MC - Chapter 11

In her first week at OW, Zhang Rufan adapted quite well. Whether it was the malls in Qingcheng or Shangjing, the details might have differed, but the work itself was more or less the same.

Although she didn’t feel any particular attachment to Shangjing, she couldn’t deny the deep and powerful pull of one’s hometown. Returning to work here felt perfectly natural.

Just like in Qingcheng, Zhang Rufan worked a regular nine-to-five on weekdays. If there was any change, it was probably that she’d picked up the habit of drinking coffee.

Lately, she’d been buying a cup of coffee at “Jindu” every morning. She couldn’t quite say if it was just about the coffee—but seeing Shen Mingjin did bring her a quiet, inexplicable joy.

During Friday’s lunch break, after finishing their meal, Yuan Shuang suggested stopping by “Jindu” for a while. Since there was still some time before work resumed, Zhang Rufan agreed.

There were plenty of office buildings near OW, and during the lunch hour, the café was always bustling with office workers.

As Zhang Rufan entered the café, she instinctively glanced toward the counter. Shen Mingjin wasn’t there—just a few employees busily working behind the bar.

Yuan Shuang tugged her over to a window seat, and before long, Xiao Mu came over holding the coffee menu.

“Where’s your boss?” Yuan Shuang asked as she took the menu.

“Went to buy beans,” Xiao Mu replied.

Zhang Rufan hesitated for a moment before asking Xiao Mu, “Is he usually not around at noon?”

Of course, Xiao Mu recognized her. That very morning, he had witnessed his boss—rather obediently—add her on WeChat, and had nearly dropped his jaw in shock.

It was the first time since working at the café that he’d ever seen a female customer successfully get the boss’s WeChat contact.

“Not necessarily,” he replied. “Our boss doesn’t keep fixed hours—sometimes he’s here in the morning, sometimes the afternoon, sometimes in the evening.”

Xiao Mu’s eyes darted around before landing back on Zhang Rufan. With a knowing smile, he added, “Don’t know what’s gotten into him lately—he’s been opening the shop early every single morning. Never seen him this motivated before.”

Zhang Rufan’s thoughts drifted. It wasn’t until Yuan Shuang asked her what she wanted to drink that she snapped out of it and ordered a pour-over made with single-origin beans from Kenya.

Later that afternoon, just before the end of the workday, Liu Pinyuan called a meeting. The focus was on planning the theme for the mall’s November event.

Several veteran staff from the planning department proposed new ideas, but Liu Pinyuan felt they were too similar to previous years’ and shot them down one by one.

Since the senior employees weren’t bringing anything fresh to the table, Liu Pinyuan turned to the newer hires for suggestions—and Zhang Rufan, being a recent addition, naturally wasn’t exempt.

Back when she first entered this field, Zhang Rufan had struggled. Planning required creativity and imagination—qualities she had long found herself lacking.

Back when she had just graduated and started working at the Qingcheng Mall, Zhang Rufan’s proposals were often too by-the-book and drew frequent criticism from her supervisors. The only reason the company kept her on was because—while she wasn’t particularly adept at coming up with plans—she had a strong sense of execution.

Even after more than a year in planning, pitching proposals was still the part Zhang Rufan dreaded most. Ever since Liu Pinyuan assigned the task, she’d been mulling over ideas for the November event. She had one concept in mind, but she wasn’t confident about it.

“I was thinking… maybe we could host a coffee fair,” Zhang Rufan said, voicing her idea under Liu Pinyuan’s watchful gaze.

“Coffee?”

Zhang Rufan nodded. “Coffee’s really popular these days. There are a lot of coffee lovers in the city—not just young people, but also quite a few older folks. It’s a sizable group, and they tend to have solid spending power.”

As she spoke, she kept an eye on Liu Pinyuan’s expression. Seeing that she was genuinely listening gave her a bit of courage, so she continued: “I think the mall could center the event around a ‘coffee’ theme and invite a few well-known cafés to join the fair. It would be mutually beneficial—our event would help promote their shops, and the mall could draw in coffee enthusiasts who are likely to spend.”

It was rare for Zhang Rufan to speak so much at once. When she finished, her heart was pounding.

