Chapter 8 Chapter 8 Bitter Summer

The tailor shop is on the second top floor and is very large. At first glance when standing at the door, it doesn't look like a custom clothing store, but more like a Song Yun teahouse.

The light brown tones and the low-hanging Roman blinds allowed the afternoon sunlight to filter through, casting only soft shadows.

In the central hall, there was a long table with a peach branch hanging diagonally in a large, narrow-mouthed porcelain vase. Next to it was a tea set, and nothing else.

Simple and elegant.

An old lady wearing a Song brocade shirt walked out from the side sliding door with a kind smile on her face. "Mr. Ye, please sit down and have a cup of tea."

Before she finished speaking, she saw Xia Qingwan, her eyes lit up, and she said, "Is this the skirt you rushed out last month?"

Xia Qingwan nodded and said with a smile, "Thank you, it's very comfortable to wear."

"What's your name?"

"My surname is Xia."

Perhaps her work was worn by the right person, the old lady admired her carefully from head to toe, then turned to ask Ye Peixiu, "Mr. Ye, why are you here today?"

Ye Peixiu sat down on the armchair and said, "My grandma asked you to make a few sets of clothes last time. Come and pick them up today."

"Okay," the old lady immediately responded, "Miss Xia, are you coming with me to get it?"

"right."

Xia Qingwan followed.

The old lady took her through the side door.

There was a murmur of conversation coming from inside.

Ye Peixiu received a call.

The person on the other end of the line was Wang Jingzi. "I see Auntie has finished cleaning the garden. So I'm leaving now, okay?"

"Okay, you go ahead with your work."

Wang Jingzi asked meaningfully, "You seemed to be in a hurry just now. Is there something urgent? Do you need me to come over?"

Ye Peixiu was sitting idly by the pond in the garden, reading a book and feeding the fish. After calling Xia Qingwan, he picked up his car keys and left, leaving Wang Jingzi, who had come with the cleaning lady, behind.

Ye Peixiu laughed and scolded him, "You know perfectly well why you're asking this?"

Wang Jingzi also laughed, "I'm relieved to see that you're in a good mood."

After hanging up the phone, Ye Peixiu closed his eyes and rested.

As a new official, he has been overwhelmed with work recently and only sleeps five hours a day.

Today is the weekend, and I got up early because of my biological clock. I worked out, took a bath, fed the fish, and read a book, but my mind couldn't calm down.

"Ye Peixiu."

He opened his eyes and turned to look over.

Xia Qingwan, holding the bag, seemed a little apologetic as she walked over to him and whispered, "Have you been waiting long? Grandma Wu took my measurements and that delayed us a bit."

Grandma Wu smiled and said, "Miss Xia kept saying that she didn't need clothes made for her, so I thought I'd keep the size for now and make it later when I have the right material."

"Thank you for your trouble. If you have any suitable ones, please make them for her. Let me know and I will send someone to pick them up."

"well."

After going downstairs and getting in the car, Ye Peixiu asked, "Where else are you going?"

"We still need to go to the Chinese medicine hospital. The doctor will prescribe medicine for grandma." Xia Qingwan fastened his seat belt and asked, "Will it be too much trouble for you?"

"On the way."

Ye Peixiu had already turned the steering wheel and drove out of the underground garage.

"Oh yes, you originally said you needed my help with something, what is it?"

Ye Peixiu thought for a moment, "It's not a big deal, but I can only ask you." After crossing an intersection, he continued, "I have a cousin who will come to Beijing University to study in two months. She loves the hustle and bustle and is most afraid of having no friends. She begged me to introduce her to some friends."

"Okay, I'm fine with it."

"So straightforward?" Ye Peixiu glanced at her. "You usually seem to prefer quietness and don't like to move around. I thought you would find it troublesome and refuse."

"I might refuse to do this to someone else, but you... you've helped me so many times, and it's only right that I return the favor."

return.

"How come I don't know what I've done for you?"

"Last time you helped me out and treated me to a meal," Xia Qingwan said, listing off the things one by one. "Today, you've also bothered to personally send me off."

"Is that so?" Ye Peixiu chuckled, his expression unreadable. "Then if I help you with something even bigger another day, how do you plan to repay me?"

