Ruan Jiu Jiu deeply felt that the ease at which characters just upped and left in those cliche plotlines was a total scam.
Dragging her suitcase behind her, she hailed a taxi and asked the driver to a place about 10 kiloters away from the apartnt. On the road they got stuck in a traffic jam, and Ruan Jiu Jiu stared blankly at the taxi ter as it turned on and on, the fee rising higher and higher. The sight was so painful Ruan Jiu Jiu practically wanted to imdiately get off the car with her suitcase, like a scene from Thelma & Louise.
Things were different now.
Having the privilege of getting chauffeured around by a driver had beco old history. She shouldn’t even think about it.
Ruan Jiu Jiu thought to herself, thankfully she still had the money she got back from those plastic friends. It gave her a modicum of comfort. From now on, she would never again be the chairman’s pampered little wife. Instead, she was about to be faced with the issue of finding a place to rent, her livelihood, and other mundane questions. Like a hero giving up their forr glory and riches to beco an ordinary person.
The taxi was still traveling slowly.
Perhaps it was because the taxi driver couldn’t endure it any longer. He glanced back at the despondent, lifeless-looking Ruan Jiu Jiu in the rearview mirror and said, “Miss, if you’re in a hurry you could take the subway. The traffic right now is bad because it’s peak rush hour, Friday when everyone’s getting off work. We’ll probably be stuck in traffic for another hour.”
Ruan Jiu Jiu took another glance at the taxi ter.
“…” What the driver said made sense.
A few minutes later, the driver pulled over to the side of the road. Carrying her suitcase, Ruan Jiu Jiu went to take the subway. She suddenly realized that she didn’t actually own a transport pass and once again had to rush over to the counter to register one. There, another issue popped up. She didn’t have any cash on her person, so she had to go to the bank to withdraw so. After withdrawing cash and registering a pass, she finally got on the subway.
By this ti, Ruan Jiu Jiu was exhausted and sweaty.
But she had to completely cover herself up with a face mask and hat, in order to evade recognition. Despite this, her good figure and and pair of lovely peach blossom eyes were as eye-catching as ever. Adding onto that, her clothes were a bit inconvenient for movent so she was surrounded by people wherever she went. So even thought that she was so celebrity and went up to ask her for an autograph.
Ruan Jiu Jiu’s head was about to explode. She suddenly began to regret that she had tried to save money, which brought her into this ss.
When she arrived at the hotel, Ruan Jiu Jiu arranged a single room for herself. The lady at the front desk took a single glance at her na and said with a smile, “Oh Miss, you have the sa last na as the wife of Jiacheng’s CEO.”
Ruan Jiu Jiu said modestly, “Oh you don’t have to be so polite, I’m not as beautiful as her.”
If anyone who knew Ruan Jiu Jiu heard her just then, they would definitely be amazed by her thick skin.
The hotel was an ordinary one from a chain, but thankfully the facilities were still pretty new. Ruan Jiu Jiu sat on the bed and rubbed her rumbling stomach. She decided to order takeout. With the discount, the Mala xiang guo, spicy stir fry, was good value. But when Ruan Jiu Jiu took a bite, she frowned.
There were so many good reviews, but it wasn’t as tasty as what she could make at ho.
She let out a sigh, suddenly losing her appetite. After half-heartedly eating a few more mouthfuls, she lay down on the bed and zoned off. By now, Cheng Jun should have seen her note and accepted things. She wasn’t brave enough to hear his voice, so she preemptively changed her phone number and blacklisted him on Wechat. From this day on, she would never again have anything to do with Cheng Jun.
Ruan Jiu Jiu had already thought things through.
Tomorrow, she would buy tickets to go to a different city. There, no one would draw any connections between her and the wife of Jiacheng’s CEO. Once she got a new haircut, changed into more ordinary clothes, and stopped taking such good care of her face, it wouldn’t be long before she would beco a woman who only could be said to be relatively pretty. Then, she would subrge into the vast sea of people.
Did she regret it? Perhaps for a single instant, Ruan Jiu Jiu felt a flash of regret.
Like any ordinary person would be, she was reluctant to give up such a comfortable and honorable lifestyle, and she always hoped that she wouldn’t have to work so hard. Selfish thoughts like these did indeed pop up occasionally.
But Ruan Jiu Jiu couldn’t do it.
She had no way of reciprocating Cheng Jun’s feelings in equal asure. At this ti, if she just just ignored it and let his feelings deepen, and made promises she couldn’t keep, there wouldn’t be any difference between her and a swindler. That night, Ruan Jiu Jiu thought about many things. She was, indeed, emotionally dense. When she thought about how Cheng Jun had trembled while clinging to her so tightly, she couldn’t summon up the courage to say that she wanted a divorce because she fell in love with soone else without drowning in sha and self-bla.
Ruan Jiu Jiu didn’t have the ability to request a divorce to Cheng Jun’s face. If that happened, the hurt Cheng Jun would feel would be magnitudes greater than it was now.
She could only act like a cowardly deserter.
“Sigh…”
There were dumplings she had frozen and other cooked food she prepared in the fridge. It was enough to feed Cheng Jun for one or two days. By that ti, Cheng Jun would have found a new chef and embarked on a new lifestyle, so she would gradually begin to fade from his mory.
After parting ways with her, he would still pass his days sohow. However it was like in the past, it would be like again now. Cheng Jun had lived on this earth for so many years, and he understood more things about life than she did. He would definitely take care of himself.
…Only, the possibility remained that he would rely on junk food and takeout for his diet again.
If it wasn’t for Tu Nan being so insightful, Ruan Jiu Jiu really would have wanted to leave behind another ssage, telling him to keep a closer eye on his boss’s als.
