39 Chapter Thirty-Eight
◎Have you had enough fun? ◎
"Is it my fault?" Li Yingqiao said. "Why did you turn off the engine? Isn't this just automatic start-stop? Do you think I've never driven a car before? Yu Jinyang, you've gone astray outside."
Yu Jinyang leaned back, put his hand on the steering wheel, restarted the car, nodded, smiled again, and said, "My fault, my fault."
After saying that, the two looked at each other and then suddenly laughed at the same time. When the red light turned green, Yu Jinyang stopped laughing, drove the car onto the road, and looked ahead again, asking, "So... why?"
"Why what?" Li Yingqiao asked, looking at him.
He turned his head, seemingly looking at the rearview mirror or at her, and repeated vaguely, "What did you say? Why?"
Li Yingqiao suddenly laughed, "Meow, you wouldn't..."
"What?" He subconsciously met her gaze, then immediately understood, turned back, and said without any emotion, "...Nothing."
He had actually discussed this with Zhong Su in Chicago, but he didn't mention the perpetrator's name. Zhong Su analyzed that the girl's behavior might indicate avoidant attachment style. She withdraws as soon as she gets a response. Kissing and running away—this behavior is quite consistent with the psychology of this type of person.
Sure enough, as soon as he finished speaking, a hint of interest inexplicably appeared in her eyes. Li Yingqiao even leaned her head against the car window to look at him, looking up at him with great interest and curiosity, and asked, "So what else do you want to ask now?"
"I'm curious. Can't I just get an explanation?" he persisted.
"Then why didn't you ask me for it back then?" she said casually.
"Didn't you block me?"
Li Yingqiao turned her head: "I'm asking why you didn't send me any messages that night."
Yu Jinyang didn't say anything more. He silently drove the car to the entrance of his father's hotel, got out of the car, took a bottle of red wine from the trunk, and casually stuffed it into Li Yingqiao's arms: "Give this to Uncle Zhang later, but he has high cholesterol these past two years, so don't urge him to have too much."
Li Yingqiao picked up the long neck of the bottle and glanced at it. It was a Pinot Noir, produced in Les Suchots. Wow, a top-tier Premier Cru vineyard.
"Then shouldn't I give him a bluefin bream?" she said with a smile. "Consider it a debt I owe you. I'll transfer the money to you later."
Few of the older generation in Fengtan enjoy sashimi, with Zhang Chong being an exception. For example, Li Shuli and Liang Mei would jump at the sight of sashimi, wishing they could stew it all in one pot. Tang Xiang, however, loved it. Yu Renjie, during their high school years, would often have sea urchin and salmon sashimi flown in by air. Li Yingqiao tried it once and couldn't get enough. Oh, and there's Zhu Xiaoliang. He was the originator of eating raw sashimi.
"No need." Yu Jinyang closed the trunk door. "I asked the Western chef, and he said that seafood can't be delivered recently."
After speaking, he slowly leaned back against the trunk door, looking down at her with a gentle expression. After a while, he sighed almost imperceptibly, put his hands in his pockets, and still answered her question from the car: "Do you remember when we went to the countryside to find Fang Yue after checking our scores? Gao Dian told me when he came back that you thought I was too short and didn't even like me. And then you... like this. I just wanted to give you two days to calm down before we talk."
She did indeed block him after calming down, and two days later he messaged her: "Want to chat?"
An exclamation mark popped up on the other end. Yu Jinyang was momentarily bewildered. His first reaction was to sniff his palm – did he have bad breath? Why did he block him after the kiss?
"So...did I make you uncomfortable back then?"
He leaned on it, speaking in a formulaic tone, as if asking about after-sales service, even though the warranty had long expired.
In truth, he was completely stunned at that moment. When her lips touched his, his mind went blank, and an unknown flame suddenly ignited within him. His brain was crackling and burning like embers, making it impossible to think. Many of his actions were subconscious. For example, when Li Yingqiao stood on tiptoe and cupped his face in her hands, he instinctively pulled her up by the waist to help her lose her balance, and so their two young, passionate bodies naturally pressed together seamlessly.
