The Vanishing Beauty - Chapter 5 - 4

Chapter 5 - 4

Next came the negotiations.

Yu Rui felt this was the most difficult public relations battle she had ever faced.

Shi was not exceptionally wealthy. By this point, they had essentially ripped off the veneer of gentle affection between them. Shi Tongguang understood her demands; he simply didn't want to pay up. She felt like she had been hit with a dine-and-dash.

The materials were prepared, and she braced herself for a showdown.

Shi Tongguang returned from outside. Yu Rui sat on the sofa with the television turned off.

Pure silence. The atmosphere was heavy and oppressive.

"Why aren't you watching TV?" he asked.

"I need to talk to you about something." Yu Rui's tone was dead serious.

Shi Tongguang went to the refrigerator to look for water.

"Come over here," Yu Rui demanded again.

Shi Tongguang grabbed a bottle of water, twisted it open, took a sip, and walked over reluctantly.

"Sit."

True to form, he sat down, spreading his legs apart. "I know, I understand. Let's just wait a bit longer."

He was trying to play for time with delaying tactics.

"I'm pregnant," Yu Rui enunciated clearly. "It's yours."

She couldn't afford to wait.

Shi Tongguang was momentarily stunned, his eyes widening as if propped open by matchsticks. "No..." He paused. "This..."

Yu Rui placed the medical test report on the coffee table and pushed it across toward him.

Shi Tongguang drew a sharp breath. "What kind of nonsense is this?"

Nonsense?! She detested that word. Who the hell was the one talking nonsense?

"What are we going to do?" she asked him.

"What do you think?" he countered.

"You're the father of the child. I'm respecting your opinion."

After mulling it over for a long while, Shi Tongguang said, "Best not to keep it. It's not appropriate."

Expectedly.

"An abortion is very hard on a woman's body."

"I'll pay for the expenses. Don't worry."

"What does that include?"

"The cost of the surgery." Shi Tongguang's tone carried a hint of shamelessness.

"Or maybe I'll just give birth to it," Yu Rui probed, intentionally trying to provoke him.

"No way!" He was resolute.

"If I have it, we get married," Yu Rui said purposely, using reverse psychology.

"Babe, stop messing around, alright? Can't we just be happy together? Why must you push for that? We haven't even had enough of our world of two yet," Shi Tongguang coaxed, trying a soft approach.

"Having an abortion is a crime; you go to hell for it, and it messes with you mentally. I'm a Buddhist. Plus, it causes severe physical damage. What if it ruins my chances of having kids in the future?" Yu Rui laid out the facts and reasoned with him.

"Then tell me, what do you want to do?" Shi Tongguang was losing his patience.

"One million." Yu Rui didn't beat around the bush.

Shi Tongguang burst out laughing. "After dragging it out for so long, we're right back here. Xiaorui, were you just chasing after my money from the start?"

Yu Rui gave a cold laugh. "You aren't rich enough for me to plot and scheme against."

"Do you have any feelings for me at all?"

"Of course."

"Yet the way you're acting right now is heartbreaking."

"You're not the only one whose heart is breaking." Yu Rui tried her utmost to remain calm, though her hands trembled slightly.

"I cannot have this child."

"I'm not going through an abortion for free."

"One million is way too much."

"It's not even enough to open a shop."

"That's no ordinary little shop you're talking about."

"Well, get ready to be a father, then."

"Darling, mutual destruction does neither of us any good." Shi Tongguang shifted his tone. "We were deeply in love when we started out, weren't we? Think back to the past—those wonderful days." He fell back on emotional manipulation, attempting to stir up Yu Rui's past feelings.

"You never intended to marry me."

"I never said a relationship has to end in marriage, did I? Who can guarantee things like that?" He had resorted to outright rascality.

"Let's not talk about this; it's pointless," Yu Rui said.

"I knew you looked down on a poor, unremarkable guy like me," Shi Tongguang muttered. "I'm not a gold mine; you can't dig gold out of me."

"You are the father of this child! You aren't doing this for me, you're taking responsibility for yourself! For your own future!"

"Do you know what you sound like right now?"

"You're in no position to judge me."

Shi Tongguang smiled faintly. "Living in this world, everyone has to sell something. It's no big deal, I understand. But getting something for nothing isn't that easy."

"What I've put into this is already worth far more than that," Yu Rui retorted.

