Chapter 47. Tan Su helplessly spread his hands, indicating...
Tan Su helplessly spread his hands, indicating his surrender.
Seeing that he was easy to bully, Li Li couldn't resist slapping him hard, but Tan Su grabbed her hand instead.
His elbows rested on the bright counter, and beneath his open cashmere coat was a formal shirt. Tan Su had come straight over after the meeting, but hadn't accomplished anything; he had just accompanied the young woman to pick out a watch for another man.
Oh.
He held Li Li's fingers and asked her, "When are you coming out next time?"
Li Li pulled her hand back, took the bag from the saleswoman, and warned her sternly, "Don't make any more demands, Tan Su. Your birthday this year is already over."
——
When Li Zhoudu got off work and returned home, it was already getting dark.
He had just entered the room and taken off his shoes when Li Li rushed out of the living room, holding a box and mysteriously presenting it as a treasure.
Li Zhoudu took off his coat and handed it to the aunt, calmly took the watch box, glanced at it, and then tossed it onto the cabinet to the side.
His expression betrayed nothing, but perhaps the knot in his heart had eased, for he said to Li Li while eating at the table, "Get up early tomorrow and run with me, let's see how lazy you'll be when you come back."
Li Li is a complete fitness failure; the reason she's able to maintain her current figure is entirely due to her picky eating habits and starvation.
However, he couldn't refuse the offer made by Li Zhoudu.
The next morning, she got ready to leave and reluctantly followed Li Zhoudu out the door.
The villa is backed by a lake, and there aren't many people around in the early morning. A lap around the lake is about five kilometers.
Li Zhoudu initially followed Li Li's pace, but later, finding her too slow and sluggish like a tortoise, he tossed the dog to her and led the way.
Li Li ran two kilometers and was too exhausted, so she walked the rest of the way back.
After being dragged along by Li Zhoudu for two days, she gradually figured out a little trick to be lazy. She would slowly drag out the pace at the beginning, and once Li Zhoudu was far away, she would go to the newsstand by the roadside to buy a grilled sausage for herself and her dog. After eating, she would take a taxi back, feeling refreshed and relaxed.
Li Li thought she was incredibly smart and secretly applauded herself in her heart.
After running around like this for about a week, one day Li Li went to buy grilled sausages and saw children queuing at a newsstand in the distance. She casually tied her dog leash to a willow tree by the lake a dozen meters away and ran over to join the queue.
When I came back, I found there was one more person.
Tan Yi, wearing a windbreaker, squatted on the ground, patiently stroking the dog's head. He looked up and saw Li Li.
Then slowly stand up.
The wind was strong by the lake. The willows had lost all their leaves in winter, leaving only withered yellow branches swaying in the breeze.
Standing there, Li Li suddenly felt a bit cold in the wind, and the air she breathed into her nostrils was somewhat icy. She rubbed her arms, trying to relieve the numbness and stiffness in her limbs.
Tan Yi spoke first, saying, "Good morning."
"Good morning," she replied.
Tan Yi didn't explain his purpose for coming. Instead, he smiled and asked, "How is Su Mi?"
Li Li felt her heart clench with pain, and her nose stung uncontrollably—a natural physiological reaction that she couldn't control.
She said, "It's fine."
"Are you alright, cat?"
Li Li smiled somewhat awkwardly and said, "Shouldn't you stop calling me that?"
Tan Yi's smile looked sorrowful. He asked, "Do you hate me that much now?"
"Did you come here to apologize to me?" Li Li asked.
Tan Yi looked at her for a long time, then firmly shook his head.
For a moment, Li Li almost blurted out, "If it wasn't to apologize, why did you come? Why did you call me on Halloween?"
Are you not doing well?
Are you having relationship problems?
Is your current partner not to your liking?
Did you come to see me because you're having a hard time?
But before any questions could be asked, Tan Yi had already left.
He saw that the figure was thin, with his fingers clenched into a fist and pressed against his lips. He coughed twice, and his face was pale, indicating that he was probably not in good health.
The face was now vastly different from the youthful and spirited one that remained in Li Li's memory.
Li Li sat on a bench, facing the empty lake, and exhaled a long breath of mist. She wondered somewhat blankly how they had gotten to where they were today.
——
Tan Congxu got married in Hong Kong in April. His wife is Qiao Zhijie's sister, Qiao Kaiqing.
Despite a nearly twenty-year age gap, the two signed a marriage certificate.
One was a woman who needed marriage to appease her parents and focus on competing with her younger brother for the family business; the other was a man who needed to leverage the other's background to make things easier for himself. After only a few meetings, they hit it off immediately.
Qiao Zhijie was caught off guard by this sudden event, and he hated Tan Congxu and his son, who had stood on the opposite side and started a fight, to the core.
During a family gathering, he openly mocked Tan Yi, saying, "You've been calling me 'brother' for so long, shouldn't you call me 'uncle' according to seniority now?"
Why didn't you shout?
He ridiculed Tan Yi in front of his family: "Don't you have any manners towards your elders?"
Tan Congxu looked down, signaling him to lower his head and let things go. Tan Yi's hand holding the knife and fork trembled slightly as he forcibly suppressed the urge to fight. Then he heard Qiao Zhijie say contemptuously, "As expected, someone who was not raised by his mother."
At that moment, he felt as if a string in his heart had finally snapped.
It was a very crisp, clear sound.
It was deafeningly loud, though no one noticed it.
