Xu Ye got back to the dorm, chatted with Chen Qingqing for half an hour, and went to sleep without a second thought.
Zhang Bin, on the other hand, didn’t sleep at all.
Twenty years of marriage. A son just starting high school, a daughter in fifth grade. A stable job. A comfortable family life — the kind others envied. And now all of it balanced on the edge of a knife, because if what he’d been doing on the outside came to light, every single piece of that life would be gone in an instant.
The family. The job. Even the people around him would never look at him the same way again.
Zhang Bin tossed and turned through the whole night. The next morning, he didn’t even stop for breakfast — just got in his car and drove to school.
He went straight to his office, dug through the drawer until he found the business card Xu Ye had left him, and scanned the WeChat QR code to send a friend request.
Half an hour later, the request went through.
He started typing: “You little rat, you set me up?!”
He was about to send it when he caught himself — Xu Ye had deleted him the moment he walked out of the restaurant last night. Zhang Bin deleted the draft, took a breath, and tried again: “What do you want?”
Xu Ye replied quickly. “I’m pretty simple about this stuff — I treat people the way they treat me. Since Director Zhang decided to take me for a fool, I didn’t have much choice but to go a little low.”
Zhang Bin: “Stop wasting my time. Delete those photos right now!”
Xu Ye: “Delete them because you say so? Who do you think you are?”
Xu Ye: “Want to see what happens if I get them printed out and hand them around your campus tomorrow as flyers?”
Xu Ye: “A few rounds of flattery and you actually thought you could play me. Hilarious.”
Three messages, delivered in quick succession.
Zhang Bin went very still.
He’d spent the past two days watching this kid address him as “Director Zhang” with genuine-seeming deference, and it had apparently all been theater. And then the real hit landed: Xu Ye had been talking about the photos in the past tense. He’d said the photos were already in his hands before he ever came to see him. That meant the politeness, the dinners, the Moutai — all of it had been a performance with the backup plan already in place.
Zhang Bin tried to remember when those photos were taken. He’d been wearing those clothes last week — so sometime last week, at night. Before Xu Ye had ever shown his face.
He came in with the gun already loaded.
For the first time, something like genuine wariness crept through Zhang Bin’s chest.
His tone shifted. “So what exactly are you after?”
Xu Ye: “Get my company’s vending machines installed on your campus before the end of the month. I’ll cover venue fees and electricity — no commission, not a cent. As for the photos, I won’t delete them, but I’ll guarantee they don’t go anywhere.”
Zhang Bin: “Why would I trust you on that?”
Xu Ye: “Don’t treat everyone like they’re stupid. If I told you I’d deleted them, would you actually believe me? And if I actually did delete them, what’s to stop you from turning around and stomping on me the moment you felt safe?”
Xu Ye: “As long as my machines are in your school, it’s in my interest to have you sitting in that logistics director chair. I have no reason to damage your reputation and every reason not to.”
Xu Ye: “Of course, you could also decide to go nuclear — find someone to rough me up and force me to delete the photos. But fair warning: I’m the type who folds the moment anyone gets physical. Someone hits me and I’m on the ground calling it in before you can blink.”
Zhang Bin had actually entertained that exact thought the night before — his cousin knew plenty of street-level guys who could be persuaded for the right price. But that last message stopped him cold.
He knew, if he was being honest, that it wouldn’t do him any good.
He made up his mind quickly. “Fine. It’s done. Send me the installation locations — you can come set them up before next Friday.”
Xu Ye: “Great.”
Xu Ye: “Pleasure doing business.”
Zhang Bin was still fuming, but he didn’t have a better option. What he genuinely couldn’t work out was how Xu Ye had gotten those photos in the first place — he’d always been so careful.
…
Shanghai Institute of Technology was more or less sorted.
Xu Ye planned to go over on Friday — lock down the installation spots and give Qin Zhiwei a birthday celebration at the same time.
For the Songjiang campus rollout, he’d send Zhang Xinzhou and Jiang Wei together. They were partners — he couldn’t keep handling everything himself.
Saturday was forecast for a thunderstorm, and he had to go to the factory to place an order for new machines, which meant no chance of making it to Chen Qingqing’s side of the city. He picked up his phone and sent her a heads-up in advance: “I’m tied up on Saturday, won’t be able to come see you. Can I push it to Sunday instead?”
Chen Qingqing read the message and didn’t mention that she’d already quietly decided to go to his campus this weekend. She just replied: “I’m not free this weekend either.”
Xu Ye: “How are you not free?”
Chen Qingqing: “I have things going on.”
Xu Ye: “What things?”
Chen Qingqing: “Not telling you.”
Xu Ye: “Then I’m upset.”
Chen Qingqing: “Up to you.”
Xu Ye: “If you won’t tell me, I’m calling your mom and having her ask you.”
Chen Qingqing: “I can’t with you.”
She improvised an excuse. “I have an assignment this week — our teacher wants us to form a band, so this weekend I have to rehearse with Ruowei and the others.”
Xu Ye: “That’s fine, then.”
Chen Qingqing decided to poke him a little. “There’s also a really good-looking guy in the band.”
Xu Ye: “???”
Xu Ye: “In your eyes, how can there possibly be anyone good-looking other than me?”
Chen Qingqing: “Please~”
Chen Qingqing: “There are plenty of people better-looking than you.”
Xu Ye: “I’m jealous.”
Xu Ye: “Just you wait. I’m calling your mom right now to tell her you’ve transferred your affections.”
Chen Qingqing read that and nearly laughed out loud — but when Xu Ye went quiet for a stretch afterward, she actually started to wonder whether he’d really done it. She typed quickly: “Hello??”
Chen Qingqing: “Dumb pig, I was just teasing you.”
Chen Qingqing: “If you actually called my mom, you are so dead.”
Xu Ye: “Then agree to be my girlfriend.”
Chen Qingqing: “No~”
Xu Ye: “I’ll ask again tomorrow.”
Chen Qingqing: “Go ahead.”
Back and forth they went, trading messages until past ten at night, then exchanged goodnights.
Xu Ye set down his phone and was asleep within minutes.
Chen Qingqing, on the other hand, opened her maps app, typed in the name of Xu Ye’s university, and started reading through the route.
“Get on the subway at South Shaanxi Road, one stop, transfer to Line 9 at Jiashanlu, get off at Gutang Road, walk two kilometers from Exit 4…”
She murmured the directions under her breath, as if trying to commit them to memory — she had no sense of direction to speak of, and the last thing she wanted was to end up on the wrong train.
The night had grown late. Her three roommates were already asleep.
Chen Qingqing tucked her phone under her pillow and slowly let her eyes close. The thought that she’d see that dumb pig the day after tomorrow made the corners of her mouth curve upward, almost without her realizing.
She fell asleep smiling. And then she had a sweet dream.
Dream of what you think of by day. [TL: 日有所思，夜有所梦 — a classical Chinese idiom meaning “you dream at night of what occupies your mind by day”; used here as a quiet, warm closing observation on Qingqing’s state of mind]
(End of Chapter 113)