Chapter 21, Section 21: "You never cared."
When Gu Lai went to the appointment, she had a moment of doubt that Jiang Yi was doing it on purpose.
Jiang Yi arranged to meet at a Huaiyang cuisine restaurant, the same one that Gu Lai and director Kong Kang'an had eaten at before.
In the afternoon, Gu Lai went to get a beauty treatment, and afterwards, the driver took her directly to the hotel. When the waiter opened the door, Jiang Yi was already sitting inside.
She was all alone. The bright, warm light shone on her hair, making her ebony-black hair appear as if it had been dyed a deep brown. The ends of her hair curled naturally over her dark green turtleneck sweater, like a natural print.
Her hair had grown long, Gu Lai thought, and the next moment her gaze naturally fell on Jiang Yi's face, which was like a Damask rose.
Jiang Yi had put on makeup, with full eyeliner and a bright red velvet lipstick. The makeup wasn't difficult; Gu Lai could tell at a glance that it was obviously something she had done herself, amplifying her already sharp and voluptuous beauty to an extreme.
Jiang Yi looked up at the sound and met Gu Lai's gaze. He then glanced at the waiter next to him before turning back to Gu Lai. At the same time, he took off his headphones, closed his laptop, and placed it aside.
The stacked gold bracelets collided and slid down with her movements, eventually getting stuck on her prominent wrist bone.
Gu Lai remembered that there was a small mole on the inside of her wrist, near her pulse. Jiang Yi's knuckles and wrist bones were very prominent, and the inside of her wrist was dangerously concave, making it easy for her to grab him each time, with her fingertips pressing right on that small mole.
Jiang Yi's physical strength is not as good as hers, which is determined by the industry they work in.
Gu Lai maintains a high-intensity exercise routine and strictly follows the nutritionist's recommendations to maintain her figure and work performance. Jiang Yi, on the other hand, only maintains regular fitness and tends to disregard the health manager's advice, relying on his financial resources to act recklessly.
Her assets were certainly substantial. Gu Lai still remembers how Jiang Yi exuded pheromones when he took her to experience snow-capped mountains, surfing, and paragliding.
Other assets are certainly quite good, Gu Lai thought, taking another look at her makeup.
...Don't you have trouble getting up in the morning and have a tight schedule? Why are you still wearing full-coverage eyeliner?
The person being scrutinized calmly asked, "Aren't you going to sit?"
Gu Lai pulled out a chair, sat opposite her, and then took off her fur coat and placed it on the back of the chair next to her.
Jiang Yi watched her movements quietly without any change in expression. Finally, his gaze moved down and paused on her knitted sweater. He then raised his hand and tapped the tablet in the restaurant, causing the invisible air conditioner above his head to beep.
Gu Lai guessed that she was getting warmer.
"It's not cold," she said.
Jiang Yi acted as if he hadn't heard, and pushed the tablet towards him with his fingertip: "Take a look at the menu."
Gu Lai paused for a moment: "Just serve the food, why are you asking me?"
She had already realized what was happening and was about to reach for it when she heard the other person ask, "No need to be polite?"
Gu Lai didn't reply, but looked down and glanced at the menu. It was exactly the same as the one she had eaten with Director Kong before.
Intentional.
She looked up at Jiang Yi, casually replaced the cold-natured water chestnuts and snails with other cold-natured ingredients in her order, and then slammed her tablet down, saying, "If you really don't want to be polite, you might as well just have them make it ready."
Jiang Yi reached out and shook the tea in front of him: "I don't know what I should decide."
Gu Lai: "Weren't you quick to make the decision for me yesterday?"
Jiang Yi: "Isn't this what you said? I always learn from my mistakes."
"How come I never noticed you had this quality before?" Gu Lai asked with a slight smile and a relaxed tone. "But was this what we were talking about yesterday?"
Jiang Yi kept looking at her: "I said yesterday, you don't need to endure it for long."
