Chapter 85
She walked towards him.
With unwavering courage.
She stood before him, looking up at him, tears glistening in her eyes.
This courage, which he couldn't share with outsiders, was six years late. Just when he thought he had been forgotten, Guan Nan awkwardly responded to Jiang Li, who had been brave on his own during his youth.
Courage, bravery, six years have passed.
Jiang Li lowered his eyes, his pupils flickered, and his voice was hoarse: "What did you say?"
His reply came from Guan Nan on the table, who accepted all offers without hesitation.
She drank glass after glass of wine, lost game after game, until her face was flushed and she leaned on Chen Fei's shoulder, tears streaming down her face. Chen Fei held her close, but received no answer from her, only endless tears.
Xie Qiao and Zhang Min, who wanted to say something, exchanged a glance and shook their heads, continuing to eat, drink, and play games with others, letting her vent her frustrations.
Hei Zi put down his cards, glanced at them several times, and couldn't help but ask, "Have you been under a lot of pressure lately?"
“A little,” Xie Qiao wanted to say no, but when he glanced at Guan Nan who was sobbing, his words changed. “It’s big, how could it not be? She’s been taking care of a lunatic lately, and he’s really messing things up for her.”
"Huh?" Hei Zi looked around. "Aren't you guys internet celebrities?"
Xie Qiao emphasized: "Our studio, managing internet celebrities, isn't about making them. To put it simply, it's about IP incubation, you know?"
“I don’t really want to know,” Kuroko said, then suddenly remembered something and quickly added, “A nurturing system?”
With a simple "more or less," Xie Qiao noticed that there was still wine in his glass, and he not only hadn't drunk it but also seemed to be pouring it into his bowl. Immediately, Xie Qiao gave him a good scolding.
After a satisfying meal, the party ended.
Because it wasn't on her way, and Chen Fei, who was also in a rush to work overtime after receiving a phone call, couldn't take Guan Nan back to Cangyuan, so she instructed and warned Jiang Li, "You're not allowed to have any inappropriate thoughts" and "You're not allowed to do anything you shouldn't do."
Finally, he said he was relieved and only felt at ease after personally putting Guan Nan in the car.
"Do you know where she lives?" Chen Fei asked through the car window as she was leaving, still worried.
At that moment, he was fastening his seatbelt without even looking up. "It's pretty much the same."
“Well,” Chen Fei glanced at Guan Nan’s unconscious state and hesitated for a moment before saying, “then, could you please take her upstairs? Just leave her at the door; you don’t need to go in.”
Jiang Li rested one hand on the steering wheel and gave a curt "hmm" without much expression.
Chen Fei wanted to say something more, but the taxi arrived, and the driver was flashing his hazard lights and making a phone call. Chen Fei had no choice but to run away.
This time, in the private space, only the two of them remained.
Unfortunately, the person was a drunkard and couldn't speak properly.
Halfway through the drive, Jiang Li glanced at the passenger seat and said casually, "You've made a thoughtful friend this time."
But Guan Nan couldn't hear these words. She leaned her head against the door and window, the car was driving smoothly without any pain from the bumps. But she felt lightheaded and unsteady, unable to speak, her thoughts hazy and confused.
It was past 11 p.m. when we returned to Cangyuan.
At this time, there were basically no parking spaces left in the community, and Jiang Li was too lazy to find a parking spot on the roadside that wasn't far away.
Supporting Guan Nan, he slowly walked towards Building 26, passing through the fence piled up halfway up, brushing past the pomegranate trees, and climbing the stairs. Before he was halfway up, Guan Nan missed a step several times.
After a pause, Jiang Li grabbed her arm, preventing her from going any further upstairs.
He immediately bent down, spread his arms to the left and right, picked up the person in front of him horizontally, and carried him up the stairs.
Jiang Li left the person at the door, took out the key from her canvas bag, opened the door, and led her inside to sit on the sofa. He then went into the kitchen as if he knew the way well and started making honey water.
