Chapter 3

Chapter 3

In front of others.

Especially in front of Du Yuejia.

Pretending that my marriage to Duan Guanqin is still ongoing is my self-preservation.

“Darling.”

Upon hearing this, Duan Guanqin turned to look at me as if his hackles were raised.

After a few rounds of drinks.

I pointed at the phone in my hand: “Mom’s looking for you.”

Duan Guanqin, slightly tipsy, took the phone and muttered a few words.

After hanging up, he handed the phone back to me.

I reached out, but he grabbed my hand.

His palm was hot, making my wrist feel cool in contrast.

“If you hadn’t called out to me,” his voice was low, yet it seemed to rasp against my ear, “I really wouldn’t be sure who you were calling.”

As others passed by, he withdrew his hand.

He averted his gaze and didn’t look at me anymore.

Duan Guanqin doesn’t drive when he drinks.

In the underground parking garage, the roar of a sports car starting up could be heard in the distance.

“Are you driving?” Du Yuejia asked me.

I hadn’t been drinking.

“Then give me a ride back, we’re going the same way,” he said.

“Not the same way,” Duan Guanqin interjected from behind.

Du Yuejia ignored him and lifted his chin, gesturing toward the car ahead to Duan Guanqin: “That’s your car, right?”

That was the car Qi Sen had driven off.

Duan Guanqin looked at me, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re at S11-club?”

“Hmm? Niangniang, are you checking up on me?” Qi Sen replied to my WeChat message.

“Don’t drink and drive, stay safe.”

“jiejie I’m being good, not drinking :-D.”

Duan Guanqin came out of the bathroom, his hair tips slightly damp, brushed past me, and picked up the tablet behind me.

Stirring the faint, moist air.

“Of age now?” Duan Guanqin glanced at my phone.

I looked up at him, my eyes landing on the water droplets clinging to his hair tips on his forehead.

“Better to be law-abiding,” he also lowered his eyes to look at me.

“President Duan, speaking from experience?” I retorted with a smile.

“What experience do I have?” His tone was teasing.

He leaned in slightly, and a water droplet seemed to fall on the back of my hand.

“What experience do I have that you haven’t experienced firsthand?”

I wiped the moisture on my pant leg, but he grabbed my wrist with one hand, his voice low: “Guess what I was thinking when I saw Du Yuejia today?”

I tried to shake off his hand, but instead, I was pulled into his arms.

“I was thinking,” he spoke into my ear, “when you said you liked me back then, was it really true, or just to escape someone?”

“You’re overthinking it.” I pushed him away.

He moved a little away, his elusive gaze carrying both mockery and indifference.

“You can’t learn how to make me like you,” he lifted a strand of my hair, “but you’re getting more and more skilled at disgusting me.”

“What good is testing my limits?” His breath teased my ear. “When Du Yuejia goes crazy, only I can protect you.”

I pushed his hand away, changed the subject, and gave myself a brief moment to breathe: “I’m going to take a shower.”

I can’t sleep in an unfamiliar place.

His apartment living room was spacious, and even with the heating on in the guest room, it felt damp and chilly.

Especially on a drizzly spring night like this.

Especially in Duan Guanqin’s space.

He wasn’t asleep either.

Leaning by the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the hazy night view of the city, a cigarette glowing between his fingers.

“Still awake?” He noticed me in the darkness.

I took his cigarette and stubbed it out: “I’ll help you keep it from the Duan Family, and you help me keep it from Du Yuejia.”

He looked at me, as if sizing up prey: “You came home with me tonight, is it because he’s back?

“What are you afraid of?” he asked me.

I didn’t answer, and he didn’t press further.

A long silence.

His eyes shone brighter in the darkness, filled with probing: “I’ll only ask you one thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“Back then, with you and Du Yuejia,” he paused, “was it him forcing you?”

He rarely talked about this.

After all these years, I didn’t expect him to ask.

I met his eyes and asked in return: “Does it matter to you whether it was voluntary or forced?”

What Duan Guanqin cared about was always just the outcome.

“You always like to do this.” His voice sounded hollow in the night, yet seemed to envelop me tightly.

“Like what?” I asked him.

“A tooth for a tooth,” he replied, “I find a woman, you find a man.
“To prove that in our relationship, you’re not in a passive position.
Duan Guanqin’s tone was flat, emotionless.
“To prove that you don’t like me that much,” he said.

He spoke with stiff confidence, as if sure of himself.

I looked at his handsome face and laughed inwardly.

Men.

Duan Guanqin always liked to pigeonhole me as someone who lost her mind in love for him.

I didn’t know if my acting was too good, or he was too deep in the role.

Women can’t be lovestruck fools.

Niangniang’s mom once told Niangniang.

