Chapter 54 Reconciliation
"Where is it?" Zhang Bingjie held his phone to his ear, talking to Jiang Jiaoming. He pushed open the glass door of the coffee shop and looked around. His gaze finally settled on a corner by the window: "Okay, I see it."
He put away his phone, walked over, and plopped down opposite Jiang Jiaoming. He tossed his car keys on the table, glanced at him from head to toe, and said, "Hey, tell me, looking like a stray dog... what did you do to so-and-so?"
"They had a fight." Jiang Jiaoming turned his head to look out the window. The zebra crossing at the street corner had a green light, and the two groups of people were heading in opposite directions.
"Stop talking nonsense," Jiang Jiaoming asked him, "What should I do now?"
"Then I need to know why you two were arguing." Zhang San sighed. "Didn't you two argue a few times in college? You looked like this back then... So what was it about?"
Jiang Jiaoming remained silent.
“I don’t think she loves me that much,” Jiang Jiaoming said, turning his head to look at the dappled shadows of trees outside the window. The shadows swept across the ground, irritating him. Then he added, “I don’t know.”
"What do you mean?" Zhang Bingjie was confused by his repeated answers. "You two argued because of this?" He counted on his fingers: "You feel she doesn't love you enough, so you're being difficult with her, and she finds it annoying and tiring, right?"
"Hmm," Jiang Jiaoming mumbled in response.
"No, why do you think your partner doesn't love you?" Zhang San couldn't understand.
Jiang Jiaoming corrected: "To be precise, it's because I feel she will give up on me in the future."
Zhang Bingjie stared at him for a few seconds, “…Jiaoming, I don’t understand you. You’re sacrificing real happiness in the present for a distant future. How could you not understand such a simple truth?”
The midday sun shone on the side of Jiang Jiaoming's face, casting a shadow on his cheek. He looked cold and vulnerable. He lowered his head and took a sip of coffee: "So what should I do now?"
"Tell me specifically what you did to upset them."
“I teased her in front of Xiang Hang and the others.”
Upon hearing Xiang Hang's name, Zhang Bingjie vaguely guessed the reason, but what kind of outrageous thing must have happened to anger Liang Kongxiang? Zhang San looked at him, hesitated for a long time, and asked, "What kind of...teasing?"
"Never mind."
“Cao Lengyu?” Jiang Jiaoming asked.
"Hmm." Zhang San nodded: "She's probably the only one who can really speak up for you now, but Director Cao might not be willing to get involved in your affairs. If you really upset your girlfriend, do you think she'll help you? Unless absolutely necessary, you can avoid calling her. Ultimately, this is your own business. Think about what she's angry about, and then address the root cause, right?"
He said all that, then abruptly changed the subject, scratching his temple, not quite understanding what Jiang Jiaoming was thinking: "But Jiaoming, how can you think she doesn't love you that much? Don't you know best? Someone with her personality wouldn't even glance at you if she didn't love you. Think about it, back in high school, so many people liked her, a whole bunch of rich and good-looking guys, but she always kept them at arm's length. Someone with that kind of personality going back to an ex? If that happened, people would call her love-struck. You don't cherish her, you're just making trouble for yourself. If you're so bored, go work for a couple of days, okay?"
After listening to Zhang Bingjie's accusations, Jiang Jiaoming remained unusually silent, neither refuting Zhang San's insults, but simply grasping the key point in his words and asking calmly, "Do you think she loves me?"
“…Brother, you should see a doctor.” Zhang Bingjie moved to sit next to him, patted him on the shoulder and sighed, “Why are you dating if you’re not together because of love? Do you think everyone is as free as you are?”
Jiang Jiaoming took out his mobile phone and made a call.
Zhang Bingjie was startled when he saw the note and immediately grabbed Jiang Jiaoming's hand: "What are you doing?"
"To see a doctor." Jiang Jiaoming turned his head. "Didn't you say so?"
"Your most urgent task right now is to transfer me 100,000 yuan." Zhang Bingjie rolled his eyes. "Forget it, maybe I'll go talk to her."
"You're going?" Jiang Jiaoming looked at him.
"What kind of look is that? Let me tell you, the moment I, Zhang San, make a move, even the Ming government officials will be crying and begging me to come to work."
“Okay,” Jiang Jiaoming nodded, “If it goes well, I’ll give you three months off and your year-end bonus will be five times higher.”
"Okay, Mr. Jiang." Zhang Bingjie said in a low voice, holding the car keys and following his brother upstairs.
Is the ultimate goal of love really "love"? If it is love, Jiang Jiaoming has given all his love, and Liang Kongxiang has also given her love. So why, after their love has gone around and around, has it not become stronger, but instead turned into a knotted thread?
