68 Chapter Sixty-Seven
◎Yu Jinyang, are you starting to act like a troublemaker?◎
The post sparked heated discussion that evening. The previous long post explaining the feud between Yu and You was quickly deleted after Echo's sharp rebuttal. The comments section took a sharp turn, completely veerging from the topic—everyone was frantically discussing Yu's appearance and physique. Although he was doing a handstand and pulling at his shirt, quick-fingered netizens still managed to capture a screenshot of his lean, muscular back, causing the topic's popularity to skyrocket, with many saying they hadn't seen such a handsome guy in a long time.
However, this wasn't actually Li Yingqiao's doing. She knew who posted it; she was standing nearby watching them post. The original title seemed too weak, so she just helped change the title.
"Echo, is it?" Yu Jinyang could guess with his toes that the whole post had Long Dongqiang's Echo vibe. He was inexplicably noisy whether he was typing or talking, and it was too easy to recognize him.
Some commenters also pointed out: It's strange, this post looks so noisy.
Yu Jinyang put his phone face down on the bedside table, reached out and pulled her out of the blanket, gently pinched her cheek with his fingertips, then quickly withdrew them, looking at her with a hesitant expression.
Unexpectedly, Li Yingqiao grabbed his hand and pulled it back without saying a word. She held it against her face for a moment and said, "I know what you want to say."
"Um?"
"Are you trying to say that when you beat up You Xiaofan today, did it scare me? And then you think it's a bit redundant, afraid that I'll say, 'Yu Jinyang, you don't understand me at all.'"
He leaned against the headboard, his gaze calm and focused on her. His thumb unconsciously traced the delicate skin beneath her eyelids. His Adam's apple bobbed slightly; he seemed about to say something, but swallowed it back. After a long pause, he asked in a low voice, "Don't you have anything you want to ask me?"
“No. If you really want to ask,” Li Yingqiao tilted her head and thought seriously for a moment, then looked at him and said, “there’s one sentence.”
"What?"
"Do you miss us in Chicago?"
He didn't answer, he just looked at her quietly.
Li Yingqiao rubbed her face against his palm again and said firmly, "I can feel it, you miss me a lot."
He remained silent, his fingers tracing her face back and forth.
The first year was actually alright. He still had money in his pocket and didn't have to worry about tuition. As long as he had enough to eat and wear, there was nothing to complain about. At that time, all he had was a thirst for knowledge and he was single-mindedly focused on his studies. Then, his family's finances suddenly dried up. He went to an underground dance troupe to battle with people. One night, his knees were rubbed raw and his back was broken. He could only get about $50 in cash. At that time, the troupe leader wanted to introduce him to perform striptease for rich women, which would pay about $5,000 a night.
He refused. For team members who refused to compromise their principles for a living, the team leader resorted to various underhanded tactics: having their team uniforms cut up, demanding that they buy luxury team uniforms from the OEM factory at full price, and freezing them out if they didn't buy them, relocating their training grounds to other teams, and not being able to have a battle for four or five days. If they lost a battle, they might have their blood drawn and sold to illegal clinics.
You can terminate the contract, but you'll suffer greatly, and even if you leave, the leaders of other groups aren't exactly clean either. Yu Jinyang and several other Asian members of the team were ostracized, and they could only compete for space with homeless people and stray dogs in a nearby tin-roofed factory, making the most of free public time to practice their group dance for the day's performance.
When they leave, they leave hamburgers and hot dogs for the homeless. Over time, the homeless, whose senses have been numbed by cheap vodka, will start to keep time with their footsteps and tap their feet in rhythm. The stray dogs will even guard their door. Whenever a VAC patrol comes, they'll immediately bark at them.
Because if you are caught by the VAC, they will repeatedly shine a flashlight into your pupils to check for drug use, and they will also check everyone's identity. They may even have to notify the school, which will affect your visa, so it's very troublesome.
As soon as they heard the whistle of a stray dog, the group of them would rush to the drafty subway station, braving the strong winds at four in the morning.
