Chapter 49
After Cheng Yanjin followed Lin Langyi to the office, he suddenly became shy again.
He paced back and forth several times, as if looking for something to do, checking if the windows were closed, the doors were locked, and the security cameras were on, until he had no more excuses. Only then did he curl up on the sofa and stare at her expectantly.
Lin Langyi was about to wash up and go to bed when she took her pajamas and turned around to see him still staring at her intently. She asked, "What are you doing?"
He was still holding her cushion in his arms, and stammered, "I don't have any pajamas."
"Do you think I would have it? Didn't you consider this before you came?"
"Your brother's..."
Lin Langyi imagined it for a moment, then looked at him again: "Then what's the difference between you wearing his clothes and wearing a bodysuit?"
He sighed and took out his phone: "Let me see if the nearby convenience store can deliver."
Lin Langyi's decisive yet ruthless words shattered his hopes: "This place is very remote."
He put down his phone, his bright eyes darting around as he looked at her expectantly.
He mumbled and said, "Then maybe I shouldn't wear it—"
“You don’t need to wear it anymore, just change into something else…” Lin Langyi’s gaze lingered on his lower body for a moment, “I’ll go to my brother’s office to see if there are any new ones.”
After she finished saying what he wanted to say, he swallowed the rest of his sentence, which he had just learned from the "Jin Ye Escapes" supertopic, "How about I let you get it for free?" He immediately nodded, pretending to be reserved.
Lin Langyi went out, and he went out too. Lin Langyi turned left, and he turned left too. Lin Langyi suddenly stopped, and he braked hard, almost hitting her.
She was speechless: "No, I'm just going to get some clothes. You take a shower first."
He also felt like he was being a bit of a tagalong, so he scratched his head and stubbornly said, "Yingshan Lake is still a bit deserted at night, and it's pitch black outside. I was afraid you'd be scared, so I'm keeping you company."
Lin Langyi glanced at him sideways: "I've been living here for who knows how many days."
Cheng Yanjin had already followed her, but pretending not to understand, he still shamelessly followed her to Lin Xiangshuo's office.
One of them made a phone call to inquire, while the other searched for the items. Just as they were about to leave with the belongings, Lin Langyi stopped in her tracks, blocking the doorway. She suddenly turned around and asked, "Were you sleeping in my brother's lounge or what?"
Cheng Yanjin opened his eyes wide, clearly indignant: "Why? I want to sleep in your lounge."
“That’s not a double bed…” Lin Langyi said with a headache, “It’s very cramped.”
Cheng Yanjin replied decisively, "I don't mind the crowd."
"I don't like it."
He stood at the door, holding the pair of underwear, looking incredibly aggrieved. With a scrunched-up face, he said, "You're disgusted with me? I was just about to say that everyone at dinner said that if a wife doesn't call when you come home late, it means she doesn't care. Do you not care about me at all?"
Lin Langyi thought that the marriage alliance between the two families was now secure, and she no longer needed to rely on it as urgently as before. Of course, she no longer needed to establish her authority by controlling him. She immediately and decisively nodded:
"I don't care about you, isn't this exactly what you wanted? Have you forgotten what you said in the beginning?"
Cheng Yanjin choked up, opened his mouth but couldn't utter a single word, finally understanding what it meant to lift a stone only to drop it on one's own foot.
Lin Langyi was also thinking that if the application for the second batch of characteristic towns was successful, she could even propose to dissolve the engagement in advance. At that time, Yingshan Lake would have enough risk resistance and a stronger and more stable core, and would no longer need to maintain the relationship through marriage. So the agreement that they would go their separate ways after two years should be able to be reached much earlier.
Thinking of this, she gave a heads-up: "I remember everything you agreed on at the beginning, so don't try to go back on your word."
For some reason, after saying this, Cheng Yanjin's face suddenly turned deathly pale, his lips moved a few times, and even his eyelashes began to twitch slightly.
The headband he was wearing had shifted and was not tied in the correct position. With the slightest deviation, the whole thing collapsed. His short hair could not hold the headband in place, and it slowly contracted, finally springing open and slipping off, falling to the ground without making a sound.
He didn't bend down to pick it up; he just stared at her blankly.
He felt as if he had become a rope that had lost its elasticity, with cracks spreading from the inside until the whole rope broke apart.
