Chapter 40: Call Me ‘Huaiyan Ge’

Four days later, Zhang Yue was discharged from the hospital. Her left leg was still in a cast, which wouldn’t be removed for at least another month. She had to rely on crutches to walk.

Unlike the day she first woke up, her emotions had been calm these past few days. It was as if she had finally settled down, and her feet had gained the weight needed to firmly touch the ground.

When Jiang Se first met her at the cheongsam shop, she had looked like a withering flower—her eyes hollow, moving like a lifeless corpse.

Now, she was different.

Jiang Se understood this feeling. It was the difference between someone who had found an anchor in their heart and someone who hadn’t.

An internal anchor—something that allows a person to find footing even in the most desperate days, keeping them from floating aimlessly like a rootless flower, never knowing when or where they might land.

“I won’t force myself to entertain you in this state. Just sit here.” Zhang Yue tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and pointed toward the kitchen. “The fridge is in there. There’s bottled water inside, and a kettle if you want hot water. Make yourself at home. I’m going to my room to get something.”

Jiang Se nodded. “Then I won’t be polite.”

With that, she stood up, walked into the kitchen, and took a bottle of mineral water from the fridge, pouring it into the kettle to heat.

The heater wasn’t on in the house. Wrapped in a pearl-white coat, she stood in the winter afternoon light, resembling an iris in an oil painting.

That was the only oil painting Zhang Yue could remember.

She had started working right after high school. As a teenager, her sole focus was saving money so she could return to Tongcheng and reclaim the cheongsam shop her mother once owned. Her life had been monotonous and barren. She barely read books, let alone admired paintings.

The painting of irises was shown to her by Zhao Zhicheng. He pointed at the flowers and said, “Every flower here is struggling to grow upward. Beautiful, isn’t it? I heard this painting symbolizes hope for life. Zhang Yue, you are this one.”

He pointed at the only white iris in the painting and smiled. “This one is the most unique.”

At the time, she loathed herself, believing she was filthy. She spent every day thinking about ways to die with the least amount of pain.

The white iris he pointed at stood out sharply among the sea of blue and purple. It was so pure, so clean. To her, it felt like a knife stabbing straight into her heart.

She tore that vividly colored painting to shreds, clawed at the back of her own hand until it bled, and sobbed, “If you really think I’m like that flower, then go kill them for me. Only then will I be as clean as that flower!”

The sound of boiling water pulled Zhang Yue out of her memories.

Jiang Se came out of the kitchen carrying two cups of water. Seeing Zhang Yue standing there in a daze, leaning on her crutches, she asked, “Are you feeling unwell?”

Zhang Yue shook her head and smiled faintly, without any real emotion. “I was just being polite earlier. I thought you wouldn’t actually touch anything in my house.”

She and Jiang Se were from completely different worlds.

Everything in her home was the cheapest of the cheap. Even the bottled water in the fridge was something she had stocked up on during supermarket clearance sales, buying one and getting one free. It had already expired. She had assumed that someone as privileged as Jiang Se would never even consider drinking it.

Jiang Se set down the disposable cup in her hand and smiled. “During the three days I was kidnapped, I didn’t dare drink a single drop of water. It just so happened that when I was rescued, it was raining. I was so thirsty my throat was dry, so I just opened my mouth and drank a gulp of rainwater.”

At that time, her eyes were covered, and her hands were tied. If she wanted to drink, they would have to feed her. She would rather not drink a single drop of water than let them touch her, and even less so if drinking or eating meant she would have to go to the bathroom.

Even with her eyes covered, she could still feel the way they looked at her.

Though her dress was still on, she constantly felt as if they were stripping her bare.

Jiang Se took a sip of water from the cup and said, “Isn’t this much better than rainwater? What’s there to worry about drinking? Boss Zhang, I’m no different from you.”

Zhang Yue looked at Jiang Se, unsure of how to respond. She didn’t understand why Jiang Se could speak so lightly about such a painful experience.

It was such a tormenting thing, after all.

After a long silence, Zhang Yue said to Jiang Se, “There are tea bags next to the kettle, they haven’t expired. If you want some tea, just go ahead.”

With that, she leaned on her crutches and walked into the room.

Fifteen minutes later, she came out of the room, holding a large cardboard box against her side with her hand that wasn’t using the crutches.

Jiang Se stood up to help, but Zhang Yue shook her head and said, “You don’t have to come over, I can manage on my own.”

Jiang Se glanced at her and slowly sat back down.

Zhang Yue bent over slightly, placing the cardboard box beside Jiang Se. “This is Ah Cheng, the things Zhao Zhicheng left behind here.”

She set her crutches on the armrest of the sofa, sat down on the other side of the box, and continued, “He used to be called Zhao Cheng, we all called him Ah Cheng, but maybe that wasn’t even his real name.”

