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Looking into Gao Yuan’s eyes, Ou Jinghe knew her gamble had paid off. Despite all the psychological torment she had endured, even when falling off a cliff, she would be bloodied but not shattered, always having a chance to survive and receive a decent reward. In any case, fate had been kind to her.
For Sister He’s last lesson, Yu Zhimei took a taxi directly to the BMW Driving Center. It was their final drifting lesson, after which Sister He would no longer learn drifting. Sister He wore white jeans and a plain gray T-shirt. Interestingly, after she started dating Zheng Zeyan, her attire was no longer flamboyant.
Yu Zhimei sat in the passenger seat, accompanying Ou Jinghe as she drove around the track. Each car had a fixed 40-minute training session, and Yu Zhimei was keeping track of the time. Less than ten minutes in, two other cars entered the track. Two newly painted M2s and M3s drifted very close to their car on the left and right, which was extremely dangerous, like deliberately blocking their way. Yu Zhimei put her hand on the steering wheel, told Ou Jinghe to park by the side, and went to coordinate with the person in charge. This last lesson was also time the students had paid for, and there was no reason to be rudely squeezed out like this. But after she got out of the car, the two cars stopped in the middle of the track. Once Yu Zhimei finished coordinating and restarted the car, they surrounded her again, like two vultures circling their prey. Yu Zhimei finally understood. After the last lesson, they wouldn’t have to consider the clients’ feelings. Sister He’s video had spread widely on social media, but most people couldn’t recognize the protagonist in the video. Sister He was a familiar face at the drifting center and wouldn’t be seen again, so they simply came down to practice together. For them, this impolite teasing was nothing more than “seeing you’re frivolous, let’s play with you” and “getting angry means you can’t take a joke.”
“These flies.” Ou Jinghe was panicked by them in the car. Her driving skills weren’t enough to cope, and she didn’t dare to act rashly. The middle of the track was yellow sand and water, and the car was throwing mud everywhere. The wipers smeared a film on the windshield, making it look like they were in a special effects scene at first glance. The more Yu Zhimei drove, the angrier she became, and she told Ou Jinghe to stop.
“Stop in the middle of here? Isn’t that admitting defeat?”
“Let me drive. You can’t blame me if the tires burn out, right?”
“Play however you want, it’s my last time here anyway.”
Yu Zhimei and Sister He switched places. As she got into the driver’s seat, she pointed at the two fat guys who had been driving earlier: “Hey, brother, get in the car.”
The fat guy was stunned for a second: “What’s up? Something wrong?”
“Let’s do a couple of rounds! Never had a chance to compete.”
Drifting against two people on the track wasn’t like mountain road racing where speed determined the winner. Three cars on the track was a wheel-to-wheel battle. There was no fixed path for entering or exiting turns; it was unconditional close combat, forcing the opponent to change course. Losing meant hitting the opponent or forcing them to stop. This was a game the instructors had come up with for fun after all the students left at night, testing real reaction ability and drifting skills. After all, the car was out of control during a drift. If you couldn’t avoid in time, you could lightly injure each other or heavily cause a car crash with fatalities.
The M2 was a top-notch handling toy under a million, with unfathomable performance. The one driving it was a young coach, close in age to Yu Zhimei, a retired race car driver. He kept sticking close to her car, almost scraping off her rearview mirror in a straight line, circling the outer edge of the track with Yu Zhimei. Yu Zhimei was at a disadvantage taking the inner circle, and the M2 cut in diagonally before the turn. She braked, preparing to go to the outer lane, but was squeezed by the M3 on the right. Sister He gripped her seatbelt tightly. Yu Zhimei did a原地掉头 (yuándì diàotóu - U-turn) inwards. In a few seconds, the two cars drove far away. She floored the accelerator and continued to chase, cutting in front of the M2 at the end of the second lap, forcing the first car to stop. The M3 was a cunning old track player, bald and specializing in teaching male students, usually looking down on female drivers. The M2 remained stopped, the engine noise drowning out the cheers from outside the track. In the second round, Yu Zhimei and the other driver scraped against each other several times. Neither was willing to give way easily, and Yu Zhimei was almost forced to stop by the M3 in a turn. But Yu Zhimei broke the rules, reversing and facing the M3 head-on, the arc of her drift making Sister He couldn’t help but let go of her seatbelt and applaud: “Yu Zhimei, it’s okay if the car gets scratched, I want to win!”