“We’ve never done a coffee-themed event before,” Liu Pinyuan said after a pause. Then she looked at Zhang Rufan with a glimmer of approval and smiled. “This is a solid proposal, Rufan. How about you go draft a detailed plan, and I’ll take a look at its feasibility.”

Zhang Rufan let out a breath of relief. A smile finally crept onto her face as she quickly replied, “Okay.”

As soon as they walked out of the meeting room, Yuan Shuang grabbed her by the hand and gushed, “You were amazing! A coffee fair? How did you even come up with that?”

“Just… been drinking coffee these past few days, and the idea kind of came to me.”

“You’ve only been drinking coffee for a few days and came up with this? I drink it every day and never thought of it!” Yuan Shuang was clearly taken with the proposal. She said dreamily, “If your plan gets approved, I’ll be so lucky—drinking coffee as part of my job!”

“We could even invite Boss Shen to our fair!”

Zhang Rufan’s lips curved slightly.

After work, instead of heading back to Jinghua Garden, Zhang Rufan went straight to the Binhu District.

She arrived right around dinnertime. Li Huishu called her to the table and asked about her new job during the meal. Zhang Shengyi didn’t ask about work—instead, he brought up her apartment.

Zhang Rufan hadn’t told her family about the leak, but that hadn’t stopped the landlord from telling her aunt, Zhang Shengpin. She figured her aunt had passed it on to her father.

“You’ve got a home here in Shangjing. If your apartment’s got problems, come stay here,” Zhang Shengyi said.

Zhang Rufan pressed her lips together and replied flatly, “The repairman’s coming tomorrow.”

“Waterproofing isn’t something that gets fixed in a day or two.”

“I’ll stay at Cheng Yi’s for a few more days.”

Seeing the stern look on his face, she didn’t bother explaining that her main reason for not coming home was the long commute—it was too far from work.

Dinner was tense. Zhang Rufan finished quickly and excused herself, retreating to her room. Not long after, she heard the crisp, cheerful laughter of a little girl from outside.

…

On Saturday, the repairman came to fix the waterproofing. It was only a partial repair, but still a bit of a hassle.

As the sound of tiles being hammered in the bathroom echoed through the apartment, Zhang Rufan’s thoughts drifted downstairs.

She wondered if Shen Mingjin was home. If he was, he’d definitely be able to hear all the noise from upstairs.

She picked up her phone, opened WeChat, and stared at Shen Mingjin’s profile picture for a while. Since they’d added each other, neither had sent a single message.

The repairs hadn’t reached a stage that required his cooperation, so she had no excuse to text him. She couldn’t just randomly ask if the renovations were too noisy.

Making small talk was a skill—one she had never learned. Without theory, there was no practice to speak of, and she truly had no idea where to start.

Letting out a quiet sigh, she set her phone aside, grabbed her laptop, and decided to create an opportunity—indirectly.

She spent the entire day in the apartment. While the repairman worked in the bathroom, she sat in the living room drafting her proposal. It wasn’t until evening, when the work was done, that she finally left the apartment alongside the repairman.

The elevator descended and stopped on the 20th floor. As the doors opened, there he was—Shen Mingjin.

Zhang Rufan hadn’t expected the encounter. Caught off guard, her expression stiffened slightly. She stepped aside and said awkwardly, “You’re home.”

“I’ve been here all day,” he replied quickly. A moment later, as if realizing he’d sounded too abrupt, he gave a short cough and added more casually, “Didn’t go out today.”

“Oh.” Zhang Rufan pressed her lips together. “Not heading to the café today?”

“Going now.”

“At night?”

“Yeah, just going to check on things.”

 He lowered his head and noticed the laptop bag in her hand. “Heading to work?”

Following his gaze, Zhang Rufan realized the misunderstanding and quickly clarified, “No, not work—I’m going home.”

“Back to Huai’an District?”

She gently shook her head. “We’ve moved. I live in Binhu District now.”

“Ah,” Shen Mingjin nodded in realization. “That explains it.”

“Hmm?” she looked at him, puzzled.

“Nothing,” he said, then asked, “Binhu’s not exactly close. Are you driving?”

“I’m taking the subway.”

