Ji Feng told Jiang Zhechun not to bother looking for the cat anymore. Without further delay, he took Xue Rui out for meetings. He left his driver for Jiang Zhechun’s use and drove one of the other cars from the hotel parking garage.
Today Xue Rui would be driving the car Ji Feng was in.
On the road, Ji Feng silently gazed outside, seeming lost in thought, or avoiding certain thoughts. At a red light when the car halted at the line, Ji Feng spoke up.
“What do you think of Miss Jiang?”
A straightforward question.
His calm tone made the question itself seem like the asker wasn’t too concerned with the answer, just casually asking.
Xue Rui thought, how to describe this Miss Jiang?
At first sight, he felt Miss Jiang was perfect everywhere – looks, family background, speech, manners. Of all the people he’d seen, she best matched Ji Feng’s criteria.
But for some reason now, whenever Miss Jiang came, he would feel stifled.
How to describe that suffocating feeling?
For instance when Xiao Mi Yu came upstairs, he could chat with her very relaxed and casually. Everyone was harmonious and happy together.
But this Miss Jiang, although she also seemed harmonious, it was a harmony she bestowed.
And the harmony she as Miss Jiang could bestow, he couldn’t actually receive. If she acted harmonious with him once, he couldn’t actually think they could get along harmoniously from then on. He had to recognize his own status and position – she was even more his superior than Ji Feng.
Xue Rui glanced at Ji Feng in the rearview mirror, observing his expression to judge an appropriate response.
Ji Feng also caught this glance and the intention behind it. He immediately spoke heavily: “If even you can’t speak freely and candidly with me, and have to ponder my preferences, refine and weigh your words before answering my question, then will I ever hear a sentence of truth in this world?”
Although it was admonishment, Xue Rui felt fired up hearing it. He perversely pried out his unique value from the rebuke.
He decided to forgo prudent weighing and give his true feelings.
“Miss Jiang – there’s nothing to pick on in her looks or family background. I heard she already held worldwide tours at her young age, so her ability is also outstanding.” He paused, then started transitioning: “But sometimes she may give people some information discrepancies.”
Ji Feng’s eyes flicked up as he asked: “What information discrepancies?”
The red light ended and green lit up. Xue Rui steadily drove the car forward.
After crossing the intersection, he answered Ji Feng: “Earlier I was gossiping about the hotel situation with the gossip squad. Xiao Yan from the front desk told me that old granny wasn’t brought in by Miss Jiang’s request that day. It was because Mi Yu saw the old lady collapse outside the hotel and decisively had people help bring her in.”
After speaking, he snuck a peek in the rearview mirror, hoping Ji Feng wouldn’t think he was being catty.
“You sure have a way with words, calling this an information discrepancy.” Ji Feng sneered mockingly. “Tell it plainly, what exactly is this called?”
Xue Rui looked back again in the mirror at Ji Feng. After meeting that piercing, lie-detector gaze, he chose to tell the truth: “It’s called playing coy.”
After speaking, he saw Ji Feng remained silent, turning to look out the window.
It was a long while later before he suddenly spoke a sentence without any lead-in or context.
“She sure can keep it bottled up, not explaining anything.”
As Ji Feng spoke, he thought again of Xiao Mi Yu’s two different sides.
“Huh?” Xue Rui asked, confused: “Boss, who are you talking about, Miss Jiang?”
Ji Feng’s gaze swiveled back as he looked at Xue Rui in the mirror and asked: “What do you think about today’s matter?”
Xue Rui pondered before answering: “How to put today’s matter? Miss Jiang sometimes is probably…rather naive. Mm…naive to the point of not comprehending the sufferings of the world. For instance, today absolutely insisting on giving that poor granny a plush cat. She meant well, but for the cat, for the granny, they would become each other’s unfortunate burdens – the granny can’t afford it, the kitten would suffer.
Xue Rui snuck another peek in the rearview mirror and saw Ji Feng listening closely. He continued:
“I think it’s probably because she comes from a good family herself and never lacks money. The people she interacts and socializes with are also all equally rich people. She’s always lived in circles like this, so she feels the entire nation’s people are roughly quite wealthy. This does have a somewhat ‘let them eat cake’ sense about it.”
