Chapter 44

Perhaps everyone has some difficulty expressing their feelings, and it’s not easy to say everything they want to say.

There’s always a kind of coincidence in this world, one that’s almost like a joke. Gu Yi’s anger wouldn’t be eased just because it was Jacqueline, a familiar person, who interrupted her love; on the contrary, at this moment, she wanted to settle both the old and new scores.

Liang Daiwen asked from behind, “Do you know her?”

“She’s my boss,” Gu Yi replied, taking off her coat and tying it around her waist. “You go ahead and work, I’ll keep her company.”

“If you need help, just call me.”

Gu Yi pointed at his nose. “We’re not done talking.”

Jacqueline, wearing a black shirt, trousers, and high heels, had makeup smeared across her face, staggering down the street. People walking past her were overwhelmed by the smell of alcohol and moved away. She looked like someone who could be picked up from the roadside and taken home to be worshipped as a success coach, completely lacking any sex appeal. As time passed, people became more dimensional, and Jacqueline’s dimensions had always been a powerful, unapproachable presence in the office. It was hard to get close to her or her subordinates. Seeing her in this state, Gu Yi had never seen her like this before, and it truly made her feel more three-dimensional in her mind. Gu Yi walked over and patted Jacqueline on the shoulder. Jacqueline’s hair covered her face, so she probably didn’t see clearly, stumbling as she walked.

Wanting to save her some face, Gu Yi followed behind and asked, “Excuse me, ma’am, do you need a ride home?”

“I can go back myself.”

Thinking of Jacqueline’s hometown, Xi’an, Gu Yi asked, “Where are you heading, to the Great Tang of the East?”

“Stop being sarcastic.” The woman shook her head. She was still beautiful, but now with a touch of decadence. Jacqueline, usually a polished figure, now looked less like the cold Hong Kong office model she was and more like a real person. She finally recognized Gu Yi. “Lindsey, were you just performing stand-up nearby? Not taking your job seriously and doing side gigs, you think you’re good at new media?”

This made Gu Yi laugh. Jacqueline looked at her, focusing hard, “You’re not Lindsey, Lindsey has more teeth than you.”

Gu Yi thought, as usual, she was completely absorbed in her work, and in life, she treated me like air—I’ve been in the company for two years, working hard behind the scenes for content, lost a tooth, and was mocked for three days in the office, and Jacqueline didn’t even notice?

Never mind. With her toothy smile, Gu Yi asked, “Where do you live?”

Gu Yi secretly hoped Jacqueline would stick to her so she could have a chance to get back at Xu Guanrui. But once Jacqueline was drunk, she became a trivia question master, constantly pestering Gu Yi with questions.

“Why don’t good horses turn back?”

“Because they’ve already been eaten clean from behind.”

“What animal can’t cry but always makes others upset?”

“Men.”

“If chickens and rabbits are in the same pen with a total of 100 legs, how many chickens and how many rabbits?”

Gu Yi called a cab and opened the door. “I don’t know, get in.”

Jacqueline wasn’t done, pulling on the door, refusing to get in the car, and started talking about music, going from Dou Wei to Song Dongye. Gu Yi shoved her into the car, and Jacqueline grabbed her hand, asking, “I’m asking you, the Four Heavenly Kings of Hong Kong—Aaron Kwok, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, and who’s the other king?”

Finally managing to get her into the back seat, Gu Yi sighed. “Liu Tian Wang.”

Jacqueline fell silent, seemingly really thinking about it.

“Where do you live? I’ll take you home.”

“Driver, just drive anywhere, I’ll pay the fare.”

Not this reckless with money?

The scenery rushed by. Gu Yi, breathing heavily at first, gradually calmed down. It was rare to have a chance to view Shanghai at midnight when it wasn’t congested. From the city center to the outskirts, the Yan’an Elevated Road stretched from North Zhai Road back to the Bund, where the lights grew more vibrant, like a flowing galaxy. Jacqueline beside her slept soundly, probably exhausted from her antics, occasionally opening her eyes to glance at the scenery, only to quickly fall asleep again, showing no real interest in the view. Gu Yi wasn’t sure if it was the pain from breaking up with Xu Guanrui, the irritation caused by the rare yet impactful Huang Wenduo, or the work-related frustration... but Jacqueline wasn’t an indestructible woman either. Staying with her on the road, Gu Yi felt a strange sense of camaraderie, like she was fighting alongside an ally, though Jacqueline would most likely deny it when she woke up.

