Chapter 254
Chapter 254
Only a few close friends could make her pick back up the emotional intelligence she usually threw away; as for everyone else, she was the ultimate version of doing whatever she pleased.
The butler very much wanted to say that she was not surnamed Xie, but after thinking about it, let it go and replied, “I do have time. I wonder what Miss Zhong wants to ask?”
“She’s been gloomy lately and hardly talks. She still eats, but her whole person seems like she’s lost her soul, as if she’s gone stupid. Do you know the reason?”
The other end of the phone fell silent for a while. “May I know what Miss Xie had recently gone through?”
Without even a pause, Zhong Ning recounted everything that had happened recently.
The other side of the phone became even quieter.
After a long while, a sigh came through.
“Miss Xie was someone with very strong self-respect, and also someone with a very strong competitive spirit. Perhaps the gap she was facing now was too great, making it hard for her to accept.”
Zhong Ning listened in only half understanding.
A gap, what gap?
The two of them had made a fair trade. Wasn’t this exactly a matter of mutual consent?
In Zhong Ning’s eyes, this was no different from completing tasks in order to get rewards. It was just necessary preparatory work in the early stage.
And besides, Xie Shiqing had agreed.
As for competitive spirit, she understood it even less.
What kind of thing was that?
Her confusion was completely genuine. What was competitive spirit?
A person born with a golden spoon in her mouth, someone whose luck had exploded since childhood, gifted and intelligent, the center of attention, who could do anything without wasting even the slightest effort, and who could easily stand at a summit most people could never reach even after striving for a lifetime, while that summit was merely her starting line.
Most importantly, she was a true genius, someone with real talent.
When all the good things in the world were delivered right to one’s mouth, competitive spirit would naturally drift far away from her.
Xie Shiqing was certainly also a genius, a clever person, but her intelligence needed to be honed afterward. She needed to learn like a sponge before she could stand above others.
So the moment she saw that Zhong Ning was even more formidable than she was, she collapsed.
She swiftly lost her goal in life, and the motivation to keep living.
Because her clever mind told her that this was not a gap that effort could narrow, let alone surpass. She would never be able to become the best.
Xie Shiqing was like an old phone that had been running at high speed until it was ready to be scrapped, falling into a frozen state.
After hanging up, Zhong Ning returned to the room. Xie Shiqing was still in the same place. No matter how Zhong Ning had pushed her away, she remained lying on the bed in that exact posture, her eyes closed.
For a moment, she looked like a corpse.
Zhong Ning’s heart skipped a beat. Who knew what she was thinking, but she really did walk over and place her hand beneath Xie Shiqing’s nose to check.
She was still breathing.
Zhong Ning: …Eh?
“Wait, why was I panicking so much?”
“What was I even doing! I actually went to check whether something had happened to her. That was ridiculous.”
Zhong Ning patted Xie Shiqing’s face. “Are you asleep?”
Xie Shiqing was awakened by the pat. Still groggy, she was suddenly lifted up as two arms slid under her armpits.
“Come on, sit properly. Let’s have an exchange and communicate.”
Zhong Ning carried her and set her against the head of the bed, then asked with seriousness and solemnity, “Are you listless because you feel a sense of gap?”
Xie Shiqing: “……”
Xie Shiqing: “What?”
Zhong Ning sat across from her and repeated, “Are you listless because you feel a sense of gap? Because of this sense of gap and competitive spirit, is that why you’ve been all wilted?”
Xie Shiqing: “……”
Zhong Ning rubbed her brow. “Is this question really that hard to answer? Or you don’t have to tell me, that’s fine too, but go back to how you were before. You have to meet my needs and keep me from being bored. Do you remember?”
“The two of us made it clear and priced everything openly. This was a service exchanged for Xie Corporation.”
She thought bringing up the bargaining chip would work, but unexpectedly, Xie Shiqing said in an almost ethereal voice, “I don’t want Xie Corporation anymore. You can keep it.”
This time Zhong Ning was truly stunned. “What do you mean you don’t want it anymore? You don’t want Xie Corporation anymore, so you’ve decided the deal is void?”
Xie Shiqing fell silent again.
Zhong Ning grew anxious. “No, I’m just asking you to say one sentence, and it’s actually this difficult? What is there that you can’t say? Whatever you’re thinking, just say it. Could Fengcheng possibly explode on the spot?”
Xie Shiqing still did not say a word.
Zhong Ning was so angry she laughed. The last time she had put this much effort into managing someone’s emotional problems was in her previous life, yet not only had the person involved been ungrateful, they had also taken on this attitude of refusing to communicate, acting as though ‘silence is golden’.
Was she really that idle?
“Fine. Good. If you won’t speak, then don’t.” Zhong Ning hardened her heart and called out loudly, “Michelle, throw her onto Guangming Avenue!”
“Oh, right, so you won’t say I played around for nothing these past few days.” She grabbed her phone and tapped the screen a few times. “I’m giving you fifty million.”
“Michelle, hurry and take her away. I don’t want to see her!”
The reliable butler looked at her own family head, who was so angry she seemed ready to ascend to heaven, then looked at Xie Shiqing, who was so pale she seemed like a sheet of paper.
In the end, she still said nothing. She only called out, “Miss Xie,” then supported her by the shoulder and led her out.
The bedroom door clicked shut.
The stiff expression on Zhong Ning’s face, tight with anger, froze. As though possessed, she drifted over to the window, lifted a corner of the curtain, and secretly peeked downstairs, only to discover that she could not see the garage from that angle. She then twisted open the door and ran into the hallway to look for a window with a better view.
Only when Xie Shiqing and the butler entered her line of sight did she stop her sneaky movements. Open impatience, displeasure, and complexity floated across her face.
Guangming Avenue was Fengcheng’s largest pedestrian street. Every day, the flow of people was explosively high; only around three or four in the morning would it drop even a little.
Xie Shiqing was blind in both eyes. If she were thrown there, how would that be any different from going mad?
And yet she had not even begged for mercy.
Zhong Ning ground her teeth to herself.
Yes, she had been in the middle of her anger, but was it not because Xie Shiqing had insisted on provoking her? After the words left her mouth, she felt a little regret, but this person had shown no reaction at all, and that only made her angrier.