Chapter Seventy-Nine: Intricate and Entangled

As they spoke, ambiguous words thickened the congestion on the already crowded road.

Yishu received a message from Tang Chao on WeChat. In those brief minutes, she had added every possible contact, leaving nothing out. Tang Chao sent a relentless stream of texts, images, and voice messages, pushing Yishu’s patience to its limit. Unable to endure it any longer, she blocked and deleted him before he could send another message.

Just as she was about to delete him, Tang Chao seemed to anticipate her thoughts: “If you block me, I’ll call you every night.”

Yishu was startled, suddenly realizing she could not outwit his cunning.

Xu Shixi listened to the frequent chimes of Yishu’s WeChat notifications, rubbing his toes anxiously inside his shoes, growing only more irritated. The pressure he carried was no less than hers. Tang Dai’s accident had stalled several company projects, and the leadership had placed the heavy burden squarely on his shoulders.

Wan Xinheng was in a semi-retired state. The management was preparing an airtight plan to force him out, knowing the odds of him resigning on his own were negligible. Dismissing someone without cause came at a considerable cost. Even a company as large as Xunyuan had to be prudent in financial management, balancing income and expenditure.

Wan Xinheng’s marginalization at Xunyuan was partly due to Tang Dai. She often vetoed his proposals at meetings, countering with more persuasive and convincing arguments, gradually sowing doubt about his competence among the leaders. At Wan Xinheng’s age, he was indeed considered old; the planning department needed energetic young minds, not an old guard clinging to routine.

Xu Shixi’s favor from the leadership stemmed mainly from Tang Dai herself—for behind her stood the entire Tang Group.

Two voracious corporations, jaws agape, were devouring every weaker life form around them to swell their own power.

At last, a monumental battle between giants was about to begin.

“Enough is enough!”

Yishu could do nothing with him. These words seemed best suited to convey her thoughts with just the right weight.

“Who’s messaging you?” Xu Shixi asked.

The car began to inch forward. Xu Shixi started the engine, focusing on the cars ahead. After moving a short distance, they were stuck in traffic once more.

“It’s Tang Chao,” Yishu replied bluntly, with no intention of hiding anything.

“Him again?” Xu Shixi stared at the rear windshield of the car ahead, where two men and two women sat, gesturing and laughing.

“Yes,” Yishu watched the electric bikes and bicycles weaving through the gaps, “him again.”

“Tang Chao is still a child. Don’t take what he says to heart, don’t take it seriously.” Xu Shixi took out cigarettes and a lighter from the glove box. He pulled one out and put it to his lips, but the lighter wouldn’t ignite, making him unreasonably annoyed. When it finally caught, he brought it near the cigarette but then closed the lid, extinguished the flame, and put the cigarette back in the pack.

Yishu pulled her drifting thoughts back, marveling at Xu Shixi’s way of speaking—precisely expressing his thoughts while subtly conveying another meaning.

Perhaps it was coincidence, a heap of coincidences—was it still coincidence?

“He’s already nineteen. In terms of body and mind, ‘child’ is a thing of the past,” Yishu replied according to Xu Shixi’s surface meaning.

“Nineteen,” Xu Shixi repeated.

Nineteen. Su Yihui was also nineteen. Had a few days already passed? Yishu hadn’t reached out to him, nor had he come to explain. After tonight, after the final reporting deadline, his university dream would be utterly extinguished.

That day, Yishu sent Su Yihui a message, asking for his final answer.

“Have you really decided?”

“I’m sorry, sis. I really have.”

Yishu stared at that message for a long time. She remembered what Xu Shixi had once said to her—perhaps it was time to respect his choice.

Choice and respect are among the hardest things in the world: one is in your own hands, the other in someone else’s. One cannot defeat oneself, nor control another.

As for Su Yihui, his guilt and melancholy eased under Cheng Shuguang’s comfort.

Not long ago, Cheng Shuguang found him a quiet and comfortable single apartment.

On the outskirts of Yundong, just like the southern part of Yun City, there was a rare touch of greenery. Even as autumn deepened, resilient crabapple and crepe myrtle trees held up a canopy of green with their abundant leaves. Passing beneath them, clusters of crepe myrtle flowers rotted together, their original color long gone.

North of the apartment lay a narrow river. The once lush willows now bore only a few yellowed, withered leaves. The river was covered with dead branches and leaves.

A quietly desolate beauty spread endlessly.

The apartment’s layout was simple: bathroom to the left as you entered, kitchen to the right. Ahead was the main space—living room and bedroom, plus a small balcony that overlooked the river to the north. The apartment was about twenty-two square meters, more than enough for one, sometimes even two.

Su Yihui was very happy; he liked such tranquil surroundings, far from noise and clamor. And, occasionally, he could see the person he liked.

Su Yihui’s feelings were always written on his face—never hidden.

After the tea restaurant closed, Li Nanzhi returned home alone. Cheng Shuguang told her he had something to deal with and needed to stay. She asked to stay and help, but he gently refused. She wanted to ask why, but chose silence instead. If he wanted to speak, it wouldn’t be up to her to ask—that much she understood.

Li Nanzhi and Cheng Shuguang lived in the same mid-range residential complex. The environment was clean, with staff sweeping morning and evening. Few migrant workers lingered there, given the rent was not cheap.

One lived in Building Nineteen, the other in Building Twenty. Li Nanzhi had originally wanted to live opposite Cheng Shuguang, but the agency told her only one unit was left in Building Twenty. She had no choice but to take a unit in Building Nineteen across the way. This way, every night in darkness, she could seek the light where he resided.

Li Nanzhi had proposed buying only one apartment—after all, sooner or later, they would marry under the witness of both parents, so living together was hardly improper. And given their current finances, buying two units would stretch them thin.

In the end, Cheng Shuguang persuaded her with stern logic, though she was forced to accept it.

Unmarried men and women living together—rumors would destroy a person’s spirit and will.

Especially for women. Society still treats women unfairly. Even she, as a woman, believed that in relationships, it was always women who suffered.

Isn’t that true?

But I am willing, though it’s all unclear.

Li Nanzhi looked out the window at a lone incandescent lamp illuminating someone’s bathroom—likely left on after use, forgotten. That dim light could not brighten her dark eyes. For in the distance, where her gaze could be illuminated, there was only darkness.

“Shuguang hasn’t come home yet. He often comes back late these days—from eleven at night to eleven-thirty, midnight, one in the morning, sometimes not at all.”

Li Nanzhi knew that worry was spreading within her, waiting for the day it would erupt, like the endless night—so very long.

Night had driven away the warmth of day, cold as an ice cellar. She was surprised to feel no chill whatsoever.

Both families were urging them to marry, more urgently each year.

Cheng Shuguang’s parents earnestly advised him to settle down and have children. In their thirties, still unmarried, they felt their dignity slipping away, forced to keep their heads down among relatives and friends. To them, Li Nanzhi was the ideal daughter-in-law—character, looks, education, all impeccable.

Thus, Cheng Shuguang’s parents concluded he must have fallen for someone else.

Li Nanzhi’s parents used both gentle and stern tactics. For a woman, thirty is a cruel age—appearance, health, skin all plummet. In their eyes, a woman’s greatest achievement is not her career but a happy marriage. They constantly cited classmates and distant relatives who married before twenty-five and whose children were now in kindergarten. If she delayed any longer, they would rather lose their daughter than lose face.

“Has Shuguang’s heart changed?” Li Nanzhi’s mother thought quickly.

“No!” Li Nanzhi replied loudly.

He never changed his heart, because I don’t think he ever truly gave it to me.