Days without work are truly wonderful.
Su He served breakfast to the big boss, Lu Yanbei, and sent him off. The rest of the time was hers. She could do whatever she wanted, even go shopping with her best friend.
"By the way, have you told your adoptive parents about your divorce?" her best friend, Jiang Xiaoxiao, asked over the phone.
Su He was engrossed in her new work, sketching and searching for inspiration on a draft paper. "Not yet. But they'll probably celebrate with fireworks, giving me their full support."
"What kind of amazing parents are those!" Jiang Xiaoxiao wished she had them too.
"They were asking about you a while ago," Su He remembered.
"Asking about me for what?" Jiang Xiaoxiao sounded curious.
"If I have a boyfriend, they want to set me up," Su He really couldn't stomach her adoptive mother's peculiar hobbies. Romance, she thought, couldn't be generated through blind dates.
Jiang Xiaoxiao chuckled. "Just like my mom, nagging me to get married every day. I'm only twenty-five, you know!"
After she finished laughing, she abruptly changed the subject. "Speaking of which, living with that incredibly handsome mogul day in and day out, don't you have any thoughts?"
"What thoughts could I have?" Su He mumbled. "I'm just an employee!"
"Meow meow, have some confidence. Do you really think that Young Master Yan can't find any other personal assistant and has to hire you, his former sister-in-law?"
"Because I owe him a lot of money?" Su He pondered, finding that the answer seemed to fit.
Jiang Xiaoxiao sighed helplessly. "He makes billions with a single project. Does he care about that little bit of money? I say he's interested in you and is using this flimsy excuse to keep you around."
"You're overthinking it," Su He still refused to be brainwashed.
"Please, read more about him, okay? If he wanted a shield, he could have thousands of beautiful women flocking to him with just a snap of his fingers. People would even pay him to be with him. Why would he go to so much trouble to lure you in, even gambling on marriage?"
Lu Yanbei had indeed mentioned marriage, the last time at the villa. At that time, she was desperate to get her paintings back and had hardened her heart to agree.
However, recently, she hadn't heard him mention it again. She figured after careful consideration, he had decided to change the marriage contract to a rental agreement.
"Anyway, don't joke about me and him anymore. It wouldn't be good if he overheard," Su He had a clear understanding of her situation and wasn't blindly confident.
Jiang Xiaoxiao was speechless.
Her best friend was too submissive, not at all like the Su He she used to know.
Perhaps it was because Jiang Xiaoxiao kept bringing up Lu Yanbei, but Su He had a lot of strange dreams that night. In her dreams, she was passionately in love with a man whose face she couldn't see, clinging to each other. She desperately tried to see his face, only to look up and see Lu Yanbei's chaste and aloof expression.
Su He woke up with a start.
She splashed cold water on her face and repeatedly told herself, "It must be that I'm thinking about it all day and dreaming about it at night... We never had any interaction before, how could this happen..."
But even so, her face was as red as a ripe tomato.
Ahhh, the scene was too embarrassing.
From then on, Su He tried her best not to make eye contact with Lu Yanbei. When he was at home, she tried to avoid him and not be in his presence.
How could Lu Yanbei not notice these changes?
Su He was deliberately avoiding him!
His fingers paused on the keyboard, the screen displaying an unfinished email. The body was written in Spanish, composed of a dense string of letters that made one's eyes water.
Lu Yanbei, however, read it without any difficulty, almost at a glance.
This was a reply from the private detective he had hired, investigating a traffic accident from many years ago. Because many years had passed, some traces had been erased, making the investigation difficult. But persistence paid off. After his persistent inquiries, a nurse, moved by his deep emotions, revealed some information.
The reply from the detective agency was about the aftermath of that accident.
It turned out that the girl had not only hit her head and nearly died, but she had also undergone psychological therapy for a long time afterward.
As Lu Yanbei read to the end, his eyelashes trembled uncontrollably.
He couldn't imagine how much pain she must have been in at that time.
He had only been gone for a day, and the girl he loved with all his being had vanished into thin air. He searched for her without eating or drinking until he collapsed from exhaustion and was admitted to the hospital, only to be brought back to China by the Lu family overnight before he finally quieted down.
For a long time, he couldn't sleep. To help him, Grandpa Lu had specifically invited a renowned psychologist from China to counsel him. For a period, he became so thin that he looked like a walking skeleton, appearing close to death. It was Grandpa Lu who finally yelled him back to his senses, asking if tormenting himself would bring anything back. He said that only by becoming strong could one have the capacity to achieve greater things.
From then on, Lu Yanbei's life seemed to return to normal. He began to take over the Lu family's businesses, engage in battles in the unpredictable business world, and became a cold businessman. But anyone who observed him carefully would notice that he flew abroad at regular intervals, his whereabouts unknown. Upon his return, he would act as if nothing had happened, going to work and coming back tired, a cycle that repeated.
This continued for a full year. Until he returned for Lu Jingyang's wedding banquet.
Recalling this, Lu Yanbei's fingers trembled involuntarily.
This was a sign of his condition acting up.
Lu Yanbei quickly opened a drawer, took out a bottle of medicine, and swallowed two white pills, dry. It took a while for his hand to steady.
"You shouldn't trap yourself in painful memories. You need to learn to let yourself go."
"But I just can't forget."
"Medicine is very advanced now. Some memories can be removed through surgery."
"No need, medication is fine."
The psychologist's persuasion was unsuccessful, so he could only prescribe some antidepressant medication to temporarily control his condition after an episode.
Lu Yanbei rested his head on his hand for a while before getting up.
It was one in the morning. She should be asleep by now.
Lu Yanbei glanced at the clock on the wall, then slowly rose and walked to the guest room door.
As his hand touched the cold doorknob, he seemed hesitant.
Two voices were pulling at him internally.
"Lu Yanbei, she has forgotten you. Why bother her again?"
"She's forgotten you, so why do you keep pestering her!"
Another voice said, "Just one look, to confirm she's still around."
The two voices clashed, neither yielding, causing Lu Yanbei's palms to sweat.
Just as he was hesitating, the door clicked open.
Su He walked out expressionlessly.
She seemed not to see Lu Yanbei and went straight to the kitchen. After looking around, she did nothing and returned to her room to lie down.
Lu Yanbei stood stiffly, watching her walk back and forth, not daring to move.
When he came to his senses, Su He suddenly rolled over and tumbled off the bed.
Yet, she remained completely unaware, seemingly sleeping soundly.
Lu Yanbei took a deep breath and slowly stepped inside.