Chapter 1: Fifteen Yuan for a Friendship

That day, I went to my best friend’s noodle shop and ordered a bowl of noodles for fifteen yuan.

A problem had just come up with my company’s two-hundred-million-yuan project. I rushed off to deal with it and forgot to pay.

I never expected my best friend to call the police on me, getting me arrested—and fired.

I lost my job, which paid two million yuan a year, and the internet tore into me for skipping out on a meal.

My mother cried as she said, “That girl has been renting our storefront for five years! The property is downtown and should rent for a hundred thousand yuan a month, but we’ve only been charging her fifty thousand! We’ve lost three million yuan over the past five years!”

A week later, when the lease was about to expire, my best friend smiled and asked me, “We’re practically sisters, so let’s keep the rent at fifty thousand a month, okay? Or could you lower it to thirty thousand? We’ve been friends for years. You’d only be giving up another 240,000 yuan a year.”

I smiled and replied, “The rent is going back to one hundred thousand a month. Not a yuan less.”

At three that afternoon, I came home carrying a large cardboard box and my termination notice.

My lips were cracked, and my face was pale.

My mother took the box from me.

When she saw the termination notice in my hand, she could hardly believe it. Her voice trembled.

“Sweetheart, you’ve been fired? Didn’t you just say you’d helped the company win a two-hundred-million-yuan project?”

I held the notice, my hand shaking slightly.

I looked up, but I couldn’t meet her eyes.

After a long silence, I finally spoke.

“The two-hundred-million-yuan project nearly lost its investors because I was taken to the police station. The boss fired me personally.”

“I didn’t get a cent in compensation. They even announced it to the entire company.”

My mother’s voice immediately rose.

“The police station? How could you end up at the police station?”

I clenched my fingers.

There was a reason she was so agitated.

I, Su Shu, had been a top student all my life. I graduated from one of the country’s best universities.

After graduating, I joined a Fortune 500 company. In just two years, I’d reached an astonishing salary of two million yuan a year.

The words “police station” had always felt impossibly far from my life.

I gripped the termination notice, my voice unsteady.

“Today was Li Lian’s birthday. She’s my best friend. I bought her a thirteen-gram gold necklace as a gift, then stopped by her noodle shop and ordered a bowl of noodles. While I was eating, my boss called about a problem with the project and told me to get to the office immediately. I forgot to pay the fifteen yuan.”

“She turned around and called the police on me.”

I pressed my dry lips together.

I’d spent the entire afternoon at the station explaining what happened without getting a single sip of water.

My mother stared at me in disbelief.

“She called the police over fifteen yuan? Didn’t she talk to you first?”

I gave a bitter smile.

“No. She didn’t say a word or even send me a message. As soon as I walked out the door, she called the police.”

I still remembered telling my best friend that I’d transfer the fifteen yuan in a little while.

She’d nodded, and only then had I left.

I took a sip of water and continued.

“I’d just arrived at the office. The CEO was in the conference room with the investors, and then the police called me to the station. All over fifteen yuan for a bowl of noodles.”

I rubbed my forehead.

“At the station, I paid the fifteen yuan in full and gave Li Lian another 1,500 yuan in compensation. Only then did she agree to withdraw the complaint.”

“But because the incident caused such a bad impression…”

“I lost my job. Two years of hard work went down the drain!”

Two years.

To get promoted quickly, I’d worked overtime until three every morning.

I slept only two hours a day.

I’d spent half a year working myself to the bone on this two-hundred-million-yuan project.

All that remained was to sign the final contract.

If the deal went through, my year-end bonus could reach two million yuan, and my total annual income would exceed three million.

Now it had all vanished.

After hearing everything, my mother trembled and collapsed into a chair.

“How could Li Lian do this to you? Has she forgotten that the storefront she rents belongs to us? It’s one of the best locations downtown. The rent should be a hundred thousand a month! We’ve only been charging her fifty thousand. We’ve lost three million over five years!”

“Three million yuan, and she still couldn’t let you have a fifteen-yuan bowl of noodles!”

My mother picked up her phone, ready to call Li Lian immediately.

“I’m asking her right now what on earth she thinks she’s doing!”

I didn’t stop her.

At the police station that afternoon, Li Lian hadn’t even shown up.

The only person there on her behalf was one of her employees, who kept sneering at me and cursing.

“She’s so rich, and she still takes advantage of my boss! What a shameless person!”

I wanted an answer too. What on earth was Li Lian thinking?

But before my mother could call, she saw a message from my second aunt.

She held the phone up to me.

“Sweetheart, you’re trending online! A white-collar worker earning two million yuan a year used her friendship with someone to eat a fifteen-yuan bowl of noodles without paying. People are calling you shameless, a cheapskate who loves to take advantage of others—the kind of person who freeloads!”

I took my mother’s phone.

I never thought I’d see myself on the trending page.

Li Lian had posted a video of me eating noodles without paying, along with this caption:

“My friend earns two million yuan a year, yet she came to my little shop and skipped out on a meal. She wouldn’t even pay fifteen yuan for a bowl of noodles. I called the police. I don’t think I did anything wrong by standing up to a friend who likes to freeload!

