Gong Minhua's expression was solemn, and he didn't waste any more time on Yuan Ziwen. She gave the editorial office thirty hours to find people who were more topical than CC and designed more eye-catching backgrounds.

After the meeting, colleagues rushed out. Yuan Ziwen caught up with Tang Yating, who was striding meteors, in a few arrow steps, and grabbed her arm. Tang Yating seemed to have expected that she would find herself, and her expression was calm, "What's wrong?" ”

"You and I go to the rooftop." The original seed temperature strongly suppressed the anger.

There is a small rooftop between the 21st and 22nd floors of the building. The afternoon sun was gentle and lazy, the concrete floor was slightly hot, but the wind was slightly cool.

Yuan Ziwen got straight to the point, "You didn't give me the cover at all that day. It was you who left the USB flash drive in the lounge because you were in a hurry, and you remembered it when you were about to get off work, and called me to send it to the art department. How can you talk in front of the president? ”

In fact, you don't need to ask to know that Tang Yating was worried that her mistakes would be spread to Gong Minhua's ears by others, so she took the first step to push out Yuan Ziwen to be a scapegoat.

Tang Yating rightly asked, "Who introduced you to this job in the first place?" If it weren't for me, you would still be working as a waiter in a bar, and you have to be a good person. ”

"What are you kidding?" Yuan Ziwen was completely enraged, "One thing is one thing." Tang Yating, we are college classmates and have known each other for six years. In the past, every time you pushed those big and small mistakes to me, I put up with it. But this time it's a big deal, you know I can't live without this job. ”

"I can't live without!" Tang Yating was also excited, "I stayed up for three years in "Evangel" before I sat in the position of deputy editor, do you know that every time I go home for the Chinese New Year, I am envied by everyone. In a place where you don't even know what a magazine is, becoming an editor is like a dream. ”

When she was in college, Tang Yating had to work part-time to earn tuition fees because of family difficulties. She has strong self-esteem and doesn't want her classmates in the dormitory to know, but she soon discovers that Yuan Ziwen is also working. The two hit it off, from the coffee shop to the street, from the waiter to the sales, they have suffered from the wind and the sun, and they have suffered everything.

In his sophomore year, Yuan Ziwen was eliminated before he entered the preliminary round of the "Yumetsuka Manga Newcomer Award", and he was very depressed. The two sat by the school lake and drank beer all night and talked a lot.

Tang Yating told Sù Yuan Ziwen that she had never worn a beautiful dress since she was a child, and she must get ahead and make a lot of money in the future.

She laughed again, "Besides, in Evangel, everyone is wise. You still don't understand the rules of survival here, do you? ”

Since Tang Yating was promoted to deputy editor, the distance between Tang Yating and the original seed temperature has suddenly shortened. She put on a leadership posture in front of her all the time, reflecting Tan Ruoli's pickiness and harshness on Yuan Ziwen.

The office is a huge pyramid, and countless people step on me—in the cold cubicle, delusions about friendship and warmth are ridiculously naïve.

"Why can you be so reasonable?" Raw Seed Wen shook his head.

"Can't you understand? No wonder you keep failing. Tang Yating raised her eyebrows and said mockingly: "Speaking of which, you've been drawing comics for six years, right?" I advise you to give up as soon as possible, the second yuan can't be eaten. ”

The original seed was warm for a while, and when she reacted, Tang Yating had disappeared lightly. Yuan Ziwen chased out of the rooftop, and as soon as he came down the stairs, he saw Tan Ruoli talking to Tang Yating fiercely.

"I asked Yuan Ziwen to help you carry the black cauldron, because you are my subordinate, but this matter is not over yet. Mocho that group

Tan Ruoli is Gong Minhua's niece.

Tang Yating nodded submissively, just like the domineering appearance on the rooftop just now.

The sound of high heels walked away, and Yuan Ziwen leaned on the handrail of the stairs and stood motionless for a long time.

Sunlight shines through the glass window on the opposite side, reflecting the snow white and brightness of the place. Looking down from this floor, the concrete jungle in the bustling city center is staggered, skyscraper fortresses rise from the ground, winding roads stretch on all sides, countless pedestrians, countless vehicles, like ants dense and crowded.

She is just the tiniest member of this.

