Chapter 4: The Charm of Pu Huaiyan.
On the car ride back to the hotel, Lu Zhixing handed a gift box to Shan Dai. It was the box from the diamond brand she had seen in his office.
Inside was a diamond ring. Her birthday was coming up in a few days, but since she would have already returned home by then, Lu Zhixing wouldn’t be able to celebrate it with her, so he had prepared the gift in advance.
Shan Dai pretended to be very happy.
Upon arriving downstairs at the hotel, Lu Zhixing went to handle her check-in procedures while Shan Dai went to the convenience store by the entrance to buy a few items.
After going upstairs, she didn’t say a single word and walked straight into the bathroom to wash up, halfway through asking Lu Zhixing to fetch something she had left in the living room.
He opened the bag to look—sanitary pads…
The man brought the item to the bathroom inside the bedroom of the executive suite and knocked on the door.
Shan Dai cracked the door open slightly to take the item, “Thank you.”
He smiled, turned around, and left. By the time Shan Dai finished washing up and came out, Lu Zhixing was no longer in the room, but he returned shortly, holding a shopping bag in his hand.
Shan Dai didn’t care at all about what he had gone to do. She simply went to the living room to grab her coat, searched through the pockets, and upon realizing her hairband wasn’t there, gave up on it. She tossed her coat onto the sofa, returned to the room by herself, fell exhausted onto the bed, and stared blankly into space.
Lu Zhixing went to the kitchenette. A beeping sound emanated from the induction cooker, and after a moment, a sweet, sickly aroma of brown sugar drifted through the air.
The Japanese-style vintage sliding doors between the bedroom and living room served primarily for privacy rather than soundproofing. The commotion outside felt like winter night rain, falling bit by bit onto Shan Dai’s heart.
Shan Dai lay quietly on the bed, smelling the familiar scent while her mind spun into a chaotic mess and her heart beat at an abnormal rhythm.
These past bits of happiness felt like needles at this very moment.
Lu Zhixing brought over a glass of warm brown sugar water, set it on the nightstand, and gently stroked her black hair scattered across the pillow.
“Why did you blow-dry your hair by yourself instead of waiting for me?”
“It’s fine, I just did it while I was at it.”
“Remember to drink the water in a bit once it cools down. Have you been tired lately? Your period seems irregular; I remember it wasn’t supposed to be around these dates.”
“Yeah, I guess so, just tired.” She met his eyes, the corners of her mouth curving upward.
He leaned down to rub her temples, his eyes filled with heartache. Her soft arms gently pushed him toward the bathroom to wash up. He kissed her, “I’ll keep you company in a bit.”
The man unbuttoned his shirt while walking toward the bathroom. Shan Dai stared at his broad, straight back, waiting until the exact second he stepped into the bathroom before finally speaking up.
“Lu Zhixing.”
“Mm?”
“Can I borrow your phone?”
He turned his head, chin jerking toward the phone left charging on the nightstand, “Just take it, no need to ask.”
Shan Dai crawled across the bed to retrieve the phone. He closed the door and went into the bathroom.
Shan Dai tapped into WeChat to look at the names on the chat list.
President Pu, Special Assistant to the President’s Office, Secretary Shen from the President’s Office, General Manager, President Wang from the R&D Department, Secretary Su, Manager of the PR Department…
There were many people. She tapped into the account of his female secretary stationed here.
She actually didn’t think there was any issue with that girl; the girl was polite and respectful toward her, an attitude that couldn’t be faked.
Skimming through the chat content, it was purely work from top to bottom, with no traces of specific messages having been deleted.
She checked the accounts with female profile pictures one by one, finding no issues with any of them.
Exiting WeChat, she tapped into the phone’s call history. Looking down the row, no strange names appeared there either.
Shan Dai collapsed onto the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Could it be that his boss’s words really… had an issue?
For some unknown reason, she just couldn’t quite bring herself to believe that man would lie to her out of nowhere; what could he possibly gain from deceiving her? At the very least, she would verify it and not blindly trust it.
Was it just to make her feel bad for a short period of time? But she had no grudge or enmity with him.
It made no sense.
Shan Dai opened the phone again, staring at each app for a moment, but most apps lacked messaging functions, and Lu Zhixing was a regular, busy person whose phone contained no extra social media apps or gaming setups.
Finally, Shan Dai switched over to the email app.
The first email that caught her eye was from the PR Department Manager.
Just a moment ago on WeChat, Shan Dai had seen this account. Their chat history contained only the system’s default greeting from when they added each other, with zero conversation beyond that.
Normally speaking, as a General Manager of the R&D Department, if he needed to contact anyone, it would be the PR/Market Promotion or Marketing Departments; there really was seemingly nothing to say to the Public Relations Department.
