Water and Fire~Chapter 99.1: Am I Good to You?

 

Chapter 99.1: Am I Good to You?

Chu Qianmiao didn't wait for the elevator and ran upstairs. Her heart beat faster and faster the whole way, and her hands practically shook as she took the key to open the door. After entering the house, she leaned against the door, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

No one was home. Gu Miaoyu was working overtime at the company again and had texted her saying she would sleep there tonight.

She couldn't find anyone to talk to.

After calming her racing heart, she put down her bag and went to the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face, washing away any trace of alcohol and feeling refreshed.

She returned to her room and curled up on the bed, her head leaning against the window, staring at the stars and moon in the sky, her thoughts welling up.

After her birthday, she turned 27. No longer an ignorant little girl, she could discern the subtleties of love and romance in many things.

She sensed that Ren Yan's attitude towards her had suddenly changed from one day to the next.

Which day exactly?

It must have been the day Li Tang started working at Litong. That day, she even discussed business skills with Xia Fengyong from Kan Qingzhou's department.

The next day, she went on a business trip to work on Li Ya's project.

Before that, Ren Yan had been deliberately avoiding her, as if trying to distance himself from her.

That time, he went with them to work on Li Ya's project.

Then, she was being exploited by Dou Shan on the project. He stood up for her. Perhaps he would have done the same thing with any other subordinate, but she couldn't help but feel her heart beat faster at his impressive act of protection.

Then there was the basketball friendly game with Li Ya. Qin Qianyu asked her if she wanted to go, but she said no, because she needed to study. Qin Qianyu asked her again, but she still refused to go. Later, Qin Qianyu came back and finally convinced her to go, so she decided to go. As a result, she saw Ren Yan on the court the next day.

At the time, she thought it would be a bit presumptuous to attribute his presence to her. But now, looking back on all the events, she no longer felt that was presumptuous; she thought he went simply because she was there.

Then he drank the water she had drunk. At the time, she didn't dare to think too much about it, thinking he was simply too thirsty to wait. But that day, when she went to his room to change clothes, she unexpectedly saw the empty mineral water bottle on his bedside table. It was so easy to spot. To distinguish it from other bottles, she borrowed a marker from the scorekeeper and drew a smiley face on the plastic label.

He actually didn't throw it away. She had no idea what he meant. Her mind was so fogged up that when he emerged from the bathroom shirtless, she was completely unresponsive and defenseless, her nose bleeding.

If she hadn't been so stunned by that Aquarius, she would have tried to control her blood flow, so as not to be caught off guard by his pecs, abs, and slinky lines.

Later, they met downstairs at the coffee shop. He said her face was dirty, and he wiped it with a damp tissue, his fingers even touching her ear. When he finished, he showed her a faint red stain on the tissue.

At the time, she honestly thought she hadn't cleaned the blood off her face when she washed it.

But later, while rushing to finish some paperwork, she went downstairs for a coffee to refresh herself. After she sat down, she noticed some water on the table, so she took a tissue from the drawer and wiped it. When she finished, she looked at the tissue again, stunned.

A faint red stain had spread across the tissue, and without a close look, it looked like blood had been wiped away. But closer inspection revealed that it was simply the red coffee shop logo printed on the back of the tissue, which had been soaked by water and had smeared the red from the back onto the front. The faint red stain truly looked like blood had been wiped away.

So the "your face is dirty, my face is dirty too" drama that night was truly a lie. She had deceived him, and he had deceived her. Now I wonder if he had chosen that spot to call her dirty just to touch her ear. As she was changing her PPT, her intuition told her he seemed to be staring at her ear.

Thinking back, every moment of his half-naked appearance before her seemed choreographed. He had asked her to come to his room, and if it wasn't empty when she came to see him, she could just go in and wait. He'd leave the door open for her, and he'd be right back.

The traces of choreography were too obvious. Her conclusion was that he was deliberately seducing her, perhaps trying to see if she still had feelings for him. This damned scheming old man.

And then there was the time when Li Tang came to Liya for an on-site inspection. His protectiveness was so obvious that she texted him to stop answering for her. Partly because she felt the more he answered, the more it would irritate Li Tang and embarrass her; but more importantly, she was genuinely afraid that Qin Qianyu, Liu Lifeng, and Yan Yunqiang, who were present at the time, would notice his overprotective behavior.

