Even she found it hard to believe that someone as pragmatic as herself could be so wholeheartedly devoted.
The “mid-year bonus” was distributed in August.
Ding Zhitong received about 100% of her annual salary, a full $80,000.
Accustomed to seeing large figures in reports, she had become numb to numbers with many digits. But she had never seen such an amount in her bank account. Even with the dollar’s steep decline, at the current exchange rate, it was over 500,000 yuan. How much exactly? Despite her usual prowess in mental arithmetic, she found herself unable to calculate precisely. Regardless of whether this might be hush money for the JV incident, and despite Gan Yang’s prolonged absence without explanation, she felt a dizzying happiness at that moment.
The day the money arrived, she transferred 50,000 yuan to Yan Aihua. Adding to the 30,000 she had given earlier, she had achieved her small goal.
Yan Aihua called immediately upon receiving the money, but her tone remained casual: “Tongtong, you didn’t need to rush like this.”
Ding Zhitong didn’t mince words: “Quickly make up for what you need. If it’s not enough, you must tell me, understand?”
Yan Aihua just laughed, replying, “I know. My daughter is doing well.”
Ding Zhitong understood the implication: her mother didn’t think she had made a mistake. She believed her gamble to send her daughter abroad for education had paid off brilliantly.
But Ding Zhitong knew she had no right to blame her mother. What she had given wasn’t even the full amount of her tuition. Yan Aihua genuinely wanted the best for her. The “win” was merely a matter of face.
The following weekend, Ding Zhitong treated Song Mingmei and Feng Sheng to dinner.
Song Mingmei, already aware of the “mid-year bonus,” guessed Ding Zhitong had come into money and asked how she planned to spend it. “Why not buy a house?” she suggested.
“I’m not going back, so why buy a house?” Ding Zhitong responded instinctively.
“We’re not talking about Shanghai,” Feng Sheng chimed in, laughing. “Prices have dropped so much here. Aren’t you going to buy the dip?”
Ding Zhitong realized they meant buying a house in the U.S., where prices had plummeted for half a year since late 2007.
Recently, news broke about massive losses at IndyMac Bank in Pasadena, with $1.3 billion withdrawn in 11 days, marking the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history. Song Mingmei recalled that her “defected” suitor No. 2 was also a depositor there, and she had even liked his Facebook post as a gesture of condolence.
Ding Zhitong wasn’t sure why she had thought of Shanghai. She offered a pragmatic excuse: “The market here hasn’t bottomed out yet. Shanghai, on the other hand, is steadily rising. I think it’s a good time to invest there.”
Song Mingmei looked at her as if she wanted to say something but held back. It wasn’t until after they parted that she called Ding Zhitong, asking bluntly: “Are you thinking of going back to find him?”
Ding Zhitong knew she meant Gan Yang. She initially planned to brush it off but ended up asking, “Do you think I should go back?”
“You should,” Song Mingmei replied.
Surprised by the directness of Song Mingmei, who usually maintained a high standard in relationships, Ding Zhitong didn’t know how to respond. She joked, “What if his mother asks me how much money it would take for me to leave her son?”
Song Mingmei countered, “Wouldn’t that be good?”
Ding Zhitong laughed, “That doesn’t happen in real life. Why would they give me money when they could just give it to their son? ‘Son, how much money would it take for you to leave this woman?’ Now that’s money!”
She found herself amusing, but the other end didn’t laugh. Instead, Song Mingmei asked again, “So you’re not going to find him?”
Ding Zhitong didn’t answer directly, still joking, “Let me make an inappropriate comparison, don’t take offense. If one of your investment targets suddenly became indifferent to you, would you go after them?”
“I wouldn’t,” Song Mingmei affirmed.
Ding Zhitong shrugged, case closed.
But Song Mingmei continued, “…but my situation is different from yours.”
“How so?” Ding Zhitong laughed, expecting her to say, “I’m beautiful, and you’re not.”
Instead, she heard: “You truly like Gan Yang.”
Ding Zhitong was taken aback, instinctively asking, “What are you saying? Don’t you truly like Mr. Deng?”
She wasn’t sure why she mentioned Deng Baiting in Shanghai, especially when there was a Benjamin Bian on Manhattan Island.
But Song Mingmei didn’t mind, just smiling without answering.
After hanging up, Ding Zhitong sat alone in a taxi back to her Upper West Side apartment, pondering their conversation. At first, she thought about Song Mingmei, wondering why she entertained so many suitors without liking any of them. But her thoughts kept circling back to that question: Are you not going to find him?
She had already lowered her expectations considerably, even living in an awkward situation—they had agreed to live together, but she was alone in a high-end apartment in an upscale area she could barely afford.
In the two months since his departure, she had countless times wondered about his intentions. Was there something he couldn’t say? Or was he waiting for her to initiate the breakup? As he once said, it’s ungentlemanly for a man to reject a woman; it’s better if the woman says “No, thank you” first to save face. At the time, she thought it was a gentlemanly approach. Now, she found it terrifying.
But she had to admit, she trusted him. She believed everything he did had a reason. And if he gave her even the slightest hint, she would go back to find him. Work, money, visa—none of it mattered.