Gu Lai choked up as she recalled Jiang Yi's gentle yet ethereal advice and blessings over the phone yesterday.
Familiar self-reproach washed over her like a tide, just like on the plane. She suddenly felt that it was really indecent of her to bring up yesterday's words here.
She opened her mouth, about to say something, when Jiang Yi's voice interrupted her.
“I’m sorry,” Jiang Yi smiled, looking down, “it’s just a habit of mine.”
Gu Lai suddenly forgot her lines, frozen as if her face had been covered by cold snow, a numb and cold sensation dripping down on her.
She would rather that Jiang Yi was still being arrogant and sarcastic; she would rather it be like that.
Jiang Yi's actions showed that she was serious about what she said.
Without giving Gu Lai a chance to respond, she turned around, picked up a brown bag containing a thick stack of documents, and pushed it over: "I contacted Maye. I've been having her liquidate and inventory assets and investigate personnel recently. That's all that involves you for now. So ask me anything, and I'll explain it to you more clearly. If you want to review it later or consult anyone else, you can record it or take notes."
Gu Lai didn't move; she looked at Jiang Yi.
Jiang Yi suppressed his last remaining smile under her gaze, and after a few breaths he sighed: "Then let's eat first, I've lost my appetite talking about this."
As if she possessed the power to make her words come true, the moment she finished speaking, the waiter knocked on the door to serve the food, and the empty table was quickly filled. Gu Lai leaned back in her chair, watching the waiter chatter and laugh, while Jiang Yi smiled back, polite and impeccably poised.
Aside from the delicate aroma of the food, the air seemed to be filled with a pleasant, Brownian motion, until the waiter closed the door and disappeared without a trace, leaving everything back to the awkward and cold atmosphere.
Whether Jiang Yi felt the same way, Gu Lai didn't know. She watched as Jiang Yi naturally scooped soup and picked up food, then pushed it towards her.
Gu Lai suddenly realized that it was meant for her.
She didn't know what to say, and absentmindedly accepted the food, repeatedly picking up and eating with her chopsticks. It was as if Jiang Yi's behavior was a guide to breakup meals, and his silent actions were outlines, which she could only follow step by step according to the script.
It tasted bland and tasteless. Gu Lai suddenly regretted it; she should have suggested a video call that morning instead of meeting in person.
...Jiang Yi, why did you agree to that?
As Jiang Yi pulled out a napkin, he looked up and met Gu Lai's gaze, which was fixed on him.
She knew Gu Lai was watching her, so she didn't look up.
Strangely enough, Jiang Yi felt that the gaze at this moment was tangible. Sometimes she couldn't feel this, and Gu Lai was one of the rare exceptions.
Gu Lai's gaze is usually gentle and tolerant, but sometimes it isn't.
Jiang Yi was used to analyzing all sorts of gazes and expressions, but at this moment she didn't want to think about anything. To be honest, she really didn't have much of an appetite, and she forced herself to eat bite by bite until she pulled her scattered and chaotic thoughts back and noticed the dishes that had been replaced, at which point she paused.
For some reason, she suddenly remembered that Gu Lai had told her to see Jiang Jueming, a traditional Chinese medicine doctor.
I can't eat anymore.
She watched as Gu Lai almost simultaneously dropped his chopsticks, as if relieved, and couldn't help but laugh.
Gu Lai did not miss Jiang Yi's fleeting, subtle smile.
She didn't know what Jiang Yi was thinking, but she was strangely on the same wavelength as him, and understood in some mysterious way that it was a helpless smile after witnessing an absurd comedy.
Gu Lai's eyes curved into a smile: "What are you thinking about?"
“The Plague,” Jiang Yi said.
Gu Lai immediately understood what she was talking about, and a sense of joy at their unspoken understanding welled up inside her. Holding her teacup, she instinctively wanted to raise a toast to their tacit agreement.