Yet the very first email in the inbox belonged to this person. Shan Dai’s heart throbbed violently, and she immediately tapped into it.
This particular email was a reply from the other side, sending him a sentence: “Alright~ then you must remember okay~”
A wave of dark, dizzying vertigo swept before Shan Dai’s eyes. Her fingers trembling slightly, she scrolled down, discovering that this email thread had already back-and-forth replies at least dozens of times.
She read backward from the newest entries. On the night she decided to go on a business trip to Linzhou, after telling Lu Zhixing the good news, an hour later at 10:00 PM that evening, he replied to this email. He told this person saved under the note “PR Department Manager”: “I’m busy those few days, inconvenient to meet outside the company, go play on your own.”
Shan Dai held her breath and scrolled upward.
The woman replied to him: “Why? I worked so hard to snatch those tickets.”
Lu Zhixing replied: “My wife is coming.”
The woman’s next email said: “Oh~ Manager Lu has his delicate wife in his arms and instantly forgot the new flame1.”
He replied: “What nonsense are you talking about.”
The woman replied: “Then tell me, what am I to you?”
Lu Zhixing didn’t explain that line, skipping over it to say: “Just a few days, play on your own, I’ll find you when I’m free. Be good.”
Shan Dai’s heart rate violently accelerated amidst his evasive reply.
The woman replied again: “Can I meet your wife? Is she very pretty?”
Lu Zhixing refused: “Why do you want to see my wife? Stop making a fuss. Go play on your own, or else there’s no playing at all. You’re not allowed to go looking for my wife, got it?”
The woman replied: “Hmph.”
Lu Zhixing instructed again: “Be good, listen to me, I’ll find you as soon as I’m free.”
Her final reply was that sentence: “Alright~ then you must remember okay~”
The emails were timestamped within a single day, with no correspondence over the days following. But he had explicitly stated in the email that they couldn’t meet outside the company, whereas inside the company… it was clearly permissible.
So over these past few days, including starting tomorrow, he would be meeting her at the company, wouldn’t he?
Furthermore, when he initially replied to her email, the other party hadn’t sent him an email first; it was only in the subsequent chat content that she seemed to reveal wanting to invite him to watch some performance.
So, the other party had messaged him on WeChat first? After receiving it, he moved to email to reply and deleted the WeChat conversation.
Shan Dai took a deep breath, her gaze shifting stiffly from the screen toward the distant bathroom where the rushing sound of water echoed out.
For several seconds, her entire being remained completely dazed.
She then realized another issue. That afternoon, his secretary mentioned that the other building housed key company departments and new subsidiaries—the President’s Office, the General Manager’s Office, the Gaming Department subsidiary, Media, Public Relations…
Lu Zhixing’s R&D Department wasn’t in that building. He wasn’t stationed there, but he frequently needed to go over for meetings, while the Public Relations Department was located right in that building.
So his secretary didn’t know about his affairs—having followed him for months, she still had no idea. But his boss knew…
Pu Huaiyan had crossed paths with it.
He must have run into Lu Zhixing and the female PR Manager together inside that building.
He said he originally didn’t know Lu Zhixing was already married.
So was it only after seeing her today that he suddenly realized this Manager Lu actually had a family, yet had still been messing around outside previously?
Shan Dai suddenly remembered running into that man outside the gaming exhibition hall early this afternoon; at that time, he hadn’t mentioned anything about asking Lu Zhixing out for dinner tonight.
If he had made the invitation right after ending the meeting, Lu Zhixing could have just declined him face-to-face.
Therefore, it was clear that Pu Huaiyan had, only after meeting her, instantly understood the situation where one of his subordinates was cheating and another was acting as a mistress. That was what sparked the idea of calling Lu Zhixing out for dinner—he guessed Lu Zhixing would bring her along to this meal.
He did it specifically to tell her about this matter; that was why he invited him for dinner to discuss business despite knowing his wife had come to see him.
He did it on purpose. This President Pu, a total stranger, had gone to great lengths for her, who had traveled thousands of miles to visit Lu Zhixing while kept completely in the dark.
Shan Dai closed her eyes.
When Lu Zhixing finished his shower and stepped out, Shan Dai was washing a glass in the kitchen.
He immediately said, “Leave it for me to handle. Dai Dai, go rest, don’t touch cold water.”
“It’s fine, it’s warm water.” She casually put away the rinsed glass, wiped her hands dry, and walked toward the bedroom.
After plugging his phone in to charge, the man got into bed from the other side, pulled back the duvet, and snuggled over to hug his wife, who was lying there playing on her phone.
“Tired? Get some early rest.”
“Not tired.” She tilted her head, meeting his eyes, “My hairband seems to have been left behind at the restaurant. Do you know the name of that restaurant?”
