Ch 8

                                    

                                          
Damned Grapefruit:
                          

The day after the dinner was a Saturday. As was usual, Zhengqing worked at home in his study. While he was working, there was a prompt that an email had come in. He quickly read it; the sender turned out to be May Shen.
                          
Shen Jiaqi
                          
Zhengqing looked at the message, it really was Shen Jiaqi. She thanked Zhengqing for coming to the banquet and she had been very happy chatting with him, and was hoping to be friends. She gave him her social media account ID, hoping Zhengqing would add her.
                          
Zhengqing immediately added her, not because he was over-eager to be friends, but because he was one to get things done quickly. If he let things drag on, they were liable to be missed. Once he was done, he returned to the documents he was studying. A chat box pinged.
                          
Zhengqing looked at the computer. It was Shen Jiaqi, ‘You’re actually in?’ she asked.
                          
‘Yes ah,’ Zhengqing replied.
                          
‘Working?’
                          
‘Yes,’
                          
‘You’re really dedicated.’
                          
‘I have to be, ah,’ Zhengqing answered seriously.
                          
Jiaqi replied with a long line of, ‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha,’ followed by, ‘you’re really funny.’
                          
Mental black lines hung over Zhengqing, he was confused. Where was the humour? He really was working and he really was dedicated. She asked him and he answered. What was so humorous about it? He did not know how to answer so he remained quiet.
                          
Jiaqi then said, ‘When others are boasting for you, you should be modest.’
                          
He thought of this sentence, he wanted to reply, ‘But you were praising me, right?’, but that may be considered that he was not modest, instead he said, ‘Alright,’
                          
Jiaqi replied with another line of, ‘Ha ha ha ha ha,’
                          
He frowned, what the hell was so funny? Where was this conversation going?
                          
‘Alright…’ Jiaqi began,
                          
He was still troubled, what was she alright about? He waited and Jiaqi continued ‘I am really happy to chat with you.’
                          
Zhengqing raised his eyebrows and shrugged, at least one of them was happy, ‘Thank you,’ he replied. She said he was funny, he should thank her.
                          
Jiaqi sent a smiling emoticon instead of “ha ha ha.” Zhengqing did not respond. He had to look over his documents, but at the same time he was wondering what she wanted.
                          
Fortunately, Jiaqi had a sense of discretion, ‘Are you busy?’ she asked.
                          
‘I’m looking over a few documents,’ he wrote. He intended to add that he would talk to her another day but she was faster than him,
                          
‘Qin Shu is really blessed to have someone conscientious and capable as you. I will stop bothering you. Talk later.’
                          
Zhengqing deleted the text and wrote, ‘Okay, goodbye.’
                          
 Jiaqi sent a smiling face with ‘Goodbye,’
                          
Zhengqing breathed a sigh of relief, he could continue working. He dived into his work and eventually finished. As he tidied up he thought of Yin Ting, she also liked to type out, “ha ha has.” He really did not understand women.
                          
With nothing on the next day, he went to the gym that evening.
                          
He lived a regular life; he went to the gym twice a week, the shops for food once a week, and worked seven days a week. It has been this way for many years.