The two of them remained silent throughout the journey.
The atmosphere, in Ye Yuan’s view, was somewhat tense.
The person who had managed to make their President cry now seemed to be giving him the cold shoulder, and since getting in the car, their President had been flipping through documents.
Ye Yuan glanced at his hands with distinct knuckles through the rearview mirror, his gaze resting on the upside-down document in his hands.
“…”
Can’t you make it a bit more believable? The planning materials are upside-down!
What’s the matter, has everyone lost their voice?
Can’t anyone take the initiative to say something?
And their President, he must be twisting with psychological tumult, yet he still appears so nonchalant on the surface.
He even wanted to say something to break this awkward silence.
But he was just an ordinary driver.
If the lady sitting next to him were to say that his plan book was upside down, that would be really embarrassing.
“Lu Qingyan, do you like to read books upside-down?” Jiang Nanshu’s voice echoed quietly.
Ye Yuan was startled and stepped on the brakes.
Lu Qingyan’s hand trembled, and the planning book fell under the seat.
He calmly bent down to pick it up and held it in his hands right side up.
He pretended to dust off non-existent specks from the document and replied indifferently to Jiang Nanshu, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Then he changed the subject, “Ye Yuan, what kind of driving is that?”
Hearing his words, Ye Yuan laughed awkwardly, “Slipped, haha.”
Lu Qingyan: “You’ve lost your end-of-year bonus.”
Ye Yuan: “What?!?!”
Lu Qingyan: “Plus an additional two months’ salary bonus.”
Ye Yuan: “…” Can’t you take a joke?
Jiang Nanshu: “…”
Ye Yuan drove with gritted teeth, his resentment now enough to sustain ten Evil Sword Immortals. He was just a poor worker, it was just because he knew the planning materials were upside-down!
And his bonus for two months was deducted!
That was enough for several meals of hotpot.
The detestable capitalist.
The car stopped at the Lu Group.
Jiang Nanshu looked up at the towering building, feeling an overwhelming sense of fatigue.
Sigh, having seen it all from the top, she currently had no interest in making money.
Health was more important after all.
Jiang Nanshu knew the pain of being ill, having spent this time focusing on her health, and she found that simply being alive was quite nice.
Lu Qingyan, under the curious gazes of the company employees, led Jiang Nanshu all the way to the President’s exclusive elevator.
The company employees were blown away, seeing their President Lu, who had always kept himself clean and never had even a female mosquito by his side. In the past few years, there were quite a few female secretaries who tried to seduce him, but as soon as they showed any intention, he ruthlessly fired them.
Over time, they gave up trying, wondering if he was perhaps impotent, and later, they shifted their focus more on their jobs.
The salary and treatment at Lu’s were truly unrivaled in the industry, and many people fought tooth and nail to join but couldn’t. It wasn’t worth losing money over a man who wasn’t potent.
Latter on, they found out.
Lu Qingyan was married young, but his wife had turned into a vegetable, and he remained faithfully by her side, which touched all the young ladies in the company, and they had no more ill intentions.
Until just now, when they seemed to witness the honorable face of the “Mrs. Lu” who had become a vegetable.
But…
Why did that face look so vaguely familiar???
Everyone whipped out their phones and saw that this was none other than Perfume Sister, who had been a hit in the advertising circles a few years back!
Fang Group’s advertisements still haven’t replaced their spokesperson yet.
Following Lu Qingyan upstairs, Jiang Nanshu was unaware of the myriad thoughts running through the minds of the people below.
She told herself to be patient with Lu Qingyan, but her own temper wasn’t great either. Just when she was about to lose her cool, she would remember the good things Lu Qingyan had done for her, and her anger would subside.
After several such cycles, she didn’t even have any anger left to grind away.
Ye Yuan knocked on the office door, “President Lu, the meeting is about to start.”
Lu Qingyan’s gaze rested on Jiang Nanshu, who was lounging lazily on the sofa, lost in thought.
Standing up, he handed over a white box.
“Your old phone was with your brothers. I bought you a new one; the number is still on the old SIM card. Play with the phone if you’re bored.”
Jiang Nanshu immediately perked up.
She was just about to ask Ye Yuan to run an errand and buy her a phone.
It was like providing a pillow as one became drowsy.
Jiang Nanshu showed him a sincere smile, her tone very sweet, “Thank you, Ah Yan.”
Their cold war seemed to dissipate with that one sentence, as if nothing had ever happened.
Lu Qingyan’s mood also improved quite a bit, “I’ll be back soon to keep you company.”
Jiang Nanshu eagerly unwrapped the phone, then proceeded to recover her old contacts.
The old WeChat messages almost caused the new phone to crash when importing them.
She focused and saw that Mr. Jiang and Mrs. Jiang had both been sending messages to this WeChat account.
Following that were messages from her several brothers, as well as Jiang Leyi, each exceeding 99+ messages.
Jiang Nanshu casually scrolled through them.
Most of Mr. Jiang’s messages were filled with his guilt, saying that if she could wake up, he would do everything to make it up to her.
The messages were sporadic, aside from the numerous ones in the first year after she left; only a few appeared every several months afterward.
As for Mrs. Jiang, it was an endless plea for forgiveness, saying she was dying and calling for Jiang Nanshu to join her, so she wouldn’t be lonely underground, hoping they could still be mother and daughter in the next life, and so on.
Jiang Nanshu refused.
In her next life, she certainly didn’t want to encounter a mother like her again.
If she ever became a mother, she would love her children unconditionally, believe in them, never hit or scold them, but teach them how to be good people, reason with them, and let them learn to love the world.
Having experienced pain, she wanted to leave the beautiful aspects of life to her children.
Thus, she and Mrs. Jiang were destined to have no mother-daughter bond.
After some thought, she still typed and replied with a message, “Don’t wait for me on the Yellow Springs Road. We might be heading in different directions. Let’s not be mother and daughter in the next life; being strangers is quite good. I don’t want to dwell on past grudges anymore; we are destined to be unrelated.”
Mrs. Jiang was suited to be their mother, but not suited to be hers.
If at the moment when Song Yichen was bullying her, she could have stood by Jiang Nanshu’s side without hesitation.
Jiang Nanshu thought, the outcome might have been slightly different.
Then she went to look at Jiang Yisen’s messages.
The first year, he sent her apologies.
The second year, he sent many photos of the sea for her to see.
The third year, he mentioned he was in a relationship, but didn’t reveal with whom.
The fourth year, the Jian Family suffered under Lu Qingyan’s pressure, and their business shrank.
The fifth year, he hoped she would come home.
She swiped out of the chat and looked at Jiang Jingcheng’s WeChat.
The second brother’s words were few, much like everyone else’s.
The first year he sent several medals, awards for being an outstanding doctor.
The second year, he complained about Mr. Jiang pressuring Jiang Yisen to marry and then setting his sights on him, feeling a headache at the sight of each matchmaking prospect.
The third year, he said he might never marry in his life.
The fourth year, he sent a stack of Mrs. Ji’s medical reports, claiming he had cured her mother.
The fifth year, he hoped she would return home.