*Miss Western Restaurant, 8 p.m.

"So what, you're going to lose your job?" Su Lishang raised her carefully groomed thin eyebrows and asked.

"It's not certain yet, but it's coming soon."

Yuan Ziwen stared blankly at the medium-rare top steak in front of him, and he didn't have any appetite at all. If there was a bed in front of her at this moment, she would not hesitate to fall down on it and sleep with her head covered.

Su Lishang looked at her and said angrily: "I have long warned you that the people around you are the most difficult to prevent. And how can you say that you are now stepping into the fashion circle with one foot, don't dress as well as the wet market aunt every day? Do people rely on clothes, just your nails, coal diggers? ”

Because she has been drawing comics for many years, her nails are always soaked in ink that can't be washed, as if she has penetrated the texture of her skin. For a manga artist, paper, pen, and ink are part of their body, just like a swordsman's sword and a samurai's sword.

"I run in and out of the office every day, I have to move and lift, and I want to wear slippers and pajamas."

Under the leadership of Gong Minhua, in "Evangel", women have always been used as men, men as animals, and the original seed temperature is a 24-hour perpetual motion machine. Sometimes in the middle of the night, halfway through drawing comics, I suddenly received a call from Tang Yating, asking her to go to the airport to pick up the model instead of herself.

Su Lishang sighed coquettishly, "If I were you, I would leave Bai Chen immediately, so that at least I could change to an easier job and not have to work so hard every day." ”

Speaking of Bai Chen, Yuan Ziwen's expression instantly became unnatural.

This subtle expression naturally couldn't escape Su Lisheng's eyes, she said: "You and Bai Chen have been dating for four years, and at the beginning he was the small owner of the coffee shop, and the conditions were quite acceptable. But now he has no job, no house, and a lot of debt, and your monthly salary is not enough to help him pay off the interest. This is a bottomless pit, and if it continues like this, sooner or later it will starve to death on the streets. ”

I haven't paid the rent for a month, and the landlady calls every day to urge me to pay it these days. She wasn't an easy talker, and her attitude became more and more scathing. With a week to go until the next paycheck, it was hard to predict if she would be able to survive in Evangel for so long.

Yuan Ziwen wanted to defend Bai Chen, but after thinking for a long time, he couldn't find a good word about him. He could only say vaguely: "He has also started looking for a job recently." ”

Su Lishang smiled softly, this smile made the original seed warm like pins and needles.

"Well, there's a banquet for you to come with me on the weekend, and I'll introduce you to a few friends."

Su Lishang has said similar things many times, but Yuan Ziwen has not been invited once. She really didn't have the time and no interest.

Seeing that she was absent-minded, Su Lishang couldn't help frowning, "Look at what you've become?" How to say that when you were in junior high school, you were also a class flower. ”

She didn't mention it, and Yuan Ziwen didn't even remember it—the outstanding, radiant self.

Yuan Ziwen raised his head and looked at the woman in front of him. The eyes are clear, the lips are thin, the bridge of the nose is high, and he is still so aggressive with facial features, such a bone-eroding face, so beautiful that he is arrogant and domineering, and there is no one around.

"Aren't you still thinking about your home?" Su Lishang said suddenly.

"How...... Possible? ”

The sudden questioning caught Yuan Ziwen off guard, only to feel that his heart suddenly beat faster, and the roots of his ears were hot.

It's a taboo name.

"If it weren't for him back then, you wouldn't have come to this point, this man is really harmful." Su Lishang's bad evaluation of Anjialu is no less than Bai Chen's, in short, she can't look down on all the men she likes with Yuan Ziwen.

"Don't mention the past." Yuan Ziwen barely managed to squeeze out a smile.

Su Lishang was excited and didn't say anything anymore.

After being silent for a long time, she took out an envelope from her bag and pushed it in front of Yuan Ziwen, "Pay the rent first." ”

Yuan Ziwen immediately refused, "No, I can't ask for your money." ”

"What is for you, and you have to pay it back."

"That's not going to work either."

Between the two pushing each other, Yuan Ziwen accidentally touched the coffee cup on the table. I only heard a crisp sound, which was particularly harsh in the quiet western restaurant, attracting the attention of everyone around.