That night, Yu Jinyang tossed and turned, wondering if he had offended her. Even though she had only kissed him, it was still very impolite to immediately salute her. Especially since Li Yingqiao was such a strong-willed person; it was understandable that she would block him. A few years ago, when he was still quite naive about relationships, that's what he thought, so he didn't dare to contact her again, afraid that she would think he was being offended by succumbing to physical desires, and afraid that Li Yingqiao would look down on him even more.
Now that he's finally seen the light, he realizes how ridiculous his past thoughts were. So now he can more openly ask, "Did I make you uncomfortable? If so, I apologize. If not, then why did you block me?" He wants to offer a valid defense for this budding, unrequited love.
Li Yingqiao held the red wine in her arms, tilted her head and looked at his serious expression for a while, and said frankly, "...No. Actually, I didn't feel anything at all. I even suspected that you were impotent."
Yu Jinyang was clearly stunned, his ears instantly turning red, like the red cinnabar on a wolf-hair brush, spreading in an instant. He slowly straightened up, locked the car, and walked with her into the hotel, laughing helplessly: "Li Yingqiao, ...just because of this? You knew this back then?"
"I don't really understand," Li Yingqiao laughed, clutching the bottle of wine. Then she walked quickly ahead of him, backing away as she spoke, "But I've read a lot of novels and watched a lot of anime. Well, I can't explain it to you. I was a bit impulsive back then. I waited all night and you didn't message me. The next day, when I was withdrawing money at the bank, I ran into your dad coming out of the VIP room. He was being sarcastic, so I blocked you when I got home."
"What did he say?"
"He asked me how many numbers were ahead of me, and I said around forty, and it would be my turn soon. He said, 'Kid, is your time so worthless? You've been queuing all afternoon just to withdraw some money? Isn't there an ATM over there?' I said I had other business to attend to. He said, 'You can't just sit here and wait. You can ask me, and I'll get you a VIP number.' I said, 'No need, thank you.'"
In the past, Li Yingqiao would have actually pounced on Yu Renjie and asked him to let her use the gold card. But having just forcibly kissed his son, she suddenly couldn't bring herself to do it, and she couldn't even be obsequious to Yu Renjie anymore. Yu Renjie noticed her awkwardness and half-jokingly said, "What's wrong, little rascal? Why are you suddenly so serious? Did you and A-Yang do something naughty?"
Li Yingqiao's heart was pounding. She thought, "He wouldn't know, would he? Yu Jinyang is the kind of person who can't keep a secret even if he farts. He might actually tell everyone when he gets back." After all, he had always told Aunt Tang everything since he was a child.
She could only observe Yu Renjie's expression while forcing a smile: "No, how could that be?"
“That would be best,” Yu Renjie said meaningfully as he got up and used his own card to get her a new VIP number. “Go ahead, remember this favor from your uncle. When you’re old, remember to push your uncle’s wheelchair. Don’t repay kindness with enmity.”
It's no wonder Li Yingqiao had such wild thoughts. Back then, she had inadvertently saved Xiao Gaodian from being kidnapped by human traffickers. Gao Dian's grandparents, clinging to outdated feudal ideas, insisted that Gao Dian's parents come to their home to propose marriage, as a way of repaying Li Yingqiao's kindness. She remembered that Ms. Li Shuli had turned and rushed into the kitchen without a word, grabbing a gleaming cleaver and chasing after them, accusing them of repaying kindness with enmity, making the whole town of Xiaohua Town know about it.
Whether Yu Renjie was joking or not, at that sensitive and strong-willed age, Li Yingqiao naturally felt that Uncle Yu's words had a hidden meaning, even though she had done better than Yu Jinyang and everyone else in Xiaohua City on her college entrance exam. Uncle Yu still looked down on her and couldn't see her objectively. Li Yingqiao was never one to fawn over someone who wouldn't listen. In this world, she would only unconditionally obey Ms. Li Shuli; no one else would receive such preferential treatment, not even Yu Jinyang. Therefore, she nipped that budding affection in the bud.