After he finished speaking, Ji Feng didn’t respond.
Xue Rui hurriedly observed Ji Feng’s expression in the mirror. But that handsome face revealed nothing beyond its usual coolness, giving no hint of any pleasure or anger.
Xue Rui grew apprehensive, inwardly blaming himself for being unable to resist shooting off at the mouth and really telling it all.
He really couldn’t keep his mouth shut!
The upper crust marrying the upper crust, what was wrong with ‘let them eat cake’? ‘Let them eat cake’ precisely showed the child hadn’t suffered or been tainted, but was pure and noble. Wasn’t this a perfect match for Ji Feng’s premium partner criteria?
After berating himself, Xue Rui carefully kept his mouth shut for the latter half of the drive.
Right as they arrived at the destination and were about to get out of the car, Ji Feng suddenly spoke, instructing him:
“Later, send an edited message in my name to Miss Jiang saying with the New Year approaching, I’m very busy with many matters. Tell her not to come to the hotel anymore starting tomorrow. Also say I’m a dull man who only attends meetings, so it’s better she finds someone more interesting to spend time with.”
Xue Rui promptly answered: “Okay!”
He knew Ji Feng was conveying to Miss Jiang in a face-saving way: they were unsuitable.
As time steadily approached the new year, the front desk department made a holiday shift schedule. Lu Xiao Yan was arranged for the night shift on New Year’s Eve.
The moment she got the schedule, her face seemed struck by lightning, like it could drip two pounds of bitter water. She begged people everywhere to switch shifts, pitifully pleading: “My boyfriend and I already made plans to vacation in Singapore and Malaysia for New Year’s, the plane tickets and hotel are all booked. If I don’t go, it’ll be such a waste! Please please Xuan Xuan, you’re just spending New Year’s locally right? So switch a day with me, please? I’ll kneel for you if needed, or even call you godmother!”
Shi Xuan Xuan quickly fended off this god-kinship: “Stop! Enough! How about I call you godmother instead? Please godmother, spare me. I worked the New Year’s Eve shift last year, it shouldn’t be my turn again this year. Go find someone else godmother. No, if you spare me I’ll be your god-grandmother!” After a pause, she couldn’t help mocking Xiao Yan: “We have all the sunshine, beaches, and spring weather of Singapore and Malaysia right here in Xing City. I really don’t get why you insist on traveling there specially over New Year’s – craving thicker curry flavor?”
After failing to switch shifts, Xiao Yan started getting nasty: “Thicker curry is India, Xuan Xuan. Go study some geography!”
She ran around pitifully begging others, recognizing circles of god-kin that all refused to acknowledge her white-given godchild status. Xiao Yan became extremely anxious and frustrated, on the verge of tears.
Xiao Mi Yu, who had just returned from getting forms approved by the administrative department, spoke up then: “Xiao Yan, I’ll switch with you. I’ll cover the New Year’s Eve shift for you.”
Xiao Yan was both shocked and overjoyed, looking ready to prostrate before Xiao Mi Yu.
“Sis Mi Yu, I love you! Next year I’d be willing to be an ox or horse for you, even smear my brains on the ground! Thank you, thank you!”
Xiao Mi Yu smiled and said: “It’s me who should be thanking you.”
Xiao Yan didn’t understand what she meant for the moment.
Xiao Mi Yu smiled.
How could she say that if she didn’t come work at the hotel over the holidays, she wouldn’t even know where she could go?
The prerequisite for a family reunion was having a family.
Where did she still have family?
Her small family was already dissolved. Her big family only saw her as a blood bag they could leech off of – she should have made a clean break from them long ago.
It turned out the more festive and warm the days, the more it highlighted her loneliness and bleakness.
But she didn’t want to reveal this loneliness and bleakness. Revealing it would only earn momentary sympathy. But sympathy was the most ephemeral and worthless thing in this world, better left undesired.
So she told Xiao Yan: “I’m thanking you in advance for the ox and horse work you’ll be doing for me next year.”
New Year’s Eve soon arrived.
Xiao Mi Yu had nearly forgotten how she used to spend New Year’s. She was too busy to recall or miss it.
