The quiet group suddenly came alive again.
Jiang Zui: Cough cough, I'm still young, boss, please mind your words.
He Wang: Jingmei, PDA is fine, but dog-slaughtering is not okay.
Li Xiaozhou: And it's dog-slaughtering that makes people's minds wander... whimpers, no, I can picture it.
Chen Jing: Oh, a public group can get explicit, Lin Meimei.
"..."
Lin Jing stared blankly at the messages popping up in the group, silently swiped the screen, scrolled up a few times, stared at the sentence she had sent for a few seconds, then silently opened her mouth, and then silently pretended to be a plane taking off, and turned off her phone.
She looked calmly out the window, her earlobes turning redder and redder.
She hadn't slept enough last night, and as soon as the plane took off, Lin Jing fell asleep.
When she woke up again, the plane was already descending.
The afternoon sun was particularly bright, shining on her face through the window, making it hard for her to open her eyes.
She raised her hand to shield her eyes, squinting at the clear blue sky outside, a sense of unreality creeping into her bones.
She had actually, like in a TV drama, impulsively, for someone, arrived in another city overnight.
She hadn't thought anything through when she went.
And now she was returning with a boyfriend.
It was all so haphazard, like a dream.
It felt so fantastical.
But strangely, she didn't regret this unplanned action at all.
Yes.
No regrets.
Even many days later, walking alone on the streets of a foreign land, looking at the unfamiliar faces around her with different skin and hair colors, and recalling the bizarre experience of that night, she still felt no regret.
She would never forget the experience of those two days.
She didn't know what words to use to describe how she felt at the time.
On the way to Sheng Kuang's city the day before, she was as worried as she was heartbroken after hearing Sheng Kuang's past stories.
After impulsively getting together with Sheng Kuang, the sweetness of their interactions made the subsequent encounter at the school gate in Beijing all the more painful.
She clearly remembered taking the subway from the airport to school.
There were still half an hour before her afternoon class, so she had more than enough time to go back to her dorm, freshen up, and change into clean clothes.
Not in a hurry, she walked towards the dormitory building, texting Sheng Kuang to let him know she was safe.
Sheng Kuang was probably training and didn't reply to her message.
She smiled at their matching couple's avatars in the chat box, then changed Sheng Kuang's contact name to: Boyfriend.
As soon as she typed those three words, before she could even confirm, someone called her name: "Lin Jing."
Lin Jing thought she was hearing things. Her brain went blank for a full minute before she looked up.
Jiang Wan, wearing a camel-colored woolen coat, was standing in the spot where Sheng Kuang usually stood when he came to see her at school, looking at her quietly.
Lin Jing's face instantly turned pale, and the phone in her hand slipped and fell to the ground.
Jiang Wan walked over, bent down to pick up the phone, glanced at the name displayed on the screen, canceled it without any expression or reaction, and handed the phone back to Lin Jing, saying calmly, "Let's go."
Lin Jing pursed her lips and took the phone.
Jiang Wan took Lin Jing to a ramen restaurant near the school that wasn't crowded at this hour.
She pushed the menu towards Lin Jing, gesturing for her to order.
Seeing that Lin Jing didn't react, she didn't make things difficult for her and simply ordered two bowls of tonkotsu ramen from the owner.
When the noodles arrived, Jiang Wan broke open a pair of chopsticks, picked up the wooden ladle, and began to eat her noodles gracefully and unhurriedly.
Lin Jing sat opposite her, trembling, her ladle falling into her bowl several times.
Just as Lin Jing was about to break down under the oppressive atmosphere, Jiang Wan put down her ladle and chopsticks, took out a tissue, slowly wiped her lips, then took out her lipstick and a mirror from her bag, touched up her makeup, and looked directly into Lin Jing's eyes, finally getting to the point: "For Qin Yao's son, who relies on his family's money and doesn't do anything productive, only playing games all day, you're not planning to be an exchange student anymore?"
Lin Jing lowered her eyelids, looking at the noodles in her bowl that she had barely touched, and said nothing.
Jiang Wan stated directly: "I don't agree."
Lin Jing squeezed the chopsticks in her hand, still saying nothing.
Jiang Wan said emotionlessly: "I've already contacted your teachers at school, and I've submitted your exchange student application for you."
Lin Jing's fingers trembled slightly.
Jiang Wan calmly continued: "I originally wanted you to go abroad after the New Year, but now I'm planning to leave earlier. As soon as the visa is processed, you'll leave."
Lin Jing's lips tightened, and she looked up: "I'm not going."
"Whether you want to or not, you have to go." Jiang Wan was as cold as an emotionless robot: "I will absolutely not allow you to be with someone who plays games."
"I don't object to you dating, but you can't find someone like that."
"You can find classmates in college, or you can find work partners at the same or higher level after graduation, but you can't find someone like this, who lives with their phone every day."
Lin Jing suddenly felt very agitated.
Playing games, someone like that...
She really couldn't understand, it's 2021, how can people still look at professional players with such eyes?
She closed her eyes, looked up to meet Jiang Wan's gaze: "He has a name, his name is Sheng Kuang, and he is a professional player."
A flicker of disdain crossed Jiang Wan's eyes: "Isn't that still playing games?"
In Lin Jing's memory, she had never rebelled against Jiang Wan.
To make Jiang Wan happy, to win Jiang Wan's attention, she had always lived her life according to Jiang Wan's arrangements.
She had never imagined that one day she would stand in opposition to Jiang Wan.
Just like she had never imagined that one day she would be with Sheng Kuang.
Lin Jing had prepared many, many things to argue with Jiang Wan.
She had even planned to bring up her father, Lin Zhengru, if Jiang Wan insisted on confronting her.
She would tell her that it served her right that her father divorced her, that it served her right that her father abandoned his wife and child.
She thought that if it came to the worst, it would be a mutual destruction; if she couldn't make Jiang Wan feel good, then Jiang Wan wouldn't be able to feel good either.
But in reality, before any of the hypothetical scenarios in her mind could materialize, Jiang Wan's few casual words crushed her.
Jiang Wan said: "You can't go, I'll call Qin Yao and tell her to control her son."
Jiang Wan also said: "I know Qin Yao's son's phone number, and I'll call him too, to tell him to stay away from you."
Jiang Wan looked at Lin Jing, whose eyes were burning with anger and whose lips were trembling with rage, and continued indifferently: "I'll go abroad with you, to see a doctor."
Jiang Wan took out a medical record from her bag and pushed it in front of Lin Jing: "The doctors in China have done their best. I don't have much time left. This surgery abroad is my only chance to survive."