Chapter 58: Talking Business

Money brought convenience to life, but Yin Xian didn’t get better rest.

After being promoted to manager, he began dealing with major clients at the lighting company and gradually took on another form of overtime: socializing with the bosses and networking with clients.

With his previous overtime, Wang Jiexiang could roughly guess when he’d come home. Social networking was different.

Sometimes they had clearly planned to have dinner together—she waited and waited, and even after typical overtime hours, he still hadn’t come back.

Nine o’clock.

Wang Jiexiang was starting to feel hungry. She checked her outbox—her 8:30 text had been sent successfully, but Yin Xian hadn’t replied. She opened her inbox: at 6:00, she had asked, “Will you be off work on time today? I made braised pork ribs.” He replied at 6:20: “Mm.”

Guessing he had a meeting or got held up, Wang Jiexiang decided to wait a bit longer.

Ten o’clock.

She was so hungry her stomach hurt. She shoved down two slices of bread and couldn’t help but text Yin Xian again.

“Are you in a meeting? Is it inconvenient to reply? If you see this message, could you just send me a symbol or something?”

Eleven o’clock.

Time passed so slowly. The phone stayed silent. Yin Xian still hadn’t come home. Wang Jiexiang paced around the house with her phone in hand. As she drafted another message, she started feeling like she was being annoying. If he was busy, was it really okay to keep bothering him like this? After fifteen minutes of internal struggle, she still sent the message: “I’m worried about you. Nothing happened, right? Reply as soon as you get this.”

Midnight.

Past midnight, there shouldn’t be anyone left at the office. Wang Jiexiang thought Yin Xian should be home by now, no matter what. She waited for the clock to hit twelve and immediately called him. The phone rang, but no one answered.

“It’s fine. He must be leaving the office now—he’ll be home soon.”

Trying to reassure herself, Wang Jiexiang reheated the food again. In her mind, she pictured him leaving the office, then imagined every street he’d pass, every stoplight he’d wait at—she ran through all of it.

1 a.m.

Her phone battery died. As it charged, she started calling Yin Xian’s number again and again. The phone rang endlessly on the other end. She prayed he’d answer in the next second, but what came every time was: “The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable.”

Could something have happened? Wang Jiexiang couldn’t stop her thoughts from going there.

He fainted at work and was taken to the hospital?

His phone got stolen, and he was running around chasing the thief, unwilling to go home?

His phone fell into a sewer, and he couldn’t get it out or leave, so he stayed there trying to figure something out?

He was too exhausted and accidentally fell asleep at work?

He ran into trouble on the way home and bravely stepped in to help someone?

…

2 a.m.

She had made at least dozens of calls by now. Wang Jiexiang was like an ant on a hot pan, absolutely convinced something had happened to Yin Xian. She left a note at the door and decided to walk to his office.

Their home was in a good area—even late at night, street food stalls were still open, and the road was lit by streetlamps and shop lights. Holding her phone, Wang Jiexiang walked toward Yin Xian’s office. It was drizzling. She hadn’t dressed warmly and felt chilled to the bone.

The farther she walked, the fewer people there were on the street. She occasionally passed drunk men or groups of teens who hadn’t gone home yet. She deliberately steered clear of them, looking all around in case she spotted Yin Xian.

When she arrived at his office, the whole building was dark. Wang Jiexiang thought about going up to look, but the main door was locked.

“Yin Xian! Yin Xian!” she called out a few times from outside.

Staring at the pitch-black windows, an eerie feeling crept into her heart.

Unwilling to go home just like that, she made a few more calls. On the last attempt, she heard a different message: “The number you have dialed is powered off.”

3 a.m.

Wang Jiexiang returned home. The note she left at the door was still there. When she opened the door, the lights inside were off.

She grabbed an umbrella, locked up again, and went to wait at the residential complex entrance. She had already imagined all sorts of worst-case scenarios. If her phone rang now, it might scare her even more than silence.

That could be a call from the hospital.

At 3:30 a.m., a taxi stopped at the entrance of the complex.

Yin Xian got out. The moment he did, he saw someone running toward him.

As she got close, the strong smell of alcohol hit her. Wang Jiexiang grabbed him and pulled him under a streetlamp, frantically touching his face, checking him all over.

“What happened to you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He spoke, and the alcohol smell got stronger. But his tone was calm.

Wang Jiexiang bit her lip. All the worry she’d bottled up through the night turned into anger. Her hands trembled. She glared at him and shouted furiously.

“Fine? If nothing happened, why are you back this late? You scared me half to death!”

Yin Xian reached for her hand, but she slapped him away.

“Tell me—what were you doing? Why didn’t you pick up your phone? Are you happy now that you had me freaking out?”

Her shouting caught the attention of the complex’s security guard, who came out from the booth.

Yin Xian rubbed his throbbing temples and gave her a look, signaling that someone was around.

“Let’s go home.”

Wang Jiexiang didn’t want to argue in public either. It would only humiliate both of them. Before the guard got too close, she turned and headed toward their building.

The two entered the elevator, one after the other. She crossed her arms and stood a full step away from him.

Yin Xian pressed the elevator button.