She didn’t expect even more people would check into the hotel on New Year’s Eve than predicted. She was busy with greeting guests, serving customers, booking rooms – so busy she couldn’t even make time to eat.
She was very grateful that on a day like this, the hotel had such good business to keep her occupied, unable to perceive any loss or melancholy.
She stayed busy all the way until evening.
Her shift replacement came and she finally went to get some food.
In the cafeteria, she coincidentally ran into Ke Wenxue who was wolfing down her meal. Ke Wenxue told Xiao Mi Yu that housekeeping had given most of the out-of-town staff vacation time off. But coincidentally there were a lot of guests tonight, especially more female guests, many with children, who had high demands for room cleanliness. So they were currently understaffed and she had to hurry back upstairs after eating to clean rooms.
Xiao Mi Yu didn’t even get to chat with her for long before Ke Wenxue rushed into the employee elevator with the last bite of food still in her mouth.
After eating, Xiao Mi Yu returned to the lobby to start her evening shift. To her surprise, she saw Xiao Yan had come back.
She asked in bewilderment: “Weren’t you going on a trip with your boyfriend?”
Xiao Yan shook her head and sighed: “Don’t mention it. That mama’s boy I was dating – we were both already at the airport when his mother kept calling him. She nagged him nonstop for an hour – be careful dressing, eating, going out, walking; where did she put his money, his card, his socks and underwear etcetera etcetera. In the end my boyfriend actually started bawling at the airport, saying ‘Mom, I’m sorry for worrying you by going so far away’. At that point I was done – forget this damn vacation. Just go home and be your mommy’s good boy! I directly demoted him to ex-boyfriend on the spot.”
Xiao Mi Yu listened in shock.
She both envied and admired how decisively and straightforwardly young girls now handled relationships.
If she had been so gutsy earlier, she wouldn’t have had to wait until 30 to restart her life.
Xiao Yan told Xiao Mi Yu that since she broke up, she felt irritated spending New Year’s at home with her parents’ nagging. So she simply hauled her suitcase back to work.
“Sis Mi Yu, I’m back now so you don’t need to cover for me. Go on and take a break!”
Xiao Mi Yu just smiled and relinquished the front desk spot. But for a time she truly didn’t know where she could “go back to” over this big holiday.
Recalling Ke Wenxue had mentioned upstairs being understaffed when they ate dinner earlier, she decisively decided to go up and help.
Xiao Mi Yu went straight to the admin floor. She asked Ke Wenxue for a keycard and started hitting the dirty rooms to strip sheets.
Her appearance and offer of help startled and delighted Ke Wenxue, who cried out: “Sis Mi Yu, Sis Mi Yu! Are you a fairy sent by heaven to help me? Wahhh Sis Mi Yu you’re too kind. With your help I can finally relax a bit! My gods, I’m being passionately aided across departments by a superior!”
Xiao Mi Yu deeply understood the plight of local staffers like Ke Wenxue. When New Year’s arrived they had it worst, having to cater to the urgent desire of out-of-town staff to take their one big annual vacation back home. So they were the ones who had to stay behind to work the holiday shifts.
Although Ke Wenxue was usually gossipy, right now she exercised discretion and didn’t specifically ask why Xiao Mi Yu was also working holiday overtime.
She knew Xiao Mi Yu was divorced and had no little family to return to. She also knew what kind of original family Xiao Mi Yu had – returning to them would be like plunging into a snake pit.
But as they chatted while cleaning rooms, Ke Wenxue belatedly realized she had still inadvertently said some things she shouldn’t have.
At the time, Xiao Mi Yu had already stripped the dirty room sheets for her and was now helping make the beds. Ke Wenxue was scrubbing the tub in the bathroom.
As she scrubbed, she sighed: “My mom must be grumbling about me at home. The dumplings she cooked are definitely all untouched – she must have let them all get cold waiting for me to go home and eat them. Aiyo! Next year I have to tell them early that I’ll be busy for the New Year period. I must spend the full holiday at home with my parents so they won’t miss me, although they’re only half a city away from me.”
After she said all this, Xiao Mi Yu didn’t respond for quite some time.
After a while, she finally heard Xiao Mi Yu laugh and say: “How wonderful, you have a home to return to. Your parents are waiting at home for you. Hurry back after these few rooms so they won’t have to wait too long over New Year’s. I’ll handle the remaining rooms, Luo Qingping wouldn’t refuse.”
