Qian Fei coughed and said to her curious classmates, “By my calculations, he should be marrying the vice president’s niece soon!”
Her classmates looked at her in surprise. “You don’t know? Oh right, you came late and didn’t hear. The class monitor asked him when we could drink at his wedding with his new girlfriend, and he said he broke up with her during the New Year!”
Another classmate chimed in, “I heard it was because that girl had a terrible temper and was rude to Wang Ruohai’s mother during the New Year!”
Qian Fei was stunned. At that moment, the class monitor came over with a notebook, saying, “Everyone, please write down your contact information. Many classmates have changed their phone numbers. Once I’ve collected them all, I’ll make a directory and send it to everyone!”
The monitor handed the notebook to Qian Fei for her to write her number. Qian Fei took it and saw that Wang Ruohai had just finished writing his.
She frowned and pushed the notebook back to the monitor, “I’ll write mine after everyone else is done.”
The monitor smiled and said, “Oh, you’re still bothered by it!”
As he was about to take the notebook to others, Qian Fei suddenly remembered something and quickly snatched it back.
She stared at Wang Ruohai’s phone number, finding it increasingly familiar.
The monitor, confused by her actions, asked what was wrong. She shoved the notebook back into his arms, said “Nothing!” and walked to a corner to check her phone.
Strangely, she couldn’t find the text message from her birthday no matter how hard she looked.
Back on the home screen, she had a sudden realization and checked the blacklist in her 360 Security app.
There she found the “Happy Birthday” text message.
The number matched exactly with the one next to Wang Ruohai’s name in the notebook.
She laughed silently, thinking it was fate that even her phone couldn’t stand Wang Ruohai and had automatically blacklisted him.
Just as she was about to turn off her phone screen, a voice suddenly came from beside her: “Why did you blacklist me?”
Qian Fei looked up to find Wang Ruohai standing in front of her.
Qian Fei turned off her screen and looked at Wang Ruohai with a mocking smile. “Didn’t you blacklist me too?” Recalling how she couldn’t reach him that day no matter how many times she called, she suddenly understood everything. “Wang Ruohai, you’re quite interesting. Did you pull this stunt after breaking up? Thanks for remembering my birthday! But why did you blacklist me right after sending the text? Were you afraid I’d find out it was you and think you still cared, then cling to you relentlessly?” She stared at him coldly, her lips curled in derision. “You think too highly of yourself if you believe you’re that memorable!”
Wang Ruohai looked at her, and despite her mockery, a hint of confusion appeared in his eyes. “Qian Fei, you seem different somehow!”
She used to talk to him like a tomboy, but now there was an indescribable charm in her expression. In less than a year, who had changed her like this, giving her a womanly allure?
Qian Fei glanced at him, not wanting to continue the conversation, and turned to leave.
Wang Ruohai suddenly grabbed her arm. “Qian Fei, let’s make a deal…”
Before he could finish, Qian Fei looked up at him with a fierce glare and hissed, “Let go!”
Wang Ruohai’s palm went limp at her shout.
He released her and said, “Okay, I’ll let go! Qian Fei, let’s make a deal. Can we unblock each other?”
Qian Fei looked at him with a sardonic smile. “Are you drunk? Is that necessary?”
Wang Ruohai smiled. “I drove here, so I haven’t been drinking!”
She rolled her eyes at him and turned to walk away.
After everyone had registered their contact information, the group clamored to go singing. Qian Fei wanted to leave, but the class monitor held onto her tightly.
“Yao Jingjing not coming is already a big loss. If you leave too, the atmosphere will be completely dead!” He dragged her along to the KTV.
When it came time to pay for the room, Wang Ruohai footed the bill again.
The class monitor couldn’t help but whisper to Qian Fei, “Look at Dahai’s demeanor now, he’s like a completely different person from before!”
Qian Fei scoffed and pursed her lips.
Although she was disdainful, she also felt that Wang Ruohai had indeed changed somehow. He seemed less frivolous than before, more steady.
It seemed that money did have some weight to it, capable of transforming a loser into a successful person.
Sitting on the sofa, Qian Fei felt uncomfortable. As her classmates sang, Wang Ruohai sat not far from her, his gaze unabashedly sweeping over her. The class monitor, whether intentionally or not, kept praising Wang Ruohai to her, going on about how he had become so capable and admirable, and how touching it was that he had taken over all the class monitor duties.
After listening for a while, Qian Fei couldn’t take it anymore and asked impatiently, “Did Wang Ruohai promise to pay for the karaoke if you put in a good word for him with me?”
