71 Chapter Seventy
◎Where are you going, taking advantage of my kindness!◎
The days are like fluffy cream on a cake; before anyone can taste them, they melt in their mouths and quietly slip into November.
Yu Renjie's protracted lawsuit has finally come to an end. With Zhang Zongxie's strong capital intervention, the previously somewhat bumpy communication process has become surprisingly smooth.
And Xiaohua City finally welcomed its first wave of visitors from Youxiaofan Street Dance's traffic pool.
Cold fronts came one after another, but they couldn't dispel the sweet romance emanating from a certain house. Unfortunately, the landlord and tenant had a huge fight today. They switched between English and Chinese, interspersed with some incomprehensible gibberish, but Yu Jinyang was certain they were cursing at him.
He chuckled, crossed his arms, leaned against the door, and looked at the self-righteous tenant with a smile. "So what do you mean? You're leaving already?"
"Yu Jinyang, are you kidding me?" Li Yingqiao said, as if facing a formidable enemy, on high alert. "Your dad's coming back to stay, and I'm not leaving?"
To be honest, I've never seen such a generational rival, and I haven't seen Li Yingqiao so combative in a long time.
Since returning, she has been much more at ease.
When you're with him, there's that confident ease that comes with having the upper hand.
The author portrays Zhang Zongxie as distant and obscure, while conveniently whitewashing the situation regarding Gao Dian, Taihe, and others.
Only just now, when he heard that his father wanted to move back in, did Li Yingqiao revert to his old, boisterous self.
He leaned against the door, looking at her without saying a word.
Li Yingqiao knew he wanted to confront his father directly, but he couldn't do it now.
They're about to collaborate on an intangible cultural heritage project. What if Brother Siyi can't separate public and private matters and refuses to cooperate with her?
Fengtan is known for its wooden toys. Although they have declined in recent years, if the wooden toy culture can be combined with the Little Painting City, the Little Painting City will be the iconic scenic spot of Fengtan for at least the next five years, and no other scenic spot can surpass it.
The Bureau of Culture and Tourism didn't mention it, but she had actually been trying to get Li Lianfeng to push things forward. However, she didn't expect Wang Wenxiang to interfere, so the other party changed course and let Yu Renjie take the lead.
Li Yingqiao wanted to coax him, but the words that came out of her mouth somehow turned into: "Whether I'm right or not, you should reflect on yourself."
Yu Jinyang was amused by her again. He leaned back against the door, banged his head against the wall, sighed deeply, and glanced at her with a mixture of anger and helplessness, saying, "Fine, fine, I really should reflect on myself."
Li Yingqiao dropped the clothes she was folding, went over to hug him, and kissed him.
He turned his face away, preventing her from touching him, and glared at her coldly: "Don't give me that. I told you, I refused. Living here isn't as convenient as my place. He won't come over. You still want to move out, right?"
"I'm afraid he'll suddenly come over."
"Didn't you expect him to suddenly show up before you moved in?"
"Didn't you say he got a prosthetic leg recently? He can walk now."
"...Come on, you're just bored. Li Yingqiao."
She was wronged, so wronged! Her heart was still burning with passion; she loved him most when he was at the peak of her love.
She forcefully turned his face towards her and pecked him on the lips. He didn't move, only coldly stared at her.
"You can't coax me anymore, huh?" My friend's patience was wearing thin lately due to the several projects she was working on, and she turned to leave.
He was pulled back and leaned against the door, and said in a muffled, reluctant voice, "...Okay."
Li Yingqiao burst out laughing for no reason and pinched his cheek, but he turned his head away.
"Is this considered good?"
Yu Jinyang glanced at her reluctantly, then grabbed her hand and rubbed it against his face, as if he was letting her do whatever she wanted to him.
"Is it okay?" he asked.
After thinking it over, Li Yingqiao decided not to move out.
After all, under the landlord's care, she was provided with three meals a day on time. Occasionally, when she was busy with a project and didn't have time to go back to eat, the landlord would pack the food and "run an errand" to deliver it to her office before going to the practice room to practice dancing.
