The next day, Ying Ni’s eyes lived up to expectations and swelled into two large walnuts.

Xuan Zi, peeling an egg shell beside her, looked at her with a mischievous grin, savoring the moment. After a long look, she finally felt that this effect was achieved only because Ying Ni had cried through the whole night. Grabbing the opportunity, she sarcastically teased, “Oh, did you get dumped?”

Ying Ni, lowering her head and cleaning the table, suddenly shot her a fierce glare upon hearing the words.

Without warning, the peeled egg in Xuan Zi’s hand was ruthlessly snatched away.

“Hey! That’s my breakfast!” Xuan Zi shouted, thinking her loud voice would make Ying Ni feel guilty and give her back the breakfast.

“One less won’t kill you.” The smooth egg pressed against her swollen eyelid, the warm touch quickly numbing the sharp pain.

Ying Ni’s other eye was also terribly swollen. She glanced at the plastic bag by her side and ordered, “Peel this one too.”

Seeing Xuan Zi still in shock, she didn’t forget to mock her: “You don’t even have the right to get dumped.”

Xuan Zi burst into laughter.

She had never seen such an arrogant woman, as though she were a princess. After sneering, she turned and walked to the back kitchen to prepare small dishes.

Ying Ni’s mood, just like the weather forecast for the day, was entirely cloudy.

The aftermath from last night was that she had cried for a whole hour, uncontrollably, as though she wanted to drain every last bit of moisture from her body.

It was only when Chen An knocked on the car window that it stopped.

From childhood to now, Ying Ni had only cried in front of two men: her father, Ying Junyu, and her ex-boyfriend, Zhou Siyang. But both times, it was just tears falling one by one, with only occasional sobs during emotional peaks. She never screamed, howled, or cried out in agony like a wolf’s mournful cry.

Luckily, Chen An was a person with a sense of propriety. After the car restarted, he didn’t ask her what had happened, why she cried, whether she was feeling better, or if she needed tissues.

He acted like an invisible driver the entire time.

It wasn’t until they got out of the car that Ying Ni bent down to pick up a pile of tissues under the passenger seat, wrapped in snot and tears, when he spoke up with a simple, “No need.”

Ying Ni didn’t listen to him. She just picked up the tissues, one by one, filling both of her hands. She took them down, threw them in the trash, and then lowered her head as she walked toward home.

She knew Chen An was behind her, at a distance not too close but not too far.

He followed her through uneven streets, turned into alleys filled with sewage, and entered a dark and gloomy building, finally stopping at the hallway entrance.

After watching her enter, he silently turned and left.

Ying Ni took a deep breath, exhaling a long sigh.

The morning was uneventful. As lunchtime approached, customers started trickling in. After a rush of orders, it was already 2 PM, and Ying Ni and Xuan Zi took turns to go across the street for lunch.

While crossing the road, her phone buzzed. She stuffed it into her pocket and ignored it.

There were twenty-eight missed calls from Yu Jiaojiao, all of them from the morning. She had set her phone to silent before going to bed, and when Yu Jiaojiao saw that her calls didn’t go through, she bombarded her with text messages asking why she had blocked her on WeChat.

Ying Ni didn’t reply and simply blocked her phone number as well.

It was a simple action, just a thumb’s movement, but it effectively severed the relationship. But when she went to pay, she found that Yu Jiaojiao was still stubbornly lingering in her phone.

The cloud drive had suddenly started causing trouble, reminding her that on this day in 2011, she had beautiful memories in the South China Sea.

As if the text wasn’t enough, her profile picture of her and Yu Jiaojiao, both pouting their lips cheek to cheek, popped up as soon as she unlocked the phone.

It only worsened her already gloomy mood.

Ying Ni picked up her rice bowl and started deleting the automatic backup photos, one by one.

She had known Yu Jiaojiao since elementary school. Back when smartphones first came out, Yu Jiaojiao loved taking pictures, and the two of them would spend weekends walking through streets and alleys, imitating early internet celebrities to take photos for their QQ avatars.

During the summer vacation of sixth grade, Ying Ni went to Venice for a study trip. Her phone accidentally fell into the water, and the teacher in charge said it was broken and suggested that her dad replace it. But Ying Ni insisted on retrieving it.

After it was repaired, to prevent the phone from breaking again, she transferred the photos to her computer’s hard drive. When she got a new phone, she repeated the process. Later, as the internet advanced, they got an online cloud storage account and set up automatic backups.

Without realizing it, the photos piled up, and when it came time to delete them, she realized what a huge task it was.

Ying Ni stubbornly chose not to delete everything at once; she wanted to delete them one by one, even if some memories had already faded like old photographs, losing their vibrancy and turning into vague imprints of the past.