Inside the box, there were all sorts of things. It was clear that the owner cherished every item, as everything was carefully kept.

Among the items were the ticket stubs from the first movie they watched together, the delivery receipt for the first milk tea he gave her when winter arrived, a book about cheongsams, an encyclopedia about birds, a colorful ink print of a painting, and many other small gifts.

“He didn’t leave much behind, just some memories between me and him.” Zhang Yue’s gaze softened as she looked at the box, gradually lost in her memories. “We both worked at a garment factory in Rongcheng. He was a security guard, and I worked there making clothes patterns. I was only eighteen when I started, timid, and didn’t like talking to anyone. One time, our team leader harassed me, and Ah Cheng caught him in the act. He stood up for me.”

She smiled as she said this. “You don’t know, Ah Cheng wasn’t particularly scary, but when he got angry, he was terrifying. He just had to sternly look at the team leader, and the man was scared off.”

Jiang Se smiled but didn’t respond.

Zhang Yue didn’t need her to respond. For eight years, she had been living like a walking corpse, carrying a secret, waiting hopelessly, her heart weighed down like it was tied to a heavy iron ball, sinking deeper each day. She didn’t know when it would finally sink completely.

Recalling her past with Ah Cheng actually made her feel lighter.

“Although I’m grateful to him, I didn’t become close with him because of that, until I went to the foreign trade company that was connected with the factory,” Zhang Yue lowered her head and took a sip of water. “I wanted to make more money and return to Tongcheng sooner. I heard the foreign trade company offered high commissions and was less stressful, so I decided to go.”

She paused here, and her hand, holding the paper cup, gradually turned white.

Jiang Se glanced at her. “If you don’t want to talk about this part—”

“It’s fine, I can talk about it.” Zhang Yue lifted her head, pressed her lips together, and said, “The person who got me in was an old acquaintance of mine. He said the boss at the foreign trade company was a good person and didn’t discriminate against people from other places. That boss was old enough to be my father, and at first, I really thought he was a good person, until one day he put his hand on my waist and asked if I would be with him. That was when I went to find Ah Cheng and asked him to pretend to be my boyfriend.”

Zhao Zhicheng had helped her before, and unlike other men, he didn’t harass her. She had an inexplicable trust in him.

Zhao Zhicheng agreed quickly, and he started picking her up and dropping her off every day.

“I had already decided that after that month, I would quit because I had made a big deal that month, and I didn’t want to give up the commission.”

But it was during the last few days of that month that something happened.

Her old acquaintance handed her a cup of water, and then she lost her memory. When she woke up, she was already in the fabric room.

“I thought about going to the police, but they had my photos, and later, Ah Cheng took those photos back.”

Zhang Yue took another sip of water, moistening her dry throat, and said, “Miss Jiang, how did you know it was Ah Cheng who killed them? After we escaped from Rongcheng and came to Jiangcheng, we lived there for almost two years in peace. I thought no one would ever trace it back to Ah Cheng.”

Jiang Se thought of the half-burnt no-footed bird handkerchief.

Zhao Zhicheng even used a fake name in front of the woman he loved. His past was almost a blank slate, like drops of water falling into the sea, leaving hardly any trace to be uncovered.

The only trace left behind was that handkerchief he didn’t manage to burn.

Five years ago, Jiang Se hired a detective and started with that handkerchief to find its original owner. It took five years to locate Zhang Yue, and to avoid finding the wrong person, she had them investigate Zhang Yue’s past as well.

Zhang Yue was different from Zhao Zhicheng. Aside from the two years in Jiangcheng, her past was easy to trace. One thing after another, clearly laid out like a calendar hanging on the wall.

“When Zhao Zhicheng killed the other two kidnappers, he used a handkerchief to wipe the blood from my face. It was through that handkerchief that I found you.”

“Handkerchief?” Zhang Yue murmured. “So it was that handkerchief. No wonder when you came and said ‘Zhang Xiu,’ you mentioned the no-footed bird. I once watched a movie with Ah Cheng. There was a line in the movie that said there’s a type of bird in this world that has no feet. It can only fly and fly, and when it gets tired, it sleeps in the wind. This kind of bird can only land once in its life, and that’s when it dies. After watching the movie, Ah Cheng laughed and said, maybe we are like that bird, and No. 38 Jinxiu Alley is our end.”

“You like to embroider birds on cheongsams, and each bird’s stitch pattern has your personal touch,” Jiang Se said to Zhang Yue directly. “After I found you, I had someone investigate your past. You aren’t the only one who’s been harmed by that boss. Almost every girl who transferred from the garment factory to the foreign trade company was harassed by him, but you are the only one who reported it to the police.”

