The Vanishing Beauty - Chapter 2 - 3

Chapter 2 - 3

After finishing their bath, Yu Meng and Yu Rui smoked together. Yu Meng was a seasoned, long-time smoker, while Yu Rui, caught up in the stressful acting world and driven by the emotional demands of her roles, had picked up the habit as well.

In the dead of night, Yu Meng was genuinely not sleepy. Yu Rui, on the other hand, was exhausted; she had drunk too much, and a pounding headache kept her awake. Yu Rui couldn't understand why Sister Meng was so dead set on getting a divorce. Naturally, she assumed there had to be some unspeakable reason behind it. Otherwise, living in a villa, not having to work, with their son grown up and her husband successful in his career—everything was so perfect, what more could she possibly want?

"They're all fucking good for nothing!" Yu Meng suddenly cursed. When it came to the divorce, Luan Chengyun had only split off two small apartments for her. In his words, one to live in and one to rent out was enough to keep her fed. Because she had no proof of his infidelity, going to court would be useless; Luan Chengyun had started transferring assets long ago, quietly and stealthily—businessmen were experts at pulling off such maneuvers. If she let the court rule, she might not even get those two small apartments. Luan Chengyun's stance was that Yu Meng had made no contribution to the financial growth of the household, and therefore she could only receive a share of the original assets.

My foot! Yu Meng fumed. No contribution? Giving birth to two sons didn't count as a contribution? Taking care of the sons and the household for all these years didn't count as a contribution? Even if she had just acted as a pretty vase, serving as mere ornamentation on the side, that still counted as contribution! How could anyone dare say she made no contribution?

She couldn't be bothered to argue with him. Clean and decisive: if he wanted a divorce, she'd take it.

And just like that, she had already started packing her bags.

"Have you thought it all through?" Yu Rui chimed in, feeling a twinge of regret for her.

"He raised his hands against me," Yu Meng said. Of course, there were also those other messed-up, sordid deeds that she didn't care to share with Rui.

Yu Rui fell silent.

"How long can a person live?" Yu Meng blew a smoke ring and continued asking.

"Hm?"

"A hundred years? Provided your health is good." Yu Meng flicked her ash. "Normally, around eighty is about it; after that, you can't really do anything anyway." Before Yu Rui could chime in, Yu Meng kept going: "Counting up to eighty, I've already lived through half of it, and only half remains." She offered a bitter little smile. "Yet somehow, it feels like I haven't done a single thing yet." She spread her hands.

Yu Rui teased, "How can you say you haven't done anything? You've completed all your social missions."

"Right, society demands that a woman get married, have children, and have a marriage, and I've experienced all of that," Yu Meng said. "I don't owe society a thing, and society doesn't owe me. Right now, I just feel like I still have energy left in me, that I can still go out and make a mark." However, she kept the second half of her thought hidden: her purpose in making a mark was none other than to find another romance, with wealth thrown into the bargain.

She believed she could find a man better, more successful, and more loving than Luan Chengyun. A loud howl echoed from inside the room. The two of them froze, exchanging a glance. Another howl followed. This time, they heard it clearly: Yu Shuang was talking in her sleep.

Yu Rui curled her lip and said to Yu Meng, "Sounds like she's acting in a martial arts movie."

"And you?" Yu Meng asked.

"Me," Yu Rui pointed a finger at herself, "a drama film, I suppose."

"It should be a romance," Yu Meng said.

"You're the romance."

"No, no, I'm a thriller-romance," Yu Meng laughed. Yu Rui joined in with a laugh as well.

Thinking it had just been talk, they never expected that Bai Yuankai would genuinely take Yu Shuang's personal affairs to heart, introducing candidates to her one after another. Two were met and rejected, while three others Yu Shuang refused to see altogether. Yu Meng was dissatisfied with her perfunctory attitude. "Shuang, we can't be like this. The options Xiaobai introduces are top-tier resources! If you don't want them, pass them to Rui; don't let good things go to waste!" Yu Shuang retorted, "What top-tier resources? They're just a bunch of crooked melons and cracked dates." Yu Meng countered, "Stop dodging. What are your requirements? Write them down one by one." Handing over a pen, Yu Shuang actually did write them down.

Requirement one: Height cannot be under 1.80 meters—parentheses, 1.79 meters at the absolute minimum. No further concessions allowed. Requirement two: Looks must score at least seventy-five points; he can be slightly worse-looking than Wallace Chung, but he absolutely cannot be worse than Zhang Jie. Unable to match the reference, Yu Meng asked, "Which Zhang Jie?" She assumed it was some acquaintance from around them. "The singer, obviously," Yu Shuang replied. She had a soft spot for Super Boy and felt nostalgic.

