42. Try it first
The bar was playing jazz music, and people were enjoying a few drinks. Liang Litang helped Chen Lier leave the bar, and they went down from the terrace to the first floor. As soon as they stepped out of the bar, they were surrounded by modern buildings.
Chen Li'er didn't vomit, nor was she so drunk she couldn't stand. She forced herself to walk, took a few steps, slowed down, and stopped. Her eyes were drawn to the Central Harbourfront Ferris Wheel. The Ferris Wheel slowly turned in the night, awash in a deep pink light. She suddenly remembered the Instagram photos of her and Deng Shilang at Victoria Harbour and the Central Ferris Wheel.
Liang Litang stopped and stayed beside him.
Chen Lier said to herself, "There are many stars tonight."
After a long silence, Liang Litang thought she would continue to be sad, but unexpectedly her face was calm.
Chen Li'er gazed up at the sky. The long, dark night was festooned with stars, and the Ferris wheel shone brilliantly. Perhaps it was the soothing effect of the myriad stars, but she felt strangely relaxed and gazed for a long time. While others sang of the stars' coldness and melancholy, she felt a sense of relief, a sense of resolution that swept away all distractions. Beneath the starlight, the city's clamor and bustle vanished. She stood alone, oblivious to the surroundings, a sense of tranquility.
Liang Litang felt that she was much better than before, so he asked: "What's going on? How are you going to get back?"
Chen Li'er suddenly woke up, more lucid than ever. She figured it out, walked a few steps ahead of him, then turned around and fell back, a peaceful smile in her eyes. "Take a taxi. Thank you for accompanying me tonight."
She was free now and could make any choice she wanted, whether it was a one-night stand or being alone. Behind this starry sky, she decided to leave the bar, delete everything about Deng Shilang, and become Chen Li'er again, looking forward to a new life.
Liang Litang had no idea what she was thinking in the bar, but he noticed how quickly she changed, drunken one moment, calm the next. He wasn't used to seeing her alone, but he was also relieved. At least she still had her signature smile, not as gloomy as before.
"Hey, Gigi." Liang Litang saw that Chen Li'er had walked very far away, so he called her from a distance.
Chen Li'er was dozens of meters away from him. She stopped and turned around. There was a Ferris wheel behind her.
Liang Litang paused, put his hands to his mouth and amplified his voice, loud enough for her to hear: "It was really my negligence that allowed them to get so close. I owe you an apology."
Chen Lier looked up at the starry sky, then back at him and sent him a text message. Liang Litang saw it and opened his phone to read it.
[Gigi Chen]: It’s okay. I was planning to have a one-night stand with you just now.
She put away her phone, waved goodbye, and stood on the street to hail a taxi. After getting in, the Ferris wheel retreated, the starry sky obscured by the roof, and she was getting farther and farther away from the bar.
Liang Litang was a bit startled when he read Chen Li'er's text, but then he calmed down. A breakup in Central, a way to vent anger, and a friend's tantrum—all normal, chaotic things. Her thoughts might have been a momentary impulse, or perhaps a pretense of being cool. In the end, she chose not to do so, which, in his eyes, made her even more cool.
That same evening, Yao Ling and Deng Shilang hung up their phone some time later and opened Instagram. She stumbled upon Chen Li'er's profile, which no longer contained any posts related to Deng Shilang: no cats, no wine, no Ferris wheel, and no Victoria Harbour. She found Deng Shilang's profile, and discovered that his Instagram account hadn't been made available to her; it was still blacklisted.
Yao Ling smiled as she lay on the bed, wondering what he should do. If he followed her now, he'd be seen as a fuckboy, seamlessly finding a new love. Breaking up so quickly to get out and find her would definitely get him scolded. If he didn't, she'd feel a sense of emptiness and slight unhappiness.
He either didn't think of her or was still stuck in inertia.
She believed that the fact that they hadn't used Instagram or WhatsApp to communicate had led them to this point, indicating that their attempts at avoidance and repression were completely futile. She thought it would be better for them to be more direct. He should be more proactive and not blame himself too much. She also didn't care if outsiders criticized her for having moral flaws. Their desire for each other was unstoppable anyway, so they might as well just break the immoral window paper.
Yao Ling took a good sleep and received an email about seat selection the next morning. After choosing her seat, she opened Instagram out of habit and found that she had a new follower a few hours ago, who was Deng Shilang.
