Love Has Fireworks - Chapter 64

Chapter 64: Dismissed by the Company

A week later, the old man’s surgery was a complete success.

The day before the old man’s surgery, Yao Jingjing, who had received the news, made a special trip back from Dalian. The next day, she stayed right by Qian Fei’s side, keeping her company outside the operating room.

Looking at the two of them, Li Yifei said very sincerely, "I originally felt like the term 'bestie' was on the verge of being ruined into a derogatory word by those massive weirdos on online forums—the kind where two women are great on the surface but scheme against each other behind their backs. But seeing you two, I’m starting to believe it’s still a good word. Life is still full of positive energy, and human existence is still full of great hope!"

Qian Fei and Yao Jingjing indicated that they felt very vindicated by this emotional reflection. They simply pleaded that when Li Yifei spoke in the future, it would be better if he maintained his usual casual, loose-tongued style and refrained from suddenly turning so into the main-theme evening news template. In particular, the conclusion of his final sentence set the keynote a bit too high, making both of them shiver a little.

After the surgery succeeded, Yao Jingjing headed back to Dalian, carrying the high honor of being a "Model Bestie of China."

Qian Fei took a leave of absence from her company. During the day, she went to the hospital to help Aunt He look after the old man. In the evening, after dinner and once the old man had fallen asleep, she would have the hired caregiver take over the shift, and she herself would be picked up by Li Yifei and brought back home.

Once home, as long as she could still hold out, she would read her books for two hours to prepare for the sponsor representative exam at the end of November.

She worked immensely hard every day, yet she felt the hardship was well worth it. Seeing the old man improve day by day without any post-operative complications or deterioration, she felt she was truly the luckiest person in the world.

During this period, Wang Ruohai came to the hospital once, wanting to see the old man. Qian Fei stopped him.

Even now, the old man’s teeth would itch with deep-seated resentment whenever he was mentioned. She was afraid Wang Ruohai would agitate him.

Wang Ruohai felt very lost. Before leaving, he asked Qian Fei dejectedly, "Have you been doing well lately?" He said, "You’ve lost so much weight, you need to take good care of yourself!" He told her, "I’m still single."

Qian Fei replied to him very calmly, "I already have someone I like."

Wang Ruohai stared wide-eyed at her, the look in his eyes shifting rapidly through a dozen emotions—shock, regret, loss, and unresigned dissatisfaction.

In the end, faced with Qian Fei’s consistently calm expression, he left in absolute defeat.

When he came to the hospital, Li Yifei was not around. Later, after Li Yifei heard that he had visited, his expression turned exceedingly displeased.

"I’ve never seen such a ridiculous fool. Who does he think he is? After stepping out on someone and running off, he still has the nerve to come back looking for you carrying love and remorse. Does he think his true love is invincible or something!" When Li Yifei said this, the tip of his tongue seemed tied to the bolt of a laser gun; his tone was incredibly aggressive and sharp.

Qian Fei gave him a thoroughly indifferent line in response.

"I’ve seen this type of person before."

Li Yifei asked, "Who?"

Qian Fei said, "Gui Lili."

Li Yifei made no more sound after that.

Later, Li Yifei asked Qian Fei, "I haven’t had the chance to ask you, didn't that guy named Wang step out on you to be with some rich woman? How did he end up coming back to find you later? Who was that rich woman anyway, where did she go, and how could she be so useless that she couldn't even keep him tied down?" That woman was truly unreliable enough; she could conquer a city but couldn't defend it, giving that prodigal man Wang the opportunity from time to time to run over to his woman and constantly make his presence felt.

Qian Fei said, "I heard that woman was quite spoiled and didn't treat his mother very well."

Li Yifei originally wanted to say "At least he counts as a man for knowing to show filial piety," but on second thought, that line would only rack up favorable impressions for the guy named Wang, so he forced himself to swallow it down.

At noon the next day, while Qian Fei was taking care of the old man at the hospital, a phone call came from her company, and she went outside to answer it. When she returned and saw the scene unfolding inside the ward, she was so shocked she nearly shrieked out loud.

She actually saw Li Yifei helping the old man use the urinal!

Even using a lifetime's worth of imagination, she could never have dreamed that such a visual image would ever exist in her life!