She was just venting her anger with a random guess. To her surprise, the class monitor’s eyes widened, and he drunkenly rubbed his face, “Was I that obvious? You could tell? Oh no, I must be drunk. My wife is going to kill me when I get home!”
Qian Fei didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Class monitor, can you please stop wasting your efforts on this useless cause? It’s over between us, and he was the one who initiated the breakup. There’s no way we’re getting back together!”
She stood up, put on her coat, and walked over to Wang Ruohai, looking down at him. “Come out for a second!”
Wang Ruohai promptly stood up and followed her out of the room.
Once outside, Qian Fei faced Wang Ruohai and asked pointedly, “Wang Ruohai, what are you trying to do?”
Wang Ruohai met her gaze, not avoiding her knife-like stare. “I’m not entirely sure, but seeing you today, I just couldn’t take my eyes off you!”
Qian Fei let out a derisive laugh. “And then what? You want to get back together?”
To her surprise, Wang Ruohai nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it.”
Qian Fei asked coldly, “Since when? Surely not around my birthday? Back then, you were so afraid I’d cling to you that you blacklisted me!”
Wang Ruohai answered honestly, with an air of frankness, “Actually, I’ve been hesitating from after the New Year until your birthday. But when you walked in tonight, I made up my mind!” He looked at Qian Fei, not blinking. “You’ve changed, not just outwardly, but inside too. You’re no longer as vulgar and petty as before!”
Qian Fei laughed coldly, “Wang Ruohai, you’re truly ridiculous! Did a donkey kick your head? What gives you the right to hesitate? As if I’ve been waiting for you all this time! Oh, you got lonely after breaking up, so you thought of coming back to me? But you found too many things about me unsatisfactory, so you hesitated? Who do you think you’re treating as a backup? Where do you get the confidence? And why should I look back at you just because I’ve changed? Wang Ruohai, I’ve realized you’re truly shameless!”
She turned and walked out of the KTV.
While waiting for a cab by the roadside, Wang Ruohai followed her out.
“Let me give you a ride. It’s hard to get a taxi here!” he said.
Qian Fei snorted, ignoring him, and walked straight toward an approaching taxi.
Of course, she knew it was difficult to get a cab here, but she knew how to use ride-hailing apps to turn a difficult situation into an easy one.
Wang Ruohai stood behind her and called out loudly, “Qian Fei, I’ll try my best!”
Looking at his shameless expression, Qian Fei wanted to get out of the car and spit in his face.
Starting from the day of the reunion, Wang Ruohai sent a bouquet to Qian Fei’s company every day.
On the first day, it was Lily of the Valley, with a card saying: “Let’s start over.”
On the second day, 88 red roses, with a card saying: “I’ll make up for all my mistakes with sincerity.”
On the third day, deep red roses, with a card saying: “I just want to be with you.”
On the fourth day, Qian Fei couldn’t take it anymore. She unblocked Wang Ruohai’s number and called him, asking, “What are you trying to do?”
Wang Ruohai laughed contentedly on the phone: “I just wanted to get out of your blacklist. Looks like it worked!”
Hearing his self-satisfied tone, Qian Fei felt like throwing acid at him.
“Wang Ruohai, that’s enough. Don’t make me look down on you even more,” Qian Fei said, rubbing her temples.
Wang Ruohai paused for a moment, then said, “Qian Fei, we used to be poor, so we had many dissatisfactions. Now I have a car, a house, a high salary, and a position. We’ll never argue about saving money again. You’ve changed, believe me, I’ve changed too!”
Qian Fei found his words absurd. “Wang Ruohai, you should think about who helped you get a car, a house, a high salary, and a position in just one year? Now that you’ve climbed up using another woman’s shoulders, you turn back to your ex-girlfriend wanting to mend broken mirrors. Don’t you find yourself shameless and ridiculous?”
She hung up the phone, feeling so stifled she wanted to cry, not understanding why such a farce was playing out in her life.
In the following days, Wang Ruohai continued to send flowers to her company as before. Qian Fei had grown too tired to bother with this matter anymore.
During this period, her classmates seemed to have caught some strange fever, taking turns to host dinners almost every night. She tried to find excuses not to go several times, but the host of the evening would simply show up at her company after work, leaving her no room for resistance or hesitation, and whisk her away to the dinner party.
At every dinner party, she would see Wang Ruohai. He kept trying to get close to her, no matter if she mocked him coldly or smiled with hidden daggers. He would sit beside her with a smug smile, like a piece of sodden meat that wouldn’t cook, making her so uncomfortable she wanted to jump out of a window.
