Chapter 73: You Enjoy Pretending So Much

I pinched my face hard; the pain told me I wasn’t dreaming. After a long pause, I asked Mi Cai, “How come you’re here?”

Mi Cai smiled and said, “Of course I came to find you.”

“But… why did you come looking for me, and how did you even find me?”

Compared to my shock, Mi Cai remained calm and said, “Play the game first; we’ll talk about it later.”

“What are you going to do then?” I asked instinctively.

“Watch you play.”

Before I could respond, a child nearby had already inserted a coin into the arcade machine for me.

I calmed myself down and started battling the kid again. Yet this time, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t win. Finally, I handed the basket of coins to the kid and, pulling an unwilling Mi Cai along, left the arcade.

…

It was already quite late at night. The wind, cold and sharp with the chill of late autumn, howled past us. Mi Cai was wearing only light clothing and instinctively pulled tighter the checked wool coat she had worn many times before.

Unable to hold back my curiosity any longer, I asked, “I still can’t believe this is happening. Please tell me why you came to find me.”

Mi Cai looked at me, her expression no longer as calm as usual. She took out a letter from her pocket and handed it to me, saying, “This is the letter you wrote to me, right? You already knew I was the general manager of Zhuomei!”

I took the letter but didn’t open it. I just stared at Mi Cai, my emotions surging. After a long silence, I lit a cigarette and asked, “How did you find out about all this?”

“Yuanfang told me. He said you resigned from Poly Department Store because of this and then left Suzhou.”

“He shouldn’t have told you. It was my own decision to leave Suzhou, a city that had made me feel exhausted.”

Mi Cai looked at me without saying anything. In fact, even without her speaking, I already knew her feelings—she was grateful to me. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have traveled all the way from Suzhou to Xuzhou to see me.

I didn’t want this incident to become a burden for Mi Cai, nor did I want her gratitude. So I smiled and tried to change the subject: “I’m really curious how you knew I was at the arcade. You’re really something else! This is Xuzhou, after all!”

Mi Cai, relieved of her burden, smiled slightly and said, “Yuanfang told me where you lived, so I went to your house. Your father was home and even cooked dinner for me. Later, your mother came back, and I asked her where you were. She said, ‘When he’s in a bad mood, he always goes to the arcade. You’ll definitely find him there.’ And sure enough, I found you there.”

“You went through so much trouble; why didn’t you call me beforehand?”

“You like to pretend so much. If I had called you in advance and let you prepare, how could I see your pitiful look?”

Mi Cai’s words left me momentarily speechless. After a while, I looked at Ban Die’s Santana and said, “Do I look pitiful? I have a car to drive, cigarettes to smoke, games to play. My life is as carefree as a god’s!”

Mi Cai shook her head helplessly and said, “Let’s not stand here talking. I’m getting cold.”

Immediately, I took off my jacket and draped it over Mi Cai’s shoulders. Then I pointed across the street and said, “There’s a tea house over there. Let’s go inside and sit down.”

Mi Cai nodded and walked with me across the street, avoiding the traffic.

…

Inside the tea house, Mi Cai and I sat facing each other. I drank green tea, while Mi Cai ordered black tea. The steam from the teacups rose between us. Looking through the steam, I saw that Mi Cai was still as beautiful as ever, almost too beautiful to belong to this mundane world.

Mi Cai held her teacup and gently turned it, as if wanting to say something but unsure how to begin.

Finally, I broke the silence, casually asking, “Where are you staying tonight?”

“A hotel,” she answered absentmindedly, not even looking at me.

“Oh, when are you going back to Suzhou?”

Mi Cai finally looked up at me and asked, “Do you think it was too impulsive of me to come to Xuzhou to find you?”

“You misunderstood me. I was just worried about your work, that’s why I asked,” I hurriedly explained.

Mi Cai shook her head and said, “No matter how busy my work is, I had to come to Xuzhou to find you… Thank you for helping me unconditionally.”

“Don’t be so formal. I would have done the same for anyone else,” I said with a smile.

Mi Cai nodded silently, while I realized that we had never interacted like this before, which made me feel somewhat uneasy.

After a long pause, Mi Cai looked at me and asked, “So what are your plans for the future?”

“I’ve already come back to Xuzhou. In the future, I’ll definitely stay here. Actually, it’s quite nice here—at least I can be with my family.”

Mi Cai looked at me, as if wanting to say something but holding back.

“What about your Zhuomei? Is it stable now?”

“For now, it’s stable, but this is only the beginning. Similar incidents might happen again in the future,” Mi Cai replied, her mood clearly low.

I sighed inwardly, knowing full well that Mi Zhongde wouldn’t easily give up control of Zhuomei. There would definitely be more schemes against Mi Cai in the future. I felt even more sympathy for her, especially since the one scheming against her was her own uncle. But I was helpless; I could only help her that one time.

“I heard from Yuanfang that this time you lost a rare job opportunity you had worked hard to get. Do you regret the cost you paid?”

I shook my head and said, “Actually, I struggled for a long time back then. After all, human nature is selfish. But once I made up my mind, I never regretted it.”

Mi Cai took a sip of her hot tea and finally seemed to make a decision as she asked me, “Zhaoyang, would you be willing to return to Suzhou and join our Zhuomei Shopping Center?”

“Is this your way of compensating me? Or do you think I need this kind of compensation?”

“If you wanted to compensate me, you wouldn’t have told me the truth in that way. I just hope you’ll join Zhuomei. First, you’re currently unemployed. Second, you’ve always worked in planning. Third, working at Zhuomei is a good choice.”

I smiled and asked, “If Yuanfang hadn’t told you all this, would you have invited me to join Zhuomei? To be honest, you’re just feeling guilty, but there’s really no need for that!”

“I admit I do feel guilty, but have you ever thought about why Yuanfang told me all this? He doesn’t want you to lose your job because of this incident. He hopes you can continue staying in Suzhou, after all, it’s the place where you once worked hard.”

I shook my head and said, “You’re not quite right. Suzhou isn’t really a place where I worked hard. All my memories of Suzhou are gray, because I was depressed and decadent there…”

Mi Cai didn’t speak anymore. Obviously, she wasn’t good at persuasion. And honestly, I really didn’t want to go back to Suzhou anymore because I couldn’t find a reason to return.

Joining Zhuomei was even more impossible because it would make my choice seem too self-serving, as if I had done it just to join Zhuomei, which would make me feel even more guilty toward Chen Jingming. No matter what, I didn’t want to live with such guilt.

I would take Xuzhou, the city where my life began, as my safe harbor and settle down here from now on.