Chapter 3

Qin Huaixu stood opposite me.

Backlighting hid his expression, but I could still feel the chill coming off him.

"If you don't rest at lunch, how will you manage your work this afternoon? If you have that much free time, I can give you more."

"Young Master Qin, shouldn't what I do on my lunch break be my decision?"

I stood and brushed dust off my trousers.

As I tried to leave, he blocked me.

"Don't tell me you've actually fallen for him. You chased me until the whole company knew, and now you think you can just walk away? Not a chance! Besides, do you think Qin Yuze is such a good person?"

I looked back at him.

His superior tone made me laugh coldly.

"So concerned about us. Has your pride taken a hit?"

Ever since Qin Yuze returned, people had been saying he was more capable than Qin Huaixu.

His branch was particularly well run. Its results kept improving.

The chairman had transferred him to headquarters to assess him as a successor.

That was why Qin Huaixu cared so much about this brand launch.

It was his best chance to prove himself.

No one expected trouble to erupt on launch day itself.

With the event livestreamed, plenty of reporters were present. Everyone was being careful.

But security slipped up and let a woman in.

"Qin Huaixu! You used your power to force me, then lied that you'd take responsibility. Is this how you treat me?"

Everyone turned toward her voice.

Once they saw the child in her arms, cameras swung toward her together.

The resemblance to Qin Huaixu was striking.

Facing the media lenses without fear, she shouted her accusation.

"A year ago, he used drinking as an excuse to force himself on me. When I became pregnant, he promised to take responsibility for me and the baby. This year, he keeps disappearing. Today, I'm exposing him before everyone!"

He went deathly pale and urgently signaled security to remove her.

But with a child in her arms, the guards didn't dare shove her.

As the standoff continued, she kept speaking.

"A year ago, he took me drinking and got me drunk. He said if I refused, he wouldn't let me become a permanent employee. I'd graduated less than two years earlier. I believed him and became a single mother. My life is ruined!"

Viewers flooded the livestream.

Comments raced too quickly to follow.

Qin Huaixu hurriedly shut it down and shouted for her to be thrown out.

Whatever he tried, it was too late.

The video quickly appeared online. Plenty of viewers had recorded the whole thing.

Even the company buzzed with speculation.

I'd known about it two months earlier.

From that moment, every last favorable feeling I'd had for him had vanished.

I'd also become more certain that he wasn't the person I was looking for.

Management immediately held an emergency meeting and contacted the media, hoping to stop the story escalating.

People kept posting the video to mock him anyway.

Even the new product line the company had spent years preparing went to waste as his public image collapsed.

Management discussed it for a long time without reaching a solution.

They agreed on one thing: this project was finished.

The team was dissolved at once. None of Qin Huaixu's promises helped.

That day, for once, I left on time.

Qin Yuze messaged that he was waiting outside to drive me home.

Once I got in, he did something unusual: turned on the car's Bluetooth and played music.

At a red light, I watched his long index finger tapping the wheel in time.

"You're in a good mood. Don't tell me you arranged today's incident?"

"If I said I did, would you hate me?"

He looked straight at me and waited.

Nervousness brought a faint sheen of sweat to his palms. His fingers laced together uneasily.

I'd liked Qin Huaixu for seven years, ever since entering university.

I'd passed the entrance exam from an obscure little county, full of hope for a wonderful university life.

In reality, I couldn't fit in with my roommates. My courses left me gasping, and big-city prices were far beyond anything I'd imagined.

For a long time, I'd questioned the meaning of my life.

Qin Huaixu was well known on campus.

Rich family. Handsome face. Naturally, many people liked him.

At first, I'd only watched him quietly.

Then one day, after rushing between part-time jobs and classes, I fainted by the roadside with low blood sugar and a high fever.

Half-conscious, I felt someone lift me and take me to hospital.

When I woke, he'd just left. Beside me were all kinds of food, still steaming.

And a beautifully wrapped bouquet.

My anonymous benefactor had left only one sentence.

[Spring is coming. The unhappy things will pass.]

A nurse came in to change my medication and teased,

"Your boyfriend was so worried bringing you in. He ran until he was covered in sweat. Has he gone?"

I didn't know how to answer and could only smile awkwardly.

Then she noticed someone leaving downstairs.

"There he is. Probably off to buy you something."

I struggled upright, wanting to see who'd saved me.

I saw only a straight back getting into a car.

But I recognized the car.

It belonged to Qin Huaixu's family.

He'd made a conspicuous entrance in it on campus more than once.

Initially, I'd only wanted to thank him for taking me to hospital.

Somehow, people began spreading rumors that I liked him.

After hearing it enough, even I began to fall for him.

Inexplicably, it lasted seven years.

There had been moments of clarity when I'd realized he wasn't so special.

Then I'd remember that he'd saved my life.

Until two months earlier, when I'd gone to deliver documents and overheard him talking.

"That woman actually had the baby. If the old man finds out, he'll beat me to death. She acted so virtuous when I slept with her—wouldn't stop refusing whenever I asked her out drinking."

