Chapter 59 I'm just afraid

Xia Zhiyu has been extremely busy these past two days. She has to proofread new contracts and her old partners have made new demands. Fortunately, Youmu's filming schedule has been postponed for two weeks due to the recent weather problems in Paris. Otherwise, Xia Zhiyu would really be too busy to sleep.

After finishing her work, Xia Zhiyu realized that she had intentionally or unintentionally delayed having dinner alone with Jiang Zhiyan for several days.

Actually, Xia Zhiyu and Jiang Zhiyan had quite a lot of contact during this period due to work. He even invited all the employees in their studio who were involved in this project to a meal. However, most of their conversations revolved around matters related to the project. Although the two had time to spend alone, Xia Zhiyu always found various excuses to avoid it.

The meal was inevitable, but Xia Zhiyu was still a little unhappy. She couldn't tell if it was because of the loneliness that lingered around Jiang Zhiyan during their first two meetings, or because the two of them had never met once in the four years they had both lived in Beicheng.

Xia Zhiyu never actively avoided Jiang Zhiyan, so it was Jiang Zhiyan who was actively avoiding her.

But if he'd been avoiding her for four years, why didn't he continue to avoid her? Why did he suddenly appear before her with such a forlorn demeanor, refusing to mention anything about the past?

Can a broken mirror automatically return to its original state after four years?

Moreover, ever since they walked the dog together and came home, Xia Zhiyu has slowly come to her senses. Jiang Zhiyan may have really had a rough few years, but is the way he acts really who he is?

Including the white shirt and light-colored suit he wore that day, and the short hair that fell over his forehead, everything now seems like evidence of Jiang Zhiyan's feigned pitifulness.

A woman who has been burned in love once will never step into the same river again.

Besides, does a billionaire like him need her sympathy?

How could she have been so foolish? She didn't see through this blatant conspiracy at all. Didn't she know what kind of person Jiang Zhiyan was? How could she have been deceived again?

Xia Zhiyu felt deeply frustrated by this.

Jiang Zhiyan asked her around 7 a.m. this morning if she could have lunch together. Xia Zhiyu saw the message as soon as she got up, but she didn't want to reply because she thought of Jiang Zhiyan's pitiful act. She didn't reply until it was almost lunchtime and slowly replied that she had already made plans with someone else for lunch and that they could have lunch together another time.

Jiang Zhiyan replied instantly with a kitten making a heart shape with its hands, saying it's easy to pinch. His next question was whether she was free that evening and if they could have dinner together.

Xia Zhiyu stared at the cat emoji on the screen—a cat with long fur and round eyes that looked like Xia Xiaojiang's twin brother—and felt inexplicably annoyed.

The phone screen slammed face down onto the table with a loud thud.

On the other end, Jiang Zhiyan watched as the words "The other party is typing..." disappeared from the input box, but no message popped up in the dialog box.

The young man's relaxed expression gradually turned serious.

In the newly opened French restaurant downstairs from the office building, Fang Xinle sat down opposite Xia Zhiyu with two cups of coffee.

"You're just a little annoyed that Jiang Zhiyan suddenly started playing the victim in front of you after four years, and you feel like you've been fooled?"

Xia Zhiyu unconsciously bit her straw and casually checked off a few of the restaurant's signature dishes on the menu. "I think I'll have a few. I'm not feeling well."

"Then just tell him directly. Point your finger at him and ask him why he's playing the victim. It's not like it's something you can't say. Can't you see that Jiang Zhiyan's intentions are to invite you to dinner and walk your dog with you?"

Of course she could understand it. How could she not understand it? She's not a seventeen or eighteen-year-old anymore. Although she hasn't been in a relationship in the past few years, Xia Zhiyu has dated a few men and is no stranger to the courtship signals men give off.

From his gentle and polite greetings to her when they first met four years later, to successfully infiltrating her core work circle, countless connections suddenly arose between the two of them in just ten days.

The efficiency is astonishing.

Fang Xinle understood her dilemma. "I think you can look at it from a different angle. If Jiang Zhiyan didn't try to gain your sympathy by playing the victim, would you still have any interaction with him?"

Xia Zhiyu suddenly tightened her grip on the paper cup, the cool moisture clinging to her fingertips, giving off a damp and chilly feeling.