"Put what in? That stuff in bed?"

"You bastard!"

"Alright, miss. Let's stop while we're ahead. Take your win and fold. Nobody here is a fool."

"Save that line for your mother."

"My mother? What, are you planning to go talk to her?" Shi Tongguang sneered wickedly. "You think she'd help you? Sure, she'd make you carry the baby to term and then hand it over to her—you'd essentially be doing unpaid surrogate labor. Don't forget, I'm her son; how could she possibly take your side? Romance truly is a luxury. I gave so much, and you completely turned a blind eye to it all?"

"Romance? Then who is that woman surnamed Liu?" she demanded, referring to his blind-date match.

"And who is the guy surnamed Huang?" Shi Tongguang grinned maliciously, referring to Huang Qi. He still believed Rui and Huang Qi hadn't cut ties.

"Fine! I'm having this baby, no matter what!" Yu Rui declared. "Let's see if the woman surnamed Liu still wants you then."

"Don't be like this. Five hundred thousand, clean and simple, and we walk our separate ways. I can't go a single cent higher. A surrogate doesn't even cost that much, let alone an accident." Shi Tongguang assumed a reasonable stance. "Just because we slept in the same bed every night, we need to pay out a sum like this? What do you call that? Darling, tell me, what is this called, what kind of logic is that? I don't like talking about money when we're talking about feelings; don't make yourself look like a..." Shi Tongguang left the sentence unfinished. He had originally wanted to say "whore."

"I have no feelings for you left whatsoever!" Yu Rui didn't hold back.

"You didn't before, but you did in the past. You enjoyed it plenty back then, too, and you even screamed pretty loud. I put in the labor, so why does nobody pay me?" Shi Tongguang argued shamelessly.

"Did it wear you out?" Yu Rui snapped. "We aren't talking about labor right now; we're talking about the fruit of that labor."

"Accidents sure are a pain."

"Nine hundred thousand," Yu Rui countered with a new price.

"Eight hundred."

"Eighty-five hundred thousand." (Note: referring to 850,000)

"Fine!" Shi Tongguang gritted his teeth.

Deal.

Stepping out of Shi Tongguang's rental property, Yu Rui stood by the roadside and wept aloud. She still had to stay there for a little while longer, otherwise she would be out on the streets. Once the abortion was done, she needed a place to recuperate until her body recovered enough that outsiders couldn't tell, at which point she could move in with Yu Shuang to lean on each other for support.

Yet, aside from Huang Qi, she couldn't let a second soul know about this—especially her female friends. She couldn't afford to lose face like that. In the entertainment industry, she had heard plenty of stories about actresses selling themselves out for money and fame; it was nothing new. But when it happened to her own skin, she finally understood the humiliation it entailed.

She had entered the relationship with the mindset of romance and the ultimate goal of marriage, yet it had ended up devolving into a black-market shakedown—she was the seller, and Shi was the buyer.

She was racked with guilt. For the sake of 850,000 yuan, she had sold out a child, stripping it of its chance to enter this world. She was a bad woman, a bad mother. Yet she had no alternative. She felt she had sold herself short. She suddenly realized that lowering her worth was meaningless; she was currently suspended midair. Upward, she couldn't emulate Sister Jia—peacefully latching onto a potential-filled stock, guarding him for eight, ten, or twenty years until the clouds parted to reveal the bright moon; downward, she couldn't pull off what Yu Meng did—going all in, preferring a single bite of a fresh fairy peach to a whole basket of rotten apricots.

She concluded she had committed a fatal strategic error. As the ancients say: aim for the top and you might hit the middle; aim for the middle and you might hit the bottom; aim for the bottom and you might end up with nothing at all. Her compromise strategy had ultimately yielded nothing more than a pitiful severance payout, a dead fetus, and severely depleted vitality. She had to deal with it as quickly as possible.

That very evening, she called Huang Qi to inform him she was ready to head to the hospital. Huang Qi asked, "Did he pay?" That casual tone broke Yu Rui's heart, making her feel even more acutely that she was participating in a sordid, shameful transaction. Shi Tongguang had packed up and left with swift efficiency. He paid an initial deposit of 400,000 yuan, claiming the rest would be settled in a lump sum once the procedure was finished. Left with no choice and filled with deep humiliation, Yu Rui checked into a private women's hospital, accompanied by Huang Qi. When the doctor asked, Huang Qi claimed to be her boyfriend, and that neither of them wanted the child at this stage.

