Chapter 92: “I Can’t Lose, It’s a Woman’s Pride”

When a girl who believes she has unparalleled talent mistakenly fills a glass of wine and splashes it on you before she even understands love, you should know that’s a stroke of luck you’ll never get again in your life. Because perhaps that’s God’s last favor to your boring and ordinary life... After that, she will also realize her fall as a rising star, and you will return to your mediocre life. Maybe, in a twist of fate, you’ll become the person she talks about in her memoirs—because of you, her life completed a tragic turning point.

Jian Zhaowen was preparing evidence. All the information previously reported by lovedate was stored in his computer, ready to be used in a joint lawsuit if any competitors were caught in a similar trap. And the development of Philip’s live broadcast content being investigated for pornography was more interesting than he had imagined. After establishing a manual review team in Ningbo, Jian Zhaowen had been very sensitive about content, ruthlessly cracking down on obscene images, sensitive words, and unhealthy social circles. In the past half month, he had also relaxed the conditions for machine review, instructing manual reviewers to check IPs, while he himself was constantly monitoring the data. He had thought that people wouldn’t go to such extremes, but competitors like Philip who engaged in malicious competition loved to undermine others in the dark to secure their own invincibility. When he saw in the reported logs that competitors from other apps were again trying to bait them, Jian Zhaowen felt that if no one else was willing to step forward to clean up the industry’s garbage, he was willing to be the first.

With a full dozen pages of evidence, Jian Zhaowen carefully submitted them to the Pudong New District police, along with a thirty-page hard copy, containing information on both instances of baiting reports. After Jian Zhaowen saw off the police investigators, Lei Zheng came out of the office and saw Jian Zhaowen, a strange smile in his eyes. He went downstairs to buy coffee and again encountered Jian Zhaowen typing on his keyboard. Lei Zheng sat down without speaking, and Jian Zhaowen didn’t look up: “I know what you’re thinking. I’m not the Jian Zhaowen I used to be.”

“The dragon slayer also transforms into a dragon. This is a necessary step for you to become a true entrepreneur. And compared to Philip, you haven’t done anything. You could completely go into his lovedate and find borderline content; there’s plenty to find.”

“I’m not that despicable.” Jian Zhaowen finally looked up: “The psychological counseling entry I mentioned to you before, can we start preparing it?”

“I’m designing it. This part of the content needs someone to specifically liaise with aid organizations. We need to hire someone.”

“Didn’t you look at Ou Jinghe’s resume?”

“The boss lady? She hasn’t worked for years! Honestly, I think she’s a good-for-nothing.”

“Give her a chance. No one is born knowing everything. If it really doesn’t work out, we can just fire her during the probation period.”

Lei Zheng was stunned by these words—the once gentle Jian Zhaowen was suddenly speaking so decisively. The two were a bit awkward for a moment. As soon as Ou Jinghe was mentioned, they couldn’t help but remember how embarrassing their encounter in the small party room had been. Jian Zhaowen pretended not to remember the message that had appeared on Lei Zheng’s phone screen, but the backend data was real, and he hadn’t forgotten. Lei Zheng’s expression was natural, as if he was pretending to forget, and he said playfully, “Jian Zhaowen, you’d better hire her to do something practical, otherwise it will waste my department’s time.”

Day and Night had always had an unmanaged night zone entry, related to psychological counseling and reporting malicious users. Many users initially registered on Day and Night just to make friends and vent their feelings, and gradually anonymous help-seeking posts appeared. On lovedate, Jian Zhaowen had encountered users reporting pedophilia and sexual harassment, but for the sake of financing and business, Philip had directly deleted the posts, something that had always bothered Jian Zhaowen. When they initially decided to create Day and Night with Lei Zheng, it was because they shared the intention to create a help-seeking area and a psychological assistance entry, but this area, involving public welfare and psychological counseling professionals, needed to be on the right track before it could be implemented.

