…
Although Lu Jingyan had sent four text messages and Sheng Xian hadn't replied to any of them, Lu Jingyan somewhat salvaged her dignity for having successfully gotten his phone number. She was generous enough not to fuss over such a trivial matter with him.
Sheng Xian's avoidance had distracted Lu Jingyan from her work all day. Now that her mood had finally improved a bit, she hurriedly got busy.
Lu Jingyan worked in media, but unlike traditional print media, she was involved with the internet. Relying on the substantial backing of the Lu Family, she had successfully made her internet portal the leading one in the industry.
The name of the portal website she founded was Emotion, and the greatest traffic driver for Emotion was the trending searches feature.
Put simply, whether it was entertainment news or societal news, to make something widely known or to bury it, control lay in the hands of her company.
By the time Lu Jingyan finished her work, it was dark outside. She picked up her phone to check the time, then clicked into her messages.
The four messages she had sent out lay quietly in the chat box, still without a response.
Half a minute later, two more messages appeared on her phone screen.
"Brother, have you eaten yet?"
"Brother, can I find your WeChat using this mobile number?"
This time, there was not only no response but not even a message read notification.
Lu Jingyan copied Sheng Xian's phone number and searched for it on WeChat. To her surprise, she found it and sent a friend request, then ran back to her text messages to send Sheng Xian another message, "Brother, I added you on WeChat, remember to accept, okay?"
After work, Lu Jingyan had dinner and went to the gym. When she returned home, it was half past ten. By the time she finished her nightly routine and lay in bed, it was nearly midnight.
She clicked into her messages, and saw that they were still unread.
After about ten minutes of using her phone, Lu Jingyan checked her messages again.
Still unread.
Just as she was about to exit, unread changed to read.
Lu Jingyan held her phone, waiting for almost five minutes but Sheng Xian hadn't even sent a punctuation mark in reply.
Seen but not replied to.
Rude.
Lu Jingyan typed on her screen, "Brother, good night."
Read, but no reply.
"Good night, Brother."
Read, but no reply.
"Brother, sweet dreams."
"Sweet dreams, Brother."
"Brother."
"Bro-Brother."
"Bro-Bro-Brother."
"..."
Apart from the one message Sheng Xian had initiated, all of Lu Jingyan's subsequent messages vanished into the ether, completely ignored. Her friend request on WeChat was also thoroughly neglected by Sheng Xian.
Despite being so blatantly disregarded, Miss Lu wasn't angry; whenever she had time, she would send a message to Sheng Xian.
Days passed one by one as usual, and without realizing it, a new week had begun.
On Tuesday, a very popular girl group came to the company to do a live broadcast.
Such matters didn't need Lu Jingyan's direct involvement, so she didn't pay much attention.
The live broadcast started at three in the afternoon and ended at four-thirty.
Right at that time, Lu Jingyan had something to discuss with the Public Relations Director, so she took a trip to the second floor. After finishing her chat, Lu Jingyan went to the restroom. As she was flushing the toilet, the stall next to hers happened to flush as well, and almost simultaneously, two doors opened.
What caught Lu Jingyan's attention was the strong perfume smell. She just casually glanced at the person next to her.
That person was probably like her, turning her head unconsciously upon hearing the noise.
Their eyes met squarely without any deviation.
Lu Jingyan could clearly see surprise in the other's eyes.
Lu Jingyan, however, was quite composed, even a bit cold, as if looking at a stranger.
The person kept staring at her without moving her gaze. Lu Jingyan indifferently turned her head away and walked towards the sink.
About thirty seconds later, Lu Jingyan heard the sound of heels clacking on the floor behind her, and quickly the person stood next to her, turning on the faucet as well.
The restroom fell silent except for the sound of running water, with no other noise.
Lu Jingyan washed her hands leisurely, pulled out two pieces of paper towel, dried her fingertips, and turned to leave.
She hadn't gone far when the person behind her called out, "Hey."
Lu Jingyan didn't turn around.
"Lu Jingyan," the person turned off the faucet and walked in front of her, extending her hand, "long time no see."
Among women, Lu Jingyan was on the taller side. Even though the other person was wearing eight-centimeter heels, she was still a bit shorter standing in front of Lu Jingyan.
Lu Jingyan glanced down at the hand extended to her, tugged at the corner of her lips and continued walking out without any acknowledgement.
"Lu Jingyan, you're not planning to pretend you don't know me, are you?"
The person's tone sounded fairly normal, but to Lu Jingyan, it felt somewhat provocative.
Lu Jingyan paused for a second, then turned and walked back in front of her, looking at her silently for two seconds, "It's not pretending; you're not worth recognizing."
Back at the office, Lu Jingyan stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window for a while, then switched on her computer.
She scoured the list of names of the girl group that had been live that day, and found the person's name.
Bo Mu.
…
Lu Jingyan was in a small chat group with Song Xian and Chen Kai, where the three of them virtually met every day.
Usually, it was Chen Kai who arranged the places. For some reason, Chen Kai, who was always there in the chat, had been unusually quiet the whole past week.
Close to the end of the workday, Lu Jingyan asked in the group where they were going tonight.
Song Xian tagged Chen Kai.
Chen Kai was as silent as if he had vanished from the face of the earth.
Lu Jingyan clicked on Chen Kai's name, entered his WeChat profile, and directly called him with a voice call.
No one answered, so Lu Jingyan kept calling.
…
Only after the phone's vibration quieted down did Chen Kai open WeChat.
At the top, there was a red prompt. It was from last time when he hadn't sent out the message after forwarding Sheng Xian's address to Lu Jingyan.
"Also, Yan Yan, can you please stop messing with my cousin?"
"Why?"
…Because I'm afraid you'll get hurt. I'm afraid you'll actually fall for him.