Accidental Love

The fifth day of Chinese New Year was known as the Festival of Po Wu1[1]This is part of the Spring Festival and it's a little bit hard to explain. It's basically the day where the New Year Holiday ends and people's lives should return back to normal. Learn more information if you want here. After greeting the God of Wealth and sending the Ghost of Poverty away, families would make dumplings together and prepare for the upcoming year.

Zheng Shuyi's family was no exception.

In the evening, Wang Meiru was chopping dumpling stuffings in the kitchen.

The kitchen window was close to the window of Zheng Shuyi's room. She deliberately chopped really loudly, hoping Zheng Shuyi could hear her dissatisfaction.

Chop! Chop! Chop!

Wang Meiru held the handle of the knife and smashed it on the cutting board as if she was trying to release anger.

"In her twenties already and all she knows is how to sleep. What's the difference between her and a pig? The first thing she does when she comes back is sleep! I think she's digging roots into the bed!"

"And she doesn't even come out to help. So lazy. How does she even live alone in Jiang City!"

Zheng Su rolled the dumpling wrapper and replied with a smile, "Children have their own matters to deal with, we elders shouldn't worry too much about them."

"She didn't come out of you of course you don't worry about her," Wang Meirui sneered coldly, "Just look at your daughter! She better find someone to serve her all day, otherwise, she'll starve to death sooner or later."

After saying a few more words, she placed the kitchen knife down and angrily pushed open the door to Zheng Shuyi's room.

"Time to eat! Would you like an invitation!"

Zheng Shuyi stuck her head out of the quilt and let out a dull "oh".

After returning from the aquarium, she lied to her parents and said that she ate lunch already, and then shut herself into her room and fell into a deep sleep.

As for why she chose to sleep――

The words before Shi Yan hung up the phone were like a knife, cutting apart her last bit of hope.

The moment when all the strings in her brain snapped, the breakdown was only temporary.

The remaining emotions were the ones that slowly spread apart endlessly.

Zheng Shuyi didn't know what was wrong with her.

She could clearly feel how uncomfortable she felt at the moment. The shame of her lies being exposed, the self-blame of doing the wrong things, all the guilty feelings were flooding into her.

But she didn't feel the anger she felt when Yue Xingzhou betrayed her.

She couldn't even cry.

She felt like she couldn't breathe like a patient with a bad cold, like there was something sour stuffed in her chest.

She couldn't think and focus.

The only way to escape such emotions was to sleep.

She got into her bed and wrapped herself tightly in the quilt. She wouldn't feel anything after she falls asleep.

But sleeping was often the cause of a vicious circle.

Every time she woke up, she could only feel that her body was weak and yet the dull mood in her heart did not get any better.

And then she could only continue to make herself sleep.

——

But she still had to attend today's dinner. Zheng Shuyi just ate a few dumplings and then returned to her room again.

"I'll go play mahjong now," before leaving, Wnag Meiru pushed open Zheng Shuyi's door to take a look. Sure enough, she was sleeping again.

"You've been sleeping all day! Do you want to be the Goddess of Sleep?"

"I pulled an all-nighter last night to watch a drama," Zheng Shuyi's voice came out of the quilt, "Don't worry about me, I'm making up for the sleep."

"I'm too lazy to worry about you," Wang Meiru adjusted her sleeves and pretended to say casually, "I'm going to play mahjong with our principal's wife tomorrow, and then also go to her house to eat dinner. Would you want to come along? You haven't met Yu You for a while too."

"No."

After some more blabbering, Wang Meiru went out.

Originally, she didn't take Zheng Shuyi's behavior seriously. She thought that young people nowadays were like this, all they did was play on their phone on the bed.

However, on the sixth day of New Year, Zheng Shuyi slept all day again, and she started to notice that something was wrong.

On the morning of the seventh day, Zheng Shuyi didn't come out for breakfast again.

Wang Meiru walked into her room and asked, "Aren't you packing up? The high-speed rail ticket is at 3 o'clock in the afternoon."

"I don't have much stuff, I'll pack up in a bit."

Zheng Shuyi opened her eyes, sat up, and started to put on her coat.

Before she got out of bed, Wang Meiru already sat down on the bed beside her.

"Yiyi, did something happen recently?"

Wang Meiru leaned on the head of the bed, reached out her hand to straighten out her hair, and her voice suddenly became soft, "Is work not going very well? Or did you meet some other problems?"

After sleeping for two days, Zheng Shuyi's head was feeling a little heavy and her reaction wasn't really quick either.

It wasn't until the familiar smell coming from Wang Meiru's body engulfed her did she slowly come back to her senses.

However, the emotions in her heart have been piled so high that they pressed heavily on her chest, trying hard yet couldn't find a way to be released.

Zheng Shuyi leaned quietly in Wang Meiru's arms. Her nose felt sore, her throat felt stuffed, but she didn't speak.

Some emotions were no longer suitable to be revealed to her parents.

Beside her ears, Wang Meiru continued to whisper softly.

