As I walked with Mi Cai on Moyou Road, the loneliness that had haunted me for a long time gradually peeled away from my body. I cherished every second she walked beside me, so I let go of all burdens, held her hand tightly, and walked towards the Moyou Coffee Shop, which was not far from us.
Mi Cai stopped walking, gazing at the shop sign entwined with colorful lights, which deepened my curiosity. I asked her, “Didn’t you notice this coffee shop when you walked this road before?”
“I came in for a cup of coffee, but didn’t stay too long.”
While I was finding the key to open the door, I asked, “What do you think of this coffee shop?”
Mi Cai thought for a moment and replied, “It represents our sentiment…”
“The sentiment of ‘not worrying about anything’?”
“Yeah… Did you manage to achieve that this year?”
“Not completely… I did pretty badly! What about you? Are you a bit better than me?” I asked while holding the unlocked padlock in my hand. At this moment, we were like two students exchanging ideas, the only difference being: they discussed small academic matters, while we discussed the bigger issues of life.
“…How should I put this?…” Mi Cai hesitated for a moment, then suddenly shifted the topic, saying, “Actually, I’m more curious about what delicious things the coffee shop has now.”
I had a premonition that Mi Cai wasn’t willing to talk about her life in America, so I didn’t want to push her. I played along with her humor and joked, “Now I finally understand why you gained weight—it must be because the food in America is better than back home, so you’ve become more gluttonous!”
I didn’t expect Mi Cai to respond to my teasing. I opened the door of the coffee shop, but she didn’t go in immediately. She grabbed my hand, hesitating as if she wanted to say something…
“What’s wrong?”
“Zhaoyang… if one day you find out I’ve hidden some things from you, would you hate me?”
My heart skipped a beat and then felt a sharp pain, but I no longer reacted as impulsively as before. I took a deep breath and softly said to her, “You must be hiding something from me now, right?… That’s why you didn’t want to see me after coming back. It’s not really because you were afraid of the pain of parting, but because you didn’t know how to face me—the man who’s been kept in the dark and still acts so foolishly!”
Mi Cai silently admitted it…
I grabbed her shoulders, but I couldn’t hate her; I just looked at her…
“Zhaoyang…”
I finally interrupted her, mustering the last of my courage to say, “You don’t need to say anything else. As long as you haven’t hidden from me that you’ve fallen in love with someone else or already married, I can forgive anything, and I won’t care about anything else!… Mi Cai, I, Zhaoyang, am still the same as before. I don’t seek wealth or fame… All I want is for you to stay by my side…” My voice choked up as I continued, “But why am I now doing all these things for fame and fortune?… Do I really enjoy doing this?… No, I really don’t. I just want you back by my side, wanting to regain everything you’ve lost…”
My emotional outburst threw Mi Cai into panic as well. She gripped my hand and said, “Zhaoyang, listen to me. It’s not like what you’re thinking… I’ve never thought about becoming someone else’s woman. That wedding ring you haven’t put on my finger yet, I’ve kept it with me all along. It has become my solace when I miss you…”
Suddenly, my nerves relaxed. The reason I was so tense was because I cared too much about this relationship. Otherwise, which man would wait endlessly for a woman in this fast-paced world where emotions are cheap? I exhaled deeply, keeping my head down for a long time. When I looked up, I tightly embraced her and softly whispered in her ear, “Just tell me you’ll come back and stay with me, this not-so-perfect man, for the rest of our lives. I won’t care about anything else. If those business strategies are things you feel uncomfortable telling me, I won’t ask, because I know you’re better at that than I am…”
Mi Cai nodded, and we agreed not to touch each other’s emotions anymore, choosing instead to spend this brief night peacefully together.
…
After we entered the coffee shop, I suddenly remembered that I only had the key to the front door, not the one for the power switch. For safety reasons, the power switch was locked up, and all the electricity in the shop was cut off at the end of each business day. We could only rely on the light from our cell phones to find the brightest spot to sit down.
I fetched some pastries from the display case that Mi Cai liked and made her a cup of hot milk, saying, “Eat up. These can be considered stolen goods. We might only experience this once in our lifetime.”
“Why do you say stolen?”
“When I come to this coffee shop to eat, I always pay. If we indulge ourselves like this tonight, the cashier will definitely find discrepancies tomorrow. Before we explain ourselves, it’s essentially stealing!”
Mi Cai didn’t seem to have any qualms. She took a sip of the milk, praised its taste, and then said, “If there’s another chance to eat without paying, I’d be happy to follow your lead and be a little bad!”
