Chapter 31 You don't really think I'm too big, do you?
Jiang Shiyan's voice struck the wall like a deep bass, leaving an indelible mark on the blank phonograph.
The staircase is white, with a wooden texture on the countertop, and the handrails are black, with each post resembling an elongated chess piece.
Xu Yuewei was holding onto a chess piece when she was unexpectedly checkmated by her opponent.
The stairwell had no windows or overhead lights. Two black lampposts on the wall shone from either side, one shining from his side towards her, and the other from her side towards him.
Soft and bright, like a stage set that has been carefully constructed.
Xu Yuewei had one foot on the platform floor and the other foot on the step for support, like an actress about to go on stage but who was nervous and forgot her lines.
In a daze, the building walls collapsed, the lights went out, and the stage scenery was inverted like an hourglass. She was back to that summer vacation that symbolized the lifting of the ban when she was eighteen.
The house upstairs from hers, the one that belonged to Jiang Shiyan's ancestors, had been rented out for a year to her high school senior.
After the college entrance exams in June, the senior high school students moved out of their rental properties. Xu Yuewei's contract was signed until the end of July, so she and Ye Wanzhi didn't move out early, deciding to stay as long as they could.
After confirming their relationship, Jiang Shiyan started going back to Wuqiao every weekend to meet her. Coincidentally, the apartment upstairs was also vacant, and they felt like they had returned to the past, yet things were different.
That July, in the most humid and hot summer of my life, my heart, which had been suppressed for three years, began to beat wildly.
The most outrageous and exciting time was when Jiang Shiyan took her home. Just before he inserted the key into the lock, she was suddenly wrapped around the waist, turned over, and pressed against the door, exchanging a long kiss.
Xu Yuewei was terrified, especially since Ye Wanzhi was still at home!
Being an adult doesn't mean there are no restrictions.
Jiang Shiyan pressed his face against hers and whispered, "It's your fault for not telling your mother yet. I've been wanting to for a long time..."
Men can be truly shameless when it comes to seeking thrills.
That building always had a faint musty smell, and the small advertisements on the walls were never cleaned up and were always covered by new ones.
Yet it carries their tender, fleeting, and different kisses—kissings of meeting and farewell.
It would have been better to leave it to her to cherish the memories alone.
Xu Yuewei bit her lower lip so hard that it caved in slightly. After a moment, she took the last step, stepped onto the platform, and followed the handrail to make the shortest possible route around the bend before continuing upstairs.
Underneath her fishtail skirt, she wore sheer tights that rubbed against her thighs as she walked. She held onto the hem of her skirt with one hand and slowly moved up the hem.
The speed has slowed down further.
The fabric had the texture of pearls, with a matte sheen, and swayed as she moved, like the scales on a fish.
Jiang Shiyan lowered his head and let out a low, mocking sound, somewhere between a "ha" and a "heh".
It turns out that the skirt made her walk slowly.
*
Jiang Shiyan led her to his lounge.
As soon as you push open the door, the floor-to-ceiling window facing the entrance is mostly covered by gray-blue curtains. Not far away on the floor, two beanbag chairs stand upright, one green and one blue, in dark colors.
In front of them, in the corner of the room, stood a flat-screen TV, with a cabinet below it piled high with game discs.
There was almost nothing related to music in the entire space, as if I had entered another secret chamber of his heart.
Xu Yuewei placed the items against the wall inside the door, looked up at him, and said, "I've delivered them. I'm leaving now."
Jiang Shiyan, whose hands seemed unable to lift anything, somehow grabbed two cans of soda, held them between his fingers, and let his arm hang naturally. He glanced at the ground and asked knowingly, in a drawn-out tone, "What are these?"
Xu Yuewei simply squatted down, unpacked the package for him to see, and confirmed on the spot that it was undamaged.
The jade carving was returned intact to its owner, and she carefully packed away the box, saying, "What else did you expect it to be?"
“I didn’t expect it,” he said calmly. “Just seeing you was a pleasant surprise enough.”
Her heart skipped a beat. Xu Yuewei tied the plastic bag in a tight knot, leaving the handle sticking out like rabbit ears, looking rather silly.
It's not just his clothing style that's reverting to his old ways.
Xu Yuewei couldn't help but retort, "Really? I'm quite shocked."
Jiang Shiyan raised an eyebrow at her, kicked the door shut, and leaned his head against it, tilting his body to look down at her, who was also standing by the wall.
