Chapter 27
As always, FANTLAND was filled with young people killing time.
Yan Qing looked around but didn't see Zhuge Xiaoxiang. The bartender pointed behind him, and Yan Qing understood. He walked through the narrow passage filled with bottles and cardboard boxes and slipped out the back door.
Under the dim streetlights, Hu Ruoting, wearing tank tops, hot pants, and Doc Martens, leaned casually against a lamppost with a cigarette between two fingers: "I'm an adult, don't you understand the freedom to date?"
Zhuge Xiaoxiang, sitting opposite her, had a livid face: "Who is Zhou Yufei? A notorious playboy! You won't get any benefit from following him!"
"Why can't I get one?" Hu Ruoting held out her left hand, two silver diamond rings stacked on her slender white ring finger: "CocoCrush diamond rings, he gave them to me. Aren't they pretty?"
Zhuge Xiaoxiang angrily pushed her hand away: "You were bought off with something worth ten thousand yuan? Is that all your youth is worth?"
“That’s not all,” Hu Ruoting protested. “He also gave me an LV Boston bag. Do you want me to show it to you?”
Zhuge was so angry he couldn't speak, but Hu Ruoting took a smug puff of her cigarette, exhaled lightly, and the grayish-purple smoke hit Zhuge's face. She laughed loudly, completely disregarding Zhuge Xiaoxiang's anger.
Zhuge snatched her cigarette and threw it on the ground: "Hopeless! You're nothing like your sister!"
Yan Qing had never seen the usually composed Zhuge lose his temper like this.
Hu Ruoting glared at him: "Do you want me to be like her? Fine, I'll die like her, are you satisfied now?!" After saying that, she ignored Zhuge Xiaoxiang's attempts to stop her and stormed off.
Zhuge Xiaoxiang saw Yan Qing across the road, and weakly raised the corners of her mouth, but still couldn't manage a decent smile.
Yan Qing comforted her, "Don't worry, I'll go take a look."
She quickly followed Hu Ruoting as she ran.
In a quiet alley beside the bar, Hu Ruoting stopped outside a tobacco and liquor store, impatiently rummaging through her motorcycle bag, only to find her phone and wallet missing. Seeing Yan Qing not far away, she asked, "Got any cigarettes?"
"I don't know how," Yan Qing said.
"Fine!" Hu Ruoting slammed her bag to the ground, sighed, and slumped down on the curb.
Yan Qing followed her and sat down next to her.
Upon closer inspection, she noticed a conspicuous hickey on Hu Ruoting's fair neck. This was probably Zhou Yufei's "masterpiece," and the reason Zhuge Xiaoxiang was furious.
Hu Ruoting fiddled with the ring on her ring finger and snorted, "You don't need to stay with me. I'm just talking nonsense; I won't actually commit suicide."
"Zhuge is very worried about you, so he sent me to check on you."
Hu Ruoting sneered: "What are you worried about? Worried that I'll tarnish his reputation?"
"He genuinely cares about you, you can feel it, right?"
Hu Ruoting snorted, then scratched her hair in annoyance. She hugged her knees, buried her face in her elbows, and her slender back rose and fell with her breath.
Yan Qing noticed that she was crying.
Yan Qing took out a tissue, took it, blew her nose, but her voice was still noticeably nasal: "My life is such a failure. I can't get anything I want. I love singing, but I ended up with asthma. I can't even be with the man I love. How damn ironic!"
Yan Qing wanted to say that Teresa Teng also had asthma, yet she remained a renowned singer. After hesitating for a moment, she felt it was unlucky, so she gently comforted her, "You're still young, you're far from the age to be talking about lifelong commitment."
"I'm in my twenties, not young anymore. I only plan to live to thirty. I don't even dare to think about what life will be like after thirty, how old would I be?"
The girl's words stunned Yan Qing.
Hu Ruoting turned around and stared at Yan Qing in the dim light of the streetlamp: "You know, you look just like my sister." Hu Ruoting smiled bitterly, "If she were still alive, none of this would have happened."
Yan Qing didn't know what kind of trouble she was talking about, but she could completely understand the pain and confusion of a little girl who had lost her loved ones.
