Chapter 7: The Cup of Unity Wine

Things didn’t go as smoothly as Lin Jing said. For several days in a row, Tang Xiaohe didn’t see Ji Yanli.

The reason was simple: Tang Xiaohe’s school was holding a campus poetry competition, and lately she had been as busy as a spinning top. The contest had two rounds: class preliminaries and the campus finals. Originally, she was only responsible for drafting the question bank.

When the grade leader, Xu Fangli, assigned the task to her, she specifically reminded her not to make the questions too difficult, so that the students wouldn’t get discouraged and lose confidence or enthusiasm.

Tang Xiaohe created relatively simple questions, but when she handed them in, the director said they were too easy and lacked differentiation, so they wouldn’t filter out participants. At that time, Zhang Wan helped her revise the question bank, and that’s how the task was finally completed.

Zhang Wan was originally supposed to be the host, but a couple of days ago when she came to work wearing sunglasses, everyone was shocked when she took them off—her eye sockets were dark and bruised, the thick foundation couldn’t hide how obvious the injuries were.

Some in the office genuinely worried about Zhang Wan, while others used concern as an excuse to gossip about what caused her injury. The reasons were various, but one thing was certain: Zhang Wan couldn’t host the event and a replacement had to be arranged.

Events like this usually require extra hours, coming in early, leaving late, rehearsing after work, all without affecting regular teaching duties.

Plus, these extra tasks don’t come with extra pay or affect performance evaluations. Basically, they’re just chores.

So, unless everyone collectively stays late, no one is willing to take on these individual extra tasks.

This task ended up on Tang Xiaohe—because she was young.

Tang Xiaohe wanted to roll her eyes. When it came to performance evaluations, young people often got more opportunities, but when it was time to work, they were told young people needed more training.

That was just what the leaders said.

She wanted to be like the Gen Z shaking up the workplace, but she didn’t want to make things hard for Zhang Wan. Someone had to take this task. Rather than forcing it onto someone else and putting Zhang Wan in debt, she decided to handle it herself.

So recently, Tang Xiaohe was rehearsing from early morning until late at night, with no time even to walk Zhao Taohua, her dog. Lately, Zhao Taohua had been looking at her with sad eyes.

On the day of the school-level finals, the school even invited a TV station to record it, and the event was broadcast on the city’s People’s Channel. The event went smoothly and since it was the weekend, the leaders suggested going out to celebrate.

The group drove to “Yantangchun Grand Hotel.”
At the dining table, someone asked about Tang Xiaohe’s personal life.

Grade leader Xu Fangli wiped her fingers oily from eating chicken feet and casually said, “Oh, our young Tang is talented. Have you sorted out your personal matters yet? Got a boyfriend or not?”

Tang Xiaohe felt awkward and kept thinking, Why is it any of your business? but on the surface she calmly answered, “Not yet.”

“Oh, then you better hurry up. Youth is your capital. A young girl only has a few years to find the right guy,” Xu Fangli raised her voice.

Tang Xiaohe felt a bit suffocated. Why did society only tolerate women for two or three years after graduating college? If they didn’t find a good job or a boyfriend in that time, people would talk behind their backs.

Isn’t it fine to just live your own life? Why do others have to interfere and judge?

Another teacher chimed in: “Young people these days have their own ideas; it’s not like when we were young. To me, settling down early is good—it lets your parents rest easy.”

Tang Xiaohe felt overwhelmed, stood up politely smiling, “I’ll go to the restroom.”

Coming out of the restroom, she was walking fast and didn’t notice she bumped into a man.

“Sorry… Hey, Miss Tang!”

Tang Xiaohe looked up. The man was about 1.8 meters tall, dark-skinned, handsome features. She thought he looked familiar but couldn’t remember where she had seen him before.

“You are…?”
“Xu Yang! You came to the police station to report that day, we’ve met before,”

Tang Xiaohe remembered now. At that time, Ji Yanli was with a tall, slim young man, but she had been focused entirely on Ji Yanli and hadn’t paid much attention.

“Ah, I remember now, Officer Ji! What a coincidence. What are you doing here?”

Xu Yang pointed to a nearby private room, “Department dinner. Ji Yanli is here too.”

Tang Xiaohe’s eyes brightened. She had been so busy recently that she hadn’t seen Ji Yanli for a while. She hadn’t expected to bump into him here. Tang Xiaohe couldn’t help but think maybe fate had arranged this meeting? Thinking of this, she smiled widely.

After saying goodbye to Xu Yang, on her way back she passed by Ji Yanli’s private room and deliberately slowed down— but the door was closed, which made Tang Xiaohe a bit disappointed.

Just then, the door suddenly opened, and two waiters came out after serving dishes. Tang Xiaohe glanced inside, and her blood froze.

In the corner, Ji Yanli sat close to a beautiful girl. They were holding wine glasses, and their colleagues next to them were teasing, “Cross the cups! Cross the cups!”

The door closed again, and Tang Xiaohe was stunned. So he did have a girlfriend.

“That guy’s pretty handsome!”

“That girl’s really pretty too!”

“They must be a couple. Otherwise, why would their colleagues be teasing like that?”
“Definitely, they look so perfect together.”

The two waiters whispered as they walked away.

Tang Xiaohe bitterly pursed her lips and turned back toward the restroom.

She turned on the faucet, cupped her hands, and splashed water on her face to sober up. Maybe it was because she had been drinking too much, maybe because she was exhausted lately, or maybe because of what she just saw in the private room. Tang Xiaohe felt her eyes become uncontrollable and heavy; long eyelashes were wet with tears of unknown origin. She tried to hide her sadness with her hands, but it was futile. She finally couldn’t help but quietly sob.

After composing herself, Tang Xiaohe returned to her own private room.

Xu Fangli was already drunk and babbling on about how she should seize the moment to find a partner while young, since quality men are rare and if you’re not proactive, you’ll be snatched up…

Tang Xiaohe sat there in a daze, feeling somewhat absent-minded. Hearing Xu Fangli’s words, she felt like crying but had no tears—wasn’t that like stabbing a knife right into her heart?

Inside the private room, Ji Yanli blocked the cup that Fang Yun was handing him, downed his own drink in one gulp, and poured himself another glass, finishing it in one go.

“That’s enough. I’ll punish myself with a drink,” Ji Yanli said calmly, but everyone could hear the undeniable tone in his voice.

“Boo!” came a chorus of jeers, “Captain Ji can’t handle it.”

Ji Yanli smiled, acknowledging the truth.

Xu Yang pushed the door open and walked in. The atmosphere in the room was strange, but he seemed unaware.

“What’s going on here?”

He saw Fang Yun sitting slumped, with a sour expression, in his original seat. How did someone steal his seat just by going to the restroom? And the person who took it looked unhappy about it? Xu Yang was confused.

“Brother Xu Yang, you missed a good show!” the intern Xiao Wang whispered to Xu Yang, lowering his voice, “We were just playing Truth or Dare. Sister Fang Yun chose Dare, and the dare was to make Captain Ji do a ‘cross-cup’ toast! Captain Ji refused to drink together and just downed his own glass, leaving Sister Fang Yun a bit embarrassed.”

Xu Yang raised his eyebrows, looked at Ji Yanli lounging on the sofa with a ‘not my problem’ expression, then glanced at Fang Yun who was about to cry with a furrowed brow. He was speechless. Growing up, Xu Yang had seen countless times the drama of one-sided feelings like this around Ji Yanli. Thinking back to what he accidentally saw when coming out of the restroom, Xu Yang felt curious. He wondered when he’d ever see Ji Yanli get embarrassed or lose.