Chapter 5 I always have a name.
After getting in the car, Xia Qingwan took off his suit jacket and handed it to Ye Peixiu at the other end of the back seat, "Give it back to you."
Ye Peixiu took a look and said calmly, "Just leave it there."
"Could you please take me downstairs to Dormitory 32? Thank you."
"Didn't we say we were going to eat?" Ye Peixiu looked at his watch and said casually, "I'm hungry too."
Xia Qingwan said, "...the food in our cafeteria isn't very good, it might not suit your taste."
Ye Peixiu smiled faintly, "I'll treat you to a meal, okay?"
Without waiting for her to answer, he said to the driver's seat in front of her, "Jingzi, call Old Tang."
"good."
"Do you have any dietary restrictions? What dishes do you like to eat?"
Ye Peixiu turned his head to look at her.
“…Just don’t make it too spicy.”
Xia Qingwan said, "Thank you for your help."
On the way, the two people in the back seat didn't talk much. Ye Peixiu answered two calls, and Xia Qingwan kept leaning against the window watching the rain outside. In a blink of an eye, they arrived at their destination.
Having lived in Beijing for two years, she had visited most of the interesting places in the city, but had never been to this place.
Hidden in a low alley, there is no restaurant marked here on the map.
I got off the car holding an umbrella and walked through the quiet second courtyard, just like last time in Beiguanfang Hutong, and then the true view of the courtyard inside came into view.
The artificial hills and winding streams, along with the rugged lake stones, gleamed wetly in the rain.
Walking to the eaves of the corridor, Ye Peixiu folded his umbrella, handed it to the doorman standing beside him, and walked straight forward.
Xia Qingwan followed a few steps behind, her gaze drifting to the rain splashing in the dim night sky outside the corridor and courtyard.
When she looked away, she noticed Ye Peixiu standing sideways in front of her, waiting for her. "Stay close to me, it's easy to get lost if it's your first time here."
Xia Qingwan responded with an "oh," and hurried after him, walking alongside him.
Ye Peixiu tilted his head to look at her, smiled faintly and said, "You seem to like looking around when you walk?"
"Um?"
Xia Qingwan realized that he was talking about the last time in the Beiguanfang Hutong Club, when she looked back in the same way and almost bumped into him.
That time I was possessed by a ghost and wanted to take a look at him before leaving.
“…Not really, I was just watching the rain.”
But he pressed on, "So, this time you're here to see the rain, what did you see last time?"
Xia Qingwan wanted to make up an answer to prevaricate, but then she thought, he wouldn't have the chance to know anyway, so she simply said, "Look at someone."
Ye Peixiu glanced at her.
Under his gaze, she straightened her back and acted dignified, which made Ye Peixiu laugh.
The waiter led them into the main hall, then through a side door, and finally into a private room.
The interior is decorated in traditional Chinese style. There is an octagonal table by the wall, a royal chair on each side, a vase on the east and a mirror on the west, all of which are antique. In front of the mahogany window with swastika pattern stands a long ebony table, on which a rosewood lamp with a flower and bird pattern is lit.
The overall light and shadow also imitates the dim mood of ancient times.
In such an elegant and sophisticated environment, Ye Peixiu did not seem to care about being particular. He took off the suit jacket he had just put on when he got off the car, threw it on the armchair, and then untied his tie and cuffs.
Xia Qingwan stood there looking at him, her eyes as if she couldn't figure out what he was doing. Ye Peixiu found it funny, and while rolling up his sleeves, he casually raised his chin, "Please sit down first. I've been in meetings all day and I'm a little tired. I need to relax for a while." He looked up at her and said, "There shouldn't be so much formality when having dinner with you, right?"
Xia Qingwan couldn't figure out what he meant. After thinking for a moment, she said, "...I'm considered your junior, so you don't have to be so particular with me. Just be as you please."
These words made Ye Peixiu laugh even deeper.
He casually tossed the cufflinks onto a jewelry tray on the Eight Immortals table and walked over. "In your house, you followed the elders' advice and called me Brother Pei Xiu, but today when we met, you blurted out 'Mr. Ye'..." As he spoke, he helped her pull out a chair. "Now that you say that, do you think I'm your elder?"
Xia Qingwan was not used to this kind of service from a man, but at this point she had no choice but to sit down. Her buttocks dropped halfway, and the chair was pushed forward a little. When her buttocks were completely touching the chair, the distance between the chair and the table was just right.
His casual, gentlemanly actions always take perfect care of people.
Xia Qingwan calmed herself down and said in a seemingly indifferent tone, "You seem to really enjoy taking the initiative in conversation?"
