DF Chapter 124

Chapter 124: Just coming to see you, is that not allowed?

Sheng Jia has been quite busy lately. She promised Meng Yeran that she would invite Valma to China. According to the principle of efficiency first, the next day after leaving Song Ji’an’s house and getting on the plane to Shanghai, she had already started preparing for this matter.

Of course, this is not all she has to be busy with. Within Song’s Group, the two most important things recently are the unfinished project in Africa and the natural gas development in Norway. The former is still running smoothly, while the latter has already had a contract signed through negotiations with several group negotiation experts, and development can begin soon. The permits will be handled by the Opter family.

Sheng Jia’s work on the Norway project was a great success. Song Ningqiu originally wanted her to be responsible for the follow-up, but Sheng Jia took the initiative to refuse. In fact, she was not very interested in such a sure-thing project.

At the beginning, she had actually done many such sure-thing projects, mostly specially allocated to her by Song Ningqiu and Wang Huiqiu, on the one hand to accumulate experience for her, and on the other hand to help her establish prestige.

But for the current Sheng Jia, these are no longer needed. She is more willing to take on more challenging work, and at this moment, that work is to facilitate a new cooperation between Song’s Group, the Meng family, and the Opter family.

A week later, Sheng Jia received a sarcastic email from Hilda, roughly meaning to thank Sheng Jia for her generosity and magnanimity, which finally allowed her sister, who had been silent for many years, to once again be favored by her grandmother like an unbreakable stone, giving her the opportunity to compete with her.

Sheng Jia forwarded this email to Meng Yeran, originally intending to inform her that the matter had been handled, but the result was a burst of laughter from Meng Yeran.

“Do you know how many years I haven’t seen Hilda this sarcastic?” she said on the phone, “She always has that air of being in control, which is really annoying. Thank you for this.”

“This is your business,” Sheng Jia’s voice on the other end of the phone buzzed, apparently outdoors, and possibly even driving. “The only thing I need to ask now is when you can reach a cooperation.”

“Don’t worry, it won’t take long.” Meng Yeran gave her a definite answer, “At most, by the beginning of next month, the contract will definitely be signed for you.”

This time, Sheng Jia was a little surprised, “So fast?”

“It’s not good for me to keep dragging it on.” Meng Yeran replied, “And there are still two weeks left until next month, that’s enough.”

Sheng Jia responded and was about to hang up, but Meng Yeran keenly noticed something was wrong, “Where are you now?”

“Jingjiang,” Sheng Jia replied indifferently, “Anything else? If not, I’m hanging up.”

With that, she hung up the phone.

Meng Yeran calculated the frequency with which Sheng Jia had been going to Jingjiang recently and couldn’t help but laugh.

Anyone could easily guess who it was for.

Sheng Jia had indeed been going to Jingjiang more often lately. She looked at both sides of the road. The trees in the north had already begun to shed their leaves. After the turn of autumn, the weather became cooler. Today happened to be the day of the Jingjiang Marathon. A coastal highway was crowded with participating athletes, and both sides of the road were filled with small stalls voluntarily participating in logistics.

Across the road, she leaned against the car window and leisurely looked at the participating athletes, and suddenly discovered a familiar sign among a pile of colorful stalls.

It was the sign belonging to Greenery Cafe, and in addition to the cafe owner, there was another long-lost acquaintance.

Sheng Jia parked the car by the side of the road and walked across the zebra crossing.

The cafe owner was scooping mung bean soup for the participating athletes, and couldn’t help but light up when she looked up and saw Sheng Jia.

“Sheng Jia?” She said in surprise, “Long time no see.”

“It’s been a long time indeed,” Sheng Jia said with a smile, “Congratulations, you’ve won the best spot for a stall again this year.”

With that, she looked at the woman in sportswear beside her and called out, “Sister Hua Mei.”

This was probably the first time Hua Mei had seen Sheng Jia in five years. Unlike the pastry shop owner, she had found a new job in Jingjiang after the kidnapping case. A nine-to-five job in the CBD was probably really suitable for her. In just five years, she had gone from a small employee to a department supervisor. Of course, this also meant that she knew a lot about the news of Song’s Heavy Industry’s daughter being switched at birth, which was very popular in various companies back then. After all, this was a rare piece of juicy gossip in their busy and boring careers.

As time passed, Hua Mei was no longer the ignorant college student of the past. After suffering many losses, she was now thriving in the workplace, being smooth and maintaining basic kindness. Assessing the situation was probably her biggest lesson in the past five years, and speaking human language to people and ghost language to ghosts was what she had practiced most often in these years.

But seeing Sheng Jia again at this moment, she didn’t quite know how to start.

Even though she knew that Sheng Jia’s status was different now, she subconsciously didn’t want to use the tricks she had learned in the workplace to deal with her, and was worried that her attitude would be wrong.

But when she met Sheng Jia’s eyes, she suddenly realized that the cold and brave young man of the past didn’t seem to have changed in essence, at least the way she was showing herself now was very similar to the feeling she had given herself back then.

“Sheng Jia, would you like an ice cream?” Hua Mei smiled and took out an ice cream scoop from the freezer, warmly greeting her, “I’ve always wanted to say thank you again to you all these years. I’ve met other girls, do you remember Xia Qingzhao who saved me with you back then? She joined our company after graduating the year before last and became my subordinate. Danggui has gotten older recently and doesn’t like to move around much, but she still remembers me and lets me touch her head every time I go. Now I haven’t seen Song Ji’an again.”

Sheng Jia was slightly stunned, then smiled, “I remember, I’ve been to see Danggui recently, and she still recognizes me.”

“You’re a bit different,” Hua Mei looked at her a few times, “You seem to smile more.”