“The subway?” Shen Mingjin frowned slightly. “It’s raining out—do you have an umbrella?”

“It’s raining?” she asked, surprised.

“Yeah, started around three or four this afternoon. Came down pretty hard,” the repairman chimed in from beside them.

Zhang Rufan had spent nearly the entire afternoon in the living room, focused on her proposal, and hadn’t noticed the weather. She’d gone straight to her room after dinner the night before, skipping both the evening news and weather report—so she had no idea it was going to rain.

Both Shen Mingjin and the repairman were headed to the basement garage. When the elevator reached the first floor, Zhang Rufan said goodbye to the repairman and gave Shen Mingjin a polite nod before stepping out.

Just as she exited, Shen Mingjin called out to stop her.

“No umbrella—how are you going to get home?”

Zhang Rufan turned back. “It’s fine. I’ll just go upstairs and grab it.”

Holding the elevator door open, Shen Mingjin’s gaze flickered slightly. “It’s not convenient taking the subway in the rain. If you don’t mind, I can give you a ride.”

“No, that’s okay,” she declined quickly, but then worried he’d misunderstand. She added, “Don’t you still need to go to the café?”

“Not many customers come in at night—they can manage without me.”

"Hey, miss, just take his car. Taking the subway to Binhu District means transferring lines—real troublesome," the repairman said. Seeing how Shen Mingjin was trying to be attentive, he caught on right away and gave him a little assist.

Zhang Ranfan was still hesitating, mainly because she didn’t want to trouble anyone. She looked up and met Shen Mingjin’s eyes. He just looked at her steadily, saying nothing to urge her—but there was an invisible pull in his gaze.

Was this what Cheng Yi meant when she said he had a kind heart? Gentlemanly, attentive... warm.

Her mind faltered for a moment. In the end, she gave in to the quiet tug in her heart.

“…Then, thank you.” Lowering her gaze, she stepped back into the elevator.

Shen Mingjin let go of the button, and the doors slowly slid shut. At his side, his hand flexed discreetly—he’d pressed the button so hard from nervousness that his fingers had gone stiff.

Down in the parking garage, the repairman drove off. Zhang Rufan got into Shen Mingjin’s car, laptop bag on her lap. Without needing a reminder, she buckled her seatbelt and sat upright, composed but slightly tense.

Shen Mingjin drove the car out of the garage, got on the road, and turned on the GPS, asking Zhang Rufan to enter the address.

Jinghua District was already notorious for traffic jams. With the added rain, the roads were even more congested. After finally getting past the peak congestion area, they ran into another traffic accident.

As night began to fall, the streetlights on both sides of the road lit up in unison. Shen Mingjin drove in fits and starts, the blare of car horns constant outside, while inside the car it remained completely silent.

Shen Mingjin glanced at Zhang Rufan from the corner of his eye. From the moment she got in the car, she had been sitting upright, eyes fixed straight ahead, her whole demeanor guarded—as if he were a stranger, even a potentially dangerous driver. But in truth, Zhang Rufan was just a little uneasy. She wanted to break the silence but didn’t know what to say.

“Sorry, I didn’t expect the traffic to be this bad. Taking my car might be even slower than the subway,” Shen Mingjin said, clearing his throat as he took the initiative to start the conversation.

Zhang Rufan turned to look at him when she heard his voice. “It’s okay. I’m not in a rush.”

“Do you want to let your family know?”

“I already sent them a message.”

“That’s good,” he said.

The conversation stalled there. Zhang Rufan didn’t know how to continue, and the car fell back into silence, broken only by the steady patter of rain against the windows.

Shen Mingjin stared at the taillights ahead, his fingers tapping the steering wheel unconsciously as he hesitated over whether to speak again.

If anyone else had been in the car—even a complete stranger—he could have chatted easily. He was the kind of guy who could liven up any social setting.

But the dynamic between him and Zhang Rufan was delicate. Offering her a ride had already been a bold move, and if he acted too warmly, she might misinterpret his intentions.

A few days ago, they’d talked face to face to clear the awkwardness from their teenage years and move on. Now that they lived and worked close to each other, they would inevitably run into one another. He didn’t want every meeting to be awkward and tense. After all, they were alumni—while they didn’t need to be close, they should at least interact normally.