She didn't check or follow his Instagram, and he didn't send her a DM. For a long time, neither of them responded. It wasn't until noon, when Deng Shilang finished his work and sent her a message during his lunch break, that she finally received his DMs, started to respond to him a little, and then followed him.
Around six in the afternoon, the doorbell rang. Yao Ling was greeted by Deng Shilang, wearing a loose-fitting sweater with no bra underneath. Luckily, her parents weren't home, or else she'd be in this situation. As soon as the door closed, he'd lifted her up and pinned her against the edge, forcing her to cling to his neck and wrap her legs around his waist to keep from falling.
He had great arm strength, and he lifted her hips, reached into her loose sweater, and sucked on one of her nipples. From her perspective, the sweater bulged and moved.
When he finished tasting it and looked up at her after leaving the sweater, she placed her hand on his neck and gently stroked it up and down, saying, "I haven't seen you for a day. You missed me."
Deng Shilang couldn't help but lower her a little, leaned towards her face, and kissed her thin and soft earlobe, "I want to."
"What are you thinking about?"
"Everything." His warm breath reached her ears.
Yao Ling didn't notice that her eyes were curled up after hearing this. His licking of her earlobe suddenly made her sensitive. She stretched her neck, her eyes fluttering as she looked into the room. Her hand moved from her neck to her shoulder, tapping it twice to interrupt him, pointing to the room and asking him to carry her inside.
Deng Shilang followed her lead and entered the room, laying her down on the bed. She hooked him down, knees touching the bed. They stayed close together, kissing passionately for a while, smacking each other's lips. He released her lips and returned to her ear, lingering from it to her jaw, then slid down to her collarbone. He pulled aside her sweater and once again aimed at her nipple, sucking it in his mouth.
Halfway through, Yao Ling's bedside phone started ringing with four or five WhatsApp messages. Deng Shilang hadn't intended to read them; they had nothing to do with each other now. But after sucking her nipple and leaving it, he saw messages from someone with the ID "P," none of which were in English.
Yao Ling followed his gaze and took the phone to check. It turned out to be Pierre asking her when she would return to Milan. Deng Shilang grabbed her phone and covered it with the bedside table. He supported himself on the bed with his hands around her and continued to kiss her neck. His voice was low and steady, "Don't look."
"I thought you would be very angry." Yao Ling said suddenly as she accepted his kiss.
"You still want me to get caught."
"I like it," she said suddenly. "He asked me when I would be back in Milan."
Deng Shilang heard her tell him more details for the first time. He had come here to find out exactly when she would return to Milan and what their relationship was like. He could have asked before or after sex, or during sex, but he chose to ask before sex, wanting to confirm everything with her before having sex.
Deng Shilang slowed down, returned to her face and stopped, looked into her eyes and asked, "When are we leaving?"
Yao Ling lay beneath him, staring into his eyes. "Sunday night, three days left."
He knew that time was very tight and he wanted to seize the time to see her more and also to keep the opportunity. "Originally, we should have time to consider whether to get back together, but you will be leaving soon. I don't want us to go back to square one after you leave and end up with nothing."
Yao Ling thought about their breakup and said, "If I'm still determined, then don't look back."
"After so long, you still don't believe that we can be together." Deng Shilang couldn't explain what he felt now.
Yao Ling extended her index finger and gently pressed it against his lips. "We don't see each other often. You have work in Hong Kong, and I have to fly all over Europe."
He let go of her fingers in disappointment, "You're still like this."
"If you want to give up, I can accept that. It's just repeating the same mistake." Yao Ling once again said one thing and meant another.
"No, I don't want to give up. I can be in a foreign country, or I can fly there for you." Deng Shilang took it seriously.
"Aren't you afraid of being scolded for making seamless transitions? You cheated and broke up just to get back together with your ex. You're unscrupulous and have no morals. Your image has plummeted." Yao Ling was curious about what he would think.
Deng Shilang doesn't really care: "My background check is pretty clean, there's nothing wrong with it. The only thing people will say is that I cheated on my first love. In the long run, they'll realize we were made for each other and we were just wrong."
She silently agreed, because in her impression he was indeed a clean, good-looking and self-disciplined person. He could feel her hesitation, hesitating whether to be with him. He gently scratched her nose and said, "Let's get back together, okay?"
Yao Ling hummed, so softly that he couldn't hear. He wanted to know the answer, so she leaned up slightly, touched his ear, and leaned in to say, "Let's try it first, for a month, just like the bet we made when we first started dating."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
