Beijing Time, August 28, Year 25, 15:54
The next day, during lunch break, He Dongli messaged Jiang Xingyuan, bluntly saying that her attempt to arrange an exclusive meeting probably wouldn’t work out.
Jiang Xingyuan quickly replied: Oh. It’s okay. I’ll try to find another way.
Not long after, she asked Dongli again: Wait, you really contacted him for me, and he still refused? Damn that ex-boyfriend.
He Dongli, annoyed by slow typing, switched to voice input: “Sort of. I pushed you to him, but…well, in the end, we didn’t come to an agreement. Knowing his temper, it’s unlikely he’ll just stick to the facts.”
After sending the message, He Dongli added a second one: “If he does just stick to the facts, just ignore it and deal directly with his secretary.”
That evening, Jiang Xingyuan came over to He Dongli’s place to stay.
The Jiang family ran a restaurant, and their aunt was a great cook, but nothing was quite as comforting as a home-cooked meal.
Whenever He Dongli’s mother brought her food, Dongli would always call Jiang Xingyuan over to share, and over time, Jiang Xingyuan started cooking some dishes herself.
Braised beef ribs, chicken soup, Three Cup Chicken, sea bass stew—her skills and the well-organized side dishes made Jiang Xingyuan think that if He Dongli hadn’t gone into the grueling medical field, she could have become an excellent chef.
She was also good at organizing and displaying things; anything under the electric light or around the sink, there was nothing she couldn’t handle.
But there were mishaps too.
One night, He Dongli got off work late.
Jiang Xingyuan had brought sea bass from her family’s restaurant, prepped and ready, and placed it on the stove in a clay pot to simmer.
What He Dongli feared most finally happened.
During the final stage of cooking when the fire was high to reduce the sauce, the clay pot exploded.
He Dongli, hair tied up in a ponytail with a shark clip, panicked as Jiang Xingyuan ran around in alarm, quickly turning off the heat and moving the pot onto a stainless steel tray nearby that held side dishes.
In the end, they just gave up on perfection and ate a bare-bones version of sea bass stew.
While picking up a piece of fish, Jiang Xingyuan continued their earlier conversation that had been cut short by the pot mishap—more precisely, her relentless barrage of questions: “So, when he came to you, he misunderstood that the smoke was Zou Yan’s?”
“Yeah. Maybe more than that,” He Dongli said, carefully picking fish bones like a surgeon afraid of stabbing a patient’s stomach.
Jiang Xingyuan smirked and immediately caught on: “So that’s why he got defensive, thinking you’d been with Zou Yan.”
He Dongli chewed on a piece of fish and felt the pickled chili was a bit too spicy, making her cough.
“You could be a bit more tactful.”
“Would tactfulness change the fact that you two were fighting?”
“We weren’t fighting.”
“Exactly, then you should just ask him. Who I hang out with is none of your business!”
He Dongli fell silent.
The truth was, she had said that.
But Jiang Xingyuan didn’t understand Zong Chi—he was not someone who knew when to back down.
If you challenged him, he would retaliate twice as hard.
Saying it was none of his business would only make him more rebellious.
So he could easily say he wasn’t done with Zou Yan.
Jiang Xingyuan found it amusing, enjoying the drama: “Obviously, Zou Yan can’t win against Mr. Zong. Mr. Zong has such influence everywhere; he’s surrounded by overbearing bodyguards. One’s a scholar, the other’s a soldier.”
He Dongli didn’t want to think about it anymore.
She just felt a bit guilty for Zou Yan, who had unknowingly taken the blame.
She even felt awkward bringing it up with him but also thought—if Zong Chi really went crazy, Zou Yan was no match.
Refined or not, Zou Yan wouldn’t win against Zong Chi.
While washing the dishes, Jiang Xingyuan noticed a camellia plant in He Dongli’s room.
After asking, she learned the whole story.
“Hey, didn’t Zong Chi come back just to see you? Otherwise, how could it be such a coincidence?”
He Dongli admitted she had thought about that, but objectively, all signs pointed to them being incompatible.
Jiang Xingyuan played judge: “Men are all the same. If you have suitors, they’ll get possessive; their territorial instincts only get stronger. If you keep other men’s things or even stay over at their place, that’s a whole different story.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I don’t know him, but I know you.”
Jiang Xingyuan was puzzled.
Dongli was usually decisive with how she dealt with men.
Even under bureaucratic pressure for blind dates, she maintained a clear stance—she would attend but only to save face.
Her work and ability never required sacrificing her personal charm or emotions.
Yet, such a straightforward person, faced with such a confusing misunderstanding, chose not to clarify.
The reason for not clarifying, of course, was that the cost of clarification was too high.
Jiang Xingyuan called out her friend: “You’re afraid he’ll find out you smoke because of him.”
He Dongli said nothing.
She couldn’t tell her friend that she didn’t dare admit it because Zong Chi would definitely pressure her, asking why she broke her own rules.
Just that alone would trap her, and that madman Zong Chi would surely do something uncontrollable.
If she knew him at all.
After cleaning the kitchen and drying her hands with a paper towel, He Dongli’s face was unreadable.
“I just want to know what it feels like to know something’s harmful but still refuse to listen.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“Probably like that calm madness of knowing you’re going to die anyway, so why bother living.”
Jiang Xingyuan laughed, thinking of their school days when the teacher would drag out class and He Dongli would blatantly slip out the back door like a lone wolf.
Only with He Dongli did she sometimes catch a glimpse of the nerdy beauty’s secret sexiness, the kind her circle liked to joke about.
After all, the fierce Mr. Zong never managed to win an argument against He Dongli back then.
