After returning to the inn, I handed 50,000 yuan to a new female accountant there. Then, without delay, Ah Feng and I went to the restaurant that was up for transfer. After more than an hour of discussion, we reached an initial agreement with the other party. Once we officially take over, my business presence in Xitang will be largely completed. Then, after opening another inn in Suzhou, I will connect the operations between the two locations, creating the initial framework of my “Artistic Path.”
On the way back, Ah Feng and I talked again. I felt deeply grateful toward him because he had helped me a lot in Xitang. However, he personally had no strong ambitions in his career—running a bar called “I’m Waiting for You in Xitang” was enough for him. In fact, I really wanted to invite him to join me in building this “Artistic Path.”
As we talked, he brought up the woman in red again. Thinking back, she really kept her promise—since she left last time, she hadn’t appeared in Xitang again. But I felt instinctively that we might meet somewhere else again, though it wasn’t important whether we did or not. Even if we did meet again, it would probably just be a meaningless exchange of words, and neither of us would truly help the other with life’s difficulties.
When I returned to the inn, Luo Ben had already gotten up and was practicing his vocal exercises on the balcony, preparing for an upcoming original song competition. Seeing me come back, he shouted at me from afar, his odd behavior clearly showing that he was in a great mood lately. It only highlighted my current melancholy and helplessness.
After briefly talking with the front desk staff, I went to the balcony, where Luo Ben had finished his vocal exercises and was now composing a melody on a blank sheet of paper, humming incomplete notes from time to time.
I patted his shoulder and said, “Hey man, can we chat for a bit?”
Luo Ben didn’t look up or respond, clearly already in the zone. I could only light a cigarette and sit nearby, waiting, while my thoughts kept churning. I felt that Mi Cai had acted somewhat unusually in handling this situation. With her intelligence, couldn’t she tell I was innocent? After all, I couldn’t even think of any reason why I would want to badmouth Weiran, that bastard, in front of her.
About an hour later, Luo Ben finally showed an expression of excitement, indicating that he had completed the initial composition of a song. After a while, he put the sheet of paper aside and asked me, “What’s wrong? Are you falling apart again?”
“Pretty close to it!”
“It’s normal… after all, your life has been going too smoothly lately. Life needs to throw you some chaos, otherwise it’s not scientific or logical!”
Feeling frustrated, I snapped at him, “It’s not like a woman’s period. Who cares about logic now!”
“Life is exactly like a woman’s period—you suffer when it comes, but if it doesn’t come for a month, you feel like you’ve been cheated and might even end up with an unexpected pregnancy!”
Thinking about it, I nodded and said, “Yeah, you’re right.”
Luo Ben took a cigarette from the pack, put it in his mouth, inhaled deeply, and then exhaled with satisfaction before asking, “Okay, what’s making you fall apart this time?”
The more I thought about last night’s events, the angrier I became. I vented my frustration by recounting everything to Luo Ben. At the end, I added, “Tell me, isn’t he just a bastard?… And Mi Cai actually believes him—I’m really at a loss!”
Luo Ben extinguished his cigarette butt, suddenly becoming serious. He said, “I’m just an observer here, so let me talk to you from Mi Cai’s perspective.”
I suddenly felt a glimmer of hope and quickly nodded.
Luo Ben shifted his sitting position, pondered for a moment, and then said, “Even if she suspects that bastard is setting you up, for the sake of Zhuomei’s interests, she can’t just openly confront him and say, ‘You’re not a decent person—I misjudged you!'”
I corrected him, “She wouldn’t say ‘you’re not a decent person’—that’s too vulgar!”
“You’re being nitpicky. It’s just an expression—I’m just saying he’s not trustworthy!”
I nodded and said, “Go on with your analysis!”
Luo Ben continued, “So the best approach now is to keep that bastard calm and deal with everything after Zhuo Mei goes public and Mi Zhongde is removed. From the beginning to now, has she ever made a scene with you? Has she ever clearly stated that she suspects you?”
Thinking carefully, it seemed that Mi Cai had indeed remained calm, aside from being unwilling to engage with me. My suspicion that she doubted me was probably just my own angry assumption. She hadn’t explicitly said anything, except that one question she asked in the coffee shop: “If he really came, why didn’t any of the waiters remember seeing him, especially since he arrived in a luxury car and had a distinguished appearance?”
But that one sentence was essentially the same as clearly doubting me! I told Luo Ben about it and asked him to continue analyzing.