“Exactly, you’re mentally prepared to follow me wherever I go, so you don’t have any psychological burden at all!”
Although Mi Cai’s affirmation was meant as a joke, it still gave me a sense of accomplishment. I laughed and said to her, “Say, if we have kids in the future, will they inherit my mischief or your go-with-the-flow attitude? Even though he (or she) isn’t someone who likes to do bad things, they’ll be influenced by someone who loves to do them!”
“They’ll definitely inherit your mischievous personality…” Mi Cai said, looking quite touched.
I laughed out loud, “You must have been psychologically scarred by me, so you’re so sure about that!”
Mi Cai looked at me, then stirred the hot milk in her cup with a spoon, responding with a smile, “What do you think?”
Seeing Mi Cai treating the topic so lightly, I didn’t dwell further. After all, having children seemed too far away for us right now. It wasn’t practical to speculate on whether our future child would resemble me or Mi Cai. What I wanted most was to put that ring, which I had once failed to give her, on her finger as soon as possible.
After shifting my focus, I suddenly remembered: there were still some unused scented candles left under the bar cabinet from the last event. Filled with romantic feelings, I took out the bag of candles and, using all my romantic talent, arranged them into a heart shape in front of Mi Cai. As I lit each candle one by one, the room was filled with a soft, flickering light mixed with a faint fragrance. Even the cat named Xiaodao was awakened from its sleep, but after a symbolic “meow” or two, it went back to sleep.
After telling Mi Cai about the origin of the cat named Xiaodao, she squatted by the cat cage to take a look. Suddenly, the coffee shop, which only had the two of us, became quiet… Only the fragrant candlelight flickered around us… My heart started to beat faster! I wanted to kiss her.
As I moved closer and closer to her, she suddenly seemed to remember something and said, “Zhaoyang, before I returned to China, I had dinner with Brother Zishi and… Jian Wei.”
When Jian Wei’s name was mentioned again, and coming from Mi Cai’s mouth, my heart was filled with mixed feelings. I asked, “…Are they doing okay?… How is Jian Wei recovering?”
“Jian Wei is doing very well. Brother Zishi is already preparing to start his own private hospital… Jian Wei fully supports his decision and will become his assistant, helping him manage the hospital’s daily operations… Do you know? The entire medical field has given Brother Zishi high praise, believing that what he’s doing is a very meaningful endeavor…”
I smiled, genuinely happy for them from the bottom of my heart, but there was another emotion I couldn’t express… It took a long time before I asked, “Besides opening the private hospital, do they have any other plans?”
“You actually want to ask if they have any plans to get married, right?”
After a moment of silence, I replied, “Yes.”
“I haven’t heard them mention that… Maybe they don’t have plans for it right now.”
Receiving this answer, which left me with indescribable feelings, I nodded slightly and didn’t ask further. We both knew very well that as long as two people who have feelings for each other keep working closely together, they will eventually end up together, just like me and Mi Cai used to be…
We left that topic behind and sat back at the table, finishing off those late-night snacks I had described as “stolen.” Yet neither of us wanted to leave this place and face the chaotic outside world again. However, those worldly disturbances still followed us even now. Mi Cai reminded me again that after she returned to America, I should meet An Qi from Tianyang Group. She had expressed interest in investing in my e-commerce project, so I needed to bring my ideas and have an initial discussion with her. Only then did I realize the real purpose of Mi Cai’s return to China. Presumably, she had already reached some kind of consensus with An Qi through this face-to-face communication…
Actually, this meeting was quite timely for me, because while I was preparing to establish an online shopping mall, I was also troubled by the lack of investment backing. Previously, I had indeed had a brief encounter with An Qi, but her attitude wasn’t clear enough. I believed that when we met again, her attitude would change, otherwise Mi Cai’s return to China would be meaningless.
In fact, I could understand An Qi’s previous attitude quite well. After all, I didn’t have the channel resources of the former Zhuomei Group. It was only natural for her to be cautious about making such a significant investment. In my mind, she was fundamentally different from her husband, Zhang Yixi. Sometimes, Zhang Yixi would indeed make sentimental business decisions based on personal feelings, but she was a person who would think things through to the extreme. I was sure that this time, Mi Cai must have given An Qi some kind of assurance regarding benefits, and those negotiation details were probably the things Mi Cai had previously mentioned she was keeping from me.
Yes, at least for now, I knew absolutely nothing about her current business operations!
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