Met the love during a blind date

Chapter 1 Not guilty to this extent

“Xuerong, let me introduce a friend to you.”

At 6:30 pm, Jiang Xuerong had just gotten up from her workstation and was about to pack up to leave work when a WeChat message popped up on her phone on the desk. She casually glanced at it, calmly shut down her computer, picked up the scarf on the coat rack and put it on. Then, her phone beeped again with another message notification.

Glancing sideways, it was still from Sister Yang. “You’re from out of town. It wouldn’t hurt to make a few more friends.” “Okay, thank you, Sister Yang,” she picked up her phone and replied briefly. She turned off the lights and the air conditioner, locked the door, and walked out of the office building. In the south in December, it was already pitch dark outside at this hour. Only the neon lights by the roadside were flashing tirelessly, working hard to adorn the deserted winter night city.

Jiang Xuerong got on the bus, scanned the code to pay, and then tossed her phone into her bag.

A humble finance staff, she was so busy in December that she barely had time to touch the ground. Just after cooperating with the cashier, Zhao Yun, to complete the payment of the reimbursement documents before the finance bureau shut down the network, she immediately rushed to do the bookkeeping, reconciliation, adjusting of accounts, and preparation work for the final accounts compilation.

Having stared at numbers and forms all day, she leaned lazily against the window, emptying her mind. The cold lights by the roadside danced wantonly on her fair face, casting fleeting shadows and making her look astonishingly elegant.

Back at her place, she changed into slippers and home clothes and collapsed on the couch. She fished out her phone from her bag. The desktop icons showed over 10 unread WeChat messages, and the number was still increasing.

Opening WeChat, they were all from Sister Yang.

“The guy is from my sister’s unit. He’s excellent and works really hard.”

“A real workhorse.”

“He can even cook and is reliable and family-oriented.”

“He’s average-looking.”

She translated the underlying meanings behind Sister Yang’s messages in her mind, thinking that the hot phrase “honest and quiet” might pop up soon.

Unexpectedly, after praising the guy a few times, Sister Yang changed the subject.

“He’s a local. If you get married and have kids later, it’ll be convenient for taking care of them.”

Jiang Xuerong smacked her tongue silently. Sister Yang was really stretching it.

“Thanks for your concern, Sister. You can push my WeChat to him.” Not wanting to drag it out any longer, she sent a message and then tossed the phone aside, collapsing wearily against the back of the couch.

Jiang Xuerong graduated from the Business School of a 211 university in Nanjing in 2016. During the autumn recruitment in her senior year, she happened to encounter that the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of City A organized some government departments in need of recruits to conduct talent introduction at her school. She was spotted by Liu Minglong, the director of the Land and Resources Bureau, at first sight. After going through a simple interview process, she signed an agreement and was introduced to a public institution affiliated with the Land and Resources Bureau.

Although it was a staff position in a public institution, as soon as she reported for duty, she was arranged to do financial work in the administrative department, under the jurisdiction of the office.

As a new, young, and beautiful staff member in the administrative department, ever since it was known that she was single, the aunts, uncles, and elders in the unit had been enthusiastic about caring for her “finding a partner” matter, introducing boyfriends to her every now and then.

Once bitten, twice shy. She had gotten used to it. Except for those blind date dinners that were really hard to turn down and she was temporarily dragged to, she usually added the guys on WeChat and gave them the cold shoulder. She let them “lie dead” in her friend list for a while and then deleted them. This way, it neither occupied the phone memory nor offended her colleagues’ kindness.

The phone message notification sounds kept ringing one after another. Jiang Xuerong picked up the phone, ready to reply a couple more sentences to end this chat. Suddenly, she saw the latest message in the chat box: “Xiao Xie got divorced. His ex-wife found someone else.”

“I think you have a steady personality. He has marriage experience and is quite mature, which matches you well.”

“Don’t be too hasty to write him off. He’s really a nice guy. Just consider getting to know one more friend, and it’s also quite good.”

Jiang Xuerron smiled wryly again and again. It was said that you could tell what kind of image you had in the eyes of the matchmaker from the blind date candidates they introduced to you. But she had just celebrated her 26th birthday and hadn’t sunk to the point of looking for a divorced person.

She had been doing good deeds all her life and didn’t deserve this.

Not wanting to hear Sister Yang go on any further, she replied, “I still have something to do. Sister Yang, go to bed early.” Then she locked the screen of her phone. Letting out a long sigh, she suppressed a trace of anger in her heart and got up to sit in front of the guzheng. She put on the finger guards and played the piece “Moonlight on the Spring River” over and over again. As the beautiful notes flowed out one by one, she gradually forgot the trifles at work and the unpleasantness in life.

Just as she was playing intently, the phone rang. She picked it up and saw that it was a call from her mother, Wang Hua.

