At 11:30 PM, Qian Fei took a taxi to the entrance of Changyong Hotel.
She sent another WeChat message to Wang Ruohai: “Where are you? When are you coming home?”
After about five minutes, Wang Ruohai replied: “Working overtime with the boss. Won’t be back tonight. You should go to sleep.”
Qian Fei gritted her teeth and walked into the hotel.
Yao Jingjing was sitting on a sofa in the lobby waiting for her. Seeing Qian Fei arrive, she sprang up and grabbed her, as excited as if the sky was falling. She rattled on, “Could you be any slower? I’ve been waiting for you for almost an hour! If you were any later, they might have finished their business and been ready to go home. What cheating would you catch then?”
Qian Fei asked her, “Are you sure it was Wang Ruohai who came here with a woman to get a room?”
Yao Jingjing beat her chest in frustration, “What’s there to doubt? Have my eyes ever been worse than 20/20 vision? Besides, I told you earlier that Wang Ruohai’s behavior was off. He must have someone on the side! Who has business dinners every single night?”
They needed a room key to use the elevator, so Yao Jingjing, seizing a moment when no one was looking, pulled Qian Fei towards the stairwell.
As they climbed the stairs, Yao Jingjing spilled out the details like a torrent: “Tonight, our company was having dinner at the Sichuan Restaurant. By chance, Wang Ruohai was there eating with a woman. I saw him, but he didn’t see me. When they left, I saw the woman hanging all over him. I thought something was fishy, so I followed them out. As soon as we got outside, I saw them making out! Then Wang Ruohai hailed a cab. I sensed something was up, so I got a cab too, and followed them. Lo and behold, I caught them red-handed! They came straight here to get a room! I went through hell trying to trick the front desk into telling me the room number. It’s room 1208. Hurry up! If we’re any slower, they might be done and getting dressed. Then he’ll just insist they were only talking in the room, and you won’t be able to do anything about it!”
Qian Fei clenched her jaw, “If he dares to open the door without his pants on, I’ll kick his family jewels into oblivion!”
They huffed and puffed their way up to the 12th floor and approached room 1208. They pressed their ears against the door.
Muffled moans could be heard from inside.
Qian Fei felt a sharp pain in her heart.
She knocked on the door. The moaning stopped. A man’s voice asked impatiently, “Who is it?”
Hearing that voice, she clenched her teeth so hard she almost tasted blood.
“Sir, the front desk shows a smoke alarm in your room. Could we come in to check, please?” Yao Jingjing falsely squeaked in a high-pitched voice.
After a moment, the door opened.
Wang Ruohai stood in the doorway wearing a hotel bathrobe, while Qian Fei stood outside, her face ashen.
In the next second, Qian Fei slapped Wang Ruohai across the face.
Qian Fei stared at the half-empty room, her heart breaking.
She sat on the floor, leaning against the corner of the wall.
The day after being caught cheating, Wang Ruohai brazenly asked for a breakup.
“That slap was good. It woke me up. I was hesitating whether to choose you or her, but that slap shattered all our years of feelings!” He dropped these words as if she were the one who had betrayed him.
He packed up all his things that day. As he was leaving, he said, “I’ll only pay my share of the rent until the end of this month. From next month on, you’ll have to pay it all yourself. As for that apartment we were looking at together, I don’t want it anymore. The 100,000 yuan deposit, let’s split it in half. Just give me 50,000 yuan. For our 450,000 yuan savings, let’s divide it 70-30. You take 70%, I’ll take 30%. That should cover the daily expenses I’ve been paying for.”
Qian Fei looked at Wang Ruohai, feeling as if she hardly recognized him anymore.
The memory of him persistently pursuing her in their junior year was still vivid, yet in the blink of an eye, he could now coldly calculate their accounts so meticulously.
She felt a chill in her heart.
They had been together for seven years. She had given him her best seven years, scrimping and saving for a down payment so they could get married and buy a house. She never imagined that in the end, she had saved him right into another woman’s bed.
She couldn’t help but ask Wang Ruohai, “Who is she? When did you two get together?”