The cafe owner beside her also nodded, “Indeed, Sheng Jia didn’t have a single smile on her face when she was working part-time at my place before.”

Sheng Jia took a bite of the ice cream she was holding and replied, “People always change, you can’t be a bitter gourd for the rest of your life.”

As she spoke, she changed the subject, “Song Ji’an has been a bit busy recently, but I’m going to find her now, I can pass on anything you want to say for you.”

A hint of surprise flashed across Hua Mei’s eyes, as if she didn’t expect Sheng Jia and Song Ji’an to still have a good relationship now, but she quickly buried this surprise and responded, “I’ll thank her in person next time. But today you can help me bring her a special ice cream.”

“Since I met your cafe owner sister all these years, my ice cream-making skills are no worse than yours back then. She personally certified it.”

The cafe owner nodded, “Indeed, since Sheng Jia you resigned, Hua Mei has been my most outstanding student.”

Hua Mei squatted down and took out an ice cream cake that was packaged particularly exquisitely from the mobile freezer, “This was originally what I and your cafe owner sister wanted to make today to randomly reward lucky participants, after all, you know that this kind of competition has a lot of traffic, and this appearance might even bring a wave of traffic to the store, but since I met Sheng Jia, let’s just say that you and Song Ji’an are our lucky ones.”

“Wouldn’t that be not so good?” Sheng Jia glanced at the cake in front of her, which looked very time-consuming and labor-intensive.

“It’s okay,” the cafe owner waved her hand and said with a smile, “It’s okay to give it to you, it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, it’s just a cake. Just come and see us more often next time.”

Sheng Jia didn’t stand on ceremony with them too much. They were all very close people, and refusing would only seem distant. She readily accepted the cake, “Then I’ll thank you both on behalf of Song Ji’an.”

More and more marathon participants came one after another, and the cafe owner and Hua Mei quickly became busy again. Sheng Jia didn’t stay long, so as not to delay the two from working.

The sky above gradually turned yellow. She looked at the time and drove towards Fenwang Funeral Home.

Today, Song Ji’an didn’t have any overtime requirements. When she arrived at the entrance of the funeral home, there were employees coming out one after another. Without waiting too long, Song Ji’an walked out from inside with her small bag on her back.

Today she obviously still had a large workload. She hadn’t even taken care of her hair properly, and had tied it up in a messy bun on top of her head. According to Sheng Jia’s understanding of her, she had probably worked a few more overnights.

Sheng Jia waved to her. Song Ji’an, who was walking towards the entrance in a daze, was slightly stunned, and it took a while before she reacted. She slowly walked towards Sheng Jia, and asked when she got closer, “Why are you here?”

Sheng Jia nodded her chin towards the car, “Just coming to see you, is that not allowed?”

“Did you happen to pass by on a business trip again?” Song Ji’an walked around her and opened the door to the passenger seat. She was a little surprised when she saw the ice cream cake on the seat, “Did you buy this?”

“No, I ran into a marathon on the road and met the cafe owner sister and Hua Mei sister, this is what they gave to me and you.” Sheng Jia explained, “Eat it while it’s cold, otherwise it’ll probably melt after we get back.”

“Don’t you have a car refrigerator?” Song Ji’an glanced at the refrigerator in the back row, “Did you put it here on purpose for me to see?”

“Yeah,” Sheng Jia nodded and admitted very bluntly, “Because it’s made very beautifully, I feel like you’ll feel better when you see it after work.”

Song Ji’an smiled.

Indeed.

Song Ji’an was never in a good mood every time she walked out of the funeral home.

She faced too many corpses and learned too many stories, either becoming numb or learning to control her emotions. Song Ji’an learned the latter, but that didn’t mean she would completely lose all empathy.

On the contrary, she had just learned to suppress all her emotions and then resolve them herself in the middle of the night.

But Sheng Jia was such a meticulous person. As long as she was willing, she could discover every clue on a person.

When she was paying attention to Song Ji’an all the time, it was difficult for Song Ji’an’s emotions to escape her eyes, not to mention that the two were too tacit. Sheng Jia found that she didn’t even need to carefully speculate her emotions like she would when facing strangers.

When the two met again, Song Ji’an was extremely resistant to this understanding and tacit understanding, but now, she was actually smiling because of it, feeling a bit of comfort.

“How did Sister Hua Mei and the cafe owner sister know that I was with you?” Song Ji’an belatedly asked.

Sheng Jia stepped on the accelerator and looked ahead, saying as a matter of course, “Of course it’s because they asked about you, and I told them I was going to find you right away.”

Song Ji’an was silent.

Sheng Jia had actually changed too much. At least when they first met, she would never have been able to mention Song Ji’an to outsiders so smoothly, and so naturally put the two names together like this.

It was as if Sheng Jia and Song Ji’an were born to be in the same league.

It was natural to the point of being excessive.

But she didn’t point this out, she just curled her lips and leaned back, “Where are you taking me now?”

“Are you hungry now?” Sheng Jia asked.

“I’m not hungry, and I can’t eat anything right now.” Song Ji’an looked down at the ice cream in her hand and added, “Except for this ice cream.”

“Then we’re going to a place that you should have seen a long time ago.” Sheng Jia said softly.

Song Ji’an responded and didn’t specifically ask where they were going. She turned her head to look at the traffic outside the window, looking a bit lost in thought.

Sheng Jia concentrated on driving, and a quiet atmosphere surrounded them, but no one felt embarrassed.

Before long, the two arrived at their destination.

Song Ji’an looked through the windshield at this marble-paved ground, and Sheng Jia’s voice came from beside her.

“Song Ji’an, this is your museum.”