Chapter 19 Do you have a goodnight kiss today?
05
There was deathly silence at the door of the private room.
Pan Zheng stared at her with wide eyes, the waiter looked at her in amazement, and the man in the box folded his hands under his chin, looking at her with a smile in his eyes, just like he had done countless times before.
And Di Ling.
At this moment, Di Ling could not feel the heat from the cup of water that broke at her feet and splashed onto her legs. She felt that her whole body was shaking, and she even suspected that she was sick.
She wasn't cold at all though.
Who could believe that she actually recognized the man named "LUCAS" who was sitting calmly in the box and was called the invisible richest man in P City by Pan Zheng?
Not recognized.
She used to be entangled with him every night, she caressed every inch of his body, she was attached to his smile, his voice, his hug... She remembered everything about him clearly and was obsessed with it.
No one knew how much effort she had put into trying to forget this person while staying at home every day, but it was all in vain.
Every day and every night for these two weeks, she suffered like a desperate trapped beast.
Because she missed the man named Jiang Xingran so much that her heart ached.
And now, he was here, right in front of her.
…
After more than ten seconds of silence passed.
Jiang Xingran, who was sitting in the private room, clapped his hands first and smiled, "Mr. Pan, your wife is really doing me a great favor by opening with such remarks. Does this mean that in her eyes, I am a stunning beauty?"
Pan Zheng was no ordinary person either. He immediately suppressed all the unpredictable expressions on his face, put his arm around Di Ling, and smiled at Jiang Xingran, "Yes, Lucas, you are truly too charming. If I had known, I wouldn't have brought my wife, who sometimes gets off track, with me. I was really afraid she wouldn't want to come back with me."
Pan Zheng deliberately emphasized the last few words and used a little more force to hold her hand.
Only then did Di Ling come back to her senses a little.
She finally shifted her gaze, which had been fixed on Jiang Xingran, away a little, then turned her head and apologized palely to the frightened waiters beside her. She asked them to help deal with the debris and water on the floor, and followed Pan Zheng slowly into the box.
...
Di Ling didn't say a single word throughout the entire meal.
Moreover, she would normally feast on such a delicious private dish, but today she didn't touch a single bite and only drank two sips of the soup when it was being cooked.
Jiang Xingran and Pan Zheng sat opposite each other, chatting and laughing. They talked about everything from business to today's entertainment headlines, and then from national affairs to the World Cup that had just ended two days ago. There was no pause or dull moment throughout the whole conversation.
In fact, she didn't hear anything they said. She just sat mechanically in her seat, staring at the small white porcelain bowl in front of her.
After an unknown amount of time, she finally seemed to have reached her limit.
"I'm going to the bathroom," she put the tablecloth covering her legs on the table and said this in a hoarse voice. Without even looking at their expressions, she turned and left the private room.
After entering the independent single-room bathroom, she forgot to lock the door and rushed to the sink in two steps. Just as she was about to turn on the water, her legs went weak and she almost fell to the ground.
Di Ling gritted her teeth, used her two slender arms to support the marble in front of her, leaned the weight of her entire body on the sink, slowly raised her head and looked at herself in the mirror.
She felt like a ghost.
His face was pale, his eyes were red, and his hair was messy. It was a world of difference from his usual look where he wanted to walk sideways around the world.
Within a few minutes, she heard the door behind her being pushed open.
The man came in, locked the door, and walked slowly behind her.
In the not-so-big space, they looked at each other through the mirror, and the air was filled with a tense atmosphere that was ready to explode.
After a long time, Di Ling slowly turned around and looked directly at this elegant and extraordinary man.
She had always thought herself to be extremely smart, but now she felt that there was no one in the world more stupid than her.
How could a small bar owner and bartender show up at a high-profile charity dinner for no apparent reason? And how could he possibly be wearing such expensive clothing? And more importantly, it suited him so well, as if it were his birthright.
Every time they chatted after making love, she was often surprised by how much he knew, but he said he just liked to check the news on his phone.
She once accidentally discovered that he was reading novels in multiple languages, and she also heard him talking on the phone with people in fluent foreign languages.
He was always so proper and knew when to advance and retreat. She had thought that was just a disguise because he had been in the love field for many years and was too proficient in the rules of the game and knew too well what women wanted. She never thought that it was the result of his upbringing as a child in an extremely good family.
…
Di Ling gave him her usual charming smile and whispered, "Do you miss me?"
Jiang Xingran didn't say anything.
