Chapter 71
“I’m meeting up with Fanxi today, you can head home first,” Nan Xu said as she stood at the company entrance, talking to Xie Hejing on the phone.
“Dong Fanxi?” Xie Hejing asked while fastening his seat belt.
“Yeah. We’re just catching up, we were pretty close back in high school.”
As his car exited the underground garage, he happened to spot Nan Xu standing at the front gate.
He lowered the window and gave her a small nod before speaking into the phone again. “Come home early.”
“I know. Oh, and tell Auntie and Uncle I won’t be home for dinner tonight.”
Then Nan Xu suddenly added, “Oh right, there’s one more thing.”
Wen Qiu and Nan Xiaocheng had stayed in Zhi’an until the New Year before returning to the U.S. Their plan was to do some quick packing there and then move back to Zhi’an for good.
Nan Xu had been thrilled about it, she’d prepared everything in advance and was just waiting for them to come home.
It was now early April. During their last call, her parents had said they’d be back in about two weeks.
Nan Xu asked, “When they come back, should I stay with them, or with you?”
She switched the phone to her other hand and glanced behind her, Dong Fanxi hadn’t come out yet.
By then, Xie Hejing’s car had already disappeared from her view. “If you’re asking me,” he said, “of course I want you to stay with me.”
Nan Xu laughed. That was exactly the kind of answer she’d expected from him.
Still, she couldn’t help feeling a little torn.
There was a short pause on the line, and then Xie Hejing’s voice came, softer now. “It depends on your parents. If they’d like you to stay with them, then go. Don’t worry about it.”
Nan Xu chuckled. “Since when did you become so considerate?”
Xie Hejing fell silent for a moment.
“Anyway,” he said at last, “you’ll be living with me for a long time in the future. There’s no rush. And besides, we’ve still got two weeks, maybe by then, they’ll want you to live with me.”
“Then I hope your wish comes true.” Nan Xu smiled, though she knew it was still too early to say. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dong Fanxi approaching, so she lowered her phone.
“Fanxi’s here. I’m hanging up.”
“Wait—” Xie Hejing called out.
“What is it?”
“Don’t drink,” he warned. After a short pause, he amended, “Or at least, don’t get drunk.”
“Got it.”
Nan Xu slipped her phone into her bag just as Dong Fanxi walked up to her.
“Sorry, did you wait long? I couldn’t find something just now, took me a while,” Dong Fanxi said apologetically.
Nan Xu beamed, looping her arm through Dong Fanxi’s. “Not at all. Come on, I’ve been wanting to try this restaurant for ages. Xiao Qi’s been recommending it nonstop.”
Dong Fanxi looked down at the arm linked through hers, momentarily taken aback.
It had been a long time since anyone had held her arm like that. She’d thought she might feel uncomfortable, but the moment Nan Xu did it, she couldn’t help but smile.
The two of them arrived at a Western restaurant and sat down facing each other.
Holding the menu, Nan Xu enthusiastically asked, “How about the beef stew with red wine? Or this foie gras, do you like that kind of thing? And what about drinks? What wine do you want? But I can’t drink too much today, hope you don’t mind.”
Dong Fanxi took the menu from her and ordered skillfully. “Let me treat you this time. You used to treat me a lot.”
“Did I?” Nan Xu frowned slightly, unable to recall.
“You did,” Dong Fanxi replied with a small smile.
Nan Xu might not remember, maybe because she thought it wasn’t a big deal, but Dong Fanxi remembered every single time clearly.
Her family hadn’t been well-off, and back in high school, she’d been quiet and withdrawn. She didn’t have many friends, and with her pride at its peak, she would always pick the cheapest lunch. When teachers asked, she’d just say lightly, “I don’t have much of an appetite lately.”
Sometimes, she even skipped dinner altogether.
Dong Fanxi never knew how Nan Xu found out she had stomach problems, maybe it was the way she unconsciously pressed her stomach during class, or maybe it was that one time she broke out in a cold sweat from the pain, and Nan Xu helped her to the nurse’s office.
