Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

His gaze made Song Yu felt uncomfortable since it was different from Qi Chengzhi"s gaze. Qi Chengzhi"s gaze was luminous, warm, and dominant—although at times it can be gentle instead of dominant. Whether it was the former or the latter, she felt hot whenever he looked at her, and her brain would turn into a complete mess.

Meanwhile, w.a.n.g Yifeng"s gaze was too invasive. Both he and Song Yu were still very foreign with each other, and his gaze gave her gooseb.u.mps all over her body. She did not like its intrusiveness.

She s.h.i.+fted her gaze uncomfortably over to the distance behind him. His Camry was parked just beside the road.

“Your car is all repaired?” Song Yu asked as a gesture of courtesy since she had virtually no idea what to say to him.

“Yes, the repair work just finished today, so I came to pick you up,” w.a.n.g Yifeng said. His words had a touch of confidence to them. “Our first two encounters were interrupted by unforeseen events, and we hadn"t had the chance to have a proper conversation. I also feel that it wouldn"t be too comfortable to talk to each other when there are so many other people at home, so why not have a meal by ourselves?”

“That"s why I came here directly to pick you up.” w.a.n.g Yifeng smiled, bowed, and gestured with an outstretched hand as if to say ‘After you". “Would you do me the honor of having a meal with me?”

Song Yu looked at his car, then at his outstretched hand, but found it difficult to answer him.

Noticing that she was glued to the spot and was hesitant, w.a.n.g Yifeng found it a bit odd. “Am I being ahead of myself, and you have something to attend to?”

Strands of her hair, blown wayward by the wind, were tucked behind her ear. She did not get into the car with him and simply stood still. She mustered the courage and asked softly, “You… Do you have a thing for me?”

w.a.n.g Yifeng did not expect Song Yu to phrase the question so directly. Understandably surprised, he chuckled softly.

He believed himself to be good-looking; his work and family background was not bad as well. Although it was difficult to buy a house in B City, he was still able to get a loan to finance a house—a hundred and thirty square meters in size and located at the 5th Ring Road—in preparation for marriage. He was also a local resident of B City. A man of his qualities would undoubtedly be able to choose who he wanted to be with, and as of then, he had already rejected a few potential partners who took a liking to him.

He felt that going after Song Yu would be a walk in the park, and he was determined to get her.

Hearing the way Song Yu asked her question, he laughed confidently and said, “I thought I made it very clear from my actions. I didn"t think you"d still have doubts.”

“I just wanted to make sure in case I was mistaken and made things awkward.” Song Yu"s hand had been placed inside her jacket pocket all that time, and she was clenching them nervously. She took a deep breath and said, “I"m sorry. I"m flattered that you admire me so much, but I can"t return you the favor.”

“Why"s that? Song Yu, I really think you"re amazing, and I don"t think that I"m the kind of person who would make you hate me. Perhaps it won"t be love at first sight for us, but we can try dating each other.” w.a.n.g Yifeng looked left and right, then touched her arm. “The wind is strong out here. It"s not a place we can talk. If there"s anything you"d want to talk about, it"d be better to talk about it in the car.”

Song Yu shook her head and evaded his touch. w.a.n.g Yifeng saw her action and felt embarra.s.sed in addition to being upset.

“I"m really sorry. I have a boyfriend, so I can"t date you, even if it"s just to try things out. I"m really sorry to have caused this misunderstanding. I didn"t expect it would give you such a wrong impression. I thought that it"s best to clear things up before the misunderstanding deepens.”

“How?” He frowned unhappily. “Auntie Yu told me that you"re still single. Song Yu, it"s okay if you don"t like me, but you didn"t need to use that kind of excuse to reject me.”

Song Yu pushed aside a strand of hair and replied with a tone appropriate to the situation. “My parents don"t know about my relations.h.i.+p because I"ve only just gotten together with him for a while. I don"t want my parents to know just yet. My mom, she, if she knew that I have a boyfriend, she would nag at me to bring him home to meet her. If I don"t bring him home, she"ll snoop around by all means necessary, but because the relations.h.i.+p is still new, I don"t want that stage to come too quick. I"m afraid that he would misunderstand me and that I"ll scare him off.”

When she said that final sentence, Song Yu laughed gently as if she was poking fun at herself.

Her tone was sincere, and when she spoke, it was evident that she was protecting him. The genuineness of her feelings was discernible from her words.