"You two are really close, aren't you?"
Hu Ruoting's sudden question stunned Yan Qing. She knew she was referring to herself and Zhuge Xiaoxiang.
Were they particularly close? She couldn't say.
In truth, there hadn't even been a formal confession between them. Where did it all begin? Did it start with their walk together on the playground? Did it begin with her taking care of him all night after he got drunk? That night, things took a turn; something did happen between them, yet it was as if nothing had happened at all; she only had a vague, indistinct impression left in her mind. And from that day on, as if by unspoken agreement, they naturally entered into a romantic relationship.
This was her first relationship, if it could even be called a relationship. She had no experience to draw upon, no role models to follow. She wasn't sure what exactly constituted a suitable relationship.
"You two are very much in love, aren't you?" Hu Ruoting asked again.
Yan Qing gave an ambiguous answer: "It's alright."
Hu Ruoting looked at her thoughtfully for a while, then stood up, patted the dust off her bottom, and said, "Let's go, it's my turn to go on stage."
Yan Qing did not return to Fantland, but instead followed Zhuge Xiaoxiang back to his residence.
Unlike Qiao Yi's laziness and casualness, Zhuge's room was always clean and tidy, completely shattering Yan Qing's preconceived notion that single men were sloppy.
Zhuge Xiaoxiang noticed a faint red mark near her mouth, turned around and went to the kitchen to make a cup of lemon honey water: "Are you feeling hot? It's hot, drink more water."
The cup was handed to her, and she silently pursed her lips.
"I've compiled some information about this year's fall recruitment season," Zhuge Xiaoxiang said, opening her laptop. "Based on your major, and considering factors such as career direction, salary and benefits, growth and promotion opportunities, and workload, I've selected some companies that I think are relatively good. Here's a summary table for your reference."
Yan Qing looked at the meticulously prepared table on the screen, feeling a mix of emotions.
"Why are you so good to me?" she asked softly.
Zhuge Xiaoxiang patted her head: "Children need to be taken care of."
Yan Qing could sense from the beginning that Zhuge Xiaoxiang possessed a patriarchal personality. Although Yan Qing had encountered many suitors, none had ever shown him such meticulous care. He remembered her likes and dislikes, cared about her emotions, and never did anything to upset her. Whenever she encountered difficulties, he was always the first to notice, and would lend a helping hand without her even asking. His attitude towards her was more like nurturing a flower in a greenhouse.
Sometimes Yan Qing felt that this all-encompassing care and protection had made her unconsciously lazy, causing her to lose the energy and vigilance to cope with life. There was even a hint of… blandness?
Seeing that she was in a daze, Zhuge cupped her cheeks and gently kissed her.
Zhuge's kiss, like him, was warm, delicate, and flawless.
But a terrifying thought popped into Yan Qing's mind—her dangerous expectations of her lover. Compared to the gentle, flowing nature of a relationship, a lover's kiss should be more intense, vivid, and unforgettable; it's a confrontation between love and pain, an entanglement of spirit and flesh, an interweaving of ice and fire; it's a contradictory, painful, and protracted process of gradually succumbing and losing control, unable to extricate oneself; and the unreal feeling of lingering in mid-air after the music ends and all the chaotic notes cease...
But where did she get these perceptions, or rather, these imaginings?
The tender, lingering kisses continued. She closed her eyes, trying to escape her chaotic thoughts. But as darkness fell, she couldn't help but recall a completely different touch of lips, and the crisp, refreshing scent of cedar that accompanied that touch and swirled in her breath—it was definitely not the scent of Zhuge Xiaoxiang.
That smell existed high above, in spaces surrounded by cold, hard glass curtain walls...
Thinking of this, the top of her head trembled involuntarily.
Yan Qing insisted that Zhuge Xiaoxiang not see her off, and walked back to school herself.
Throughout the journey, she was absent-minded, lost in thought. A new Chinese knot-style pendant hung on her backpack, tied by Zhuge Xiaoxiang herself. She fiddled with the tassels with one finger, her heart seemingly caught in a net, entangled in a thousand emotions.