After finishing the last bit of work, Xia Zhiyu finally had some free time in the afternoon. She checked her schedule and found that there were no boring dinners or activities planned for the evening. So, she decided to contact her golf coach on a whim. She was lucky enough to find that the coach didn't have any classes after 4 p.m. and was free to play golf with her.

Golf is the only sport she has persisted in over the past few years. When the sun shines on the green grass, it seems as if the gloom in the world is instantly dispelled. Golf does not require you to pay attention to your opponents; you only need to immerse yourself in this competition with yourself. Xia Zhiyu enjoys this process very much.

Having not played golf for a long time, Xia Zhiyu made a point of arriving more than half an hour early to practice her chipping and putting. The coach was very punctual; just after four o'clock, the golf course staff came to inform her that she could enter the course.

Before entering the venue, a message popped up on Xia Zhiyu's phone screen. Jiang Zhiyan asked her again if she was free that evening, as if he hadn't noticed her deliberate neglect at noon.

Xia Zhiyu stared at Jiang Zhiyan's chat box on her phone screen for a while before typing a line of text.

A specific scene and specific people triggered certain memories of Jiang Zhiyan in Xia Zhiyu's mind. It was Jiang Zhiyan who brought her to play golf for the first time.

During that time, she was somewhat anxious about her graduation thesis, and Jiang Zhiyan's main purpose was to take her out to relax.

The weather was great that day. Since he was going to exercise, Jiang Zhiyan didn't use hair wax to comb his hair. His soft bangs fell over his forehead. He wore a white tracksuit, which was unusual for him. The sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, revealing his firm muscles. He looked several years younger after putting on a white sports cap.

The setting sun, like an overturned can of tomato sauce, spilled across the entire sky, and the air was filled with a sense of restlessness.

Jiang Zhiyan stood behind her, guiding her arm to help her feel the angle of force. The man's warm chest pressed against Xia Zhiyu's back, so hot it felt like it was burning her skin through her clothes.

They had been together for more than two weeks, but there hadn't been any close physical contact yet, and Xia Zhiyu had never been this close to a man in her past life.

Especially since this was the man she liked.

Xia Zhiyu was so nervous that she could barely hold the cue stick.

"Imagine your body as your central axis, straighten your back, rotate your shoulders, and straighten your left arm as well, yes, that's it."

The faint scent of tobacco mixed with the aroma of grass emanated from Jiang Zhiyan and enveloped Xia Zhiyu. He would occasionally reach out to adjust the position of her arms and back, and the occasional touch of their skin and the fleeting glances between their eyes sent electric shocks through their bodies.

The same short hair and white shirt evoked completely different thoughts. Xia Zhiyu silently gripped the golf club and practiced swinging it again and again on the simulated course.

Aim, align, swing up, swing down.

Even though I know perfectly well that the worst thing you can do when playing ball is to lose focus.

But those past memories and Fang Xinle's words intertwined and converged in her mind.

When you're in love, everything your partner does sparks speculation; when you're no longer in love, all they do is make excuses and try to cover things up.

Xia Zhiyu looked down at the ball, quickly exerted force with her wrist to press down on the club, and pushed it out forcefully, as if she could throw away the chaotic thoughts in her mind along with it.

There were quite a few people playing golf at this time on Friday afternoon. When Xia Zhiyu and her caddie walked into the green bathed in the warm orange sunset, they saw Jiang Zhiyan, wearing a white golf shirt, swing and hit the ball.

A crisp sound of the ball hitting the ground.

He put away his clubs, went off the course, took off his hat to wipe his sweat, and casually tossed his short hair back. Golf is known as a gentleman's sport because it doesn't make you sweat easily, but Jiang Zhiyan's white jersey showed faint water stains on the back, and the bright sunlight reflected off his sweat-dampened short hair, giving it a warm brown hue.

"This guest has been playing all afternoon and even got a hole-in-one! This is the first hole-in-one we've had in the last two months. It's a pity you arrived late, otherwise you could have joined the celebration earlier."

There's an unwritten rule about getting a hole-in-one: because it's considered to have used up all your luck, you need to spend a fortune to get it back. The person who scores not only has to give a big red envelope to the caddie, but also to everyone present, including the course staff and other golfers.

