Chapter 29. A soothing love song lingers like a shadow...
The soothing love song, the ever-present vocals, the flickering lights overhead, and the occasional, missed heartbeat all seemed to be paused at this moment.
The slightly sweet soda water tasted expired to her, a burdensome flavor.
Huang Shiyu's body stiffened for a moment, then she slowly raised her eyes and turned her head to look at Li Xingzhou.
"The thing you can't forget is that she stole your time. How strange, why?" The blonde girl was very puzzled. Perhaps she had drunk too much and her mind was a little muddled. "Damn it, what kind of word game are you playing?"
The blonde girl shook her head, trying to clear her mind. Then, as if remembering something, she stretched out her hesitant hand, pointed at Li Xingzhou opposite her, and said with a smile, "Could it be, oh~ you're talking about your first love?"
Li Xingzhou didn't answer, examining the wine in his hand. "If I remember correctly, you can only ask one truth question, right?" As he looked up, he raised the wine in his hand to the blonde girl. "Three drinks as punishment."
The meaning is clear: you overstepped the bounds this time and should be punished.
The blonde girl was also very easygoing, drinking one glass after another without even panting, and then chatting and laughing with the girl next to her. Huang Shiyu was quite envious of her drinking capacity; she couldn't handle it, her face would turn red after drinking too much, looking like she had just come out of a sauna.
During university dinners, Lu Xiao often teased me about my alcohol tolerance.
Later, when she worked in the Financial Street area, there were always drinking parties. Her job was to fend off drinks for her superiors. Although she didn't become much more tolerant of alcohol after doing so many drinks, at least she wouldn't turn into a blushing mess after just a little bit.
"Aren't you also curious about who 'she' Xingzhou is talking about?"
Huang Shiyu looked at Xiang Zhinan, who was leaning close to her ear and speaking, and instinctively moved her body a little to the side. She was not used to men being so close to her. The seats in this bar were all designed in a circular semi-circular shape, and her seat was already on the side. By moving like this, her left side was directly against the armrest of the sofa.
Huang Shiyu wanted to say that she wasn't curious at all, but looking at Xiang Zhinan tilting his head, his big eyes wide open, and his expression revealing a hint of grievance, as if he were saying that the bar was too noisy, and he was just trying to whisper to Xiang Zhinan but was afraid that Xiang Zhinan wouldn't hear him, so he stood so close to him.
"Go ahead and say it," Huang Shiyu said helplessly.
Upon hearing this, Xiang Zhinan's previously listless expression immediately returned to normal.
"Hmph, that woman, if I'm lucky enough to meet her, I'll slap her across the face first," Xiang Zhinan said angrily, slapping the air as he did so. "Then I'll ask her if her eyes are in the sky, otherwise how could she not see Xingzhou's sincere love?" He even hiccuped, perhaps from drinking too much. "It's like the moon's reflection in the water; if you walk by, wouldn't you see it? Do you think my analogy is appropriate?"
Huang Shiyu's breath hitched, the words stuck in his throat, unsure of what to say. Xiang Zhinan's words were earth-shattering, like a butterfly stirring up a storm a thousand miles away. However, the butterfly itself was unaware that its subtle actions had already quietly altered the fate of others.
Xiang Zhinan noticed her gradually becoming serious, but simply assumed she was surprised by his words, and continued, "I don't know when Xingzhou's misfortune will finally end."
"Is it his own feeling of unhappiness, or is it your own perception?"
She didn't know why she asked that question. She attributed the abrupt question to a sudden thought and said it had no real meaning.
The noise from the bar was deafening, and although Huang Shiyu wasn't speaking loudly, Xiang Zhinan, sitting next to her, could still hear her clearly.
He took a sip of his drink, feeling a bitter taste in his mouth. He frowned, two fine lines quickly forming between his brows, then relaxed again. He said, "Nine years of unrequited love. Who would do something so foolish? Isn't that just unfortunate? But the other person doesn't know. Sigh, who still plays this game of unrequited love in this day and age, and persists for so long? Love is such a terrifying thing; it has no expiration date and no return." He put down his glass and smiled at Huang Shiyu. "Oh, right, you still don't know what that girl looks like, right?"
"Give me your phone," Xiang Zhinan said to the girl with the bun hairstyle.
