Chapter 66: Don’t Burn the Ruins

“Don’t burn the ruins. The consequences will be severe.”

“What if I don’t?”

Yu Zhimei also had her own worries, but she didn’t bring them up because the removal of “Day and Night” was too serious to mention. Urbanites drink for no other reason than the accumulation of unresolved frustrations—no one’s life is particularly easier than anyone else’s. Xing was facing two choices: raising Series A funding or signing with an MCN. The former would require hiring new employees and adjusting content categories, while the latter offered abundant advertising resources, plus he’d be in the same company as his close friend, a star team that produces comic content. Xing had been floating around the automotive media scene for seven to eight years, with five million followers across platforms, receiving mixed reviews. Now, he indeed needed a turning point—either rise or continue to drift within the turbulent automotive media industry. Short videos had become the mainstream of information dissemination, with waves of high-quality and daring bloggers emerging one after another, breaking through barriers. In this tide, mediocrity meant decline.

These matters were not particularly relevant to Yu Zhimei. She worked at a small company, following orders from her boss and focusing on creating good content. The only person facing decisions was the boss, while the rest of the team followed routines, taking advertisements and shooting videos, all while trembling at Xing’s words. The series “The Art of Talking Cars” had never featured a luxury car model exceeding one million yuan, and during a meeting, when Monkey casually mentioned it, Xing suddenly lost his temper: “Can’t you see the state of our company right now? Are you really that brainless?”

Monkey seemed to be the most miserable one in the company, being criticized nine times and praised once—and even that praise could turn into a higher level of loyalty to Xing. Xiaolong and Monkey were close friends, renting apartments in the same neighborhood, yet Monkey often expressed dissatisfaction to Yu Zhimei in private chats: “Monkey maintains quite a few clients, has been following the boss all along, so why is he so patient? When he was scolded by his girlfriend in the past, or felt unfulfilled at work, he endured it. If it were me, I’d fight the boss over it, discuss things rationally, instead of always being choked by him.”

Xing’s educational videos were all shot by him personally with a cameraman, and the Q&A shows only required post-production editing. His salary wasn’t for nothing; currently, he was helping Xing sell second-hand cars. With fewer advertisement cars coming in lately, avoiding dismissal meant obediently becoming a used-car dealer. At that moment, she was sitting in the hotel’s first-floor restaurant waiting for clients, juggling buyers and sellers in an Excel sheet.

“Aren’t you going to stop until you’ve squeezed every last drop out of me?”

“Of course. If I left any for someone else, I’d be insanely jealous.”

“Thanks to you, there isn’t a single drop left.”

Zheng Zeyan stared at the ceiling, naked and dazed, as if he had just dreamt. In his dream, he was in a tropical jungle, barely clothed, and Ou Jinghe pierced a hole in him with a straw-like tube, extracting his soul as liquid, slowly sipping it away. Upon waking, his body felt like it had fallen from a great height, overwhelmed by an unprecedented emptiness.

On the bed not far from the sofa lay “First Love Sister.” After returning to Shanghai for graduate studies, Zheng Zeyan lived on campus. There was no curfew at the school, so girls often went out at night to get drunk and have fun. First Love Sister was the first girl he met back then. At that time, he was still frail, walking around campus like a flattened cardboard box, with something barely qualifying as muscle clinging to his bones. His cheeks were hollow, and girls taller than him by a few centimeters looked more robust. In short, his first attempt at romance was embarrassing—horrible foreplay, climax arriving unexpectedly. Later, he learned that First Love Sister got her nickname because she often recognized inexperienced boys in bars and helped them out. He wasn’t picked out in bars due to his height or charm.

They occasionally saw each other now. He was no longer weak and shy, and women’s gazes upon him weren’t pure anymore. Meanwhile, First Love Sister had aged visibly—her boyfriend worked long-term in Japan, she owned a house with a mortgage, and her dark circles were like a total solar eclipse. Every time they met, he would take a shower, lie down on one side, and sleep, covering himself with nothing but a bath towel, refusing to go to bed. As he put it, he didn’t want to get entangled with a woman who had a boyfriend.

Lying on the sofa today, he felt an indescribable complexity—though he didn’t need to express loyalty to anyone, he constantly felt like a condemned prisoner awaiting execution.

“I’m about to video call my boyfriend. Don’t suddenly attack me.”

“The way you say that makes it sound like you’re inviting me to crawl under the covers. Even without thinking, I know you’re spreading your legs. If you really wanted him to know, just record me directly. What’s the point of hiding like this every time?”

“If you stopped being so hypocritical, you’d be much cuter. You’re obviously more passionate than anyone else, so why do you always say the opposite?”