A flash of realization hit Yu Meng. "I've seen him, I've seen him." She pulled up a photo from her phone.

Taking a look, Yu Shuang didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Sis, that's Yang Di!"

Requirement three: Must be able to hold a good conversation. Yu Meng considered this requirement a trap. What exactly counted as a good conversation? They had introduced men working in education, internet tech, and media, but Yu Shuang felt she couldn't click with any of them, subsequently slapping them all with the label of being overly talkative. Yu Meng asked, so did she want someone who talked a lot or someone who talked a little?

Yu Shuang dropped this gem: "Talk a lot when it's appropriate, and don't talk when it's not," adding by way of clarification, "Half a sentence is too many when you're not on the same wavelength."

Difficult. Severely difficult. Both Meng and Rui felt that for a middle-aged maiden with her own built-in aura of masculine vigor like Shuang, a man capable of holding a proper conversation with her was practically a rare endangered species.

Upon learning of this, Yu Jia also tried working on Shuang: "Focus on the primary contradiction, grasp the key points, look at a person's character, and view issues with a developmental perspective." Whenever she spoke now, she carried the air of a female stateswoman.

He who stays near vermilion gets stained red.

Yet she had every right to speak; when it came to romance and marriage, Yu Jia had always been considered a major investment winner. She had bought into a potential stock and reaped massive returns. Still, Yu Meng summed it up best: Sister Jia's success was simply unreplicable.

It all came down to fate.

Fortunately, Yu Shuang had good fortune. After another interval passed, Bai Yuankai actually managed to dig up someone who met all the requirements. He looked decent—slightly behind Wallace Chung, but definitely surpassing Zhang Jie (or so Yu Meng believed). A domestic master's degree holder and overseas PhD, he had once shared an apartment with Yuankai in America and specialized in crop research, with a primary focus on chestnuts.

"Examples?" Yu Shuang was baffled. "What examples? Does he teach education too?" She thought he meant giving examples.

Yu Meng explained, "Things to eat—chestnuts, sweet roasted chestnuts." From the side, Yu Rui chimed in with a tease, "Looks like autumn's oil-chestnuts have already found their contractor. Sister Shuang, I'm applying for a lifetime free membership." Yu Shuang found it agonizing; getting a doctorate just to study chestnuts was truly bizarre. Yu Meng persuaded her, "Xiaobai said his character is top-notch and his scholarship is great. Just go meet him; better to mistakenly execute a thousand than let a single one slip past."

Yu Shuang glanced at Meng, then at Rui, and tentatively asked, "I should go meet him?"

Yu Rui smiled. "You have to go."

Yu Meng interjected, "Wait! The guy has one rigid requirement."

Yu Shuang curled her lip. Yu Rui listened with rapt attention.

Kang Long, male, thirty-six years old, PhD graduate, specializing in chestnut research. Currently teaching at a university, owns a house, owns a car, has decent looks, and has very little dating experience. Reason unknown. Buried among his blind-date criteria was a hard condition: he hoped the female partner would have long, straight hair. Hearing this, Yu Shuang immediately declared they should forget it, since she couldn't grow long locks in just a few days. But this hardly posed a problem for Meng and Rui. Inside Yu Meng's luggage case sat over a dozen long wigs available for selection. Any color she wanted.

Wearing a long black wig, Yu Shuang walked into the barbecue restaurant. Surreal. Even she couldn't quite figure out why she was making this kind of compromise. Kang Long's looks were to her liking; crucially, it was his temperament—this fellow gave off an aura of harmless, easily bullied kindness. Meeting him couldn't hurt.

Strangely enough, clad in long hair and wearing an outfit meticulously curated by Sister Shuang, Yu Shuang seemed to turn demure herself. She walked without stirring up a breeze, held her posture tightly, kept a smile on her face, and tried hard to win people over. Yu Jia had repeatedly lectured her that whether in romance or marriage, compromises were required. However, Yu Shuang believed that the precondition for compromise was still liking the person in question; otherwise, fuck the whole lot of them!

"Hello." Arriving at the spot, Yu Shuang offered a slight bow in greeting.

Kang Long hurriedly stood up. Visually, his height met the standard—a solid one meter eighty. Pass.

"Hello." With a gentlemanly wave of his hand, Kang Long motioned for her to take a seat.

