Tang Yi and Gu Yanting finally tossed it to the point where there was no trace of grace left. Tang Yi firmly occupied the moral high ground and no matter which way you looked at it, he was the one who suffered more and was more aggrieved. Fat Sod didn’t know what was going on, but he had a vague feeling that the one who was more upset was Gu Yanting.

Gu Yanting successfully contacted his cousin, a very distant relative of Mom Gu, who only remembered who Gu Yanting was after he repeatedly introduced himself three or four times. Gu Yanting’s voice was very low from start to finish and he spoke extremely slowly. When the cousin made a sound similar to a sneer, Gu Yanting’s tone remained flat and unruffled.

He was so determined to leave that the rest of the conversation became one-sided, no matter how harsh the terms offered by the other party were. Fat Sod noticed something was wrong and wanted to persuade him, but when Gu Yanting hung up the phone, Fat Sod couldn’t make himself say anything.

Because after Gu Yanting hung up the phone, he lowered his head and slowly opened his phone’s address book. Fat Sod could see the slightest change of expression on his face as he flipped to a certain name. Following his line of sight, Fat Sod saw Gu Yanting’s trembling finger land on the words “Tang Yi”.

Fat Sod guessed his intention; nothing more than a touch of his thumb, just click to delete. But whenever he wanted to touch the word “delete”, Gu Yanting couldn’t help but withdraw his hand and rub the name repeatedly. This incident took almost a full hour.

Neither of them had dinner, and their hungry stomachs were growling. Fat Sod couldn’t continue to stay here anymore. There were regulations on the visiting hours of the hospital, but Gu Yanting’s current appearance was really not reassuring.

He dawdled for a while, then stood up, scratched his head and said, “Boss, I’ll go first.”

Gu Yanting pressed down his thumb at that moment. He froze and then turned his head to look at Fat Sod.

“Thank you, Fatty.” Gu Yanting said, “Take care.”

Fat Sod tsked in amazement, “Hey, why so serious, I’m supposed to come over tomorrow to help you get out of the hospital! Why are you so fragile after just having your stomach pumped? Should I stay with you?”

Gu Yanting waved his hand and said nothing more, signalling him to go home quickly.

Zhou Hao’s courting came as promised. Shen Fan had to go back to the head office after the Mid-Autumn Festival, and when he was leaving, he gave Tang Yi a thousand instructions, willing to put a personal bodyguard next to him if he were allowed to.

The results of the DNA test came out and were as he had expected. In fact, Shen Fan had done a lot of research and was already 70% certain about this matter. Tang Yi didn’t care much about the result, but the one who was most anxious was Mom Shen.

She carefully wrapped a pure gold hairpin left behind by her sister-in-law and had it sent over to Tang Yi, and at the same time called Shen Fan aside and whispered a few instructions.

“Fanfan, your uncle’s family treated us well back then, now your uncle’s whereabouts are unknown and Tang Yi has suffered so much. We can’t just do nothing.”

Shen Fan asked her with a sigh, “Mom, what do you mean?”

Mom Shen smiled and said, “What foresight can I have as a woman? I’m just reminding you what they say about brothers in war, fathers and sons in battle (should work together in unity). The father of yours is not reliable, and now that you have a younger brother, it’s good for you and good for him to support each other.”

Shen Fan was silent for a while and replied, “I know what you mean, but it is not the right time yet.”

Tang Yi went to see off Shen Fan when he left, and the relationship between the two of them obviously went one step further. Shen Fan said many things restlessly but finally returned to Zhou Hao’s topic. To his surprise, Tang Yi was amazingly cooperative when he mentioned all sorts of things about Zhou Hao, even agreeing when Shen Fan suggested not to say yes too quickly but to investigate more first.

In fact, Shen Fan’s fears were a little premature, as Zhou Hao was even busier than he was. He spent most of his time in C City and could barely find time to come to T City once or twice a week to look for Tang Yi, which was already the limit. Zhou Hao was not in a hurry to pursue him, he was steady and firm, and it took a few conversations between them to move from Tang Yi’s primary school life to the middle school mock exams.

But even so, Zhou Hao still managed to get one step closer.

It was a weekend evening, and after a dinner party in C City Zhou Hao sent his secretary to book the last flight to T City. Tang Yi had just finished reading this week’s project report and was ready to go to bed when at midnight he received a call from Zhou Hao.

The whistling sound of the wind could vaguely be heard on the other side of the line as Zhou Hao asked in a low voice, “What is Manager Tang busy with?”

Tang Yi closed the project book in his hand and replied with the same seriousness, “Reporting to the leader, I’m reading the project report.”

Zhou Hao let out an “oh” and suddenly said, “It’s so hard, how about I keep you?”

Tang Yi was taken aback by this cold and corny remark, a little wanting to be happy but feeling strange, so he asked, “What’s happened?”