Only then could Ke Wenxue sense the desolation Xiao Mi Yu harbored in her heart. Forget waiting for her to come home for New Year’s – her parents likely didn’t even send her so much as a holiday greeting.
Ke Wenxue wanted to apologize but also felt doing so would only hurt Xiao Mi Yu again.
For the remaining time, she energetically gossiped away to Xiao Mi Yu, trying to distract her from melancholy thoughts.
She talked about who was secretly dating who at the hotel, who had a fling with someone then dumped them for someone from another department.
As they talked, it shifted to the top floor.
“Oh right, there’s also breaking news from the top level! Your acquaintance Li Kunlun from the F&B department told me when he went up this morning to deliver breakfast to Chairman Ji, he happened to overhear Assistant Xue take the Chairman’s call on speakerphone. It was that Miss Jiang who used to come to the hotel so diligently, rumored to be Chairman Ji’s romantic interest. You know the one I mean right, Miss Jiang? It was her. She told Chairman Ji she has a New Year’s Eve performance tonight and invited him to watch.”
Xiao Mi Yu’s sheet flicking faltered slightly, nearly sending half the sheet fluttering to the floor. She quickly adjusted and flicked it properly again on the second try.
Ke Wenxue continued broadcasting gossip: “But Chairman Ji told Miss Jiang he has to return home tonight to keep vigil with his mother. Li Kunlun later told me men understand men best. He said you could tell from Chairman Ji’s words that he was just making excuses, using his mother as justification to avoid watching Miss Jiang’s New Year’s performance. But Sis Mi Yu, guess what – by bringing up his mom, Chairman Ji inadvertently cornered himself instead!”
This time Xiao Mi Yu flicked the sheet perfectly. It draped neatly atop the mattress.
“How did he corner himself?” As she deftly wrapped the mattress in the sheet, Xiao Mi Yu casually asked.
Ke Wenxue deliberately paused her work for a moment. Poking her head out of the bathroom while looking at Xiao Mi Yu, she delivered the twist: “After Chairman Ji said he couldn’t attend the concert tonight since he had to keep his mother company, guess what? The big move – Chairman Ji’s mother directly joined the call! She said she’s also going to the concert to hear Miss Jiang’s performance tonight and told Chairman Ji to drive her there!”
After wrapping the sheet, Xiao Mi Yu lifted her head and looked at Ke Wenxue. She thought for a bit and understood: “Miss Jiang went to Ji Feng’s house and was with his mother, calling Ji Feng from there?”
Ke Wenxue nodded: “That’s right!” After a pause, she continued: “Actually, privately we always felt this Miss Jiang was practically Chairman Ji’s girlfriend since he never let anyone into that penthouse suite yet Miss Jiang could go daily. But suddenly one day she stopped coming to the hotel. We guessed Chairman Ji’s standards were too high in the end and it didn’t work out with Miss Jiang. Who
knew as the year-end approached, Miss Jiang started her curveball rescue – since she couldn’t get Chairman Ji, she’d capture his mother first. She’s slowly but surely hemming Chairman Ji in. This Miss Jiang really is no ordinary woman!”
Upon hearing this, Xiao Mi Yu smiled. She seemed to understand better than others that Jiang Zhichun was no ordinary girl.
“Sis Mi Yu, do you think Miss Jiang will ultimately end up with Chairman Ji or not?” Ke Wenxue pulled her head back into the bathroom and continued scrubbing the tub while asking.
She didn’t actually need Xiao Mi Yu’s answer, since after asking the question she immediately started self-answering: “I feel there’s an 80% chance it’ll happen. Everyone says even icy men fear clingy women. Faced with the aggressive advances of a beauty, even the coldest man will eventually surrender. Because when it comes down to it, men are always lustful creatures. If the fold in a woman’s brain is engraved with the word ‘beautiful’, then the fold in a man’s brain is engraved with the word ‘sex’.”
Xiao Mi Yu couldn’t help letting out an amused puff of laughter hearing this.
After laughing, she didn’t want to keep listening about Ji Feng and Jiang Zhichun’s matters. She deftly changed the subject.