After some caring words like “Are you eating regularly?”, Wang Hua smoothly shifted the topic to finding a partner. After chatting a few more sentences about “Are you busy at work?”, Jiang Xuerong felt a flash of annoyance. Tonight, she seemed to have stumbled into a “partner pit”, with one person after another talking about this matter. When she opened her mouth again, there was a trace of impatience in her tone. “Mom, don’t say that your daughter is lucky enough to have the so-called iron rice bowl that the older generation talked about. Even if I didn’t have it, I could still support myself. Even if it was by picking up trash.”

“Finding a partner isn’t like playing cards, where you just randomly pick one and play. If you lose, it could affect you for most of your life. I’m doing just fine on my own. Stop fussing over it.”

Wang Hua let out a soft sigh. “Mom is just worried that you’re all alone in City A and no one’s taking care of you.”

“I can take good care of myself. I don’t want to accidentally end up with someone who’ll only cause trouble.”

“You, you’re just once bitten, twice shy.”

After Wang Hua said this, Jiang Xuerong choked up a bit and was silent for a few seconds.

Suddenly realizing what she’d said, Wang Hua quickly changed the topic. “I bought some multicolored corn on a friend’s recommendation. It’s sweet and glutinous. You’ve loved corn since you were little. Mom will send you some tomorrow.”

The words of refusal were on the tip of Jiang Xuerong’s tongue, but she swallowed them back. “Okay, I’ll steam it when it arrives.”

The mother and daughter chatted a bit more, and Jiang Xuerong excused herself with work and hung up the phone.

She no longer had the mood to play the guzheng. She removed her makeup, washed her face, and got ready to curl up in bed.

The rented house was close to the mountains and had a lot of dampness. It was especially chilly on winter nights.

She had always been sensitive to the cold, but she didn’t like using electric blankets. Instead, she had replaced all her bedding with soft coral fleece and boiled two hot water bottles to put in the bed every day.

This way, her feet could stay warm all night and she could get a good sleep.

Just as she got into bed, her eyes suddenly landed on a Winnie the Pooh bear by the desk. Counting on her fingers, it had been a year and a half since she and Zhou Tao broke up.

No wonder the enthusiastic ladies at work were so impatient that they’d even introduced her to a divorced person. It was really absurd.

Just as she was thinking, a message reminder popped up on her phone desktop. It was a friend request reminder.

She casually glanced at it. The WeChat name was “Thank You”. It must be the guy Sister Yang mentioned.

This online name, how should she put it? It was a bit unconventional. For a guy in his thirties, shouldn’t he be called something like “Facing the Sea”, “Staying True to the Original Intention”, or “Flying Against the Wind”?

But no matter what the name was, considering their situation, there was actually no need to even add each other on WeChat.

Locking her phone screen again, she picked up the book by the head of the bed.

This was a birthday gift given to her two years ago by Sun Lu, a guy from a different department in her university.

Sun Lu and she were both spotted and recruited by Director Liu of the Natural Resources Bureau at the same job fair. However, in the end, he gave up the system job because he thought the unit’s salary was low and there was little room for promotion and salary increase. He thought it would be better to go out and make a go of it while he was young.

Just like that, he went to work for a design company in the provincial capital City B to do project design. It was over a hundred kilometers away from City A.

When they had just graduated, everyone kept in touch relatively frequently. Having just stepped out of campus, there was a sense of camaraderie as if they were banding together to venture into the world.

The night before her birthday, he said that he happened to be following a project to City A and invited her out for dinner.

Jiang Xuerong suggested inviting the other two colleagues who had been introduced together, one male and one female. The male was called Long Miao, and the female was Yan Panpan. Coincidentally, Long Miao was his college classmate, while Yan Panpan was her roommate, and they were all temporarily staying in the dormitories arranged by the unit.

Sun Lu didn't object, and the four of them had a barbecue dinner together.

After the meal, Long Miao invited Sun Lu to stay at his dormitory so that they could hang out for a while since there was no rush to go back.

But Sun Lu insisted on going to meet up with his colleagues, saying that he wouldn't make it in time the next morning.

Before seeing him off on the bus, he took out a book from his bag and handed it to Jiang Xuerong. “I know you like San Mao. Here, consider it a birthday gift.”

Jiang Xuerong gracefully accepted it under the scrutinizing gazes of the other two and said “Thank you” several times in a row.

Just like that, the book had been with her for two years and had accompanied her through two moves. Since she had already read the e-book version before, she hadn't opened it during that period. It was only recently that she had sorted it out from the bookshelf and placed it by the head of the bed.

When she tore off the wrapping paper and opened the first page, she saw a green frosted bookmark with the words “Happy birthday. Hope you like it” written faintly in pencil.

The handwriting was as clear as ever, but the person had long since drifted further and further away.