But she couldn't lift it; what followed was an unspeakable sorrow. At this moment, she could even share the same heaviness with Jiang Yi; the immense absurdity, with its gravity-defying weight, pressed her wrists invisibly to the table, rendering them immobile.
She was just like she'd been electrocuted; her ring and little fingers, which were resting on the bone china cup, twitched twice. The ring lightly scraped against the smooth bone china, and a tingling, numb sensation shot from her finger bones straight to her teeth.
She forgot to take off her ring; its pigeon-blood red shimmered in the bright light, like a red exclamation mark.
Gu Lai stared at it for a few seconds.
This is a high-end collectible she bought seven years ago, costing her more than all the money she earned from that year's top-grossing film.
Why did I buy it seven years ago? It was for a marriage proposal that came about naturally, and also because of the beautiful and romantic love story of the previous owner.
When the sales consultant, wearing white gloves, helped her try it on, he told her that she and Ms. Jiang would give it an even more romantic and legendary feel.
Is it romantic?
Gu Lai's gaze swept over Jiang Yi's empty fingers, and she reached out to take the leather bag.
The documents inside were very formal and new; Gu Lai even suspected they had been printed just today. There were documents in various formats, blue and red seals, and signatures in cursive and semi-cursive scripts; almost every single one bore Jiang Yi's powerful and elegant calligraphy.
Her attention fell on the familiar seal and signature, and she could even imagine Jiang Yi writing. Her slightly upturned eyelashes drooped, her knuckles, bent as she held the pen, were slightly bluish-white, and as the pen tip brushed across the paper, the faint veins on the back of her hand would twitch slightly, connecting the prominent metacarpal bones to her slender and cool fingers.
She knew it all too well, so well that she knew the feel of those hands on any part of her body, and how sexy they looked when they were tense or trembling.
Gu Lai closed her eyes, sighed deeply, and turned her attention back to the contents of the document.
She read faster and faster, until the pages were rustling as she turned them, and then she quickly closed the book after finishing the last page.
She looked up, and Jiang Yi asked, "Is there a problem?"
Gu Lai held the stack of documents, picked them up and put them down again: "How long have you been preparing?"
Jiang Yi remained calm: "Since receiving your message..."
“Although I can’t understand it,” Gu Lai glanced at the English text on the document, “do you think I believe it? What equity trust property rights, can it be broken down so clearly in half a day?”
“I didn’t handle the specifics, and it wasn’t something that could be done overnight, but I’ve been making separate investments for you every year… Never mind.” Jiang Yi suddenly leaned back, gave a subtle smile, and revealed a cold and self-deprecating expression. “You’ve never paid attention to it anyway.”
Gu Lai scoffed, "Is this my fault? It's not good that I left everything I didn't understand to you?"
“I trust Mayer quite a bit too. What’s the difference between me and Mayer to you?” Jiang Yi asked. “Asset manager? Investment business manager? Or cooperating lawyer?”
Gu Lai was stunned for a few seconds, then raised her voice: "Is that how you see me? You think I've been sleeping with some kind of trust management entity for ten years?"
Jiang Yi turned to look at the deep night outside the window. After a few breaths, she looked at her reflection in the glass and inexplicably imagined a scene of Gu Lai and the personified trust manager sharing a bed. She couldn't help but laugh.
She turned to look at Gu Lai, speaking slowly and clearly: "In my eyes, that's who I am."
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The two characters in the text both thought of *The Plague*: ① "I loved you very much, but now I am too tired... I am not happy leaving you, but happiness is not necessary to start over." ② "As long as we still love each other, we can understand each other without speaking. But people don't always love each other. At a certain point, I should have thought of the right words to keep her, but I failed to do so."
Thanks to March for the rocket launcher and grenades [heart emoji]. And thank you for the comments, they made my gloomy mood yesterday last a little longer... I read every single comment carefully [starry-eyed emoji]~
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