After experiencing a taste of the world, the driver asked Gu Yi, “Miss, I’m about to get off work, you can decide where to stop.”

Gu Yi glanced at the fare of 370, feeling a sharp pain in her chest—this was the money she could only earn from two paid stand-up shows at ounce, and an open mic didn’t even offer performance fees. She couldn’t help but argue a bit, “Driver, don’t you think it’s better to keep driving and make more money? This lady devil can pay.”

“I’ll drop dead if I keep driving. I have a place in Xujiahui, it’s in the school district, and the rent I collect is more than what I make from driving. You young people live your lives in a drunken stupor, I need to rest, the sky’s almost getting light…”

Life goes by like a joke every day.

Gu Yi pursed her lips and said, “Then can we go to Xiangyang North Road?” The driver asked, “Still drinking?” Gu Yi almost laughed. “Xiangyang North Road isn’t just bars, there’s also an open mic for stand-up comedy, and down the road is the Writers’ Association and the Film Bureau—it’s a cultural place.”

“You young people have so many ways to entertain yourselves. But if you ask me, don’t drink too much, it’ll ruin your health. Life is tough, but you can vent in other ways. If you get this drunk, you’re probably not married, right? People who aren’t married by their thirties are the ones who drink like this. They have nothing serious to do. My wife has been taking care of the kids for over ten years, and she’s never drunk like this. She’s responsible—that’s how a woman should be.”

Gu Yi clasped her hands behind her head. “So, big brother, when your wife was young, compared to this beautiful lady beside me, who would you have liked?”

“It’s getting dark, I can’t see clearly, but let’s be realistic—when it comes to sleeping, the prettier one is the choice. We Shanghai people don’t lie to you, right? Beauty can afford to squander like this, and we like that, but we’d never marry her. It’s too much of a burden.”

“Men—so realistic.” Gu Yi paid the 370 and, her reason taking over, said, “Can I have the receipt? I need to reimburse it.”

Struggling with the drunk Jacqueline, who, even though she was as thin as a twig, still weighed at least a hundred pounds, Gu Yi smelled the heavy alcohol on her, knowing immediately it was Red Bull mixed with Jägermeister. She called Yu Dule. “Are you there? Come down and help me carry her!”

Yu Dule was still checking stock. When he saw Gu Yi carrying a drunken woman in all black, he didn’t say much—he just picked her up horizontally. Gu Yi hadn’t cooled down yet. If Jacqueline hadn’t shown up, tonight might have turned out very differently. She could have been Liang Daiwen’s girlfriend by now. Here she was, at the Van Gogh Gallery on the first day of their sweet romance, and yet she had to deal with this drunken mess.

Ounce was cleaner than usual. Late at night, the boxes of alcohol were stacked high on the floor, and Yu Dule would be constantly organizing the boxes, working with Excel to tally the stock and draw lists. Gu Yi found it strange. “Why aren’t you stocking any alcohol today?”

“I’ll tell you in a bit. Who’s this?”

After explaining the situation, Yu Dule, with a touch of philosophy, said, “If your boss shows up while you’re in the midst of a flirtation with Liang Daiwen, you should probably thank her. Fate doesn’t interrupt for no reason.”

“Is that so? Then does that mean my failed promotion, no raise, and the PUA I’m getting in the office are also fate’s way of slapping me? Jacqueline, wake up! Give me back my boyfriend!”

Jacqueline, lying on the sofa, seemed to have regained some clarity. She looked around, saw the stage and microphone, then stood up suddenly, moving stiffly like a zombie. Gu Yi raised her fist, ready to fight if it came to that. But Jacqueline asked, “Do you have speakers here?”

She connected the speakers via Bluetooth, but it seemed she couldn’t find the control on her phone. The first song that played was the world-destroying anthem “Lost Rivers.” The screeching vocals were so furious they sounded like an enraged mammal. Gu Yi felt like her eardrums were being torn apart by the speakers. Jacqueline quickly switched to the second song. “Sorry. Didn’t you just have a breakup? Come on, let’s dance.”

Gu Yi casually asked, “Did you have a breakup?”

“No.” True to her strong-woman persona, even drunk, Jacqueline was stubborn.

The speaker played a tango, the melody light and a bit familiar. A minute later, the lyrics started: “Love is just an ordinary thing, nothing special; men are just things to be discarded, what’s so great about them...”