Those girls, like Zhang Yue, were all young, timid, and came from poor families, and they were all from outside the city.

That boss specifically targeted people who had been bullied but didn’t dare to speak up.

After the man was killed, rumors started to leak out.

Although there was no direct evidence, Jiang Se had a strong intuition that it was Zhao Zhicheng who killed him.

And because of Zhang Yue’s experience, he had stopped those people from hurting her and had even apologized to her.

Zhang Yue pursed her lips and smiled self-deprecatingly, “Although I reported it to the police, in the end, I still didn’t say anything.”

At that time, she was only nineteen, and she couldn’t bear the consequences of her photos being made public.

“Later, I was so miserable that Ah Cheng really went and killed them,” Zhang Yue lowered her gaze. “At the time, I thought he was just saying it, but one day he suddenly came to find me and asked if I was willing to run away with him. That’s when I realized he had really ended my nightmare. Speaking of which—”

Zhang Yue seemed to remember something, licking the corner of her lips before continuing, “Before he went to kill them, he said he was going to find someone to help him.”

Jiang Se’s gaze paused. “Who was it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask, and Ah Cheng didn’t say. My mental state wasn’t good back then, and I wasn’t very stable.”

“Did you ever meet his friends?”

“No.” Zhang Yue shook her head. “Ah Cheng, like me, didn’t like talking or socializing. I never saw him interact with anyone. He rarely talked to me about his matters, and I didn’t care. When we were in Jiangcheng, he worked at a construction site, and I ran an online store selling clothes. Life was peaceful, so peaceful that I thought I was getting better.”

Zhang Yue pressed her hand to her chest. “I was almost better, but then he suddenly came back with a lot of money and told me to come to Tongcheng and buy the store I had always wanted to reopen. He said he had something to do and would come back to find me at No. 38 Jinxiu Alley after he finished. I actually knew that what he was going to do wasn’t good because he kept telling me before he left, ‘If anyone comes looking for me, tell them you don’t know me.’”

She always remembered that day.

Zhao Zhicheng came back under the cover of night, and he left before dawn. Before he left, he gently kissed her forehead. It was the only time he crossed the line. They lived together every day, slept together, but he never touched her because he knew her body hadn’t healed yet.

Her eyes suddenly felt hot, and Zhang Yue wiped them with her hand. “Miss Jiang, let’s leave it at that for today. If you still have questions, come back in a few days. You can take the box with you.”

Jiang Se handed her a tissue and nodded, “Don’t worry, I won’t ruin anything in the box. I’ll return it to you.”

Zhang Yue smiled through her tears, her voice carrying a sense of indifference. “Okay.”

Jiang Se looked at her and said, “Rest well.”

She picked up the box and headed toward the entrance. Just as her hand touched the doorknob, Zhang Yue suddenly called out, “Miss Jiang.”

Jiang Se turned back. “What is it?”

“How did you do it?” Zhang Yue looked at her. “How can you be like this now?”

How could she be as fearless and brave as Jiang Se?

The past was something Zhang Yue could barely touch without feeling pain, something she just wanted to escape and hide from, yet now she had to face that person herself.

Zhang Yue’s question was abrupt, without context, but Jiang Se understood. She smiled lightly and said, “We are not just victims. We are survivors. Do you know what a survivor is, Boss Zhang?”

“A survivor is someone who walks out of the storm.”

“Both of us are. We’ve already walked out.”

---

After leaving Zhang Yue’s house, Jiang Se went straight back to her apartment to drop off her things. She was about to head out to Liyuan Street for dinner when her phone rang.

Looking at the name displayed on the screen, Jiang Se could hear the man’s words echoing in her ears.

“Can you feel it, Se Se? Our hearts are beating so fast because of each other.”

At that moment, he had clearly crossed a line, his hands on her, and how could her heart not race?

That night, they kissed for a long time in the living room, but it was only kissing.

Jiang Se answered Lu Huaiyan’s call, slowly tying her scarf and preparing to go out. “I’m about to have dinner with my parents.”

Lu Huaiyan hummed in response. “How about we meet after dinner?”

As she locked the door, Jiang Se replied, “I got my period.”

There was a brief pause on the other end. “When did it start? Yesterday or today?”

“Yesterday,” Jiang Se replied.

As soon as she said that, Lu Huaiyan chuckled meaningfully. “So the reason you didn’t come see me these past couple of days is because you can’t sleep with me? Does that mean if we can’t sleep together, there’s no need to meet?”

His voice carried a smile, calm and teasing.

Jiang Se was walking down the stairs when she heard this, and her steps slowed a little.

Indeed, they hadn’t seen each other the past couple of days. He had been busy, and so had she. Most of the aftermath of Zhang Yue’s incident had been handled by her. The man who had caused the trouble was brought to the hospital by the police yesterday to apologize to Zhang Yue and paid compensation.