She moved closer to him, raised her hand, gently touched his handsome cheek, and blew a breath into his ear.
"Xingran, you are not behaving well."
Although she was smiling, there was no trace of smile in her eyes.
"Every minute and every second I was with you, you made me feel comfortable. I thought I had finally found a partner who knew how to have fun without a care in the world, just like me. So I allowed myself to continue indulging in this comfort, completely unaware of the danger." She stared at him motionlessly. "I was like a frog being boiled in warm water, blissfully content with myself, until one day I suddenly realized that my feelings for you had far surpassed a simple physical relationship."
"You have no idea how much mental preparation I put in to be able to personally expose the disguise I had worked so hard to protect right in front of you that night. I've never told anyone about what happened between Pan Zheng and me. How could I dare to say it? How could I dare to show such an ugly side of myself to others? But I showed it to you, because you're the first man in all these years who has made me want to trust you again. I feel that you are different from any other man."
"They are cunning, selfish, good at lying, and fickle. I always thought that all men in the world are like that. Because I loved and trusted them, but in the end, they were ruthlessly abandoned. So from then on, I will never love again, never trust again. I chose a loveless family-style marriage to protect myself and Pan Zheng. I think that way I will never be hurt again."
"And then I met you."
"I thought you were different."
After hearing her last words, Jiang Xingran, who had been silent the whole time, finally moved his lips. His eyes were red, and he opened his mouth, "Di Ling..."
"Don't call me by my name!" Her voice suddenly rose, and a tear as big as a bean rolled down her eye socket. "You are a complete liar, you have no right to call me by my name!"
As soon as he saw her tears, he could no longer maintain his composure and restraint. He reached out and hugged her fiercely, as if he wanted to melt her into his flesh and blood.
She struggled desperately in his arms, hitting his back with her fists like a madman, and crying hoarsely in his arms, but he let her hit her, even his face was scratched by her nails and bleeding, but he held her motionless.
After an unknown amount of time, she finally seemed tired of making a fuss and leaned in his arms, motionless.
Then he heard her sobbing voice coming out from his chest.
"You know what? I've wanted to forget you every day for the past two weeks, but I really can't. I even had a crazy idea: I wanted to elope with you, go to a place where no one knows us, and stay together forever... How fucking ridiculous, isn't it? I'm an adult who's almost 30 years old, and I'm actually fantasizing about eloping with a man like a teenager."
"...But what about you?"
Di Ling slowly broke free from his embrace, speaking word by word, "You watched me go crazy for you, suffer for you, and even turn against everything I've done for the past twenty years just for you. And you played along with me like nothing happened, and in the end, you dragged a clown like me in front of you and declared your victory to me... You must have laughed at me countless times behind my back, saying how foolish I was, right?"
Then, she smiled at him, wiped away all the tears on her face, and gave him a thumbs up, "Jiang Xingran, you win."
And I lost.
I lost myself, my self-esteem, my pride, and my heart.
I lost miserably.
Jiang Xingran squeezed his hands so tightly that they even turned purple.
He actually had a lot to say to her.
He wanted to explain that he didn't know who she was from the beginning, nor did he know her true situation. He just thought that since she was seeking excitement, he would accompany her as long as she was happy. He also wanted to tell her that after investigating her, he felt that perhaps not telling her his identity would help him maintain this relationship, so he pretended to be deaf and dumb and played along with her because he was too afraid of losing her.
Later, he was really unwilling to give up, so he approached Pan Zheng at a charity banquet, just to see what this man who could marry her but treated her badly was like; later, he learned the truth from her mouth and found out that she also fell in love with him. He was so happy that he went crazy and confessed impulsively, causing her to run away from him. He was so upset and painful that he could not control himself.
At this point, he realized that perhaps leaving was the best way to protect her.
He should have left, but he couldn't.
He couldn't let her go, let alone stop loving her.
That's why he resorted to this desperate measure and asked Pan Zheng to bring her to him today.
But he found that whenever he saw her, he could not calm down, could not strategize as usual, and he could not even utter a word.
Facing her, he rarely lost control.
Jiang Xingran's eyes were red. After a few seconds, he squeezed out a few words from between his teeth, "Di Ling, whether you believe it or not, the only thing I lied to you about was my true identity. I didn't lie about anything else."
"Especially because I love you."
When these three words fell, Di Ling trembled all over.
After a while, she unlocked the door, said a word to him with a smile, turned around and left without looking back.
She said: Get out.
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