Unexpectedly, just as they were about to scoop out the honey, there was a knock at the door.
He went out and opened the door, and when he saw who it was, he subtly raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"
Qi Yang's face darkened as he looked around the room, his gaze aggressive: "President Jiang, what's your business here?"
"What's it to you?" Jiang Li said arrogantly, a smirk playing on his lips.
"That won't work," Qi Yang reached out, trying to forcibly pull the person out, "Come out!"
Jiang Li: "Why don't you ask her if she agrees?"
"Jiang Li," Qi Yang said with a dark face, trying to provoke him, "You're such a big boss, running to someone else's fiancée's house in the middle of the night, don't you have any shame?"
"Whose fiancée?" Jiang Li seemed to realize something. "You."
Qi Yang coldly watched him pretend to be stupid.
"Who said that? Did she agree?" Jiang Li asked in a still gentle tone.
Qi Yang's neck veins throbbed, and he controlled his voice and temper, saying stiffly, "That's none of your business."
"That's where I should put in the effort," Jiang Li said, his smile barely reaching his eyes.
Taking a deep breath, Qi Yang gritted his teeth and held back his outburst. "Don't push your luck! There should be a proper order to things, what kind of behavior is this!"
The water in the kettle inside the room dripped once.
Hearing this, Jiang Li's patience ran out. "Who cares about who came first or last?"
Not wanting to get entangled with him any longer, Jiang Li reached into his pocket and pulled out a booklet even redder than New Year's couplets. He said with a lack of sincerity and arrogance, "Sorry to disappoint you, this is a legally married couple with a license."
Upon seeing this, Qi Yang frowned and reached out to hide the marriage certificate.
Jiang Li reacted quickly, stuffing the marriage certificate into his pocket before he could do anything, and then closed the door behind him: "The water's boiled, my wife wants some water, so I'll have to stay and keep her company."
Qi Yang remained outside the door, still fuming.
After giving Guan Nan some honey water, I felt it wasn't appropriate to leave her on the sofa for the night, so I carried her horizontally into the room she had returned to last time. I turned on the light in the dark, lifted the covers, and put her on the bed.
As soon as he landed, before Jiang Li could even grab the air conditioner remote, someone grabbed his hand.
Guan Nan, still tipsy, sobbed, "Jiang Li."
"I'll go get it—" Jiang Li patted her head, but before he could finish his sentence, he saw her hug his hand tightly.
She buried her face in his arms, tears streaming down her face, her eyes red and swollen, as she said "I'm sorry" and "Jiang Li, I'm sorry" over and over again, her voice filled with grievance, helplessness, and sadness.
Jiang Li paused, his outstretched hand hovering in mid-air, still trembling.
A moment of silence.
Jiang Li stroked her hand and said in a deep, hoarse voice, "I forgive you."
"I forgave you a long time ago."
However, he was still angry.
Resentful of Qi Yang's behavior at the community office, Qi Yang, beaming with pride, boasted to everyone that "good things are coming soon," occasionally glancing at him with a silent air of arrogance.
At that time, Jiang Li sat in the conference chair, coldly watching people shake hands with him.
Hearing everyone praising him for being young and promising, achieving success in both family and career, and balancing both love and work, offering their congratulations in a jumbled manner, he suddenly became rude for the first time when handing out wedding candy in Qiyang. He made up an excuse and left with the words "excuse me."
As for the wedding candy that was forcibly given him, he threw it into the bird feed jar, just like his pride.
The next day, Guan Nan woke up and felt weak in the legs when she got out of bed.
She looked down and saw a person sleeping on the ground with their face covered by clothes.
That kick, just an inch off, landed on his upper abdomen. Jiang Li gasped, wrapped one arm around her ankle, and tore off her clothes with the other.
In the quiet room, the man and woman stared at each other in silence, with only the faint sound of the air conditioner audible.
