"Are you saying you regret it now?"
Yun Xiaoran gave a light cough as he asked.
He was looking at Li Qingxi as he voiced what was on his mind.
"Yes, of course I regret it."
After Yun Xiaoran left, Li Qingxi's career had risen, but the close friends around her had disappeared and left, one after another.
The higher she climbed, the more she lost. The more money she earned, the more friends she lost.
This wasn't a case of the strong having no friends.
There was only the bleakness of her circumstances and a world consumed by self-interest.
You couldn't nap peacefully like a lion among wolves. You were more like an old lion, exhausted from running for your life, yet still forced to stay on guard against hounds and jackals.
Those reporters kept asking you sensitive, fault-finding, angry questions.
And all you could do was answer them mechanically, one by one. Sometimes, even when the answers left you bearing false accusations, you had to memorize the lines in the script your company prepared, then improvise on the spot with words that conveyed the same meaning.
But what of it? There were fewer and fewer ways to tell the truth...
Li Qingxi said to Yun Xiaoran:
"I want us to go back to the way we were. I don't want to be some big shot. I just want things to be like before..."
"That's no longer possible."
Yun Xiaoran's reply was brisk and decisive.
When Shen Jin heard that, she raised her eyes to Yun Xiaoran, only to find that he was still looking at her calmly, with even a faint smile on his lips.
It was as if he hadn't said any of those things at all, as if they were nothing more than everyday conversation.
*Was