Raina Lu was stunned.
"What's wrong—don't believe me?"
Ryan Xiang pulled the car over and looked at Raina Lu. She tried to find teasing in those eyes, but Ryan Xiang's gaze was the most serious it had been since they'd reunited—tinged even with a faint self-mockery.
"Back then I was terribly insecure. Country kid, thought getting into college would solve everything, but university turned out harder than anything before. Cell phones, computers, club activities, student council—all of it might as well have been fantasy to me, let alone knowing any girls." Ryan Xiang rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, the person I interacted with most in college was you. So it's not so strange that I liked you, is it?"
Raina Lu had recovered. She sighed softly and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't notice at all back then."
In her memory, Ryan Xiang had been an impeccable tutor. Aside from discussing coursework, no matter what she talked to him about, the result was always Ryan Xiang blushing, fingers repeatedly adjusting his glasses, stammering for ages without getting a single word out.
How could she have been vain enough to think Ryan Xiang liked her?
Ryan Xiang laughed lightly. "I was a poor boy with nothing. You were a rich girl—the gap was so wide, how could I let you find out? Besides, your heart was already full of Mason Han back then."
Raina Lu had to admit he was right.
Forget Ryan Xiang—even back then, in her eyes the boys at school were all still wet behind the ears. She couldn't work up the slightest interest, and in the end couldn't even remember what they looked like, let alone care whether anyone liked her.
"All right, I've said my piece." He leaned slightly toward Raina Lu, the corners of his eyes rising even higher. "Ms. Lu, someone's confessing to you. Give me some kind of reaction."
Raina Lu cut in sharply: "Green light."
Ryan Xiang sighed in defeat. "Fine. I'll drive."
The car stopped in front of a hot pot restaurant. Even from a distance you could feel the lively bustle mixed with that distinctive hot pot aroma.
"Hot pot?"
Only after Raina Lu got out did Ryan Xiang follow her out and close the door.
"Don't you like it?"
Raina Lu nodded, but still said honestly, "I actually thought you'd take me to some fancy, expensive French restaurant."
Ryan Xiang laughed loudly. "Don't make me out to be some nouveau riche. You don't like that kind of place, and neither do I. Eating there would be torture, wouldn't it?"
Although two people in black formal wear eating hot pot was a bit out of place, the food was delicious enough that Raina Lu soon forgot the awkwardness. She took off her jacket and ate with Ryan Xiang until they were both sweating.
When neither of them could eat another bite, they looked at the messy plates in front of them and smiled at each other.
Ryan Xiang took a sip of beer from his glass and suddenly said, "Raina Lu, if you won't be my assistant, how about being my girlfriend? I'm short one anyway."
There was a stretch of silence before Raina Lu answered, "You're not my type."
Ryan Xiang laughed. "I've already transformed myself once. You can't expect me to do it again."
"We can be friends. Boyfriend is out of the question."
Swirling the golden liquid in his glass, Ryan Xiang moved his lips twice. "Why won't you just give up? You've already quit—that means you've chosen to let go, doesn't it? I don't understand. What's so great about Mason Han? Why are you so devoted to him? You say you don't like my type—are you and he even suited to each other? Can he come out with you for hot pot and beer? Can he set aside work for you? Most importantly… do you think he knows how to love someone?"
"Smart women choose men who love them. Only—"
"Lawyer Xiang, your powers of persuasion really have gotten better."
Raina Lu cut Ryan Xiang off and smiled. "Yeah, I'm an idiot. I just can't let go of him—so what?"
Looking at her distorted reflection in the wine glass, Raina Lu's smile held a trace of bitterness.
Jing Lin called again to ask Raina Lu out.
Raina Lu suddenly found it all meaningless. What was the point of going out again? She'd already felt it last time—she could adapt, but it no longer stirred her interest, or even made her happy.
Years ago, she had forced herself into this shape.
Now she couldn't force herself back.
She stayed home solidly for two days, living on takeout and a mountain of movies.
On the third day, when the doorbell rang, she stumbled to the door in a daze. The moment she opened it, she saw her unsmiling older brother Kai Lu standing there with a well-maintained woman.
"Mom?!"
Mrs. Lu strode in with her LV handbag, full of fury. "So you still remember you have a mother?"
As she spoke she looked at the pile of fast-food boxes on Raina Lu's dining table, and her anger only grew. "Is this how you take care of yourself?"