She meticulously followed the timeline, making sure not to miss any scene and thoroughly purging everything from her life.

When she reached the last photo, a group picture, she froze.

It was a picture taken three days before she and Yu Jiaojiao completely broke apart, at the end of April 2013. She had finally received an offer from a school, and her class had held a farewell party for her.

In the picture, she and Yu Jiaojiao were standing on the podium, hugging flowers and taking a photo. The red, white-bordered chalk writing on the blackboard was mostly covered by the two of them, revealing only the words “Sending off the girl… further studies.”

Looking at the part that was visible, Ying Ni automatically imagined a low, male voice saying:

“Before going abroad, the class held a farewell party for you. The blackboard says ‘Sending off the female celebrity to study at the University of York in England.'”

Maybe because it was embarrassing, Ying Ni lightly furrowed her brows. She zoomed in on the photo to examine it carefully. From the exposed parts of the text, she realized it was exactly as she’d imagined. But when her eyes moved to Yu Jiaojiao, her brows furrowed tightly.

Yu Jiaojiao wasn’t wearing a cake skirt at all.

Instead, she was wearing a dreamy mermaid gown, adorned with sequins, similar to Ying Ni’s.

Ying Ni took a big bite of rice, her cheeks puffed out as she chewed, remembering when she had asked Yu Jiaojiao what she was going to wear, and how Chen An had looked so confident and composed.

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

She felt that person was acting all proper, playing the part of someone sophisticated.

Just random nonsense, trying to fool whom?

With that thought, Ying Ni gained a bit of energy and continued looking for discrepancies, discovering not only the wrong description of the skirt but also differences in the jewelry and shoes.

She realized it was all nonsense. Suddenly, she lost interest, lowered her head, and slurped down some free egg drop soup, her finger accidentally swiping across the screen.

When she looked up, the zoomed-in image had changed from Yu Jiaojiao to herself.

In the photo, the fan-shaped earrings were half-hidden behind her curly hair, reflecting metallic light, and along with the ring and necklace on her collarbone and the sequins on her blue-green mermaid dress, they sparkled in the camera. The only matte item was her khaki strappy heels.

Unlike Yu Jiaojiao’s discrepancies, Chen An’s description of her was spot on.

Her furrowed brows tightened further.

Ying Ni meticulously examined herself from head to toe, not out of vanity, but because she was seriously pondering something.

Did Chen An have a bad memory, or—

Did he only remember her?

Chen An knew about Zhou Siyang’s return to the country earlier than Ying Ni did; Zhou Siyang had informed him two weeks ago.

He had also met Zhou Siyang earlier.

It was on the third day after Zhou Siyang came back that they arranged to meet in a private restaurant with a strong sense of privacy.

“I was supposed to return earlier, but there was a delay in handling my resignation, and I missed the class reunion,” Zhou Siyang said with apparent regret.

Chen An, knowing that Zhou Siyang held a green card, asked, “Are you going back?”

“No,” Zhou Siyang poured them each a glass of wine. He added, “It’s been many years since we last met. The last time we saw each other was when I came to the UK as an exchange student. But even after all these years, sitting face to face, it doesn’t feel awkward.”

He smiled wryly, saying, “I should have asked my mom to have another son.”

Chen An understood what he meant. Zhou Siyang not only told him the exact time of his return but also briefly explained why.

The pharmaceutical company at home lacked staff, and he was back to take over the family business.

After a bit of casual conversation, Zhou Siyang clarified the reason for his return.

Times were changing, but his parents were still stuck in old-fashioned thinking. They believed any medicine could be replicated as long as the connections were strong enough, and business would keep flourishing. They didn’t value research and development, and the money they invested in R&D every year was pitifully small.

Their focus was entirely on marketing and building relationships.

Zhou Siyang had warned his father a long time ago that marketing and relationships were important, but R&D was the lifeblood of business development.

However, his father, who had found success, naturally stuck to his own way of doing business.

It wasn’t until last year, when the government launched an anti-corruption campaign in the medical field, that the leadership was completely changed, and the company lost orders to other manufacturers because it didn’t have any core technologies.

Zhou Siyang had no choice but to take over the family business and start pushing his company towards a new path of research and development. It would take time to revitalize it, but he had to try, because he was the only one who could do it.

At this point, Chen An spoke, “You know, Ying Ni is with me now.”

Zhou Siyang nodded, but his face turned a little darker. “She still hasn’t changed her stubborn ways?” he asked lightly.

Chen An was silent for a moment before replying, “No.”

---

When Ying Ni was eating, she suddenly had an idea: Maybe it wasn’t just her who had remembered that photo. Maybe, just maybe, it was also Chen An.