Wang Ruohai suddenly became angry and impatiently said, “Qian Fei, I hate it when you’re like this! We’re breaking up anyway, why are you digging into the details? What’s the point?” He kicked the wall in frustration. “Let me tell you, Qian Fei, I’ve had enough of you for a long time! You just blame me for cheating, but have you ever looked at what’s wrong with you? Back in college, you were fresh and attractive, but after graduation, why did you turn into a middle-aged housewife? You said we needed to save money to buy a house, fine, but then you forced me to stop dressing up, stop going out, stop having any fun. We lived like we were in the old society, like Yang Bailao. You thought living like that was frugal and virtuous, but did you ever ask if I could stand it? Every time I went out with colleagues, wasn’t I laughed at for dressing shabbily? When I wanted a new phone, you blocked me at every turn. Everyone else was using iPhones like they were disposable, but for my birthday, you bought me a Lenovo for less than 1,000 yuan and acted like it was some big favor! I work for a listed company, but my living standard was worse than the building security guards! Qian Fei, I really can’t live like this with you anymore! You say you’ve saved a lot of money these years, but what’s the point of hoarding money while living like a beggar? What’s the use?”
Qian Fei felt wronged, “Wasn’t it all for our future? If we didn’t save like this, when could we ever buy a house? This is Beijing! Not some third or fourth-tier city like your hometown or mine! It’s 30,000 to 40,000 yuan per square meter, not 3,000 to 4,000! If we didn’t save like this, how could we ever afford a house?”
Wang Ruohai waved his hands, “Enough, enough, I don’t want to argue with you! If you had agreed to let our families help, would we have had to live like this?”
Qian Fei looked at him incredulously: “Wang Ruohai, you know very well that the money in my family belongs to my stepmother. She’s only been married to my father for a little over a year! How could I ask her for money?”
Wang Ruohai retorted dismissively, “So what if she’s your stepmother? So what if it’s only been a year? What’s wrong with asking for help? What’s wrong with letting her help a bit? We could pay her back later! All this talk about relying on ourselves, have you looked at how much we can do? If we can’t afford a house, does that mean we can’t live? Just for the sake of buying a house, do we have to live like we’re in the old society, drinking porridge and eating pickles? You said it yourself, this is Beijing! This is the glamorous Beijing! I don’t want to spend my whole life in Beijing just living a dim existence for the sake of a house!”
Qian Fei could no longer hold back her tears, which started falling.
“Wang Ruohai, this isn’t what you said when you were pursuing me back then!”
Wang Ruohai’s eyes also reddened: “When I was pursuing you back then, you weren’t like this either! Qian Fei, forget it. No matter what we say, it all comes down to me being too poor. In the future, find someone more capable than me, richer than me. Don’t live such a miserly life anymore!”
He spoke as if he was thinking of her best interests, then shouldered his belongings and left without looking back.
Qian Fei sat on the floor, crying uncontrollably.
She remembered a line from “A Chinese Odyssey” where Princess Iron Fan said to Joker, “When we used to watch the stars, you called me your little sweetie. Now that you have a new love, you call me Mrs. Bull.”
When he was pursuing her, he said he liked how sensible she was about not wasting money. Now that he had another woman, he started saying she was too stingy and he couldn’t live with her.
Qian Fei wiped her tears forcefully.
He thought she was poor? He told her to find a rich man. She couldn’t believe it. Was it impossible for her to make a decent life for herself in Beijing on her own?
For the past two days, Yao Jingjing had been staying at Qian Fei’s place to keep her company and cheer her up. During dinner, Qian Fei started crying while eating. Yao Jingjing stared at her puffy eyelids and rolled her eyes, “Sis, are you okay? It’s just a breakup, why are you crying non-stop? What do you do at work during the day? Do you just burst into tears like this? Haven’t you scared your colleagues?”
Qian Fei pulled out a tissue to blow her nose, “Can’t you comfort me in a normal way for once? Try losing a seven-year relationship! I’ve been with him since I was 19. For seven years, except for my dad, I didn’t know what other men were like!”
Yao Jingjing sighed, “That bastard Wang Ruohai is not a decent person! Back in college, we couldn’t tell he was this kind of guy!”
Qian Fei sobbed, “I want to know who that woman he cheated with is, and how she’s better than me!”
Yao Jingjing said, “You’re asking the right person! Who knows the companies in the CBD area better than me? I’ve figured it all out. That woman is the niece of a senior executive in their company, so she’s kind of his boss. As for how she’s better than you, three points are enough to crush you into dust: she’s richer than you, she’s richer than you, and she’s richer than you!”
Qian Fei threw her snotty tissue at Yao Jingjing’s face.
Yao Jingjing screamed, “Qian Fei, could you be any more disgusting?”
As she wiped her face irritably, she asked Qian Fei, “Feifei, what are you going to do about that apartment you and Wang Ruohai were planning to buy? Are you still going to buy it?”
Qian Fei gritted her teeth, “Yes! If I don’t buy it, I can’t justify the five years I spent living so frugally!”