It was a cover of Carmen by Zhang Hui Mei.

Jacqueline weaved between the tables and chairs, dancing crookedly. She had never learned to dance, and her movements were absurd, but she threw herself into it—clearly a professional in getting drunk and making a scene. The neatly arranged round table and sofa were knocked askew by her, and she even jumped behind the bar to open a bottle of beer. Then she hopped onto the stage and grabbed the microphone, but the wire was disconnected, and there was no sound—thankfully.

The two spectators in the audience were dumbfounded. After a long pause, Yu Dule nudged Gu Yi, “Are you sure this is the leader you usually talk about, the iron-faced Medusa?”

“I’ve never seen her drunk before, I’ve hardly seen her laugh, but this is no different from Liang Daiwen.”

The speaker continued to play: “What’s love, what’s passion, it’s just everyone fooling themselves; what’s obsession, what’s infatuation, it’s just men and women playing a game. If you fall in love with me, you’ll find bad luck; if I fall in love with you, you’ll die at my hands...”

Yu Dule propped his chin up and said, “Seems like a deep emotional wound.”

“Yeah, she usually suppresses herself so much,” Gu Yi said, holding up her phone to record. A minute-long video of Jacqueline’s wild behavior—she planned to keep it as a permanent memory.

“Why don’t you go dance with her?”

Gu Yi whispered with her face covered, “Just a while ago, the audience member Xu Guanyu was down at the company building and kissed me. She saw it—he’s her... ex-boyfriend. If I go up now, she’s probably going to pull my hair.”

“Can I have that story?”

“Sure, but I can’t say it out loud.”

A song ended with a dramatic crescendo, and Jacqueline jumped in front of Gu Yi with a triumphant grin. Gu Yi instinctively protected her hair, and Yu Dule tensed up. The drunk woman paused for three seconds before collapsing into the sofa next to them. Yu Dule laughed so hard he almost lost his breath, “She’s too funny. Can you send me the video?”

“Do you want me dead?”

“I just want to make friends. Video threats—she might cave in, but by day she’ll definitely pretend it never happened.”

Gu Yi looked at the unconscious Jacqueline and thought about the irresponsible method that allowed someone to make reckless decisions as long as their alcohol level was high enough, with no consequences. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. She cupped Jacqueline’s drunk face in her hands and said, “Wake up!”

Jacqueline opened her eyes, but they hadn’t focused yet. Gu Yi asked, “Why don’t you trust me?”

“What do you want to do?”

“Give me a job, give me the right to run my own public account. I don’t want to keep being reviewed by Pony anymore. Give me a chance, do you hear me?”

Drunk Jacqueline bit her lip, seeming to smile. Gu Yi rubbed her hands together: “I’m just taking advantage of you. Normally, you won’t even acknowledge me in the office. Now you can’t run away. Do you believe you can’t even stand up?”

The usually stoic woman with the ice-cold demeanor laughed heartily as she pried Gu Yi’s hands open. Gu Yi thought to herself, So terrifying—women who make it to the middle and upper management must have twisted souls.

“Do you know The Handmaid’s Tale? Stripped of rights and freedom, with only one task left—reproduction. And women are forced to turn against each other, to kill recklessly... I hate the exploitation of women. But in your eyes, I’m just a soulless female villain. It’s quite laughable, isn’t it? The way someone presents their aura is how others form stereotypes about them. I guess I’ve won.”

Gu Yi looked at her in confusion.

“Do you want to fight with me to let off some steam? I practice mixed martial arts as a hobby. Are you sure you want to fight me?”

“Do you believe it? You can’t beat someone who’s full of anger,” Gu Yi was still trying to argue.

“What’s there to be angry about?” Jacqueline was heavily intoxicated. “Without me, you would’ve been fired long ago. The magazine has evolved a lot since then. There used to be a dozen people scrambling over one magazine, all competing for space and plotting against each other; now with new media ads, the cycle is much shorter, and the KPIs are much clearer. Think about it... where are you really...”

Halfway through, Jacqueline dashed to the restroom, and when she returned, she had forgotten what she was saying. Gu Yi sighed. “Do you want me to call a friend over? Is there anyone you want to see?”

“No need.” The collapsed woman still retained some beauty, and she smiled at Gu Yi. “A person needs to have their own strength, to live with power.”