Was it because she didn't love him that much? Or was it that he didn't actually love her that much?
Perhaps neither is true.
Jiang Jiaoming suddenly thought that if the reason for the obstacles in their relationship was not that the two people didn't love each other enough, then it must be that other qualities derived from the relationship had problems.
Trust, understanding, and respect are all qualities that accompany love. As Zhang San mentioned, "suspicion" indicates a problem with trust. His actions of teasing Liang Kongxiang in front of everyone, disregarding her wishes and work requirements, are extremely disrespectful and perhaps demonstrate a lack of understanding towards her.
These behaviors are no different from termites boring into trees.
He pondered for a long time, then suddenly took out his phone, opened "The Rules of Love with Liang Kongxiang," and typed out a line of text after deleting and editing.
Then, he added a parenthesis below that line and asked: How to do it?
"What are you doing?" Zhang San saw that Jiang Jiaoming was tall and strong, and he squeezed himself into the corner of the elevator, holding his phone and seemingly dealing with a multi-million dollar project. He looked so serious that he didn't even notice when the elevator doors opened.
"It's nothing," Jiang Jiaoming put away his phone and stepped out of the elevator. He felt much more relaxed, as if he had just finished writing the last paragraph of an essay a minute before the exam bell rang. He went to open the door and suddenly turned back to Zhang San and said, "You can go back first."
"...Huh?" Zhang Bingjie was completely confused as to why he had suddenly changed his mind while they were getting on the elevator: "What about my leave and year-end bonus?"
“Oh,” Jiang Jiaoming chuckled, then slammed the door shut. “That’s all.”
As expected, Zhang Bingjie was kicking the door and cursing outside. Jiang Jiaoming walked towards the projection room, but when he opened the door, there was no sound. The movie was paused on a battlefield filled with smoke and fire. A young soldier wearing a military cap was walking towards the lake, holding his blue cap. The blue light from the giant screen shone on Liang Kongxiang's sleeping face.
She had her eyes closed, her head resting on the sofa, her long hair hanging down to one side of her shoulder. There was a pair of handcuffs on the small table next to her, but her wrists were bare.
Jiang Jiaoming was stunned.
It turned out she knew how to solve it.
So these past two days have been entirely about accommodating him and giving him a sense of security.
Jiang Jiaoming watched her for a while, then turned off the movie and gently picked her up and carried her back to the room.
Liang Kongxiang slept restlessly, waking up as soon as she lost her balance. From the moment Jiang Jiaoming placed her on the bed to the moment he embraced her from behind, her thoughts were like a straight line.
"Are you awake?" Jiang Jiaoming noticed her movement and released her.
Liang Kongxiang didn't speak, but glanced at the time. An hour had passed since Jiang Jiaoming left: "Where did he go?"
"Ask Zhang Bingjie how to appease you," Jiang Jiaoming said honestly.
"Hmm," Liang Kongxiang turned to look at him, and the two looked at each other. After a while, she asked, "Did you find it?"
"I don't know, but we should have found it." Jiang Jiaoming touched her eyes. "It depends on my performance."
Actually, Liang Kongxiang wasn't so angry anymore. Seeing Jiang Jiaoming's defeated look was really unbearable, so she offered him another way out. But she really didn't know how many more times she could offer such a way out.
If your approach to dating is wrong, you'll end up relying solely on love to solve problems. But by the time all the problems are solved, the love will have been exhausted.
Liang Kongxiang did not delve into what Jiang Jiaoming meant by "performance".
She saw Jiang Jiaoming staring into her eyes, then slowly leaning towards her. When his lips were less than a centimeter away from hers, he suddenly stopped and didn't kiss her.
Can we kiss?
She never expected him to ask such a question. His lips had already lightly brushed against hers as he spoke, and he even asked if he could kiss her.
"Did I dodge it?" Liang Kongxiang asked.
The next second, Jiang Jiaoming kissed her passionately, penetrating her deeply and drawing out her tongue to suckle. The brief argument of the past two days had left a hole in Jiang Jiaoming's heart, and only by holding her tightly and kissing her now did he realize that his heart was being filled little by little.
After kissing her, he stopped panting on Liang Kongxiang and asked, "Can you please talk to me?"
Liang Kongxiang, also panting, asked, "How do we handle this?"
"Are you really not angry anymore?" Jiang Jiaoming asked insistently. "If you're still angry, you can yell at me, but don't keep it inside, and don't stop talking to me."