For over a month, we haven't let her eat takeout or unhealthy instant noodles even once.
Occasionally, in the middle of the night, Li Yingqiao would crave instant noodles and snuggle in his arms, whimpering for some.
The landlord refused, so she buried her head in the warm chest and began to sing "Only Mother is Good in the World," saying that she missed Shuli.
The song goes like this: the landlord throws off the covers, gets out of bed, puts on her shoes, and stands on the edge of the bed, giving her a cold, speechless look as she says, "Your mouth is full of ulcers, and you still want to eat."
This is certainly not the fault of instant noodles.
"Who told you to keep kissing me like that?" She rolled around in bed wrapped in the blanket, shouting as she watched the man's retreating figure as he went downstairs.
Deep down, she felt he loved Qin more than she loved him. It's hard to say, but to be honest, Li Yingqiao didn't love Qin that much, especially after they got together. She always felt she had plenty of time and wasn't in a hurry for this moment of intimacy. She had been fully immersed in her work lately.
Yu Jinyang has been acting strangely lately, and it's unclear whether it's due to anxiety about the upcoming recording of the show or some other reason.
He kisses her all the time—at work, after get off work, before bed, and even after she wakes up.
Sometimes, I'd call someone over halfway through cooking, thinking they'd help me out, but instead, while washing vegetables, I'd pin them against the sink and give them a few half-hearted kisses.
But he was stubborn. Upon hearing Li Yingqiao's accusing tone, he retorted, "Fine, I won't kiss you anymore. I'm tired of kissing you."
Then, without looking back, he went downstairs to cook noodles for her.
Li Yingqiao rolled over lazily in bed, wrapped in his blanket, a smile unconsciously creeping onto his face. He was becoming more and more like his former self, as if he had returned to his childhood.
Listening to the clanging of pots and pans downstairs, she felt at ease, as if everything had returned to normal.
She went back to the way things were before, when she was outsmarting the adults in the little painting town, calculating accounts, while her mother cooked for her in the kitchen.
But this time, Yu Jinyang didn't walk past her door wearing headphones anymore; he was in the kitchen, and she was in his bedroom.
Under the landlord's diligent care, Li Yingqiao visibly gained six or seven pounds. Zheng Miaojia noticed, and Zhao Pingnan also noticed, saying meaningfully, "You look much better."
Even Li Shuli was surprised as she pinched her face. "Have you been less busy lately? If you're not so busy, move back here. You can still eat your mother's cooking and won't have to eat takeout every day."
Li Yingqiao laughed and said, "Mom, I haven't eaten takeout for over a month."
Li Shuli was applying essential oil to someone when she heard this and was taken aback. Half a bottle of essential oil had spilled onto the person's back, and she couldn't take it back. She could only rub it evenly on the person with a pained expression and said with feigned surprise, "You've learned to cook! That's amazing!"
The customers on the massage beds laughed: "Boss lady, maybe you're doing well, applying oil like it's free. Can I top up my card?"
"Okay, Xiao Meng, here's the card processing area." Li Yingqiao reacted faster than Li Shuli and immediately called Xiao Meng over to register the cardholder.
Li Shuli didn't speak, just looked at her. After the customer left, she silently smoked for a while at the entrance of the gua sha shop. Li Yingqiao stood to the side, still looking at her like she did when they were children. Li Shuli chuckled. Actually, she already guessed what had happened, and she also guessed who had been so hardworking in cooking for her. From childhood to adulthood, apart from that one person, there really had been no one else.
"I know, you two should get along well, Mom has no objection." Li Shuli flicked her cigarette ash and glanced at her daughter. "Actually, last winter, I slipped and fell in the snow when I was giving a home massage to someone in the neighborhood ahead. I happened to run into your Aunt Tang Xiang and Yu Jinyang. They had just had an accident at the beginning of the holiday and were in the hospital."
Li Yingqiao was taken aback and subconsciously looked at her feet. "When did this happen? Did you break your leg?"