"What are you doing?" The girl with the bun hairstyle glanced at him.
"Just give it to me, I don't even check your messages."
The girl with the bun hairstyle pouted and tossed her phone to him. Xiang Zhinan reacted quickly, catching the phone accurately even in the dim light. Once in his hand, Xiang Zhinan swiped the screen a few times with his index and middle fingers, then handed it to Huang Shiyu, saying, "Look, it's her! The one whose eyes and eyebrows look a lot like yours."
He scratched his chin, paused, and then said, "I don't know if Xingzhou has ulterior motives for cooperating with you, but let me tell you, stay away from him. Even if he likes you, it's not that kind of liking. Do you understand what I mean?"
"You should drink less," Huang Shiyu said, his lips twitching.
She almost laughed; what was Xiang Zhinan saying?
"They're a couple, do you understand?" Xiang Zhinan reiterated, looking at Huang Shiyu with great seriousness.
"It's not real." Huang Shiyu felt baffled. She was the other person in the photo. How could she not know what their relationship was?
"Didn't you see they were arm in arm?" Xiang Zhinan frowned, disagreeing with her words, and muttered under his breath, "What kind of man and woman would do that?"
"Didn't you just say he'd had a crush on her for nine years?" Huang Shiyu reacted quickly and didn't fall for Xiang Zhinan's tricks at all. But today, she seemed to have inadvertently glimpsed the hurricane that the butterfly flapped its thin wings nine years ago, which had traveled through the universe and returned to her side. The note that she initially resisted had now crossed more than three thousand days and nights to get here.
She felt that what Li Xingzhou hadn't let go of wasn't his affection for her, but rather an obsession that had formed. Perhaps it was the last time they met, and the words she spoke that made this privileged young man like Li Xingzhou feel a unique sense of defeat in her presence.
Just as the song on stage reached its climax, the crowd erupted in enthusiastic cheers. Li Xingzhou's expression remained indifferent as he slowly swirled the liquor in his glass, occasionally taking a sip. The rest of the time, he simply stared at the liquor. Now, as if annoyed by the noise, he casually glanced at the stage, his gaze meeting Huang Shiyu's blatant stare.
Huang Shiyu looked at him frankly, picked up the soda water on the table, raised her glass to Li Xingzhou, and gestured to him in a toast.
The slightly sweet soda water and the bitter liquor collided in mid-air.
As the drumbeats played, she and Li Xingzhou stared intently at each other in the dim light of the bar, their eyes meeting with hesitant glances.
The two demonstrated a perfect sense of propriety.
Perhaps there was love at the beginning, but after the test of time, it has long been riddled with holes and left indelible marks. It's understandable that Li Xingzhou hates her, but the word "love" is too heavy for her, she thought to herself.
Xiang Zhinan noticed her toasting Li Xingzhou, and following her gaze, he also found her looking at Li Xingzhou. After thinking for a moment, he asked, "You don't happen to like Li Xingzhou, do you?"
"I like Li Xingzhou? What single, eligible bachelor wouldn't like him?"
What she said wasn't wrong. He had the backing of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Group and was also good-looking. Even with only the former condition, there would be plenty of people willing to throw themselves at him. However, Li Xingzhou, at his age, had not had a single scandal. Apart from his relationship with her, which is not worth mentioning, he hadn't been seen with any other women. Such a person was extremely rare and scarce in the financial world. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he was like a lotus rising from the mud, untainted by its surroundings.
Xiang Zhinan couldn't tell whether her words were a joke or her true feelings.
Huang Shiyu sometimes has that ability to make people unable to discern the hidden meaning in her words. It's not that she doesn't like to speak properly, but she's been tempered in the business world and often can't easily let those old foxes guess what you're thinking. Otherwise, no matter how many pairs of pants you're wearing today, they can strip you bare.
The business world is like a battlefield; this is not just a casual saying.
A few seconds later, Xiang Zhinan finally managed to stammer out, "It's not that kind of liking, I mean that kind of liking."
Huang Shiyu glanced at him sideways, "Whether I like him or not is none of your business."
"No, I'm just afraid you'll give your heart to the wrong person. I already told you that she has someone she likes, so don't disbelieve me." Xiang Zhinan thought she didn't believe her, so she hurriedly looked to Li Xingzhou next to her for confirmation, "Xingzhou, you two were a couple before, right?"