That delicate, fastidious man with a terminal case of young master's disease—a man who, if someone so much as accidentally spat a speck of saliva on his face, would want to wash his face until a layer of skin came off—at this very moment, completely unafraid of filth, exhaustion, or the pungent stench, had his sleeves rolled up and was personally helping her dad urinate!

Qian Fei was utterly dumbfounded. For a moment, she doubted whether she was seeing a smog-induced mirage in the heavy Beijing air.

When Li Yifei got up to wash his hands, Qian Fei followed right behind him.

Li Yifei actually saw from the mirror that she had an expression as if she were about to burst into tears.

He raised his eyebrows and asked, "What’s this? Are you about to cry? Did I mistreat the old man or something?"

Qian Fei sniffled, rolled her eyes at him, and said, "I was just moved by you for a split second, is that not allowed?"

Li Yifei turned off the tap, shook the water off his hands, raised one hand to run his fingers through his hair from front to back, narrowed his eyes, bared his teeth, and put on a handsome pose as he asked, "Don't you find me exceptionally sensible, charming, sexy, as well as handsome?"

Qian Fei felt that the sincere gratitude filling her heart could no longer find any way to be expressed.

With a wooden face, she asked, "Didn't you find it gross?"

Li Yifei answered honestly, "I did!"

Qian Fei asked, "Then why were you still willing to put your hands to it?"

Li Yifei said, "Because he’s your dad."

Qian Fei sniffled again, then patted his shoulder, saying, "Good boy. Since you’re so sensible, I’ll never use Lau Ching-wan’s photo to fool my dad ever again!"

●︶3︶●

After the urination incident, the old man once again turned on his continuous praise loop for his "future son-in-law." His state of non-stop compliments did not look like someone who had just undergone a major life-or-death surgery at all.

He pulled Qian Fei’s hand, weak yet incredibly talkative: "Daughter, remember to put on a face mask when you go back! Look at how much you’ve worn yourself out these past two days, your face has turned all yellow! Little Li is just too wonderful. He looks beautiful, his brain is smart, and he even knows how to dress better than you do. He isn't afraid of filth or exhaustion when taking care of me. This future son-in-law of mine is a living Lei Feng that you couldn't find even if you searched with a lantern! Little Feifei, listen to your father, don't stay up late keeping me company here tonight. Hurry home and get your beauty sleep! If your dark circles don't fade, you won't match up to Little Li!"

After listening to such a massive paragraph of text, Qian Fei only returned one sentence to the huffing and puffing old man.

"Dad, do you want to inhale some oxygen first?"

In private, Qian Fei secretly asked Aunt He how she managed to endure this nagging old fellow. Aunt He said with a beaming smile, "It’s exactly because of this that I took a liking to your father!"

Qian Fei felt a bit moved. While most people held biases against stepmothers, she had witnessed her stepmother's unwavering loyalty to her dad through thick and thin.

In the evening, she was driven home early from the hospital by the old man under the pretext of "hurry up, get lost and go back to get your beauty sleep so you don't fail to match up to Little Li."

After dinner, she sat before the desk reviewing her lessons.

Li Yifei sat beside her wearing a headset, playing an online game.

While solving problems, she ran into one she wasn't sure about and nudged Li Yifei’s arm to have him clear up her doubts.

Without the slightest hesitation, Li Yifei halted his operations, decisively pulled off his headset, picked up the problem booklet, and began giving Qian Fei a detailed explanation.

Qian Fei tilted her head, propping up her cheek with her hand as she looked at Li Yifei, listening intently and carefully. The lamplight fell upon her cheek, overflowing with a peaceful and gentle radiance.

Under her gaze, as Li Yifei explained on and on, his speaking speed slowed down, and his voice shifted from crisp to tender and romantic. In the end, he stopped his explanation, leaned in close, lowered his head, and kissed her.

After kissing for a short while, Qian Fei pushed against him.

"The chat in your headset has already exploded!"

Li Yifei stared into her eyes, rubbing her lips as he said in a husky voice, "I thought you would slap me again!"

Qian Fei smiled at him, "No slaps today, it felt quite nice!"

Li Yifei also began to smile, his eyebrows and eyes packed with an abundant romantic charm as he asked, "Then will you let me kiss you tomorrow too?"

Qian Fei mimicked him by raising an eyebrow, "We’ll talk about tomorrow when it comes!"

Li Yifei wanted to say something more, but his phone suddenly rang.

