He touched his face. Was that what he looked like to everyone else? He couldn’t deny it. None of his past girlfriends had lasted more than a few days; they had all asked to break up with him within a week.
And they had all said the exact same thing about him: “You’re not a boyfriend. You’re a mindless, insensitive brick. You don’t know how to make a woman happy.”
He didn’t understand it: he had memorized all their needs and preferences and provided them in silence, without making a big show of it. Were they not happy? Were his silent contributions worthless when compared to the hypocritical, insincere sweet-nothings and empty promises of other men?
He had had a string of girlfriends, but he was not a playboy by any stretch of the word. All his so-called “girlfriends” had been arranged for him by his mother, Ye Shuyun. He did not want to let his mother down, and so he had treated every one of these “girlfriends” with the utmost sincerity and respect—in fact, he treated them the way he treated his job, which was the highest honor he could give. He had been meticulous. He had made doubly sure everything was perfect. And yet not one of the women had liked him.
Ye Shuyun had stopped introducing women to her son in the last two years. Lu Yi suspected it was because she had realized all her efforts were completely meaningless, and also because she was afraid that she was inadvertently making her son out to be a flaky playboy. Her son had never really been in love, but he already had a substantial list of past girlfriends because of her meddling; what if women began to avoid him because his relationship history made him look like a player? Then her hopes of getting a daughter-in-law would be dashed forever.
Lu Yi had not been in a relationship since breaking up with his last girlfriend two years ago. Unlike his job, he did not particularly miss having a girlfriend.
Now, for the first time in his life, he was interested in a woman and wanted to know more about her past.
He did not know what drove him to do it. He did not want to think about the reasons— all he knew was that he wanted to know, and so he acted upon it.
An hour later, the phone on his desk rang.
“Mr. Lu, I’ve completed the background check you asked for. I’ve sent the report to your computer, let me know if you don’t see it.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Lu Yi put down the phone and set the file he had been going through aside. He wouldn’t be able to focus on it, not now. He opened his computer, sure enough, Xiao Chen had sent him a full report.
He crossed his legs and leaned backwards into his chair. He was already feeling a little sore around his shoulders from all the desk work; he knew he would probably suffer from occupational disease in the future if he didn’t watch out.
He was accustomed to reading background reports as it was sometimes part of his job. But this was the first time he had abused his authority to look up information on a woman who was completely unrelated to his work.
He was just curious. He knew curiosity killed the cat, but he couldn’t help it. He had to investigate and satisfy his curiosity.
He clicked on the confidential file, and a split-second later the full report appeared before his eyes. It documented every known detail of Yan Huan’s life, including her family relations and other specifics that Yan Huan herself was probably unaware of.
Yan Huan. Age: 20. Birthday: 28th of September. Mother: Yan Jing. Father: [blank].
He scrolled down. Raised by a single mother, father unknown.
He moved his mouse and scrolled further downwards. His expression darkened as he read the rest of the report.
Her mother Yan Jing had died only two years ago. Yan Huan had been enrolled in an art school then, she had been a star in the making because of her pretty looks and talent in dancing. But she had started taking stunt double and background extra jobs because of her mother’s illness, and within a few years she had given up entirely on her education. She had gotten a small role in The Story of a Supernatural Chivalrous World, and then secured a major role in Love and Tribulations through an open audition. The rest of her resume was empty; the future was still unknown, after all.
He saw her current address. It was an apartment given to her by Yuelun Entertainment.
Lu Yi turned off his computer. He stood up, walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window in his office, and opened the curtains. He could not explain the ripples that had begun to disturb the placid lake in his heart.
Were the ripples from the wake of a silent boat that was only passing through? Or had something fallen into his inner waters, something that would be a part of him forever?
He spent a long moment in contemplation by the window. Finally, he turned around and started up his computer again. He pulled up Yan Huan’s photo and the details from her ID. As a general rule, ID photos were never flattering, but Yan Huan’s was an exception: her photo captured all of her radiant youth and innocence. She was absolutely gorgeous. A cynical thought suddenly crossed Lu Yi’s mind: he wondered how long her innocence would last in the face of reality.
He moved his gaze upwards, to a specific line on her ID.
Blood type: Rh negative, type AB.
It was the same as his.
He put his hand on the mouse, closed the report, and then deleted it. He pretended not to have read it, but in fact he had read everything and committed it to memory.
Men and women sometimes tried to deceive themselves, for one reason or another. But the human memory was absolute.
Memories stayed for as long as you remembered them. Once forgotten, they were gone forever.
He went home. He fished a key out of his briefcase, opened the door to his house, and then changed into his indoor shoes. As soon as he stepped inside, he immediately sensed that there was someone unfamiliar to him in the living room.
“Back already, Lu Yi?”
Ye Shuyun had heard the door open and knew that her son had returned. Her husband, Lu Yi’s father, was still living in the military zone and could only come home a few times each year. Thus, the only one who went in and out of the house regularly was that inconsiderate son of hers.
The fact that Lu Yi was a son and not a daughter grated on her nerves. Her husband was not dependable, and her son was completely insensitive to her needs. How she wished she had a thoughtful, considerate daughter who would comfort her like a warm cotton jacket!
Even Lu Yi’s father had teased her about her inability to have a daughter. Now she was old and didn’t have anyone to talk to because her husband spent all his time working. What’s the point of working when you have to retire in the end and spend the rest of your old age in loneliness? she thought bitterly to herself.
But she knew it was pointless to cry over her hypothetical “cotton jackets”— all those lovely daughters belonged to some other families. She didn’t even have a slipper, let alone a cotton jacket!
She had resigned herself to her fate. She only had one child, and he was a son named Lu Yi.
Lu Yi walked over to his mother and seated himself. Sitting next to Ye Shuyun was a young woman around his age, about 24 or 25 years old. Her hairstyle was old-fashioned, and the way she sat made him think of a business meeting. This woman was, as Lei Qingyi would have put it, the no-nonsense intellectual type. It was obvious that she came from a highly-educated family and probably had her nose in a book all day to the point of being slightly out of touch with reality. She was easy to spot in a crowd of women: among all the makeup and colorful dresses, her plain, drab looks made her stick out like a sore thumb. One could— if they were being kind— describe her as a breath of fresh air, a refreshing pool of clear spring water.
For Lu Yi, she reminded him not of clear spring water, but of the murky water dry noodles had been boiled in.
Ye Shuyun always introduced him to such women because they were more likely to be compatible with Lu Yi’s punctilious, uptight personality.
