During the Spring Festival, Yu Xiaohan couldn’t find her daughter and finally told Zong’s father.
Zong Jingzhou used thunderous means to separate them.
After that, He Dongli didn’t return to the Xu Family for five Spring Festivals.
Yu Xiaohan felt her daughter hated her—for tying her down, for using the name of mother, for years of raising her.
He Dongli spaced out for a long time before comforting her mother, “It’s not your fault. I meant breaking up with him. Of course, I don’t want to go back to the Xu Family anymore. That’s honestly how I feel.”
Even if she no longer considered the Xu Family her biological family, when her mother was sick, she couldn’t just walk away.
In the end, she decided to come back to work.
She knew Xu Maosen had paved the way for her, at least to some extent.
She rented an apartment near the hospital and occasionally visited her mother, checked in on Xu Maosen’s well-being too.
When they arrived at the antique store, Jiang Xingyuan couldn’t wait to sit on the sofa she’d been eyeing and asked He Dongli’s opinion.
Her friend crossed her arms, calm and detached, “If you like it, buy it.”
Jiang Xingyuan raised her eyebrows, “I’m asking for your opinion!!”
“I told you, if you like it.”
“Hey!”
He Dongli smiled, uncrossed her arms, walked over to her, and sat beside her, feeling and echoing, “If you like it, I’ll try to like it too.”
It was clearly a sign she didn’t like it much, but He Dongli always had a way of coaxing people into her heart.
It gave the absurd feeling that even if she didn’t care, she was so beautiful that you’d be willing to fool yourself for a while just for the vanity and joy of her coaxing you.
Jiang Xingyuan pouted in satisfaction, “Listen to you—are you secretly in love with me or something?”
“You finally noticed,” He Dongli played along with her narcissism.
The shop owner was a woman in her forties, cheerful and good at dealing with customers.
Knowing Miss Jiang was serious about buying, she specially served coffee and cake for her and her friend.
Jiang Xingyuan saw that Dongli had no complaints or criticisms and immediately told the owner to write up the bill.
They went to discuss the details of packing and home delivery.
He Dongli wandered around the store with her coffee cup.
When she stopped to examine a six-panel ebony “Birthday Blessing” screen from the late Qing dynasty, she heard an old-fashioned ringtone from behind the screen.
He Dongli glanced back.
The owner was still busy, so she circled around the screen and saw the phone on the sofa.
A BlackBerry—if she remembered the model correctly, it was a 9000.
…It was the same model Zong Chi had used for years.
When they transferred to the affiliated high school together, he even wanted to give her this phone as compensation.
She ignored him.
She couldn’t recall exactly how they’d started arguing, only that he offered too much money, so she went to return it.
In the end, he made some cryptic, sarcastic comment, and He Dongli just took a hundred yuan and left.
Honestly, she was mad about it for a long time.
She even comforted herself, “Just think of it as being bitten by a dog.”
Not long after, the Chinese teacher had students swap and grade each other’s essays, even giving scores.
He Dongli gave Zong Chi’s essay a merciless failing grade, commenting that it was too much like a diary, with no organization, emotion, or imagery.
The teacher thought her comments were fair and asked her to privately tutor Zong Chi as part of the school’s “one helps one” tradition.
To prove his writing was true to life, Zong Chi even took photos with his phone of the two Purple Rose Gardens at their house in full bloom.
“So one is the Purple Rose Garden, and the other is also the Purple Rose Garden—what’s wrong with that?”
He Dongli retorted, “Nothing, except you’re not Lu Xun.”
o prove her grading was objective and not payback for the phone incident, she even complimented their Purple Roses—“very pretty.”
Zong Chi got so mad he nearly exploded, then immediately calmed down.
He Dongli looked up at him.
He paused, then called her “a little clay figurine that ran out of the Ruins of the Museum.”
The phone belonged to the antique shop owner.
After He Dongli reminded her, the owner came over to answer, but the call had already ended.
Jiang Xingyuan finished paying and came over just as Dongli was chatting with the owner.
The owner said she had a friend who loved collecting classic phones from various brands and happened to need a spare for calls—this one was just right.
Dongli finished her coffee and, a little wistfully, praised, “A phone over a decade old and still working. Looking back, it’s still really pretty. I liked it the first time I saw it, but back then I wasn’t even a poor student—I was just a poor kid.”
To flatter Miss Jiang, the owner said she’d give the phone to Miss Jiang’s friend.
He Dongli realized the owner misunderstood her and quickly waved her hands.
Jiang Xingyuan, on the other hand, was all for making it happen—after all, it wasn’t expensive.
She said, “It’s rare to see Dr. He so honest about what she wants, so I’ll buy it for her, to make up for little Dongli back then.”
He Dongli blamed her for being mischievous.
Three women together make a play, and the phone truly changed hands.
Even when they left for lunch, He Dongli was still holding the 9000, complaining that Jiang Xingyuan was always so spontaneous.
Jiang Xingyuan flipped through the menu, triumphant, “Otherwise, how could I trick you into buying me lunch?”
Treating her was He Dongli’s idea.
Halfway through the meal, after much hesitation, she finally said, “I lost the Pearl Earrings you gave me…”
Jiang Xingyuan responded with an “Mm?” and was about to ask what happened when her phone rang.
She signaled she needed to take the call.
With her friend gone for seven or eight minutes, He Dongli’s mind wandered.
She wanted to talk to her friend, to say there was nothing shameful about it, to talk about her experience last night, about people she hadn’t seen in years suddenly showing up, about how she’d nearly forgotten him but realized after last night that it wasn’t so.
She wanted to talk about her insomnia, about why she liked this phone, about how Zong Chi’s appearance made her feel, inexplicably, that it was related to her, about how this person occupied so much of her youth that even her threshold for sweetness, bitterness, and pain had been invisibly raised.
So much so that, for a long, long time, everyone else seemed bland and flavorless to her.
In short, she needed to talk to her friend; otherwise, maybe, just maybe, she was imagining it all.
She needed her friend to splash some cold water on her.
He Dongli stroked the 9000 in her hand.
When Jiang Xingyuan came back, she was just about to say the pearls were lost because of Zong Chi…
But Jiang Xingyuan interrupted her, plopped down excitedly, phone in hand, and showed her the latest economic news from the Municipal Official Weibo: “Jiada, the daily chemical giant, may be changing hands.”
The subheading read: “Jia Yin’s founder, philanthropist, and overseas Chinese Zong Jingzhou’s only son, arrives in S City for the group acquisition meeting.”
“Hey, hey, hey, am I seeing this right? That’s our famous Zong Chi from No. 1 High School, isn’t it? Zong Jingzhou only has one son, right? Wow, if it’s posted by the official account, it must be true.”
“He Dongli, as his ex-girlfriend, you have to help me with this acquisition story. I want to get an exclusive interview with him!”
He Dongli didn’t say anything, and her friend hadn’t splashed any cold water on her either.
For a moment, it was just like those lunchtime naps back in school—falling asleep quickly and waking up just as fast.
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