Chapter 5: Pu Huaiyan Found the Hair Tie.
Shan Dai had basically calmed down over the past few days and accepted it, though it was still hard for her mood to remain completely unaffected.
She picked up her chopsticks to scoop some food into Ziming’s bowl, “Eat. I know what I need to do; I’ve already rented an apartment to live in.”
“You—you actually didn’t tell me? What apartment are you renting? You could have just come to live with me directly!” Ziming felt so heartbroken for her that her heart was breaking to pieces. “Later when he comes back, if the talk doesn’t go smoothly, just tell me. I’ll definitely find the top lawyer to get things sorted out for you!”
“Mm.” The corners of her mouth curved upward.
Halfway through the hotpot, her phone began to ring. It was a caller from the northern capital, and the caller ID showed: Meiyuan.
It was that private dining restaurant in the northern capital. When she was over there a few days ago, Shan Dai had called them to ask if they had picked up a hairband, but they said no.
Why were they calling back? Perplexed, she answered.
A sweet female voice came through the phone: “Hello, is this Ms. Shan? This is the Meiyuan restaurant in the northern capital.”
“It’s me.”
“Hello, you called a few days ago to ask if a hairband was picked up. We asked around and couldn’t find it back then, but we discovered it today. Would you like to come pick it up yourself, or should we mail it to you?”
Shan Dai: “I’m no longer in the northern capital, so… please trouble yourselves to mail it over then. Thank you for your trouble.”
“You’re very welcome. Then please tell me your address, and I’ll note it down.”
Shan Dai read out the address of the marital home, but halfway through, she corrected herself: “Oh, I said it wrong, I’m not living there recently. Let’s change it—send it to my company.”
“Alright.”
After giving the address, Shan Dai set down her phone, only to find the small bowl in front of her was already piled high with seafood, beef, and mutton.
Ziming urged her to eat, “What kind of hairband is it that you’re having it specially mailed all the way from the northern capital?”
Shan Dai: “Many years ago, during my first job with my first paycheck, we went on a trip to Yunnan, and I bought it as a gift for myself. It’s a handmade piece, so there probably isn’t another one like it now.”
Ziming realized then that its value lay in being an old sentimental item, even though it wasn’t worth much money itself.
After the meal, Ziming insisted on dragging Shan Dai to sleep over at her place, so Shan Dai had no choice but to follow along.
Late at night, the two were drinking at home.
This had been Ziming’s true objective all along, which Shan Dai had actually guessed. From college until now, whenever either of them was unhappy, they would find a KTV or a small pub, order a bunch of drinks, snuggle together, and drink while discussing tactics.
From schoolwork to graduation, to work and relationships, over these years, they had drunk together countless times.
Only this marriage thing had never called for a drink, as Lu Zhixing had handled everything throughout without ever causing Shan Dai any worry.
“Dai Dai, don’t be sad either, okay? Worldly affairs are hard to predict. Truthfully, I never expected that dog Lu Zhixing to turn out to be so two-faced. He really acted like a true gentleman.” She cupped Shan Dai’s face, coaxing her, “Look at how good his reputation was at Lan University! He was practically the school’s living signboard; anyone who came along would fall for him. Don’t be sad, okay? It’s just a mere few years of time. Don’t view it as a life predicament. Once we’re divorced, we’ll find a better one.”
Shan Dai burst into laughter, “Find another one? Haven’t had enough of the hassle yet?”
“You can look for someone to date for fun, just don’t get married, that’s all. Just like me, okay?” She clinked her glass, downed it in one gulp, and said heroically, “Non-marriageism1 is pretty great. Only I can let others down; others can forget about letting me down.”
Currently, Shan Dai wasn’t thinking about anything. After wrapping up this matter, she planned to work quietly for a period of time and deal with future things when the future came.
Over the next few days, she stayed at Ziming’s apartment. After passing the weekend, the moment she arrived at the company on Monday, she received a delivery.
The front desk brought it over to her, saying it was mailed from the northern capital.
Shan Dai hadn’t bought anything, so seeing the compact box, she guessed it was her hairband.
It was rare to have a small piece of good news recently, so Shan Dai set aside her work, found a utility knife, and unpacked the delivery.
The item was even packaged inside an exquisite gift box. She eagerly opened it, took a look, and… mm, it wasn’t it.
After staring in a daze for two seconds, Shan Dai let out a soft laugh, finally letting out a deep breath while staring at that red hair scrunchie. Picking up her phone, she placed a call to Meiyuan.
“Hello, Meiyuan in the northern capital.” The familiar female voice quickly came through the phone.
“Hello, a few days ago you mailed a delivery to me—my hairband.” Shan Dai closed the lid of the gift box.
Customer Service: “Oh, yes, you received it, right?”
Shan Dai put the item away, looking at her computer screen while saying into the phone: “What was sent wasn’t my hairband; it was a hair scrunchie.”