Yuan Ziwen was stunned for a moment, "...... I'm sorry. ”

Su Lishang still maintained the posture of pushing out the envelope, she looked at Yuan Ziwen motionlessly, and sneered sarcastically, "What are you doing here, do you think my money is dirty?" ”

Yuan Seed was anxious, "I definitely didn't mean that. ”

At this time, a well-trained waiter came over and quickly cleaned up the coffee stains and debris on the floor.

"This coffee mug is on my account." Su Lishang said naturally.

Yuan Ziwen can't rush to pay with her, Miss is one of the most upscale Western restaurants in the city.

After the waiter left, Su Lishang slowly poured herself a new cup of coffee. The fragrance rose up, and her delicate face looked a little unreal in the hazy heat.

She said, "Seed Wen, when will you be realistic?" You've been drawing comics for six years, and you ask yourself, how talented are you in this area? In the past six years, you have tried to participate in competitions, serialize magazines, submit articles on websites, and post on Weibo, but you have never had any readers and popularity, and you can't even pay the utility bills for the little money you get. ”

"You are busy at work during the day, staying up all night to draw comics, and Bai Chen reached out to ask you for money, which almost broke you down. We are already twenty-five years old, and there are not many years of a woman's youth, do you want to be thirty years old and still have nothing? It's a utilitarian society, no one cares how much you give, everyone only cares about the result. ”

Yuan Ziwen twitched the corners of his mouth, and just as he was about to say something, Su Lisheng's mobile phone rang.

She picked up the phone, instantly curled the corners of her mouth, and talked and laughed in a pinched tone.

"I still have something to go first, what do you want to eat, just keep my account."

Looking at each other, Su Lishang found that Yuan Ziwen's eyes were amazingly bright.

She said, "Li Shang, do you remember your dream? ”

Su Lishang was stunned for a moment, but soon she laughed self-deprecatingly, "I wish I had always been as sober as I am now, if it wasn't for the fact that I was too angry before, I could have been with a man with better conditions, and I didn't have to waste so much time." ”

She sorted out her clothes and stood up, and suddenly remembered something, "By the way, Tang Yating called me yesterday and said that I must come out to get together when I have time, and I haven't been in touch for so long." ”

When Su Lishang was still a group performer in the crew, I don't know how many sneers from Tang Yating I have heard, what "you can't be a heroine if you are beautiful, it depends on whether you have that fate", "I ran dozens of crews in a year and didn't even have a line". Now Su Lishang is not what it used to be, and Tang Yating's attitude towards her has also undergone a earth-shaking reversal - enthusiasm is like a spring breeze, closer than sisters.

Although Yuan Ziwen did not explicitly say that Tang Yating framed him, he was as smart as Su Lisheng, and he had already guessed it.

"You don't want to be suppressed by people like Tang Yating all the time, right? You must understand that dreams are good, but they can't let you take a hot bath. ”

It wasn't until Su Lishang had been away for a long time that Yuan Ziwen poked his head out and looked out the window.

A black Porsche was parked on the side of the brightly lit street, and a middle-aged man with a little fortune got out of the car and intimately took Su Lishang into his arms. Yuan Ziwen remembered that the man was twenty years older than them.

She remembered that when she was in junior high school, Su Lishang was the proudest girl in the school. The boys who pursued her could line up from the classroom door to the school gate, and they all racked their brains for Bo Hongyan to smile, but she was not interested in any of them.

Su Lisheng's dream is to be an actress, but after she smashed the director who wanted to have unspoken rules for herself into the hospital with a vase, her acting dream basically ended. Later, she went to work as a model, and the CC of the same firm relied on her father's power to constantly exert pressure and forced her agent to hide Su Lishang. During that time, she lived in a modest seven-square-meter apartment, without a water heater, and only had enough money to eat instant noodles.

She once said to Yuan Ziwen, "You know what? My biggest wish at that time was not to shoot the cover of Evangel or walk the runway, but to take a warm shower. ”

Proud, like Su Lishang, has also learned to compromise with reality.

Yuan Ziwen took out his mobile phone, only to find that there was a missed call and a few WeChat messages.

The magazine she currently contributes to serialize will select the manga rankings every week based on readers' votes, and the bottom three comics may face the fate of being cut in half. Yuan Ziwen once said to herself that this was her last chance.

And now, it's over.