Dinner went on until past seven o’clock.
Cheng Junyi had long since finished eating in the neighboring dining room. By this point, she had already eaten three meals there – full, then hungry again, then full again – all while clutching a silver spoon and furiously working through the black truffle wagyu gratin rice as she strained to catch the sounds coming from next door.
In truth, she couldn’t hear very clearly. There were only faint traces of a man’s and a woman’s voices: one bright and melodious, the other low and steady, punctuated now and then by knowing laughter.
“Almost two hours already.” Cheng Junyi checked the time. “What do you think they could be talking about?”
Lin Cunkang shook his head and replied politely, “That’s hard to say.”
“Is your young master the talkative type?”
Lin Cunkang considered the question before giving a measured answer. “Not usually. But today is different.” Then he asked, “And Miss Ying?”
“She talks a lot with people she knows, not much with strangers. But today is different too.”
Lin Cunkang lifted a brow.
He was nearing sixty, his temples already touched with the wear of age, fine lines visible at the corners of his eyes. Because of that, although his manner and bearing still carried the refinement and elegance of high society, he did not seem especially distant or unapproachable.
Junyi looked at him with a sense of familiarity and warmth.
Biting on her spoon, she seized the chance to ask, “That shawl Mr. Shang has – what brand is it? Do you know?”
Though he could easily have answered directly, Lin Cunkang first asked, “Why do you ask, Miss Cheng?”
“Just call me Junyi. ‘Miss Cheng’ is tiring.”
Lin Cunkang smiled and gave a slight nod. “All right. Why do you ask, Junyi?”
“Her birthday’s coming up. I want to buy one for her as a gift. She likes it so much she can’t put it down. I got a raise.”
Lin Cunkang noticed that she spoke in a leapfrogging, disjointed sort of way, yet somehow people could still follow her train of thought. Regretfully, he said, “That one doesn’t have a brand.”
“Hm?” Junyi said. “Mr. Shang rides around in such luxury cars, and he still uses things without brands?”
Lin Cunkang burst out laughing. He didn’t argue with her, only explained, “It’s woven from the wool of a kind of goat from the Kashmir region – from when the goats are still very, very young, still lambs.”
Junyi asked, “Would it not work once they’re a little older?”
Lin Cunkang had never really considered that question before. After pondering for a moment, he nodded. “Perhaps for other people, it would. But for him, it wouldn’t. What I mean is, he also could make do – but he has no need to. Is that hard to understand?”
Cheng Junyi nodded. “Not hard to understand. Mr. Shang never has to settle for anything. He’s different from ordinary people like us.”
“Miss Ying is a celebrity. She’s not exactly an ordinary person,” Lin Cunkang said honestly, without any intention of flattering her.
“She is ordinary,” Cheng Junyi replied, enunciating every word with utmost seriousness, carrying a kind of stubborn sincerity. “She has to accommodate lots of people and lots of things. That’s different from Mr. Shang.”
Catching sight of a waiter passing through the corridor, she mentally counted which round of service it was and declared with certainty, “That’s the last course.”
Lin Cunkang made no move to stand, but he stayed seated, still listening to the faint sounds coming from the restaurant on the other side.
“I wonder what they’ll do after dinner,” Cheng Junyi mused absently.
At the dining table adorned with exquisite floral arrangements, all the tableware had already been cleared away and replaced with fresh stemless red wine glasses. The glasses were filled with freshly mulled wine, rich with the mingled aromas of cinnamon, cloves, and sweet orange.
The wine was rich, and the night deep.
At some unknown hour, Lin Cunkang knocked softly on the door before entering. Bending down beside Shang Shao, he murmured a few words into his ear.
Ying Yin couldn’t make out what was said. She only saw Shang Shao nod slightly and reply in a low voice, “Understood. Have the car wait at the entrance.”
She lowered her eyes to her watch. It was really only around eight o’clock, yet the evening already felt long. Long, but not satisfying enough. And though it was not enough, it still had to end.
Through the glass, she saw the dense night outside dyed a deep blue, the wind carrying with it the scent of the vanilla woods.
When they finished speaking briefly, Ying Yin withdrew her gaze and tactfully took the initiative to ask, “Do you have other matters to attend to?”