"Hmm." Li Shuli took a drag of her cigarette and flicked it down. At that time, she was afraid that her daughter would worry in Beijing, so she didn't tell her. It just so happened that she had given Xiao Meng a holiday to go back to her hometown for the Chinese New Year. During the two weeks she was hospitalized, Yu Jinyang came to her ward to bring her food. The aunt in the next bed even thought he was her son.
Tang Xiang also told her, "When Jin Yang first went to university, he sent me a WeChat message in the middle of the night. He said he suddenly remembered Aunt Shuli in Fengtan and asked my dad and me to take good care of her. He said Li Yingqiao was busy in Beijing and couldn't take care of her too much."
Li Shuli didn't actually think Tang Xiang was exaggerating. Yu Jinyang was that kind of child. He was polite and considerate. Fengtan was very young, and they would occasionally bump into each other on the street. No matter how light or heavy her hands were, he would immediately think of taking them from her. But Li Shuli had never let him take anything. When Tang Xiang said that, she vaguely felt that the two children probably had some other entanglement, but she didn't say much about it, nor did she want to.
***
At the end of November, the dance variety show finally premiered, and Yu Jinyang was about to participate in the competition. The grandmothers in Xiaohuacheng launched a massive support campaign, leaving Yu Jinyang both amused and exasperated. He had even gone on strike and stopped going to square dancing because it was a bit embarrassing. Some kind soul commissioned a giant poster of him and hung it on the dock in Xiaohuacheng. Li Yingqiao and others could see Yu Jinyang fluttering in the wind on the dock even during meetings in the scenic area's office.
The grandmothers were very well-trained. Led by someone, they even had cheering slogans. Wearing orange vests issued by the Xiaohuacheng Street Committee's Environmental Sanitation Department, they formed a neat square formation at the dock, shouting slogans that shook the earth: "Jin Yang! Jin Yang! Set sail! Jin Yang! Jin Yang! King of the dance world!"
Wu Juan: "..."
Gaodian: "..."
Pan Xiaoliang: "..."
Miao Jia and Ping Nan: "..."
Li Yingqiao: "………………"
The children also have high hopes for this older brother, hoping that he can win the championship of this breaking competition. To bring good luck, they now call him Brother Yiju (meaning "One-Strike Brother").
Well, Yu Jinyang is a handsome guy, but most handsome guys either live their lives with the word "handsome" throughout, or with the word "miserable" throughout, or with the word "exhilarating" throughout. Yu Jinyang, however, lives a life of constant awkwardness. In middle school, he was kidnapped, and someone confessed their love to him at the back door of the classroom, only to have the girl rip off his necklace. He vaguely remembers the girl's name because her nickname, "Sister Arrogant," was so memorable. Or perhaps it was when someone read his father's guarantee aloud in public, and he was watched like a monkey for three years.
He thought that once his father got old and matured, he would be less embarrassed. Little did he expect—
His girlfriend started laughing as soon as she walked in the door after get off work, and she was still laughing even now that they were standing by the sink washing dishes.
Yu Jinyang glanced at her and saw her squat down laughing: "There's a gas leak, huh? Is it that funny?"
She laughed so hard she nearly fell over, squatting down and hugging his legs, banging her head against his chest repeatedly, saying, "Don't look at me... when you look at me, I think of that poster at the dock... which genius picked out that photo for you? Do you know how strong the wind is at the dock! One gust and your face stretches out! Gao Dian said, 'Where is this shameless girl going?! Hahahaha—'"
Yu Jinyang ignored her, finished washing the bowls and draining them one by one. He remembered what You Xiaofan had told him that afternoon: during the recording of the show, all the contestants would be in a closed-off hotel for a month. He was wondering what Li Yingqiao would eat for the next month after he left. He couldn't just eat takeout again.
Thinking of this, he scoffed at himself and coldly glanced at her, saying, "Li Yingqiao, you're finished. You'd better have a proper talk. You won't be able to talk to me like this again!"
[Author's Note]
I'm back!
For now, we'll temporarily resume the old update schedule, which is around 9:30 to 10:30.
See you Friday and Saturday!
This chapter includes red envelopes for everyone!! Thank you everyone!!!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