Zhou Hao paused and said, “I heard that you had a little argument with Lin Rui at the meeting today. Based on your ability, to do your current job is a pity, so why don’t I poach you away?” His low voice was laced with laughter, “Or I could keep you. Anyway, I don’t want you to be bullied by others.”

To call it bullying was actually a bit too much. Lin Rui had indeed given Tang Yi quite a few stumbling blocks these days. But Shen Fan had said that the T City branch and Lin Rui’s stepfather were about to cooperate, so Tang Yi turned a blind eye to it and didn’t take it to heart. Today’s argument was mainly over the key person in the procurement of a new project. Lin Rui was not being unreasonable but put forward his ideas in a sensible manner. Tang Yi previously thought that Lin Rui was an uneducated and flamboyant boy, but this argument had changed his opinion of the latter a little.

Presumably Shen Fan was thinking the same thing. Lin Rui was naturally not as capable as Tang Yi, but his perspective and solutions to problems were always unique. Meritocracy in the upper echelons was instinctive, and Shen Fan was afraid of making Tang Yi unhappy if he talked about abilities, so he attributed everything to Lin Rui’s stepfather.

However, Zhou Hao didn’t care about this. He had heard about the words used by Lin Rui at the meeting, which included derogatory terms such as “arbitrary” and “dictatorial”, and even mentioning a certain name that made Tang Yi turn pale at the meeting.

So he waited for Tang Yi to finish his explanation, but still gave a faint “oh”, “Since Lin Rui is so powerful, why don’t we transfer him to the headquarters to show off his abilities?”

Tang Yi paused for a moment, unable to figure out what Zhou Hao was thinking for a moment, and then he heard the man say, “Aren’t you going to ask me where I am?”

“Where?”

“Downstairs.” Zhou Hao sighed, “Come down, I’ll take a look at you and leave.”

Zhou Hao ended up going to the hotel, and the next day was Monday, so he took the earliest flight back to C City again.

Tang Yi really only went down for a short while. There was only one bed in his apartment, and the sofa was just 1.2m long, so he couldn’t conveniently invite Zhou Hao up for the night, much less follow the latter to the hotel. So the two of them walked around the neighbourhood for a while, talked about work matters, and went to send each other off twice before waving goodbye.

The next day was Monday. While Zhou Hao went back to C City, Tang Yi slept late and when he arrived at the office, he received breakfast from the hotel where Zhou Hao was staying. He put the finely boiled lean pork porridge on his desk and before it could cool down, he heard about Lin Rui’s transfer order.

Tang Yi had no choice but to call Zhou Hao. When the latter picked it up, Tang Yi could still hear the voice of the secretary next to him reporting the itinerary. But the respectful background sound quickly disappeared, and only Zhou Hao’s voice in the microphone greeted him with a smile.

“Mr. Zhou, don’t do this,” Tang Yi said after a moment’s hesitation, “I’m under pressure like this. I can handle the work stuff. Aren’t you being a bit too nice to me now? I really don’t know how to respond or repay you.”

“This,” Zhou Hao sighed softly, “is making it difficult for you?”

Tang Yi said, “A little.”

“Actually it’s easy,” Zhou Hao explained solemnly, “you don’t have to repay me. I’d particularly like to come and see your apartment. Can I come up next time?” He smiled, “It’s really quite windy downstairs at your place.”

Tang Yi knew he was changing the subject, but after he looked at the still-hot porridge for a long time, the words in his mouth dried up and flattened, leaving only one word: “Yes.”

More than once, Tang Yi had thought about what happiness was. Over the years, he had experienced a lot, but every time he tried to sum it up, he felt he lacked the words. Zhou Hao’s actions did make him feel warm and fuzzy, but when he thought about it, it was hard for him to outline a scene where he and Zhou Hao lived together, with tea, rice, oil and salt.

That feeling of happiness that wanted to overflow did exist. During the days when he and Gu Yanting shared their small home, he would feel overwhelmed with sweetness whenever the man he waved goodbye to in the morning came back safe and sound at night, with the same light on at the door and the same pair of shoes at the entrance.

He also wanted to ask Gu Yanting more than once: what’s wrong with me that could make you say something like that?

—

Tang Yi learned that Gu Yanting had resigned half a month later. Since they broke up unhappily in the local restaurant that day, Gu Yanting had finally remained completely quiet. The three characters of his name in the phone never lit up again, and even Fat Sod never came over to make a noise.

This peace that might have taken a long time to come for Tang Yi was reported in advance, and while Tang Yi felt relaxed, he couldn’t help but be annoyed at the same time.

No one knew better than him how lethal the words he said to Gu Yanting that day were. When he had first read that email, it was as if he had been struck by lightning. At that time, the idea that was stronger than breaking up was to raise a knife and slash that dog man.