“I didn’t tell them about that.” Yu Jinyang sat down in the private room on the top floor and, before Uncle Zhang came in, squeezed in another explanation, “Not a single word.”
Just as Li Yingqiao was about to speak, Zhang Chong pushed the door open and entered. He had followed Yu Renjie for many years, serving him for over twenty years. Now, the two of them were becoming more and more alike in temperament, and their accents were exactly the same: "You two have been together as soon as you got back."
"No, I asked Yu Jinyang to contact you for me." Li Yingqiao immediately distanced herself from the situation, picked up the red wine next to her, and handed it over, "Uncle, here, your favorite Pinot Noir."
"It's kind of you to remember what I like to drink after all these years," Zhang Chong said with a smile, his face crinkling with wrinkles. He glanced at Yu Jinyang but didn't offer him the wine. "I appreciate the thought. I won't drink tonight. I have to go back to the city later to handle some company business for Mr. Yu. Let's get straight to the point. Ah Yang told me roughly that you want to develop a scenic area, and I absolutely support you. However, the cultural tourism industry has become saturated in the last two years. There are many similar ancient towns within a 200-300 kilometer radius of Xiaohua City, and their annual visitor numbers are generally low. Have you thought about how to differentiate your positioning?"
At this point, Li Yingqiao immediately perked up: "The Ape Man Conference is our first IP, I think. I think the first video went well, but the traffic pool is still not big enough. We will continue to develop scripts for various videos." Changing the subject, she added, "Uncle, are you interested in becoming an ape? Meow has already been one."
"Thanks. No, not at the moment," Zhang Chong politely declined. "Anything else?"
"On the one hand, once the videos of the Ape Man Conference receive a certain response, we might collaborate with travel agencies to offer a low-priced tour of the Ape Man Conference. On the other hand, this is what I'm thinking of doing with you to create a high-end tourism route. You can provide me with a hotel agreement rate, and I'll have someone go back and develop a high-end tourism plan, such as a parent-child study tour. Next week, I'll be doing digital integration with the people at T factory, and we might be digitizing the Little Painting City, connecting it to more AI guides and digital portals. The scenic area hasn't been upgraded yet, making it more suitable for the Ape Man Conference theme. High-end study tour visitors can also interact with the apes while learning. I'm still exploring, and there are many ideas that need to be implemented one by one before we can determine whether they can be put into practice."
“Take your time. Just send me the finalized plan later,” Zhang Chong nodded repeatedly, picked up a couple of bites of food, and said, “Ah Yang said you’ve only been back a few days, but you’re already very efficient. Where did you work in Beijing before?”
“A Convey trip,” she said truthfully.
Yu Jinyang glanced at her as well. Zhang Chong was somewhat surprised, put down his chopsticks, and said, "It seems you don't know either."
Yu Jinyang hummed in agreement: "I don't know, we haven't been in contact for many years."
Zhang Chong nodded and said, "That was a big factory, why did you stop working there?"
Li Yingqiao lowered her head, picked up a piece of food with her chopsticks, chewed it slowly for a while, and said succinctly, "The marketing strategies and concepts are not quite compatible."
Zhang Chong asked, "What position have you reached? Which business unit?"
“Brand PR department,” Li Yingqiao countered, “Uncle Zhang seems to know a lot about Convey?”
Zhang Chong smiled and said, "We and OTAs are in the upstream and downstream of the ecosystem. Convey is at the top, and we have a deep cooperation. But I know your VP of Marketing, Zhang Zongxie. He's practically a native of Fengtan. He studied at Tanzhong High School before, so you should remember him. I remember he donated scholarships to your school every year. Did he hire a CMO this year?"
Li Yingqiao's chopsticks froze in mid-air as she suddenly realized, "You and President Zhang...you two aren't related, are you?"