“Fifteen yuan isn’t money?

“I’m a single mother raising a child on my own. I get up early and stay up late running this business, just hoping to earn a little honest money.

“If one friend after another uses ‘friendship’ as an excuse to eat here without paying, how am I supposed to keep my business going?”

Most of the comments were attacking me.

“Good for the owner! My cousin has a bag just like hers. I heard it’s this year’s latest from a luxury brand and costs 88,000 yuan! She dresses like that but won’t pay fifteen yuan for noodles? Being friends doesn’t give you the right to do that. Calling the police was the right thing to do!”

“Fifteen yuan is still money. If she won’t pay, the law should deal with her!”

“I hate friends who have no boundaries. She’s using their friendship as an excuse not to pay for a bowl of noodles. The police should teach freeloaders like that a lesson!”

“I work with this woman. I heard she was fired today. Serves her right!”

My hands trembled as I read the comments.

When I saw Li Lian’s replies to them, I was so angry that even my lips began to shake.

Why had she posted that video online?

Didn’t she know how badly those comments could affect me?

She had already destroyed my career.

Now she wanted to destroy my whole life.

Tears streamed down my mother’s cheeks as she read the comments.

“How can they say such things about you? And Li Lian—why would she post a video like that? She’s trying to ruin you!”

I clenched my fists, grabbed my car keys, and drove straight to my best friend’s noodle shop.

I wanted an explanation.

By the time I arrived, it was eight in the evening.

Li Lian’s shop was closed, and she was checking her accounts.

My family’s storefront wasn’t just in a prime downtown location. There was a middle school on one side, a university on the other, and three companies nearby.

Thanks to that location, Li Lian only needed to serve a few simple noodle dishes, fried rice, and stir-fries.

She could clear 800,000 yuan a month.

I walked into the shop with my phone in hand.

When she saw me, Li Lian looked startled for a moment, then immediately put on a warm smile and gestured for me to sit.

“You’re here, Su Shu! Come on, sit down!”

As if she hadn’t been the one to call the police on me that afternoon.

I frowned slightly at her cheerfulness.

The thirteen-gram gold necklace around her neck—the birthday present I’d given her that very day—glittered under the lights.

She’d accepted my gift, then turned around and called the police on me.

I asked the question that mattered most.

“Why did you call the police on me? Just because I forgot to pay for a fifteen-yuan bowl of noodles?”

“I told you I’d transfer the money in a little while! You heard me!”

Li Lian froze.

The smile vanished from her face.

She gave a cold laugh.

“Su Shu, we may have been best friends for twenty years, but this noodle shop is my small business. Even siblings should keep their accounts straight. You ate a bowl of noodles for fifteen yuan and didn’t pay. After you left, I still hadn’t seen the money come through. What’s wrong with calling the police?”

“I’ve always believed in being fair and keeping feelings out of it.”

Li Lian spoke as if she were upholding some great principle.

I gave a derisive laugh and sat down.

I didn’t touch the glass of water on the table. Instead, I pointed at the gold necklace around her neck.

“That necklace weighs thirteen grams. I spent thirty thousand yuan on it. You accepted such an expensive gift without a second thought.”

Li Lian’s hand, which had been stroking the necklace, went rigid.

“We’ve been best friends for twenty years. Whenever we went out to eat, it cost at least a thousand yuan per person on average. I always paid. You never paid a single time. Why didn’t you insist on keeping things even then? If you wanted to be fair, you should’ve split every bill with me.”

“When you were twenty-three, you divorced and left with nothing. You couldn’t find a job, and you had a two-year-old son to raise. You begged me for help, so I let you rent my family’s storefront and open your noodle shop.”

“The market rent for this place is one hundred thousand yuan a month, but I only charged you fifty thousand. For five years, you’ve been clearing 800,000 yuan a month. Yet you never once talked about fairness or offered to pay me the full rent.”

“Five years ago, I also lent you 300,000 yuan so you could get away from your abusive husband. You still haven’t paid it back. Why didn’t you talk about keeping things even then?”

My best friend’s face went pale for a moment, and her smile stiffened.

She sat there frowning at me, her expression full of impatience.

“What’s the point of bringing all that up? You ate a fifteen-yuan bowl of my noodles and didn’t pay. That was your fault. I was right to call the police! I’m not apologizing. Losing your job has nothing to do with me!”

I smiled and took out my phone.

“I did make a mistake by forgetting to pay for the fifteen-yuan bowl of noodles. You called the police this afternoon, and I lost my job. I also paid you 1,500 yuan in compensation.”

“We can leave it at that.”

I pointed to her post online.

“But you posted a video and deliberately steered public opinion to attract attention. You said I used our friendship to get a free meal, that I was a cheapskate and a freeloader.”

“You left out the full story. I want you to explain that before I left, I told you I’d transfer the money later. That we’re best friends. That I’ve spent plenty on you over the years. And that I didn’t deliberately skip out on the bill this time.”

I enunciated every word: