Chapter 28

It was rare for Yu Qinghuai to speak so earnestly. Jiang Yuchi paused for a moment before sitting down on the small sofa beside him. Sitting in such close proximity, she caught the rich scent of coffee clinging to him and suddenly realized what had felt missing about him all evening. In her memory, when Yu Qinghuai waited for her at the foot of the mountain, he would always have a half-smoked cigarette between his fingers; even now, when he was visibly restless, he should have been inseparable from his smokes. His heaviest smoking period had been six years ago, when Yujie died in a sudden plane crash. The cigarette butts he left piled up like a small mountain outside Jiang Yuchi’s hospital room during that single night. Later, he had quit cold turkey for the sake of the child in her womb. During that time, to suppress his cravings while maintaining the energy to take over the massive Yu Group, he had practically lived on espresso candies—not sucking on them, but crunching them between his teeth until they made a rhythmic, cracking sound.