"Not really, just a relative. Back then, President Yu sponsored him, but it was a good thing he supported him. He went from management trainee to CMO in just seven years."
Li Yingqiao didn't respond, but turned to look at Yu Jinyang, who was silent. The latter didn't even look up, and was concentrating on gnawing on his fish bones. There was a whole fish skeleton on the plate in front of him. Just like a cat, he could eat fish without the bones.
"What were you doing in Chicago a few years ago?" she suddenly asked.
"Making mechanical watches."
"What position have you reached?" she asked, mimicking his tone. Zhang Chong had always thought she was the hardest to fool and quite vengeful.
Yu Jinyang finally stopped fiddling with the fish skeleton and laughed at himself: "You haven't cared about what I was doing in Chicago since you came back. Uncle Zhang questioned you, so you're here to interrogate me, right? You're so vengeful. How can I put it? I spent five years and still haven't figured out the movement of a watch."
"Ha, so bad?" Li Yingqiao said.
Zhang Chong laughed and said, "He was just kidding you. He was originally going to go back to China at that time. The brand was about to set up a customization center in China. He could have come back to be in charge of the brand strategy in China, but the original Chicago guy got married in China and refused to go back no matter what. He could only develop in the Americas."
"Wow, you're pretty impressive." Li Yingqiao was immediately impressed. "Are you planning to start your own brand now?"
He leaned back and chuckled, "Aren't I playing the ape-man in your scenic area?"
"Seriously."
“That’s what I was thinking,” he said, bowing his head again and sweeping up the remaining dishes on the table. “But Brother Siyi said that as long as I don’t start a business, the money left at home will be enough for me and Ice Cream to live on for a while.”
Zhang Chong echoed this sentiment: "Indeed, this five-star hotel may look grand and impressive, but it doesn't earn much. There's also a toy company that's been losing money every year, constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul these past few years. Ah Yang had better not have any dreams."
After finishing their meal, Zhang Chong left early. Yu Jinyang drove Li Yingqiao back to the entrance of Xiaohua City. As Li Yingqiao got out of the car, she suddenly turned around and looked at him, saying, "Meow, I remember you once told me what you wanted to do when you got old?"
He couldn't remember; it was just a casual remark about a dream he had made in elementary school.
"I want to be a dad." She slapped her forehead, remembering.
"I haven't thought about it. Don't impose Brother Siyi's dreams on me." He was speechless.
“Isn’t that right?” Li Yingqiao said. “Never mind, I still support you in having dreams.”
"How can we provide support, by contributing money or effort?"
"I don't have any money, but I do know a set of the Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms." After saying that, she suddenly attacked with her palm, striking his abdomen from a distance. She also spread her palms out in front of him and practiced her internal energy a couple of times. Back in high school, she was obsessed with Jin Yong's martial arts novels and actually studied the Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms for almost half a month. When she was doing her homework, she would occasionally give him a couple of blows.
"Ugh." He groaned and then laughed so hard he fell against the car door.
Yu Jinyang, a popping enthusiast, could practically control all his muscles, moving them with remarkable naturalness and fluidity, perfectly complementing her occasional movements and playful bursts of energy. She pushed him with her palm again from a distance, and his abdomen jerked backward once more. Li Yingqiao was slightly surprised by his effortless core control; he was even more cooperative than before. Back in high school, he had found her childish and sometimes played along rather perfunctorily.
So she pushed him further forward with her palm. He didn't back down. Her hand gesture was out of control, and her palm aggressively pressed against his taut abdominal muscles. The warmth of her thick skin slowly seeped through his T-shirt, and her fingertips could even feel the subtle undulations of his muscles.
Li Yingqiao's hand was held by him. She subconsciously looked up, her wrist and palm absorbing his warmth. He really had nowhere to retreat. He was already pressed tightly against the door, holding her hand so she couldn't touch it anymore. He asked her in a very indifferent tone, "Have you had enough fun?"
[Author's Note]
I'll update early today. See you tomorrow, and here are two hundred red envelopes.
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