After three rounds, Yu Zhimei crossed the line just a little faster than the M3, accelerating before the M3 could block her. In just three rounds, the opponent became careless, preparing to overtake directly in the next lap and drive off the track. His skill was above hers, but he disdained winning against a woman. Yu Zhimei was tired of this scenario. Whether she won or lost, she would be ridiculed, as if women could never win based on skill. And she was just a temporarily hired coach, unable to do much besides drive—everything had to be polite and proper. Sister He suddenly grabbed her shoulder: “Yu Zhimei, even if we crash the car today, I have to vent this anger. Don’t worry about the money.”
Yu Zhimei laughed after hearing this: “Please, my technique isn’t that bad. If we really crash, he’ll have to pay for it.”
The M2 had already floored the gas pedal and reversed, drifting ninety degrees in a distant open space. The M3 driver had no obvious weaknesses, but he would always be timid in the blind spot of a right turn. This was the opportunity Yu Zhimei was waiting for. She accelerated forward on the right side, and the M3 was suddenly provoked. When turning right, it hit a puddle and skidded. With a loud crash, the glass shattered, and the M3 looked like a crushed soda can in God’s hand. The front of the car went into Yu Zhimei’s rear. Yu Zhimei and Ou Jinghe climbed out of the car through the airbags, their heads buzzing. The rear of their car was already sticking up.
The man rushed over, rolling up his sleeves at Sister He: “You fucking provoked us! You’re fully responsible for today’s crash!”
Yu Zhimei’s waist and neck hurt, and her ears were still ringing: “No, you crashed. There are cameras everywhere here, and witnesses. Don’t try to argue about technical issues.”
The man grabbed Yu Zhimei’s collar, lifting her up like a chick, while Ou Jinghe stood aside quietly and said, “I advise you not to touch her. I’m not afraid of dying now, and I don’t care about getting in the car and running you over to die together.”
After saying this, Ou Jinghe calmly called the insurance company and pulled Yu Zhimei to a coffee shop. The suicidal words just spoken seemed to have no impact on her.
When Ou Jinghe signed the contract for her M4, she took out a two-million insurance policy for herself. She had never made a claim in the past three years, but this collision with the M3 would directly cost the price of repairing a new race car. Yu Zhimei stared at the long list, dumbfounded: insurance—what a great urban civilization! Impulses can be paid for afterward. There’s no regret medicine, but there can be remedies. Not everything offers such an opportunity for recklessness.
And the miraculous twist was: the two cars didn’t collide on the road, and cars on the track weren’t covered by regular insurance. Track insurance needed to be bought each time. This collision of two modified cars directly resulted in the cost of a new M4. On a small scale, Ou Jinghe could afford it, but on a larger scale, it was her rent for five or six years, two years of cosmetic surgery, and an entire car.
Now Ou Jinghe was actually glad she wasn’t divorced yet.
Of course, she couldn’t lose easily. She had to thank “Day and Night” for giving her the opportunity to argue. Because she kept using anonymous accounts to question the mistress who was exposing her, the mistress posted years of cohabitation rental contracts with Gao Yuan and Gao Yuan’s payment records. The lawyer took screenshots and printed them. Ou Jinghe went all out, flying over to meet this mistress in person—when there was a glimmer of hope in the darkness, she had to claw her way out at all costs.
The mistress was a woman with so much plastic surgery she looked like an inflatable doll, with a hot figure and a somewhat “big boobs, no brains” vibe. For the twenty minutes they sat down, she kept brewing red date and goji berry tea and took medicine from her pocket, exactly the same medicine Ou Jinghe had taken when treating her infertility. She certainly understood that the girl was calculating her ovulation period to meet with Gao Yuan—just like she used to.