Even today, Jiang Xingyuan wasn’t shy about telling Dongli: “Honestly, a lot of girls were jealous of you in school, including me.”
“How exactly did you manage to get Zong Chi?”
Jiang Xingyuan never believed a bookworm could win over such a sharp-tongued, flashy young master.
By now, there was no need to keep secrets.
In the second semester of sophomore year, on Christmas Eve, Zong Chi confided his family troubles to He Dongli for the first time.
But just days later, on New Year’s performance day, rumors about Zong Chi spread at school—that his parents’ marriage was illegitimate, that he was basically a bastard.
His mother was twelve years younger than his father.
He had come to Yizhong because he’d been expelled from his previous school for fighting…
When He Dongli was confused and about to find Zong Chi, he beat her to it.
That night, he asked, “Have you told anyone what I said?”
He Dongli shook her head; she hadn’t told a soul.
Zong Chi, acting on impulse, interpreted He Dongli’s cold and distant attitude when she left on Christmas Eve as disdain and even took it as a judgment on his parents’ marriage.
He Dongli defended herself: she didn’t disdain him, and no matter how much she disapproved, she wouldn’t enjoy spreading others’ family affairs.
But what Zong Chi heard was that she did disdain him.
He sneered, trying to clear his name: “My parents’ marriage isn’t illegitimate. My dad’s first marriage was arranged, ended amicably. My parents came together after that. My mom didn’t interfere with anyone’s marriage, and my dad legally married my mom. What’s immoral or illegitimate about that? Being legally married is hardly less proper than not marrying at all.”
He finished his passionate defense, chest rising and falling—his anger was obvious and intense.
He Dongli paused, finally connecting the dots to his repeated mention of “not married” and “illegitimate.”
On the corridor bridge, she remained silent.
The wind blew like a drum, and suddenly Zong Chi reached out, aware he’d misspoken.
“Sorry—”
He Dongli took a step back.
When he tried to say more, she didn’t want to hear it.
She didn’t defend herself but told him, “I’m not that cruel or jealous. Whether your parents are loving or openly respectable doesn’t make me jealous of you…”
“Is that what you mean?”
“Aren’t you?”
“He Dongli, I’ve only told you my family matters.”
“I wasn’t particularly interested.”
“You said it, and I listened. And now that’s your reason to doubt me.”
“I don’t doubt you!”
“Then why come running over with a whole speech? To prove your parents are legitimate or someone else’s aren’t?”
“…”
Zong Chi was speechless.
He stared at He Dongli a few times, then turned and walked away.
A few steps later, he turned back, wanting to say something but swallowed it.
Finally, he left only this: “He Dongli, from the first time we met, you never looked up to me. You know it yourself. Never.”
That night, He Dongli missed her bus stop on the way home.
She got off and walked back, looking up at the night sky as a passing night flight’s lights flickered and darted like dragons.
She thought maybe someone was up there, looking down through a porthole window—how tiny she must seem by comparison.
Zong Chi had planned to visit his parents before spring break.
Not long after the Lunar New Year, he competed in the provincial swimming competition, not exactly failing but only winning a silver medal.
The school publicly recognized him for this.
Yet, inexplicably, Zong Chi went to the display case and personally tore down his Red List.
When his father’s secretary came to the school to process his withdrawal, no one could find him.
He Dongli snuck through the broken fence at the back of the school swimming pool and found Zong Chi inside the dark, closed pool.
The place was gloomy, but still stifling—enough to cause oxygen deprivation in the brain.
He Dongli’s senses still remembered that day—the disinfectant smell and the splash of Zong Chi’s arms and legs cutting through the water.
He swam four laps freestyle without breaking the surface once.
He Dongli walked forward and finally stopped on a non-slip tile patch next to the coach’s lounge, where the starting gun used in their training was placed—connected to a speaker system.
When she pulled the trigger, she thought it wasn’t powered.
She couldn’t explain why she did it at that moment—whether it was rebelliousness, boredom, or curiosity.
It reminded her of a time as a child when she was tired of school, feigning illness with eczema, promising her parents no sweets until it healed.
But she secretly ate a piece or two every day when her parents were at work, just to delay going back to school.
One afternoon, she accidentally noticed the red light on her father’s DV camera was on.
She didn’t escape her parents’ scolding—they didn’t understand why their usually top-performing daughter suddenly hated school.
In the end, she returned to school unburdened and still ranked first on the mock exam after a week off.
But her sweet tooth never faded—it was her simplest act of rebellion.
The trigger clicked, and in a flash, the solemn “Take your marks” command rang out, immediately followed by the starting gunshot, flying like an arrow that couldn’t turn back.
The swimmer burst through the water, removed his goggles, wiped his face, and looked at the person on the shore without saying a word.
The pool was quiet but stifling, suffocating.
He Dongli quietly returned the starting gun to its place and called to the swimmer in a calm voice, telling him his father’s secretary was looking for him.
Zong Chi ignored her.
He Dongli stood alone for no more than three minutes before turning to leave.
After a moment, she heard splashing.
She looked back to see Zong Chi moving to switch on the pool lights, one by one, row after row, flickering on like a forest breaking through bamboo until every corner was as bright as day.
He took off his swim cap, shook his hair and water from his face, splashing some onto He Dongli’s face and even into her mouth.
She pouted, feeling wronged, while he remained oblivious.
He walked over to his luggage; his slippers and towel lay on top of his bag.
He wiped himself with the towel, tried to put on his slippers, but had one on the wrong foot.
Frustrated, he took them off and kicked both slippers into the pool.
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