Before Zheng Zeyan could respond, the video call came through. First Love Sister greeted warmly, telling her boyfriend she was on a business trip and staying in a nice hotel arranged by the client, all while flirting and showing off her shoulders. Zheng Zeyan leaned in quietly, dangerously pulling at the edge of her blanket, and heard a gasp as expected. Underneath the blanket, First Love Sister, who wore nothing, held onto the blanket and acted skillfully: “There’s a bug in the room! Let me go deal with it…”

After ending the video call, the woman under the blanket and the man outside looked at each other, their bodies excited. The gentle First Love Sister jumped onto the sofa and kissed Zheng Zeyan. He didn’t refuse but also didn’t initiate anything aggressively—it wasn’t like him. After a while, her kisses slowed down, tinged with disappointment. He merely pressed the curtain switch, plunging the room into darkness, and pulled her towards him by the shoulders: “Sorry, I was distracted earlier.”

Closing his eyes brought thoughts of Ou Jinghe, igniting all his desires; as long as he kept his eyes shut, he could give everything physically. Once his body calmed down, First Love Sister seemed to still be savoring the afterglow on the bed—women are truly pitiful. After showering and dressing, he said seriously: “Let’s not meet again.”

First Love Sister clung to Zheng Zeyan: “Just stay with me a little longer. I’m so lonely.”

“Have you ever thought about how unfair this is to your boyfriend?”

“No. He’s so fat, utterly charmless, and the mortgage on the house is all on me. Without going to Japan, he wouldn’t even earn ten thousand yuan a month. If it weren’t for delaying graduation and not getting my diploma, why would I be with him?”

“How dare you still talk about it. After finding a scapegoat, don’t act innocent.”

“What about you? Every time you ignore my calls and messages, yet you can’t resist reaching out to me. Stop pushing me away with harsh words. Let me guess, you’ve fallen for someone, haven’t you? Could it be that this time you’re saving yourself for her?”

“Shut up.”

“You and I were a mismatch that never came together. Forgot? You couldn’t forget me in that small inn in the southern district. It was my vanity that ignored you back then, and two years later, we almost dated. But you went to Israel for half a year, and when you returned, you complained that I didn’t wait for you—you loved me.”

“It wasn’t a mismatch. Within those six months, you were already entangled with your ex-boyfriend, causing a scandal throughout the city. After that, I never trusted anyone again. Thanks to you.”

“But we understand each other better than anyone else in the world. Even if we don’t date or marry, we’ll always be important people in each other’s lives, right?”

“I won’t see you again. Take care. Oh, and be kind to your incompetent boyfriend. No one else will take you in besides him, you whore.” Zheng Zeyan opened the door and walked out, feeling somewhat relieved that he had never invited First Love Sister to his place.

Downstairs in the hotel lobby, Zheng Zeyan checked out with a straight face—he didn’t care how embarrassing it was for the cleaning staff to rush in and kick people out. Before he could leave, a familiar face was having afternoon tea in the lobby—it was Yu Zhimei. She looked like she was waiting for someone, still frowning at her laptop. Zheng Zeyan approached and greeted her: “Waiting for someone?”

“My client just left. They want to do a series of advertisements and privately asked me to buy a used car.”

Zheng Zeyan signaled for a cup of coffee: “Do you mind if I sit with you for a bit?”

The person staring at the screen didn’t look at him but continued to pick up the phone and make a call. Skillfully asking: “Is your Haval a National IV or V? National IV won’t do—I can’t drive it into Shanghai…”

First Love Sister, who had come downstairs, approached and waved at Yu Zhimei, not even hanging up the phone: “Hello, aren’t you Zheng Zeyan’s eternal love? I’m his First Love Sister.”

Zheng Zeyan frowned, and Yu Zhimei noticed it, pointing to the phone by her ear and politely excusing herself. First Love Sister’s smile, dressed in a spaghetti strap dress with a suit jacket draped over her, appeared mad, like someone willing to destroy everything. That teasing expression struck Zheng Zeyan hard—Ou Jinghe had once looked at him with the same expression. On the couch, Yu Zhimei ended the call without comment, quickly typing on her keyboard. Zheng Zeyan couldn’t hold back and spoke first: “She was a senior sister I liked when I was pursuing my master’s degree.”

“No need to explain to me. When you said you liked me before, I didn’t take it to heart.”

“Why?”

“Because it has nothing to do with me.” Before Zheng Zeyan could speak again, Yu Zhimei glanced at the time: “I need to take a taxi back to Puxi. Do you want to come with me?”

“I drove here. Since it has nothing to do with me, let’s take my car.”