He asked confidently, "What did I do to you?"
Those five words, spoken softly, ignited a surge of anger within her, making her oblivious to even the dangerous sound of the door closing.
The list of misdeeds is too long to recount. However, her gentle handling of the jade carving reminded her of a small incident from the very beginning.
"Rose. You deliberately knocked the flowers off the floor and stepped on them at the coffee shop that day, didn't you?"
"I thought you weren't curious at all, keeping it to yourself for so long."
Jiang Shiyan shrugged, his expression quite nonchalant.
"I just can't stand seeing you accept flowers from other people. Is it wrong for me to be jealous?"
He shamelessly admitted it.
Xu Yuewei was utterly speechless: "...I'm no longer anyone to you!"
This scene felt as if time had reversed, taking them back to the time when they first broke up.
After school started in September, Jiang Shiyan's house was rented out, and he always stayed in hotels whenever he returned to Wuqiao.
Xu Yuewei felt a little guilty and wanted to split the room cost with him, but he refused.
"I don't mind spending this little bit of money on you, so don't try to save money for me."
Xu Yuewei thought about it and decided that after she finished adjusting to the first semester of school, they could take turns going to each other's cities, which would work.
A few months later, Jiang Shiyan rented a house near her university.
It was the dead of winter that day, and the water pipes next to the building were covered in ice. He breathed on them until they formed balls, and excitedly grabbed her hand and ran upstairs.
The so-called "surprise".
She didn't want to spoil the fun, so she cooperated by acting happy, but inside she felt like there was a rusty, blunt nail buried in her heart. She couldn't see the lesion, but she felt vaguely uncomfortable.
A few hours later, she lay in bed waiting for the tide to recede, quietly sorting out her emotions. Slowly, she managed to utter a single, tangled thought: "Why didn't you discuss this with me beforehand?"
"It's okay, I made money."
That's not the point.
Jiang Shiyan lay on his side facing her, propping his head up with his hand, somewhat helplessly saying, "It's not safe to stay in a hotel because you never know which room might have a camera. Wouldn't it be better to solve this once and for all? Besides, if you don't want to live at school, you can stay here."
Xu Yuewei opened her mouth, then closed it again.
No, no...
She went back to her dorm to sleep that night. Jiang Shiyan sent her many messages, and the more he asked, the less she knew how to explain it.
He didn't indulge her and bought a ticket to go home that very night.
She didn't get the house back in the end because he tricked her into paying three months' rent as a penalty for breach of contract.
After that, the relationship continued as usual, but the dull nail gradually rusted, eroding the pleasure more and more.
After sweating profusely one time, Xu Yuewei's throat was dry, and she said with difficulty, "How about we separate for a while? I feel a lot of pressure."
Jiang Shiyan glanced at her, who was wrapped up like a cocoon, then looked down at himself and gave a roguish smile: "Where's the pressure? You don't really think I'm too big, do you?"
...
Looking back now, I should have punched him.
Jiang Shiyan is really smart; to use the words of her teachers back in school, she's "flexible." In contrast, she's the one who follows the rules and obeys the textbook; even if she goes to a prestigious university, she can't learn how to outsmart hooligans.
But 26-year-old Xu Yuewei did not live in vain. She was speechless for a second and gave up the idea of entanglement.
Even though he easily evaded the core of the problem, she didn't forget what she had just said.
They have no relationship anymore, so it's not worth it.
Xu Yuewei lowered her voice, wanting to leave, but since things had already been said, she decided to get to the bottom of it:
"Okay, let's not talk about that anymore. What about the night I got drunk?"
She took a step closer to him, gazing into those lake-like eyes that had once captivated her:
"Teacher Jiang, I respectfully address you as a teacher, please answer me truthfully. Was it intentional that we were secretly filmed?"
Jiang Shiyan lowered his eyes and looked directly at her: "Yes."
A shiver ran up from the soles of my feet, and even the back of my tongue trembled.
"...Yeah, right."
Xu Yuewei was startled and a little dazed, blurting out, "How is that possible?"
Jiang Shiyan smiled, laid the two cans of soda flat in his hands, and shook them up and down a few times.
"See, you've sentenced me to death. If I had handed you this just now, you would have assumed I shook it and wouldn't have opened it to drink it."