Young women trying to cross social classes would always look for shortcuts, pinning their hopes on their wombs. Online, she claimed to be a weak and gentle Pisces, but meeting in person was purely to see what kind of woman her opponent was—she was afraid.
“What do you want from me? You even found my home, aren’t you afraid I’ll call the police?”
“Please, why should women make things difficult for each other? What’s your name again?”
“Cindy. Aren’t you already leaving with nothing?”
“Of course not. Didn’t he tell you I’m a ruthless character?”
“No, he only said you’re very vengeful...” The mistress always spoke without thinking: “You spent so much of Gao Yuan’s money, why weren’t you willing to have a baby for him?”
This was practically handing someone a free kill. Ou Jinghe endured and endured, refraining from lecturing her simple mind: “Then help me out. Once I’m divorced, you can move in, right? Gao Yuan and I have no feelings left, so I won’t force it. True love is for those who want it.”
After a few sentences, the mistress laughed: “You look down on me but still flew all the way here. Why should I help you?”
Ou Jinghe became impatient after a few more sentences: “Oh my god. Why is it so difficult to talk to you? Can you please digest what I just said? If you have evidence, I’ll threaten Gao Yuan, get a share of the property, and then divorce. Wouldn’t you get what you want and become the legal wife?” Gao Yuan chose and chose, knowing he liked brainless women, but Ou Jinghe never expected Cindy to be this brainless: “Let’s add each other on WeChat first. If you figure it out, it’s fine to take a trip to Shanghai. I’ll help you choose a big international flight, comfortable both ways.”
A penniless woman might say “a scholar can be killed but not humiliated,” but women who have seen a little money can’t refuse it. And Cindy still had curiosity on her face. Ou Jinghe understood that expression; she liked money. Ou Jinghe wouldn’t be stupid enough to directly give the evidence to Gao Yuan. Booking plane tickets to testify was dangerous enough. She couldn’t wait to settle things today: “You really want to live with Gao Yuan, right?”
The woman nodded: “I love him more than you do. So I absolutely won’t agree to do anything that’s really bad for him. Please go back.”
Boring. Ou Jinghe didn’t like Shenzhen, cold and folded, the struggling young people not yet realizing the cruelty of class. On the way to the airport, Ou Jinghe suddenly received a call from Gao Yuan. She originally thought Gao Yuan had received the news and was calling to denounce her, preparing to finish cursing him in a few minutes and catch the last boarding, but Gao Yuan’s voice was a bit tired: “Can you cooperate with me to sell that house in Miaolin?”
“Are you kidding? That’s my shop, why should I sell it?”
“I’m serious. The film and television company is going to start paying back taxes. Several of the film and television dramas we made before have to pay back eighty million in taxes. I don’t have that much money.”
“What do you mean?”
“The company’s back taxes after the dual contracts.” Gao Yuan paused for a few seconds: “We didn’t evade taxes, it’s just that several of the previous TV series did sell well, and Shanghai originally had support policies. Now we suddenly need to self-inspect and are ordered to pay back taxes... I’m also very reluctant to sell that house, but after all, the Gubei house has leverage, and selling the Bihu Tiandi house isn’t enough.”
“Gao Yuan, you’re forcing me to leave with nothing, and now you’re asking me to cooperate?”
“Are you playing dumb or are you really dumb? The company was opened after we got married. Whether it’s the appreciation of real estate or the benefits from film and television, it’s all common property. Of course, debts are also shared. Even if I die today, all the debts I owe and the small loans I’ve given out will be repaid by you. Don’t you understand this?”
“I’ll help you repay. Repay everything, but the condition is that you agree to a divorce.”
“Are you kidding? I don’t agree.”