“I know. But buying a replacement is fine; tomorrow we’ll go out to have fun, I’m off work tomorrow.”
“Go to work.” She reached out to stroke his brows and eyes, “Don’t you still need to stay here for a while longer? You’re so busy.”
“No.” He wrapped her into his arms and lay down, “I mentioned it before, but I don’t want to stay here for too long, so I’m still weighing it over and didn’t tell you, Dai Dai.”
“Mm.” Whether he didn’t want to stay here or wanted to stay here and thus hesitated, no one could truly know.
“Though judging by our President Pu’s tone tonight, he doesn’t support me continuing to be stationed here either.”
“Mm.”
The corners of his mouth turned up, “I really didn’t expect that an unmarried person like President Pu would be so considerate toward married folks.”
“Mm…” she murmured, “Then tell me, what was the restaurant called? If I can’t buy a replacement later, I’ll call to ask about it.”
“Meiyuan.”
She nodded and closed her eyes.
Lu Zhixing chatted casually in her ear about his affairs here, just like how the two of them used to talk every night when lying down—a routine to coax her to sleep.
A tender moment, missing for over two months, enveloped them both. He said the northern climate was vastly different from Jiangnan; he wasn’t quite used to it at first, and if she came, she definitely wouldn’t be used to it either.
She uttered an “Mm.”
He said it had snowed several times here after the New Year, and he had taken photos to show her. Next year when it snowed, if her work wasn’t too busy, they could come over to play—it was quite pretty, and as southerners who rarely saw snow, he remembered she quite liked snow.
She uttered another “Mm.”
At some point, his talking voice stopped, likely seeing that she was already sleepy.
Yet right at that moment, she suddenly opened her eyes, murmuring like someone trapped in a nightmare: “Lu Zhixing.”
“Mm? Baby.” He lowered his gaze to look at her delicate, lovely face bathed in the nightlight.
Shan Dai: “I didn’t go on a business trip to Linzhou.”
He raised his brow in confusion, “No business trip?”
Shan Dai smiled at him: “It was temporarily canceled last night, but you reminded me not to run off, so I came.”
His gaze froze, and then shattered into pieces, filled with familiar heartache as he pressed down to pull her into a full embrace.
Scorching words poured into her ear, “Are you silly, silly girl? Then you shouldn’t have come, you should only come if it’s on the way. Why travel so hard to get here, silly girl.”
“I wanted to see you,” her voice was almost choked with tears as she stared word by word at the fragmented light and shadow on the ceiling, “Wanted to see my… Mr. Lu.”
“I love you.” He hugged her tightly, “Dai Dai.”
Shan Dai took a deep breath and closed her eyes to rest.
Lu Zhixing, true to someone long accustomed to being busy, held her for a while; seeing that she was sleepy—and given that her “period came” tonight so nothing could be done—he kissed her and fell asleep alongside her.
Before long, the breathing beside her pillow turned even and steady.
Shan Dai opened her eyes once more.
The entire world had fallen dead silent, save for her heart beating at an abnormally fast rate. She thought to herself, looking at his demeanor, he had zero intention of divorcing. So if she brought it up, would he agree?
It remained an unknown variable.
Shan Dai picked up his phone again, tapped into the email app, forwarded all the correspondence between him and that PR Department Manager to her own email, and then deleted the records.
The next day brought spring rain to the northern capital, causing the temperature to plunge abruptly close to below ten degrees.
Shan Dai used the excuse of feeling exhausted from her period to avoid going out. Lu Zhixing stayed at the hotel working overtime while keeping her company, and the two ate all three meals of the day at the hotel restaurant.
On the third day, the weather cleared up. He took another day off and finally accompanied her to tour Beijing—a northern city Shan Dai rarely set foot in.
Afterward, she urged him to go to work. On that day, she stayed at the hotel by herself, spending the entire day from morning till night pondering how to handle what was to follow.
On the fifth day in Beijing, Shan Dai was escorted to the airport by Lu Zhixing early in the morning before he returned to work.
By the time the plane landed and she arrived home, it was already afternoon. The very first thing Shan Dai did upon reaching their marital home was to locate boxes to pack her belongings, organizing every single item of hers one by one.
When she finished, she didn’t know where to move. She had lived in a dormitory during the early part of her master’s degree, rented an apartment after starting her relationship, and in their final year, Lu Zhixing purchased a marital home where they moved in before getting married, residing there until now.
She currently had enough money to buy a small one-bedroom apartment, but it was impossible to buy one and relocate immediately.
Thus, left with no choice, she could only head out casually the next day to inspect an apartment, hastily signing a short-term lease contract, and hiring a moving company the very next day to move all her belongings out in one go.
The marital home emptied out significantly all at once.