Her classmates seemed to have caught on to Wang Ruohai’s intentions towards her and began to persuade her: “Why don’t you give him another chance? We all think he’s become quite successful now. Look at the way he talks and acts, he’s got that romantic novel male-lead vibe. He’s much more mature than before, like a completely different person!”
Afraid that hearing such persuasion too often might brainwash her and shake her resolve, she called Yao Jingjing, hoping to hear a different voice cursing the scumbag.
However, Yao Jingjing told her: “Feifei, Wang Ruohai has called me countless times. I’ve cursed at him so much my tongue is sore! But this bastard is strange, his attitude has remained good throughout, like he’s become a different person compared to before! He told me he sincerely wants to win you back, blah blah blah, and even said he absolutely won’t reconcile with the vice president’s niece. He says he now has client resources, and if you’re unwilling, he’ll resign from Qiansheng and leave. I used to hate him to the bone, but after cursing at him for several days, I feel like I’m about to switch sides. What’s going on?”
Qian Fei hung up the phone, leaning against the wall for support.
She felt uneasy, and that night she forgot to close the window when she went to bed. The next morning, she woke up with a fever so high she couldn’t get out of bed. She called in sick at work, took some fever medication, and lay down again.
Somehow, her high fever didn’t break for the next two days.
She lay in bed in a daze, only getting up to make some porridge when she was too hungry to bear it, then lying down again in her stupor.
Her mind wandered to many things: her university days, when she first started working, her breakup with Wang Ruohai, and… the day Li Yifei kissed her.
In her hazy thoughts, she wondered if Li Yifei had been on his business trip for over half a month now. Why hadn’t he come back yet? If only he were here. If he could talk to her, she wouldn’t feel so unbearably lonely, so fragile and miserable. Although he was delicate and didn’t know how to take care of others, she thought that if he were here, he would at least wring out a towel for her.
Somehow, she felt particularly unwell that night. She found her thermometer and took her temperature again: 39.9°C. She felt that if she kept burning like this, she might just melt away.
Suddenly, she wanted to chat with Li Yifei. She picked up her phone and called him.
Unfortunately, he didn’t answer no matter how long she tried.
She felt incredibly sad, a profound sadness that permeated both her body and mind.
Was he so afraid of her getting attached to him?
She felt that when people are sick, they truly become very vulnerable. At times like these, a single rejection from someone can hit with the force of a thousand pounds. She felt as devastated as if she had suffered an internal injury.
As Qian Fei lay in bed, burning with fever and in a daze, her phone suddenly rang. She answered with her eyes closed, vaguely hoping it might be Li Yifei returning her call.
Unfortunately, the voice belonged to the man who had once let her down.
Wang Ruohai asked on the phone, “Why haven’t you come to the gatherings these past two days?”
Qian Fei, with her eyes closed and voice hoarse, mumbled, “Seeing you is annoying!”
Wang Ruohai kept asking what was wrong with her, and why her voice sounded like that.
She couldn’t be bothered to deal with him and hung up the phone.
Then she fell into unconsciousness.
When she regained some semblance of clarity, she found Wang Ruohai in her home.
Through the hazy, fluctuating shadows of people, she heard him say that it was good her habit of hiding keys under the doormat hadn’t changed. She also heard him ask in distress, “How could you let yourself get so sick without telling me?”
She mustered all her strength to respond, “None of your business!” Then she slipped back into unconsciousness.
The next time she opened her eyes, she was lying in a hospital bed.
The doctor was telling Wang Ruohai, “It’s fortunate the patient has a strong constitution. If she had come any later, it could have developed into pneumonia!”
The doctor wanted to keep her for observation overnight and prescribed an IV drip for the nurse to administer.
Her veins were too thin, and several nurses failed to insert the needle properly. Finally, they had to call the head nurse from the pediatric department to successfully insert it.
Wang Ruohai held her hand, which was now covered in needle marks, sighing with concern.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” he asked.
Qian Fei’s eyes stung. She pulled her hand away irritably, not wanting to engage with him, and closed her eyes to sleep.
When she woke up, she felt much better. Wang Ruohai had bought porridge and wanted to feed her. She turned her head away and shakily took the spoon to feed herself. After she finished eating, Wang Ruohai wiped her hands with a warm towel, then went to pour water and give her medicine. Watching him bustling about, she suddenly felt a sense of irony.
In the past, when they were together, he wouldn’t even pick her up when she worked overtime until 2 AM. Who would have thought he could now take care of her so meticulously?