She had been hard on herself for a full five years, all for the sake of paying taxes for five years so she could buy a house. She had endured those five years, but she never expected that she would push Wang Ruohai into another woman’s arms.
When her family learned about her breakup with Wang Ruohai, they were upset for several days. Later, Qian Fei’s father called her and said, “Daughter, your Aunt He and I have decided to sell the big house we’re living in now. We’ll move to a smaller place. We’re also selling the car and the garage. I don’t drive, and your Aunt He says she’s getting too old to drive safely. In a few days, we’ll transfer the money from selling these things and our savings to you. We’ve calculated, and it should be over a million yuan. You can use it to buy that apartment you liked before. If it’s not enough, you can take out a loan, and your Aunt He and I will help you pay it back. Your Aunt He says she treats you like her own daughter, so you should take the money without hesitation. Don’t think of it as spending our money. When your Aunt He and I retire, won’t we come to live with you? So this is also us buying a house for ourselves. It’s not easy for you to be alone in Beijing. You should at least have either a man or a house. Since Wang Ruohai has gone bad, don’t be sad for him anymore. Buck up and live well. You’ll find someone better in the future!”
These words made Qian Fei burst into tears again. Her mother had passed away when she was just starting her senior year in college, and her father had remarried a year and a half ago. She called her stepmother Aunt He. Aunt He had bought a house, car, and money when she married her father, so most of the family’s current assets were acquired through Aunt He. She had always felt that those things belonged to Aunt He, and she had no right to covet them, so she had never thought of relying on her family to help buy a house. But in the end, she still ended up relying on her stepmother. She felt that at her age, still causing her father and stepmother to sell their house, land, and car to worry about her, she was living quite a failure.
Half a month later, her family transferred the money to her card. Looking at the amount on her card, her nose stung as if it had been soaked in vinegar. She knew that for her sake, her father and Aunt He must have given up all their retirement savings. She vowed to pay them back every cent in the future.
In the five years since she graduated and started working, she had saved 300,000 yuan herself. She combined all this money, kept 100,000 for future renovations, and used the rest as a down payment. She then took out a loan of over a million yuan from the bank and finally exchanged it all for a bright red property ownership certificate.
Soon after, when the house was ready, she was busy with work during the day and renovations in the evenings and on weekends. For a while, she didn’t have time to continue wallowing in sorrow. After a month, although she was physically tired, her mental state was much better than before.
However, when she was moving, she found an album of photos of her and Wang Ruohai under the bed of her rented apartment. Looking at the photos in the album, she couldn’t help but have another big cry.
The house was bought in Shoucheng International on the East Third Ring Road, very close to the CBD. Originally, it was chosen for Wang Ruohai’s convenience in commuting to work in the CBD. Thinking about it now, Qian Fei felt she had lost out. Everything was always for Wang Ruohai’s consideration. She worked in the Financial Street area, and from the East Third Ring Road to Financial Street, taking Line 10 of the subway and transferring to Line 1 in the morning, she could be crushed to death at any station. But for Wang Ruohai’s sake, she had unhesitatingly chosen the house on the East Third Ring Road. But what was the use? In the end, she still ended up being the one he couldn’t stand.
She wanted to throw away that album and move into her new home with a clean slate. But after hovering her hand over the trash can about ten times, she still couldn’t bring herself to let go. In the end, she pressed the album to the very bottom of a cardboard box and brought it into her new home.
Yao Jingjing couldn’t stand her wishy-washy behavior and said, “Qian Fei, are you keeping it because you think you and Wang Ruohai might one day patch things up, and then you two will sit by the window looking at the stars and moon while flipping through this album, remembering the bitter past and savoring the sweet present?”
Qian Fei thought for a moment and said, “So you think there’s still a possibility of us getting back together?”
Just as Yao Jingjing was about to explode, Qian Fei fiercely followed up on her previous words, “If that happens, next time I’ll be the one to cheat. I’ll find a rich man and go to a hotel. I’ll make his head glow green!”
Yao Jingjing was extremely satisfied, “That’s the spirit! You’ve got ambition!”
On the first night after moving into her new home, Qian Fei couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t for any other reason than money.
She lay on the bed, calculating her finances. Although her monthly salary exceeded eight thousand, the bank loan required seven thousand three hundred, leaving her with only one thousand. No matter how she looked at it, that amount was far from enough to support herself. She couldn’t ask her family for money anymore; they had already exhausted their resources to help her secure this house. She needed to find another way to earn some money.
Rising from the bed, she paced the room, grappling with her pain as she made a difficult decision. She had to rent out part of the house; otherwise, this place would drag her down!