When this topic came up, the caddie glanced enviously at the caddie next to Jiang Zhiyan, "I heard that guest gave his caddie a 10,000 yuan red envelope, how generous."

If it weren't for her ex-boyfriend, who had just declined her dinner invitation under the pretext of looking for a job, Xia Zhiyu might have genuinely regretted missing out on the good fortune.

Jiang Zhiyan turned his head and met Xia Zhiyu's slightly embarrassed gaze.

In the blink of an eye, a bunch of random thoughts popped into Xia Zhiyu's mind.

What excuse could she make? She could say that the social engagement was postponed to tomorrow, but how could she argue that she had already booked a golf course in advance?

Why isn't Jiang Zhiyan smiling? Is he that angry? It's just that she made excuses not to eat with him. Why doesn't he look for the reasons within himself and reflect on why she didn't want to eat with him?

Before Xia Zhiyu could even finish brainstorming whether or not to pretend nothing had happened when she greeted Jiang Zhiyan, the tall, handsome man in the sunlight smiled at her, his eyes filled with surprise.

"That's great, I almost thought I wouldn't see you today."

Xia Zhiyu heard her heart flutter shamefully for a moment.

Fortunately, Jiang Zhiyan simply greeted her and left without asking why or if she wanted to have dinner together.

He seemed incredibly considerate, as if he didn't care about the meal at all.

The slight dissatisfaction with Jiang Zhiyan in her heart was mixed with a bitter taste.

Xia Zhiyu is a person with a high sense of morality. If Jiang Zhiyan questioned her in a somewhat displeased manner, she would feel better after apologizing. However, Jiang Zhiyan did not ask, nor did he show the slightest dissatisfaction.

His act of deliberately putting himself in a humble position made Xia Zhiyu feel guilty, as if she were taking advantage of Jiang Zhiyan's affection for her to act recklessly, and she felt uncomfortable as if she were trampling on someone else's sincerity.

With something on her mind, Xia Zhiyu couldn't enjoy playing ball to her heart's content. She barely managed to play for a little over an hour before packing up and leaving.

After showering and changing, I came out of the lounge. Outside the porch, raindrops were pouring down like beads from a broken string. The sky, which had been a bright red just moments before, was now completely covered by dark clouds. It seemed that the rain wouldn't stop anytime soon.

August weather is like a child's face. Xia Zhiyu came from her studio on a whim, carrying her bag. Since the studio wasn't far from the stadium, and Xia Zhiyu hadn't driven, who would have thought it would suddenly rain?

She didn't even have an umbrella, and there was a hungry puppy at home waiting for her to come home so she could cook for it.

Xia Zhiyu hurriedly walked to the front hall, wanting to ask if the stadium shuttle bus could take her to the entrance so she could catch a taxi.

As she walked, she opened a ride-hailing app, trying to get ahead of the competition. However, while entering the address, she accidentally bumped into someone on the head. She was walking in a hurry, and her phone slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground.

"Be careful with your phone."

A deep, familiar male voice, tinged with laughter, sounded in her ear. When Xia Zhiyu looked up and saw Jiang Zhiyan, she was somewhat taken aback.

"Didn't you finish a long time ago? Why are you still here?"

"Because the weather forecast said it would rain in an hour."

The man looked at her with a smile in his eyes.

Jiang Zhiyan had changed his clothes. He had changed his original white sweatshirt into a casual suit. The top two buttons of his shirt were not fastened, and the ends of his hair by his ears still had a bit of dampness, showing a carefree and relaxed feeling.

The faint scent of cedarwood wafted for a moment as he handed over his phone, swaying in the air like waves.

As they walked towards the parking lot, Xia Zhiyu couldn't help but ask, "So you were waiting for me all this time?"

"Yes," Jiang Zhiyan nodded readily.

Xia Zhiyu's tone became somewhat suspicious, "Then how do you know I wasn't driving?"

"I don't know," Jiang Zhiyan said, tilting the umbrella towards her again, as large raindrops pelted the umbrella surface with a pattering sound.

"I was just worried that you didn't bring an umbrella, or that you didn't drive."

Even if there's only a one in a thousand chance, I'll wait for you here.