“It looks like a lot of single female guests checked in today, some even with children.”
Ke Wenxue immediately said: “Pfft, our Xing City borders the neighboring province right? They have this custom where divorced women can’t return to their maternal home on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, saying it’s inauspicious. But after divorcing, they have no in-law home to return to either. So the childless ones come themselves, and the ones with kids bring their children to stay at hotels near the bordering province for New Year’s Eve and Day. Then they return to their maternal home only on the second day of the new year.”
Hearing this, Xiao Mi Yu’s heart swelled with sorrow.
She was also a divorced woman with nowhere to go for the holidays.
She also felt indignant. A divorced woman had only gotten a divorce, only wanted to leave an unhappy marriage and restart life. Yet they had to be so shunned and abandoned like this.
Her heart surged with wave after wave of desolation and distress. Amidst the lively, bustling New Year’s, countless people were celebrating and reuniting together. But who still cared to notice those lonely, abandoned divorced women between the hotel’s confining walls?
After finishing cleaning the rooms with Ke Wenxue, Xiao Mi Yu returned to the lobby and glanced through the guest information.
She thought that perhaps tonight, she as a divorced woman could do something for those other divorced women discarded within confining walls this New Year’s.
With his mother personally asking, Ji Feng couldn’t keep declining Jiang Zhichun’s invitation so close to the major holiday.
In the evening, he first went home to have dinner with his mother. Then they went to the concert hall to watch the New Year’s concert, driving themselves since he had already released Xue Rui and his driver to go home for the holidays earlier.
Jiang Zhichun had reserved VIP seats for them in the center facing the stage. She had changed into a mature yet elegant musician’s outfit tonight.
Her hair was coiled up and she wore a floor-length gown, seated before the piano. Head bowed gracefully, her fingers flowed smoothly across the keys.
The melodious music brought endless sighs of praise from Xue Yuan Lan. Every time the music paused, she would fervently compliment Jiang Zhichun to Ji Feng:
“Zhichun is too beautiful!”
“Zhichun plays the piano so excellently I’m moved to tears! What an outstanding girl!”
“How could such a wonderful girl like Zhichun be raised? You said it’d be great if she could be my daughter-in-law.”
…
Ji Feng let Xue Yuan Lan’s brainwashing blather wash over him as he watched the stage, ever unruffled.
Undeniably, Jiang Zhichun was beautiful. Tonight he also witnessed her professional excellence. She truly was the girl he’d seen in his nearly 30 years of life that best fit his partner criteria.
She had indeed made him consider trying things out before.
But later that vague sense of discomfort made him halt those thoughts. Now listening to his mother’s endless praise and looking at the dazzling person on stage engrossed in performance, he heard his heart quietly sigh.
It was as if someone hidden in his body was asking if he should try again after all. Perhaps that discomfort, when it came to this girl, was minimized already. In the future with other women, the discomfort would likely only increase, not decrease.
When it came down to it, that discomfort was just unfamiliarity. But discomfort and unfamiliarity could always be worn down over time. Just like how he used to detest Xiao Mi Yu so much, finding her so uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Yet now…
He forcefully slammed the brakes on that thought.
Xiao Mi Yu didn’t meet a single one of his partner criteria, he sternly reminded himself.
Halting his aimless thinking, he made himself concentrate on listening to the concert.
When the concert was nearing its end, Xue Yuan Lan said she needed to use the restroom. But she didn’t return.
Until the concert concluded, Ji Feng received a message from Xue Yuan Lan saying she had her family driver come pick her up to return home first. She said Ji Feng’s father would also be returning home later. Told him not to rush home to accompany her, but to properly keep Jiang Zhichun company – she was a one in a million outstanding girl and he shouldn’t let this opportunity pass. She had prepared flowers for him to present to Jiang Zhichun at the concert’s end.
Reading the message, Ji Feng’s frown grew. For his father to actually come home for New Year’s, it was practically a change of heart.
But he vaguely felt worried – worried about leaving his parents alone together. After all, when facing his father, his mother’s gentle patience lasted less than three minutes before she turned hysterical.
While pondering this, Jiang Zhichun on stage had already finished performing and taken her bows. She strode directly toward him.
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