Shang Shao rose to his feet and nodded, every courtesy impeccably observed. “I do. It’s been an honor that you were willing to dine with me. I’ve enjoyed it very much. I’ll have someone drive you and your assistant back.”
Without calling for a waiter, he personally took Ying Yin’s coat from the rack and draped it over her shoulders. “The sea breeze is strong. Be careful not to catch cold.”
The women’s perfume lingering on his suit was long-lasting. He drew her collar together neatly, lowered his eyes, and looked at her quietly for several seconds.
“Mountain fruits fall in the rain;
beneath the lamp, insects hum among the grasses.”
“The perfume suits you perfectly,” he said. “Just like the first half of that poem.”
Is that all?
A voice whispered inside Ying Yin’s heart. Seeing him turn to leave, panic tightened suddenly within her, and she called out instinctively, “Mr. Shang!”
Shang Shao paused and turned back again. “What is it?”
Ying Yin steadied herself inside, like someone who had tossed a coin high into the air and was waiting for the outcome to land.
“Have you forgotten something?” she asked with a graceful smile. Beneath her poised composure lingered a thousand shades of charm he had never before seen from her.
She bent down and lifted a kraft-paper bag from beneath the coat rack. Opening it, she took out the dark red cashmere shawl inside.
“It’s time to return this to you.”
It was really only a shawl. Yet why did returning it feel so solemn, so ceremonial – solemn enough that she had to look directly into his eyes as she spoke?
Shang Shao did not take it.
Ying Yin curved her lips into a smile, meeting his gaze directly without evasion, still wearing that infinitely alluring expression. “You don’t want it? I said before – our encounter in the rain, your helping me at the hotel – I should thank you for it.”
Shang Shao was silent for a moment before speaking. “Miss Ying, how do you intend to thank me?”
His tone remained calm and unreadable, only that deep, beautiful voice of his carried a low magnetic rasp.
Ying Yin tilted up her face. She was smiling, yet inside her there was a faint but lucid voice.
The little wild spring blooming in the corner of her heart was about to wither away.
“What can a beautiful woman possibly offer in return to a powerful man,” she asked softly, “other than this?”
She answered his question with another question. Standing on tiptoe in her high heels, she placed an unadorned hand on his arm. Through the fabric of his shirt, her grip tightened little by little until the cloth wrinkled in her palm.
With her eyes closed, she could smell his breath mingling with hers – clean, touched with the scent of tropical agarwood tobacco.
In truth, she was not good at this sort of thing at all. She was only pretending to be experienced for his sake.
Because she was so nervous, Ying Yin never noticed that Shang Shao had stopped breathing at some unknown moment, for some unknown reason.
Just as her lips were about to brush his chin – just as he had said, mountain fruits fall in the rain – at that instant, Ying Yin truly seemed to hear the soft sound of a mountain fruit dropping through the rain.
But she did not succeed.
She failed. Suddenly, an arm wrapped around her waist, fiercely, tightly.
Ying Yin stumbled and instinctively fell into his embrace, both hands clutching at his shoulders.
Shang Shao’s voice had turned terribly hoarse.
“Miss Ying.”
He spoke slowly, his expression impossible to read in the shifting light and shadow. “Since you already have a boyfriend, you shouldn’t force yourself to do something like this. Or is it…”
Before Ying Yin could process his words, he paused, and when he spoke again, his tone carried a rare trace of mockery. “Or is this sort of thing some kind of amusement for people like you?”
His hand was large and firm around her waist, his burning palm pressed against the curve of her lower back, the heat of his body spreading into hers.
“What?” Ying Yin’s gaze shifted from confusion to clarity, only to sink into even deeper bewilderment. “What… boyfriend?”
Shang Shao frowned, still looking down at her, as though trying to determine just how thick-skinned this woman could be.
“Song Shizhang. Is that the name?”
The astonishment on her face was unmistakably genuine. Ying Yin’s red lips parted slightly; beneath the crystal chandelier, her eyes were limpid and clear, overflowing with shock.
“He’s not…”
Her rebuttal stopped halfway.
But what did it matter, whether he was or wasn’t? Ying Yin gave a small, relieved smile, adopting an attitude of believe whatever you want.
A faint flash of irritation and distaste seemed to pass through Shang Shao’s eyes, fleeting and light.
