Chapter 22
<Previous Chapter<Table of Contents>Next Chapter>
The next afternoon, Chen Rui was stopped by Zeng Xinyun when he was about to go out. She pointed to the gift box on the sofa and asked Chen Rui to bring it to the Sun family on Anshan Road while he was out.
“Why don’t you go yourself?”
“It would seem too deliberate if I go.”
“It’s out of my way,” Chen Rui replied and walked away.
“You don’t have to do anything,” Zeng Xinyun saw through his thoughts at a glance, “Both Sun Pingsu and Su Nan are not at home, so just give the gift to Xiao Tan directly.”
Chen Rui reluctantly agreed.
Upon getting off the car, he went to Sun Yutan’s house, or more accurately, his old house. Although his family had moved away long before he was born, Chen Ting had taken him there to play when he was a child, so he still had an impression of it.
After getting out of the elevator, a cold wind blew through the hallway. Chen Rui looked at the two opposite doors and stood in front of the one with a couplet pasted on it, and rang the doorbell.
The door opened quickly, and Sun Yutan, wearing a pink pajama with strawberry patterns, was surprised to see him. She still held the doorknob with one hand and raised the other to give a familiar greeting, “Hello.”
Chen Rui handed her the gift in his hand and said, “My mom asked me to bring this over.”
“Oh, thank you.” Sun Yutan took it without hesitation and placed it on the cabinet in the entrance. The cold wind had blown in and made her shiver, so she opened the door a little bit and asked, “Do you want to come in? It’s so cold outside.”
She thought Chen Rui would turn and leave, but he followed her in, probably because it was really too cold outside. As she thought, she found a pair of new cotton slippers for him.
“Do you want some water?”
“Yes, please,” Chen Rui replied.
Chen Rui slowly drank the water and looked around the house, as well as at her. She sat across from him, her hair in a ponytail, black and long, falling over her chest. She seemed less sharp-witted than usual and was even a bit cute. He denied it in his heart, thinking that it was not cute, but rather hateful.
Sun Yutan doodled on the paper, drawing meaningless lines. She put down the pen and pushed the notebook aside. It was strange. She rarely thought of him, but sitting face to face with him like this, she could clearly feel her heart beating faster.
She didn’t know when he would leave, otherwise she wouldn’t have any motivation to do anything.
After sitting in silence for a while, Sun Yutan was forced to socialize with a stiff smile.
“Do you want to play chess?”
Chen Rui originally planned to leave after finishing his drink, even though he still didn’t have an answer to what he wanted to confirm. But when she asked like that, he felt a bit irritated. He remembered passing by her classroom many times during lunch break and seeing her playing chess with Wu Junzhe. What a waste of time. No wonder she couldn’t make any progress in the rankings.
“He coldly refused, “No.” As he saw the obvious relief on Sun Yutan’s face from the corner of his eye, Chen Rui became even more frustrated. He angrily pulled back his chair, regretting entering this door and bringing displeasure upon himself. His actions betrayed his emotions, and he accidentally bumped into the small flower rack behind him. The top of the flower rack shook, causing the hanging basket of the pearl cactus to fall to the ground. Chen Rui was irritated and reached out to catch it, but quickly withdrew his hand as soon as he touched it. The small clay pot shattered on the ground, and the cactus rolled out with a dull thud.
He felt embarrassed and didn’t want to stay for another second, but he had broken something that belonged to someone else. He looked at the scattered dirt and sand on the ground and calmly asked, “How much is it? I’ll compensate you.”
Sun Yutan silently closed her mouth, which had dropped open in surprise. She walked over to Chen Rui, grabbed his right wrist, and despite his resistance, she forcefully lifted it to examine his palm.
Sunshine streamed in from the window, illuminating the youth’s palm and slender fingers, all of which were covered with short thorns to some extent. Some of the thorns had penetrated deeply, revealing red dots of blood. Sun Yutan glanced up at him.
Chen Rui casually asked, “Do you have tweezers?”
“I’ll help you pick them out.”
Sun Yutan led him to her bedroom and sat cross-legged on the bed, letting Chen Rui sit on the chair in front of her desk.
