Chapter 9: Don’t Leave Me. Don’t Scold Me.

“The contract was signed months ago.

“It’s already been delayed because of me for a while. I can’t keep putting it off.”

Ji Wushan still didn’t agree.

She only said those two things in a calm voice.

Even that night, the two of them slept in separate rooms.

Xue Erbai wanted to say something under the pretext of working late, but Qiao You’s call came at the worst possible time.

There was a temporary meeting that afternoon.

Xue Erbai had to go to the company.

The “candlelit dinner” she had originally planned had to be abandoned.

The meeting ran until seven in the evening. When it ended, Xue Erbai looked at the night already beginning to fall and lowered her head slightly toward Qiao You, who was reflected in the window. “I remember, you seemed to have had a girlfriend before?”

“Eh…?”

Qiao You blinked repeatedly, afraid she had misheard.

Xue Erbai turned around instead, walking toward her desk as she asked, “Right?”

Qiao You adjusted her glasses, a little embarrassed. “I-I did.”

“Then was it you who chased her, or her who chased you?”

“It’s not really either…”

“We were classmates in college. We got close in our second year, and by the time graduation was approaching, we naturally ended up together…”

“So you were together for two years?”

Being asked about her private life by her boss, Qiao You was awkward enough that her voice gradually softened. “…Yes.”

Xue Erbai didn’t notice; she moved the mouse and nodded lightly in admiration. “That long, huh…”

Qiao You waited a little longer. Seeing that she had stopped, she put on her Bluetooth earphones.

Usually, after a long meeting, Xue Erbai would open her computer and watch Ji Wushan’s show.

She basically never finished an entire episode. Once her mood improved a little, she would close it.

Following habit, Qiao You neither asked nor looked nor listened, quietly preparing to leave and order her dinner.

She had only gone halfway when she was called back.

“I don’t want to eat tonight.”

“You go eat first, then come back and find me. We’ll talk.”

Talk about what?

Relationships?

Qiao You didn’t dare ask; she only nodded and left.

After she was gone, Xue Erbai loosened the buttons of her shirt, almost sinking into the chair as she stared at the screen.

Every so often, she would look down at her phone.

At the chat box between her and Ji Wushan.

Later, she practically heard only the sound, while both her hands and eyes stayed fixed on the chat window with Ji Wushan.

She deleted and rewrote things over and over, but in the end, nothing was sent.

It wasn’t until Qiao You came back that she lifted her eyes, as if she had found a savior. “Qiao You, how do you chase a woman?”

“How do you make a woman like you? Win her over?”

When it came to work, Xue Erbai couldn’t exactly claim to be extremely confident, but she could at least say she was good at it.

With feelings, though, it seemed she really wasn’t.

Especially today, when she had even been harsh with Ji Wushan.

Her tone had been rougher than when she ordered a subordinate around.

After thinking it over and over, the only person who could help her with this was Qiao You.

But Qiao You misunderstood; her mind was a mess. In the end, she asked, “President Xue, are you trying to chase someone else?”

Xue Erbai couldn’t bother to keep her composure. She shot straight up from her chair. “Chase who else?”

“Besides Ji Wushan, who else could I be chasing?”

Qiao You shook her head frantically. “That’s not what I meant. I just thought… Miss Ji is already your wife. Do you still need to chase her?”

Those words made Xue Erbai feel a few seconds of delight, but then her face fell again.

In a voice that couldn’t quite hide her disappointment, she said, “Right now I’ve only gotten her body; I haven’t gotten her heart at all.”

“Bo... body?”

Was this really something an assistant should be hearing?

“Cough, I mean…”

“We got our marriage certificate; the body can be controlled, but the heart can’t!”

“And it’s the kind with an expiration date, too!”

Xue Erbai couldn’t help thinking of that nightmare; she had looked for Ji Wushan for so, so long.

It was all because Ji Wushan had no feelings for her!

That kind of thing could not happen again.

Absolutely not!

After thinking it over, she finally told Qiao You, “Go ask around and see whether the production team for ‘Her Romantic Encounter’ needs investment.”

After saying that, she slumped back into her chair again, her eyes on the ending shot of “Paperlight Shimmer.”