Raina Lu couldn't really explain—it had only been these two days. Before that she'd always eaten in the company cafeteria with Mason Han…
Mrs. Lu was far more relentless than Kai Lu, and unlike Kai Lu, she didn't lift a finger to help clean up. She directed Raina Lu to put everything in order, buy groceries, and cook—moving with the practiced authority of a queen.
Raina Lu hadn't expected this mother who spent the year rushing around and dressing herself to the nines to come see her.
At the table, the three of them sat down to eat.
It wasn't exactly warm. If anything, there was an indescribable strangeness hanging in the air.
Raina Lu's stubborn, single-minded temperament was inseparable from her family.
From childhood her parents had been busy—her father with work, her mother with travel.
In that huge house, year after year, only she and Kai Lu remained. Kai Lu wasn't the talkative type and rarely meddled in her affairs. The result of growing up so free was… the more she grew, the more extreme her personality became, and the less she resembled a girl.
By the time her parents noticed their daughter, Raina Lu was already stubborn enough to move out without a word for some inexplicable romance.
After the meal, Mrs. Lu had lost the force she'd arrived with. She asked softly, "You've quit your job now?"
Raina Lu cleared the dishes and answered yes.
"Then why not just come home?"
After a pause, Raina Lu said, "I don't want to go back yet."
"How long are you going to be this stubborn?"
"I'm an adult. That's my business."
"Raina Lu!"
The woman in her forties, dressed in an exquisite expensive suit, her face flawless and unwrinkled, stared at her fixedly. Yet her expression seemed to age all at once.
"Why can't you understand how your mother feels? For one man from the Han family, do you have to put your parents in such a difficult position? It's been three years. You think disowning you means you're not flesh cut from my body?"
Raina Lu dumped the dishes into the dishwasher in one go, stood in the kitchen without turning around, and sighed. "Why make it sound so serious? I haven't disowned you either. From the beginning, you're the ones who disowned me."
"What if I told you your father is already preparing to reconcile with Old Man Han?"
Raina Lu whipped around to look at her still-youthful mother and blurted out, "How is that possible?"
Yes—how was that possible?
Two tigers cannot share one mountain.
The rivalry between the Han and Lu families went back generations, all the way to Raina Lu's grandfather's era. Both families in this city had started in food and gradually expanded into clothing, malls, supermarkets, dining, and more. Over the years the markets they'd fought over weren't so different.
But because each side held the other in check, wins and losses were shared, and no monopoly formed—aside from the two of them, others occasionally got a share too.
After becoming Mason Han's assistant, Raina Lu understood even more clearly how terrifying that competition was. How many all-nighters revising bid proposals, how many sessions working with Mason Han piece by piece on strategy and data analysis. If they hadn't both kept to the agreement and avoided underhanded tactics, their meetings would probably have been even uglier.
"Business is business. Who knows what's possible. If you don't believe me, ask your brother."
Raina Lu's expression shifted, then dimmed again.
"Mom, I understand. Is there anything else?"
If this had been a few years earlier—no, even a few days earlier—Raina Lu would have been thrilled to hear this news.
But after she'd decided to give up, hearing it was… utterly ironic.
Remembering Mason Han's new girlfriend from that day, the irony came flooding in like a tide.
That evening she received a text from Ryan Xiang inviting her to the movies—weekend tickets for the latest release, supposedly well reviewed. During casual conversation Raina Lu mentioned she hadn't expected Ryan Xiang to remember.
He really wouldn't give up.
That night Ryan Xiang drove her home, all the way to her doorstep.
He looked like he wanted to come inside. Raina Lu opened the door, said only "Good night," and immediately shut it with a bang—without waiting for any reaction from him.
Afterward Ryan Xiang texted her that since he'd become Lawyer Ryan Xiang, this was the first time someone had shut the door on him so decisively.
Raina Lu laughed it off.
Just as she was thinking about what to watch tonight, her phone rang.
Raina Lu answered. The woman's voice on the other end was crisp and panicked. "Raina, Raina, something's wrong! Can you come help right now?"
"Ann?" Recognizing the intern's voice, Raina Lu switched the phone to her other ear.
"It's me! I'm at the company… We just messed something up. Raina, can you come save us?"
Hearing Ann on the verge of tears, Raina Lu hesitated only briefly before saying, "Wait for me. I'll be right there."