The next day, Ruan Jiu Jiu went to a salon and had her hair cut into a short bob that grazed the bottoms of her ears.
The hairdresser, Tony, bemoaned how beautiful her hair was and how pretty its color the entire ti. There weren’t many custors in the salon at the ti, so all the hairdressers stood around watching. They were all like shy young girls, afraid to co up to talk.
Tony ended up buying Ruan Jiu Jiu’s cut-off hair.
It was a bit painful for Ruan Jiu Jiu, but when she saw the money, she finally accepted the reality of her new short hair.
After chopping off so much hair, she looked very different from before. If it was said that Ruan Jiu Jiu with the long, wavy locks looked lovely, and oblivious to her charms, the Ruan Jiu Jiu now with the short bob looked more lively and charming, like the youthful beauty of a female high school student. If she mixed in with so high school students, no one would suspect a thing. One by one, custors ca in, and they all tried to guess which local high school she was a student at. Ruan Jiu Jiu felt both depressed and happy at this, her mood extrely complex.
After cutting her hair and buying a few articles of more convenient clothing, she looked more like a young woman without much money to her na.
A few young n dressed in high school uniforms that passed by her on the road whistled at her. They grinned as they shoved each other forward to ask Ruan Jiu Jiu for her contact information. Ruan Jiu Jiu could only tell herself that this old Auntie wasn’t gonna ss around with you guys, and rebuff them coldly.
“Oh, what a spicy little hot pepper.”
“Hey, which school are you from? Tomorrow after class we’ll block your way ho.”
“Are you a first year or a second year? Are you our junior?”
What “junior”, get your bullshit outta here!
Ruan Jiu Jiu really wanted to grab these wet-behind-the-ears, young hoodlums and give them a good scolding.
She glared at them, then pretended she couldn’t hear them as she took out her phone to check ticket availability. At that, Ruan Jiu Jiu was suddenly struck dumb—Hold on, why weren’t there any tickets left? It was only when she noticed the words “Lunar New Year” that she suddenly realized that she had crossed paths with the peak travel rush period of the New Year.
“…”
The ticket prices weren’t cheap. Ruan Jiu Jiu carefully considered her options before deciding to still buy them and leave.
She purchased tickets for a flight in a few days, preparing to first properly plan out her future path at the hotel.
The next question was, how to leave.
……
How could Ruan Jiu Jiu have foreseen that Cheng Jun’s reaction was even bigger than she imagined?
Starting from when Ruan Jiu Jiu left, it was like Cheng Jun had vanished from this plane of existence without a trace.
At the start, Tu Nan hadn’t even had ti to react. He discovered that he had been blacklisted when he tried to ssage Sister-in-law, and her phone number also ca up as disconnected. The others had also received the sa treatnt, and they all looked at each other in dismay, at loss for what had occurred.
When he couldn’t even reach Cheng Jun, he finally realized that the situation was even graver than he had thought.
Typically at this ti of day, the house would be full of noise.
There would be the sound of the hair dryer, slippers pitter-pattering on the floorboards, the sizzling of dinner cooking, and raucous droning of a soap opera playing on TV. Even if they were each doing their own thing, locked in their own rooms, it still set his mind at ease.
When he ca ho, he would always be able to see her.
His stomach issues which hadn’t bothered him for a long ti cropped up again, making him nauseous as it forced him to overthink things. It felt as if his stomach acid was always at a rolling boil, dancing the disco.
He hadn’t eaten anything for a long ti. Only the onset of illness ca to remind Cheng Jun that he had to take care of his health.
Cheng Jun was dressed in loose pajamas. The expression on his face was dull. His eyes were droopy and half-lidded as usual as he blankly opened the fridge, took out the frozen dumplings Ruan Jiu Jiu left behind, and cooked them in boiling water.
The fire was too high, and after going through the motions in a daze, almost half the dumplings were boiled too long and lost their skins. Their fillings rolled out, and it beca a bowl of ground pork soup. He mindlessly turned off the fire, ladled it out into a bowl, and placed the bowl on the table with a pair of chopsticks.
A single pair of chopsticks, a single bowl; laid out against the table they made it seem much larger than before. The desolate, unending loneliness perated his heart and blocked it up, squeezing like a vice.
Cheng Jun lifted his chopsticks, but his mind was still wandering.
Before long the hot, steaming surface of the soup cooled off, and then congealed as a layer of solidified fat floated to the surface. The grease was like one had eaten ten big bowls of ground pork dumplings, both heavy and thick.
“Bang bang bang!” From outside ca the sound of Tu Nan banging on the door. Surprisingly, his voice sounded like it was on the verge of tears as it wailed, “Boss, say sothing! Don’t be too depressed!”
Cheng Jun slowly walked to the door and opened it.
Tu Nan was so anxious his eyes were almost red. “Where’s Sister-in-law? Where’d she go? Even if you guys fight, you can’t let it get this big. Whatever it is, just talk it out properly.”
After blanking out for a long ti, Cheng Jun said, as if talking to himself, “She’s gone.”
…And won’t ever co back.
This was the second ti Tu Nan had ever seen this kind of expression on Cheng Jun.
Last ti, it was when Cheng Jun’s mother had passed away.
Tu Nan almost burst into tears. With reddened eyes, he asked in a quivering voice, “Sister-in-law, she…has she already been buried?”
Cheng Jun: “…”
Tu Nan’s response was the sound of a bang as the door was slamd shut.
Author’s note:
Tu Nan: I feel like I’m inching closer and closer to getting fired…
Hahaha, next, please watch how our Jun Jun chases his wife!
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