Yu Shuang sat down and took off her coat. It was cold outside, but the indoor temperature was quite pleasant. Yu Shuang exposed her "career line"—though even during her periods of major career development, Yu Shuang had never spared a single thought for her "career line"—but today was an exception; her styling and persona were entirely executed according to Sister Meng's arrangements.

Peking at him cautiously, Yu Shuang noticed a flash indeed sweep across Kang Long's eyes, though it lasted only a split second. A gentleman could not simply stare at a woman's chest.

"Let's order." Yu Shuang smiled. Kang Long scrambled to agree, saying they should definitely order. Coming to a barbecue joint meant eating meat was the natural priority. Yu Shuang was a carnivore, but because it was their first meeting and Rui had told her to play it demure, she confined her ordering strictly to vegetables—chives, mushrooms, and the like—to prove her herbivore-woman attributes. The meat was left for the man to order.

Once the dishes were ordered, Kang Long produced a package: a brown paper bag of considerable size. Taking it, Yu Shuang gave a slight nod, inquiring with her eyes what it contained. Kang Long hastily explained, "A new variety I've cultivated." Yu Shuang opened it. A bag of caterpillars? Startled, her hand shook, and the "caterpillars" spilled all over the floor. They were chestnuts. Unpeeled chestnuts naturally looked like that—hairy and fuzzy.

In her entire life, Yu Shuang was most terrified of caterpillars.

The waiter hurried over to help pick them up, and Kang Long pitched in as well. Feeling repulsed, Yu Shuang didn't step forward to help. An "accident" had occurred mere minutes into their meeting; Yu Shuang didn't think she and this Mr. Kang could possibly have any further "story" ahead of them. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," Kang Long apologized repeatedly, maintaining his gentlemanly demeanor. Yu Shuang muttered a brief "it's fine." A short while later, Kang Long somehow conjured another package from parts unknown and opened it—once again, chestnuts. This time the quantity was smaller, and the outer husks had already been stripped away. Yu Shuang wasn't scared anymore.

He announced he would roast chestnuts for her on the charcoal grill right then and there.

She had fallen right into a pile of chestnuts. Yu Shuang was simultaneously exasperated and amused.

Waiting for the food required conversational filler, and Kang Long took charge of finding topics.

"Are you one of Yuankai's...?"

"Junior schoolmate."

"I suppose I'm his senior." Classic making conversation out of thin air.

Yu Shuang tossed her hair back; it was driving her crazy with an itchy tickle.

"Yuankai is exceptional," he praised.

"Indeed," she replied.

And just like that, the conversation hit a dead end. Her sole common topic with him seemed to be Bai Yuankai. Both were getting older and neither wished to interrogate each other like youngsters. Being able to meet, dine like this, and feel each other out was already the utmost display of sincerity.

"You work in education."

"Online education."

"Teaching people things?"

"No, no, primarily supplementary instruction," she corrected, "equivalent to STEM fields." Pausing for a moment, she returned the courtesy by asking, "Are chestnut trees tall or short?"

"Not short."

"Then how do you harvest them?"

"When they're fully ripe, they fall to the ground on their own. You can also knock them down with a pole."

Good grief. She asked no further questions. She truly had zero interest in chestnuts. Shortly after, the meat and vegetables arrived, the waiter set up the charcoal fire, and the two of them picked up their tongs, grilling in quiet gloom. Intent on teasing him, Yu Shuang leaned backward and asked, "How is it?"

"Huh?" Kang Long failed to catch her drift.

"What do you think of me?" Yu Shuang smiled. "Tell me the truth."

"Pretty good."

She tossed her hair back again; the wig was being mischievous and kept leaping forward, forcing her to push it back behind her shoulders.

"Tell me the truth," she emphasized once more.

"Generous, and beautiful." He really did tell the truth.

The barbecue was done. He picked up a piece and placed it in her bowl. She promptly thanked him. After eating a few slices, she took the initiative to say she wanted to try roasting a chestnut. Kang Long peeled a raw chestnut that had been scored with a slit and placed it on the grill. In no time at all, the aroma of roasted chestnuts wafted out. Liking the scent, Yu Shuang leaned her torso forward halfway to sniff it. The wig grew mischievous once more, lunging forward to suspend itself directly above the grill. Hit by a burst of flame, the wig actually went up in a sudden whoosh of fire.

Paralyzed with shock, Kang Long stared blankly.

Shouting wildly, Yu Shuang used the tips of her chopsticks to swiftly pry and yank at the wig, stripping it instantly from her scalp and letting it drop to the floor beside her to burn fiercely.

The customers scattered in all directions, terrified.

Covering her head, Yu Shuang couldn't bear to look at Kang Long's dumbfounded face.