In the end, Fang Lele did not leave with the driver.
To put it plainly, it was as though he knew there was an enormous net overhead, closing around him from every direction.
Yet he refused to give in, gritting his teeth to make one last desperate struggle.
Two days later, with no news whatsoever, Fang Lele silently shouldered his bag and set out on the journey back.
When the gates of Sui Garden came into view, he let out a long breath. Suddenly, his anxious heart felt as though the dust had finally settled.
But things did not unfold as he expected.
That day, the assistant brought him to the office right on time.
Fang Lele looked at the man working intently behind the desk, picked nervously at his fingertips, and inched closer with tiny steps.
"Uncle."
The man showed no sign of responding.
Fang Lele licked his lips and said timidly, "I'm back."
The pen scratched softly against the paper. After a moment, Ji Fengyao looked up, his expression calm. "Mm. I know."
That was it?
The cold treatment and reprimands he had imagined never came. Bewilderment and surprise flickered across Fang Lele's face, mingled with an indescribable sense of anticlimax.
Afterward, Ji Fengyao took him to a business dinner as usual. Even while chatting and laughing with his colleagues, he remembered to serve Fang Lele a few pieces of his favorite sweet-and-sour ribs.
Once dinner ended, he took Fang Lele back to Sui Garden without incident and gently reminded him to get some rest. Only after watching him close the courtyard gate did he tell the driver to leave.
He seemed perfectly normal, without any outward sign that something was wrong, yet Fang Lele kept feeling as though all of this was some fantasy he had conjured