The message she just received was from Feng Ye.
It must have been Ruan Qiu who thought about the difficulty of hailing a cab after she got out, so she'd asked Feng Ye to pick her up.
Abroad, besides that person, she only had two friends—Feng Ye and Ruan Qiu.
"I was already at Beauty Village, and Ruan Qiu saw my location before asking me to pick you up." Feng Ye glanced at Yao Qing, holding the steering wheel with one hand, "By the way, the guy just now..."
"Ex-boyfriend."
Yao Qing felt there was nothing to hide about this; who didn't have an ex-boyfriend?
Feng Ye silently took a sharp breath, his tongue pressing against his cheek, and his eyebrows and eyes became flighty upon hearing the three words 'ex-boyfriend.'
"That's the ex-boyfriend who wants to get back together, right?"
Yao Qing was silent for a few seconds before she murmured lowly, "Getting back together with him, I might as well date the toad."
The 'Toad' was an exceedingly ugly toad in the back garden of their school.
Feng Ye couldn't help but laugh, about to say something more, but Yao Qing had already made a move to leave.
"It's very late, senior brother should also go back to rest early. Thanks for today, I'll treat you to a meal another day."
Feng Ye nodded, watching the graceful figure of Yao Qing as she walked into the hotel, his eyes deepening.
He pulled out his phone and made a call.
A hoarse voice, rough but not greasy, said, "Find out about Yao Qing's ex-boyfriend."
...
...
Yao Qing returned to the hotel, only to find Ruan Qiu had fallen asleep waiting for her.
Looking at the time, it was already two in the morning.
She covered Ruan Qiu with a blanket and softly went to take a shower.
After the shower, wearing a bathrobe, she went to the open-air balcony.
The winter night view had nothing special, only the nearby Han River shimmering under the moonlight.
She pulled a pack of lady's cigarettes from her bathrobe and lit one with practiced ease.
Having a cigarette when in a bad mood is much better than bottling it up inside.
Fiddling with her phone, the Weibo interface displayed a photo of a female celebrity.
Yao Qing stared at the woman's face, her dark eyes growing darker.
She turned off the phone, with the cigarette already more than half burnt.
The events of the day flashed before her eyes, from the director to Feng Ye, finally settling on Yu Yanshen's face.
Her relationship with Yu Yanshen was actually not complicated; there was no opulent secret.
Yu Yanshen was the school tyrant in high school, the kind with countless followers under his sway.
During her adolescence, she fancied that kind of boy, thinking they provided a sense of security.
She dated Yu Yanshen for two months, then her family went bankrupt, and her father went to prison. Her father was afraid she would be bullied in Yaocheng, so he asked a friend to take her away to lie low, while also attending university.
Yao Qing went to discuss this with Yu Yanshen, reluctant to leave him just like that.
However, while Yao Qing was sinking in anguish, Yu Yanshen was partying night after night.
Standing outside his private room, she heard him and his group of fair-weather friends saying—
"Yao Qing? That woman is quite annoying. Her family's bankruptcy has nothing to do with me. She's always pulling a long face in front of me, it's irritating to look at."
Then Yao Qing left, and for four years she had no contact with Yu Yanshen after changing her phone card and cutting off everything related to Yaocheng.
The rebellious voice of the youth echoed in her ears, as if it were just yesterday.
From then on, Yao Qing understood that what she thought was her fiery love of young age was nothing but his momentary plaything. Even in her family bankruptcy, she had no right to grieve.
He was once her only hope.
As the memory ended, the cigarette burned down to its end, becoming slightly painful to hold.
In fact, now she felt neither anger nor love towards Yu Yanshen. The loss of control at Beauty Village today was because she heard about Tang Yi. The heartfelt love she gave in return for Yu Yanshen's heartless mockery, and hearing about his treasuring of another woman was certainly annoying, but it had nothing to do with love.
She did not love Yu Yanshen, nor would she love him in the future. She had returned to her country, with her own things to do.
Once the smell of smoke dissipated from her body, Yao Qing went back to the room.
Looking at Ruan Qiu's far from graceful sleeping figure, she felt a rare warmth at the bottom of her heart.
She was no longer alone, at least she had Ruan Qiu by her side.
Being on her own was also quite good.