Lu Zhixing’s daily chats proceeded as usual, and he informed Shan Dai that he would return on schedule, with roughly half a month left before this miserable business trip concluded.
Shan Dai indicated that she understood.
“Have you been tired from work lately? Your tone sounds so sluggish, baby.” On that night of torrential rain in Jiangnan, they spoke on the phone, his tone as gentle as ever as he inquired and cared for her, “Are you worn out?”
Shan Dai went with the flow, saying she was.
What she was somewhat curious about was: once he returned, what would happen with that woman? Was it just a fleeting fling, or did he plan to maintain the relationship via occasional business trips down the road?
Yet it was merely a passing thought in her mind; it was no longer any of her business.
After returning to work for two days, Ziming noticed her abnormality and specifically asked her out for dinner after work that day. In a corner of a restaurant filled with bustling evening vitality, the hotpot broth bubbled away in the late spring Jiangnan night, filling the air with a mouthwatering aroma.
Ziming looked at the woman propping her cheek in a daze—resembling a fairy sculpture untouched by worldly dust—and inquired with immense curiosity: “Have you been in a bad mood lately? Did you get into a fight with Lu Zhixing when you went to Beijing?”
Shan Dai didn’t speak.
Ziming instantly dropped the chopsticks in her hand, raised her brows, and stared straight at her, “Spill.”
Shan Dai cupped her face in both hands, locked eyes with her across the table for a few seconds, and opened her mouth: “Lu Zhixing cheated.”
“Fuck…” She lowered her voice, clenching her back teeth so hard they ached, “For real? In Beijing? With whom? A colleague?”
“Mm.”
“You caught them?”
“Someone told me.”
“Who? Did you verify it yourself?”
“His boss.”
“His boss???” Her eyes widened, unable to comprehend, “He works at Yanxin Times; is it his superior? He’s already a department General Manager, so what position is his superior?”
“Not his direct superior. It’s Yanxin Times’ President.”
“No way,” Ziming instantly held her breath, “That… Pu Huaiyan??”
“Yes. You know him.”
“I do! I just watched his financial interview on Times Discourse yesterday. Watching all two hours from start to finish turned me into a complete fangirl—what an insane guy. But did such a big figure really tell you this? How did he know, and why would he tell you something like this?”
“Probably didn’t want me kept in the dark like a fool. On the first day I arrived, he saw me at the company, and then specifically invited Lu Zhixing out for dinner. I later deduced he did it on purpose, just to tell me at the dinner table, since there were no other suitable opportunities.”
Ziming nodded little by little, thought it over, and said with certainty: “Putting it that way, it makes sense. Facing you coming all the way to see your husband, only for that guy to actually be messing around with another woman in his company. Based on Pu Huaiyan’s personality from his interview, I can tell he might genuinely disdain this kind of behavior, thus finding an opportunity to drop a hint to you.
You can watch that interview when you have time; whether it’s his way of handling things or his business tactics, both his IQ and EQ are super charming. He used to work in California and only returned last year, bringing sweeping reforms the moment he got back—the entire Yanxin Times underwent a massive upheaval last year.”
Shan Dai let out a soft sigh, “I don’t know about the interview content, but in reality, he truly surprised me. Such a big conglomerate boss, yet excessively gentlemanly.”
Ziming stared closely at her, feeling distressed for her: “Then what are your thoughts, Dai Dai? Did you ask that scumbag Lu Zhixing? What did he say?”
Shan Dai’s gaze fell aimlessly onto the rolling hotpot broth, murmuring: “I didn’t say anything, I want to wait until he comes back. Things can’t be explained clearly over the phone.”
“Then when is he coming back?”
“In ten days or so. These few days happen to give me time to think about what I should do.”
“You don’t mean to say you don’t want to get a divorce, right?” Ziming frowned.
“Of course I’m getting a divorce. It’s mainly that Lu Zhixing doesn’t look like he’ll easily grant me a divorce. I’m already contacting lawyers for consultations.”
“Damn it, why? That scumbag still doesn’t plan to divorce?” She gritted her teeth in hatred.
“He hid it very well, and since he’s returning soon, maybe it was just a fleeting fling with that woman and he’ll cut it off, so he probably won’t agree to my divorce request.”
“Son of a bitch, just wait for me to run him down with my car to end it once and for all. That dog trash is way too good at acting!! It pisses me off so much! Acting like a saint before marriage, loving you to death, and just one year in, this dog trash turns into a total monster!”
Translator’s note:
Translator’s note
- 新人 (xīn rén), literally ‘new person’, used here to refer to a new lover or mistress ↩︎
Hell nah nuke him T_T I genuinely can’t reread these few chapters. I kept wanting to cry omg poor Shan Dai.
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