“You can deny it.”
“I can deny it, but Mr. Shang…” Ying Yin’s face gradually flushed crimson, and her voice softened as well. “Do I really have to deny it in this position?”
Her softness was pressed against him. Their breaths mingled, and her cheek could almost feel the skin at the side of his neck.
Caught completely off guard by her words, Shang Shao’s breathing – along with his heartbeat – fell into disarray. In the suffocating stillness, he released her and stepped back. The movement was so abrupt that it stripped away his usual effortless composure.
“I’m sorry.” No matter what kind of woman she was, an apology still had to be made.
“No need!” Ying Yin replied hurriedly, lowering her gaze elsewhere. “I was the one who seduced you first…”
“…”
“…”
Space and time alike seemed to fall silent.
She had said something inappropriate again.
But she had her own way of enduring things. Though humiliated and tormented, she remained proud and stubbornly refused to look at him. Because of that, she failed to see Shang Shao lift a hand and, with an unreadable expression, tug irritably at his tie knot.
“I truly underestimated you.” His tone revealed nothing.
Ying Yin still kept her face turned aside. “At any rate, I’m not the kind of person you think I am.”
But the sentence itself was ambiguous. Did she mean she was not as pure and untouchable as he imagined, or not as promiscuous as he assumed?
“And what kind of person do you think I am?” Shang Shao narrowed his eyes and shot back. “A man who showers attentions on every pretty woman he sees, doing all of it just to make her willingly climb into my bed?”
Ying Yin answered with silence.
“Speak.”
“You could be.”
“Giving you an umbrella, arranging a room, calling the police to help you – they were all no more than small acts of convenience. I’m honored that you took them to heart. But if you think those actions were me hinting at something…” He paused. “I don’t know whether you’re underestimating me, or belittling yourself.”
Ying Yin lifted her eyes at last, finally daring to meet his gaze again. “Maybe those things were just effortless gestures to you, but to me, they were very important.”
“Which one?”
Ying Yin answered slowly, word by word. “Every single one.”
Shang Shao froze briefly. When he spoke again, his tone had inexplicably softened.
“Miss Ying, there are countless people in this world who adore you. You shouldn’t remember a single umbrella.”
For a fleeting instant, Ying Yin found the situation almost absurdly laughable.
“You’re right,” she said – and she really did smile, bright and graceful.
But that brightness and grace were the same smile she wore in social circles, the one she used while maneuvering among guests and powerful men alike.
To Shang Shao, it looked glaringly harsh, enough to irritate him.
“If you think my small gestures toward you were such important things,” he said, his cool gaze like mountain mist narrowing slightly, as though the sky itself had darkened, “then what about now? You’re the one pressing yourself against me, trying to seduce me. Do you want yourself to succeed, or to fail?”
If she succeeded, then all those “important things” would cease to matter, because he would be nothing more than another Song Shizhang.
If she failed, then he would remain upright and honorable, while in his eyes she would merely become a frivolous, shallow woman – and whatever connection those moments had created between them would come to an end as well.
The coin she had tossed high into the air came crashing down with a sharp snap against the strings of Ying Yin’s heart.
Her lips curved ever so faintly.
In truth, no matter how things turned out, she was destined to lose.
He was an impossible person, an impossible man, distant as the moon in the sky. Whether he was kind or cruel, flirtatious or honorable – none of it truly had anything to do with her.
“Ying Yin,” Shang Shao said, calling her by name for the first time, “I’ve never seen anyone who, even knowing there’s no outcome but defeat on either side, would still choose to act.”
The heat inside her burned all the way to her face, to her eyes. Ying Yin’s eyes suddenly stung with tears. Humiliation at being seen through mixed with anger and embarrassment. Straightening her back, she picked up her handbag.
“You are absolutely right. I’m frivolous and foolish. I can’t read the situation, and even knowing I’ll be utterly defeated, I still insist on struggling pointlessly. Goodbye.”
“Stop–”
Her high heels halted after only two steps. Ying Yin’s body was taut and rigid. With her back to Shang Shao, she took a deep breath before asking coldly, “Is there anything else you need?”
“You still haven’t explained clearly,” Shang Shao said unhurriedly, “what exactly is your relationship with Mr. Song?”