"If something's going on with your job, we can always find a solution. You can also ask your dad for help, he has met all kinds of hardships in his life."

"If you're really struggling, you can always come back home. You don't have to trap yourself in such a big city, Qingan has such a good environment too. Your dad and I can buy you a house and car, and you can still live comfortably."

"If you encounter relationship-related problems, just clench your teeth and things will pass. You're still very young, you'll meet many more people later in life, don't stress yourself out right now."

"But after you get older and have your own family and child, and when you look back at these things that you thought would be the end of the world, you'll realize that you were wrong. Bad things will always pass and good things will always come."

After a long time, Zheng Shuyi finally spoke while sobbing, "Mom, I did something wrong."

"Just let it be, who doesn't make mistakes? Just make sure to not make the same mistakes in the future."

"There is no future…"

"What do you mean? Time is hope, and there is hope for everything."

Zheng Shuyi didn't reply.

She knew that her mom wouldn't understand, in fact, she couldn't understand herself either. Why was there such a sense of emptiness in her heart?

After another long time.

"Do you feel better now?" Wang Meiru patted her on the back, "Get up after you feel better. I'll forward you the voting link of the "Most popular teacher of Qingan First High School" into your Moments. Tell your friends to vote for me."

——

When Shi Yan saw this Moments message, he was sitting in Guan Ji's office.

Guan Ji frowned as he looked at the company's real-time data monitoring.

The screen was filled with numbers going down, making Guan Ji feel waves of pain.

"The stock market is merciless, so merciless, more merciless than women."

Upon hearing this, Shi Yan put the phone face down on the table, rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, and looked out the window.

"Indeed."

And she's a very selfish one too.

——

In the evening, Zheng Shuyi returned to Jiang City. After unpacking her luggage, she immediately started to clean her house. Then, she took out all her spring clothes and washed them. In the end, she really couldn't find anything for herself to do and she was even about to take down the curtains to wash them.

But a call from Kong Nan suddenly came, asking for her to proofread a draft, which saved the curtains from being taken down.

After finishing the draft, it was already two o'clock in the morning. After everything that happened today, Zheng Shuyi quickly fell asleep.

And when dawn fell, she hung her ID around her neck and walked into her office. Work was the number one priority, emotions must step aside for now.

Today was the first day of work after the Spring Festival; most people were feeling pretty chill and didn't have much work on their hands. Therefore the first thing most people did was to exchange the special local products they brought back from their hometowns.

A girl in the team next door was holding a bunch of food and drinks. When passing by Zheng Shuyi, she asked, "Shuyi, what specialties do you guys have in Qingan? Did you bring anything back?"

After experiencing two nightmare-like days, of course, Zheng Shuyi didn't remember to bring anything back.

She looked up from the screen and said with a smile, "Qingan's specialty is beautiful women, do you want me?"

"How shameless…" The girl left a pack of tea and left.

Zheng Shuyi's smile immediately disappeared. She looked down for a while and then continued to organize her emails.

Fortunately, she was wrapped in busy work and didn't have the time to deal with her emotions.

At ten, Qin Shiyue arrived.

When Zheng Shuyi noticed her, she held her breath and kept looking at her.

Until she walked in front of her, Zheng Shuyi was inexplicably nervous for some reason and even stood up.

However, before she finished preparing what to say, Qin Shiyue already said, "Sister Shuyi, I resigned."

Zheng Shuyi's expression suddenly froze, "What?"

Qin Shiyue repeated again, "I'm here to resign."

Seeing Zheng Shuyi's sad look, Qin Shiyue felt a little sorry and touched her chin, "I'm not in good health recently and I'm going home to rest properly."

Of course, Zheng Shuyi could tell that this was just an excuse. She was taken back for a second, and then nodded, "Alright, you really should have a good rest."

"Yeah, I'll go talk to the chief editor."

Just as Qin Shiyue was about to leave, Zheng Shuyi called her back.

She turned her head around and asked, "What's the matter?"

Zheng Shuyi hesitated for a long time, not knowing what to say.

After a while, when Qin Shiyue's eyes started to arouse a little suspicion, Zheng Shuyi finally spoke, "Your uncle… Did he agree to your resignation?"

Thinking of Shi Yan, Qin Shiyue also felt like he was acting pretty strange lately as if he completely stopped caring about her. But she still wanted to make him sound good in front of Zheng Shuyi.

"Of course he agreed. My uncle is a very understanding person. After knowing that I don't feel very well, he voluntarily asked me to resign and go home."

"…"

Zheng Shuyi nodded, reached out, and hugged her, and her voice was also a little scratchy.

"Goodbye Xiao Yue, take good care of yourself and be healthy."

"We'll see each other again, it's not that big of a deal, I'll recover in no time."

Qin Shiyue thought to herself after I came back from my vacay, I'll definitely invite you to have afternoon tea together.

——

Time slowly passed, and it has been three or four days already. Everyone has already recovered from their holiday schedule and was busy working.