Gu Yi always believed that asking for help in times of weakness was a good way to test who truly cared. It was a technique she’d mastered, and she considered it instinctive. After all, only someone who had been loved could allow themselves to be vulnerable at their softest. Maybe Jacqueline had never been able to quench her thirst with love.

She had intended to call Xu Guanyu, but decided against it. A message came in from Huang Wenda: “Sorry to bother you. Would you be interested in chatting about your boss? It’s been a while since we last met, and I’d like to know more about her.”

Gu Yi snapped a photo of Jacqueline drunk: “Xiangyang North Road, ounce. She’s had too much.”

After sending it, her phone automatically shut down. Gu Yi searched for a while for a charger but couldn’t find one, and didn’t feel like borrowing a power bank from Yu Dule. She gave up. The narrow stairs of the little house, with its nineteen steps, always gave a feeling of roughness, like they led to some distant dream. Yu Dule was sitting there in a daze. Gu Yi asked, “You’ve been at ounce a lot lately. The day we played tennis, something seemed off. What happened? Did you argue with Guan Xingxin?”

“Been arguing a lot recently.”

Gu Yi wasn’t really surprised. Yu Dule seemed easy-going, but when she truly committed to something, she needed to meticulously carry out every detail. If ounce had a different person in charge, it wouldn’t be as organized as it was now. Yu Dule’s love was something she wrote out carefully, stroke by stroke. She and Guan Xingxin didn’t live together, though sometimes they spent the night together. As long as they didn’t talk about love and marriage, they usually got along fine. Yu Dule said, “She’s not like I imagined. I thought she didn’t want to get married, that she was very free. Back then, she even dared to post a hotel video to clear her name, but now she seems like she’s always being bound by chains. The most important thing is that every time I try to get closer to her, I realize I’m not the person she wants to be tied to. Now it’s reached the point where, without Uncle Lu, if we go out alone, it’s guaranteed to end badly.”

Gu Yi listened and realized that Guan Xingxin was likely trying to hide the fact that her mother was pressuring her into blind dates. She posted pictures of flowers on Instagram every day—white roses, gardenias, bellflowers... Each bouquet had a few sprigs of blue cornflowers, likely from Yu Dule. The captions under her posts were always cheerful, never once mentioning any complaints. She didn’t necessarily want to get married; perhaps she was just waiting for Yu Dule to succeed a little more so that he could naturally bring her to meet her parents. The struggles of forced blind dates weren’t something she wanted to share with a man with too much pride. Women’s white lies were only reserved for those they loved the most. From this perspective, it seemed like they really liked each other, but both were hiding secrets. Gu Yi hated this forced calculation of interests. It made emotions too complicated, like walking a tightrope—every flutter of the heart was filled with anxiety and fear.

“Guan Xingxin once told me she envied you and Liang Daiwen. You both didn’t have any extra thoughts. You were willing to wait, and he had no distractions. If two people can truly talk honestly with each other, it’s not a problem. I asked her, ‘So, what’s the problem between us?’ She couldn’t answer. She just said, ‘Maybe everyone has trouble expressing themselves. Wanting to say the things they most want to say isn’t easy.’”

The empty corridor became silent. Gu Yi squeezed her phone. Liang Daiwen’s rare message was asking first: “Did you get home safely?” Another message was from Xu Guanyu, his cryptic inquiry: “What are you doing?”

Maybe both messages were “I like you.”

In the quiet of midnight, someone hurriedly rushed up—the one and only Huang Wenda. Gu Yi’s first reaction was that if it wasn’t true love, then it was an attempt to take advantage of the situation. Huang Wenda seemed a bit excited: “Where is she?”

“Upstairs. Don’t take advantage of her.”

“Kid, when I was taking advantage of people, you were still in diapers.” Huang Wenda walked up to Jacqueline, not gentle at all, and slapped her face with a loud smack. There was no reaction. He then picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I won’t expose you.”

After saying that, he carried Jacqueline away, his steps firm and steady, joy hard to hide, returning the quiet to midnight. Gu Yi sat back down and patted Yu Dule’s shoulder. “Don’t be discouraged. At least we still have ounce. As long as we can do stand-up comedy and make people laugh, we still have a way to be happy, right? Stand-up comedy isn’t that bad, although it’s niche, there’s always someone who needs us.”

“The thing I was going to tell you earlier—boss doesn’t plan to renew the lease. We’re losing this place soon because it’s been too much of a loss.”