Luo Ben rested his chin on one hand, deep in thought. After a while, he suddenly said, “Why didn’t any of the waiters in the coffee shop remember Weiran visiting that day?… Isn’t there a possibility that he bribed them all? So Mi Cai had to make a public statement in front of them, allowing them to relay that message back to that bastard, temporarily calming him down… Think about it, even if the waiters had no memory of it, couldn’t they just check the surveillance footage from that day in the coffee shop? Right?… At the time, you were too angry to think of checking the footage, but she, as the CEO of a large company, is extremely meticulous. Could she really have overlooked that? Therefore…” Luo Ben emphasized by tapping the table and continued, “Therefore, this proves my previous conclusion—she was putting on a show for that bastard!”
I thought for a while, feeling that Luo Ben’s explanation seemed a bit unreliable. I sighed, “Are you telling a story? Is this really that complicated?”
My skepticism made Luo Ben feel embarrassed, so he continued, “If you think this explanation is not credible, let’s analyze it from an emotional perspective…”
“Please do!”
Luo Ben became serious again and asked, “You said she lived with that bastard in the U.S. for four years, so their relationship must have been quite special, right?”
“Definitely. That was when she was grieving her father’s death—the darkest period of her life!”
Luo Ben nodded, “So that bastard must have taken care of her a lot during that time. Her feelings for him should be similar to your feelings for CC.”
Thinking about it, I realized that was true. During that almost parallel period, I was suffering from the pain of breaking up with Jian Wei, and CC had been by my side all along, taking care of me.
Luo Ben continued, “If someone suddenly told you that CC was actually unreliable and had serious character flaws, could you accept it?”
I immediately got angry, “Who dares to say such a thing about CC? I’ll beat the hell out of him!”
Luo Ben slapped the table and said, “Exactly! Deep down, Mi Cai must be unable to accept this fact, even if it’s you telling her. After all, it’s a five-year relationship. People are emotional beings. If she believed you immediately, wouldn’t that make her seem heartless?”
I admitted that Luo Ben’s logic made sense, but I still questioned, “CC would never be as hypocritical as that bastard!”
“In Mi Cai’s mind, that bastard is also an upright and reliable person. Therefore, everyone’s perspective is limited by their past experiences, and even your smart Mi Cai is no exception…”
After Luo Ben’s analysis, I couldn’t help but exclaim, “You really understand people well!”
Luo Ben raised two fingers toward me, signaling me to light him a cigarette. I quickly took out a cigarette from the pack and lit it for him like serving a king, because my mood had improved a lot after his analysis.
Luo Ben closed his eyes and smoked half the cigarette under the noon sun before asking me, “Okay, what else is on your mind? I’ll help you analyze it.”
Since he was unusually talkative today, I shared my last lingering doubt, “That bastard isn’t stupid, right? Why would he dare to do something so reckless that could easily be exposed? What will Mi Cai think of him afterward?”
Luo Ben shook his head and said, “Zhao Yang, you’re wrong. Actually, he handled this very cleverly…”
“Go on.”
Luo Ben slowly exhaled the smoke and said, “His intentions are clear. First, he wanted to stop your relationship with Mi Cai from deepening, buying himself time. He has already achieved that. Second, he wanted to test Mi Cai’s attitude—to see how much she truly values Zhuomei. If Mi Cai doesn’t openly confront him, it proves that he still has enough leverage to influence her decisions. If he can indeed influence her, then how she sees him later won’t matter much. By shifting the blame onto you, he avoids a direct confrontation with Mi Cai. Both sides understand the game and play the waiting game. So this is a high-stakes psychological battle between him and your Mi Cai. Your Mi Cai, wanting to win control of Zhuomei, chooses to play for time. Her delay gives him time to prepare his next move, hoping to turn the tide in this emotional battle. So, just wait patiently for the outcome of this high-IQ game between them.”
I had never realized before how insightful Luo Ben could be. For the first time, I genuinely admired his intelligence. I patted his shoulder and said, “Man, I really have to look at you differently this time. You’re wasting your talent just singing—you should be a detective!”
Luo Ben extinguished his cigarette again, smiled, and said calmly, “Of course. After all, I was bored in that mountain village for over a month. I watched hundreds of episodes of Detective Conan for nothing?”
Suddenly, I had an urge to kill him…
But was there really no truth to his analysis? Actually, I did believe part of it. For example, Mi Cai might not want to confront the five years of emotions she shared with Weiran, so she chose not to take a stance… and she might not even truly believe that I was behind this dirty trick. Therefore, I now believed that she would definitely come to Xitang—sooner or later…
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