For a while after that, Nan Xu would sit beside her during lunch and often share food from her tray.
Dong Fanxi always found it strange. Nan Xu looked so slim, yet she would pile her plate high and say, “I got too much again. Help me finish it, or it’ll go to waste.”
When Dong Fanxi asked her about it, Nan Xu just smiled and said she had taken too much by accident.
Eventually, Dong Fanxi realized that Nan Xu was simply protecting her pride.
But she never said thank you back then.
Now, sitting across from Nan Xu again, she looked at her seriously and said, “Thank you, for those meals back then.”
The sudden gratitude made Nan Xu a little embarrassed. She vaguely remembered bits and pieces of it. Denying it now would feel awkward, so she just smiled and answered openly, “It’s nothing.”
Then Dong Fanxi asked, “Do you know why I came to work at Xu Hui?”
“Xu Hui” was Xie Hejing’s company, a name Nan Xu was very familiar with by now. But she wasn’t sure why Dong Fanxi suddenly brought it up.
“Because the company has good prospects?” Nan Xu guessed.
Xie Hejing was ambitious and capable, definitely the kind of boss worth following.
“That’s part of it,” Dong Fanxi said. “But the main reason is that I wanted to stay in Zhi’an. There’s… someone here I still think about.”
Seeing Nan Xu’s puzzled look, Dong Fanxi hesitated for a moment but didn’t say more.
——That someone was Xie Hejing.
Back in their second year of high school, Dong Fanxi had been practically invisible in class—quiet, solitary. She didn’t mind it much, except that it made her an easy target for the wrong kind of people.
Like that group of delinquents from another school. One day after class, Dong Fanxi ran into them fighting near the school gate. She didn’t say a word and tried to walk away, but they dragged her into it anyway. They demanded money from her and would show up now and then to threaten her again.
She was exhausted, helpless. Her parents didn’t care, and she was too afraid to tell a teacher.
Then one day, when they cornered her again because she couldn’t pay up…
Xie Hejing appeared dramatically.
Just as she’d hoped, he had stepped in and taught those bullies a lesson, so much so that they were left with a lasting fear of him. After that, Dong Fanxi never saw them around school again.
She thought that maybe, after helping her like that, Xie Hejing would at least remember her, that he might see her as more than just a stranger. Inevitably, she began to hope for something.
But she was disappointed. Xie Hejing had only helped her out of instinct; he would’ve done the same for anyone.
Dong Fanxi buried her feelings quietly, hiding her teenage crush where no one could see.
Later, things at home worsened, and she developed a psychological disorder. Around that same time, news broke that a student at a neighboring school had jumped off a building.
The incident caused an uproar among the teachers and administrators at No.1 High School. They held emergency meetings overnight, organized mental health workshops, and even launched a campus-wide awareness campaign.
Each class was assigned to create a banner with a motivational slogan. The task for Dong Fanxi’s class fell to Xie Hejing.
The homeroom teacher had already chosen a slogan meant to inspire academic excellence:
[Study hard, strive for the peak.]
But when Xie Hejing brought the finished banner back, the words were entirely different:
[Let life stay evergreen, live toward the sun.]
Dong Fanxi would never forget the look on his face when he unfurled the banner—his smile bright and defiant, the corners of his lips tugging up to reveal a hint of his tiger tooth.
When the teacher angrily questioned him, he didn’t defend himself, only accepted full responsibility and said with a grin full of youthful recklessness, “Teacher, I think there are things more important than studying.”
He pointed at the banner. “Like this.”
Dong Fanxi looked at it and softly repeated under her breath, “Let life stay evergreen, live toward the sun.”
The slogan change infuriated the teacher, but since the school was about to host an inspection, there was no time to replace it.
Ironically, during a parent meeting, someone from another class even complimented that particular banner. The teacher’s face turned dark, but the slogan stayed.
Every day, when Dong Fanxi returned to class, she would pause beneath that banner, letting her young heart fill with quiet, tender emotions.
Later, when Nan Xu transferred into their school, Dong Fanxi, who had always watched Xie Hejing from afar, saw for the first time how differently he treated a girl.
Even though the two of them were discreet, she still noticed it: Nan Xu wearing his school jacket around her waist, the two of them walking side by side after class, and once—him brushing his hand through Nan Xu’s hair.
Dong Fanxi understood then, and she hid her feelings even deeper.
When she first applied to Xu Hui, it was to one of its subsidiaries. She told herself that if she worked hard enough to be transferred to headquarters, she might be able to stay close to him, close enough to simply exist in his orbit.
But lately, she had begun to sense something between Nan Xu and Xie Hejing again, that same unspoken connection she had noticed back in high school. And this time, she knew for certain: the one by his side would never be her.
“But now I’m leaving Xu Hui,” Dong Fanxi said slowly, taking a sip of red wine.
She had thought about this decision for a long time. No matter how difficult it was, she knew she had to make peace with it. She had given herself a year—starting from the subsidiary, working her way up to headquarters, one deliberate step at a time—to close the distance between them.
But now, it was time to step out of that long, adolescent dream.
Nan Xu frowned. “Why? You just got transferred to headquarters not long ago. You’re doing so well.”
Dong Fanxi paused for a moment. She had rarely met someone like Nan Xu, someone who fit so many gentle, radiant descriptions.
Where Dong Fanxi was quiet and shadowed, Nan Xu was bright and full of life.
The complete opposite of her.
In the second half of senior year, when Dong Fanxi’s mental health was at its lowest, Nan Xu would reach out every few weeks, asking her out to sketch or walk around, helping her shift her focus little by little.
When Dong Fanxi once nearly swallowed a whole bottle of sleeping pills, it was Nan Xu who grabbed her hand and whispered beside her: “What do you want to eat? I can take you. Or is there something you’re curious about? We can go try it together.”
Back then, Dong Fanxi had snapped, her tone harsh: “What exactly are you trying to say?”
Nan Xu had only paused for a second, then smiled softly and said, “I mean… there are still so many wonderful things in life worth discovering. We should never give up on ourselves.”
And right now, Dong Fanxi still kept up her habit of painting.
Before meeting Nan Xu, she could never have imagined that someone like Nan Xu could even exist.
But it was exactly someone like that who could make someone like Xie Hejing fall into such a quiet, devoted kind of love.
Because she, too, had experienced one-sided love, Dong Fanxi could see through Xie Hejing’s feelings, and she even understood the meaning behind his company’s name.
When she first realized it, she couldn’t believe that someone as bold and uninhibited as Xie Hejing could silently love someone for so many years.
But the more she thought about it, the more she realized—everyone in the world of secret love is the same.
Maybe that was the only thing she and Xie Hejing had in common.
“No, I won’t. I have already reached the end of this road, and now I want to explore something else,” she slowly revealed a smile. “I misspoke just now, I have two people I love in this city.”
Nan Xu was stunned. “Two?” she repeated in disbelief. “Two people you love?”
“Mm.” Dong Fanxi didn’t intend to explain further. “They’re both doing well now. I think it’s time I go see other cities.”
. . . . .
On her way home, Nan Xu kept thinking about what Dong Fanxi had said. Every word seemed to carry hidden meaning, but she didn’t know enough to guess what it was.
Xie Hejing set a glass of water in front of her. “What are you thinking about?”
Nan Xu took it and sipped. “I was just wondering… how someone could love two people at once.”
The moment he heard that, Xie Hejing’s expression darkened, and his voice turned cold. “Who else do you love?”
Realizing he’d misunderstood, Nan Xu glanced at him and teased on purpose, “Oh, I like lots of people, more than just two.”
Xie Hejing snatched the glass from her and slammed it onto the table. He grabbed her chin and, smiling, said, “Say that again.”
Even though he was smiling, Nan Xu could sense the danger in his eyes.
She immediately dropped the teasing. “There’s no one else. I only like you.”
Xie Hejing snorted. “That’s more like it.”
Still, he didn’t let her go. He kissed the corner of her lips—once, then again, as if one wasn’t enough.
Nan Xu pushed him away. “What are you doing? Your parents will be back any minute.”
Even though they had already made things clear between them, she still didn’t want to act intimate in front of their elders.
Xie Hejing’s eyes deepened. “You know I’ve been holding back for a long time, right?”
“So what,” Nan Xu said, drinking her water and forcing herself to stay calm, not to fall into his rhythm.
But clearly, Xie Hejing wasn’t satisfied with her calmness. He wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder.
“Baby, don’t you ever feel bad for your man?” he murmured. “It hurts, missing you every day.”
“Then maybe try holding back a little,” Nan Xu whispered. “Don’t think about me so much.”
“I can’t,” he said pitifully. “When I see you, I can’t help it.”
“Come to my room tonight, okay?”
He lightly bit her earlobe. “Be good, hmm? Have a little mercy on me, or I won’t be able to sleep again.”
At midnight, Xie Hejing sat at the edge of his bed, staring at the clock as the seconds ticked by.
Nan Xu still hadn’t come.
He furrowed his brows, debating whether to just go to her room, after all, there was no way he could fall asleep without holding her.
Ten minutes later, he had already gathered everything he needed when a knock sounded at the door.
A flicker of emotion crossed his eyes. He stood and quietly walked to the door.
Nan Xu stood in the dark hallway, wearing a ruffled nightdress. This was the first time she had gone to Xie Hejing’s room in quite a while.
Her hand had just knocked on the door, but she discovered it wasn’t locked at all. Nan Xu reached out and pushed the door open, immediately falling into a cold embrace.
Nan Xu was startled and instinctively called out, “Brother.”
Xie Hejing chuckled lightly. “Little Sister?”
Without hesitation, he reached out and swept her into his arms, carrying her farther inside.
Clutching his pajama shirt, Nan Xu said in a low voice, “Hey, you… you have to promise not to be so rough this time.”
He smiled. “Rough? Tell me, how was I rough?”
Her cheeks flushed red. “Just… don’t bite me, okay? And when I say stop, you have to stop.”
“Sweetheart,” he said softly, tightening his hold just a little, “sometimes stopping isn’t that easy.”
“I didn’t mean now,” she said quickly, her face growing hotter. “I mean later… when things get…”
Then it’s even more impossible to stop,” Xie Hejing easily shattered her illusion.
Xie Hejing didn’t even wait until the bedside, he sat down on the edge of the bed and lifted Nan Xu’s nightgown.
Seeing the lonely nightgown lying on the floor, Nan Xu whispered, “My dress is dirty. You’ll have to wash it clean for me.”
Xie Hejing said while kissing her, “Wash, I’ll wash the dress, and I’ll wash you too.”
The familiar sound of tearing open a packaging packet.
Xie Hejing gently lifted Nan Xu, yet the force was only the lightest when he held her.
Nan Xu bit her lip, clutching Xie Hejing’s arm: “How come you don’t change this one bit?”
Still so fierce.
Xie Hejing didn’t speak, his eyebrows raised, and he pressed Nan Xu further in, holding her tightly, guiding her slowly to feel the dampness, the scorching heat, and the friction.
“Sweetheart, the longer you hold it in, the rougher it will be, just bear with it.”
In this sitting position, Nan Xu was completely under his control, moving up and down; her mind was almost in a haze, and she could only beg him in a low voice.
“Xie Hejing, slow down. Wuwu, Brother, I’m begging you…”
Hearing this, Xie Hejing tapped her body with his fingertip and said in a deep voice, “Don’t call me ‘Brother’ anymore.”
“Sweetheart, let’s change places.”
He picked her up and walked toward the bathroom. Nan Xu gasped in surprise. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Shh… lower your voice, the walls aren’t soundproof.”