Chapter 30
Chi Shu answered immediately, and as the camera swayed, his scholarly and handsome face was revealed. He was also wearing a pair of unremarkable half-rimmed glasses, which was unusual for him.
Lin Langyi was stunned when she caught a glimpse of them. These ordinary, unremarkable glasses reminded her of her first love, who was now far away on the West Coast.
When he was in school, he also wore the same glasses. When they went to the library together, he would occasionally push up the frame with his index finger and patiently explain the problems to her.
"What don't you know?" The moment the words left her mouth, she suddenly realized that this was the question her first love had said to her the most.
Chi Shu's table was covered with all kinds of pearls and accessories, but he only obediently occupied a small table, and the lamps above his head were only turned on sparingly, just enough to illuminate his small area.
Her good habit of diligence and thrift was just like when she first met him. He awkwardly clutched the hem of his faded cotton T-shirt. The total cost of his clothes was no more than a hundred yuan. He was wary and grateful for the olive branch she offered, and there was also a sense of inferiority that he thought he had hidden well.
She really resembles my first love; both of them are aloof, hardworking, and have a strong sense of self-respect.
Lin Langyi inexplicably thought of her first love again. Sorry, what am I thinking about at night instead of men? The middle of the night is a good time to reminisce about the past.
Her thoughts drifted away. She realized she was quite sentimental, still thinking about her first love several times even after the breakup. First love... um... what was her first love's name again?
Lin Lang thought for a long time, then went back to his phone's contact list to find the person, and finally found it:
Side narration.
Oh right, his name is Bian Shu.
"Sister Langyi?" Chi Shu tilted her head in confusion on the other end of the video call. "Are you still listening?"
The pond is sparse, and the border is described.
“Xiao Shu,” Lin Langyi said casually, “I heard you. The laser line switch on the punching machine is also turned on. You can adjust the distance first.”
Chi Shu was momentarily stunned by the address, and wiped the tip of her nose with the back of her hand as if to cover it up, her ears immediately turning red.
"Which switch?" He glanced at her, then quickly lowered his eyes. He had been fine just now, but now he suddenly didn't dare to keep his eyes on her. He just kept his head down and did whatever Lin Langyi pointed to.
After drilling the holes in the two pearls, he quickly became proficient. However, noticing Lin Langyi sitting listlessly on the sofa with her long hair down, and not wanting an awkward silence between them, he kept trying to find topics to talk about.
He chose the question he most wanted to know: "Is this your home?"
His heart pounded as he asked the question. He wasn't blind; although a thin blanket covered the sofa behind him, he could vaguely make out a person lying under it. However, the person was motionless, and he couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, let alone what their relationship was.
It's so late, and Lin Langyi is still video chatting with him without any defenses in front of the person on the sofa. Moreover, this house looks old and ordinary, unlike the place where the rumored playboy Cheng Yanjin would live. It shouldn't be him, right?
Perhaps it was family, perhaps Lin Langyi had gone to a friend's house temporarily, or perhaps...
Chi Shu even naively hoped that there was just a life-sized doll under the blanket.
Suddenly, a hand appeared on the screen. It was honey-colored, with a broad palm and strong knuckles. It lazily draped itself over the edge of the sofa, casually pressing down on Lin Langyi's beautiful black hair, which was loosely piled on the sofa fabric.
These are a man's hands, no doubt about it.
Chi Shu's face turned deathly pale in an instant. He bit his lip, making his already pale lips even more bloodless.
Lin Langyi frowned and reached down to smooth out her hair that was being held down. The black hair flowed out from between the fingers of her somewhat wild hand, like the most intimate and ambiguous grooming between lovers.
The blanket was also haphazardly thrown aside, and the person on the sofa finally seemed to find the cramped space too small for him to lie down. One long leg was bent and then straightened, revealing half of his firm thigh directly from under the blanket.
Lin Langyi pushed the leg that was sticking out of the sofa back, seemingly very unhappy that he had suddenly appeared and taken her place. She lifted the blanket and covered him up again like a white sheet in a funeral parlor, and when she withdrew her hand, she slapped that heavy, solid thigh hard.
The person on the sofa groaned, rolled over, and shrank back a little, looking aggrieved.
