It started to rain in the early hours of the morning.

The rainy season in Shanghai gets longer and longer.

And this night, she didn't sleep at all.

Guan Weizhen listened to the sound of rain all night.

The rain fell on the window, on the porch, and in the yard, like a small stitch, making her suddenly infinitely nostalgic for all that she had been.

She remembered the garden in the middle of summer when she was a child, with the rich fragrance of white magnolias, and her mother tied it in her wardrobe with white silk threads; She remembered that on the way to middle school, the Suzhou Creek bed at the end of the Bund was filled with a sweet and salty smell that stuck to the white shirt and could never be washed off; She remembered that she hid in her father's Shanghai car and refused to take the college entrance examination until the morning when someone took her out; She remembered looking through the old dormitory of the university, and the mottled green ivy crawled all the windows; She remembered the pair of slender and powerful hands that had slammed around her waist on the Old Summer Palace Road that day and pulled her back from the traffic.

It had been a long time since she had remembered so many things, such tedious details.

She still remembers what Mu Pengfei looked like at that time.

He said, "I marry you, I don't care whose child it is, I will be the father of your child." ”

This sentence was once unforgettable.

This sentence is also a big lie.

Guan Weizhen finally understands that time is ruthless, and it will eventually turn you into another person. A sentimental, stumbling man.

And she used to despise such people the most.

She looked at the family photo on the bedroom wall, Mu Luyu was wearing a Boston-style jumper, standing behind Mu Pengfei with a cautious expression. In contrast, Mu Luyuan, who was sitting on his father's body, looked free and easy, and his little hand was playfully resting on his father's shoulder. And herself, like an elegant and docile little woman, snuggled up to her husband slightly.

When Mu Luyuan had just graduated from elementary school, he invited a photographer to his home to take pictures.

Such a family bathed in the autumn morning light, gathered in their luxurious and comfortable living room, with shining clothes and jade-like faces, as if the bright light and shadow in the photo also condensed the particles called superiority, everywhere.

The family photos hanging on the wall are all a show off of honor. If there have been happy moments, the delicate thoughts are only hidden outside the photos, and the hidden places of people's hearts do not need to be spread out to be admired.

In fact, there have been many times when Guan Weizhen has wanted to take down this photo, as well as those in the living room, in the office corridor, and even her grandparents and parents.

Those images, old or old, or old things, have become phantoms in this house.

A pair of their eyes looked down at the real one by one, and they all seemed to be unfathomable, faintly smiling, terrifying and terrifying.

If the glory of the family can only be proved by these photos, then her faint and warm yearning for home has become an obscure secret, which makes her ashamed to speak and unable to express it.

So, she still didn't have the courage to take it off. And more often than not, she is also undeniably part of this sense of superiority, and she also feels a kind of great emptiness, the pleasure of showing off.

What a ridicule this is?

Towards dawn, she pulled out the folders from the bedside, which contained pages of photocopied diaries.

A few days ago, when someone gave her this thing along with the stack of photos, there was a silent expression on her face.

That person is the most famous private detective in Shanghai after the legal person of the retail sector subsidiary she runs died in a car accident overnight, and she paid a lot of money to hire the most famous private detective in Shanghai.

In fact, she hadn't finished reading the diaries, but she didn't have the strength to read them anymore.

Over the years, she has gradually come to believe in such a thing as fate, some things you can't control, some things you can't imagine.

The things she wanted to know but couldn't perceive over the years were written in it word by word, entangled with her memories and falling apart.

She wasn't supposed to snoop on other people's privacy, so as punishment, her life seemed to end in these few nights.

Last night, even if Mu Pengfei didn't come back, didn't use his son as a bargaining chip, and didn't say something like that, I'm afraid it would be useless.

Over the years, they have come step by step, and they can't be turned over or bypassed.

How much hope there was, how many regrets there will be.

Just like the new hotels and restaurants of the world's luxury brands on the Bund, they opened in the century-old western-style building as a new beginning.

For this beginning, the once vicissitudes and glitz of the renovated building came to an end at the same time.

The body remains, and the soul is destroyed. This is the impermanence, urgency, sadness, and irreparability of the world.

The incident between her and Mu Pengfei is the ending of this kind of change. Now that it's over, there's no point in being sad and painful, it's a new beginning.

When the alarm clock rang at 7 o'clock, she didn't plan to be late or rest, she didn't close her eyes all night, she didn't tighten her eyes, took 3 deep breaths, and still got up and walked into the bathroom.

It was still a new day, and she woke herself up.

The morning light shone in through the window, Guan Weizhen looked at the woman in the mirror, her high forehead was silently hiding a few shallow wrinkles, they had not yet begun to deepen, but there was not much time left.

The eternal passing of youth is cruel and clear, because it starts from the body, and there is no doubt about it. Like love is forever, every inch of your perception can't fool you.

The warm water that washed her face took away the tears that cooled on her face, and in those extraordinarily beautiful eyes, a faint blue light flashed at this moment, burning and not extinguishing.

Men are afraid that there will be such a light in women's eyes, flickering and dark, and the cold is unpredictable.

Mu Luyuan's eyes are also this dark blue background color, and they are black and white, innocent, just like she was back then.

Where do the children of wealthy families understand that people's hearts are dangerous?