Now that half of the financing money had been spent, it was impossible not to put this matter on the agenda. Lei Zheng’s PRD came through, with both iOS and Android clients being developed simultaneously. Psychological counseling was divided into two types: one was paid cooperation with psychological counseling institutions in Shanghai, and the other was social welfare recruitment, screening suitable psychological counselors, and issuing invitation codes to register special accounts for communication with users. The content review of the psychological counseling section was even stricter—after all, it involved too many sensitive topics. On the first day it was opened, Jian Zhaowen heard all of Little Ma’s so-called “slang”: pedophilia, pig butchering scams, online loans, drug-facilitated sexual assault, surrogacy, love spells, brothels, “original flavor” (referring to used underwear).

The problems that love and marriage can bring are far more numerous than imagined.

Everything looked new and fresh to Ou Jinghe on her first day of work. She had changed a lot since their first meeting. Her entire attire was simple and understated, without even a single logo on her clothes. Jian Zhaowen found her state relaxed and friendly. She looked a bit older but radiant. She had come to be responsible for the qualification review and liaison for psychological counselors. The first day wasn’t easy, but she quickly got into the swing of things—the boss lady was, after all, the boss lady. And when she saw the posts in the help-seeking area, she slapped her thigh several times and couldn’t help but swear: “Damn it, what kind of beasts are these things? Jian Zhaowen, expose all these people online!”

Jian Zhaowen was in his office waiting to have a meeting with the R&D colleagues, ignoring Ou Jinghe. Having been out of the workplace for too long, Ou Jinghe sat on the stool and calmed down for a long time before realizing: the Jian Zhaowen at this moment was no longer her neighbor and dessert shop customer, but her boss. The thirty-six-year-old Ou Jinghe now had to go through more than three levels of reporting to reach Jian Zhaowen’s ears.

And Jian Zhaowen at work was very intimidating.

The first thing Yu Zhimei did upon returning to Shanghai was go to the Day and Night office. She put her luggage at home, fed the cats, rested until the afternoon, and then rode Sister He’s motorcycle to Jian Zhaowen’s building. After the dessert shop closed, the three-story historic old house went dark and was covered with cloth, as if it had returned to a hundred years ago. The motorcycle seemed to have traveled through the wrong era, awkwardly left in the corridor leading to the wine cellar. Just as cars rust if they aren’t driven, so do motorcycles. Yu Zhimei, relying on her long hair, used Sister He’s driver’s license. Strangely, whenever a girl appeared around Jian Zhaowen, she always couldn’t stay away from this motorcycle. Xing Ge was still urging her to get the data out and send emails. She planned to do it after reaching Jian Zhaowen’s office. Sister He had already sent several text messages: “The rumored female lead will arrive at four-thirty, hurry up and come!”

Dressed in all black, Yu Zhimei entered through the emergency exit of the side elevator, carrying a huge backpack. Like a vulture, she occupied an empty workstation in a corner of the company, ignoring Sister He’s messages and immediately starting to process data after sitting down. Sister He craned her neck for a long time before finally seeing Yu Zhimei hiding in the distance: “What are you doing, boss lady? Go over there and give that girl a hard time.”

“Who’s the boss lady? I’m Director Yu.”

“Alright, alright, independent woman.” Sister He sat down at the workstation next to her: “Startup companies are really suffocating. Everyone is working overtime, and I’m getting crow’s feet.”

“Let you experience the real life of not being a rich wife.”

“You guys used to come to the dessert shop often. I thought working was really easy. All that talk about 996 and crowded subways was just whining. Now I understand, it’s truly worse than death.”

Yu Zhimei only typed on her keyboard, ignoring her. Sister He sighed: “Luckily you came. The empty workstations here are visibly decreasing, like a flood. Jian Zhaowen hires people really fast, seven or eight new hires a week.”

These words didn’t sound very comfortable to Yu Zhimei’s ears. It was still a startup company, and moving the small workshop to Beijing was still just moving a small workshop. The main business was cultural media, used car repair and trading, while her boyfriend was a partner in a company about to go through Series B funding.

After processing the data for a while, Yu Zhimei saw the young girl Vicky entering through the main entrance. Dressed in a simple school uniform, she looked thin and fresh, with NBA sneakers worth two hundred thousand yuan on her feet. More than just being eye-catching, Yu Zhimei sensed a sharp aura. Girls educated by the elite were quiet enough in public, but the sharpness brought by their experience was arrogant enough. There was a saying in Shanghai’s prestigious schools: even if you can get in, you should carefully consider whether to go. Naive teenagers entering during puberty might prematurely experience the cruelty of social hierarchy. Vicky also saw her, walked straight over, and sat down next to her, opening her notebook to do homework. The handmade leather notebook was—Hermès.