Liang Kongxiang patted his lower back helplessly, "Stay away from me for a bit, you're heavy." Only after Jiang Jiaoming lay back down beside her did Liang Kongxiang say, "Is acknowledging you a punishment? Will you remember next time?"
“I saw what you wrote,” Jiang Jiaoming suddenly said.
"What did you say?" Liang Kongxiang frowned slightly, not remembering what she had written. Seeing Jiang Jiaoming's serious expression, as if she had written something like an imperial edict, she found it amusing and asked again, "What did you say?"
But Jiang Jiaoming remained silent for a while, and then said something else.
"Love requires trust, understanding, and respect."
“…Hmm?” Liang Kongxiang was taken aback, carefully searched her notes, and confirmed: “I didn’t write it like that.”
"I must have misremembered." Jiang Jiaoming put his arm around her neck, leaned over and kissed her stunned face, and smiled: "This is Jiang Jiaoming's own creation."
"Was that the correct answer, Teacher Liang?"
Liang Kongxiang sighed, touched her cheek where she had been bitten, and said helplessly, "What you did really put me in a difficult position... There's nothing between Xiang Hang and me, and besides, it's work. I can't let my boyfriend's possessiveness hold others back, you know?"
“You are the eye of this movie, so there’s no question of you dragging it down,” Jiang Jiaoming said. “Putting up a scandal can only solve the immediate problem, and it’s definitely not the best strategy for you. I rejected it not only because I can’t stand that old man… man. The most important thing now is the meal I’m having at my dad’s house the day after tomorrow. He Ciqian will be there too, and I’ll introduce you two.”
The understanding we had a few months ago is far from sufficient.
"Furthermore," Jiang Jiaoming didn't mean to deliberately smear Xiang Hang, but was simply stating an objective fact: "Xiang Hang may seem unassuming and uncompetitive, but if he didn't compete and compete, would he have achieved what he has today? Most awards require behind-the-scenes capital operations. You need both ability and connections. They say it's hype to add fuel to the fire, but what is he after?"
Xiang Hang isn't a popular celebrity; right now, he just needs awards to his name. But it's almost impossible for a film's male and female leads to win awards simultaneously. If Xiang Hang were to use Liang Kongxiang to his advantage and then betray her, she would have no choice but to suffer in silence.
This kind of old man is only fit to be Liang Kongxiang's stepping stone. He wants to step on her to get ahead. What makes him think he can?
Liang Kongxiang had also considered this point, but the film is almost entirely narrated around the female lead, and Xiang Hang's character is just one part of the female lead's growth storyline. All the highlights are on her... so it's probably unlikely.
However, one should always be wary of others. Since it's not the best policy, it's not a bad idea not to create a romantic pairing.
"You sound so honest, you must be secretly happy, right?" Liang Kongxiang noticed his brows furrowing slightly, as if he were analyzing something seriously, but the result he gave was still what he wanted most. She smiled and smoothed his brows. "Alright, we won't be paired up as a couple, but we still need to cooperate with the planners during the promotion. Don't do this again. I have to walk with him on the red carpet."
“I’ll go too,” Jiang Jiaoming said.
“Okay,” Liang Kongxiang thought of the considerable attention he received at the last movie night, comparable to male celebrities, and he was indeed a hot topic. “You go with Director Cao.”
“My wife is right next to me, why should I go with someone else?” Jiang Jiaoming had already made arrangements: “I will walk between you and Xiang Hang.”
"It's starting again?"
Jiang Jiaoming squinted: "I'm the producer, standing right in the center. Is there a problem? I don't like you walking with other men."
"How can he be so domineering?" Liang Kongxiang's tone gradually became helpless, but she knew it wasn't a big deal, so she let it go and stopped talking about it.
She was thinking about her upcoming meeting with Jiang Jiaoming's father the day after tomorrow, and pondering what gifts to bring for him and Director He. People of their status and position were not lacking in luxury goods, so she was truly struggling to decide what to give.
Just as she was about to call Cao Lengyu to discuss it, Jiang Jiaoming came over with a bowl of fruit yogurt and handed her a spoon: "Why are you looking so serious? What are you thinking about?" He pinched her cheek.
"I'm thinking about what gift to give your dad, and also Director He." She forked a piece of mango and ate it while forking a piece of watermelon for Jiang Jiaoming.
"Are you teasing a dog?" Liang Kongxiang forked a piece of guava, raised her hand to Jiang Jiaoming's mouth, but when he leaned down to bring it over, she quickly moved her hand away and put it in her own mouth, laughing at him: "Idiot."
"So what? Don't you love this idiot to death?" Jiang Jiaoming said casually, as if Liang Kongxiang had been infatuated with him for a long time and couldn't live without him.