Chi Shu stared blankly, unable to utter a single word.
“It’s not my home,” Lin Langyi said, oblivious to his shattered heart, her honesty heartbreaking, “it’s my fiancé’s home.”
"Ah, oh." Chi Shu tried desperately to force a smile, but it was an extremely awkward one. "I see... I've never heard you mention this before, sister."
He felt a stinging sensation in his nose and hurriedly turned his face to continue drilling, but his vision was blurry and his mind was blank. He didn't know what he was thinking, but he reached out and touched the drill bit, cutting a large gash on his finger.
Bright red blood gushed out. Chi Shu was still in a daze when Lin Langyi's panicked voice rang out: "Chi Shu, what are you doing?! Cut off the power! Hold your fingers down!"
He seemed to be suddenly awakened by her voice, turned his head and stared at her blankly, tears falling uncontrollably.
Through his teary eyes, he saw that the worry on her face seemed genuine. If that were the case…
Suddenly, as if he had just realized the pain, Chi Shu burst into loud sobs. His eyes and the area around his nose were all red. He cried his heart out and still tried to reach for his phone: "Sister, it hurts so much. Where are you? Can you come and see me? I don't know where I can find gauze here."
He kept crying and pleading, like a stray dog drenched in the rain begging her to come and see him. His bleeding hand accidentally brushed against the phone camera, instantly turning Lin Langyi's entire vision red, which terrified her.
"Okay, okay, hold your finger down first. There's iodine, bandages, and gauze on the second shelf of the cabinet against the right wall. Treat it first, I'll be right there, okay?" Lin Langyi was now filled with regret for leaving Chi Shu alone in the control room. She remembered that he had always been extremely skilled with his hands, so she trusted him to operate the equipment by himself. Who would have thought...
Chi Shu was still calling out "sister" repeatedly through her teary eyes, sobbing as she waved her hand in front of the camera. Just as Lin Langyi was about to get up, a hand suddenly reached out from the side, grabbed her shoulder forcefully, and pulled her back sharply.
Caught off guard, she stumbled and fell onto the sofa, the man's muscular thighs cushioning her fall, his desire burning.
"It's so noisy... Who is it that's crying at a grave in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?" Cheng Yanjin's voice was still hoarse from drinking. He hooked one arm around Lin Langyi's neck and pulled her back, looking very possessive. He bent his other arm and used his elbow to support half of his body, his hair disheveled as he looked at the source of the phone's sound.
The two men made eye contact across the screen.
Cheng Yanjin was still hungover and his head was still spinning, but his alcohol tolerance was indeed impressive, allowing him to regain his senses in such a short time.
He squinted and opened his eyes, then squinted again, finally making out the shadowy figure. He asked in a sinister tone, "Who is it? Sister, sister calling my soul? Lin Langyi, are you still hiring child laborers to work for you in the middle of the night? Didn't you see them crying as they left work? Skinny arms and legs, don't overwork yourself to death."
Two teardrops still clung to Chi Shu's eyelashes. He wiped his eyes, and the blood from his fingers smeared across his cheek, blending lightly with the teardrops on his face, making him look incredibly pitiful.
He completely ignored Cheng Yanjin's veiled sarcasm and focused solely on Lin Langyi, saying in a nasal voice:
"Sister, I might not be able to finish my work today. It's okay if you don't come. I'll take care of it first. I have to go back to school tomorrow, so can I come over in the evening? Because I'm in a hurry, I might have to trouble you to stay overnight. I'm really sorry."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait—" Cheng Yanjin's eyebrows furrowed more and more as he listened. "Staying out all night? Where are you going to stay? Which school are you from? I'm going to report you right now. Staying out all night? You just like staying out all night, huh? What kind of rules do male college students have these days!"
Lin Langyi gave a forced smile and chuckled twice, her tone sarcastic: "You just love staying out all night, don't you?"
Cheng Yanjin was rebuffed, a hint of embarrassment appearing on his face. Ever since he was immediately assigned to be a monk for disobeying Lin Langyi, he had given up. He had been attacking her indiscriminately for a long time, but he dared not say a word to her, only daring to complain sheepishly.