“Ah? Was it sent wrong?”
“It probably wasn’t sent wrong, but rather another guest left a hair scrunchie at the restaurant, and you thought it was mine. Mine might not have been lost at your restaurant after all.”
“Oh, I see, then…”
“Does this hair scrunchie need me to mail it back?”
“Mm, that…” Customer Service thought for a moment and said, “Having you mail it over feels like a bother for you. How about this: if someone comes looking for it later, I’ll give you a call and trouble you to mail it back, with shipping fees covered by us. If no one comes looking, then there’s no need.”
“Okay, works.”
“We’re truly sorry for bringing you trouble.”
Shan Dai hung up the phone and didn’t take this small matter to heart. She continued flipping through the divorce agreement on her computer.
She and Lu Zhixing had basically no property entanglements. He had given her a supplementary card, but she rarely spent from it. Even if she had to pay the money back, she could afford it.
Other than that was the house. The marital home was purchased by Lu Zhixing before their marriage and was registered under her name as a gift to her, which she would also return to him.
The two cars she drove at home were both under his name; she hadn’t driven them over the past few days, leaving the keys in the marital home.
So looking at the divorce agreement, it was simple and clean, easily wrapped up in two pages.
After Shan Dai organized all the contents, she continued staying busy whenever work came up. When she briefly had a bit of free time in the afternoon, she printed the agreement out.
The whirring noise of the machine running covered the sound of human heartbeats, leaving Shan Dai feeling a bit spacey and dazed.
Before it even finished printing, her phone vibrated on the office desk, pulling the thoughts dominated by this divorce matter back bit by bit.
Turning her head to look, the caller location on the phone screen was still the northern capital, and the note was that Meiyuan again.
No way, someone came looking for it in less than half a day?
Shan Dai held the few sheets of warm divorce agreement paper, sat back down, and picked up her phone to put it to her ear, “Hello.”
The customer service voice from this morning came from inside: “Ms. Shan, I am so sorry to disturb you, this is Meiyuan.”
“I know. Does the hair scrunchie need to be mailed back?”
“No. It’s like this, Ms. Shan: just now, our store’s boss contacted the front desk to ask if anyone had come looking for a hairband. The boss said he picked up a hairband inside the restaurant that day. He originally wanted to privately look for the people dining in that private room that night, but after several days, he couldn’t find the owner’s contact info, so he could only ask the store.”
Shan Dai was very surprised, ah? “Picked up by the boss?” Then she hadn’t dropped it inside the private room? Was it dropped somewhere else in the restaurant when leaving?
Customer Service said: “Yes, it’s the boss. He happened to come to the store for a meal that night. So you see, how about we mail it out to you again now? As for that hair scrunchie, just keep it for now, and please trouble yourself to hold onto it for us for a few days.”
Originally, Shan Dai had already given up, feeling that mailing things back and forth like this was quite a hassle that surpassed the value of the hairband itself. But since they had already called, and supposedly the boss had been trying to contact the owner, she could only say okay, unwilling to let down the other party’s good intentions.
The boss definitely couldn’t contact her; she wasn’t a native of the northern capital, and in her life up to now, she had only eaten at Meiyuan once. That was specifically arranged by Pu Huaiyan; otherwise, she wouldn’t even have known that the northern capital possessed such a top-tier private dining restaurant from environment to cuisine.
She said to Customer Service: “Then I’ll trouble you to mail it to me according to the previous address.”
“Ms. Shan, it’s like this,” Customer Service said, “The item is with the boss right now. He rarely comes to the store usually, and hasn’t come back since coming to eat once ten-plus days ago. Do you think it’s convenient for you to add his personal contact info and then send him the address?”
She then continued slightly awkwardly, “Because me, I’m just customer service, I don’t have the boss’s WeChat, and I don’t quite dare to add it.”
Shan Dai smiled, understandingly saying: “Okay, sure. Give me the boss’s contact info.” She could also thank the boss in person while at it; judging by the tone, it was a man, which was really thoughtful.
Perhaps because she was a boss herself, she didn’t feel any hesitation about contacting him just because he was a boss.
Customer Service immediately read out the number: “199… Ms. Shan can just add him on WeChat.”
Shan Dai casually typed that number into the divorce agreement document on her computer.
Hanging up the phone, she tapped into WeChat and entered that number. A new page popped up with a profile picture of a light grey sky, and the nickname was—Pu Huaiyan.
Shan Dai’s eyes stopped moving, completely stunned.
She stared at it for a moment, snapped back to reality, and rummaged through her drawers to look for the business card he had given her previously.
Finding it in her desk drawer, she pulled it out to look—his number, 199…
It really was.
The boss of Meiyuan… was Pu Huaiyan??
Shan Dai was dazed for a good while before gradually accepting it. He could be the boss, no problem with that. Only… the hairband was picked up by him? Then why didn’t he give it to her directly that night?
Translator’s note:
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