Chapter Twenty-Nine

Zhang Momo was following up on some information she’d gathered, hurrying to the second floor to look for Chen Hao. She didn’t find him, but instead heard Song Jiakai’s cry for help. In her anxiety, she flung open the door with more force than intended. The door didn’t hit very hard, but the embarrassment was enough to make her wish she could disappear. She even stammered as she spoke.

“Let… that… let him go!”

The moment the words left her mouth, Zhang Momo wished she could die on the spot. What was meant to be a righteous declaration became a joke in other people's ears. Song Jiahui couldn’t help herself; her face turned as red as an apple from holding back laughter. She shoved Song Jiakai’s wrist forward. “Fine, I’ll let him go!” Song Jiakai nearly stumbled to the ground.

Zhang Momo had never seen a man humiliated so thoroughly in public—her anger flared.

“Isn’t this too much?” She pulled the still-wobbling Song Jiakai behind her. “Just look at yourself, all dressed up and calling yourself ‘Mrs. Rong.’ Is it your habit as a married woman to flirt with young, unmarried men? Aren’t you afraid your teeth will break, preying on the young like this?”

Just as her indignation was reaching its peak, a warm firm hand landed on her shoulder from behind.

“Momo… Momo… that’s my sister!”

She was petrified, especially at the unrestrained laughter from the woman opposite. Song Jiakai chased her down to the end of the corridor and finally stopped the flustered Zhang Momo. He didn’t get a chance to comfort her before he started laughing. Zhang Momo’s face was ashen; she couldn’t understand why she’d felt compelled to play hero. The sharp sound of high heels approached behind her, making her tense up again.

“Worried he’d be taken advantage of? Ha! You’d better watch out yourself, or he might be the one to eat you up.” Song Jiahui covered her mouth, her laughter barely restrained. As she passed the two and headed downstairs, she stopped to glare at Song Jiakai. “Song Jiakai, don’t make trouble for Xiang Zuo. Or you’ll have to answer to me!”

“Xiang Zuo? What happened between you and Xiang Zuo?” Hearing that name, Zhang Momo’s heart leapt; the previous farce was forgotten as she looked up at Song Jiakai. His face turned awkward, deeply troubled.

“This… you’d better not get involved.”

His sunken, miserable expression made Zhang Momo freeze for a moment. “Sorry, I was meddling.” She turned to leave, but Song Jiakai panicked and grabbed her hand.

“Are you angry?” he blinked, innocent and trying to placate her.

Suddenly, Zhang Momo felt she couldn’t reconcile this man before her with the dashing, carefree figure in her memory. As she wondered, she heard Song Jiakai mutter, reluctant and quiet, “It’s just Dongyin. I promised to buy it for you, but he just won’t let go. For more than a month, I’ve been too ashamed to face you.”

He dropped his gaze, watching his shoes nudge the ground again and again. A small, warm flame sprang up inside Zhang Momo.

She had never considered him someone she could truly confide in. Any time she noticed some redeeming quality in him, she dared not believe it—always reminding herself these were just the typical tricks of a playboy. Never in her wildest imagination would she have guessed that all the news she’d seen in the papers stemmed from what she thought was a careless joke—“Wait for me to buy Dongyin for Momo.”

And now, as this spirited man bowed his head and admitted his own helplessness, the unfamiliar shyness and awkwardness he revealed pierced her heart like needles.

Zhang Momo was thoroughly pierced. She couldn’t say why, but in the midst of her sourness, there was a hidden sweetness, and her eyes grew misty. For a long moment, she said nothing; the warmth in her heart kept welling up to her eyes. She wanted to reach out and ruffle his hair, but thought it was cruel to have forced these words from him. In the end, all she could do was squeeze his hand and softly call him a “fool.”

What a woman truly wants is never gold or silver, but the intangible warmth and care hidden within a kind gesture.

That night, Song Jiakai held her hand tightly—and didn’t let go. Even when they walked down the stairs together and Zhang Momo immediately saw Xiang Zuo standing in the center of the hall, her hand never left his. Only when Xiang Zuo, who had been smiling and chatting, suddenly shot a look of blazing anger that scorched the air between them did her hand tremble, but she stubbornly refused to pull away.

Xiang Zuo approached them. As he passed Zhang Momo, his voice, low and cold as ice, came from the corners of his mouth: “So, what have you sold yourself for this time?”

The spring-like warmth on Song Jiakai’s face vanished instantly, replaced by frost. He let go of Momo’s hand and was about to rush over, but she dragged him out of the club.