Chi Shucai ignored him, sniffling as he clumsily began to handle the situation on the spot. The nursing kit was in disarray, and he first forgot to disinfect with iodine. Then, he couldn't handle the other hand with just one hand. He was flustered and couldn't manage on his own. He was so anxious that his face turned white.
Cheng Yanjin couldn't stand Doumiao's pretentious act. Already feeling unwell from the alcohol, he clutched his stomach and launched into a tirade: "Lin Langyi, where did you find this virgin? This guy—"
"They're already injured, so shut up. It's late at night and the soundproofing here isn't good. Don't disturb the neighbors." Lin Langyi put away her phone and hung up the video call.
Before Cheng Yanjin could even feel happy, she saw that she had sent a few more messages in the chat box. He was so eager to see what was going on that he forced himself to sit up.
"I feel terrible too. Didn't you see I was drunk? My head hurts too!" He pretended to touch his forehead to complain, and to his surprise, his dream came true and he actually touched a big bump.
He froze for a moment, then realized his forehead was burning with pain and immediately yelled, "What's wrong with me?! Lin Langyi, you've really gone too far, taking advantage of me while I was sleeping—"
"You fell down yourself, take your medicine." Lin Langyi handed over the hangover medicine. "I'm going to sleep after you drink it."
Cheng Yanjin stared at the soup in front of him with suspicion and disbelief: "Why does this look so much like 'Dalang taking medicine' to me?"
After saying that, he immediately bit his tongue and cursed himself for cursing himself. But when he looked up, he saw Lin Langyi's frozen expression.
His hair stood on end: "What do you mean?"
"No, I was just thinking that you and Yuan Chuyu both seem to have a lot to say about this part of Water Margin."
"What the heck...!"
"Go to your bedroom and sleep." Lin Langyi got up and went to the entryway to change her shoes.
"What are you going to do?" Cheng Yanjin suddenly became nervous. "What time is it? Are you still going out?"
It's a familiar rhetoric, only the two have switched sides, which is strange.
Lin Langyi turned her head and smiled provocatively: "I'm going to buy daily necessities."
This was the excuse she used when he insisted on going to play pool instead of letting her have her way.
"Are you still looking for that weakling? Lin Langyi, you, you..." He was flustered for a long time, but when he saw that she was already bending down to put on her shoes, he immediately stumbled off the sofa in a panic.
"My head hurts, it really hurts, it feels like it's going to explode. Can you...can you stay with me?"
Lin Langyi put on her shoes, calmly opened the door, and was pulled back by him as she took a step.
"Does your head hurt?" she asked with a gentle smile.
Cheng Yanjin's stomach felt like it was churning all the way up his esophagus to his temples. He nodded vigorously, and waves of nausea surged up as he shook his head.
"Then go to bed early." She said this as casually as if she were saying "drink more hot water," neither wrong nor perfunctory. "I'll go buy medicine, I'll buy medicine for you."
Cheng Yanjin felt a sense of relief and suddenly breathed a sigh of relief, loosening his grip on her clothes.
Only at times like this did he reveal a vulnerable side, his attempts at being affectionate somewhat clumsy, only managing to hum and whine, "Then I'll wait for you, come back soon."
The moment he closed the door, he staggered back to the sofa, clutching his stomach, and collapsed onto it, exhausted. Then he reached for his phone and dialed Yuan Chuyu's number.
"Thank goodness you gave me some advice. It wasn't a waste of time to get drunk today. Lin Langyi is back. That pretty boy was video chatting with her just now, making a scene late at night." He snorted fiercely, then his tone turned smug. "But Lin Langyi doesn't plan to go see her. She said she was going to buy me medicine. Let that bean sprout cry by himself."
"Is that so?" Yuan Chuyu's voice rang out. There was no sound around him except for his calm, almost intimidating voice. "But you've already had medicine applied to your head."
Cheng Yanjin was taken aback.
Yuan Chuyu added, "On the contrary, they really need to buy medicine over there."
Cheng Yanjin was reminded by this sentence and suddenly realized a small detail that he had not noticed before.
He stood up abruptly, his stomach churning violently. He barely managed to suppress the urge and staggered back to the entryway.
A key lay conspicuously on the small cabinet in the entryway; it was left behind by Lin Langyi.
She has no intention of coming back.
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