When the two were talking, Ye Lang was standing far away. He didn't know what they said. He only saw He Jinxing pick up Gou An from the ground at the end, and then calmly accepted the end of the morning run just as it began, and personally sent Gou An home.
After daybreak, Ye Lang went home.
Ye Lang's work usually starts in the afternoon when Gou An gets home from school. He spends the time in between catching up on sleep at home, becoming a true nocturnal creature.
Ye Lang is a light sleeper, so he doesn't need to set an alarm clock. At 3:30 p.m. every day, he would be woken up by the sound of Uncle Lin next door picking up his grandson from kindergarten. Usually, the lively footsteps and the crisp voice sharing the day's experiences with the child are his wake-up call.
I got up, washed and showered, topless, and stood by the window where the afternoon sun was pouring in, staring at the tube-shaped building that was gradually regaining its vitality, with a breeze from the sea blowing in my face.
A seabird landed on the roof of the building opposite, but soon flew away.
Even the birds were unwilling to stay.
In the alley downstairs, two old ladies were discussing the Jinshan Wharf development project, which would transform the shantytown area. The place where three generations of people had lived would be demolished. They were reluctant to let go but at the same time hoped that the He family could give them more money for the demolition fee.
"How can they give us that much? Those rich people live by sucking our blood!"
"I heard that the times have changed. The companies in Jiangcheng are being taken over by young people, and their money-making methods are not so radical... Times are changing!"
"I hope so."
"The He Group has good news too. Shouldn't Mr. He be in a good mood?"
"Haha, even if you are in a good mood, it's not your turn to spend an extra penny on us!"
Ye Lang narrowed his eyes slightly, raised his hand to mess up his black hair that was still dripping with water, and at this moment, there was a knock on the door. He was stunned and turned around...
At this moment, a wonderful fantasy appeared before my eyes, just like a moving picture.
He seemed to see a parallel universe.
[Ye Lang still has an expressionless face.
But when the door rang, he probably guessed who was behind the door. Although his expression did not change at all, there was a gleam in his dark eyes.
Probably happy.
The next second after the door is opened, the little girl with a sweet scent on her body will be eager to squeeze in through the slightly opened door -
The coat she was wearing alone was more expensive than all the items in the house combined, but she didn't seem to care about the shabbyness of the house. The first thing she did when she came in was to hug his waist and mutter, "You took so long to open the door. Your neighbor and his grandson saw me and looked at me like a panda... I don't care. If there are any rumors, you will be responsible for it yourself."
Her soft face was buried in his chest.
The moment she hugged him, he raised his hands to show his non-initiative, but at an angle where she couldn't see, the fingertips of his raised hands seemed to be attracted by gravity and bounced slightly downward, towards her shoulders, almost imperceptibly.
After a long while, the white face was lifted from his chest and screamed in a pretentious manner, "Why are you not wearing any clothes!"
Gou An looked up at him, his appearance reflected in those bright almond-shaped eyes, which were as beautiful as a cat's eyes, just enough to fit him. 】
The movie is over.
The knocking on the door continued, and Ye Lang found himself still standing in the sunlight by the window, motionless, and the door was not opened yet.
He didn't know why the scene just now flashed through his mind. When the person in his arms raised her head and he saw her face clearly, he also felt terrified.
He pulled a shirt over his shoulder and opened the door.
The warmth from the direct sunlight mixed with a distinct masculine scent hit me in the face. The person standing outside the door blushed and took a small step back.
Through the crack in the door, Ye Lang saw clearly the person standing outside: of course it was not Gou An.
He pursed his lips and felt a strange sense of emptiness, but it was not strong, just like the feeling of accidentally stepping on the wrong step when going up the stairs.
At this time, a slender arm stretched out from outside the door, holding a mobile phone in hand, and Lu Wan said in a thin voice: "Alang, have you watched the news this afternoon?"
"I just woke up."
"Then take a look."
Ye Lang took the phone from Lu Wan and looked down. He saw the overwhelming new reports on the local social media platform in Jiangcheng. They crushed all kinds of gossip and entertainment news with a strong attitude and occupied most of the front page headlines.