"What are you doing?" Jiang Li stared straight at her. "Trying to murder your husband?"
Guan Nan was embarrassed and subconsciously pulled her foot back: "Sorry."
Jiang Li didn't let go, and asked in return, "You weren't drunk last night, were you?"
"..." Seeing his expression as if some major accident had occurred, Guan Nan couldn't recall what had happened last night, but suddenly had a bad feeling. She thought for a moment and tentatively asked, "Did I do something last night?"
After a two-second pause, Jiang Li let go of her hand and sat up: "You really are a scumbag."
...Scumbag?
Guan Nan was unclear about what had happened, but the matter seemed tricky and complicated. Without much confidence, she asked, "What did I...do to you last night?"
“Hmm,” Jiang Li sat on the ground and nodded calmly, listing her crimes one by one, “Last night you threatened, coerced, bribed, and seduced me, held my hand and wouldn’t let me leave, and hugged and embraced me.”
Guan Nan's eyelids twitched: "Anything else?"
“You were crying and snot streaming down your face, and you talked to me all night long,” Jiang Li paused for two seconds, then coughed lightly and began to speak slowly, “You said you really liked me for a very long time, from high school until now, and if you couldn’t be with me, you probably would never like anyone else in your life.”
"..." Guan Nan's face was expressionless, seemingly unmoved, but in reality, she was devastated. "Impossible."
Jiang Li did not refute her, but gave her a meaningful look.
She knew she was drunk last night, knew her eyes were swollen from crying, and knew she had held onto an arm. She knew these things very well, so well that she knew she had never told anyone.
But to believe her, she held Jiang Li last night, weeping and saying those words.
Guan Nan wouldn't believe it.
But Guan Nan felt inexplicably guilty after seeing that look.
"Is that so?" Jiang Li smiled.
Guan Nan: "..."
He lowered his head, slowly rolled up his sleeves, and said casually, "You still say you can't live without me."
"..." Guan Nan had said all these things before, and now she couldn't stay calm. Her face showed an expression of having seen a ghost, but she tried to maintain a calm facade. But when people are nervous, they want to say something, and since she couldn't tell the truth, she started to talk nonsense: "Really? I like to talk nonsense when I'm drunk."
“What a pity,” Jiang Li said with a half-smile, raising an eyelid. “I’ll take them all.”
There is no way to avoid it, and no way to hide from it.
Guan Nan's heart skipped a beat. She looked down at the face in front of her that showed no sign of "joking." Her breathing and eyes became disordered, and she lost her senses.
"I...I'm going to brush my teeth." Guan Nan couldn't resist any longer, so she jumped up, opened the door, and fled in panic.
Seeing her back, Jiang Li got up with a smile on his face, casually folded the thin blanket on the bed, and suddenly patted the old, faded rabbit with lop ears.
When I returned to the room, I found that the air conditioner was off and the room was open for ventilation, and the cushion that served as the bed had been put back in the living room.
She changed her clothes and got everything ready when she heard a knock at the door. When she went out, she saw Jiang Li standing at the door with breakfast in hand, already washed up and dressed.
Guan Nan hesitated for a moment, then stepped aside to make way for her: "I thought you had left."
"You're hoping I'll leave," Jiang Li sneered.
Upon hearing this, Guan Nan fell silent.
The two ate breakfast in silence in the living room. The alarm clock, meant to remind them to go to work, rang again. Guan Nan glanced at it and turned it off. He had intended to remind himself that it was time to leave.
Then, he was seen grabbing the keys with his right hand, clearing the trash from the table, and picking up a bag of garbage.
"You—" Guan Nan began to speak.
Jiang Li asked casually, "Going out?"
"Mm." Guan Nan nodded.
Jiang Li asked again, "Where to?"
Not knowing what he was going to do, Guan Nan hesitated for two seconds before honestly giving a place name.
“The startup park,” Jiang Li said, then lazily raised his chin. “Let’s go.”
"······Walk?"
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