He connected the call. Through the receiver, Dajun was yelling frantically like someone whose tail had been stepped on, his voice so loud that even Qian Fei could hear it with absolute clarity.

"Li Yifei, screw your uncle! Can you show a little responsibility toward me!!! You said you’d help me level up, but at the critical moment, how can you just stop right when you say so! I got battered back thirty years by the boss, holy crap! You jerk, what on earth are you doing! Speak! Speak! Speak! If you can't give me a proper reason, I’m going to grab a kitchen knife and hack you to death!!! Hurry up and tell me, what exactly were you doing just now! Why didn't you reply at all when I was calling you through the headset to save me!!!"

Li Yifei replied into the receiver with complete nonchalance, "Kissing my woman!"

Dajun let out a howl, crying and wailing, "Li Yifei, you are just a bastard who chooses romance over friendship! I'm never going to be good friends with you ever again!"

●︶3︶●

By mid-October, the old man had displayed no abnormal symptoms, and his physical recovery was going very well. Qian Fei sent the old man and Aunt He back to the hospital in their hometown to rest and recuperate. Li Yifei wanted to follow them back to their hometown together, but Qian Fei didn't let him. A few issues had cropped up with the hotel project that their two companies were collaborating on, and the China Securities Regulatory Bureau was coming down to investigate. Qian Fei had him stay behind to handle the inspection.

From a domestic service agency in her hometown, Qian Fei paid a high price to hire a full-time nanny who looked very reliable to help Aunt He take care of the old man. Both the old man and Aunt He felt a bit of pain over the money, but Qian Fei told them with absolute finality, "Don't fret over money. Next month I'll be a qualified sponsor representative. Once I sign a project after that, I'll firmly become a full sponsor representative, and I'll earn a massive amount of money back for you guys in a matter of minutes!"

After settling everything, she returned to Beijing covered in the dust of the road.

The day after returning to Beijing, she crawled out of bed early in the morning and went to the company.

Not long after she arrived at the company, she was called into the office by the big boss.

The big boss threw a piece of news at her that felt exactly like a bolt from the blue.

The big boss told her very tactfully that because she had been absent from work too much, the headquarters had decided to dismiss her.

When Qian Fei heard this news, she only felt the world spinning around her. She had prepared so meticulously for the sponsor representative exam, yet now she ended up with this kind of news.

She didn't know what had been wrong with her lately; bad things kept happening one after another, leaving her without even a moment to catch her breath.

She packed up her things that very day. When she was about to leave, Xiao Yuan and Sister Jin came out to see her off, and she saw that both of their eyes were filled with tears.

She suddenly felt that these past few years hadn't been spent in vain; at least upon her departure, she could still earn a few tears of genuine sentiment.

And so, she too wept with a sense of fulfillment.

●︶3︶●

Qian Fei didn't tell Li Yifei about being dismissed. Holding her cardboard box alone, she took the subway back home.

After arriving home, she lay on the bed listlessly. Thinking about her uncertain future, she didn't want to do anything at all.

A while later, Li Yifei sent a text message to her, telling her not to leave after finishing work in the evening, to wait for him to pick her up, and they would head home together.

She replied to Li Yifei weakly, saying she was already home.

In the very next second, Li Yifei’s phone call came straight through: "Why did you go home right around noon? Are you feeling unwell somewhere?"

Qian Fei did her best to make her voice sound as steady and normal as usual: "I'm not unwell anywhere, I was just dismissed because I was absent from work too much!"

On the other end of the line, after a silence of two seconds, Li Yifei said, "Wait for me at home!" and then hung up the phone.

Qian Fei stared blankly at the disconnected mobile phone. She had also wanted to tell him to work properly, not to worry, and that she was fine.

An hour later, Li Yifei burst through the front door like a whirlwind.

He rushed into Qian Fei’s room and directly scooped up the loser who was slumped on the bed like a lump of dough, his face completely full of unbridled joy.

Qian Fei almost doubted whether she had misread the individual's facial expression.

Looking at him, Qian Fei asked in total bewilderment, "Has your nervous system suffered some kind of functional disorder? I don't even have a job anymore, and I won't be able to participate in the sponsor representative exam either, so why do you look happier than if you'd won a five-million-yuan lottery?"

Shaking her shoulders, Li Yifei said gleefully, "Why shouldn't I be happy? Now I can get you over to our company, and we can openly flirt and cast glances at each other every single day!"