“Don’t…” Zhang Momo didn’t know if she was speaking to herself or to Song Jiakai. “From now on, my life has nothing to do with him. Or with anyone else.”

But to have nothing to do with anyone is impossible unless you leave the earth altogether.

At least, as far as Dongyin was concerned, Zhang Momo couldn’t let go. The uproar about Dongyin Factory’s collusion with merchants in fraudulent raffles had barely died down, and new scandals about the factory were cropping up like mushrooms after rain. Year-end deficits, overwhelming debts, accusations of illegal operations, industry regulators intervening—there were even boxes of fake Maotai liquor with “Dongyin Factory” stamped on their labels.

It was just a small factory! Her father had run his business for a lifetime without getting this much attention in decades. Human emotions are strange; under this relentless barrage, Zhang Momo’s endurance and resilience had grown strong. She thought she could handle whatever noise Dongyin made under Xiang Zuo’s control, no matter how much negative press. But then, a news report—“It is rumored that Shenglian intends to declare Dongyin bankrupt”—shattered her supposedly hardened heart.

Once again, she entered Uncle Hu’s antique-filled study. Zhang Momo felt the whole world had been draped in grey and shadow, just like that room. The house of a widower was spacious but dim, and every object seemed to emanate loneliness.

Uncle Hu, once slightly plump and always spirited, now had a kindly face carved with the dull loneliness of life’s hardships, faint traces of age and exhaustion. “Are you still worrying about Dongyin?”

The young woman slumped in the chair, exhaling more than she breathed in, her face a blend of apology and sorrow. “Uncle Hu, I know I shouldn’t trouble you with this again, but I truly have no one else to ask… Please, tell me—what’s really happening with Dongyin now?”

The drive home that evening felt endlessly long. Zhang Momo drove slowly, her mind replaying Uncle Hu’s words. Losses, debts, bad loans—these burdens had weighed on Dongyin for years, but her father had kept the factory afloat for decades. Why did it have to close as soon as Xiang Zuo took over?

The endless stream of negative news was clearly orchestrated. Hearing this conclusion, Zhang Momo felt as if a piece had been ripped from her heart, raw and bleeding. The pain was because the first name to come to mind was Xiang Zuo; the pain was, why did she think of him and not someone else?

“Momo, don’t be too quick to judge. Dongyin may be insignificant to Shenglian, but Xiang Zuo is a businessman. Ruining his own company does him no good.” Uncle Hu’s gentle advice didn’t persuade Zhang Momo. She didn’t want to believe it was Xiang Zuo—she desperately hoped it wasn’t—but who else would target a harmless, small printing factory? If not deliberate revenge, what could anyone possibly gain?

For no reason, her mind returned to their last meeting at that awkward banquet. When Song Jiakai had confidently led her past Xiang Zuo, she’d glimpsed the fury barely contained beneath his calm expression. He’d watched them leave, never turning away, and she hadn’t dared to look back—she still felt the warmth of the club freeze over in an instant.

Maybe, in the end, who did it didn’t matter. What she truly longed for was that the name “Dongyin” would not disappear from the world. It was her father’s life’s work, the only memory her parents had left her. Even if Dongyin no longer bore the Zhang name, even if she owned not a single share, it didn’t matter. So long as somewhere in this world there was a “Dongyin,” it would stand as testament to her parents’ labor and glory.

“Momo,” Uncle Hu had said, his face full of compassion. Though he himself still suffered life’s blows in silence, he could not help but care for his old friend’s child. “Honestly, I can’t bear to lose Dongyin either. I was a shareholder once, and I spent my life at that factory. If there’s any way to save Dongyin, I’d do anything to help you buy it back!”

Zhang Momo found the strength to walk out of Uncle Hu’s house that night solely thanks to those words: “If there’s any way to save Dongyin, I’d do anything to help you buy it back.” In this world, to have an elder who cared for her like family, who was not related to her by blood but still so devoted—even if the factory’s fate remained uncertain, for a moment, it didn’t seem so important after all.

Because of these words, she thought of Nianqing. She hadn’t been in touch for months; she didn’t want to, nor did she dare. After more than twenty years as sisters, she no longer even had the right to ask how she was. Misery flooded her as she drove into her apartment complex and slumped over the steering wheel for a long time, unable to summon the strength to get out of the car. The night was black, the car interior was black, and even her own breathing seemed to vanish into silence…