“This matter has nothing to do with me at all. And the screenwriters you used to hire, those obscure little actors who slept with you, do you really think I didn’t know? You’ve been doing fake accounting for so many years, you wouldn’t even dare to fully disclose it in court. Now you remember me when it comes to paying back taxes?” Ou Jinghe hung up the phone, suddenly remembered something, and immediately turned back to the city to Cindy’s house. As soon as the matter of the film and television company’s dual contract back taxes was mentioned, the mistress’s face changed. Ou Jinghe’s mouth was dry, and she didn’t even have time to drink water: “To tell you the truth, if we really have to pay back taxes, Gao Yuan will have to pay a lot of money, and forget about the stocks. If you have any evidence to help me now, I’ll give you half of the money I get.”
Cindy was indeed a charming enough woman. After hesitating again and again, she opened her mouth: “Sister, it’s not like I have to be with him. I haven’t gotten pregnant after so many years, it’s not worth it to keep going. If you really want to mess with Gao Yuan, tell me in advance. As long as I have money, I can find the next one. I don’t care if Gao Yuan lives or dies.”
Unbelievable. Ou Jinghe’s face was calm, but her heart had already exploded: “What definite evidence do you have?”
“He has a financial person by his side. We often go to Macau together.”
Hearing the words “go to Macau,” Ou Jinghe understood. A man taking two women to Macau, going upstairs for a double team after gambling at the casino. Ou Jinghe couldn’t hide her excitement: “Do you have evidence? I need evidence.”
“Yes, and a lot.”
Gao Yuan’s company was established with several friends. At that time, they had just gotten married, and the film and television industry was booming. They partnered with a familiar cultural company, and copyrights and IPs were directly brought to their company to film, and contracted writers were directly brought in as screenwriters. In 2014, hot money poured in, and web dramas and big movies made a lot of money by selling to platforms. Several partners had dozens of properties in China, both commercial and residential, and their stock prices had doubled, with other businesses as well. The financial person was a woman in her forties, with a family. Ou Jinghe had met her a few times when she went to the company. She didn’t look young but was very smart. None of the young accountants under her had stayed for a full year. Now it seemed there were secrets.
Ou Jinghe went to the company and sat in the chairman’s office, waiting for Gao Yuan to return from his meeting. She turned on her voice recorder and placed it in her pocket before settling down. Although the mistress wasn’t very bright, she had taken the most crucial evidence. The so-called catching someone in the act, she had actually kept a secretly taken photo as proof. And the underwear Gao Yuan had changed that day was taken by her for testing, seemingly waiting for a day to use it as evidence. As a couple, Ou Jinghe was still considered merciful. People who truly relied on selling their bodies to attack each other designed every step of their game.
Gao Yuan’s face changed when he saw the photos. Ou Jinghe was determined to win: “I won’t release these photos, and I have no other demands. Just a divorce. Give me twenty million and I’ll leave.”
“Impossible, this company isn’t just mine.”
“I didn’t intend to do anything to the company either. My demand is a fair settlement. What does your company have to do with me? But if your financial person’s son knew his mother’s salary came from this, would he feel good? The company’s stock price will plummet when you’re paying back taxes. How will you survive then? You might even lose your chairman position, right? Oh, I know those tables you play at in Macau. If I really report you, you might end up in jail, right?”
“Ou Jinghe, you’re fucking crazy.”
With solid evidence in hand, Ou Jinghe didn’t even need to raise her voice, just speaking clearly and precisely: “Is twenty million a lot? Gao Yuan, put your hand on your conscience and ask yourself, is twenty million a lot for you? This is your last chance. I have more evidence. The infighting in your company is so severe right now. Giving these photos to your rivals is much worse than settling out of court with me now. Give me the money, and during the settlement period, you can sell the dessert shop however you want, and I’ll cooperate with how you handle the rest of the assets.”
Looking into Gao Yuan’s eyes, Ou Jinghe knew her gamble had paid off. Despite all the psychological torment she had endured, even when falling off a cliff, she would be bloodied but not shattered, always having a chance to survive and receive a decent reward. In any case, fate had been kind to her.
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