Chapter 89
She wanted to go back to Beijing to help Miss Salmon fight, and he had no objection.
From the day she picked him up and ran away without saying a word in Crazy Harbor, Yu Jinyang knew that her protective instincts had always been excessive, whether towards boys or girls.
Zhang Zongxie said that Li Yingqiao was like a knight who had just protected him, the young master, and was now going back to save his princess.
As they said this, the four were about to part ways. The two men stood by the curb, watching the two women chatting animatedly against the riverbank railing not far away. Lilith was showing Li Yingqiao the ring her boyfriend had given her.
The river was pitch black, and the distant mountain shadows, like a collapsing building, leaned obliquely onto the water, making the night eerie and sinister.
Their spirits remained high, their laughter rising and falling, occasionally interspersed with a few lines of song. Clearly, they were both excited about their upcoming reunion and battle.
One moment he'd start singing off-key and in a high-pitched voice: "Dou Erdun with the blue face, stealing the imperial horse!"
After finishing the song, I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. Then I changed the subject and started humming a different tune—
“I see it I like it I want it Igot it
(I saw it, I liked it, I wanted it, and I got it.)
wearing a ring but ain't gon'be no misses…”
(Wearing a ring, but not becoming anyone's wife)
Upon hearing the pitch and pronunciation, Yu Jinyang burst out laughing. He realized that she must have put a lot of effort into singing over the past few years; she was born refusing to accept her fate, occasionally giving up but always launching a desperate counterattack.
It's like she got immune to the hype during her senior year of high school; she reverted to her old ways and started lazily reading comics again. While reading, she would imitate others and hum little tunes in a high-pitched voice, almost at the same level as in elementary school, which was pure noise abuse.
Driven by his teenage hormones, he spoke quite bluntly: "Stop arguing, it sounds awful. Li Yingqiao, silence is golden for you."
Silence is golden, as they say. Of course, he couldn't escape a brutal beating on the back of his head.
Without a word, she punched him twice. She practically grabbed him by the collar of his school uniform, pulling him close to her. The two were inches apart, her warm, clear scent of a young girl spraying against his cheek. His gaze involuntarily drifted to her lips, but she just stared fiercely into his eyes. It was clear she genuinely wanted to beat him up.
But he wanted to kiss her.
That was the first time he had clearly heard his own heart pounding wildly.
Knock knock—
Thump thump thump—
An unprecedented, deafening roar.
It felt as if he had caught a little sparrow and locked it in his heart. It was a cold sparrow that longed for freedom, fluttering restlessly in his heart day after day, scratching at the door of his heart with its claws, and fiercely pounding at it, trying to break free of the cage.
Every heartbeat was her declaration of war.
It turns out that what excites a young person is catching a bird that he knows he can't cage.
Because he knew that her world and battlefield were never with him.
This was a side of Li Yingqiao he had never seen before, but Zhang Zongxie, smoking a cigarette, said it was nothing out of the ordinary. This was how they had been doing for the past few years, and this was a celebration ceremony they held every time they won a project.
This song, "7 Rings," is their battle anthem.
After Lilith finished speaking, Yu Jinyang noticed a spark of light that he had never seen before suddenly ignite in her eyes.
Along the way, the two chatted idly about this and that, but didn't mention the matter from earlier at all, though he was well aware of her choice.
As soon as they entered the house, the two of them barely took off their clothes. They stripped naked and kissed and pushed each other as they went upstairs. He didn't know when she decided to leave. For the rest of the time, he would probably remind her every day, "I don't care about these things, but you have to eat well and sleep well."
In the bathroom, water droplets slid down the tiled wall. He pressed himself against her back without making a sound, bracing himself against the wall with one hand. Water trickled down his knuckles, and he slowly planted himself inside her.
In the misty, hazy night, the garden was heavy with dew. The grass held its head high, leaving a trail of damp marks along the dark, mysterious path.
Someone gasped softly, tilting their head back and panting, while their fingers gripped his neck tightly, trying to pull him closer.
He refused, continuing his actions while looking down at her.
She also began to grit her teeth and endure it; apart from the sticky sound of water, nothing else could be heard in the bathroom.
He was like planting a rare tree in a garden in a storm, slowly and carefully moistening her soil, his movements large and his gaze fixed on her silently and for a long time, carefully discerning every moment of her life.
Yu Jinyang is a self-disciplined and courteous person who has been serious about everything he has done since childhood. He is serious in class, serious when doing tests, serious when playing games, serious when eating, and of course, serious when planting trees.
Aside from the occasional teasing during his senior year of high school when hormones got the better of him, he was mostly silent and restrained. Even on these occasions, he would usually just use a few meaningful "hmm?" to accompany his actions and let her understand on her own.
But tonight, amidst the scattered patter of rain, Yu Jinyang's eyes grew increasingly dark, and he spoke more than usual.
She thought he would never say such things in his life—
"Who do you want? Me? Hmm? How am I supposed to know if you don't tell me?"
"who I am?"
"Call me by my name."
"If we don't call it that, there's no fun in it."
The man withdrew his arm from the tiled wall, as if to back away, but a sudden blast of cold air made her shiver. She was quickly pulled back into that warm, damp embrace.
"Say it again."
She tilted her head back and whispered something in his ear, in English.
Ever since she got a boyfriend who gets jealous even of her English name, Li Yingqiao's aversion to English has become even stronger than when she was in school.
However, Yu Jinyang's eyes darkened even more after hearing this, and he slammed the object twice.
He's a hypocrite, always been like this since he was little.
He braced himself against the wall, still deeply buried in the damp soil, but didn't move. He forcefully turned her face and lowered his head to kiss her deeply, swallowing all her moans.
"It is I who longs for you endlessly."