The car sped through the tunnel, and Yu Zhimei sat in the backseat, still working on her laptop. A box of 001 condoms lay in the backseat, which Yu Zhimei pretended not to see. Zheng Zeyan couldn’t help but start a conversation: “How’s Day and Night? How’s Jian Zhaowen?”

“He’s very busy. I haven’t seen him in a week.” Yu Zhimei closed her laptop and suddenly laughed: “Did you know? I’m helping Zhang Yao sell a car.”

The two exchanged glances in the rearview mirror and burst out laughing.

“His wife is looking for a buyer, and then she’s trading it in for a second-hand GL8 at my company. Car dealers from Zhejiang contacted us for the car. I spent three or four days handling it, and only when transferring ownership did I notice—the maintenance records from the 4S store belonged to him.”

“How did it feel?”

“To be honest? No feeling. He secretly lowered his voice on the phone to ask about my situation, sounding guilty for abandoning me, sincerely hoping I’m doing well. But deep down, he wishes I’ve been pining for him for six years and asks if I’ve found someone else.” Yu Zhimei sneered: “I always knew he was self-centered, but I didn’t expect it to this extent.”

“That woman who called herself First Love Sister cheated on me with her ex-boyfriend at the time I loved her the most. I bought two one-carat loose diamonds in Israel to propose to her, and now they’re still in my safe.”

Zheng Zeyan knew Yu Zhimei was watching him in the rearview mirror. He didn’t say much, and when they reached downtown, he politely asked: “Do you want to grab a drink? I know a bar I really like.”

“Not going to the dessert shop?”

“No, it’s honestly too bad and too expensive.” Zheng Zeyan smiled bitterly, yet he seemed to know Miaolin Dessert Shop better than anyone. Yu Zhimei noticed his expression and nodded with a smile: “Alright, just one drink, then send me back to work.”

Shanghai doesn’t lack bars, nor does it lack courtyards full of ambiance. Zheng Zeyan was a regular at Barules. Entering through a red telephone booth hidden door, he had Yu Zhimei play the piano in the corridor. Lacking musical talent, she randomly hit a few keys, accidentally touched the right one, and the door opened. Zheng Zeyan pushed her in: “Alright, I’ll count that as you knowing how to play.”

The first floor was a refined bar, its space retro like an antique shop, exquisitely beyond imagination, meticulously crafted to astound. Upstairs was a different world—photos of guest bartenders hung on the walls. Yu Zhimei ordered a drink called “Inspired by Movie,” captivated by the dazzling lights, sensing that this atmosphere wouldn’t end with just one drink—Zheng Zeyan seemed to have some stories as well.

The next moment, he ordered an Owl, with a marshmallow egg in a nest, topped with an orange slice and cookies. It was something Shi Rui or a drunken Lei Zheng might order, but Zheng Zeyan was quite at ease, talking about tongue kissing and the First Love Sister he encountered in the hotel—his mischievous behavior seemed unrelated to him, only discussing Jian Zhaowen’s Day and Night. He praised Jian Zhaowen’s creativity and mocked his arrogance. Yu Zhimei drank her cocktail slowly, listening to him talk about investments—guarded, she didn’t dare drink more.

When the topic turned to ex-boyfriends, Zheng Zeyan took off his coat and smoothed his hair: “Honestly, I despise cowards like Zhang Yao. He abandoned you, returned to his hometown to marry and have children, thinking highly of himself. Do you know what he said back then? I still remember his expression, righteous and solemn: ‘Yu Zhimei is too strong-willed. Many times in college, I felt I couldn’t handle her, and after graduation, it was even worse. She always wanted to challenge fields she wasn’t good at, eager to try in the big city, while I wanted comfort. A man always needs to find a woman he can control to feel secure. We’ve walked a long road together, and as long as we silently pray with love, we’ll both be happy.’”

Yu Zhimei sucked in air sharply: “Why does the second half sound so familiar?”

“Isn’t that Sun Nan’s song? And the lyrics are wrong.”

Yu Zhimei wiped away tears of laughter: “My goodness. It’s a blessing we didn’t end up together in college. Thinking about dating that muscular but dim-witted man for so long, I can’t even recall his strengths now.”

“Was it painful back then?”

“Of course.”

“Why do you seem clean even in pain?”

“I can’t answer that. But as a friend, I’ll remind you of something—don’t mess with Sister He.”

“Why?” Zheng Zeyan suddenly became serious: “What do you know about us?”

“She hasn’t told me anything, but I can sense it. Don’t burn the ruins—the consequences will be severe.”

Zheng Zeyan adjusted his glasses, watching pedestrians looking up outside the window, and slowly responded: “What if I don’t?”