[Announcement of wedding date: He Jinxing, the current head of the He family, has broken his ten-year scandal-free curse! ]
[The future first lady of the He family, daughter of the Gou family: Gou An. ]
[The younger generation of the He family did not inherit the lofty ambitions of their uncles, and declined the marriage to a wealthy family for true love. The young master of the He family, He Ran, broke off the engagement with the daughter of the Gou family. After the marriage of the century was declared bankrupt... things were far from being that simple! ]
[There was something fishy going on! A collection of 100 photos of He Jinxing and Gou An interacting with each other! ]
[Major media outlets reported directly, without mosaics or sensitive words, and said frankly that they were not afraid of being sued: There is only one truth, and the news came from He Jinxing himself.]
[He Jinxing, the head of the He family: We will arrange the engagement banquet as soon as possible. ]
【Gou An: From a wealthy family to another wealthy family. 】
The following comments are brilliant:
"Ahhhh let me scream, the coming of age ceremony banquet Reuters has started, now I can finally speak out loud: these two are a blood match!"
"You screamed too loudly upstairs."
"I suggest you print out that horseback riding photo and hang it in the living room as your marriage certificate!"
"The iron tree blooms, the iron tree blooms."
"bless!"
"Wow, what's going on? The dancing picture was great too. I loved seeing his fingertips resting on the bow on her waist. It always felt so erotic!"
"What, He Jinxing doesn't like men, I thought she did!"
"It would be less ridiculous if the above person said that he had a physiological problem and it was only recently fixed, right?"
"I'm old now, and sometimes I can't help but think, Cinderella and the prince are touching and inspiring, but can a princess and a prince be together forever?"
"I've also been into Wild Dog and Princess hhhhhhh. Gou An's bodyguard is pretty good looking."
There was a rare blank look on Ye Lang's face. He suddenly realized that Gou An seemed to have said something to He Jinxing under the street light this morning. The man looked back in the direction where the sun rose, then smiled.
Now, he roughly knew what Gou An said.
The overly handsome face of the man in front of him usually rarely showed any expression, but at this moment he was frowning with genuine emotion, his lips slightly pursed, and he did not look happy.
"I didn't expect it," Lu Wan looked at him, "Gou An actually ended up with Mr. He."
"Are you okay?"
"ah?"
"I say," his voice became a little stiff, and full of the force of wanting to end the conversation, "what else do you want?"
The person behind the door was unable to enter because Ye Lang had been blocking the door the entire time. She blinked, only to find that the person in front of her seemed to have an inexplicably worse tone, and his voice became softer: "I'm here to get the hat."
When Lu Wan looked up at him, Ye Lang remembered that when she was very young, she would try to raise her head, take short steps, stumble behind him, and ask him, "Alang, where are you going? Grandma wants to have dinner with you, do you want to?"
Later, they moved together to this tube-shaped building and continued to be neighbors. When Lu Wan was in elementary school, he wrote a serious love letter to Ye Lang, but later because he did not respond, the two gradually forgot about it.
They grew up together as neighbors in this way. Ye Lang once thought that he didn't know what the love between lovers was, but in his opinion, no one would surpass Lu Wan.
"What hat?" Ye Lang was in a daze, and his tone finally didn't sound so fierce.
Lu Wan smiled, and used her hands to make a pointed hat shape, and placed it on her head: "Remember the sun hat on the cruise ship? A hat is nothing special. I was looking through my shopping cart purchase records recently and wanted to buy another one. Suddenly I remembered the strawberry on the hat. It was a handicraft made by my daughter downstairs in the kindergarten during the Children's Day holiday. She gave it to me -"
Ye Lang said "Oh".
Lu Wan opened his eyes wide: "You didn't throw it away, did you?"
"No." Ye Lang said firmly, "She is not the kind of person who would throw away other people's things casually."
After saying this, not to mention Lu Wan, he himself was stunned on the spot, not understanding where such absolute certainty came from.
"I'll go ask her for it."
After saying this, he closed the door in a hurry.
Billiards room.
The light was dim and only the concentrated light from the pool table was present.
"I am not as skilled as others, so I have to admit defeat."
He Yuan put away his club and looked back at the person behind him with a smile.
