Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Chen Yan began the countdown. “Three, two, one!”

“Border collie!”

“Corgi!”

A deadly silence descended.

I looked at Meng An and rubbed my nose.

“Think carefully. Are you sure it was a corgi, not a border collie?”

Meng An clenched his fist and coughed lightly. “Aren’t I, you know, a professional dog walker? Of course I can tell it was a corgi and not a border collie.”

Chen Yan stared at us, his expression gradually darkening.

“Lin Nan, impressive. Really impressive.”

He picked up his birdcage and walked past me. I grabbed his arm.

“Don’t go. Hear me out while I make excuses! No, wait, hear me explain.”

“Fine. Explain.”

No matter what predicament you found yourself in, you could never give up too easily.

I brought Chen Yan to a pet shop.

He crouched on the floor, looking very curious.

“So this is your dog?”

The black-and-white border collie had big, watery eyes and was unbelievably cute.

But unlike a normal border collie, its legs were insanely, ridiculously short.

This was a border collie-corgi mix I had urgently asked a friend to help me find, searching all of Hong Kong in half an hour.

I said to Chen Yan, “Yes. See? Border collie.”

Meng An improvised on the spot.

“Right. Most people would think it’s a border collie, but in terms of breed-it’s a corgi.”

Chen Yan looked up at Meng An. “You…”

Meng An didn’t dare say another word.

Chen Yan stood and shook his hand. “You really are very professional.”

Meng An let out a breath of relief. “Well, uh, I’ll take the dog downstairs to sleep.”

He scooped up the puppy and fled in a panic.

Chen Yan draped a hand over my shoulder and watched Meng An’s retreating figure.

“So professional. Even the dog gets someone to sleep with it.”

I laughed dryly twice and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Right? He gets full benefits and everything. He’s just always forgetting things.”

“Lin Nan, for a second there, I almost thought that dog walker was the pretty boy you were keeping.”

Chen Yan lowered his head to look at me, and when he smiled, he was especially handsome.

“Don’t you think he’s pretty decent-looking?”

“Not at all.” Guilty, I tucked my hair behind my ear.

His hand slid through my hair, cupped the back of my neck with one hand, and he bent down to kiss me.

He kissed my lipstick all out of shape.

“Chen Yan, didn’t you tell people outside that we weren’t close?”

His thumb brushed the corner of my lips, and he let out a breathy laugh.

“I do feel like we aren’t close enough. We don’t even see each other ten times a year, and every time, I’m the one running over to you.”

I didn’t like going to Beijing.

I was addicted to the feel of Hong Kong.

Rainy nights, lights, double-decker buses weaving through the streets.

The floor-to-ceiling windows reflected a strange, glittering city.

I was pushed up against them, and the white fog on the glass suddenly deepened.

Chen Yan held my hand from behind and pressed warm fingerprints into the pane.

Every time Chen Yan and I met, we more or less did the same things.

Chen Yan was absolutely not frigid.

So when people said he was keeping a canary, all I wondered was what kind of girl she was.

I never imagined he, at his young age, was literally keeping a bird for fun.

And had even brought the bird to my apartment.

When I finished showering, Chen Yan was sitting on the living room sofa with the TV remote in his hand.

“Nannan, come here. The guard in this drama looks a lot like your dog walker.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“He doesn’t. This is an ancient person, and he has long hair. How do they look alike?”

I had to admit, Meng An looked pretty good in period costume.

Chen Yan pulled me onto his lap and held me sideways.

“Lin Nan, are you stupid? It’s an actor playing a role.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and let out a long, drawn-out, “Ohhh. So it’s acting!”

I was very suited to playing an idiot.

Chen Yan leaned back, turned me around, and our eyes met.

“Nannan, when you saw him, didn’t you feel like you’d forgotten something?”

I had just blow-dried my hair, and cold sweat broke out all over again.

What could I have forgotten?

Had he found out?

I kissed his face. “Another round?”

Chen Yan held my waist, his eyes dark, and bit his lower lip. “Honey, you do it.”

Fine, I would do it.

But he talked so much, praising me nonstop, until my earlobes burned from his words.

In the end, Chen Yan was the one who took the lead.

He kneaded my ankle. “I was about to ask you about that dog walker earlier, but you interrupted me.”

I looked back at him, panting softly. “Huh? You still want to ask?”

Chen Yan picked up the watch on the table.

“Didn’t you notice? At this hour, your dog still hasn’t been brought back.”

Ah. So that was it.

As it turned out, people really shouldn’t lie.

This whole damn dog situation was never-ending.