However, w.a.n.g Yifeng found the excuse to be too far-fetched. The man she dated might turn out to be someone subpar, and Song Yu might have decided to keep the relations.h.i.+p hidden because she knew that Yu Qianying would object if she brought her man home!!

If her man was good enough, what reason would she have for being all shady? Even if she did not bring him home, she would at least have told her parents about him.

Keeping his intentions hidden, w.a.n.g Yifeng appeared unperturbed by what she said. He smiled and remarked, “Since I"ve come here today, even if you don"t want to have a meal with me, at least let me send you home. I wouldn"t be much of a gentleman if I simply ditched you because you have a boyfriend.”

As w.a.n.g Yifeng was speaking, Song Yu"s gaze alighted upon the opposite road, where a familiar Range Rover was parked.

Song Yu"s heart skipped a beat. There was a considerable distance between her and the Range Rover, so she was unable to see the plate number, but the mere sight of it brought Qi Chengzhi to mind.

Although she knew that there was a possibility it was not him, her heartbeat still continued increasing.

A simple ‘Excuse me" was uttered, and she took out her phone to dial Qi Chengzhi"s number.

It took awhile for him to pick up. Song Yu was rather disappointed and doubtful because of that, and she wondered if she was making a mistake.

Qi Chengzhi said “Hey”, and Song Yu promptly felt sore in her throat when she heard his rich voice. She was momentarily unable to speak, and all she wanted was to listen to his voice a little bit longer.

“Are you back?” Song Yu kept on looking at the Range Rover far ahead.

“…”

He neither answered nor denied it, so Song Yu"s heartbeat increased even more. “Are you in front of my company? I saw a Range Rover that looks just like yours.”

She thought that he would not answer her as well, so she looked down in disappointment.

After a while, his answer sounded through the phone. “Mm.”

Song Yu"s heart began beating so violently that it almost jumped out of her throat. She did not even bother to say goodbye before hanging up, and instead, told w.a.n.g Yifeng hurriedly, “My boyfriend came to pick me up, I"ll be going.”

She smiled embarra.s.sedly at him, and as she began walking, she stopped, turned around, and said sheepishly to him, “This…about my boyfriend. Can you keep this a secret for the time being, so my parents wouldn"t know? I want to tell them about this personally. If someone else told them, I"m worried that they might have a bad impression of my boyfriend.

Seeing how much she protected that man, w.a.n.g Yifeng finally understood that his chances were all but gone. Regardless of who that person was, Song Yu had her heart fully set on him.

w.a.n.g Yifeng sighed and replied, “Don"t worry, I"m not a talkative person. But if there"s ever any chance, I"d like to meet this man and see what it is about him that made you like him so single-mindedly.”

Was it really single-mindedness?

Song Yu did not realize that she was already at such a stage. She did not entirely approve of w.a.n.g Yifeng"s description, but she simply said, “Thank you,” and walked across the road while being mindful of the traffic.

w.a.n.g Yifeng remembered Song Yu"s conversation through the phone. He looked to the opposite side of the road and saw a Range Rover parked there. He then saw Song Yu open the car and walk in.

He frowned. ‘Why does that Range Rover look so familiar?"

Song Yu opened the door and saw the familiar man seated at the driver"s seat. Once she sat inside and closed the door, the car was completely filled with Qi Chengzhi"s scent.

The car was warm and his body did not look cold. There was no indication of how long he had been waiting there.

Sporting a grey wool overcoat and a black V-neck T-s.h.i.+rt, his collarbone was showing slightly. It was the first time Song Yu felt that a man"s collarbone would be so exquisite.

Perhaps it was exquisite because he himself was exquisite from head to toe.

She looked at him again and felt that it was a long time since she saw last saw him. Song Yu had never missed someone so much.

The moment she sat in the car, the thing she wanted to do most was to enter his embrace.

What she did not expect, however, was for him to look so unexcited. There were no expressions on his face, and when she came in, he simply shot her a brief look.

However, he was smoking when she came in, but when he saw her, he extinguished the cigarette without saying a word.

“Why didn"t you tell me that you"re back?” Song Yu asked. “You didn"t call me to tell me that you"re here either. What if I didn"t see you and walked all by myself?”

Qi Chengzhi looked askance at her. “If you didn"t see me, you can just let the Camry bring you home then.”

“You saw all that?” Song Yu surmised that his sudden temper and odd behavior was because of w.a.n.g Yifeng. Instead of being angry, Song Yu found his actions endearing.

“…” He looked askance at her again, then s.h.i.+fted his gaze to the opposite road. The Camry was still there.

