Chapter 33. Gardenia Scent
The short vacation in Su City ended, and Ke Fan returned to Hai City on the weekend afternoon.
As usual, I made a dinner appointment with Cao Xinyu.
Cao Xinyu didn't have to work this weekend, so she slept in. Her tone was relaxed and cheerful over the phone:
"How about we go back to that Suzhou restaurant we went to last time?"
Ke Fan twisted his fingers around the phone's chain and chuckled as he said:
"Well, I don't eat Suzhou cuisine anymore. I ate a lot of delicious food in Suzhou."
"Hmm..." Cao Xinyu pondered for a few seconds and suggested, "How about coming to my house tonight? I'll show you some of my skills?"
Ke Fan was slightly shocked: "How come I didn't know you had these two skills?"
Miss Cao, the CEO's only daughter, has had nannies since she was a child, never having to do any housework. One day, she impulsively made a nourishing fish soup for Ke Fan, but it ended up with both of them suffering from food poisoning and being hospitalized. Since then, Ke Fan has kept his distance from her cooking.
"When a man has been away for three days, he should be looked at with new eyes. Do you understand, Ke Xiaofan?"
Ke Fan was silent for a moment.
"Can't I understand?"
Finally ordered takeout.
There is a new Guizhou restaurant nearby. They serve spicy and sour soup fish, cold rice tofu, crispy and fragrant spicy chicken. They also ordered milk tea and a small dessert, which were placed on the small coffee table in Cao Xinyu's house.
The two of them sat on the carpet, their backs against the sofa, not feeling crowded at all, and ate dinner together, taking turns to eat.
The latest season of a mystery variety show was playing on TV. Ke Fan hadn't watched it for a long time and didn't recognize the faces, so Cao Xinyu explained to her one by one who was this and that.
As she was talking, she suddenly laughed out loud:
"It seems like when we were in college, we ate together in the dormitory, and it was like this too."
Ke Fan also laughed: "I remember that time you liked to drag me to watch some suspense documentaries while eating. It made me unable to eat well and sleep at night. You had to hold hands with me face to face before you dared to go to bed. And then you had to watch it again the next day."
"Yes," Cao Xinyu looked at Ke Fan with bright eyes, "but you will always watch it with me."
Cao Xinyu was apprehensive when she learned she wasn't assigned to the same dorm as her classmates. However, Ke Fan eased her anxieties. She would accompany her in all her silly activities and listen to her every worry. In her presence, she was her truest self.
Ke Fan patted her head as usual:
"Well, I'll watch it with you later."
The ice cream was put into the mouth with a small spoon and melted with a sweet taste.
As the meal draws to a close, it's time to talk about recent changes in our lives.
Ke Fan placed the empty dessert box on the coffee table.
"Xinyu, Yi Lingjia and I have reconciled."
"You guys reconciled? After six years???"
Cao Xinyu still had half a mouthful of ice cream in her mouth and was dizzy from Ke Fan's bombshell news.
The melted half of the spoon dripped onto the carpet.
"Yeah." Ke Fan took out a piece of paper, wiped the corner of her mouth, and then wiped the carpet.
Then he told everything from beginning to end, including contacting Dr. Xu, planning the reunion, and finally reconciling.
Ke Fan's gossip is as simple as she is. There is no foreshadowing like "By the way, I have something I want to tell you", and there is no mystery of you asking and she answering half-heartedly.
Straightforward and clean.
Cao Xinyu vaguely felt that there was more to explore in this matter, but after being bombarded with spoilers by Ke Fan, she didn't feel the satisfaction and pleasure of finally getting to know the big news. Instead, she stirred the ice cream in a daze, digesting all the information.
After a long while, I suddenly grasped a point that Ke Fan had not mentioned:
"What about you and Senior Brother Lu?"
"Didn't you know before that we weren't real?"
"But he obviously likes you. I noticed it when we were in college. And I always feel that he chose geology as his doctoral major because of you."
