Chapter 15

He added that if she insisted on treatment, it wasn’t completely hopeless, but she should think very carefully.
Jiang Wei was in agony, but her answer was unwavering.
She would treat her. No matter what.
For now, she had to hire a caregiver to stay with Grandma, and then find a way to earn the surgery fees.
She hadn’t expected Aunt Liu to show up that very evening as soon as she got home, saying she could help, saying they were old neighbors and everyone trusted her more than a random orderly, that she’d be more reliable than any hired nurse.
Jiang Wei thought it over. It was true they all knew Aunt Liu. So she agreed.
Three days later, Aunt Liu smacked her lips and started the bill.
Three thousand.
She complained about how she’d been feeding, cleaning, changing diapers, how hard it all was.
But every time Jiang Wei slipped by to check, Grandma’s mess was always cleaned by Jiang Wei herself. She started to suspect Aunt Liu hadn’t done anything at all.
She didn’t want to pay that much, and she honestly didn’t have that much. The moment she refused, Aunt Liu started running her mouth up and down the alley, telling everyone that the girl had no conscience and turned her back on people once they’d helped her.
They argued.
In the middle of the shouting match, Aunt Liu pounced, clawing at Jiang Wei’s neck and yanking her hair.
Aunt Liu’s good-for-nothing son came in, rifling through drawers and cupboards as if he owned the place, demanding money for his mother’s “wages,” plus medical expenses because Jiang Wei had shoved her and “made her fall.”
If she didn’t pay, he said, they’d just take the house.
Jiang Wei shook so badly with rage that her whole body went numb. Her mind went blank.
Without a word, she went into the kitchen and grabbed the gleaming kitchen knife.
She was ready to drag these beasts to hell with her.
Aunt Liu, who had just been rolling on the floor wailing for “medical compensation,” took one look at Jiang Wei’s eyes and bolted upright. She grabbed her son and ran for home.
Jiang Wei’s pupils were dark and unfocused. She looked like a madwoman as she hacked the knife against Aunt Liu’s iron door, again and again. Steel struck metal with a harsh, grating clang that echoed through the quiet alley, chilling to the bone.
“That girl’s lost her mind for sure,” Aunt Liu hissed, leaning against the door from the inside.
“Ma, should I call the police?” her son asked.
“Call the hell what police!” she snapped.
She might not have much schooling, but she knew that dead girl went to A University; supposedly she was going to be some big-shot judge someday. Of course she knew how to make trouble for them if they pushed too hard.
Originally, Aunt Liu had just wanted to take advantage of an old woman who’d fallen ill and a soft-tempered, easy-to-bully granddaughter. She hadn’t expected the girl to snap like this.
After hacking at the door for a good half hour, Jiang Wei stumbled back home and collapsed on the floor, drained.
In the end, she gritted her teeth and hired a real professional caregiver to look after Grandma.
As for herself, she interned at the law firm by day and picked up four or five part-time jobs at night. She couldn’t think of any better way to make money, not in the short term.
Grandma couldn’t be left alone, and on top of that she needed imported medication to keep things under control. Jiang Wei threw herself at work like a woman possessed.
It didn’t take long for her body to give out.
One rainy night she got soaked, and the illness hit her like a mountain.
In the dorm, she lay there burning with fever. Her roommate Li Xiaoxiao came by, shocked when she learned just how hard Jiang Wei had been pushing herself.
Xiaoxiao couldn’t help clicking her tongue.
She’d been completely floored by this girl’s sheer stubborn endurance. Li Xiaoxiao came from a comfortably middle-class family; their Law School’s golden signboard, Professor Li Yunfei, was her actual uncle.
She couldn’t tell wheat from rice seedlings, but she could vividly imagine how brutal it must be for a girl to spend her days grinding away at a law firm, then run out into the night to stack job after job.
She’d seen plenty of girls go to clubs and “special venues” to make fast cash, even in her circle.
She’d never expected Jiang Wei, who was genuinely short on money, to be grinding herself down like this instead.
Jiang Wei was a good person. If Xiaoxiao ever needed a hand or a quick errand, Jiang Wei never dragged her feet. Three years of observation had told her everything she needed to know: this girl might look soft and pliant, but her temper was stubborn as they came. Her heart just… wasn’t slippery enough.
Now Jiang Wei lay in her bunk burning up, half-conscious.
Li Xiaoxiao hurried to the campus clinic to buy medicines.
“Trying to make fast money isn’t supposed to look like this,” someone said suddenly.
“You could do this for a month and still not make ten thousand.”
It was the quietest girl in their dorm, the one who hardly spoke, suddenly breaking her silence. Her words caught Jiang Wei’s attention.
“You should go to a club.”
Jiang Wei thought she’d imagined it. But the sentence drifted clearly through the fever haze.
Right. There’s… that option.
“Weiwei, be good and take your clothes off.”
“Director Yang really likes you. The Ling family is determined to land this project. Weiwei, help me.”
…
She didn’t know if it was the fever or the exhaustion, but the nightmare from high school began to play again, this time in broken fragments that slowly stitched themselves together.
She jolted awake drenched in sweat.
So that’s it. So that’s how it was… Is this really just a dream?
She began to doubt it.
All those scattered flashes from before were now a continuous reel, frame after frame, vivid and unbroken.
Grandma had a stroke.
Under the crushing weight of her jobs, she couldn’t hold out any longer and, after listening to a roommate’s suggestion, went to work at a club to earn quick money.
There, the manager groped her, forced himself on her.
After suffering one blow after another, she ran into Ling Ze…
Only to be disfigured and discarded in the end.
That’s supposed to be my ending?
And Wen Ji…?