Realizing this, even she found it hard to believe that someone as pragmatic as herself could be so wholeheartedly devoted.
That night, Ding Zhitong called Gan Yang.
He answered, calling her “Tongtong” as usual. She asked, as she had countless times before, “Are you coming back this month?”
She waited for his usual response: Probably not this month.
Then she could properly ask him: Has something happened? I’m really worried about you. Can you tell me? If you don’t want to say it over the phone, I’ll come back to China, and we can talk face-to-face…
But he didn’t give her the chance. For a few seconds, there was only the faint sound of static and his breathing, like a sigh caught between speaking and silence.
Then she heard him say, “I probably won’t be returning to the U.S. anytime soon…”
“Why?” she asked mechanically, suddenly forgetting everything she had planned to say.
But he didn’t answer, instead discussing the details of their separation: “…The New York apartment is rented until the end of the year. I’ve asked Wang Yi to collect my things. He’ll contact you…”
Ding Zhitong didn’t catch the rest of his words. In her mind, another version of herself was dialoguing with him:
Come back, let’s talk properly.
I won’t be coming back.
Then let’s talk on the phone.
There’s nothing to talk about.
Or I’ll come to China to find you. Give me an address, I’ll come to you.
Don’t come looking for me.
What do you mean?
Just that. Don’t come looking for me.
…
But in reality, she only managed to say one thing.
“What do you mean?” she asked with difficulty, essentially pleading with him in her most awkward way.
There was another moment of silence on the other end, mixed with the sound of breathing. Finally, he answered: “You have a job in New York. We can’t be in the same place, and it’s hard to say for how long. So I think… there’s no point in staying together.”
His words were brief and clear, unlike the Gan Yang she knew—the one whose eyes would light up and dim at her words, who would jump and wave to her from the marathon crowd, or who, drunk outside her dorm, asked if she wanted to date. He was not the person who drove all day just to spend a night with her and say “I love you.”
But perhaps, just perhaps, she didn’t know him as well as she thought. After all, they had only been together for a few months. People come together when it works, and part when it doesn’t. There’s no right or wrong in it.
“I understand,” she replied, as brief and clear as he had been. “You don’t need to keep paying the rent. I’ll move out this month.”
“Tongtong…” he began again.
“Don’t fucking call me that!” she suddenly lost control, hanging up abruptly.
The apartment fell silent, save for the distant wail of sirens—New York’s eternal background noise. Even then, she expected him to call back or at least send a text with an explanation.
But she waited for a long time, and nothing came.
It wasn’t until the next morning that she accepted the reality: he had truly settled everything, and their relationship was over.
Fourteen thousand kilometers away, Gan Yang sat in his car, lowering his disconnected phone. When he tried to start the engine, he realized his whole body was shaking. He gripped the steering wheel, resting his head on it, forcing himself to calm down before driving to the hospital to pick up General Manager Liu and take her to his uncle’s house in the neighboring county.
His uncle ran a wholesale business in agricultural products and had bought a new house near the market, but the ancestral home by the creek in the countryside remained. It was a three-story house by the water, with mountains behind it where tea trees grew, producing oolong and black tea touted as purely natural and pollution-free.
On the way, Gan Yang didn’t want to talk, but General Manager Liu was still pondering about repaying debts. He had to keep her company, reminiscing: “Do you remember that day? You took me to the bank and showed me the balance in your passbook. I still remember the number—606.”
“Of course I remember,” General Manager Liu smiled. “I withdrew 600. One hundred for your next semester’s tuition, two hundred for your grandmother as your monthly living expenses, another hundred as a New Year’s red envelope for her, and the last hundred to buy you a Transformer toy. Only six yuan was left.”
Gan Yang politely said, “General Manager Liu, you had it tough back then, and I was such a thoughtless child.”
But Liu shook her head modestly, “It wasn’t that hard. The debt from your father’s first imprisonment wasn’t as much as this time.”
Gan Yang paused, then laughed. It was a bitter laugh, but somehow not entirely so. He breathed deeply again, inhaling and exhaling slowly, then said, “It’s just two billion. I’ll pay it off.”
General Manager Liu seemed to have sensed something, specifically cautioning him: “No matter what, don’t touch your assets.”
“I understand, I won’t,” Gan Yang readily agreed, though he had already planned to transfer the trust, sell the unencumbered properties, and take out second mortgages on the others. After all, the production lines couldn’t stop. Didn’t they need to show their attitude to the investors? This was his attitude.
Liu had more to say, asking, “Didn’t you say you were going to get married? Now that you’ve suddenly decided not to go back, what about your girlfriend?”
“How old am I?” Gan Yang laughed, deflecting. “I was just talking nonsense before. It was nothing serious, don’t worry about it.”
General Manager Liu looked at him silently.
He then added reassuringly, “We’ve discussed it. We’ll talk about it again when things get better here.”
Liu nodded, seeming satisfied.