While Shen Mingjin’s mind raced, Zhang Rufan’s feelings were just as tangled.

There were so many things she wanted to ask him: why he stopped being an athlete, why he opened a café, and most of all, why he had liked her in the first place.

Zhang Rufan was someone with a strong sense of boundaries. These questions weren’t ones she could ask in her current position, especially the last one—Shen Mingjin had clearly said he didn’t want to bring up the past, and she definitely couldn’t shamelessly press him about it.

The two of them, each with their own thoughts, remained silent all the way.

After passing the accident site, the road ahead was smooth, and they soon arrived at the Binhu District, where Zhang Rufan’s neighborhood was.

“Just pull over by the side. The rain’s lighter now, I can walk the rest,” Zhang Rufan said.

Shen Mingjin parked the car, pulled up the handbrake, and unfastened his seatbelt. “Wait a moment.”

He got out, took an umbrella from the trunk, then got back into the car and handed it to her. “You take this first.”

Her gaze traveled from his rain-dampened hair down to his wet shoulders, finally settling on his hand. Moved, a quiet place deep in her heart was touched. She took the umbrella and sincerely thanked him.

Stepping out under the umbrella, Zhang Rufan stood by the roadside watching Shen Mingjin’s car. His left turn signal blinked—he was about to leave.

Through the blurred car window, a sudden wave of melancholy surged up inside her. Impulsively, she quickened her pace, caught up with the car, and knocked on the window.

Shen Mingjin stopped, rolled down the window, and asked, “What’s wrong? Did you forget something?”

She shook her head and looked him straight in the eyes. Rain seemed to have fallen into her eyes, causing ripples to spread across their usually calm depths, the ripples growing in number.

“Shen Mingjin,” she asked, “can we get to know each other again?”

Shen Mingjin froze, staring into Zhang Rufan’s earnest eyes. It was as if time had rewound and he saw the old her again.

He thought, Damn. Looks like my youth really can’t be left behind.

1. 醉翁之意 (zuì wēng zhī yì) – Literally "the drunkard’s intent," meaning having ulterior motives

2. 企划部 (qǐhuà bù) – The planning department at OW

3. 咖啡集市 (kāfēi jíshì) – A coffee-themed fair or market event

4. 防水层 (fángshuǐ céng) – Waterproofing layer (referring to apartment repairs)

5. 正襟危坐 (zhèng jīn wēi zuò) – Sitting stiffly and properly (showing tension or formality)

6. 翻篇 (fān piān) – To turn the page (metaphorically, to move on from the past)

Characters

章入凡 (Zhāng Rùfán) – The protagonist.

沈明津 (Shěn Míngjīn) – A former classmate who wrote Zhang Rufan a love letter in high school, in her copy of Anne of Green Gables.

章胜义 (Zhāng Shèngyì) – Zhang Rufan’s father. 

李惠淑 (Lǐ Huìshū) – Zhang Rufan’s stepmother ("惠姨 Huìyí").

章梓橦 (Zhāng Zǐtóng) – Rufan’s much younger half-sister (~18 years age gap). 

章胜嫔 (Zhāng Shèngpín) – Rufan’s aunt (father’s sister). 

程怡 (Chéng Yí) – Rufan’s close friend from middle school. 

谢易韦 (Xiè Yìwéi) – High school class monitor who is getting married, prompting the reunion.

杜升 (Dù Shēng) – Someone Zhang Rufan didn't want to add as a friend on WeChat at first.

刘品媛 (Liú Pǐnyuán) – The planning department manager at OW.

孙璐 (Sūn Lù) – Zhang Rufan’s direct supervisor at OW, who goes by "Sister Lu" (璐姐, Lù Jiě).

袁霜 (Yuán Shuāng) – A friendly coworker in the planning department.

Sevyn here ~~~

AHHHHHH one of my favorite chapters, you go girl ZRF. Also, SMJ is down so bad for her. 

Communication with SMJ +1

Communication with Dad -10

Sidenote, sorry guys, this came out so late, I was out the entire day, and I'm out of stockpiled chapters, I need to grind some out.

Enjoy!