There was no way he would overlook that vibrant red color.

Song Yu entreated him by leaning over. He was still indifferent, but her not-so-nimble hands squeezed their way into his palm and held his elegant hands.

“I explained everything clearly to him. You saw that I didn"t enter his car, right? I"ve told him that I have a boyfriend.” Her hand rubbed his palm and felt its warmth. She had peace of mind when her hand was within his palm.

He did not evade her but simply allowed her to endear herself over him. In turn, he gripped her hand even tighter.

When the reaction finally came, Song Yu smiled fawningly, “You don"t know how worried I was just now when I asked him whether he had a thing for me. If he said no, and it was all my misunderstanding, I"d be so embarra.s.sed. But just to make you happy, I told him everything. He understands too, and he probably wouldn"t look for me again. He even said that he wanted to meet you.”

Just as Song Yu finished her sentence, Qi Chengzhi opened the door with the intention of getting down from the car. Shocked, Song Yu immediately pulled him. She did not know what was going on and a.s.sumed that he may have turned even angrier.

“Why are you going out?” Song Yu pulled him back inside and asked distressingly.

“I"m going over to let the Camry look at me. He wants to meet me, doesn"t he? Let me destroy that heart of his.” Qi Chengzhi was methodical, and he looked extremely serious about it.

“Don"t get all worked up!” Song Yu was truly afraid that he would go over and insist on letting w.a.n.g Yifeng see him. She hurriedly stretched herself across his lap and closed the door. “He was saying it for the sake of saying it. My rejection made both of us embarra.s.sed, so of course he would want to say something to end the conversation. It"s just small talk, he doesn"t really want to meet.”

Putting it another way, it would be unwise for him to meet the man whose car he wrecked.

As a result of the door opening for quite some time, the cold air had entered the car and lowered the temperature within. It took awhile for the heater to dispel the coldness.

Noticing how Qi Chengzhi kept quiet and only stared at her with those deep eyes, Song Yu acted coy and said shamelessly, “Cover my hands. They"re cold.”

Qi Chengzhi looked down at the fair-skinned hands that his palms were holding. His long lashes covered part of his eyes, but when he looked up and at her, he was somewhat half-smiling.

Song Yu"s faced reddened in shyness. He seemed to have noticed her small and covert intentions.

Even so, she did not retract her hands.

Under his gaze, her hands were slowly wrapped around his large and warm hands. Meanwhile, his slightly rough thumb rubbed slowly against the back of her hand.

The back of her hand was undoubtedly the only thing that was rubbed by him, but she felt like he was brus.h.i.+ng her whole body tenderly. In no time, it was not only her hands that were warm—her whole body was too.

Song Yu retracted her hands and removed her scarf. She found its thickness stifling to his breathing.

Qi Chengzhi just had to leaned over at that moment. The eyes on his handsome face widened, and along with his action of leaning over, there was that familiar smell of crisp cleanness. Song Yu"s eyes could not resist staring at his thin lips.

“Do you miss me?” His delicate lips parted way for his breath to land all over her lips. It was numbingly hot.

“Mm.” Song Yu nodded bashfully and her face suffused with red. Her eyelashes fluttered and her eyes were slightly half-closed. “I didn"t dare to keep looking for you. I was afraid I"d bother and annoy you during work.”

“Whenever you miss me, call me.” Qi Chengzhi"s lips leaned closer and were about to come into contact with hers, but there was still a tiny gap between their lips. There was a hint of desire in the air, and when he finally spoke, his lips began rubbing ever so subtly on hers.

Once he finished speaking, Qi Chengzhi leaned forward, hugged her in his embrace, and kissed her firmly.

After so many days, she was finally able to feel him. Being in his calming embrace, smelling his raw scent, and receiving a forceful kiss from him, Song Yu let out a content moan. She cuddled him and allowed him to kiss her.

She placed both her arms around his neck and nestled herself voluntarily into him. Then she looked up and returned the kiss.

Song Yu was still the pa.s.sive party in accepting the relations.h.i.+p during his first business trip, so she did not feel as much back then. She had put her heart into things by the time it was the second, and it led her to miss him terribly. All that acc.u.mulated longing melted away in that one kiss, and her spontaneity was out of his expectations.

As their lips parted ever so slightly, he still wished to continue the kiss, so his tongue licked and drew across her lips.

Overcome with pa.s.sion, Song Yu lost herself and kissed him a few more times. She tilted her head backward and allowed her hands to roam upward. She placed her hand on his spectacles and removed them.

