Old Dong didn’t even wait for the conference call to end before storming into the office, consumed by fury and out of control.

“Qi Xi! Why would you do this to me!”

He no longer cared about keeping up appearances, didn’t even seem to notice the employees in the open office area outside the door—he simply roared at Qi Xi, his eyes practically bulging with rage: “You ungrateful wretch! I was so good to you, and you turned around and forgot it all in an instant! Biting the hand that fed you!”

Yuanchen’s management had always moved swiftly and decisively. Old Dong’s current state—disheveled, furious, having clearly lost all rationality—showed he’d already received management’s findings on the investigation into him. Yuanchen must have already initiated a suspension and investigation process against him per company bylaws. Once further evidence confirmed what Qi Xi had reported, he would face not just termination, but possibly a formal reprimand and corresponding compensation claims as well.

The industry circle was small—word of something like this would spread through the entire city’s professional community.

Old Dong clearly understood the consequences too, which was why his face now showed none of its former gentility, only rage and fury.

He glared fixedly at Qi Xi. “Qi Xi, what good does this do you? Can you get more money out of it? Or did you think you could curry favor with management by reporting me like some obedient little dog, worm your way into their good graces? Let me tell you—dream on! If you drag me down and get me removed, once I’m gone, I have a pretty good idea who’ll take over as HR director—a very difficult woman to work with, who’s clearly been jealous of pretty young girls like you all along. You’ll suffer plenty once you have to work with her on all future dealings with Yuanchen!”

“And if my wife suffers any harm because of this, you’d better watch yourself!”

For the first time, Qi Xi realized just how far a person could go, how ugly they could become, when their own interests were at stake. Even now, Old Dong showed not a trace of genuine guilt or self-reproach, shifting all the blame onto everyone but himself in every sentence.

“Old Dong, I’m genuinely grateful for the care and help you gave me when I was just starting out, and I still feel that gratitude toward you to this day. But one thing is separate from another—your kindness to me doesn’t simply cancel out the wrong you did in the matter with Yu Na.”

Qi Xi felt a mix of sorrow and heartache, but also, at the same time, a growing sense of resolve: “You’re blaming your affair on Yu Na’s deliberate seduction, downplaying your own responsibility, constantly explaining it away as being drunk and momentarily confused. You’re dressing up using company funds to handle your personal affair with a lofty justification, claiming it was just another way of collecting overtime pay you were owed. And now you’re blaming your current predicament on the fact that I reported you.”

“Listen to what you just shouted at me. You said it would be my fault if something happened to your wife—but did I force you into this affair? I’m not the one who hurt your wife. The person who hurt her is you, the one who knowingly let this affair happen despite knowing the consequences. You’re the one who drove the knife into your wife’s heart with your own hands. You’re the perpetrator in this story—not me.”

If Qi Xi had initially felt a bit intimidated facing off against Old Dong, someone with far more seniority and years on her, then at this moment, she felt increasingly confident.

Yes. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

The one at fault was never the person who exposed the wrongdoing—it was always the person who committed it.

“Old Dong, I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m a lawyer, but I’m not your personal lawyer. I’m Yuanchen’s outside counsel. The people I serve are Yuanchen’s interests—Yuanchen’s interests are my interests. I did what was right according to my professional ethics.”

Qi Xi looked bravely at Old Dong, a man decades her senior, his expression still contorted with rage: “Even though you’re now threatening me and cursing me, saying my future dealings with Yuanchen will be difficult, on a personal level, I don’t hate you. I don’t wish for you to end up in a wretched state, or for bad things to happen to you.”

“I hope you do well. I hope you sincerely apologize to your wife, and accept however she chooses to handle this—whether that’s divorce or working to repair the relationship. You should reflect on your mistakes and pay the price, and truly repent. If your wife is willing to forgive you and take you back, I wish you both well. If your wife decides firmly on divorce, I won’t feel any guilt over your fate either.”

Qi Xi looked at Old Dong, saying each word deliberately: “Because in this entire story, the person who ought to feel the most guilt is you.”

With that, Qi Xi picked up her bag and straightened her spine. It was only then that she realized the man in front of her, whom she’d once admired, was actually nowhere near as formidable as she’d once imagined.

Old Dong hunched his shoulders, and even as he refused to admit any wrongdoing under Qi Xi’s accusations, guilt still flickered across his face. He didn’t even dare meet her eyes directly.