When Niangniang’s dad cheated for the twelfth time, he knelt in front of her mom and swore he would never see another woman again.

Niangniang’s mother cried, “A man’s mouth is all lies.”

But she never divorced. She said, “It’s for our Niangniang, so she can have a complete family.”

A complete family was very important, her mother said. Children from whole families wouldn’t have flawed personalities.

Without flawed personalities, they wouldn’t be looked down upon.

When Niangniang’s father had his thirteenth affair, her mother was chasing the other woman when a rear-end collision happened, and she died on the spot.

Her father and the mistress took the money and vanished without a trace.

“Niangniang, from now on, Aunt will protect you.”

That’s what Niangniang’s aunt said when she brought her to live with them in the compound.

Niangniang overheard the neighbors’ gossip behind their backs: “She finally married a leader, and now this happens, bringing along a burden.”

Niangniang’s aunt had just gotten married, to a high-ranking official who was divorced.

Aunt said that women could pretend to be love-struck, using marriage as a springboard and love as a thrill.

And she practiced what she preached.

Aunt said she reasonably exploited the resource of her beauty, marrying a man to gain an elevation in social class.

“Only your mother was foolish,” Aunt said, filing her exquisite nails. “Loving a man who couldn’t earn a penny, loving him to death-is that love? That’s being so tormented by life that she had no choice! No say at all, just stuck with that man.”

She pinched Niangniang’s ear: “Remember this well: a woman can live without love, but not without bread!”

No love, but you could have bread.

However, Aunt’s bread was bought by selling love.

She always said, “You’re too innocent. You don’t understand the reasoning, yet you start judging.”

The high official Aunt married had a child from a previous marriage, named Du Yuejia.

Aunt said, “I’ve discussed with your uncle. From now on, your surname is Du. Niangniang, call him ‘brother.'”

That was the first time Du Niangniang met Du Yuejia.

He had just returned from his key provincial high school for summer break. He had been out playing basketball with friends; a group of youths poured in, all standing at the doorway.

Niangniang called out to one of them, “Brother.”

Everyone burst out laughing. Someone said, “You got it wrong, that’s Duan Guanqin.”

Blushing, she looked up and saw him, carrying the summer heat, his damp hair clinging to his forehead.

Du Yuejia noticed that this little scrap brought by the stepmother blushed very easily.

Too young to hide her desires.

She had desires for him.

Not sexual, but material.

She liked his status, the environment he lived in.

But she didn’t dare to show it too brazenly.

Catering cautiously and obsequiously was a common trick of these people.

Like her aunt, they were foxes who swallowed people whole and feigned shyness because the bite was too big.

This little fox.

In Du Yuejia’s eyes, this fox was still too young, too prone to showing her tail.

That tail, unguarded, dangled right before his eyes.

It tempted him, making his heart itch.

I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Going to work in the morning, I couldn’t fight off the drowsiness.

Today I was interviewing Yang Xiao. During a break, my colleagues were gossiping in the corner.

“No wonder Duan Guanqin likes her. Look at her figure, her skin so fair and bright-if I were a man, I’d like her too.”

“You know, all of Duan Guanqin’s rumored girlfriends are pretty much this type.”

“Doesn’t he get bored?” I poked my milk tea straw.

My colleague turned to look at me with a “hopeless student” expression: “If you had cute young puppy-dog boys and wolfish bad boys taking turns orbiting around you all day, would you get bored?”

Today work finished early. After getting off, I took the subway straight to Qi Sen’s university gate.

“Senior, waiting for your boyfriend?” Qi Sen’s voice came from behind me.

“Waiting for a dog.” I teased him deliberately.

He tapped my head: “Tsk, I’ve spoiled you.”

After eating pickled fish, he insisted on taking me home.

The spring chill was sharp, the night breezy.

We walked to his school’s parking lot and saw his black motorcycle.

“Where’s the car I gave you?”

“Don’t want to drive it, too flashy.”

With a long leg, he swung over and put the helmet on my head again.

“Too cold, I don’t want to ride the motorcycle.” I shoved my hands into his leather jacket pocket.

He was like a heat source, still radiating warmth in the cold wind.

Qi Sen pinched my cheek: “It’s just a short ride.”

Saying that, he took off his own coat and put it on me.

“Don’t,” I pushed away, “you’ll catch a cold.”

“As if I’d catch a cold that easily,” he insisted on wrapping me up, bundling me into his coat, then bundling me into his arms.

His breath and heartbeat were by my ear.

His scent, hot and steamy, wrapped around my every breath.

“Qi Sen.”

“Hmm?”

“I might really never get tired of you.”

His laughter came from above: “What kind of scandalous talk is that. jiejie, you’re a bad influence on me.”