-

After the decision-making meeting, Xue Erbai was busy for several days. She came home a little late each night, and Ji Wushan was also busy with work, but every time, she would sit in the living room and the two of them would chat a little.

But tonight, Xue Erbai got home earlier than usual, and the living room was dark and empty.

Ji Wushan wasn’t there; not in the living room, not in the bedroom, not anywhere in the house.

Their chat history was still left at the message from the afternoon, where Xue Erbai had taken matters into her own hands and settled on fish and vegetables.

Further up, there were only a handful of exchanges over the past few months, each one separated by nearly half a month.

The intimacy that had been kept under a glass cover seemed to have been shattered.

Xue Erbai made a voice call to Ji Wushan.

No answer.

Rejected.

Five minutes passed.

Xue Erbai finally couldn’t stay calm anymore. Her scalp felt a little numb as she paced the living room, then left with her car keys.

But when she pressed the elevator button, she regained a little clarity.

When she got to the first floor, she pressed back up to the thirteenth.

As the elevator went up, Xue Erbai unconsciously tapped her leg, her brows tightly furrowed.

Only after the doors opened did she finally breathe out.

But the moment she saw that there was someone else beside Ji Wushan, her heart shot up hard again.

She had seen this person before.

When she had gone to the hospital to visit Ji Wushan; her intern assistant, Mao Ying.

But Mao Ying was seeing her for the first time, surprise faintly surfacing in her eyes as she looked at Ji Wushan.

The air seemed to fall silent.

In that instant, Xue Erbai thought of many things; for example, why Ji Wushan had come upstairs, why she hadn’t answered, why she had rejected the call.

Whether she had lost her memory or not, Ji Wushan was still Ji Wushan.

A clear, unmistakable Ji Wushan.

Xue Erbai lifted a smile, looking at Mao Ying and then at Ji Wushan. “Sister Shenshen, this is…?”

A title she had called alone in the middle of the night countless times during her girlhood dreams.

Because of “little White sister,” she was finally saying it again at twenty-seven.

At this moment, it suddenly carried a special meaning.

“My assistant, Mao Ying. She came over to deliver the new script.”

“This is my wife, Xue Erbai.”

Xue Erbai: “???”

So she was overthinking again?

“She was dealing with work when she was at the hospital last time, so you didn’t see her.”

“This time, I’m formally introducing you.”

“We didn’t hold a wedding, so I didn’t exactly make a public announcement either.”

Mao Ying put away her surprise, first assuring Ji Wushan seriously, “Don’t worry, Sister Ji, I’ll keep my mouth shut!” Then she smiled and extended her hand toward Xue Erbai. “Hello, sister-in-law. I’ve been by Sister Ji’s side for years; my lips are sealed.”

“Okay, thank you…”

“Sister-in-law can just call me Mao Mao!”

After setting aside her initial shock, Mao Ying became completely natural and lively, her smiling eyes narrowing into slits as she happily said goodbye to Ji Wushan and Xue Erbai.

When only the two of them remained at the door.

Xue Erbai felt awkward.

Awkward because she had overthought things.

Fortunately, Ji Wushan didn’t know.

Fortunately, Ji Wushan couldn’t read minds!

But Ji Wushan was too straightforward: “So before, who was it that chose a secret marriage?”

Mm.

That really got to the root of the matter.

Actually, neither of them had really said they wanted a secret marriage.

But neither of them had said they wanted to make it public, either.

It was just that the two of them weren’t very familiar with each other; aside from at home…

Or rather, in bed.

In life, there was basically no overlap at all.

Xue Erbai only vented to Qiao You, or to that online friend nicknamed the Arrogant Girl, because she couldn’t hold it in.

As for Ji Wushan, she had almost no friends around her; apart from work, it was still work.

Xue Erbai was honestly too embarrassed to bring up anything about going public.

Emotionally, they simply weren’t there yet.

After a silence, Ji Wushan clearly saw through the situation as well.

Things weren’t worse than she had imagined, nor were they better than she had hoped.

Xue Erbai was not far from her ideal type; in fact, she was even better.