**

Qi Xi didn’t stay at Yuanchen any longer. For some reason, she felt an urgent desire to return to Rongshi, to get back to Gu Yan’s side.

On the ride back, she received a call from Yuanchen’s internal audit department, asking her a few questions about the matter with Old Dong and Yu Na. Qi Xi honestly reported back everything she knew.

Just before hanging up, though she hesitated a little, Qi Xi asked the question that had been on her mind: “Director Dong, is he… how is he? Will there be some kind of follow-up process?”

…

Ten minutes later, Qi Xi hung up the phone with a heavy heart.

She’d been told that Yu Na, realizing after the settlement talks fell apart that she wouldn’t be getting the money, had, not long after Qi Xi left, made a scene at the office with Old Dong, both sides going all-out in a desperate fight to the finish. Old Dong ended up with scratches on his face from Yu Na during the struggle, and nearly had his head hit with a stack of files. It eventually escalated to the point where the police were called, and the two sides, already deeply at odds, began accusing each other at the police station.

In the end, it wasn’t just the matter of compensation for the improper termination that got dragged into it—even Old Dong’s past abuse of his authority as HR director, arranging a job for a distant relative who didn’t meet Yuanchen’s hiring standards, came to light as well. And it turned out Yu Na had kept evidence of her own all along—she threw out everything she had documenting her past flirtation and hotel stays with Old Dong, and, in an instant transformation, tearfully claimed she’d been young and naive, taken advantage of by a middle-aged man like Old Dong who’d exploited the age gap to manipulate and groom her, casting herself entirely as the victim. She even claimed the first time they’d slept together, Old Dong had gotten her drunk and gone against her will, threatening to accuse him of rape…

In the end, it was Old Dong’s wife who stepped forward at this critical moment.

“Even though Mrs. Dong had suddenly learned all of these ugly things, and had been hit hard by it, after reviewing all the evidence on Old Dong’s phone, she was the one who first took charge and stabilized the situation. Regarding Yu Na’s accusation of rape against Old Dong, she prepared to help him jointly sue for defamation and reputational damage.”

Even now, Qi Xi still remembered the tone of quiet awe in the Yuanchen internal investigator’s voice as they discussed this: “Mrs. Dong is truly a gentle but incredibly strong woman. As furious and as devastated as she was, she still stood firm from the perspective of her children, calmly and steadily working to protect Old Dong’s dignity as their father, determined to clear his name of this baseless accusation of rape.”

Qi Xi had been curious at the time: “So does that mean Mrs. Dong plans to forgive Old Dong and take him back into the family?”

But the investigator’s answer had surprised her—

“No. Mrs. Dong said that whatever Old Dong hadn’t actually done, as the mother of their children, she would stand united with him against the outside world on that front, to protect their children’s image of their father, and to protect the environment their children would grow up in from being tainted by gossip and bullying because of this. But whatever Old Dong actually did do, he did—and she couldn’t turn a blind eye to that, couldn’t forgive it, and didn’t believe the marriage could be salvaged. So while helping clear his name of the rape accusation, she would simultaneously begin divorce proceedings against him.”

…

Qi Xi remained somewhat dazed even as the car arrived back in Rongshi.

Mrs. Dong really was a woman of both integrity and principle, and Old Dong’s once-happy marriage with her had ultimately been destroyed by his own misstep.

What a regrettable, sighing sort of tragedy.

Perhaps, in this life, what one should truly cherish most is the person right in front of them.

**

Because of the delay caused by the whole incident with Old Dong, Qi Xi missed her original train back to Rongshi and had to rebook for the next one. By the time she arrived at Rongshi’s high-speed rail station, it was nearly midnight.

Only a scattering of people remained in the station at this hour, giving it a somewhat desolate feel. The night was cold, and the wind on the platform cut straight down Qi Xi’s neck. She could only hunch her shoulders and walk alone toward the exit.

Rongshi’s train station had some age to it, and everything around her at this hour felt bleak and quiet, but Qi Xi’s heart wasn’t. She walked briskly toward the exit, because Gu Yan was there.

Gu Yan would come to pick her up.

And even before Qi Xi reached the exit, while she was still some distance away, she looked up and could already spot him.