Sister He received a WeChat message from Jian Zhaowen: “Sister He, please order a light meal for that girl later, New Element or Vagas, anything is fine, I’ll reimburse you. Send her to tutoring at six o’clock, I’ll send you the address later.” Handing the phone to Yu Zhimei, Sister He whispered, “See that? The young lady can’t even feed herself, she has to order employees around like nannies.”

Before Yu Zhimei could answer, the girl came over to greet her: “Are you Yu Zhimei?”

“You’re Vicky.”

“I don’t go by Vicky anymore, it’s Anthea now.”

Yu Zhimei was amused by her. It was obvious she wanted to chat, and Sister He’s free afternoon tea time finally seemed to have returned to the dessert shop’s home turf. So, within half an hour, Anthea’s bilingual life resume was revealed: at seventeen, she had already traveled to five continents, had a piano grade of ten, and learned locking with a private tutor on weekends; she had a vacation house next to Hyde Park and was preparing to apply to private universities, but because she was too outstanding, her study abroad agent was trying hard to weaken her patriotism and turn her into an excellent and sunny high school student. When talking about these things, the girl was very calm, and her smile also had a hint of hostility: “I’m more suitable for Jian Zhaowen than you are.”

Yu Zhimei wasn’t angry: “Okay, Anthea, what do you want to do in the future?”

“I never plan for the future because I’ll definitely be an investor. Right now, I just want to find a part-time job, preferably helping a publishing house translate works. There’s a book I’m reading recently that I really like, called ‘The Resisters of Youth.’ It’s very well-written, and I even tried translating a version, but there are a lot of ‘that kind of’ scenes in it that are very disgusting, so I replaced them all with more aesthetic language.”

“Oh?” Sister He suddenly became interested, sitting next to her with a cup of coffee: “How did you translate them?”

“I just replaced all the words about organs. I like Kawabata Yasunari’s style, it would be more suitable for such scenes, very aesthetic and also very subtle. I hate Yukio Mishima, detest Junichiro Tanizaki, and loathe Junichi Watanabe. Pornography is the cancer of literature.”

Sister He’s neck recoiled an inch, and she clapped her hands: “Beautiful.”

She smoothed her bangs, not at all concealing her ambition. Her slightly flat nose and thin body, like her ambition, hadn’t fully developed yet. She wanted more praise: “I’m quite satisfied with this set of photos. I gave them to Jian Zhaowen, but he wouldn’t accept them. Now I understand, it turns out he has an old girlfriend who’s twice my age.”

Yu Zhimei said awkwardly, “I’m really sorry for interfering in your feelings.”

“It’s okay, I’m used to love rivals. I used to like our class monitor, but he just happened to like a girl from the public middle school next door. That was also very stupid. She won’t even have money to study abroad in the future. She won’t have a great future in China, so they definitely won’t be together.”

“Then, do you have a picture of her?”

Anthea reluctantly replied, “I have her Weibo, you can find it there. But she has the look of a vixen. My classmates all dislike her. If she really grows up, I’ll probably be drinking tea in Beverly Hills, while she’ll be organizing files in an office in China where the air conditioning is broken.”

That photo, however, made Yu Zhimei and Ou Jinghe exchange a knowing smile. In the photo, the girl wore a white shirt and a plaid high-waisted short skirt, looking delicate and boneless, with snow-white skin and straight, straight legs with pink knees. Most importantly, the girl had long, narrow eyes, a nose that wasn’t high but very cute, and round lips, her gentleness and charm seeming natural. Ou Jinghe seemed to be deliberately teasing Anthea: “Wow, so beautiful, she must be very popular, right?”

She stood up, seemingly no longer willing to chat with them: “I’m going to the restroom.”

Watching her back, Sister He sighed: “What did I tell you? Kids nowadays are much more complicated than before.”

Busy until eight in the evening, Jian Zhaowen walked out of the conference room and glanced at the empty workstation in the distance. He was immediately stunned for a long time, and with unconcealed joy, he came over and kissed Yu Zhimei’s hair, his voice very soft: “What are you doing here?”