Chen Rui felt a bit uneasy. It was his first time entering a girl’s room. He knew he couldn’t look around casually, so his gaze could only fall on Sun Yutan. She held his hand and concentrated on removing the thorns. The tweezers she used were much finer and more delicate than the ones usually used, and she handled the small thorns with ease.
Chen Rui said, “Did you anticipated that someone would get pricked?”
Sun Yutan knew he was referring to the specially made tweezers, so she stopped and looked up. “You’re wrong. I occasionally get pricked myself. My dad specially got these tweezers for me.”
Beneath her was a bed covered in dark green blankets, fluffy and soft. Only where she sat did it sink down, and she was sunk in this sea of green, facing the sunlight and speaking to him. She was so close to him, and the fine hairs on her cheeks and the color of her pupils were clearly reflected in his eyes. Chen Rui heard a thumping sound in his chest.
Sun Yutan didn’t notice at all. She picked the thorns out one by one with her fingers, then grabbed his four fingers to clean the last piece of damaged skin in his palm. Who would have thought she was so scared just now, who would use their hands to catch a cactus?
Her hand brushed over his, making sure nothing was missed before she felt relieved. His hand was really big. When they overlapped from their wrists, her fingertips only reached his second knuckle.
“Does it hurt?” She didn’t let go of him.
Chen Rui shook his head. Against the light, his body was covered with a soft halo, while his face remained sharp, just like his name. Sun Yutan looked at him and felt very moved, but she remembered their first meeting, remembered his long indifference, and thought of last night. She felt a little sad.
She thought, since it’s going to end without a result, why not draw a bold and dramatic rest note.
She leaned over to grab the armrest and kissed him.
It took a great deal of willpower for Chen Rui to turn his head away as Sun Yutan kissed his face and then his lips.
Chen Rui couldn’t remember if he responded or not, but he didn’t push her away. In fact, he wished the moment would last a little longer.
It was a very inexperienced kiss, with both of them feeling varying degrees of nervousness. They parted after a few seconds.
Sun Yutan’s cheeks were flushed when she pulled away, and Chen Rui silently watched her, as if waiting for an explanation.
She avoided the subject and asked, “When are you leaving?”
Chen Rui didn’t intend to let her off the hook. He crossed his arms and leaned back on the chair. “Sun Yutan, don’t you need to explain?”
“Consider it as compensation for my cactus,” said Sun Yutan.
“Is this your usual way of claiming a compensation?”
Sun Yutan nodded with a confident expression.
Chen Rui smirked. He wasn’t foolish. What girl would kiss a boy she didn’t like? But he waited for a while and didn’t hear the words he wanted to hear. Sun Yutan tightly closed her mouth, as if insisting that she kissed him just for the sake of it. So he felt a sense of absurdity, as if repeating the same mistake of waiting for her love letter.
He asked, “Is one time enough?”
“What?”
Chen Rui pushed her down, and while Sun Yutan retreated in panic, her hands were held on both sides by Chen Rui. He pressed down on her body, with a mocking anger in his eyes that he could no longer tolerate. “I’m asking you, is one time enough?”
Sun Yutan understood and immediately nodded. Before the word “enough” could come out of her mouth, Chen Rui had already covered her mouth with his.
Sun Yutan’s face was as red as blood, her hair was messy, and her mind was in a mess. Several buttons on her strawberry pajamas were undone, revealing a small area of skin around her waist. But she was frozen, motionless.
Chen Rui couldn’t bear to see her like this, but her appearance was deeply engraved in his mind. He had to leave this place to regain his sanity.
He turned around and fled, as if regretting what he had done to her, as if he didn’t want to stay for a moment longer. Before leaving, he coldly threw out a sentence, “Don’t provoke me if you haven’t thought it through.”
It wasn’t until the sound of the door closing that Sun Yutan turned over and buried herself in the covers. It was too scary, she thought. Chen Rui was too vindinctive. She would never provoke him again in the future. She hadn’t intended to provoke him in the first place. She just wanted to take advantage of him, to eat a little bit of his “tofu,” but she didn’t expect Chen Rui to be so unwilling to take a loss.
She had to be resolute, to stay away from him. She couldn’t have any more delusions, or she would be asking for trouble.
<Previous Chapter<Table of Contents>Next Chapter>