So he didn't think much about it that year. He couldn't sleep or eat properly, and his body and mind were almost exhausted to the extreme. All he thought about when he opened his eyes was how to survive, until he finally graduated and no longer had to worry about tuition fees. He left the dance troupe and finally started looking for a job seriously. After gaining some experience, he was almost a long-time resident in Chicago. He started to wonder how Li Yingqiao had been doing these past few years. Surely she couldn't have had it worse than him.
He couldn't say any of this aloud, so he could only ask in a low voice, "And you? Have you missed me these past few years?"
Li Yingqiao sighed softly: "To say I miss it is more like I miss it. I miss the carefree days of my childhood. If I said something wrong or broke a bowl, no one would blame me. The biggest thing was getting my new white shoes dirty and worrying about being nagged by my mother."
"That's good," he said.
"Hmm?" Li Yingqiao immediately raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? What do you mean by 'that's good'?"
Yu Jinyang ripped off his T-shirt, slid down, and lay down with his back to her: "It means exactly what it says, anyway, you never thought about me."
Li Yingqiao gripped his shoulders, trying to pull him back: "Yu Jinyang, don't sleep."
He didn't move an inch, and simply pulled the blanket over his head, not letting her touch him at all. His cold voice came muffledly from under the blanket: "No, I'm really tired today."
...
The next second, the blanket was suddenly pulled off, and Yu Jinyang jumped off the bed: "Li Yingqiao, where are you touching me!"
He was shirtless, but dressed neatly on his lower body, with pajama pants that perfectly accentuated his long, slender legs. He stood guard by the bed with a grim expression.
She blinked innocently, "Wearing pants to sleep? You might as well sleep on the sofa. We've been sleeping together for days, why are you still being so formal? See how honest I am?"
Yu Jinyang felt he couldn't reason with her at this moment, so he grabbed a pillow and prepared to go to the living room. Li Yingqiao quickly grabbed him and pressed him down.
"what?"
"You can leave, but you can't take my bedding with you."
Okay, okay, that childhood energy is back. Actually, this is more like them. The way they were all lovey-dovey a few days ago almost made him forget Li Yingqiao's inherently reckless and impulsive nature. In fact, when they were together before, they argued and bickered far more than they got along peacefully. Since their reunion, they seem to have silently reached a consensus: they can't step on each other's landmines and must carefully maintain this relationship. Even on the night they officially became a couple, their expressions were still very reserved.
Only now did Yu Jinyang regain the feeling of being a child; this was the real Li Yingqiao. He felt a little guilty, but suddenly realized this was more like it, so he stubbornly walked out, deciding to sleep on the sofa if he wanted.
The next day, the two woke up together on the sofa. Li Yingqiao was being held in someone's arms, and before she was fully awake, she instinctively snuggled closer to the other person's chest, then buried her face in it and pinched his ear for a while.
Yu Jinyang was woken up, buried his face in the pillow and laughed. He hugged her tighter and warned her in a seemingly fierce but actually menacing tone, "What are you doing? Li Yingqiao, it's so itchy."
Li Yingqiao was fully awake, and tilted her head up to kiss him on the cheek: "Good morning."
He lowered his head and kissed her eyes, kissing them repeatedly before whispering, "Good morning. Are you going home today?"
Li Yingqiao nodded sullenly: "I have to go back. I have a ton of work to do next."
Yu Jinyang rubbed his chin against the top of her head and suddenly uttered, "Tremble, Li Yingqiao!"
Bang bang, two punches.
He was punched hard in the chest, and he felt a surge of pleasure, but it really hurt. Yu Jinyang groaned unexpectedly, the force less than before. Perhaps it was because the area of impact was larger, but it was a pleasurable throbbing pain. The next second, he suddenly rolled over and pinned the other person down.
"Li Yingqiao, you've murdered your husband? It seems you're opting for nonviolent non-cooperation. Hmm?"
Li Yingqiao laughed as she dodged left and right, her hair unknowingly becoming disheveled from being kissed.
Yu Jinyang kissed her forehead, then the top of her head, then moved to the tip of her nose, her earlobes, her neck... He kissed every exposed part of her body thoroughly. Li Yingqiao was so ticklish that she kept trying to dodge, but he kept kissing her haphazardly and deliberately, saying, "Why are you dodging? Don't dodge."