Oh, and then there was the time they went to Yingji Capital to resolve the VAM agreement.

After that, he returned to Liya first, while she stayed in Beijing, intending to fulfill her promise to treat Tan Shen to dinner.

Before leaving, he asked her what they were treating her to.

She said hot pot.

The next day, when she returned to the due diligence office, Qin Qianyu told her that while she was treating Tan Shen to hot pot, Ren Yan was also having hot pot with them, downing six bottles of Moutai in one sitting. When was the last time he drank six bottles of Moutai with Qin Qianyu and the others? That's right, it was on Tan Shen's birthday. He came to the project site and asked her to go out for dinner.

So every time she was with Tan Shen, he'd always start with six bottles of Moutai.

Come to think of it, why do people drink so much? Because alcohol can drown sorrows.

So, he was worried about her being with Tan Shen.

And tonight, she asked him if he had an obsession with hot pot.

Before answering, he glanced around at the others, making sure no one was paying attention. Then he gave her a quirky smile and said, "I don't have an obsession with hot pot itself. My obsession is with who I eat it with."

She had been called away by Qin Qianyu to go drink. She hadn't had time to think about it. In fact, she hadn't dared to think about it.

But now that she thought about it, wasn't he essentially saying that he hadn't been able to have hot pot with her the previous two times, while she had been with Tan Shen, that was why he had an obsession with her. She pounded her chest, her heartbeat slowing to a beat faster.

Outside the window, a cloud drifted past the moon. A thin, hazy veil shrouded the sky.

She remembered the way he looked when he smoked. His puffs of smoke, like thin clouds, were also hazy. Oh, and then there was the smoking thing. She'd told him to smoke less, saying it was bad for his health. Later, she realized, he hadn't smoked less; he'd completely stopped.

Even when he was working on his application materials at Rongda University, no matter how stressed or exhausted he was, he didn't smoke a single cigarette. He even asked her for gum, using it to relax and unwind, but he didn't smoke.

She knew the sheer willpower it took for a smoker to quit. So, she almost couldn't imagine him quitting because of a word she'd said.

And then there was the time on her birthday, when he'd so casually taken her out for a bowl of birthday noodles. Everyone, even herself, had given up on celebrating her birthday, but he still remembered. He took her to eat noodles and even specifically asked the waiter to add an extra poached egg.

How could he remember her birthday so accurately? Why would a grown man like him remember her birthday?

The thin cloud drifted away from the moon. The moonlight returned to its bright, clear light. Memories, too, became clear and lucid.

Further ahead.

She never dared to recall the day Qiao Zhixin bullied her, the way he beat him. Every time she recalled it, it hurt. She didn't know where it hurt, but it just hurt. She could truly feel his willingness to stand up for her, regardless of the consequences.

Was he really good to her? He was good.

He was truly, truly good to her.

So good that she didn't dare dwell on it. Because, as she'd said, he was a cold dish on her life's menu; she'd already moved on from him.

So good that she didn't know what he was up to. Hadn't he already rejected her? Why was he still so nice to her?

So, what happened that day when Li Tang started working at Litong that made him treat her so exceptionally well from that day on? Was it the kind of kindness a man should treat a woman, the kind that moved her heart and soul?

She stared at the moon outside the window. It glared at her, and she stared back with her eyes wide open. She wondered what Chang'e in the moon was doing. Was she, like her, fretting over a man who seemed completely lost in sleep?

Ren Yan was truly devastated by the words "disrespectful to the elderly"—so much so that when Chu Qianmiao ran off after accusing him, he didn't even think to try and catch her back, to explain that he had no ill intentions and never wanted to hurt her.

Everything he did to her came from the heart, almost a male instinct. He acted out of passion, but sometimes passion was so strong that he couldn't stop at courtesy.

But when he calmed down and thought carefully, he'd been thinking and acting from his own perspective until tonight. He'd figured things out, and then he'd treated her well.

But from her perspective, she had no idea what had happened to him, what psychological transformation had occurred. She only saw him reject her, and after she'd finally let it go, he'd started flirting with her again.

So, from her perspective, he was truly annoying.