At this late hour, there weren’t many people picking others up, mostly tired, sleepy middle-aged people bundled in thick down jackets, and Gu Yan stood out among them like a crane among chickens. He wore a dark gray coat, tall, composed, and gentle all at once, like a towering lighthouse guiding a lost ship home.

Qi Xi suddenly felt at ease.

The distress from being cursed at by Old Dong, the conflicted self-doubt she’d felt over the whole matter, the tangled mix of guilt, anxiety, and unease—all of it seemed to vanish the instant she saw Gu Yan.

Qi Xi felt like an astronaut who’d gone out on a spacewalk, and Gu Yan was her partner—no matter how dangerous or urgent the trouble she ran into out there, Gu Yan would always find a way to bring her safely back home.

Carrying this warm, secure, and joyfully happy feeling, Qi Xi walked up to Gu Yan.

She looked up at him, staring into his eyes, and said nothing.

She expected Gu Yan to pull her into a hug, but he didn’t.

The man simply unwound his own scarf and wrapped it around Qi Xi, his tone even and calm. Aside from the slightly more intimate act of tying the scarf around her, the rest of his manner was almost as proper as if they were siblings.

“Let’s go. My car’s parked on B2.”

Gu Yan seemed completely unaware of Qi Xi’s disappointment. He walked ahead of her calmly, leading the way, without even taking her hand.

Didn’t every novel say absence makes the heart grow fonder?

Something felt off to Qi Xi, and she couldn’t help but wonder about it.

Gu Yan was always so restrained and proper, always so careful about boundaries in public—but wasn’t this kind of restraint a bit too cold?

Even as she thought this, Qi Xi kept sneaking glances at Gu Yan.

By now the two of them had reached the elevator. If it hadn’t been for the three other passengers already crowding the space, Qi Xi might have suspected Gu Yan would have stood diagonally across from her, keeping as much distance as possible.

Sure, they’d agreed to avoid suspicion at the office—but did he really have to avoid it in public like this too?!

**

Gu Yan was driving a BMW 7 Series.

Qi Xi got into the car practically fuming.

Only, once she’d gotten in and buckled her seatbelt, she noticed Gu Yan, the one driving, made no move to buckle his own.

“Why aren’t you…”

Before Qi Xi could finish her question, Gu Yan leaned over toward her from the side. Because of his tall frame, Qi Xi’s entire field of vision was suddenly blocked by his body.

Before she could react, his lips had already pressed against hers. His hand cupped her face gently, exploring slowly and tenderly, then quickly, as the kiss deepened, that tenderness began to shift, turning aggressive, trailing down from her cheek. Gu Yan’s hand traced along her neck, lingering near her collarbone, then, teasingly and almost childishly, he began playing with the loose strands of hair falling by her collarbone.

Here, now, in the dim underground parking garage, Gu Yan kissed Qi Xi so deeply and thoroughly that neither of them could bear to pull away, all traces of the earlier composure and coldness at the exit and in the elevator completely gone.

Qi Xi was startled at first, but soon, matching Gu Yan’s intensity, she began kissing him back. The two of them grew more and more caught up in the moment, though the car was clearly not the right setting for this. In the end, it was Gu Yan who reluctantly pulled away first, but almost immediately, unable to help himself, he leaned back in to peck her once more.

At an extremely close distance, he stared into Qi Xi’s eyes and said, in a slightly hoarse voice, almost childishly, with a hint of a nasal tone: “Qi Xi, I missed you so much.”

That practically sounded like whining.

It would be a lie to say Qi Xi could fully withstand Gu Yan like this, but she still tried to put up a fight, still holding on to a bit of resentment from earlier: “What do you mean you missed me? When you first came to pick me up at the exit, you acted like we were just revolutionary comrades—keeping your distance, not even holding my hand, not even hugging me…”

Gu Yan couldn’t resist kissing her once more, muttering somewhat indistinctly: “There were too many people around just now.”

Qi Xi blushed a little but still tried to sound composed: “So what if there were people around? It’s not like we’re having an affair—we’re dating properly, aren’t we allowed to be seen in public? What kind of old-fashioned thinking is that…”

“It’s not old-fashioned thinking.” Gu Yan lowered his gaze, his voice turning a little embarrassed. “I didn’t dare hold your hand, didn’t dare hug you just now, only because I was afraid I’d lose control of myself.”

He said something deeply unsettling in the calmest of voices—

“I missed you so much, I was afraid I couldn’t hold back.”