Xia Qingwan felt that he seemed a little unhappy. She thought hard but couldn't figure out what sentence had offended him.

She turned her head away and said nothing more.

There was no conversation after that.

After getting the medicine from the Chinese Medicine Hospital, Ye Peixiu took her back to the compound. She asked him to stop at the gate. Ye Peixiu didn't say much, just said, "Be careful."

She got out of the car and said, "Thank you for taking me on this trip. Also, when you're free, just send my WeChat to your cousin and I'll contact her."

"Um."

Ye Peixiu took the steering wheel and the car drove away smoothly.

Xia Qingwan carried two bags and slowly walked into the courtyard.

She was puzzled. Which sentence went wrong?

If you really look into it, it's not that Mr. Ye just put on a certain expression, but that he has an unpredictable temperament that makes it difficult to tell whether he is happy or angry. He seems calm and easy-going and doesn't show it on his face, which makes people even more nervous and frightened.

-

Another weekend.

As usual, Wang Jingzi brought the cleaning lady to the garden.

According to habit, Ye Peixiu should have just gotten up and was perhaps taking a shower in the bathroom. Wang Jingzi specifically told his aunt not to go to the bathroom but to clean the yard outside first.

Pulling back the curtains of the French windows, one sees Ye Peixiu, dressed in a bathrobe, sitting on a round chair by the pond, one hand supporting his forehead, looking half asleep. An empty wine bottle lies overturned on the low table beside him.

The dim morning light shone on his back in the armchair, making him look cold and lonely.

Wang Jingzi walked over, circled around to face him, and whispered, "President Ye? Pei Xiu?"

Ye Peixiu didn't open his eyes and asked, "What time is it?"

There was a hint of hoarseness in his voice from the remaining alcohol.

"Seven-thirty."

Wang Jingzi asked, "You didn't sleep, did you? Did you stay up late drinking?"

"The birds woke me up."

"I brought the cleaning lady here."

Wang Jingzi said, "Let me make some hangover soup first. Do you want to go to sleep for a while? I'll go close the bedroom window."

"Never mind me."

He said as he stood up and went to the bedroom.

Wang Jingzi has been with Ye Peixiu for many years. His main job is to be his secretary and driver, and he occasionally helps him with some trivial matters in daily life.

It is no exaggeration to say that Ye Peixiu's family and friends can only get to know some aspects of him. Only Wang Jingzi can understand many aspects of his work, life and even home. Wang Jingzi should be the person who knows him best in the world.

Even so, sometimes, like right now, Wang Jingzi himself felt that he didn't really understand Ye Peixiu.

Ye Peixiu is strict and pragmatic in his work, and is usually easy-going with his subordinates in private. When he has parties with friends, he behaves like a laid-back young man, but when he is with the Ye family or Grandma Liang, he is gentle and filial.

But these deconstructions don’t seem to be the real him.

In reality, he was capricious and easily bored.

While making the sobering soup, Wang Jingzi was thinking hard.

Putting things forward one by one, we finally come to the conclusion that—

Could it be that there was some unpleasantness between Ye Peixiu and Miss Xia?

Wang Jingzi thought that was not the case. Ye Peixiu was a man of measure, and even with his subordinates, he was careful to grasp the big picture and let go of the small details, so he would not take it too seriously with a little girl.

Carrying a small porcelain bowl of sobering soup, Wang Jingzi came to the living room and saw that Ye Peixiu had already taken a shower and changed his clothes. He was sitting on the sofa in a white shirt and black pants, reading a book.

Clear black and white, fresh and elegant.

Wang Jingzi handed him the porcelain bowl.

Ye Peixiu didn't look up, took the drink, finished it in a few gulps, handed it back to him, raised his hand, and said listlessly, "Draw the curtains, the sunlight is too bright."

Wang Jingzi pulled up a layer of semi-transparent white gauze curtain, and the room suddenly became a little cooler.

Quietly waiting for the dust to settle, the atmosphere seemed to calm down, and Wang Jingzi asked casually, "When will Miss Xia come over to listen to the record?"

He knew that, although he didn't show it on his face, Ye Peixiu was actually very impatient at the moment and didn't like others talking in circles.