Everything around me felt fake, and my soul seemed to float in the air as I looked at the smiling faces on the dining table, faces that were actually incredibly hypocritical.
Tan Yi gripped the knife in his hand, his expression icy as he stared into Qiao Zhijie's eyes. Seeing Qiao Zhijie's sudden change in expression, Tan Yi stood up and left his seat.
When he left, it was the first time since he became an adult that he had the idea of going to find his mother.
——
Three weeks after returning to China, Li Zhizi first went back to Jixi. Her schedule is now synchronized with Li Li's, and she only comes back once or twice a year.
Her parents were naturally happy for her return and threw a big banquet to entertain relatives and friends.
She is now seen as a winner in life by outsiders. She lives in a big villa, earns a salary in US dollars, brings her mother a luxury bag when she comes back, and accompanies her father to order a car. Everything comes so easily and simply.
Amidst the lively atmosphere of the dinner party, a child visiting the family, encouraged by their parents, timidly asked her how she usually studies.
My English grades just won't improve.
Looking into the child's admiring eyes, Li Zhizi realized that, without realizing it, the child had become someone she once looked up to.
The unspoken envy and comparison, humility and self-esteem, closeness and estrangement of those years have unknowingly settled down in her daily interactions with Li Li, and she has gradually come to terms with her awkward and ingratiating attitude from those years.
She said to the child, "Let's exchange contact information, and I'll teach you slowly."
Li Zhizi returned to S City a week before her departure. This time, Wenxi did not deliberately distance herself as she had in previous years, but instead arranged a bedroom for her.
She noticed a slightly unusual interaction between the siblings; Li Li was trying to please him, while Li Zhoudu's reaction was indifferent, and she didn't know why.
One afternoon, Li Zhizi was sitting on the balcony of her room, basking in the sun and flipping through a book, when she suddenly noticed a black car parked a little further away on the side of the villa. The man standing next to the car was someone she had met once before who was staying there.
She looked over there and then spotted Li Li, who had sneaked out of the door and run to the car.
They exchanged a few words, and the other person leaned down as if wanting a kiss, but Li Li pushed him away in disgust, then walked around him and got into the passenger seat.
Li Zhizi silently memorized the license plate number.
In October.
Li Zhoudu once visited them in the United States. He didn't stay long; he just wandered around, checking how far away the restaurants and supermarkets were, and investigating the environment where Li Li went to school.
On the eve of his departure, Li Zhizi woke up groggily in the middle of the night and noticed the corridor light was on through the crack in the door.
She got up to turn off the light and found that Li Li's room was open, with the light from the corridor shining into her room. Li Zhoudu was sitting on the edge of her bed, holding a jewelry box that Li Li had hidden in the bedside table.
Yes, that's why she was making a fuss about wanting a gun.
In the dead of night, Li Li was sound asleep and completely unaware of her surroundings. Suddenly, Li Zhizi felt a chill run down her spine and a sense of unease. She then saw Li Zhoudu turn his gaze toward her.
He seemed oblivious to anything amiss, got up, walked into the corridor, closed the door, and let the long necklace hang down with his fingers.
He asked, "Who sent it?"
Li Zhizi said at the time, "I don't know."
She genuinely had no idea that the necklace existed.
Li Zhoudu then asked, "Aren't there any suspected cases?"
Li Zhizi thought of Li Li, the senior she had stayed with at the end of September, but without any proof or information about him, she didn't dare to speak to Li Zhoudu rashly.
Li Zhoudu stared directly at her, and Li Zhizi wondered if she had perfectly concealed her guilt and panic.
A few seconds later, Li Zhoudu said calmly, "I sent you out. You need to figure out who you're working for."
He tossed the necklace to Li Zhizi: "Put it back."
——
Li Li felt like she was a little sick; she felt terrible every time she heard news about Tan Yi, but she couldn't pinpoint why.
It's like a shattered soul barely pieced together, yet leaking air everywhere.
Tan Su was a temporary glue; he could stop Li Li's wild thoughts, and the moment of physical intimacy made her realize that there was no turning back.
The sound of running water in the bathroom was gentle and clear.
Tan Su lifted her up and sat her on the sink, kissing her passionately.
His lowered head reflected a hint of shame in his eyes, yet Li Li also liked his submission at this moment.
She ran her fingers through Tan Su's short hair, thinking to herself, "She's comfortable, and as long as she's comfortable, that's all that matters."
Nothing else matters.
Tan Su looked up at Li Li's watery eyes and rosy face, leaned in to kiss her, but she dodged him.
"Bad habit." He laughed.
The two went into the bedroom, and Li Li couldn't help but say, "You must have done a lot of research on your own, right? You know so many tricks."
Tan Su reiterated, "Your happiness is more important."
Li Li felt that the difference between a man in bed and out of bed was really big. As she moved with him, she remembered the grievances she had suffered at Yan Qi's hands. She sullenly tightened her hands and pretended to strangle him.
"It's all your fault! You called so-and-so and forced me to cut my hair short!"
"Fire him!"
Although she couldn't remember the name of that insignificant HR director, the thought still made her grind her teeth in anger.
Tan Su felt that he was purely blinded by lust. He pulled Li Li's hand down, kissed her palm again and again, and said, "When you become the boss's wife of Yanqi, you will decide all personnel appointments and dismissals."
Li Li knew he was unreliable as soon as she heard it, and scolded, "You wish! Don't try to take advantage of me!"
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Author's Note: Updated! Hope you don't mind the restrictions [sigh].
It seems like everyone has found a theme song for their character's life, haha.
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