of limited survival, people tear at each other, and socializing becomes filled with utilitarian purpose.

She really wanted to warn Gao Sijin about some basic truths.

Yet, she never had the chance, and she felt that arbitrarily making contact with him could lead to unwanted misunderstandings.

“Sister, you’ve been spacing out since this morning. Is something on your mind?”

“No, Xiaona. Your sister was just thinking about a friend.”

Calling him a “friend” was a stretch. There was virtually no intersection between them at all.

He probably thought of her, as most people did, as an “unclean” woman, too.