They returned home in silence. He glanced at the note on the door but before he could read it, Wang Jiexiang snatched it down.

She fumbled with her keys at the door, taking a while to get the right one.

Inside, she turned on the entryway light and shut the door.

Yin Xian didn’t speak to her. He changed into slippers and headed straight to the bathroom.

Wang Jiexiang followed him and asked the same question: “Where were you all night?”

The bathroom door shut in her face. The faucet was turned on.

His voice was muffled by the sound of running water.

“Talking business,” he said.

Wang Jiexiang wanted an explanation. She had waited the whole night, anxious and on edge. There was no way three words could suffice.

“Even if you were talking business, you couldn’t answer your phone for hours? Not even a second to spare? Did you forget I was waiting for you? Why so late?”

The water got louder. She waited outside the door for five full minutes.

“No explanation? You’re not going to say anything?”

Click—the water stopped, and then she heard his response.

“I left in a rush. Forgot my phone at the office.”

Right after he said that, the shower turned on. Water splashed again.

Before Yin Xian got home, Wang Jiexiang had desperately wanted him to pick up the phone and speak to her. Now that he was here, she suddenly felt like there was nothing to say.

She stood silently at the bathroom door for a long time.

Long enough that Yin Xian probably thought she had left. From inside, she heard the sound of vomiting—stifled retching, buried beneath the noise of the running water.

The moment she heard that sound, her stiff, straight back suddenly lost all its strength in a wave of disoriented weakness.

Wang Jiexiang was abruptly pulled out of her anger and grievance. She realized: Yin Xian was feeling unwell—that’s why he had gone straight to the bathroom upon returning home.

Instinctively, she raised her hand to turn the doorknob and check on him.

But the doorknob wouldn’t turn.

The door was locked from the inside.

The sound of her trying to open the door made him stop vomiting. Separated by a single door, neither of them said a word. Only the sound of running water remained.

In truth, Wang Jiexiang was very angry.

The moment she got home, she had already decided that no matter how Yin Xian explained himself, she would find fault with him.

But then she heard the water. She heard him vomiting. She couldn’t open the door. And in that instant, Wang Jiexiang suddenly realized she would rather hear his clumsy, careless excuses and clean up the filthy, vomit-stained floor than be locked outside the door like this.

Talking business, socializing, networking—coming home late because it was hard to refuse.

She could understand that. There was no reason not to be considerate.

“Did you eat?” she asked in a low voice.

This time, Yin Xian replied quickly.

“I did. You should go to bed.”

Ordinarily, Wang Jiexiang would never let that slide: Go to bed? I thought something happened to you. If you weren’t back by four, I was going to the police. I was scared out of my mind—how do you expect me to sleep now?

But now, her heart felt empty. She didn’t even have the energy to get angry.

Following his suggestion, Wang Jiexiang left the bathroom door and walked toward the bedroom.

Her legs were sore from standing still for so long. After entering the bedroom, she sat on the edge of the bed for a while before remembering she hadn’t eaten dinner and needed to put the leftovers in the fridge.

The braised pork ribs and the rice in the cooker could be reheated tomorrow. But green vegetables shouldn’t be kept overnight.

Wang Jiexiang didn’t have much appetite, but she didn’t want to waste food. She picked up her chopsticks and ate a few bites of the greens.

They were cold. As she chewed, a bitter taste rose up—almost unbearable.

She dumped the dish and sighed several times.

She washed the dishes, covered the rest of the food with plastic wrap, wiped the table, and rinsed the rice for tomorrow’s breakfast.

Through the window, Wang Jiexiang looked outside. The sky was beginning to lighten.

The sound of water from the bathroom had stopped, but Yin Xian hadn’t come out.

In less than two hours, she would need to get up and start her makeup. This night, which had felt like an eternity, had finally passed.

Wang Jiexiang turned off the dining room light and returned to the bedroom.

She fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillow.

When the alarm rang, she got up with a big yawn. Her eyes were dry and sore, her back ached.

Yin Xian was lying beside her, not woken by the alarm.

Wang Jiexiang went to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

The bathroom floor, sink, and bathtub were all clean—bone dry, even.

As was his habit after using them, he had cleaned the tub and the sink and wiped the floor dry.

Today wasn’t a workday. Yin Xian didn’t need to get to the office early. Wang Jiexiang left him some food and a pot of hangover soup.

When she had lunch, she checked her phone. There was a text message from him in her inbox.

[If I come home late in the future, you don’t need to worry. Eat and sleep first.]

Scrolling down, he had replied to the message she sent yesterday: [I’m worried about you. Nothing bad happened, right? Please reply if you get this.]

Wang Jiexiang thought about it but had no idea what to write back.

She opened her outbox. The messages she sent him were crammed full, some just a few lines, others long like a mini composition. The inbox, on the other hand, was filled mostly with: “Mm,” “Working late,” “Don’t wait,” “Got it.” The one he just sent counted as quite a wordy one.

That was their pattern—in texts, in daily life.

[Okay]

She finished typing the reply, about to send it, then added another line.

[Okay. Have you sobered up? Still feeling dizzy?]

Staring at the screen, she ended up deleting the added sentence.

She only replied: [Okay].