CEO, I'm Not The Girl You Once Knew (Hiatus)

Two

He tangled her fingers with his, looking straight into her eyes as he thrusted deep inside her, letting out a soft groan.

"Come on, Wei," he rasped. "Come with me."

She moaned, letting her hips follow the slight pressure of his hand as she wrapped her legs around him.

She could feel herself tightening, which meant that she was close. Lin Zhicheng could feel it too, and he gave her a quick kiss as he increased his pace.

"That's it," he said, eyes steady on hers. "Come with—"

Shi Xiao Xi lurched out of the bed, barely managing to reach the bathroom and kneeling in front of the toilet before throwing up.

For a moment, she leaned her head against the wall, her heart racing with her thoughts as she tried to make sense of what she had just remembered. But what's crazy is that it wasn't her memory that she recalled, it was...Wei's. Ai Wei, the woman who just died.

And why do I have the memories of a dead woman inside my head? she thought in consternation.

Shi Xiao Xi reached out and grabbed the edge of the sink to pull herself up, grimacing when she caught a glimpse of her reflection on the mirror.

She looked like death.

Dyed platinum blonde hair looking like it hadn't been washed for months, emaciated skin, cracked lips, and sunken eyes. The hospital gown hung off her, looking three sizes too big, and the stitches visible below her collarbones was just the cherry on top.

Hu Zitao probably thought he made a great choice to swap to another girl when he saw me, she thought, and looked away.

To avoid thinking more unlovely thoughts about her cheating ex-groom, Shi Xiao Xi decided to think about Lin Zhicheng instead.

It wasn't really the memory of Ai Wei having sex with him that made her vomit—Shi Xiao Xi wasn't a virgin, and Lin Zhicheng looked too good naked, in her opinion. But recalling Ai Wei's memories isn't like watching a favorite TV show, where she just looked on as the characters acted out their scenes. It felt like she was a participant, not an obsever, and remembering Lin Zhicheng in such an intimate manner when the closest Shi Xiao Xi had ever seen him was on the cover of the latest magazine made her a bit upset, to put it mildly.

She had only began to recover when the door to her room opened, and her mother came in.

Her mother put a hand on her mouth when she saw her, then quickly rushed to her side. Her mother was still wearing her waitress uniform, a plain blue muslin with a white Peter Pan collar. "Amitabha, you're awake!"

She smiled, her cheeks hurting from the effort. "Hi Mom."

"Hey yourself, darling." She slowly sat on the stool Hu Zitao had been sitting on earlier, clasping Shi Xiao Xi's left hand between hers. "How're you feeling? Does it hurt anywhere? What did the doctor say? Do you want some muffins?"

Shi Xiao Xi laughed, but abruptly stopped when her chest hurt. "I'm fine, but it's a bit painful when I move, and the doctor said I'll need a few more tests before I can go. A definite yes to the muffins."

"Zhenzhen cooked you these," her mother said, hefting the small box on the bed. "So remember to thank her when you see her."

"Zhenzhen did?" She flipped open the cover, immediately sighing at the sight of a dozen banana muffins waiting for her. "I swear, she knows my own soul better than I do."

Her mother raised an eyebrow. "How do you think she knew to send these muffins to you today?"

Shi Xiao Xi and her mother chatted a bit more, and then she addressed the elephant in the room. "Did you really try to commit suicide because Hu Zitao cheated on you?"

Shi Xiao Xi nearly choked on the muffin she was slowly chewing. "No!"

"Good," her mother said simply. "That's what people were saying, so I thought I'd ask you about it."

"That's what people are saying?" Shi Xiao Xi couldn't believe it. "That I tried to commit suicide because I was so heartbroken over Zitao? Are they nuts?"

"Language, Shi Xiao Xi."

"Because that's a big fat lie!" She was so incensed that she didn't even notice her mother's disapproving frown, which on any other circumstances would have quickly snapped her mouth shut. "Why would I kill myself over that bastard? He cheated on me. With our maid-of-honor!"

Hu Zitao being unfaithful to her when they had been dating for eight years was insult enough. To actually cheat on her during their wedding day was just adding insult to injury. But to cheat with her maid-of-honor...her bestfriend for almost four years in the university, who held her hair up after she got drunk from the parties they had attended together and consoled her when she and Hu Zitao had another one of their fights...there was simply no getting over that.

"Darling, don't do that to yourself," her mother said, her expression softening. She brushed away a stray tear trailing down on her cheek, before her hands cupped her face and made her meet her mother's eyes.

"There's nothing you could have done to prevent any of that, and what happened was simply the result of their selfishness. Now, you know the heavens above sends us two types of people to meet in our lives. Zitao and Qingqing were lessons, honey bee, in the way that Zhenzhen and I are blessings. Don't waste your time thinking about them, for they'll soon get their due. Just think about getting out of this hospital first."

"And what kind of lesson will I learn from the two of them?" Shi Xiao Xi asked wryly, wiping her nose on the tissue her mother had handed her. "That I should not trust anyone?"

"That you should pick your friends and lovers carefully next time," she responded, and took a bite out of a muffin. "Like Zhenzhen. Bless her heart, these muffins are awfully good."

"I did make a great choice with Zhenzhen," she agreed.

Her mother left soon afterwards, telling Shi Xiao Xi about the tons of laundry waiting for her at home, and promising to come back tomorrow after her shift at the restaurant.

"The doctor told you to rest, anyhow," she had said, after kissing her daughter goodbye on her forehead. "I'm sure I'm not helping, babbling like a brook."

Shi Xiao Xi fell asleep again, and woke up when the doctor came in to gave her a routine check-up. Then the nurse helped her bathe, and had her first full meal since she woke up, which she soon threw up into the toilet.

Her mother had brought her phone back when she had visited her earlier, so Shi Xiao Xi turned it on, finally online after two years of being inactive in social media. There was the usual well-wishers after her accident, the last of them posted just barely two months afterwards. Then unable to help herself, Shi Xiao Xi clicked on Hu Zitao's profile, and regretted it instantly.

Photos of him with Mu Qingqing looking happy together seared her eyes, and even some of Shi Xiao Xi's friends had liked the posts, the same friends who were once guests to her wedding. It looked like Hu Zitao and Mu Qingqing had done everything that they as a couple didn't do, but had always talked about—traveling abroad, doing extreme sports, hanging a lock in Namsan tower, and even getting a cute puppy, which was the thing Shi Xiao Xi wanted to do the most. Their puppy was named Nao Nao.

Gross, she thought, five seconds before she started tearing up again.

It didn't help that Nao Nao was a favorite dog breed of hers, a Welsh Corgi.

Shi Xiao Xi turned off her phone and switched on the television instead, trying to evade her fate of being a weepy Willa. To her surprise, it was about Lin Zhicheng again. Although it was impossible not to think about him with Ai Wei's memories constantly filling up her mind, she really had no interest in the bachelor billionaire that the whole world seemed to pay attention to. He wasn't her type.

Lin Zhicheng and Ai Wei both came from the other end of the spectrum where Shi Xiao Xi was born in, and he was too highfalutin and spoiled for her tastes.

She was about to switch the channel on the remote, but something the announcer had said caught her attention.

It was two words.

'Video' and 'scandal'.