After the two got up and were driving back to Fengtan, Li Yingqiao, sitting in the passenger seat, suddenly received a call from You Xiaofan, instantly waking her up. The caller asked her where Xiaohua City was and if she had a project proposal, asking her to send it over.
Li Yingqiao glanced at Yu Jinyang, who was driving, and immediately understood what the other person meant. After a brief chat, Li Yingqiao hung up the phone, turned to look at someone, and said with barely suppressed excitement, "You Xiaofan said he's coming to see the scenery next week."
"Tremble, Little Painting City." Yu Jinyang drove on without looking to the side, repeating the same phrase.
"Are you never going to stop?" Li Yingqiao glanced at him coldly. "It's only been a few days, the honeymoon phase is over, isn't it? Yu Jinyang, are you starting to act like a troublemaker?"
Zhao Pingnan said that's how it is when acquaintances fall in love; the honeymoon phase lasts at most three days, and you can't expect too much.
Li Yingqiao didn't realize it; she was completely absorbed. As the car drove along, the scenery outside the window gradually became familiar. The tall buildings on both sides of the road were gradually replaced by golden wheat fields and low-rise buildings. The wider the view, the tighter her heart felt, until they finally entered the Fengtan toll station. Yu Jinyang had been driving all the way, but he didn't seem tired at all. He asked her if she wanted to get some late-night snacks.
Li Yingqiao said no, but before getting out of the car to get her luggage, she leaned in for a kiss. He turned his head away to avoid it, got out of the car to get her luggage from the trunk, and pushed it in front of her, acting like a attentive driver: "No. You dodged when I kissed you this morning, and now you're pretending to be so reluctant to part?"
She took the suitcase, her face expressionless, her eyes sincere yet bright as she looked at him under the moonlight and said, "Aren't you angry that I didn't ask about Sister You Xiaofan?"
"So why didn't you ask?" He slammed the trunk shut with a loud bang.
"I believe you. And I'm not really interested. Just like Wu Juan likes you, I wouldn't ask. What's the point? You've said it yourself, you've only liked me for the past ten years."
"Did I say that?" He denied it.
Li Yingqiao delivered two more powerful punches.
Yu Jinyang groaned in pain, but couldn't help laughing out loud. Then, like the sizzling sound of barbecue grilling over charcoal, two rapid-fire sentences burst forth:
"Mmm, mmm ...
Li Yingqiao looked at him without speaking, but the words Echo had said to her when she posted yesterday echoed in her mind—
"What? It's no coincidence. He's been coming here every day these past few days, but he didn't participate in the first few days. I don't know what he's up to. Anyway, he called me before to ask about You Xiaofan's whereabouts. I don't know anything else, but I do know that You Xiaofan often comes to this battle arena."
Echo might not know why he did all this, but how could she not know? He sacrificed himself for Little Painting City, so what did these things have to do with him?
Li Yingqiao had actually wanted to say something to him all day, but she didn't know where to begin, and saying thank you felt strange. So, she tiptoed, and right there in the small painting town, where the cobblestone streets still held the warmth of the day, where the river flowed as smooth as silk, in the place they knew best and where they were most likely to run into someone they knew, she looked up and kissed him without hesitation.
She thought that if she was going to be seen, then so be it; she might as well just tear a hole in the sky.
Yu Jinyang subconsciously grabbed the back of her head, but the next second he realized that they were in a public place and wanted to push her away, but he didn't dare to use force. Someone took the opportunity to stick his tongue in, but he was thoroughly groped. He could only mumble a warning to her, "Li Yingqiao, this is not the provincial capital, this is Xiaohua City. Are you out of your mind?"
Li Yingqiao simply ignored everything and wrapped her arms around his waist.
Until someone honked the horn twice.
Li Yingqiao turned around in the blinding car lights, trying to see who this rude guy was. Before she could react, the back of her head was grabbed and pressed back, deepening the heart-stopping kiss. This time, Yu Jinyang wouldn't listen to anything she said.
[Author's Note]
(The author poundes the ground in frustration) Man proposes, God disposes; I planned and planned a thousand times, but I never expected my period to come a week early. Waaah! I'll temporarily resume every other day for now. See you Saturday.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