Today, she had been dealing with the logistics of Zhang Yue’s discharge, so naturally, she hadn’t had time to meet with him.

Before her period started, she had been staying at his place every night and they did sleep together. So, when he said this, she couldn’t help but feel like there was some truth to it.

Jiang Se blinked and asked, “Aren’t you busy these days?”

Lu Huaiyan chuckled again, clearly too lazy to point out how insincere her tone sounded. “I’m leaving Tongcheng for a few days tomorrow. If we don’t meet tonight, it won’t work. When do you finish dinner? I’ll come find you.”

Jiang Se glanced at her watch and replied, “I’ll come find you. Around eight.”

Running a bar is indeed a demanding job. Every time she went back to Liyuan Street for dinner, after eating with Yu Shiying and Jiang Chuan, she would have to hurry back to the bar and work until late at night.

Today, it seemed that Yu Shiying had arranged in advance, and Jiang Chuan had made a pot of medicinal soup for her.

The strong smell of Chinese herbs from the soup could be smelled from a distance.

After finishing a whole bowl of the medicinal soup, Jiang Se left Liyuan Street and drove to Junyue. When she stepped out of the hotel elevator, she was surprised to detect a faint trace of the herbal smell lingering in the air.

As she opened the door to the suite, the herbal scent immediately grew stronger.

Lu Huaiyan came over to hang her coat and glanced at her face, asking, “Are you feeling unwell?”

“I’m fine,” Jiang Se replied plainly, “Did you have someone prepare the medicinal soup?”

Lu Huaiyan nodded. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to eat much, so I kept it warm for you in the pot. You can have it before bed.”

Normally, Jiang Se wouldn’t drink a second serving of something she had already eaten, feeling it would be too much. But today, she didn’t refuse and simply responded with a quiet “Hmm.”

She was about to hang up her scarf when Lu Huaiyan reached over, wrapping his arm around her waist and gently kissing the corner of her lips. He asked, “Would it be uncomfortable to kiss during your period?”

His breath was close, warm against her skin.

Jiang Se’s lashes fluttered for a moment, then she replied, “No.”

Lu Huaiyan’s lips came down on hers again, and as he kissed her, he lifted her and carried her toward the sofa.

Jiang Se was wearing jeans, and it wasn’t very comfortable to sit on his lap, so after one kiss, she tried to get up.

The man tightened his hold around her waist and chuckled softly. “We haven’t seen each other for a few days. Let me hold you for a little while longer. Is that okay?”

Jiang Se paused, her body relaxing into his embrace as she allowed him to hold her.

“How many days will you be gone?” she asked.

“Four days,” Lu Huaiyan replied. “I’m going to the UK.”

Jiang Se looked up in surprise. She thought he was heading back to Beicheng.

She didn’t ask him what he was going to the UK for, but Lu Huaiyan took the initiative to explain, “I’m meeting with Guan Shaoting. Some of the projects that Lu Corporation has in Europe need his help to make connections.”

When he mentioned that name, Jiang Se’s mind automatically conjured up an image of a fair and handsome face.

“Guan Shaoting, the second young master of the Guan family from Hong Kong?”

“That’s him. We were classmates when we studied in the UK. We even took economic history together in college.”

“Are you close with him?”

Lu Huaiyan smiled. “Our relationship is similar to the one I have with your brother and Guo Song. His grandmother lives in the UK, and when I studied there, I would visit her every Christmas.”

That was quite a strong bond, after all, he had practically grown up alongside Cen Li and Guo Song, sharing every moment together.

Since her coming-of-age ceremony, Jiang Se had rarely paid attention to Lu Huaiyan’s affairs, so she hadn’t realized that he had such a connection with the Guan family.

The Guan family was a prominent one in Hong Kong, a banking dynasty. Their group operated banks and other financial institutions worldwide.

The current chairman had three sons and one daughter. Jiang Se had met them a few times at social events, just casual nodding acquaintances, with no real relationship.

Guo Qian had more interactions with them than Jiang Se, and had once complained more than once that Guo Song didn’t act like an older brother, unlike the Guan brothers, who were all protective of their sister.

Jiang Se casually mentioned something Guo Qian had said: “Qian Qian says the Guan brothers are very protective of their sister.”

“They are quite protective.” When it came to being older brothers, they were certainly much more competent than Cen Li and Guo Song.

A hint of amusement appeared in Lu Huaiyan’s eyes. “What, are you jealous?”

He lowered his head and kissed her lips lightly, sucking gently before speaking. “If you call me ‘Huaiyan Ge,’ I’ll make sure to protect you better than any other brother in the world. What do you think?”

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