As she entered the school gate, she habitually circled the playground, but lacked the usual urge to go inside. In the dead of night during summer vacation, the only sounds on campus were the gentle rustling of leaves in the breeze and the monotonous, repetitive chirping of cicadas. The world, restless all day in the sweltering heat, had fallen asleep.
Suddenly her phone rang.
The caller ID reads: Shen Hanyang.
She hesitated for a moment, but answered the call anyway.
"Does it still hurt?"
Yan Qing felt as if she were possessed; upon hearing his voice, her heart skipped a beat.
"It's nothing," she answered softly, her fingers unconsciously touching the inconspicuous mark on her lips. It was from that afternoon in his office, during their entanglement, when she accidentally got it.
“I’m sorry, I hurt you. And,” there was a pause, “I misspoke.”
"What did you say?" Yan Qing asked, puzzled.
"It's not fake."
Yan Qing was stunned.
"Everything that happened today... wasn't fake." He repeated, his voice low and hoarse, as if he'd been drinking. His hot breath seemed to penetrate the receiver and spray into her ear, a tingling, itchy sensation. Yan Qing was dazed by this non-existent alcohol, her breathing quickening.
"I don't quite understand what you mean," she said, her voice weak as she held the phone.
"Can I come see you tomorrow?" Shen Hanyang seemed to be hinting at something.
Yan Qing's throat tightened even more, her anxious heart pounding as if it would leap out of her chest. She gripped the Chinese knot tightly in her hand, letting the metal clasp prick her palm.
The pain jolted her awake. She composed herself, her tone returning to its detached tone: "We agreed to help each other and each get what we need. Just like a signed contract can't be easily overturned, a promise can't be easily broken. You've always kept your word, haven't you?"
“A signed contract can also be supplemented with a supplementary agreement,” Shen Hanyang said.
"I cannot accept this."
“I can add more money, ten times or a hundred times more.”
If Yan Qing still harbored a sliver of unrealistic hope just moments before, that hope was now utterly extinguished by the bucket of cold water poured over her. The shame and anger of being humiliated made it impossible for her to remain calm: "Is it fun to toy with me?" Yan Qing gritted her teeth. "President Chen, you've gone too far! Don't think that just because you're a master of romance, you can treat every woman in the world as your reserve harem. You've chosen the wrong target!"
On the other end of the phone, Shen Hanyang defended himself: "That's not what I meant. I genuinely want to..."
"I don't want it!" Yan Qing interrupted him, deliberately emphasizing her words. "I shouldn't have believed your nonsense and wasted my time and energy. I forgot that we're not on the same wavelength at all!"
Shen Hanyang seemed to laugh: "Who do you think I am?"
Yan Qing bluntly stated: "A person with an improper conduct and a chaotic private life!"
You mean Zhang Linjing?
Yan Qing deduced that Zhang Linjing was the name of the woman who had caused a scene in his office that afternoon.
She remained silent.
"No, I must have made you misunderstand something." Shen Hanyang said this with a calm demeanor, and asked unhurriedly, "Tell me, what are you thinking?"
“It couldn’t be clearer,” Yan Qing said bluntly. “I don’t know what tricks you used to make a poor woman so infatuated, and then you abandoned her. She can’t forget you and wants to win you back, but you don’t give her any face at all, and you even create the illusion that you are being harassed and pestered.”
"So, you think I'm the one who did the bad thing?"
Yan Qing toned it down a bit: "I just sympathize with her. In the end, she's the one who gets hurt, and she's the one who bears the blame."
After a few seconds of silence, Shen Hanyang's voice came through the phone again: "I have to explain to you clearly that I am the victim in this matter."
"You mean, you, a handsome man with unimaginable wealth, are being manipulated by a weak woman who is completely outmatched by you in every way?" Yan Qing sneered, unable to hide the sarcasm in her tone.
Shen Hanyang sighed softly, "Hearing you say that makes me both happy and sad. I'm happy to receive your praise, but sad that you don't believe me. A 'weak' Zhang Linjing has turned my life upside down. Aren't I the victim too?"
"One?" Yan Qing countered. "She's just the one I saw. I don't know how many others there are that I haven't seen. In short, I won't become one of them, so don't waste your time."
He hung up the phone in a hurry after saying that.
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