The same sentence structure was an imitation of the words he had guessed just now on the porch, and it was also a response to his "rude remarks" last time at her house.
Ye Peixiu glanced at her, then sat down opposite her, half-smiling, "Didn't you say it yourself? 'You're considered a junior.'"
"...I was just being polite."
"You're being too polite," Ye Peixiu said, still being polite. "At my age, I don't like being someone else's elder."
An eight-year age gap, neither too big nor too small.
Calling him brother wasn't quite right, and calling him uncle was even more outrageous. Besides, they weren't that familiar. Xia Qingwan propped up his chin with the back of his hand, lowered his eyes, and thought for a moment, "...then just consider it as me taking advantage of my younger self. You can call me whatever you want. We won't talk about who's taking advantage anymore. We're even now."
After she finished speaking, she raised her eyes to look at him and whispered, "What do you think?"
The hazy light from the flower-and-bird table lamp shone on her face from the side, and the smooth lines formed by her eyelashes, nose bridge, and jaw looked like an elegant sketch.
How can someone be so stunningly beautiful just by casually tying their hair and without any makeup?
Ye Peixiu looked at her without saying anything more.
After a while, he raised his hand and rang the bell to call the waiter.
This is a restaurant specializing in Chinese food. The menu changes every day. The owner and chef, Lao Tang, is a first-class chef. Ye Peixiu is used to eating there, so he asked the waiter to show Xia Qingwan today's menu.
Xia Qingwan slid the pad screen and took a quick look. There were several dishes including 15-year-old tangerine peel and old duck fish maw soup, Shanjia Sanye, Tibetan wine-braised pigeon, and a blood swallow.
When the waiter left, he hung Ye Peixiu's suit jacket and tie on the hanger.
The dishes were served one after another, and Xia Qingwan concentrated on eating.
Due to the habit she developed since childhood, she usually didn't speak at the dinner table, and Ye Peixiu had no intention of talking to her either. He even looked a little absent-minded, and only moved his chopsticks a few times.
The room was silent, and the sound of rain outside seemed to be getting louder and louder. The raindrops fell with a crackling sound, the leaves rustled, and the sound of rain almost came through the swastika-patterned window lattice and into the window.
Xia Qingwan glanced at him over the rim of the cup while drinking water.
Ye Peizheng was looking out the window, his profile smooth and cold, his long eyebrows covering a pair of lonely eyes.
She wondered what he was thinking; he always seemed somewhat unfathomable. When she first met him in the main hall of Beiguanfang Hutong, she found him handsome, refined, and elegant, but his eyes clearly held a coldness.
So she thought he would be a melancholy and introverted man, but after these two actual contacts, he turned out to be more like a playboy, relaxed and unconcerned with details. To put it more seriously, he was even a little romantic.
She had the same habits as the third and fourth generation of people her cousin Xia Mingzhou usually associated with.
Who was this Mr. Ye? She only knew that he was Grandma Liang's grandson. But as far as she knew, Grandma Liang's husband's surname was Jiang. How could there be a grandson named Ye?
Maybe he took his mother's surname, or maybe he was his grandson.
She knew nothing about that circle and had no intention of getting involved. Besides, her grandmother had repeatedly told her not to be distracted by other trivial matters, but only to focus on her studies, lay a solid foundation during her undergraduate years, and pursue an academic career in the future.
When Grandma said this, Grandma Xi jokingly said, "According to you, does that mean we Qingwans will only focus on academics and not date or get married?"
Grandma just said, "There's nothing wrong with not getting married."
The rain outside seems to have lessened a bit.
Xia Qingwan looked out the window and noticed that there was actually a pond outside. Willow branches swayed, and water lilies floated on the surface of the water, with closed buds occasionally peeking out. In the night rain, there was a unique charm.
Unfortunately, due to the distance, rain and fog, I couldn’t see it clearly.
She subconsciously glanced at Mr. Ye across from her. Mr. Ye was also looking at her with a faint smile on his lips. "What's wrong? You look so worried."
"I'd like to go," she pointed out the window, "and take a look at the pond. Is it convenient? Is the pond open to guests?"
Ye Peixiu glanced out the window and asked the waiter to bring an umbrella.
He had already stood up, casually took a suit jacket from the hanger, and handed it to Xia Qingwan, "It's chilly outside, wear this."
Judging from the situation, he wants to go with her.
Xia Qingwan originally wanted to borrow an umbrella from the store and go over to check it out herself. But...
His behavior is always natural and reasonable, making it impossible to refuse.