“Came to find that Vicky on your car window.”

Jian Zhaowen closed his eyes and frowned: “Damn it.”

“You really are a heartthrob.”

“Let’s eat, let’s eat. Come on, I’ll take you for a good meal.” Jian Zhaowen took a breath, as if sorting out his somewhat unclear thoughts: “A sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of an investor, I can’t afford to offend her. When did you find out?”

“Just at the dessert shop party a while ago. I went with Shi Rui to catch her husband cheating, and accidentally caught you.”

Stopped at the intersection, Jian Zhaowen had an expression that felt unfamiliar to Yu Zhimei: “So you ran off to Beijing?”

“I went for work, not to be angry with you. Xing Ge won’t be able to hire people in Beijing for a while, and the self-media channel will lose followers if it stops updating.”

“But I’ll be jealous. Between your career and me, you always lean a bit more towards your career. Going to Beijing is a thankless task, hard work, and too hard for a girl.”

Yu Zhimei didn’t respond. The road to the business district was only a kilometer but had no streetlights. The two didn’t hold hands, avoiding the crowd and walking one after the other. After eating, the two leaned against Jian Zhaowen’s office, and Yu Zhimei finally spoke: “I’m really scared to death.”

“Hmm?”

“I can’t tie my heart to you, and I know you love me because you’re attracted to me. Staying by your side, I’ll become a timid woman, watching people constantly bump into you, and when you look up at me again, you’ll find I’m no different from the girls you knew in the past, insecure, begging for a sentence that you only love me, and that’s not fair.”

“So...?”

“Whether I go to Beijing or stay in Shanghai, you have to give me time to make my own way. Jian Zhaowen, I always have to be your equal, maintain my own charm, so that you have a sense of crisis.”

“I understand, you want to have a tug-of-war with me.”

“Sort of. After all, the problem of your disappearing feelings isn’t something I can cure, and it’s not your fault, it’s human nature.”

Jian Zhaowen pursed his lips and nodded slightly: “That’s true. But... seeing that Vicky is only sixteen, are you still jealous?”

“Of course. When she has nothing to do with me, I’ll think she’s excellent and interesting, but if she has even a little bit to do with me, I’ll get anxious. I can’t lose, it’s a woman’s pride.”

“I’m also panicking.” Jian Zhaowen opened the window and patted his pocket, as if looking for a cigarette: “She reminds me all the time that I’m just an ordinary person. It looks like I have a company and I’m raising funds, but soon younger people will rush into the market, and I don’t know how long I can stay afloat after the industry changes.”

Jian Zhaowen didn’t mention that after that girl finished her late-night tutoring and waited for her father to pick her up, she had once rushed into his office and given him a kiss while he was working overtime. The seventeen-year-old girl’s lips were very soft, and her breath smelled of mint spray—she knew this needed preparation. Jian Zhaowen refused decisively and coldly, so harshly that she cried on the spot; and Jian Zhaowen’s inner sadness at that moment, he couldn’t tell Yu Zhimei either. When a girl who believes she has unparalleled talent mistakenly fills a glass of wine and splashes it on you before she even understands love, you should know that’s a stroke of luck you’ll never get again in your life. Because perhaps that’s God’s last favor to your boring and ordinary life... After that, she will also realize her fall as a rising star, and you will return to your mediocre life. Maybe, in a twist of fate, you’ll become the person she talks about in her memoirs—because of you, her life completed a tragic turning point.

And in the heart of such a youthful girl, he was an “ordinary person” worthy of entrusting her true feelings. She could soon be replaced just like changing an English name; she had a vast future ahead of her.

Some secrets are kept in the heart to avoid hurting the closest person—Yu Zhimei’s emotions were as fragile as they were passionate, and he understood that. He heard Yu Zhimei call his name, Jian Zhaowen.

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

Jian Zhaowen held out his arm for Yu Zhimei to see: “Look at these goosebumps.”

Jian Zhaowen, who had just smoked, was about to kiss her cheek when Xiaoxi swiped her card at the main entrance and came in, her loud voice making several sound-activated lights on the floor light up.

“Lei Zheng, get your ass out here!”