Ke Fan was somewhat helpless: "How could that be? Please stop messing around with CPs, okay?"
Cao Xinyu shut up. She had brought this up with Ke Fan repeatedly before Yi Lingjia reappeared. But Lu Qiaoyuan had never confessed his feelings for her in all these years, and now that Yi Lingjia had returned, it was impossible for them to be together again.
Alas, her CP ended quietly.
She then changed the subject:
"Then that windmill in Tsu..."
"Blower." Ke Fan corrected her for the hundred and eighth time.
"Oh, has the problem with the fan in Tsu City been solved?"
"Well, it's been solved, and it's even been selected as an outstanding case in the institute in the first half of the year." Ke Fan gave a rare cunning smile.
"Well done, Dr. Ke. You've been really successful both in your career and in your love life lately."
"What about you, Doctor Cao? Do you have anything you want to talk to me about recently?"
A pair of smiling eyes suddenly flashed through Cao Xinyu's mind.
The man had smooth wheat-colored skin, well-defined muscles, and brown curly hair that was moistened by the morning light.
Talk about the moon.
After helping her treat her wound that day, Cao Xinyu found one of her own short-sleeved shirts and gave it to her.
The two stood at the door as they saw her off.
Tan Yue took the initiative to give Cao Xinyu a hug: "Thank you for your hard work, Doctor Cao."
Because of the height difference, Cao Xinyu's head was resting on her shoulder.
There was a familiar orange-scented aromatherapy on the porch of her home, but Cao Xinyu seemed not to smell it at all. Her nose was filled with the scent of Tan Yue, a kind of woody fig scent, cool and natural, neither far nor near, and very fascinating.
Melted water droplets on the dessert box dripped down the surface into the palm of her hand.
Cao Xinyu looked up at the black short-sleeved shirt drying on the balcony.
After seeing Tan Yue off, she immediately called her colleague who took over. She was relieved to learn that the fainted patient was no longer in danger. She also asked the colleague to keep the clothes that the patient was covered with.
Her short sleeves fluttered uncontrollably in the evening breeze, just like her heart that was wandering for someone else for the first time in more than twenty years.
"I've recently..."
"How are you doing lately? Why are you hesitating so much?"
"By the way, I have something to tell you." Cao Xinyu paused.
She looked at Ke Fan eagerly, her eyes full of the panic of a rookie falling in love:
"I seem to have fallen in love with a sister..."
*
Go to work on Monday.
As soon as I entered the office, Ji Hang came up to me:
"Sister Xiaofan, congratulations! The Jinshi project was selected as an outstanding case!"
He lowered his voice again:
"Last week, I saw Brother Li take the Jinshi case report to the director's office. He looked quite happy when he came out. Maybe the director has some extra praise for you."
Ke Fan put his bag on the table and was opening his locker.
Hearing this, he tapped his head which was too close to him:
"You deserve some credit. I'll treat you to a meal sometime."
Ji Hang whimpered and took the lighthouse-patterned mug from Ke Fan's hand in a fawning manner.
"Let the little one make you some coffee."
Ke Fan looked at his back as he ran away excitedly with some amusement.
Suddenly, a deep male voice came from my ear:
"Xiao Fan, come to my office later."
The coffee was steaming on the table. The man opposite was wearing a dark shirt, sitting upright, and his every move was full of calm demeanor.
Li Chengjin pushed the documents piled on the table towards Ke Fan and said with a smile:
"Last week, the director told me about our key tasks for the second half of the year. The National Energy Administration officially released the bidding notice for the first deep-sea wind power demonstration project. As a key scientific research unit, Haishi Wind Power Institute was designated to participate in the design of the wind turbine foundation."
"Your outstanding performance in the Jinshi case is evident to all. The director has appointed you as the head of the deep-sea project for the second half of the year."
"Xiao Fan, do you have confidence?"
Ke Fan raised his head and smiled:
"Of course I have confidence. Don't you see who my leader is?"