“Weiwei, you’re awake? Don’t push yourself so hard. Come with me and…”
It was Zhou Yunlu’s voice; she’d started trying to persuade her.
The next lines in the dream were crystal clear:
Two, three hundred thousand in one night. You can earn your grandma’s surgery fees in a month. You don’t have to do anything else, just drink with the clients.
“…you’d just need to drink with the clients. The manager’s an old acquaintance of mine. If you want to go, I can call him today,” Zhou Yunlu said now, right on cue.
Jiang Wei’s skull felt like it was splitting open.
It’s real. It’s real.
She clutched her head and let out a low, pained groan.
Zhou Yunlu jumped, startled.
Li Xiaoxiao came back with the medicine, took one look, and frowned. “What happened?”
Zhou Yunlu just shook her head.
After a few doses of cold medicine, Jiang Wei felt a little better. The nightmare had shaken her to her core, though.
As soon as she could move, she grabbed her phone and deleted Mu Yang and Ling Ze’s contact info from WeChat and QQ, blocking them both.
Every related message, every trace, gone.
Only when she was sure there wasn’t a single breadcrumb left did she let out a long breath, clutch her phone, and flop back onto the mattress.
She’d ask for help.
From the one person she trusted most.
She dialed her “dad-like husband material” boyfriend, the one who’d practically maxed out her “safe harbor” meter.
She might have no options, but Wen Ji would. She’d pay him back once she started working.
Across the ocean, in a lab on the other side of the world, Wen Ji saw her name flash on the screen. His lips curled up before he even answered.
He told his colleagues he needed to step out and strode out of the lab, practically walking on air.
His coworkers watched him go, tsking silently to themselves at the pink bubbles floating above his head.
Jiang Wei laid everything out, one piece at a time.
On the other end of the line, his clear, pleasant voice came through:
“Grandma’s sick? A stroke? Weiwei, why didn’t you tell me sooner? I’m your boyfriend. When you’re in trouble or unhappy, I want you to tell me. Three heads are better than one, we might actually come up with something.”
“I…” Jiang Wei opened her mouth, then closed it again.
She just hated troubling other people.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Wen Ji said gently. “Weiwei, don’t be so stubborn. Don’t try to shoulder everything alone. I’m your boyfriend, the half of a family you chose yourself. When there’s a problem, we face it together. Okay?”
His words soothed her in a way little else could.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Wen Ji sold off a portion of his research results and pulled together a large sum, enough to cover the surgery fees. He also leaned on his advisor’s network to get in touch with the best neurosurgeons in Country M.
Because of some contracts he’d signed, he couldn’t leave Country M in the short term.
He told Jiang Wei to have Grandma transferred to Country M, and that after that she didn’t need to worry. He promised he would give his Weiwei back a healthy grandmother.
Watching the plane cut across the skyway and disappear into the deep blue, Jiang Wei silently wished that everything would go smoothly.
Two months later.
Wen Ji said Grandma’s surgery had gone relatively well; she just needed to stay in the hospital for observation a while longer. He told her not to worry, he was there.
Jiang Wei finally let out a long breath. “Thank you, Wen Ji.”
“Weiwei, don’t say thank you. It really makes me sad.”
There was a hint of grievance in Wen Ji’s tone.
“Okay, okay, I won’t say thank you anymore.”
“Weiwei, Attorney Wu is calling you.”
The moment Jiang Wei heard that, a wave of irritation rose in her chest. She did not like this supervising attorney at all. Ximing was one of the top four firms in the country.
Xiaoxiao’s uncle was one of the investors, so she’d just conveniently brought Jiang Wei in with her.
At first, Jiang Wei had treasured the chance to gain experience…
“Weiwei, come in. We just took a new case from the Ling Group.”
“Young people need opportunities to grow. I’m going on a business trip to City A for this. You’ll come with me.”
“Attorney Wu, I still have some matters on hand…”
The moment Jiang Wei heard “business trip,” her whole body stiffened. She opened her mouth to refuse.
Attorney Wu lifted his cup, took a sip of coffee, and clapped her lightly on the shoulder as if in passing.
“Young people should be hustling at your age. This is a great opportunity to learn. Remember to bring a few nice outfits, young people should dress up more.”
There was implication in his words that made Jiang Wei’s skin crawl. The Ling Group, she didn’t want to have any connection with them right now, much less go on a trip with Attorney Wu.
After work, before she could even get out the door, two or three other interns gathered around her.
“Weiwei, you’re going on a trip with Attorney Wu?”
There was a bit of envy in the girl’s tone. Jiang Wei nodded.
“You’re already getting access to big cases like this? I’m so jealous.”
“What’s there to be jealous of? You guys probably don’t know…”
Another intern cut in, looking cryptic, as if there was something unspeakable behind the scenes.
“What is it?”
“I heard… Attorney Wu loves recruiting female interns. The ones with delicate little faces who look super pure and clean. When he goes on business trips, he’ll bring along the one he’s got his eye on, and then in the middle of the night, he’ll call you to his room on the excuse of ‘discussing work.’”
“For real? Or just gossip?”
Someone looked doubtful.
The intern curled her lip and said it was just what she’d “heard.”
Jiang Wei’s mood sank even further. At first she’d only been worried about running into Ling Ze and somehow retracing the path of her nightmare, just because this was a Ling Group case.
Now there was this on top of it.
City A, Ling Group branch office.
“Oh, sorry, I’m so sorry!”
Arms full of files, Jiang Wei turned the corner in the hallway and ran smack into someone. The man was tall; luckily, her nose was one hundred percent natural, or it might’ve been knocked crooked.
She apologized over and over.
She crouched down to hurriedly gather the scattered documents, there was a meeting starting soon.
“It’s you?”