Her fingertips paused for a moment, and she carefully took it and put it on. She walked to the door, but remembered that she would be bending over to look into the pool later, and was afraid that the oversized coat would slip off her shoulders, so she simply put her arms into the sleeves and put it on, and then she tightened the front of the coat.
After getting dressed warmly, the sandalwood scent on her suit silently invaded her nostrils. Her bare arms in the sleeves gave her goose bumps for no reason, and she couldn't help but raise her hand to touch them.
A waiter brought over an umbrella, which Ye Peixiu took and held up.
The waiter said, "Mr. Ye, the ground is slippery from the rain, please watch your step."
Although it was a big umbrella, the space under the umbrella was limited. Xia Qingwan didn't dare to get too close to him, nor too far away. In addition, the ground was slippery, so he walked extremely cautiously.
Ye Peixiu tilted his head to look at her and said, "You're even more open-minded than I am."
"Um?"
As Ye Peixiu walked, he continued, "On the two separate journeys between getting on and off the bus, I was holding an umbrella, and you were always a good distance away from me. My shoulder is soaked three times today."
Before he could finish his words, Xia Qingwan reacted and leaned over to look at his shoulder. Sure enough, his white shirt was soaked. Being young after all, she couldn't stand his rude words. Xia Qingwan's face immediately flushed. She hurriedly apologized, took two quick steps, and gently grasped the fabric of his shirt at the elbow.
Ye Peixiu stopped and turned his head to look down at her.
Xia Qingwan turned away and whispered, "I'm sorry."
She wore a sleeveless, wide-cut cotton dress underneath, in a light and elegant bluish-gray tone, over which he wore a black suit. Against the backdrop of the lush greenery around her, she resembled a misty green mountain in the night.
The two of them held umbrellas and walked around the moon-shaped door on the side of the house and came to the backyard.
Standing by the pond, Xia Qingwan leaned forward to peer at the water below the stone steps. Raindrops splashed across the surface, creating ripples that looked like white fireworks.
She couldn't help but think of the words she had recited a few days ago, "The rain has passed in the morning, where is the trace left? Only a pond of broken duckweed."
A crabapple tree on the other side of the pond has been battered by rain and wind and is almost completely withered, with only a few remaining petals on its branches.
However, the path covered with fallen petals doesn't necessarily mean dejection. Xia Qingwan looked up and said with a smile, "Today we are walking in the spring rain with umbrellas, and the remaining petals on the branches actually give us a sense of summer."
It's already mid-May, and after this rain, summer is just around the corner in Beijing.
Ye Peixiu lowered his eyes to look at her for a moment, then followed her gaze to the lotus leaves fluttering in the rain. He smiled casually and said, "Li Yishan said, 'Leave the withered lotus leaves to listen to the sound of rain.' Today, we are 'listening to the early lotus leaves to listen to the sound of rain.'"
There's a hint of shared enjoyment in his words. Even though he came along to watch the rain with her, was he actually enjoying himself?
Xia Qingwan couldn't help but smile. It was the pure laughter of joy, like a child being pampered and led by an adult to play in the water.
As he stared at her, Xia Qingwan smiled until her face felt inexplicably hot. She turned her eyes away awkwardly and said something.
The raindrops fell on the umbrella fabric and crackled. Ye Peixiu didn't hear clearly, so he lowered his head and asked, "What did you say?"
Xia Qingwan turned her head and said, "I said thank you for keeping me company," she paused for a moment, "...just now I noticed that you hadn't eaten much and didn't have much of an expression, so I thought I had said something wrong to offend you."
Ye Peixiu smiled softly, "Just before dinner, when you said I liked to take advantage verbally, you weren't afraid of offending me. But now you've reflected on it?"
How can you blame her?
He had been so rude in his words when they first met at her house that she tossed and turned before going to bed that night. Although she had a gentle personality, she was still young after all, so how could she not hold a grudge? She wanted to get some revenge this time.
"...I thought you wouldn't mind."
She said in a low voice.
"If you change your name in the future, I won't mind it." Ye Peixiu said, "I always have a name."
“Alright then,” Xia Qingwan said, though she was a little intimidated by him because of the age difference. She mustered her courage and said, “From now on, I’ll call you Ye Peixiu.”
Ye Peixiu didn't say anything else, he just felt that the umbrella was still too big.
Amid the sound of the dripping rain, there were a few heavier knocking sounds, like raindrops hitting glazed tiles.
Click, click.
A note from the author:
----------------------
Note: "After the rain at dawn, where are the traces left? Only shattered duckweed on the pond" is from Su Shi's "Water Dragon Chant - Rhyming with Zhang Zhifu's Willow Catkin Poem".
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