The doctor was a middle-aged woman with a face full of freckles and a weathered, world-weary look. Judging by her accent, she was an out-of-towner, likely from the Northeast. She might have once worked in a proper obstetrics department, but after coming to the big city, she could only find work consulting at private clinics. Yu Rui gritted her teeth through the curettage. The pain was real, intensely real, but she didn't let out a single cry. Afterward, she sent the treatment receipt to Shi Tongguang. True to his word, he transferred the funds immediately. Then, block. Never to be contacted again.

Yu Rui knew that she simply wasn't famous yet; if she ever managed to make a name for herself in the acting world down the road, who knew—Shi Tongguang might pop right back up to brag about how he once slept with so-and-so, and how she even went through an abortion and miscarriage for him.

By the hospital bed, Huang Qi stood quietly. Yu Rui reached out; he sat down and took her hand, as if trying to impart strength to her. "Don't tell anyone..." She still cared about her reputation. It was vital. "Rest assured," he said.

Huang Qi had landed another role and was soon leaving the big city for the Northeast. He sat with her for quite a while and even went out to buy her some congee. Yu Rui had a craving for preserved egg and lean pork congee.

After finishing it, she told him, "Go ahead."

"Will you be alright?"

"No problem at all. What's something like this?" She wore the expression of someone who could hold up the sky even if it fell.

Yu Rui wept bitterly several more times when she was all by herself, lying on the living room sofa. Upon returning to the apartment, she refused to sleep in that original bed—Shi Tongguang had slept there. She gently stroked her lower abdomen; it was completely flat. The child hadn't even caused a bump before it was taken away, but it was different—having it or not having it made all the difference in the world. The feeling inside her heart was entirely different.

A life—she had destroyed a life. This was the first time. When the entity was torn away from her body, she felt the piercing, bone-deep agony that life inflicts upon you. The pain in her heart would have to be slowly dissolved and handed over to time. Only, she suspected this ache would remain like a piece of plastic buried deep in the soil, taking a lifetime to decompose.

Yu Rui also reflected on her journey with Shi Tongguang. Was it true that she hadn't been sincere? Not necessarily. Did he lack sincerity? Not necessarily either. In the very beginning, both of them had been genuine, but as they walked the path together, things turned sour. He refused to introduce her to his family or friends, keeping her hidden away like a concubine in a golden house; his future held no place for her. He always suspected she was after his money. How laughable. What if she was? If there was nothing between them and nothing to gain, why on earth would she stick by him? Yu Rui came to a profound realization: men who achieved this sort of petty, nouveau riche wealth simply lacked vision. Truly wealthy people were never afraid of explicit price tags—caring about money wasn't scary at all; what's truly terrifying is when a woman wants nothing from you at all.

A fall into a pit, a gain in your wit. Yet she had to swallow this bitter pill entirely on her own—a silent loss she couldn't let anyone else find out about. However, once she actually received the final installment—though Shi Tongguang had even deducted her share of the rent, demanding they split it fifty-fifty, what kind of man was that!—Yu Rui lost all desire to open her shop. This truly was blood-and-sweat money, the last bit of capital she had to sustain her future livelihood.

After resting for a month, Yu Rui joined a group of actresses on a trip to Japan. She knew that among them, one worked as a high-end escort, snapping frantic photos the moment she arrived at their destination. Halfway through the trip, a "business opportunity" arose, and she immediately diverted from Osaka and flew to Indonesia to act as a travel companion.

Yu Rui felt a wave of sorrow. Who was any grander or more respectable than anyone else? Who had it easier? High-end escorts, respectable women, and women like her who had bounced through multiple relationships—was there any fundamental difference between them?

The escort sold herself frequently to different men; she, on the other hand, sold herself periodically to different men, while virtuous wives like Sister Jia sold themselves wholesale to a single man for life. She detested Lao Shi, but she had to agree with one thing he said: living in this world, everyone had to sell something. Some sold their faces, some sold their talent, some sold their souls...

None of it mattered anymore. Yu Rui had figured out one core truth: selling was fine, but you had to make sure you sold yourself for a good price. Living was hard enough as it was; never shortchange yourself.