After he finished speaking, three to five seconds passed before Ye Peixiu said, "Why, do you really want to see her?"

Who would dare to answer that?

Wang Jingzi fell silent.

After a while, seeing Ye Peixiu put down the book and pinched the bridge of his nose, he smiled again with feigned cheerfulness and said, "I thought you would bring up this matter when you met last weekend."

Ye Peixiu raised his eyelids to glance at him and sneered, "What kind of meeting is that?"

It was just that he took the initiative and seized the opportunity to use a false name.

Is it really because of this?

Wang Jingzi recalled how he grabbed his car keys and went out after making a phone call last weekend. The contrast between the two was interesting to him.

It makes sense. Ye Peixiu naturally has the arrogance of a young master from a wealthy family, and Miss Xia has a cold personality. It is possible that the two of them don't see eye to eye after a few words.

"Miss Xia is a polite person. If she said something wrong, it was probably not intentional to offend you."

Ye Peixiu looked up at him, as if to say: Do you need me to tell you?

How could he not understand her?

She was raised with strict discipline and always spoke gently yet distantly to others. Given her background—being fostered in the south as a child and finally returning to Beijing with great difficulty—it was only natural that she was wary of people and always wanted to keep her distance.

Fortunately, I was still able to have a proper conversation with him. Whether it was to repay or to give back, at least there was a give and take.

I tried to convince myself again and again, but it was in vain.

Wang Jingzi comforted him with a few words, and Ye Peixiu said nothing more.

After the cleaning lady finished cleaning, Wang Jingzi took her people away.

A short while later, Liang Xinwu called.

"Pei Xiu, will you pick me up at three in the afternoon?"

"Where are you going?"

His voice was low and he sounded uninterested.

"Your Grandma Xia's house, have you forgotten? We agreed to go today."

There was no sound on the other end of the phone for a long time. Liang Xinwu was puzzled. "Pei Xiu? Are you busy? I can take a taxi myself."

"..." Ye Peixiu finally spoke, "I'll pick you up at three o'clock."

It's only mid-June, but the weather is unbearably hot.

As soon as he got in the car, Liang Xinwu said, "The weather this year is really weird, so humid and hot. I've been in Beijing all my life and I've never seen such high humidity."

Ye Peixiu didn't say anything.

Liang Xinwu tapped the screen a few times on his phone and said, "Look, some netizens are saying that the weather in Beijing is becoming more and more like that in the south. It's such a bitter summer."

Bitter summer.

Hot and stuffy.

Upon arriving at the Xia family's old residence, Liang Xinwu, familiar with the place, went to the side hall to chat with Xia Huiqing, while Ye Peixiu sat alone in the living room.

Grandma Xi brought him tea and some magazines and books, and Ye Peixiu flipped through them casually.

Xia Huiqing walked out of the side hall and asked Grandma Xi, "Where is Qingwan?"

Grandma Xi replied, "The young lady said she was sleepy, so she must have gone to bed."

Liang Xinwu shouted from the side hall, "Don't call her. It's summer, and children are sleepy. Let her sleep."

Ye Peixiu listened silently, continuing to flip through the magazine without saying a word.

After a while, he felt bored, so he put down the magazine, stood up, stood on the front porch for a while, then went back into the room, walked through the porch, and found a glass door behind the stairs leading to the backyard.

He pushed open a door and walked out. Suddenly, the view in front of him was bright: a small backyard full of greenery.

Under the scorching sunlight, several Albizia julibrissin and Catalpa asiatica trees spread out a canopy of green shade. Each tree has a thick trunk and looks quite old.

In the very center, under the shade of the mimosa tree, sat a chaise lounge. Xia Qingwan, dressed in a sundress, was half-lying on it, a blanket draped across her waist, her long hair gathered over her shoulders, her face resting on her arm, and her other arm hanging down naturally. It was unclear whether she was asleep or awake.

It is peaceful and tranquil, like an oil painting by Kroyer.

The slip dress reveals a lot of skin, and because of the half-lying position, the curves of the body undulate, making her not only beautiful but also breathtakingly graceful and serene.

The bitter summer tide and heat melt away here.

There is only the breeze carrying the fragrance of Albizia julibrissin flowers.

A note from the author:

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