The short stories Su Die submitted to magazines all sank without a trace. But she was in no hurry to doubt herself. She planned to sharpen her craft first, then submit again—this time a full-length novel, titled Silentium.
Making a living by writing was, for now, a dream out of reach—and living expenses and tuition pressed on her like two great mountains. So Su Die decided to go with her foster father’s friend to the countryside to haul cargo. The job paid per delivery, far more than making bubble tea, but it was brutally hard work.
Su Die changed into a slightly wrinkled set of sweats, freshly washed—and opened the door to find Lu Yu standing there.
“You really are like a ghost that won’t go away.”
“Where are you going, dressed like that? Want me to drive you?”
“If I show up to haul cargo in your Rolls-Royce, I’ll lose the job. Please don’t interfere. This job matters to me.”
“So that’s why you turned Auntie Su down?”
“Please leave. And stay away from my best friend.”
Su Die ignored him and climbed into a battered old truck with Chen Ping, her foster father’s old friend, for the ride out to the countryside.
“Xiao Die, there’s a Rolls-Royce been tailing us this whole way. You know the owner?”
Su Die looked through the rear window. Lu Yu was following her, all right.
Out of patience at last, she called him on WeChat.
“Lu Yu, why haven’t you kept your word? If you really loved Xiao Zhen, you wouldn’t keep hounding me like this.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Whether you change your mind or not is your business. Keep it out of my life.”
“I can’t bear to watch you suffer like this. You’re a financial princess. You ought to accept your birth mother—and all the resources she can give you.”
“Are you pleading her case for that she-devil now? I thought I made myself perfectly clear. I can accept her as my mother, but I will not be some ‘financial princess.’ That title brings me nothing but misery—I loathe it to my core.”
“Su Die, you’re hopelessly naive. Do you think you’re the heroine of some romance novel? However noble you think you are, without that ‘financial princess’ title you are nothing.”
“This is the life I chose. Please leave. Keep following me, and I’ll call that she-devil.”
“I am your arranged match—your future husband. I am more than qualified to help you choose the right life.”
“I am not a romance heroine, and I am not a financial princess, and you are not my future husband. Go find the real heroine—stop wasting yourself on a fool like me who only imagines she’s noble.”
Lu Yu tossed his phone out the window—and still would not give up following her.
Su Die hurried to reassure Uncle Chen. “Uncle Chen—a friend of mine wants to haul cargo too. He’s a rich kid who wants to toughen himself up, so he’s coming along with us. He won’t take any pay.”
Chen Ping didn’t suspect a thing—he even praised Lu Yu. “Now there’s a hardworking young man. Nothing like the rich folks I’ve met before!”
When Su Die reached the cargo site in the countryside, Lu Yu’s car was parked right there.
“Didn’t you want to be my arranged match? Then haul cargo with me. If you can’t even manage this, what kind of man are you?”
Lu Yu smiled faintly, stripped off his fine suit and stuffed it into the car, and set to hauling cargo alongside her.
“Xiao Die, is he your boyfriend? He doesn’t look like a porter. Looks more like a CEO.”
“He’s my boyfriend’s older brother. Not a CEO—just has a bit of money. He’s here to experience real life. Don’t worry, Auntie Lin—he’s very strong.”
Auntie Lin ran the feed store in the village. Never in her life had she seen so handsome and distinguished a man in the flesh.
She couldn’t say why—but watching the heir of the world’s top pharmaceutical conglomerate, president of P Company, cast off his expensive clothes and labor for her like any common porter filled Su Die with a quiet pleasure. A pleasure that had nothing to do with getting back at Lu Yu.