"I..." Cheng Yanjin seemed to be in a state of great confusion, his throat was choked by an invisible air, and the words he wanted to say were stuck in his throat, and he could not say anything.
Lin Langyi didn't notice his utterly miserable state, as if he had fallen into an ice cellar. She reached out and turned off the light, urging, "Then come on, if you don't want to sleep in my brother's room, then leave."
She walked several meters away but didn't hear any footsteps following her. She turned around in confusion and asked, "What are you doing? You were following so closely just now, but now you can't walk anymore?"
All the lights in the room were off, except for the motion-activated light in the hallway. He stood in the doorway, his breath seemingly swallowed by the vast air. His shadow was cast obliquely on the wall, broken in the middle by the door frame, as if he had been cleaved in two.
He still didn't move.
Lin Langyi grew impatient: "Cheng Yanjin, if you keep acting like a ghost or a door god, then don't bother coming. Go stand guard."
After she finished speaking, she went back to her rest room to take a shower. The hot water made her feel comfortable. After showering, she carefully dried her hair and did her skincare routine before finally opening the bathroom door.
Cheng Yanjin had returned to the room. He still obediently sat on her bed fully clothed before taking a shower. He seemed no different from during the day, except that his eyes were unfocused and staring blankly into the void. He sat on the sofa in a daze.
He only managed to snap out of his daze when he saw her come out after washing up, and then he faced her in a daze.
Lin Langyi turned down the air conditioner temperature: "Go take a shower."
He stared at her blankly, taking several deep breaths as if to speak, but the words failed him before he could utter a sound.
Lin Langyi got into bed first, dimmed the lights, yawned, and pulled the covers up: "I'm going to sleep now."
It took a long time before I heard him get up.
The sound of running water filled the bathroom. In her drowsy state, she heard the doorknob being gently turned, followed by a click as the light went out.
There was a slight indentation on the side of the bed. After a brief pause, a pair of warm arms wrapped around her and hugged her tightly.
Lin Langyi, who had been dozing off, woke up a little more, mumbled a few words, and pushed against his chest to stop him from squeezing.
He thought she was rejecting him, and his whole body trembled suddenly. He then hugged her even tighter, wrapping his legs around her, almost locking her completely in his arms.
He pressed his head against hers, sliding down as if in a nightmare, burying his head in the crook of her neck, his rapid breaths dappling her skin.
Lin Langyi felt aroused by his hot body, grabbed his short hair haphazardly, and scolded, "Are you going to sleep or not?"
He didn't say anything, paused for a few seconds, and then suddenly burrowed down, pulling the blankets covering the two of them backward, with part of them falling to the ground.
He touched her leg, then hugged her thigh and pressed his cheek against it; her short, fluffy hair was slightly prickly.
Lin Langyi was now truly awake. She used her other leg to hook the blanket up and lift it up, not wanting it to fall to the ground.
She had just rolled the blanket onto the bed, and before she could even straighten her legs, he grabbed them and pushed them outwards with a little force, preventing her from closing them.
She pointed her toes: "I don't have any here—"
"It's alright, I don't need it, I won't do it. I'll leave before dawn." He finally spoke, his voice hoarse and wet, like a freshwater fish struggling to writhe ashore from the sea, as if it would suffocate and die if it stayed any longer.
He held her legs tightly, and the short tufts of hair brushed against her delicate skin, quickly turning into a tickle.
Lin Langyi gripped the blanket tightly with her fingers, even though it was no longer going to fall to the ground.
In her drowsy state, she heard his nasal voice, as if he had something stuck in his throat. He swallowed and said, "Lin Langyi, let's go buy furniture tomorrow. You don't need to stay here anymore."
"Sure," she said readily, taking a deep breath.
He stopped talking, pressed his cheek against her leg again, paused for a moment, then climbed up and hugged her waist, pressing his face against her stomach.
His lips were still pressed against her belly as he spoke, his breath slightly damp as he opened and closed his mouth: "The old man has begun transferring the shares to me and has also notified me to start working at the company."
He paused for a moment: "Because I stayed peacefully at Laoshan Temple for a month, he came to see me and felt that I had changed a bit... Lin Langyi, do you think I have changed?"