For a moment, Gan Yang had the illusion that he had discussed this with Ding Zhitong. And that after some time, the situation would indeed improve. When that time came, he might be able to spare a few weeks to visit New York. He hadn’t figured out how to make amends, but he was prepared to swallow his pride. He never had much face to lose with Ding Zhitong anyway. Then reality hit him again—he hadn’t discussed anything with Ding Zhitong, and things might not get better. Life is like that; between the ups and downs, half a person’s life might just pass by.
The car arrived at the old house, which was much the same as when he was a child. He could sit in the shade of the balcony, enjoying the mountain breeze, listening to the babbling stream and the dense cicada chorus, eating the longan ice dessert his aunt made for him—just like being back for summer vacation. He suddenly felt it would be nice if he could stay.
Summer days are long, and dinner in the countryside comes early. By the time they were ready to leave, the sky was still a blazing orange with the setting sun.
Avoiding his mother, Gan Yang told his uncle, “Keep an eye on your sister. Make sure she eats well, sleeps well, and doesn’t watch the news. Don’t let her worry about outside affairs.”
In the past, his uncle wouldn’t have hesitated to beat him for such disrespect, but this time he just nodded and said, “Don’t worry.” It was the tone of one adult to another.
Returning from the neighboring county, he went to Zeng Junjie’s restaurant.
His original plan was to find a lively place to drink, knowing that even if he got drunk, the chubby Zeng would have the strength to get him home.
But reality again diverged from his expectations.
On this midsummer night, tables were set up outside the restaurant, with a large screen broadcasting live Olympic track and field events. The atmosphere was perhaps too lively. At first, there was just discussion, but soon an argument broke out. Zeng Junjie was in the thick of it, showing the strongest fighting spirit, spewing all kinds of local vulgarities.
Gan Yang sat quietly in a corner, drinking beer, not paying attention to what was on TV or why people were arguing.
Eventually, slippers, folding chairs, and beer bottles started flying. Someone overturned a table, and someone called the police. Sighing, he had to help break up the fight. When the police arrived, he went to the station to give a statement, then bailed out the chubby Zeng and took him home.
Sitting in the back of the taxi, the drunk Zeng was still cursing: “Aren’t those people crazy? What right do they have to curse Liu Xiang?!”
Gan Yang finally understood what the big fight was about.
“Can ordinary people compare to the hardships athletes endure? They don’t know shit! A bunch of lazy good-for-nothings!” Zeng Junjie was still fuming, spittle flying.
“And you?” Gan Yang laughed bitterly, patting Zeng’s belly tightly wrapped in his T-shirt, only to feel a handful of sweat. He regretted touching it.
But Zeng didn’t mind, throwing his arms around Gan Yang: “I’m done for, but you’re different!”
Gan Yang pushed him away, asking, “How am I different?”
“In ancient times, Hua Mulan took her father’s place in the army. Today, young General Manager Gan repays debts for his mother. You thought you had the script of a leisurely rich man, but ended up with a life of toil and worry!” Zeng Junjie looked pained on Gan Yang’s behalf.
Gan Yang wanted to smother him.
“But! But!” Zeng raised his carrot-thick index finger to emphasize, “I know you can do it, you definitely can!”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Gan Yang rolled his eyes, pushing away Zeng’s hand.
Zeng Junjie remained undeterred, continuing: “When you first joined the track team in seventh grade, you were so small (he held his hand to his chest), skinny as a rail (he sucked in his cheeks), but you never missed a morning or evening practice. You’d run ten sets of 400-meter intervals, then do ten more, without even furrowing your brow. Honestly, back then I was just running to get extra points for high school and college entrance exams, to get into a good school, then into a sports college, just to get a diploma to satisfy my parents. Many of us had that goal, but not you. I knew then that you truly loved it. People who genuinely love running… (he paused for emphasis) are all freaks! You know?”
As the word “freaks” flew out with a spray of saliva, Gan Yang wiped his face, speechless, wondering how much more absurd this day could get.
Unexpectedly, Zeng Junjie looked at him with wide eyes, speaking earnestly: “Although you might lack a bit physically, and mentally you have the qualities of an athlete. There’s nothing an athlete can’t do. You’ll succeed!”
Gan Yang felt like crying. He wanted to hug Zeng Junjie, but the smell of alcohol and sour sweat stopped him. Besides, the taxi had arrived at their destination.
So he helped the two-hundred-plus-pound man out of the car, up the stairs, and handed him over to Zeng’s wife.
After saying goodbye and leaving, he was alone again.
It was dawn, with the eastern sky beginning to lighten. Walking alone on the street, he felt a bit aggrieved. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t he be the drunk one, carried home by chubby Zeng? He was the one who had just been dumped!
But as soon as this thought crossed his mind, he seemed to hear Ding Zhitong laughing and saying: Your understanding of heartbreak is so outdated.
In his mind, he asked: Then how should heartbreak be?
There was no answer.
He didn’t want to imagine, but he couldn’t control his imagination. He could almost see her face—from the cold, calm profile when they first met, to the snow-like fragility and paleness on the day of the campus interview, to her unrestrained smile when they ran together, and the countless times after, her eyes reflected in his during moments of intense intimacy.
What did she look like now? Where was she at this moment? What was she doing? He didn’t know, only feeling that he had never cared so deeply for another person before.