To her, the spectacles were wholly superfluous because they were obscuring his eyes.

“I still prefer you without gla.s.ses.” She looked at his enigmatic eyes. Her voice seemed to betray her intoxication, and her fingertips could not resist touching his eyelids and his eyelashes. Then she stretched herself and gave him a kiss on his eyes.

When she got down and aligned her eyes with his, those happy eyes of his seemed to be teasing her for being so thick-faced. Her seemingly sudden l.u.s.t for him made her feel embarra.s.sed, and she lowered her head.

Qi Chengzhi took the spectacles from her hand, but instead of wearing them, he placed them in the center storage compartment between the driver and pa.s.senger seats.

Breaking free from her, Qi Chengzhi tidied up her messed-up hair—of which he was the culprit of—before starting the car.

“Do you have any food at home?” Qi Chengzhi asked when they reached a red light.

“There were extra dumplings that were made in the new year, my mom gave some to me,” Song Yu said. She stayed over with her parents during the spring holidays, so naturally, she would not store any food in her apartment, since they would be spoilt by the time she returned.

She did not have the chance to buy any yet since it was only the first day of work.

“…” Qi Chengzhi simply looked at her and remained silent.

When they were almost reaching her home, Qi Chengzhi turned and headed for the nearby supermarket. They bought some fresh ingredients, and while choosing them, Song Yu realized that he did not like the dumplings that much. Other than having to eat it mandatorily on the eve of the new year, it did not seem as though he ate them on normal occasions.

Song Yu remembered the container of dumplings she brought over to his place during the second day of the new year. He simply received them without saying anything.

“Remember the dumplings I gave you the other day, if you don"t really like them, don"t force yourself. You can return them to me later,” Song Yu said.

“No need,” he replied with a simple sentence and held her hands tightly.

After that, he brought her to the CK 1  display shelves and bought a few briefs.

Song Yu could not help but stare at him. ‘He surely doesn"t lack such garments? If he"s buying them today, he"s buying them to put at my house!"

She remembered the first night he stayed over at her apartment. He went and bought underwear too, and on the second day, he hung his used underwear in her bathroom.

He did not explain anything, and his face remained as calm and solemn as ever, as if he did nothing out of the ordinary in the first place.

Song Yu did not ask as well, and she just followed him. When they reached the payment counter, Qi Chengzhi conveniently grabbed a box of Durex Fetherlite from the rack.

Song Yu, “…”

The two of them left the supermarket and got into the car. Along the way home, they pa.s.sed by the bus station not far from her apartment building. Like sardines, groups of people went in and out of the bus. It was already suffocating inside the bus to begin with, but the crowd made it even stuffier inside.

The crowding in the bus showed not even the minutest sign of ceasing. As one round of people left, another would get on, and it was constantly packed.

It was then that she saw Song Donglin and Yu Qianying holding a bagful of vegetables. Spring onions and Chinese yams were even jutting out from the bags.

They were holding bags of various sizes and heading in the direction of Song Yu"s apartment.

Song Yu came back to her senses, but her face still looked rattled.

“What is it?” Qi Chengzhi glanced at her.

“My parents. They must"ve thought that I didn"t store any food at home during the holidays, and since today"s the first day of work too, they figured that I didn"t have the time to do grocery shopping. I think that"s why they bought some vegetables and came looking for me. I just saw them beside the road,” Song Yu said and looked back once again.

They were far ahead of Song Donglin and Yu Qianying, but the latter two were undoubtedly heading to her apartment.

“We can"t cook at my place today.” Remorseful and embarra.s.sed, she looked at Qi Chengzhi and said softly, “Is it okay if you…go back today? If my parents saw you, they might be too shocked…”

Qi Chengzhi"s face sank, and his enigmatic eyes s.h.i.+fted their attention slowly onto her. He remained silent. Song Yu thought she was seeing things when she saw his lips purse slightly tighter than usual.

Song Yu"s twiddled her fingers mindlessly and was so nervous that even her stomach began to churn. The air pressure within the car seemed to be decreasing steadily, and even her breathing began to be unwell.

At some point in time, she was so nervous that beads of cold sweat began forming on her back.

Qi Chengzhi kept quiet, leading Song Yu to question whether he agreed to it or not. It was the first time she saw him looking so despondent, and whenever she thought about keeping him a secret, her heart found it hard-to-bear too.

With her head hung low, she was unaware that the car had stopped below her apartment.

Qi Chengzhi asked unsympathetically, “Aren"t you going down?”