"You only realize this now? What else could you be but an idiot?" Liang Kongxiang bantered with him for a bit before getting down to business: "Why didn't Director He accept the gift?"
“You have to follow the rules,” Jiang Jiaoming said. “He has only been in office for a short time, and there are many eyes watching him. It’s perfectly fine for him to come to my house for a simple meal, but if someone with ulterior motives makes a big deal out of it, it will affect him. Besides, he is very suspicious and may not even trust his wife. He will most likely not accept the gift you give him, for fear that you will report him.”
Jiang Jiaoming originally said these things to comfort her, but he didn't expect it to make Liang Kongxiang even more distressed. After all, this reduced the range of choices even further. "What should we do? We can't exactly bring fruit and milk."
“I have a few cameras, one of which is a rare, discontinued model. He used it when he was making a movie, and it was discontinued afterward. I’ve thought about giving it to him before, but I haven’t had the chance.” Jiang Jiaoming took the empty bowl and went to wash it himself, putting his arm around Liang Kongxiang to keep him company: “You can give it to him then.”
Looking at Jiang Jiaoming's profile as he shoveled the bowl, Liang Kongxiang suddenly remembered something. "Does your dad still treat you like that?" She remembered that Jiang Jiaoming's father had always been very strict with him, almost to the point of being a repressive parent. Jiang Jiaoming was reluctant to mention his father in front of her, so Liang Kongxiang didn't want to reopen old wounds. But Liang Kongxiang had some preconceived notions; she had never had a very good impression of Jiang Dongshi.
She had also considered that Jiang Jiaoming's personality was most likely influenced by his father. She couldn't understand why anyone would dislike their own child so much. Jiang Jiaoming was a very kind person to his family and friends, so what extraordinary reason would warrant such verbal sarcasm towards him?
After washing his hands, Jiang Jiaoming took a tissue to dry them, glanced at her, and noticed that her brows were furrowed involuntarily. He threw the wet tissue into the trash can at his feet, pinched her chin with two fingers, and said, "You care so much about your husband."
“I already told you,” Liang Kongxiang shook her head slightly as he pinched her, and helplessly grabbed his forearm with both hands to stop him from shaking her head any further: “I really feel sorry for you.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Jiang Jiaoming hugged her, nuzzled his chin against the top of her head, and carried her to the room.
"...Stop, let me see another side, I can't see the road."
Liang Kongxiang wanted to turn around in his arms to face the road, but Jiang Jiaoming didn't let go of her. The two of them, like dancers, chased each other on their toes and entered the room one after the other.
The two had just reconciled, and Jiang Jiaoming practically wanted to be attached to her, kissing and touching her here and there like he was playing whack-a-mole. After she stopped his right hand, his left hand came up and touched her. When she stopped his left hand, his right hand took advantage of the situation and entered. She finally managed to intercept his hands, but he unexpectedly kissed her right in the middle of her lips.
She touched her swollen lips. "Stop fooling around."
"Is this considered fooling around, hmm?" Jiang Jiaoming gently kissed her cheeks one after another.
"Fine, whatever." She reached out and turned off the lights and curtains.
Jiang Jiaoming found it boring to deal with her alone, so he quietly watched her sleeping face with her eyes closed. Then he sent a message to his assistant, asking him to retrieve the two cameras.
On the morning of the day before departure, Liang Kongxiang got up very early, made some baked noodles and packed them into a cardboard box, changed into a set of casual home clothes, let her slightly curly hair fall over her shoulders, wore a baseball cap, pearl earrings, and only applied a thin layer of light-colored lipstick.
It was late September, and the morning breeze was cool. Driving along the deserted road, the wind blowing in through the cracks in the window carried the scent of bushes and lush forests.
On either side of the distant gate, two security guards appeared to be standing at the entrance to greet them. Upon seeing the vehicle approach, they pressed the key to open the gate.
Jiang Jiaoming drove in, drove along a straight road, and went around a pool before he could vaguely see a middle-aged man lying on a black bench in front of the entrance hall, holding a Samoyed in his arms. He only glanced up when he heard the car, and then, as if he hadn't heard anything, continued to pet the dog.
The car stopped, and Liang Kongxiang glanced at Jiang Jiaoming. His expression was normal, as if he was already used to it.
Liang Kongxiang mimicked his old habit of pinching her cheeks, made him look at her, and gently comforted him, "Don't be afraid, I'll protect you."
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Author's Note: Sorry, this chapter is quite long, right? I'll be giving out big red envelopes in the comments section! [pat on the head][pat on the head]
It's almost finished! Any requests for side stories? Let us know in the comments! [Sprinkling flowers]
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