With a hint of sarcasm, Qian Fei asked him why he had suddenly become so caring. Li Yifei replied earnestly, “First, I’ve changed. I didn’t know how to care for you before, but now I’ve learned to cherish you. Second, you’ve changed too. You’re no longer acting like a man; you’ve become a woman who deserves to be cherished!”
Qian Fei was too exhausted to retort and merely shot back, “Shameless, twisting words!”
He had taken care of her all night, and no matter how much she pushed or scolded him, he refused to leave. In a moment of frustration, she pointed at him and declared, “Wang Ruohai, you’re truly despicable!”
Yet he remained silent, showing no signs of anger.
The next morning, he took leave and continued fussing over her, constantly checking on her well-being. Propped up in bed with an IV drip, Qian Fei watched him bustling in and out and found herself reminiscing about their past together. As her thoughts drifted, they unexpectedly turned to Li Yifei.
Suddenly, an overwhelming wave of sadness washed over her, and she couldn’t help but start crying. She hated herself for being so vulnerable when she was sick.
Wang Ruohai was startled to see her crying and hurried over to ask what was wrong. When she didn’t respond and simply cried, he felt helpless. He pulled out his phone and started reading jokes from Weibo, but the more he read, the more she cried.
Eventually, in frustration, he tossed aside the phone and wrapped his arms around her tightly.
She cried and pushed him away, saying, “Get lost! Where were you before? Only now do you know how to treat me well!”
Wang Ruohai held on even tighter, refusing to let go no matter how much she struggled. He pleaded, “Fei Fei, I was wrong. Please give me another chance, okay?”
Qian Fei remained silent for a long moment, leaving him feeling uneasy. Finally, he released her, holding her hand to check, and his expression fell.
Her hand was covered in bruises from the IV.
He quickly called for a nurse. When she entered and saw the tear-streaked face of Qian Fei and the flustered Wang Ruohai, she exploded, “When is it not time for a tortured love? Can’t you pick a better moment than while she’s getting her IV? Does rolling needles feel thrilling to you?”
Qian Fei wiped her tears and shot a fierce glare at Wang Ruohai, saying to the nurse, “It’s all his fault! Nurse, please kick him out!”
The nurse shot her a frustrated look and said, “Please, just calm down! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find your veins? We’re all going mad trying to deal with you!”
Feeling guilty for her outburst, Qian Fei stopped crying, while Wang Ruohai watched, suddenly feeling inexplicably amused.
The nurse brought in the head nurse from pediatrics to redo the IV.
By the time the IV finished in the morning, Qian Fei’s fever had finally subsided, and the doctor informed her that she could go home.
Wang Ruohai tentatively asked, “Can I give you a ride?”
Qian Fei looked at him, her mind racing with thoughts. Finally, she nodded. Wang Ruohai was taken aback, almost incredulous, as he carefully helped her into the car.
On the way home, Qian Fei received a WeChat message from Li Yifei: “I was having dinner with some company people yesterday and drank too much. I didn’t hear my phone. Is there something you need?”
Feeling a twinge of sadness, she suppressed it and replied, “I forgot what I wanted to say. Have a good business trip.”
Li Yifei stared at his phone, feeling a sense of loss. After being away for over half a month, his feelings for her had shifted from missing her a little to missing her quite a lot, but it hadn’t yet reached the point of overwhelming longing.
Lying on his bed, he thought that when he reached the point of missing her terribly, he would confess to her when he returned. If he didn’t reach that point, he would just move out and maintain a brotherly relationship with her.
With that thought, he felt a weight lift off his shoulders, as if the troubling question from last night—how to interact with her—had found a perfect resolution. He usually didn’t drink heavily with business associates, but for some reason yesterday, he felt an urge to get completely drunk, thinking that maybe in drunkenness, he would find a way to resolve his worries.
After recovering, Qian Fei found herself less resistant to Wang Ruohai than before.
Yao Jingjing asked her if she intended to rekindle their relationship. Qian Fei deflected, asking, “Do you remember the time I moved last year and said something to you?”
Yao Jingjing chuckled, “You’ve said so many things to me; how could I possibly remember them all? Which one are you referring to?”
Qian Fei smiled back and said, “If you can’t remember, then forget it.”
Back then, as she was preparing to move into her new home, she had been reluctant to throw away an old photo album. Yao Jingjing had angrily asked what she intended to keep it for, suggesting it was so she could reconnect with Wang Ruohai someday.
Qian Fei replied, “If it comes to that, next time it’ll be my turn to cheat. I’ll find a wealthy man, book a hotel, and make him green with envy!”
Yao Jingjing had long forgotten those words, but Qian Fei remembered them vividly.