But there are only eyes, and his other silhouettes are like his father's, tall and handsome, and even his personality has many secrets, like a terrible look.

She remembers that when he was born, he was a beautiful baby who was amazed by the doctors and nurses; When he arrives at kindergarten, he is an angel boy who attracts love in every move; And in elementary and middle school, he is a young man who all girls have a crush or a clear love.

Recently, Guan Weizhen went to school to pick him up, and when she saw him coming from the crowd, she was also in a trance for a while, he is now so tall, he looks like a shining adult, and even reminds her of what she looked like when she first saw Mu Pengfei.

It's a pity that no matter how beautiful he was born, Mu Pengfei never really cared about it, he didn't care about him at all.

He did not hesitate to let him enter the mixed entertainment industry, and he never noticed it carefully, he seemed to be a replica of himself.

It turned out that she thought that Mu Pengfei was just negligent and had no time to care about these subtle things. Now that she read those diaries and heard what he said in person, she realized that he was not negligent. How could he be a negligent man? Rather, loyal ministers and filial sons are nothing more than love.

Oh, loyal ministers and filial sons, love it.

He had never loved her, so naturally he wouldn't really love their children.

Whether he is biological or not. He didn't care at all, and even didn't hesitate to put them on both sides of the chess game and let them hurt each other.

She finally died of heart, and her heart died before she saw through the relationship between them.

People say that from near to far west and east, from relatives to distant husbands and wives. The words of the ancients are indeed not deceitful.

She took her eyes off the mirror, the sadness was over, and she only gave herself this night. She is not such a weak and helpless woman, she will be born again. There is nothing to remember now.

After all the activities and dresses that should have been done in the morning, she put on a little Chanel black perfume in the palm of her hand, then put on her stockings, straightened her hair, and left the bedroom, as she had done every day.

What does the years ultimately leave to a woman? When they have loved, hated, lost, and chased hard, what is left in their hearts?

When I went downstairs, I forgot about it.

She's too busy to get into it. She dialed her phone and told him to hand over the folders to the private bank safe deposit box commissioner.

The first floor was as cold as usual, and Aunt Liang handed her the coffee she had made, and then told her that Lu Yuan had left and gone to cram school; Lu Yu called and said that he would fly at night and come back when he landed.

She drank her coffee and turned her head to look out the window, the quiet greenery of the summer rain was imprinted on her face, and no one could see that she had cried.

After breakfast, she went to the company in the driver's car.

Guan Weizhen's jewelry company is an old brand that has been famous in Shanghai for more than half a century, Fuling Jewelry. Although it is now part of the Caesars Group, it still holds a significant number of shares, and Kwan Weizhen is also a major director of Caesars.

In fact, when it comes to the Guan family, the Shanghai celebrity circle is no stranger, and the first batch of Suzhou businessmen who went to the concession to do business in the 20s were about Weizhen's grandfather. In the past 100 years, the family business has gone through several changes of the times, and finally returned to Shanghai. Today, it still stands on the most prosperous boundary of the Bund and continues to the current international market.

After she took over the family business, she single-handedly created the Fulin department store chain. Focusing on luxury goods, domestic boutique sales chain and comfortable and high-quality shopping experience, the stores are located in first-class CBD and high-end residential business districts in first- and second-tier cities. It was only when the United States was listed last year that the name of Caesar was put on the list, and it was classified as inferior.

In fact, if you talk about who belongs to whom, this is a past that everyone in this circle knows. 20 years ago, when Mu Pengfei first came to Shanghai, he was still a stunned young man who had just graduated from university, and the most in full swing of reform and opening up was when Fulin's prestige helped him pry open the opportunity in the real estate industry, get a piece of value-added treasure land that was planned and developed first, and injected capital and guaranteed loans, so that he had the later Caesar Real Estate.

But these old accounts are no longer mentioned by anyone now.

Today's Caesar is no longer what it used to be, things have changed, and the world has turned upside down.

Guan Weizhen sat in the car, the scenery outside the window flashed one by one, and the past dissipated one by one.

Her office is located in an old villa on Xingguo Road, near the Bund, where she lived as a child, and is now a sky-high area in Puxi. However, it is only a few roads away from the Fuling custom jewelry flagship store on Huaihai Middle Road.

At night, before leaving the company, she could clearly see the blurry lights of the Caesar's headquarters building in the postmodern background of Pudong.

When there was no fog, she could almost find the window of Mu Pengfei's office. The light, like the temperature, had ironed in her vision in front of the window.

She didn't keep a Maksutov telescope indoors, like Mu Luyuan. Just by gut feeling.

If this city wants to survive with dignity for a long time, I am afraid that it is not enough to have a keen intuition, but also to have no emotions and no bonds.

She sat alone for a while in the empty and modern office of the old villa, which had all the internal structures connected, and then picked up the internal telephone and said to the secretary Fanny:

"Make an appointment with Tony King in London and ask him if he has time to visit Shanghai next week, and I'll wait until he meets."

"I will make an appointment with Professor Fu of Beijing University of Media and Communication, and ask her to give me a comprehensive information about Xingle Entertainment, which is in the industry."

"Also, pay attention to the jet lag, call Ms. Tong in New York, and ask her to call me back at her convenience."