In fact, if the law allowed it, it was hard to guarantee that he wouldn’t have done that. So that day when he returned that passage to Gu Yanting intact, he stared coldly and wickedly into the latter’s eyes for a long time.

It was a pity that the result didn’t satisfy him. In Gu Yanting’s deep, dark eyes, apart from the shock, there was no anger. What Tang Yi saw there was the heavy sorrow of the world that came crashing down.

Gu Yanting resigned from his job at the design company. His September salary had not been settled, and the project he had taken over, for which he could have received a substantial bonus, had also been thrown behind. The person who called was Tang Yi’s senior, whom Tang Yi had asked to get Gu Yanting into the company in the first place.

When the senior called, he was embarrassed, “In fact, Xiao Gu did a good job in Hangzhou this time. The manager gave him a difficult client, I didn’t expect him to really cope with it. I’m not saying I didn’t take care of him before, but this is how this business works, experience is essential and needs to be accumulated, otherwise you’ll be pushed out and the client won’t recognise you, right?”

Tang Yi heard the implication in the other party’s words, and then it occurred to him that Gu Yanting’s job might not be all that good as he had said. Tang Yi had asked someone to get him in, thinking that his inexperienced personality would be safe and he would be taken care of. But now it seemed that he had entrusted Gu Yanting to the wrong person.

After expressing his grievances, the senior started asking about Gu Yanting, “Tang Yi, ah, you’re so close to him, right? Do you know why he resigned? How about helping your senior persuade him? The salary and bonuses are all negotiable, and the company is planning to train him to the fullest this year. If he goes to another company, he will have to start from scratch. Other companies are just painting a pretty picture, inflating the salary package several times.” The senior thought Gu Yanting had jumped ship to another company and was still gushing, “You tell him…”

“I can’t talk to him.” Tang Yi interrupted the man and said, “Gu Yanting and I haven’t been in touch for a long time. I didn’t know about his resignation until you told me.”

The senior let out an “ah”, and the next second Tang Yi cut off the call.

However, the exact news eventually came through; Gu Yanting had left with his cousin.

Before leaving, it was his birthday. Lin Rui helped him throw a birthday party, but less than half of the friends he had invited came. Perhaps Lin Rui didn’t notify them well, or Gu Yanting’s popularity was poor. The sparse banquet ended halfway, and Gu Yanting didn’t say a word from beginning to end.

Tang Yi thought about it for a while, and then remembered that the day they met in the local restaurant happened to be the eve of Gu Yanting’s birthday. Gu Yanting’s birthday and the Mid-Autumn Festival were too close to each other, so when they had the chance in the past, the two of them celebrated together at Gu’s house. Last year, Tang Yi would at least think about buying a gift, but this year, with so many things going on, he completely forgot about it.

The person who told him this was Fat Sod. Fat Sod had lost all contact with Gu Yanting after Gu Yanting left.

The two of them had been friends for three years after being classmates at the university for four years, and Gu Yanting was honest and sincere. Fat Sod was very worried when he left without saying a word. He didn’t expect Gu Yanting to do something so desperate as cutting off all his contact information. He was so anxious about this at first that he jumped up and down, asking everyone but Tang Yi.

It was inevitable that there was an element of anger in it, but when he met Tang Yi by chance on the road, he couldn’t help but approach.

When he was leaving, he took a look at Tang Yi’s calm face and said, “Sister-in-law, can’t you two really get along? Is there any way on earth you can forgive Boss?”

Tang Yi frowned, obviously not wanting to answer.

Fat Sod felt that he had done something wrong, but when he turned away, he heard Tang Yi’s low sigh, “Fatty, there’s no such thing as forgiveness.”

Translator’s note: Well, this chapter kinda ends the part describing the break-up itself. If you want a story of a break-up with BE, you probably can stop here. I think I should outline a little bit what will wait for you next so that you can decide whether you want to go on 🙂 I extremely love this story and feel kinda protective about it, and it makes my teeth ache to read reviews that complain that it was not what people expected it to be. Anyway, as I said in the beginning, it’s really a low-key story. There are no over the top passions, no insane showdowns. It’s sad and joyful in a powerful but restrained way. Anyway, Chapters 25-27 will briefly deal with the next two years, with some career matters of Tang Yi and some of his romancing with Zhou Hao. Gu Yanting will reappear in the end of Chapter 27. After that, in Chapter 27-37 there is some moderate interaction between Tang Yi and Gu Yanting and also business matters that feel a bit like fillers BUT ARE NOT fillers. End of Chapter 37 starts a big career crisis for Tang Yi, and he and Gu Yanting will start figuring out their relationship. While I really love almost every scene of this story (apart from some scenes with Zhou Hao, I don’t like Zhou Hao), I can imagine that the readers who are not very invested in the story would be a bit bored with this middle part. So, please be warned and don’t say you weren’t 🙂

Previous / ToC / Next