Outside the teahouse, Fangyuan and I stood side by side. The weather remained gloomy and cold. Perhaps once this rain, which was brewing, finally fell, winter would truly arrive.
I handed Fangyuan a cigarette, planning to use the time we spent smoking to talk a bit more and help him calm down. I couldn’t allow him to pass this negative mood on to Yan Yan, who was currently pregnant.
Fangyuan took the cigarette from me, lit it, and after taking a puff, he looked at me and said, “Don’t think too much about it when you go back. I will immediately go find Mi Cai. There will always be a resolution to this matter.”
Fangyuan nodded, but still looked worried as he said, “The main responsibility for today’s conflict with Mi Cai lies with me. You have a temper, so please try to keep it under control when you talk to her. Otherwise, I’ll feel even worse about this. Mi Cai is not only my direct supervisor and your girlfriend, but also my younger brother’s wife. I must formally apologize to you for today’s incident—I really haven’t been a worthy older brother!”
I patted Fangyuan’s shoulder, signaling him to stop. In fact, after everything I had experienced with Mi Cai, I had already learned self-restraint. In the past, I might have indeed gone to confront her with nothing but anger, demanding an explanation.
The wind before the rain was bitterly cold. I crushed out my cigarette butt and tucked my coat tighter before finally heading toward my car. At the same time, Fangyuan drove off in the opposite direction—not toward Zhuomei, but toward home. He was about to accompany Yan Yan for a prenatal checkup.
Indeed, it’s inconvenient and leaves a woman feeling unsafe if there isn’t a man by her side during pregnancy!
…
I parked my car in the open-air parking lot beneath Zhuomei Tower and immediately took out my phone to call Mi Cai. She didn’t answer the first time I dialed. Just as I was about to call again, she happened to call me back. I quickly answered and asked, “Are you still at Zhuomei now?”
“No, I just arrived in Shanghai.”
Mi Cai’s reply was only four words, but I could already sense her low spirits. I recalled the scene of Fangyuan angrily smashing her laptop. Perhaps in her life, she had never been treated this way before. My heart filled with sympathy for her, yet I also felt Fangyuan deserved understanding. Even before discussing the main issue, I already felt the difficulty of being caught between my friend and my lover.
Finally, I asked her, “Why did you go to Shanghai?”
“To take care of some arrangements before going to America.”
“Oh…” I responded briefly, then fell into silence. I couldn’t find the right way to start the conversation.
After a short pause, Mi Cai said, “You called me to talk about Fangyuan, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s discuss it tonight when I get back. I’m about to attend a meeting now.”
“Oh, okay… You go ahead with your meeting!”
“Okay, I’ll hang up now.”
“Wait…”
“What is it?”
“After the meeting, remember to have lunch. Don’t just have a working meal—eat something proper, okay?”
Mi Cai didn’t respond but hung up the phone. I thought I faintly heard a sob before she hung up, though I couldn’t be sure. Either way, my mood had worsened. I felt I hadn’t taken proper care of her, and I couldn’t understand why she insisted that Fangyuan accompany her to America, especially during this critical time when Yan Yan was already pregnant.
…
After returning to the company, I worked anxiously for half a day without resolving the issue. Toward dusk, I called Mi Cai again. She told me she had a lot to do and wouldn’t be returning from Shanghai for a while. Worried that driving after working so hard might not be safe for her, I offered to go to Shanghai to pick her up. She told me she had come with a driver, and after giving her numerous reminders, I finally hung up the phone.
I had no appetite for dinner, so I decided to stay in the office and work overtime. At this point, I had reached an agreement with Jian Wei, which added even more pressure on me. Ensuring the continued profitability of the “Artistic Path” project was not going to be easy. To maintain the project’s spiritual essence, we couldn’t overly commercialize it. Yet without commercialization, achieving broad profitability would be nearly impossible.
I brewed a cup of tea and then searched online for relevant foreign project cases that we could reference. Time passed bit by bit. When I finally came to my senses, raindrops had already covered the windows. This unpredictable weather had finally brought this troublesome rain. As the temperature dropped sharply, I began worrying whether Mi Cai had worn something warm enough.
As I hesitated whether to call her again, a knock on the office door interrupted my thoughts. Then Jian Wei appeared before me. I looked at her in slight surprise, waiting for her to explain the purpose of her visit since there had been no prior appointment.
Jian Wei took out a DVD from her handbag and said, “This is the promotional video we shot for Lukui. If you have time now, let’s go to the meeting room and watch it together… I hope you’ll be satisfied because major revisions won’t really be possible anymore.”
I nodded and followed Jian Wei to the meeting room. After the assistant turned on the projector, the two of us sat on opposite sides and began watching.
The promotional video was grand in scale, even using aerial shots, yet it was also detailed and refined. In the video, a couple of wandering musician lovers, carrying their instruments, wandered through the neon-lit city, walked past majestic and sacred mountains, arrived at tranquil and peaceful farmlands, and finally embraced each other while facing the vast and mighty ocean. The road they had walked was transformed into a continuous, endless painting through special effects. This five-minute promotional video was a major production, featuring a real-life celebrity couple portraying the wandering musicians.
When the video ended, I asked Jian Wei, “Did your company produce this promotional video?”
Jian Wei shook her head and replied, “It was produced by Jian Boyu’s company. Our company can’t currently produce something on this scale… What do you think? Are you satisfied?”
“This exceeded my expectations by far… It must have cost quite a bit to produce, right?”
Jian Wei replied, “That’s none of your concern. Anyway, the production budget for this project won’t go through our company’s accounts… I’ll handle the coordination directly with Jian Boyu.”
“So you’re planning to take advantage of your father again!”
“What are you talking about! I’m definitely giving something of equal value in return. Do you really think I’m someone who can’t distinguish between public and private matters?”
“Just consider what I said as an unthinking joke…”
Jian Wei didn’t dwell on my comment further. She played the promotional video again, and I took the opportunity to light a cigarette and rewatched it with her.
As the images flickered across the screen, I realized more profoundly that I had misunderstood Jian Wei. I had always thought she didn’t take the “Artistic Path” project seriously. But this high-budget promotional video fully captured the essence of the “Artistic Path.” If she truly didn’t understand the “Artistic Path,” she wouldn’t have been able to produce such a fitting promotional video. If she didn’t value the project, she wouldn’t have invested such a large sum of money in creating this promotional video for the “Artistic Path.”
Finally, I crushed out my cigarette. As the promotional video’s image froze on the vast blue ocean, I softly said to her, “I’m sorry… I misunderstood you before.”
Jian Wei seemed completely unfazed by my apology. She simply smiled and said, “The word ‘sorry’ carries too much weight between you and me, so don’t say it lightly…” Then she changed the subject, “By the way, let me tell you some great news. Our mutual good friend, Miss Yan Yan… she’s finally pregnant!”
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