The fifth day of the Lunar New Year is commonly known as the Po Wu Festival. Worship the God of Wealth and send off poor ghosts. Every family cooks dumplings and prepares for a good fortune.
Zheng Shuyi's family is no exception.
In the evening, Wang Meiru was chopping dumpling stuffing in the kitchen.
The window of the kitchen was close to the window of Zheng Shuyi's room, and she deliberately used her strength so that Zheng Shuyi could hear her dissatisfaction.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Wang Meiru held the handle of the knife and smashed it on the cutting board as if venting her anger.
"I'm in my twenties, and I only know how to sleep with my head covered. What's the difference with a pig? If you're older than the Chinese New Year, you'll sleep when you come back. I think it's going to grow on the bed!"
"I don't know how to come out to help, I'm so lazy, I really don't know how she lives alone in Jiangcheng!"
Zheng Su rolled the dumpling wrapper, and said with a smile: "The children and grandchildren have their own blessings, why are you worrying so much?"
"Of course you don't worry about the meat that fell from your body." Wang Meiru snorted coldly, "Look at your daughter, she'd better have that blessing to be served by others in the future, otherwise she will starve to death sooner or later!"
After chanting a few words, she put down the kitchen knife and angrily pushed Zheng Shuyi's room away.
"It's time to eat! Do you want me to treat you!"
Zheng Shuyi poked his head out from under the quilt, and let out a muffled "Oh".
After returning from the aquarium, she lied to her parents that she had eaten lunch, then locked herself in her room and fell into a dark sleep.
As for why you sleep—
Shi Yan's words before hanging up the phone, like a knife, directly pierced through her last luck.
The moment all the strings in the mind are broken, the collapse brought about is often only temporary.
But the remaining emotions quietly spread in a silent place.
Zheng Shuyi didn't know what happened to him.
She can clearly feel that she should be uncomfortable at this moment, the shame of being exposed for a lie, and the self-blame of doing something wrong, they should all be there.
But there was no outburst of emotion, not like the outright anger when he found out about Yue Xingzhou's betrayal.
She couldn't even cry at all.
Now I just feel that I can't breathe, like a patient with a bad cold, breathing becomes difficult, the chest is full of sour things, and I can't concentrate.
Whenever you do something, your mind will wander.
The way to escape this emotion is to sleep.
She got into bed, wrapped herself tightly, and felt nothing when she fell asleep.
But sleeping is often another vicious circle.
Every time I wake up, I feel weak all over my body, and the dull mood in my heart has not improved because of this.
You can only continue to force yourself to fall into a deep sleep.
—
But today's dinner couldn't be avoided, Zheng Shuyi ate a few dumplings casually, and she went back to her room.
"I'm going out to play mahjong." Before leaving, Wang Meiru pushed open the door of Zheng Shuyi's room and took a look, and sure enough, she was sleeping again.
"I said you slept all day, do you want to be a sleep god?"
"I watched the drama all night last night." Zheng Shuyi's voice came out from under the quilt, "Leave me alone, I'll catch up on sleep."
"Of course I don't care about you." Wang Meiru straightened her sleeves and pretended to say casually, "Tomorrow we have an appointment with our principal's wife to play mahjong, and we will go to his house for dinner tonight. Would you like to come together? I haven't seen her in the past few days since I came back. What about Yu You?"
Zheng Shuyi: "No."
Wang Meiru muttered a few more words before going out.
Originally, she didn't take Zheng Shuyi's state seriously, thinking that young people are like this, they like to lie in bed and play with their mobile phones all day long.
However, on the sixth day of the lunar new year, Zheng Shuyi still slept all day, and she began to feel 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 your luggage? The high-speed rail ticket at three o'clock in the afternoon."
"There are not many things, I will collect them now."
Zheng Shuyi opened his eyes, sat up and put on his coat.
Before getting out of bed, Wang Meiru sat beside her bed.
"Yiyi, has something happened to you recently?"
Wang Meiru leaned on the head of the bed, stretched out her hand to run along Zheng Shuyi's hair, her voice suddenly became soft, "Is it not going well at work? Or did you encounter any other problems?"
After sleeping for two days, Zheng Shuyi's head became heavy and his reaction became slow.
It wasn't until Wang Meiru's familiar smell enveloped her that she slowly recovered.
However, the emotions in my heart have been accumulated for a long time, like sedimentation into sand and stones, and they are heavily pressed in the chest cavity, and it is difficult to find another outlet.
Zheng Shuyi leaned quietly in Wang Meiru's arms, her nose was sore, her throat was choked, but she didn't speak.
Some emotions are no longer suitable for showing to parents.
There are only Wang Meiru's soft words in his ears.
"If things don't go your way, you can always find a solution. If it doesn't work, let your father teach you. He hasn't encountered any difficulties in his life."