"How much did you drink?" Li Xingzhou glanced at the photo on the screen briefly before looking away, twirling the wine glass in his hand as if he wasn't interested in it at all.
“You didn’t drink much, tell me, isn’t that right?” Compared to Li Xingzhou’s calm demeanor, Xiang Zhinan was quite anxious.
Huang Shiyu leaned back on the sofa, and Xiang Zhinan happened to be standing to her right, lightly blocking her view.
In this blind spot, she noticed that after hearing Xiang Zhinan's words, Li Xingzhou paused in his hand, which was swirling the wine glass. After a few seconds, when he tried to swirl the glass again, his wrist seemed to have lost its strength. A few drops of brown liquor from the glass jumped onto the back of his hand, like a small brown mole, which looked even more shiny on his fair skin.
The icy liquid touched his skin, yet he felt it was burning hot. Despite its shockingly cold temperature, he felt as if a tinderbox had been lit over his body, burning him intensely.
Li Xingzhou was sitting sideways next to Xiang Zhinan. With a slight turn of his head, he could meet Huang Shiyu's eyes, whose view was blocked by Xiang Zhinan. Although they weren't close, Huang Shiyu felt that she could feel Li Xingzhou's breath coming towards her. At that moment, she felt a little itchy in her throat, perhaps because she was thirsty, she thought.
As soon as the singing on stage ended, the lights gradually dimmed, leaving only the dense linear lights overhead to support the illumination in that area.
Huang Shiyu felt that Li Xingzhou's gaze was brighter than the light above her head, like a flash, so bright that it was blinding and made her unable to look away. It was too dazzling, as if it was going to envelop her.
A crisp "snap" sounded on the table. Li Xingzhou put down the wine glass he had been toying with for a long time, raised his hand, and slowly circled it halfway in the air. His expression was serious, not at all like a drunken charade. He just kept dawdling like that, still showing no sign of stopping. He glanced at Huang Shiyu again, his finger just stopping at a certain point, and spoke in a low voice.
"Yes, the flowers in the bar are in bloom."
"Where?" Xiang Zhinan turned his head and looked in the direction Li Xingzhou pointed. One or two flowers had bloomed on the glass display case. They were pink and felt smooth. In the noisy atmosphere of the bar, they stood there quietly, well-behaved and undisturbed.
Huang Shiyu stared blankly at him. He raised his hand quickly and lowered it just as quickly, completing the action in an instant, as if afraid that the moment would be fleeting, and only touched him lightly.
There are always some people in the world who are stubborn and won't turn back even if they hit a wall. If such a person falls in love with someone, they will keep loving that person until they run out of love.
As Li Xingzhou withdrew his gaze, he glanced at Huang Shiyu, but the glance was fleeting, and Xiang Zhinan, who had turned his head, caught a glimpse of it.
Xiang Zhinan originally wanted to ask Li Xingzhou if he could take the flower back and keep it. It looked so lonely sitting alone in the bar. But then he seemed to have discovered something, and now he felt that he was the one who was lonely.
He took a sip of wine and found it even more bitter than the one he had just drunk. He sighed softly, "Hey, who's really suffering from this bitterness?"
Huang Shiyu couldn't quite describe the sore feeling in her chest. At that moment, she only knew that she felt uncomfortable. There was something restless in her heart, something that she couldn't tell if it was emotion or just a sour feeling. It was like a huge net trying to wrap her up tightly, and she felt like she couldn't breathe.
After a moment, Huang Shiyu said, "I'm going to the restroom."
She walked rather hastily, unlike her usual clean and efficient steps. Instead, she seemed tense, as if she were holding her breath, as if if she relaxed this tension, she would gradually dim like the light above her head.
Li Xingzhou simply sipped his wine, watching her departing figure in silence, lost in thought. He murmured in a low voice, "Coward."
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Author's Note: In a few more chapters, I'll be getting into the main storyline~
I took some time today to have dinner with a friend who owns a company. I had a lot of questions I could ask him.
Thank you again for watching. It's been a long wait for the serialization. I'll send out red envelopes (cash gifts) when this novel is finished. I'll figure out how to do it when I have time.
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