(It is my endless longing for you)
In a daze, Li Yingqiao suddenly remembered that when Liang Mei's fish fry project was first established in junior high school, she suddenly became serious about her studies and made great strides in mathematics, but her English was a constant hindrance and she kept making mistakes.
Yu Jinyang was often furious with her battered English test papers, but she didn't care and emphasized that she was a tough Chinese and really didn't want to learn foreign languages.
Unfortunately, she truly had no inspiration for English, and even came up with a set of fallacies: "Meow, people like us have a more specialized brain structure, we can only love one person in our lives, and we can only learn one native language."
Back then, no one could persuade Li Yingqiao. Liang Mei spent half a year trying to get her to study, and it took her a long time to pull this stubborn mule back onto the right path.
Yu Jinyang couldn't beat her in a fight, and he got furious. He slapped the test paper on her face and coldly emphasized to her countless times: "It is/was + the emphasized part + who + the rest of the sentence. This sentence structure emphasizes the subject! If you don't understand, copy it a hundred times."
Li Yingqiao didn't copy it later, of course, but if Yu Jinyang were to say "boomerang" a hundred times now, he would really know how to say it, and she would be the one to suffer, because he wouldn't stop talking.
"That's enough, Yu Jinyang, my legs are sore."
He quickly stopped, habitually lowered his head and kissed her forehead, indicating that the day was over.
Almost every time, she skillfully closed her eyes, her eyelashes, glistening with water droplets, trembling slightly, waiting for him to place that long, tender kiss on her forehead.
In fact, this kiss moved her more than any other intimate kiss.
However, that night, she finally understood where Yu Jinyang got the inspiration for his signature forehead kiss: back in her senior year of high school, she would steal a moment from her busy schedule to solemnly lift up the book after finishing each Conan comic book, and then give the cover a big kiss to show her respect for the book.
"Huh? Who would have thought that besides the bullet that hit him right between the eyebrows when he was young, there was also a kiss from when he was young."
"What can I say?" Yu Jinyang laughed so hard he could barely stand. He leaned against the wall for a while. Li Yingqiao saw that he was still standing. Their eyes met, and she laughed mischievously. Yu Jinyang actually guessed what she wanted to do, quickly hung the shower head back up, and turned her around without saying a word.
"Li Yingqiao, it's three in the morning, you should go to sleep."
“No,” she couldn’t help teasing him, “I’m full of strength right now, I could uproot a willow tree.”
“Okay, I’m not questioning you,” Yu Jinyang said dismissively above her head, “but Comrade Lu Zhishen also needs to go to sleep at three o’clock.”
She really didn't hold back when she started hitting him. He was still the same old tank; even the hardest part of his head couldn't withstand a few slaps from her, let alone the most vulnerable parts of his body. He had already learned his lesson after that last night.
After they obediently covered her with the blanket, Li Yingqiao buried her head in the pillow and complained, "Comrade Weeping Willow, you don't love me anymore, you actually rejected me."
“Comrade Li Zhishen,” Yu Jinyang wanted to roll his eyes, “you know very well whether I love you or not. Now close your eyes and start counting sheep.”
“Okay.” She obediently closed her eyes. “One Yujin sheep, two Yujin sheep, three Yujin sheep… that’s how I count them in Beijing,” she added.
Yu Jinyang never learns his lesson. After making one mistake, he obediently waits to make another. Li Yingqiao always knows how to soften his heart.
The sound of running water from the bathroom started again.
Do you want to?
"Beg me, Yu Jinyang."
He didn't beg, he was very stubborn, groaning repeatedly, but he gritted his teeth and endured it. He even changed the subject, saying, "wearing a ring but ain't gon'be no misses. You and Lilith have no misses? At least Lilith is wearing a ring. You're even worse, you don't even wear a ring."
***
Two days later, Zhang Zongxie and Lilith finally set off back to Beijing, but Li Yingqiao did not go with them.
She decided to return to Beijing to meet Miss Salmon after the New Year's Day carnival at the Little Painting City was over.
Zhang Zongxie was wearing a waist brace and was worried about turbulence on the plane, so Lilith thoughtfully booked him a business class seat on the high-speed rail. On the day they set off for Fengtan Railway Station, neither of them expected that so many people would come to see them off. Some of them even arrived at the station ten minutes earlier than them.
Lilith was deeply moved to see such a popular boss for the first time. She immediately took out her phone to capture the spectacular scene. "Boss, sorry, this is such a rare sight. It's a precious record of Convey's vicious dog living in harmony with humans—"
Before Lilith could finish speaking...
At Yu Renjie's command, Sun Taihe and several other well-trained men behind him snapped open the banner. The red silk cloth suddenly unfurled, startling everyone in the train station. Then, everyone in the station suppressed their laughter, even the ticket inspectors were laughing, and people were laughing so hard they dropped their ID cards and kept turning around to take pictures.
"Wishing Comrade Zhang Zongxie, a proud son of Fengtan, a bright future in Beijing! Fengtan will always welcome you!"
Lilith: "..."
Zhang Zongxie: "...Lilith, who booked the plane tickets, I'm deducting a month's performance bonus from your paycheck."
Li Yingqiao nudged Yu Jinyang with her elbow in shock: "Meow, did you know there was this part?"
Zhong Su was the first to interject, saying, "It was Brother Siyi's idea. He hasn't slept for several nights, he's so excited about his own idea that he can't sleep."
Seeing that she instinctively tried to jump back a few steps, Yu Jinyang reached out and pulled her close, whispering in her ear, "Don't worry, yours is already at the express station."
“Your dad probably meant well, but you're just getting back at him.” Li Yingqiao looked up at him, her words unusually earnest. “Meow meow, I promise I won't play those tricks on you anymore, okay?”
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