"I only said I'd take responsibility so she wouldn't make a scene at the company. Who knew she'd be shameless enough to really have the child?"

"She's nothing special. Not even as pretty as Ye Zhiwu. I just thought she had a decent figure."

I felt nothing but disgust.

Had I been blind all these years?

Every feeling vanished in an instant.

Today, with his wrongdoing exposed, I was merely watching the show.

Watching his years of disguise ripped away.

Watching that ugly, false face laid bare.

"What does his business have to do with me?"

The light changed.

Qin Yuze started the car again, humming softly along to the music in obvious delight.

I looked at his profile and once more marveled at the greatness of that face.

"We've met somewhere before, haven't we?"

Surely I should remember such a face after one look.

Yet I had no recollection.

Only a strange sense of familiarity.

"Mm. It's better you don't remember. That time… wasn't a particularly glorious memory."

After dinner, we walked beside the river.

The cold night wind blew over us. Qin Yuze held my hand tightly, warming my palm.

After a while, I stopped.

"I came here for a competition once. I walked this road too. One day, I met someone who was going to jump into the river!"

I remembered it fairly clearly.

I'd just started high school and come with a teacher for a competition.

That evening, I'd sneaked out of the hotel alone.

After agonizing over the money, I'd bought only one grilled sausage and stood by the road eating it.

At the riverbank, I found someone with more than half his body leaning out.

At first, I genuinely hadn't thought he meant to die.

Curious, I'd walked over, looked at the water beside him, and asked,

"What are you looking at?"

He was about my age, in a faded denim jacket.

Looking down at the racing water, he said quietly,

"I'm going to jump."

His voice was hoarse, as though he'd been crying.

Startled, I grabbed his hand.

"You absolutely can't! We're the only two people here. If I call the police, I'll be their first suspect!"

More importantly, I had a competition the next day.

No time to give a statement.

"It's all right. You needn't call them. No one cares whether I live or die. No one would care if I disappeared."

"Who says? At least I care right now. If you jump, you'll pollute the river. The environmental inspectors will care too. And…"

For a moment, I had no idea how to persuade him.

I didn't know why he wanted to jump.

What if his parents had driven him to it? Bringing them up might only rub salt into the wound.

After thinking for a long time, I offered my only sausage.

"Eat something. Even if you really mean to go, at least have a full stomach first."

He hesitated for ages, then accepted and thanked me quietly.

He was really eating it?

I only had one!

I wanted to cry at the loss.

I gave it to him anyway.

In the dim moonlight, his cap hid his face. But I noticed a bruise at the corner of his mouth, still bleeding.

"Afterward, with my tireless persuasion and brilliant eloquence, he finally gave up on jumping. Even now, I think I was pretty impressive."

Ten years had passed.

The bridge had been repaired countless times. I couldn't find the exact spot anymore.

Talking about it still made me rather proud.

But when I finished telling Qin Yuze, he stood rooted to the spot.

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

He looked down at me, the night wind ruffling his hair.

I looked at his finely shaped chin.

Suddenly, one memory overlaid the present.

Tears fell from his eyes.

The next instant, he bent and embraced me.

His kiss tasted bitter with tears and carried more emotion than I could name.

I felt pulled back into that winter night ten years earlier.

The wounded boy had been so disappointed in the world that he'd wanted death to end it all.

When I'd pulled him back from the river, I'd felt life begin to grow again.

This kiss made our feelings grow wildly too.

A shoot in my heart broke through the earth and flourished unchecked.

"That sausage… tasted wonderful."

He released me gently and wiped away the tears that had rolled onto my cheeks.

I looked into his eyes.

They held my reflection.

"Were you the one who took me to hospital?"

That familiar mint scent.

The person who'd carried me there years ago had smelled exactly the same.

"It was me."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

I'd never even thanked him properly.

"You don't need to thank me."

"You pulled me out of the abyss too."

On the way home, I asked how he'd become the Qin family's adopted son.

His steps visibly faltered. He struggled into a bitter smile.

"My father was his driver. It was raining that day, but he insisted on seeing a client. They had an accident on the way. Dad swerved to protect him. He had only minor injuries. Dad died on the spot."

His mother had been devastated.

Her health was already poor. On hearing the news, she collapsed and never got up again.

So the tycoon adopted Qin Yuze.

But to keep Qin Huaixu comfortable, he never showed Qin Yuze any care.

His life hardly changed.

He still lived in the servants' quarters and did everything himself.

Qin Huaixu often used him to vent his anger.

"I got used to being covered in injuries. If anyone asked, I'd say I fell. Pushed downstairs, held under in the swimming pool… Back then, all I could do was not fight back."

The consequences of resisting were too severe.

He could only endure.

"When I grew up, I only wanted to escape."

"But even more, I wanted to find you. To appear before you as someone better."

He smiled faintly and laced his fingers through mine.

"Don't leave me, all right? You're all I have."

He moved closer, bent, and nestled his head into the hollow of my neck.

"Please."

My heart ran wild.

I knew he had me completely.

Qin Yuze was even clingier than I'd imagined.