Lin Langyi didn't answer but asked instead, "Would you like to join the company?"
Or do you want to sit back and collect shares like before, living for the moment?
He was silent for a few seconds, then said in a low voice, "I agreed when the old man came to see me."
Lin Langyi laughed, her belly rising and falling slightly: "That has indeed changed."
Cheng Yanjin hugged her even tighter, pressing his face firmly into her soft belly. He thought that the old man hadn't given any advance notice when he came, so when the people at the temple told him that someone was visiting, his first reaction was that Lin Xiaozhu had finally come to visit him.
When she tried to control him, he desperately wanted to escape; but when she really stopped caring about him and didn't send a single message for ten days or half a month, he angrily went back to check the chat history, only to find that he was the one who started the conversation with those lame and clumsy excuses every time.
He lived a mundane and repetitive life in the temple, but like a fool, he would capture those incredibly boring little incidents and send them to her: a sparrow flying into the window, a stray cat so hungry that it went to eat a wax apple, a mosquito bite on the abbot's finger that hadn't gone away for three days. He used every insignificant little thing to find out about her situation.
He originally intended to loosen the connection between them by using an open relationship, a carefree and unrestrained approach. He also used this phrase to limit their intimacy, and even pushed Chi Shu to someone else after she appeared. His reason was still foolish: he wanted her to stay with him, but also didn't want her to put a tight rein on him.
He tried to configure her like he would a mouse and keyboard, setting her discipline level to 5%, companionship index to 80%, and permanence to 100%...
She did it; she handled it gracefully and skillfully, as if she were processing a financial statement, perfectly executing all the parameters.
Then when he started to regret it, she firmly remembered the original rules of the game, and like the best business partners, they coexisted for mutual benefit and parted amicably.
At first, he also thought that this was what he wanted.
Cheng Yanjin's arms tightened, pressing against her ribs, as if he were terrified that she would disappear before his eyes like quicksand.
He thought that if he had no worries, he could be free for the rest of his life. He thought that if he didn't see her, he wouldn't be bound by anything and wouldn't have to think about her.
But tonight, after the immense disappointment and frustration he felt from being stood up by her, her sudden appearance was like a slap on the veil that had been blocking his view. The rain that had been blocked completely seeped into his body, making him finally understand why he had reacted so "abnormally" before.
Those ridiculously silly topics, his first love and the girl he had loved but couldn't get over even though they were long gone, and the reason he only wanted her to attend when he could easily call on a large group of friends.
How could he honestly and frankly tell her that he thought of her every day he was on the mountain, every second he was apart?
Cheng Yanjin asked, "Lin Langyi, if I change, is there any way to salvage many things?"
The time between those words was so long that Lin Langyi was almost drifting off to sleep.
She thought for a long time with her half-shutdown brain, so long that he anxiously leaned in front of her, hovering there waiting for an answer.
Lin Langyi hummed in agreement for a while... Cheng Yanjin's situation is very similar to Zhuang Lan's, and he even has more advantages than Zhuang Lan. If he turns over a new leaf and runs the company well, of course it will be too late.
She closed her eyes and said, "Yes, of course."
Before she could finish speaking, the person in front of her suddenly pounced on her and hugged her tightly. He buried his head in her hair, his breath on her ear, and his voice rose slightly: "Really, Lin Langyi!?"
He was so heavy that his weight almost crushed her lungs. Lin Langyi groaned as she was pressed down. Just as she was about to turn her head, her hair was pressed down again, and her anger flared up: "Cheng Yanjin, if you don't want to sleep, get off the bed."
He rolled over with her in his arms, letting her lie on top of him, as if those words had brought her back to life.
He solemnly promised, "Lin Langyi, I will definitely not repeat the same mistake."
Lin Langyi struggled to pull her head out of his bulging chest muscles and finally found his words quite pleasant to hear.
The downstream industries of the Cheng and Lin families partially overlap. If Cheng Yanjin is willing to work hard, she can cooperate with him on several large deals in the medium to long term. She can grow her business and he can secure his position as the successor, which would be a win-win situation.
Therefore, it seems that after the two part ways, they will have both achieved their initial goal of marriage, and their separation will be dignified and amicable.
"Okay." She buried her face in her chest again. "I'll be on your side."
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