Closer To Li Xiuying

Hotpot Restaurant

Li Xiuying sat at the table in the private room that Ren Shirong insisted upon. Little 4th sat on her left and Ren Shirong was on her right.

Also at the round table were Ren Longwei, Ren Daiyu, Xǔ Junjie and Sima Hwei-ru.

Li Xiuying and Little 4th were looking through the menu together.

Sima Hwei-ru: "Dr. Li, I'm sorry again for taking you by surprise today. I've wanted to meet you and apologize for what happened with your credit cards. So I convinced Uncle Ren to set up a meeting."

Li Xiuying nodded but didn't look up from her menu.

Sima Hwei-ru continued on: "I realize you were told that your credit card would be sent via the post but I wanted to personally deliver it to you."

She took two envelopes out of her bag and passed it over to Li Xiuying.

Li Xiuying finally looked up. She took the envelopes from Sima Hwei-ru outstretched hand.

She slowly opened the envelope and unfolded the letter it contained. Li Xiuying looked at the credit card with a picture of a pair of Dr. Marten's on it. She stroked her name with the tips of her fingers.

Sima Hwei-ru:"The other envelope contains a letter with your pin number on it."

Li Xiuying smiled at Sima Hwei-ru: "Thank you."

Sima Hwei-ru was momentarily stunned by Li Xiuying's smile. Li Xiuying had been expressionless since she stepped foot in the restaurant.

Little 4th was torn as he looked at Li Xiuying's smiling face. He loved seeing his big sister YingYing smiling but he didn't like her smiling at someone else.

Sima Hwei-ru: "It was uncle Ren that helped with the designs." Ren Shirong puffed out his chest with pride hoping to be acknowledged by Li Xiuying.

However Li Xiuying had already returned to being expressionless as she looked back down at the menu.

Xǔ Junjie was annoyed.

Damn this Sima Hwei-ru! How could she beat me to the punch line!!!

Xǔ Junjie cleared his throat: "I also have both your credit cards with me here. Along with your pin numbers."

He slid the envelopes over to Li Xiuying.

Li Xiuying took the envelopes and opened them. One credit card was purple with a scalpel on it, whilst the other credit card was gold with a black hoody on it.

Li Xiuying smiled at Xǔ Junjie: "Thank you."

Xǔ Junjie was unhappy.

When she smiled at Hwei-ru it was bigger!

It was all clearly Xǔ Junjie's imagination but his competitive spirit had blinded him.

There was someone even more unhappy than Xǔ Junjie; Little 4th looked like he was sucking on a sour lemon.

She's Mine! I'll have to keep big sister away from this Xǔ Junjie.

Ren Shirong: "Let's order one of each type of hot pot."

Li Xiuying stopped looking at the menu, she was more than happy to try as many dishes as possible.

Ren Shirong called over the waitress that was waiting outside the open door and ordered. The waitress wrote down the order and closed the door behind her as she left.

Ren Daiyu took this opportunity to talk to Li Xiuying: "Dr. Li I saw an article related to you this morning. Is it true that your cousin is now marrying your ex-fiancé?"

Li Xiuying nodded.

Ren Shirong looked at his niece in surprise: "What?! What's going on? How could you not tell me?!"

Ren Shirong wasn't the only one who was surprised; everyone took out their phones and started searching for the article. Li Xiuying didn't appear in the news unless it was related to medicine, so this was the first time that anyone was able to see a personal article about her.

Ren Shirong found the article on his phone.

There was a large picture of the girl he had previously met, Li Yu Yan and Chen Wei was next to her. Chen Wei's arm was around Li Yu Yan's waist as they posed in front of a huge Christmas tree in the city square. The picture was clearly taken in the Christmas of 2007.

The reason why the year was so identifiable was because of the colour of the baubles on the Christmas tree. In 2007 there was a problem with the Baubles delivery order. In place of the usual red baubles that were used every year, there were purple baubles. The mayor didn't elaborate on what had happened but the statement he released mentioned something about confusion with the inventories and that it was too late to get the baubles replaced.

Ren Shirong muttered as he read: "Dr. Li Xiuying would like to take this opportunity to announce the engagement of her cousin Li Yu Yan and Chen Wei. Dr. Li could no longer stand in the way of a couple that has clearly been in love for several years. However, due to the engagement between herself and Chen Wei, Li Yu Yan and Chen Wei were forced to keep their relationship a secret and endure their unhappiness. She hopes that Li Yu Yan and Chen Wei will now be able to publicly express their love without any guilt, shame or fear of judgement."

They all looked up from their phones and stared wide-eyed at Li Xiuying.

This article was clearly just stating that Li Yu Yan and Li Xiuying's then fiancé were having an affair for years without care for Li Xiuying and were constantly out in public flaunting their love without any guilt or shame.

Li Xiuying just sipped her water.

Ren Daiyu's face was filled with disgust and indignation: "Dr. Li I can't believe that they would treat you in such a way! Why didn't your family do anything? What about your ex-fiancés family?! They're a bunch of animals! No, no they're worse than animals at least animals have loyalty! If I were you I would do so much worse to them, so bad that I can't even think of it now because the form of torture hasn't even been invented!!!"

Ren Daiyu was particularly passionate because she had been cheated on by her ex-boyfriend. What was worse was that he was cheating on her with her best friend. She not only lost the person she was deeply in love with, she had lost her best-friend and confidant. If that wasn't enough Ren Daiyu's circle of close girlfriends also knew what was going on and didn't tell her. She felt like a complete fool as she was the last to know.

After the relationship and all those friendships went up in flames she had difficulty making new friends. She had acquaintances and people she could socialize with but no real friends. No one she could share secrets with, who she could let her guard down around.

It has been a lonely year.

Ren Daiyu hadn't even entertained the idea of a relationship for the last year. After reading the article about Li Xiuying, she couldn't even imagine what Li Xiuying must have felt when she witnessed her own flesh and blood betray her.

Li Xiuying saw herself in Ren Daiyu. She saw the same hurt she had once felt. She took out her phone and stretched it towards Ren Daiyu.

Ren Daiyu paused her rant and looked at the phone in front of her.

Ren Daiyu was confused: "Erm Dr. Li what do you want me to do with this?"

Li Xiuying: "Number."

Ren Daiyu put in her name and number and gave the phone back to Li Xiuying.

Her own phone started vibrating, she looked at the screen it was a text message from an unknown number. She opened the message and saw "Xiuying".

Ren Daiyu was overwhelmed with joy.

This is first time since everything happened that she felt like she could try to begin to trust someone again. After all she couldn't possibly have anything Li Xiuying would want. Li Xiuying had her own money, connections and reputation.

Ren Daiyu and Li Xiuying also had one major thing in common; they had unfortunately met with betrayal at the hands of their nearest and dearest.

Li Xiuying had a small smile on her face.

She was proud of herself for reaching out to someone. In her past life she never really had any friends just business partners, colleagues and patients.

Xǔ Junjie and Sima Hwei-ru were staring daggers at Ren Daiyu.

They both had the same thought "How can I get closer to Li Xiuying!"