In the corner, two long legs stretched out naturally. He Ran had a gloomy face and stared at the mobile phone in his hand. As the picture kept changing, the light reflected on his face also made his expression colorful.
The two of them got together and it was truly a chance encounter.
While eating lunch at school, He Ran couldn't eat a single bite when he saw the headlines of today's news constantly pushed on his phone.
Under the astonished gazes of his basketball teammates, he threw the food plate and, as the team captain, disappeared during the afternoon training.
I had nowhere to go after leaving school and felt depressed, so I unknowingly came to the billiard room where I usually go to for entertainment.
After hitting two shots, I was not in good shape. I happened to meet He Yuan, so I asked him to take over. I shrank into a corner. I knew I shouldn’t watch the news anymore, but I couldn’t help but watch it again and again.
Those comments, all the blessings and surprises, occasionally mentioned He Ran, and also expressed emotion. He Ran probably didn't expect this to happen.
Guessed it right.
I really didn't expect it.
Although I was shocked at first, I soon realized that this was completely expected, as if the other shoe that had been hanging in the air had finally dropped and the death sentence had finally been delivered to me.
"I heard that my uncle was drugged that night..."
Beside the pool table, the curly-haired boy bent down slightly.
"Gou An also disappeared at the same time."
He Ran suddenly put down the phone in his hand, his face became more gloomy, and he stared at He Yuan without saying a word. "What do you want to say?"
"You've been looking for her for a long time, right? Did you find her in the end?"
He Yuan chuckled, aimed the club in his hand at the red ball, and was eager to try.
His words were ambiguous, but He Ran knew exactly what he wanted to say. By the way, with his reminder, he inadvertently thought of that day when he vaguely saw a strand of soft black hair and naked white ankles on the sofa in the dim light in the cabin.
My breathing was choked.
Apart from this, he thought of other things, all messy and fragmentary, about He Jinxing's continuous "meddling" in Gou An's affairs.
Since the day he rescued someone from the police station in the middle of the night, he had been hinting at him; on the second day of the Ye Weiyang incident, he saw scratches on his wrist, and he asked him if it was Lu Wan. The man denied it, but his smile became even more joyful; the VE high-end necklace on Gou An's neck was said to be a gift from his grandfather, but later he accidentally discovered that it was Secretary Liu who signed the order, and that person was obviously only responsible for He Jinxing's personal schedule; at the coming-of-age ceremony banquet, the dance under the watchful eyes of everyone, everyone joked that it was also He Jinxing's first dance after returning to the social circle of Jiangcheng...
He was like a dumb ass, thinking that He Jinxing was interested in Lu Wan.
If Gou An's resolute decision to break off the engagement with him was an act of abandonment, then the behavior of the elders in the family was obviously making this "abandonment" even worse...
They had planned this for a long time.
Conspire and make a fool of him.
He Ran threw the phone in his hand, stood up suddenly, and grabbed the windbreaker hanging on the sofa.
The phone hit the pool table, and the loud noise startled the other people in the pool room. Everyone turned their heads, but He Yuan didn't seem surprised at all. He just raised his chin slightly, and the corners of his lips curled up silently, "Hey, are you leaving?"
He Ran's face was as black as the bottom of a pot. Without even turning his head, he pushed the door open with his shoulder and left in a hurry.
"Don't be impulsive, brother."
He Yuan chuckled in a voice that only he could hear, and aimed the club in his hand at the impact, accompanied by a "pop" sound -
The red ball fell into the pocket, hitting the bull's eye.
Gou An was unaware of what was happening.
I slept so much in the afternoon that I was almost late. I got up quickly, washed up, and went out without even having time to check my phone. So I had no idea what was going on at first. I just felt that the moment I walked into the classroom, the classroom, which was originally filled with conversations, became quiet for a few seconds.
Then there was another "buzz" and the whole place exploded.
Tang Xinjiu waved at her and asked her to sit next to him. She walked over to her, but before she could sit down, Tang Xinjiu took out a tissue from somewhere and began to wipe her chair eagerly.
Gou An: “?”