"If you can't take it anymore, go home. We won't stay in the big city anymore. Qing'an has beautiful mountains and rivers. Your parents will buy you a new house and a new car. You can still live comfortably."
"If you encounter emotional problems, just grit your teeth and let it go. You are still young and you will meet many people. There is nothing you must do."
"But when you get older and have children at home, and then look back at the things that you thought would be unforgettable in the past, in fact, you will forget them after a long time, and the time limit for not getting an eyebrow tattoo lasts for a long time."
After a long time, Zheng Shuyi choked up and said, "Mom, I did something wrong."
"If you make a mistake, you are wrong. Who didn't make mistakes when they were young? Just don't make mistakes in the future."
"There is no future..."
"There is no future, time is hope, and there is still hope for everything."
Zheng Shuyi didn't speak any more.
Her mother wouldn't understand, and she couldn't even understand, why there was an empty feeling in her heart that couldn't be filled.
After a long time.
"Is it better?" Wang Meiru patted her on the back, "Get up when you feel better, and forward the voting link of 'Qing'an No. 1 Middle School's Most Popular Teacher' to your circle of friends, and ask your friends to vote for me."
—
When Yan saw this circle of friends, he was sitting in Guan Ji's office.
Guan Ji frowned, staring at the company's real-time data monitoring.
The screen was filled with green, watching Guan Ji's heart ache.
"The stock market is ruthless, really ruthless, even more ruthless than women."
When Shi Yan heard this, he turned his phone on the table, leaned on the armrest of the chair with his elbows, and looked out the window.
"It's pretty ruthless."
Still a heartless one.
—
In the evening, Zheng Shuyi returned to Jiangcheng. As soon as he packed his luggage, he immediately cleaned up and down the house, and washed all the spring clothes. In the end, he couldn't find anything to do, and even wanted to remove the curtains and wash them again.
But Kong Nan suddenly called and asked her to help proofread a manuscript, which saved the bad luck of the curtain being destroyed.
After reading the manuscript, it was already two o'clock in the night. After a day of tossing, Zheng Shuyi fell asleep.
At daybreak, I put a badge on my neck and walk into the office building. Work is the most important thing, and I have to give way to all emotions.
On the first day after the Spring Festival, when returning to work, most people don’t feel nervous. The first thing they do when they arrive at the company in the morning is to exchange the special products they brought back.
A girl in the next-door group walked past Zheng Shuyi with a pile of food and drink in her arms, and asked, "Shuyi, what specialties do you guys have from Qing'an? What did you bring back?"
After two days of being in a daze, Zheng Shuyi didn't remember what special products he brought.
She looked up from the computer, and said with a smile, "We Qing'an specialty beauties, do you want me?"
"Hiss—how shameless." The girl dropped a bag of tea leaves and left.
Zheng Shuyi suppressed her smile, stared downcast for a while, then continued to sort out the emails with her head down.
Busy work is like a wave, enveloping Zheng Shuyi, ups and downs into everyone's rhythm, there is no room to show private emotions.
At ten o'clock, Qin Shiyue came.
As soon as Zheng Shuyi saw her, he suddenly breathed a sigh of relief, and kept his eyes on her.
Until she walked in front of her, Zheng Shuyi was inexplicably flustered and stood up straight away.
However, Qin Shiyue hadn't spoken out the words that were brewing, but Qin Shiyue suddenly said, "Sister Shuyi, I'm resigning."
Zheng Shuyi's expression suddenly froze, "What?"
Qin Shiyue repeated again: "I'm here to resign."
Seeing Zheng Shuyi's injured look in shock, Qin Shiyue rubbed her chin embarrassedly, "I'm not in good health recently, I have to go home to take care of myself."
Zheng Shuyi could tell that this was an excuse, she was stunned for a moment, and then nodded: "Then you should have a good rest."
"Well, I'll go talk to the editor-in-chief."
Qin Shiyue had just left when she was stopped by Zheng Shuyi.
She turned around and asked, "What's wrong?"
Zheng Shuyi hesitated for a long time, not knowing how to speak.
After waiting for a while, Qin Shiyue's eyes became more and more puzzled, and Zheng Shuyi said, "Your uncle...has he also agreed to resign?"
Thinking of Shi Yan, Qin Shiyue also felt that he was very strange recently, as if he didn't care about her at all, but she still wanted to speak well of him in front of Zheng Shuyi.
"Of course I agree. My little uncle is still very considerate. Knowing that I am not in good health, he offered to resign and go home to recuperate."
"..."
Zheng Shuyi nodded and reached out to hug her, his voice hoarse.
"Goodbye, Xiaoyue, take good care of your illness and stay healthy."
"I'll see you for sure. I'm not a big problem. I'll recover soon."