That was also why she had introduced Xue Erbai to Mao Ying.

But the more it was like this, the more a strange feeling grew inside her.

Hospital care, the kiss at Xue Yanhe’s home, the slightly intimate physical contact while changing medicine; all of it had been proclaiming the closeness between the two of them.

And now, this kind of fragmented closeness was filling the space between them.

For a moment, Ji Wushan didn’t know what to do.

So she simply did nothing.

She pressed the elevator and pulled Xue Erbai’s wrist as they went downstairs.

On the way down, Ji Wushan explained a couple of things: “Your things are all in the study.”

“I’m used to keeping my phone on silent; I was talking work with Mao Mao at the time.”

Just one floor; it went by quickly.

So by the time Ji Wushan finished speaking, they had already arrived before Xue Erbai had even responded.

Ji Wushan used her fingerprint to open the door, and the two of them entered one after the other.

After putting the script down in the living room, Ji Wushan headed first toward the guest room as she walked, saying, “I’m going to shower.”

“I have to go to the TV station tomorrow, so I’m going to sleep early.”

Xue Erbai followed a few steps behind and, after hearing her clearly, answered, “…Okay.”

The two of them showered separately, and the house returned to silence.

But in the master bedroom, Xue Erbai tossed and turned.

She didn’t even know what time in the early morning she finally fell asleep.

She slept terribly restlessly.

In her dream, she kept running, running aimlessly through the bushes.

It wasn’t real.

And yet she was very clearly aware that she was dreaming.

The pain in her lungs felt as if a hand had clenched around them; dull, swollen, and sharp all at once, every breath pulling at it.

Wanting to escape the pain, Xue Erbai tried to wake herself up in the dream.

But in the dream, a phone suddenly appeared without warning.

The chat box was Ji Wushan’s.

There was only one line from Ji Wushan.

[ Xue Erbai, let’s divorce. ]

Below it were all the messages she had sent by herself.

Asking Ji Wushan where she was, why she had to divorce no matter what.

The time span was long.

It carried her from careful questioning all the way to complete collapse of reason.

“Wushan… Ji Wushan… hhh!”

The instant she woke from the dream, a stabbing pain shot through Xue Erbai’s scalp. She braced herself on both hands and sweat the size of beans kept dripping down.

The sky was already cool, but her vision was dark. She stumbled out of bed.

Ji Wushan lived right across from her.

Although they were sleeping separately, there was still a thread of intimacy left.

Both of their doors were half-open, as if it would be very easy to touch the other.

Xue Erbai adjusted her breathing and sat by the side of Ji Wushan’s bed.

She was sleeping very deeply.

Much more deeply than in the first few days after her memory loss.

Back then, she always dreamed and talked in her sleep, but they were all things Xue Erbai had never experienced.

Now she didn’t. There was only steady breathing.

Her brows weren’t furrowed; the corners of her lips were even slightly raised, adding a trace of warmth to her otherwise plain face.

Xue Erbai just watched Ji Wushan like that.

Her hair was tousled, the corners of her eyes red.

She didn’t want to miss even the tiniest detail.

She was a little superstitious.

And that dream had felt too real; their relationship was already false and mistlike to begin with.

She couldn’t help fearing that this was a dream foretelling the future.

She was slowly becoming entranced by the sight of her when Ji Wushan, who had been sleeping peacefully, suddenly furrowed her brows and mumbled with a muffled, choked cry: “Don’t leave me… don’t scold me…”

Xue Erbai instantly came back to herself. She forgot all about the fear from her own dream and sat rigidly still, not daring to move. She only gently rubbed Ji Wushan’s back, coaxing her in a low, soft voice, not daring to expose even a hint of her embarrassment.

It was only when Ji Wushan’s breathing gradually evened out that she slowly lowered her hand.

Yet there was a certain bewilderment in her.

Her own dream had felt real, but Ji Wushan’s sleep-talk made her feel the pain even more vividly.

A faint ache spread in her chest, causing her to ignore the fear in her heart. Kneeling by the bed, she leaned down and kissed Ji Wushan’s forehead, whispering, “…I won’t leave you.”

Author’s Note:

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