Li Chengjin was stunned. It was rare for Ke Fan to joke with him.
He looked at Ke Fan's face carefully and saw that there was a smile in the corners of her eyes and eyebrows, and she seemed to be in a very good mood.
Li Chengjin suddenly felt more confident.
Deep-sea wind power has vast resources and can break through the nearshore bottleneck. It has great strategic significance for future clean energy and dual carbon goals, and has already begun to be developed abroad.
However, due to the high technical difficulty and many variables, and the lack of mature examples in China, he was a little worried that she would be afraid of the challenge.
Thinking about it again, Ke Fan was the person who was most courageous in challenging difficult problems, and he never doubted her ability.
Ke Fan flipped through a few pages of information and read the general background of the project.
"I'll go back and research the waters of the South China Sea pilot program," she said, standing up with the information in her arms. "If necessary, I can go there myself."
Li Chengjin nodded. "Well, thank you for your hard work. You may have to run around again." He added, "Let me know if you need help."
"Isn't it normal to run around? I'm afraid I won't have the chance to run." Ke Fan smiled again.
"Oh, boss," she said, pulling out a delicate little sachet from her trouser pocket. "I brought this for Yaya from Suzhou. You see, running around has its benefits, doesn't it? I can bring Yaya lots of little gifts from different places."
Li Chengjin also laughed: "Yaya likes the things you buy the most. Sometimes before going to bed at night, she has to touch the things given by 'Sister Xiaofan' before she will go to sleep."
He took the sachet and thanked her. "I told her your project won an outstanding case study. She didn't understand anything else, but she knew it was amazing. She pestered me to see photos of the offshore wind turbines in Jinshi, even bringing her own little stool to look at them intently. Normally, if I wanted her to see something I'd made, she'd slip right off my lap like a loach."
The laughter of two people echoed in the office.
Li Chengjing sniffed the sachet gently: "What a sweet gardenia scent."
"Well, I bought it at Yue Garden in Su City. The gardenias in the garden are blooming really beautifully."
*
Yi Lingjia played with the sachet in her hand, and the whole car was filled with the faint fragrance of gardenia.
He had a lunch appointment with a big client of Fengshun, and Li Jing was on his way to see him.
The screen time showed 11:59 and he began to check his phone frequently.
12:00.
Liar, didn’t you say you would call me at noon?
12:01.
The phone screen lit up, and the next second, the call was connected.
"One minute late..." he complained in a sticky nasal voice.
I don’t know what the person on the other end of the phone said, but he seemed to be comforted and said okay okay in a wronged manner.
Li Jing shook off goose bumps all over his body.
"Yeah, I'm on my way to meet a client. What do you think about me driving Fengshun to Hai City next time?"
"Why are you so crazy? Didn't you say at the time that we wanted to build a chain and asked Mr. Ke to invest in us?"
"Mr. Ke, please don't default on your debt."
Yi Lingjia spoke in a cheerful and coquettish tone, with a long-lost genuine smile on her face.
It happened to be a red light, Li Jing stepped on the brakes and looked at the dimple on the right cheek of the man in the back seat through the rearview mirror.
It seems like he looks like the boy in the basketball jersey in the photo.
It also overlaps with the shallow dimples on another more mature face.
Li Jing recalled that afternoon when he spilled coffee on his documents.
I was extremely nervous, not knowing what kind of scolding I would face.
But when he raised his eyes, he saw someone looking at him from behind the desk. The fine lines at the corners of his eyes curved slightly with a smile, and there was a shallow dimple on his right cheek, which was unexpectedly warm and gentle.
"Why are your eyes still red? It's really nothing serious. Young people make mistakes all the time."
After Mr. Yi passed away, almost all of his assistant team members resigned.
He originally wanted to leave, but when he saw the emaciated young man, he decided to stay.
He thought, maybe one day, he would have the chance to see that dimple again.
The red light ticked and jumped back to green.
Li Jing withdrew his gaze from the rearview mirror, smiled slightly, and started the car.
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