Qin Shiyue thought to herself, when I come back from playing around, I will definitely invite you to have afternoon tea.
—
Time passed unhurriedly, and after three or four days passed, everyone calmed down from the aftertaste of the holiday and devoted themselves to busy work.
It doesn't make any difference if Qin Shiyue is missing from the finance team. Her desk has already been unknowingly piled up with various sundries.
Zheng Shuyi has interviews every day, and usually rushes to the office in the morning, rushes back to the company to write a manuscript in the afternoon, and does not leave the office building until late at night.
No one noticed her occasional emotional changes, only felt that in the new year, her workload was greater than before.
Probably the deputy editor-in-chief had just resigned, and she was bound to win that position.
On Friday morning, Zheng Shuyi received a call from Qiu Fu's assistant in a hurry.
An interview originally scheduled for next week, due to Qiu Fu's job change, asked her if she could advance to today.
Zheng Shuyi originally had a few manuscripts to verify today, but she still agreed.
After lunch, Zheng Shuyi immediately rushed to Mingyu Yunchuang.
The eighth to twelfth floors of the Mingyu Yunchuang office building are all executive offices, and the space utilization rate is very low. Often there are only two main offices on the first floor, and the rest are conference rooms.
Therefore, in addition to being quieter than the public office area, there is no overly busy atmosphere.
However, Zheng Shuyi was standing in the reception area on the eighth floor, but he felt the atmosphere was extremely heavy.
She even felt that every employee here was holding their breath, not daring to breathe.
When she came here before, occasionally a female employee with a familiar face would greet her with a smile, but today everyone is doing their own things without squinting, without any distraction.
Zheng Shuyi felt that there was nothing wrong.
Not only today, but since the day when work resumed after the festival, the employees in these high-level office areas have discovered that Shi Yan has a particularly bad temper recently, and they often directly scold people in meetings.
Even in the face of some executives who are much older than him, they don't give face at all, and they are red-faced.
As an employee at the bottom, he dared not show his arrogance, but whenever he had to contact Shi Yan, he was extremely careful, for fear of making a mistake.
Qin Lezhi, the CFO secretary who is usually the safest, seemed to react the most. When he saw Shi Yan, he was out of shape and in a daze. Once when he went to a meeting with Qiu Fu, he even misplaced the PPT.
Shi Yan didn't say anything at that time, but just took off his glasses and put them on the table, folded his arms and looked at Qiu Fu calmly.
Qiu Fu's heart sank, and he immediately asked Qin Lezhi to leave the office.
And she hasn't come to work yet.
People are easily affected by the atmosphere, and Zheng Shuyi became more nervous when he was in it.
It's just that the reason for her nervousness is different from these employees.
Ever since she was preparing to come here, she had been holding a faint expectation in her heart.
Maybe, maybe, we can see Shi Yan today.
Although she didn't know why she wanted to see him at this time, and she didn't know what to say or what to do when she saw him, but her heart was driving her for no reason, so that she was a little restless.
After waiting for nearly an hour, the small LED screen in the meeting room directly opposite finally went out.
Immediately afterwards, the door opened automatically, and a group of people in formal attire came out one after another.
The leader is naturally Shi Yan.
Beside him are Chen Sheng and Qiu Fu.
Qiu Fu held the tablet in his hand, and Shi Yan tilted his head slightly to listen to him.
Zheng Shuyi saw him at first sight, and subconsciously stood up, holding the strap of the shoulder bag with both hands, but hesitated on the spot and couldn't move forward.
Until Qiu Fu caught a glimpse of Zheng Shuyi from the corner of his eye, he paused, and then whispered in Shi Yan's ear: "Miss Zheng is here."
So, Zheng Shuyi saw Shi Yan raised his head, his gaze swept across her face, and then he looked back and kept walking.
He walked straight past Zheng Shuyi.
As if he didn't see her, his expression didn't even fluctuate for a moment.
All Zheng Shuyi's throbbing stopped abruptly at this moment.
She was still staring blankly at the front, even though the footsteps behind her had gradually drifted away.
One second, two seconds, three seconds...
After an unknown amount of time, Zheng Shuyi turned around mechanically, and the elevator at the end of the aisle had slowly climbed to the twelfth floor.
Standing there for a long time, Zheng Shuyi's eyes were a little sore.
She walked to the corner with her head down, took out her mobile phone, and opened Shi Yan's chat box.
I have a lot of drafts in my heart, but my usual smooth and smooth writing style can't organize a complete sentence.
She found that she had nothing to justify, and there was no room for excuse.
After deleting the content in the dialog box word by word, she only edited three words.
"sorry"
It seemed like she had nothing else to say except this one.
However, the moment she pressed the send button, the last hope in her heart collapsed.
―― A red exclamation mark appeared on the screen.
"Your message has been sent, but it was rejected by the other party."