The curtains were half drawn and half open, splitting the light in the room. Xu Yuewei stood at the extension of this line between dawn and dusk, bathed in the not-so-bright light, stuck at the winding intersection of time.
The ropes binding them together are tangled and knotted, like a butterfly with broken wings sealed in a specimen. Even if you take it out again, there will be no miracle of rebirth.
The light reflected off the man's brow bone, casting shadows in his eye sockets. His lowered eyes were calm yet turbulent, easily inspiring one to reach out and smooth the wrinkles between his brows.
After a long while, Xu Yuewei gently exhaled a breath that had been stuck in her throat.
"Aren't you also imagining the worst about me?"
As if to confirm something, she took a bottle of soda from his hand and waved it: "I'll take it. Keep the jade carving safe. Don't contact me again."
Just before she could grasp the doorknob, the man blocked her way with his arm across his body.
The arm coiled around her lower abdomen like a python, its hand hovering lightly over her waist on the other side, and the surrounding air seemed to exude a dangerous aura of invasion.
He always liked to restrain her by starting at the waist, and she never knew how to escape.
But this time she didn't dodge; she just didn't care. If she had hurriedly dodged, it would have seemed like a response to something ambiguous.
"Did I cut your hair?" he asked.
She retorted, "Hasn't Teacher Jiang had a woman all these years? You're really willing to waste your time with me."
“No,” he said, his dark eyes following her. “And you?”
He pushed her hand away and locked the door from the inside.
Click.
With the mooring ropes cut, this place became a small, swaying boat, a final farewell to land. Even facing each other, the boat felt cramped.
He used his knee to push her leg back: "Aren't you curious about the reason?"
One step, two steps.
"Didn't you ever think that I was the one accommodating you?"
Jiang Shiyan leaned down, closing the distance until their breaths mingled.
“I haven’t forgotten everything, I’ve just let it go. Because of something you said that night. I’m deceiving myself into believing it, even though you never gave me a definite answer.”
“Xu Yuewei, I’m easy to coax, but you never try to coax me.”
He lowered his eyelids to hide his broken emotions. Deep down, he was unwilling to be weak in front of a woman, yet he felt truly wronged.
"I'm the one who forgives past grievances, okay?"
Xu Yuewei turned her face away, her lips pressed tightly together, stubbornly refusing to back down, because of the man's presence.
What do you mean? You're making it sound like she's a villain.
She hasn't done anything wrong, so why does everyone make her feel like she owes them something?
Xu Yuewei was about to reach her limit. She really wanted to leave Wuqiao tomorrow... Before that, she wanted to leave this house as soon as possible.
If she screams at the top of her lungs, will Assistant Pan come to her rescue?
No, she realized that he and Jiang Shiyan were in cahoots. She had cleverly outsmarted herself and walked right into a trap.
I've had enough.
When Xu Yuewei looked up to meet his gaze, a certain determination flashed in her eyes:
“I’d rather you continue to hold a grudge, like before, on set, when I was in the car…”
She was somewhat incoherent, her words stumbling over each other, letting her emotions take precedence:
"Whether you're angry or hateful, it's up to you. I don't want to go back to the past at all, and I don't regret leaving Wuqiao, or breaking up with you... Ah!"
Jiang Shiyan suddenly lifted her up by her buttocks, causing the soda can to fall. She bounced up and down slightly with his movements and sat on the table.
With a sweep of his hand, the books and clutter on the table were pushed aside. Jiang Shiyan placed his hands on either side of the woman's thighs and found that this trick worked really well. He would use it again in the future.
He asked seriously, "Is your brother's influence part of your lack of regret?"
Xu Yuewei immediately held her breath and widened her eyes.
Jiang Shiyan said calmly, "Proportionally speaking, how much do I get, and how much does he get?"
"...You investigated me?"
"No, I didn't contact him first. Your brother is smart; he knew how to reach out to me. If I had to say, I just set a trap."
"He seemed to be short of money, but he was very sweet-talking and called me 'brother-in-law'."
At this point, Jiang Shiyan smiled sarcastically.
“I lent him some money, not a lot, about a million, and I made him write an IOU. Thanks to you, he trusts me quite a bit.”
"But there's a lot of room for maneuver in getting him to repay the money. Is there anything I can do to help you?"
After he finished speaking, the room fell silent.
Xu Yuewei had been holding it in for a very long time, and finally she exploded:
"Seriously... are you crazy?!"
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