Tang Xinjiu smiled from ear to ear: "I thought you weren't going to class today. After all, what kind of crappy class is it that requires the First Lady of the He family to come in person!"
Gou An cursed, "You're crazy!", sat down, took out a textbook from his bag, and found a pen. After he sat still, he suddenly realized what was going on. He blinked and asked, "What did you say?"
Tang Xinjiu: "Didn't you check your phone?"
Gou An felt his pocket, took out his phone and pressed it, only to find that it had run out of battery and had automatically shut down. He shook his head in confusion.
A friend handed her his mobile phone, and she squatted down to read the front-page headlines. After reading the series of familiar words, it was just that after she woke up, the series of news headlines that popped up in her memory had changed a keyword.
At this time, the teacher came to class. The classroom was still noisy. The teacher cleared his throat and the original talking finally quieted down a little.
The teacher was a young woman in her early thirties. She had obviously seen today's news reports and said with a smile, "I know you all like gossiping, but today's task is still to complete this lesson."
The crowd continued to make a fuss and some boys even whistled.
Gou An's face began to heat up.
"Gou An, congratulations." The teacher on the podium smiled at the man who was almost crawling under the table and said, "Remember to bring your marriage certificate for registration. It seems that it can add credits."
The forehead of the person who only showed a part of her head was as red as a monkey's butt. She muttered a few words. Tang Xinjiu leaned close to her and listened, then laughed: "Teacher, she said she doesn't need these crappy credits!"
Based on Gou An's embarrassment, the laughter in the classroom was almost enough to blow the roof off.
After the class officially started, Tang Xinjiu asked quietly: "When will you ..."
"This morning."
"This morning? It seems like someone came out to make an official announcement right after they confirmed their engagement? It seems like they're afraid that you'll regret it after you come to your senses. Why don't you, hahahaha, reflect on your image!"
“…”
During the break, Gou An charged his cell phone.
He grabbed the phone and squatted in a corner of the corridor, and for the first time ever, he dialed a number in his address book.
The phone rang for many times before it was picked up. The person on the other end said "hmm". As soon as she opened her mouth to say "I", she yelled back angrily -
"What are you doing! What's with all that news? Now everyone knows about it! They're all laughing at me!"
There was silence on the other side for three seconds.
Maybe her voice was too loud, or maybe the sound insulation of mobile phones was too poor. He Jinxing moved the phone slightly away from his ear. Not surprisingly, everyone in the conference room, including Secretary Liu, had uncontrollable smiles on their faces.
He very politely gestured "sorry", although it was not very sincere and it was obvious that he was going to be socially dead, the calmness on the man's face still made everyone admire him.
"Take a ten-minute break." He Jinxing said.
Everyone was suddenly inspired and started busy sorting out documents. A few shy supervisors started asking each other if they wanted coffee.
On the other end of the phone, Gou An realized that this sentence was not addressed to her. She choked for three seconds, then lowered her voice and asked, "Are you busy?"
This little voice is a completely useless compensation.
It was hard for He Jinxing not to laugh out loud, and a smile crept into his eyes: "I'm in a meeting."
"...Why didn't you say so earlier?"
"I was just about to say this," the man said good-temperedly, "but you were so eager to scold me that you didn't even give me a chance to speak."
The only answer he got was a long silence. Perhaps she was trying hard to digest the fact that she had embarrassed herself again, but she still couldn't forgive herself. The girl felt as if steam was coming out of her forehead.
"Then you are busy." She said, biting her back teeth, "We'll talk to you tonight."
"Oh," He Jinxing asked, "Do you want to--"
Have dinner together.
Before he could finish his words, the phone was hung up mercilessly.
“…”
For the first time in his life, the call was hung up without even a "goodbye". He stared blankly at the phone that had jumped back onto the desktop. After a few seconds, he realized that his phone was no longer in a state where it would not light up or receive calls all the time...
He should be able to be like an ordinary person. When playing a drinking game, there should be someone who can inform her, "I'm going to play a game, please don't send messages for the time being."
During meetings, you should also put your phone on silent mode.
Looking back at the frightened people in the conference room, everyone's eyes were filled with gossip, so He Jinxing stuffed his phone back into his pocket.
(End of this chapter)