It didn't make any difference that Qin Shiyue was now gone from the financial team. Her desk was already piled up with all kinds of sundries unknowingly.

Zheng Shuyi had an interview every day. Often early in the morning, she would have to rush to the interview, then rush back to the company to write her draft, and then finally leave when it was late at night.

No one noticed the emotional changes she occasionally revealed; they could only feel that ever since coming back, she has been working a lot harder than before.

It was probably because the deputy editor-in-chief had just resigned and she really wanted to win that position.

On Friday morning, while Zheng Shuyi was busy dealing with work, she suddenly received a call from Qiu Fu's assistant.

Zheng Shuyi had an interview originally scheduled for next week with him, but due to Qiu Fu's change in plans, the assistant asked her if she could arrange it for today.

Zheng Shuyi still had some drafts to proofread today, but she still agreed.

After lunch, Zheng Shuyi immediately rushed to Mingyu Cloud.

The eighth to twelfth floors of the Mingyu Cloud Office Building were all for the executives. The floors were generally very spacious, with only two main offices set up on each floor, and the rest of the space was all used for meeting rooms.

So in addition to being quieter than the public office areas, there was not an overly busy atmosphere.

However, when Zheng Shuyi stood in the waiting area on the eighth floor, she felt the air around her being very heavy.

She even felt that every employee here was holding their breath and not daring to breathe.

When she came before, occasionally, there would be a female employee who would greet her with a smile. But today, everyone was minding their own business without talking to anyone else.

Zheng Shuyi's feeling was right.

It wasn't only today. Since the day work returned to normal, the employees working in these executive office areas have discovered that Shi Yan had a particularly bad temper recently. He would often scold people directly during meetings.

Even in front of some executives who were much older than him, he still didn't show any mercy and yelled towards them like everyone else.

As the employees at the bottom, no one dared to accidentally provoke him. Whenever someone was about to go talk to Shi yan, they would all be extremely careful, in fear of making even the slightest mistake.

Qin Lezhi, the CFO's most reliable secretary, seemed to be affected the most. Every time she saw Shi Yan, she would be in a complete daze. Once, when she went to a meeting with Qiu Fu, she even presented the wrong PPT.

At that time, Shi Yan didn't say anything. He just took off his glasses, placed them on the table, folded his arms, and calmly looked at Qiu Fu.

Qiu Fu's heart sank and immediately told Qin Lezhi to leave the office.

And she still hasn't returned to this day.

People were easily affected by others around them. Being in the surroundings she was in right now, Zheng Shuyi grew more and more nervous.

It was just that the reason for her nervousness was different from these employees.

Ever since she was about to come here, she had been holding a faint hope in her heart.

Perhaps, maybe, I can see Shi Yan today.

Although she didn't know why she wanted to meet him at this time, nor did she know what to say or do if she actually did run into him. All she knew was that her heart desperately wanted to see this person, making her hard to calm down.

After waiting for nearly an hour, the small LED screen in the meeting room directly in front of her finally turned off.

Immediately afterward, the door opened automatically, and a group of people in formal clothes walked out one after another.

The person in the very front was naturally Shi Yan.

Beside him were Chen Sheng and Qiu Fu.

Qiu Fu held the tablet in his hand, and Shi Yan tilted his head to listen to him.

The second Zheng Shuyi saw him, she had already subconsciously stood up. She held onto the shoulder strap of her bag tightly with both hands, but her foot refused to move forward.

Until Qiu Fu caught a glimpse of Zheng Shuyi, he paused and then whispered in Shi Yan's ear, "Miss Zheng is here."

Then, Zheng Shuyi saw Shi Yan raise his head, his gaze lightly scanning across her face, and then he looked away and didn't stop.

He walked straight past Zheng Shuyi.

As if he never knew who she was, and his expression didn't even change the slightest bit either.

All of Zheng Shuyi's throbbing stopped abruptly.

She still stared at what was in front of her in a daze, and the steps behind her were already getting further and further.

One second, two seconds, three seconds…

Not knowing how long it took, but she finally turned around slowly. The elevator at the end of the corridor had already climbed to the twelfth floor.

She stood there for a very long time. She could feel tears slowly forming in her eyes.

She walked into the corner with her head down. There, she took out her phone and opened the chat box with Shi Yan.

She typed and deleted the words over and over again. The usual her, who could write essays in the blink of an eye, couldn't even form a complete sentence anymore.

She found out, she had no excuses to say at all.

After deleting everything she wrote in the chat box, she finally typed out a single word.

"Sorry"

Other than that, there was nothing else she could say.

However, the moment she pressed the send button, the last glimmer of hope in her heart evaporated.

――A red exclamation mark appeared on the screen.

"Your message has been sent, but it was rejected by the other party."

Translator's note: Oof uh, things aren't going very well is it… I'll post Thursday's chapter tomorrow so that you guys don't have to wait that long

1[1]This is part of the Spring Festival and it's a little bit hard to explain. It's basically the day where the New Year Holiday ends and people's lives should return back to normal. Learn more information if you want here