Shoutout to Alinaza for the commission!
After hanging up the phone, Jiang Se met Lu Huaiyan’s gaze and stepped up the wooden steps under the corridor in two or three steps.
The man was still leaning lazily against the window, the lenses on his nose reflecting her face.
He was only wearing a black V-neck wool sweater on his upper body, the thin clothing blown by the wind so tightly against him that it outlined the smooth lines of his abdominal muscles.
Seeing him like this, she knew he came to Hanshan Temple for private matters.
He never believed in ghosts or gods, and rarely went to places like Taoist temples or Buddhist temples.
Him appearing here now was most likely because he came accompanying someone.
Jiang Se wasn’t curious who he was accompanying, nor did she plan to exchange pleasantries with him. She only gave him a slight nod and headed for the main hall behind him.
Just as she was about to brush past him, he suddenly spoke: “Don’t want the video anymore?”
Jiang Se’s steps paused slightly.
She’d been busy with Jiang Tang these past two days and had forgotten about that, to the point she hadn’t even emailed him yet.
“I want it.” She pulled out her phone, typed his email address into a message, and sent it with one tap. “Sent you an email. Please send it when you have time, Chairman Lu. Thanks.”
The phone buzzed once inside the coat.
Lu Huaiyan didn’t look at his phone. He gave a flat “mm”: “Here to ask for a love-luck lot or a peace charm?”
Besides its famous peace charms, Hanshan Temple’s love-luck lots were also very effective.
Jiang Se had heard Yu Shiying mention it.
She turned her face slightly to look at him: “And you, Chairman Lu? Love-luck lot or peace charm?”
Lu Huaiyan exerted a bit of force, straightening his body, his hand simultaneously reaching into his coat pocket.
Before Jiang Se could see what he took out, she saw something the size of a copper coin tossed toward her.
His aim was precise; she only had to lift her hand slightly to catch the jade charm, cold as water.
“The abbot here personally blessed it,” Lu Huaiyan lifted his chin slightly, nodding at the jade charm in her hand. “No need for you to waste time asking for one out front.”
“……”
His attitude made it obvious he didn’t take the peace charms here seriously at all, and he’d already guessed that she came here specifically for this thing he didn’t take seriously.
Jiang Se gave a small laugh.
“Chairman Lu, do you not know that the peace charms from Hanshan Temple only work if you personally ask for them yourself?”
If that weren’t the case, Yu Shiying and Jiang Chuan would’ve begged a dozen for her and taken them home already.
People from Tongcheng seemed to believe especially strongly in the peace charms here, even Jiang Ye had been dragged here by Jiang Chuan to pray for one.
These peace charms had to be requested by the person themselves; ones gotten by others didn’t count.
Lu Huaiyan really didn’t know, this thing had been stuffed into his hand by Han Yin.
Of course, even if he knew, he wouldn’t care.
He arched a brow: “You believe in that?”
Jiang Se didn’t answer him. She was just about to toss the peace charm back when a voice suddenly called out.
“Ah Yan.”
Hearing that familiar voice, Jiang Se froze for a moment and subconsciously looked at Lu Huaiyan.
His eyes stayed on her, but his cool, thin lips unhurriedly replied, “Mother, I’m here.”
Han Yin walked over wearing a loose lay-practitioner’s robe. As she passed Lu Huaiyan, her peripheral vision caught Jiang Se standing at his side. Her steps paused, and her brows lifted slightly as she hesitantly called, “Sese?”
Jiang Se tightened her grip on the peace charm in her hand. All the sharp edges she had while facing Lu Huaiyan folded away instantly.
She obediently lifted the corners of her lips: “Auntie Han, long time no see.”
Han Yin was Lu Huaiyan’s mother, and also one of her favorite elders when she was little.
Come to think of it, ever since Han Yin divorced Lu Jinzhong and moved to the mountains for recovery, they hadn’t seen each other again.
That year, Jiang Se had only been ten.
She never expected that after so many years, they would meet again at Hanshan Temple.
The woman before her had a bare, unmade face, her half-white hair pulled into a simple bun, loosely pinned with a wooden hairpin.
Nothing like the elegant, noble Mrs. Lu in Jiang Se’s memory.
“I’d heard you’d come to Tongcheng long ago. I had wanted to ask Ah Yan to invite you over for a couple of days. Didn’t expect to see you today instead.” Han Yin’s voice was as warm as before. “Do you want to come sit in Auntie’s room for a while?”
Saying that, she looked at Lu Huaiyan with a helpless smile: “Ah Yan, you come too. You may not want to listen to the abbot, but you’re at least willing to listen to your mother for a bit, right?”
Lu Huaiyan responded with an “mm”: “I’ll stay up in the mountains with you tonight.”
Jiang Se’s slightly jumbled thoughts gradually sorted themselves out.
So Han Yin was currently meditating at Hanshan Temple, and Lu Huaiyan had come to see her. Just earlier, he had only come to the back hall where there were fewer people because he didn’t want to listen to the abbot’s talk.
Seeing Han Yin again after all these years certainly made Jiang Se happy.
But she hadn’t planned to intrude on their mother-son reunion.
“Auntie Han, I still have things to do today, so I won’t catch up with you now.” Jiang Se smiled gracefully. “If it’s convenient for you in a couple of days, I’ll come visit.”
Han Yin wasn’t someone who forced others. She looked at the darkening sky, nodded, and said with a smile, “All right. It’s about to rain anyway. There’s no rush to catch up right this moment. Ah Yan, take Sese down the mountain first.”
The last sentence was directed at Lu Huaiyan.
Jiang Se was about to say “no need,” but Lu Huaiyan had already agreed first.
“Got it. You go ahead, I’ll come find you in a bit.”
Han Yin’s health wasn’t good, and this little trip out had already tired her. After exchanging phone numbers and WeChat with Jiang Se, she slowly made her way up the mountain.
When her figure was far enough away, Lu Huaiyan turned to Jiang Se: “Still going to the main hall to ask for a peace charm?”
His words reminded Jiang Se that she was still holding his peace charm.
“No. I know how to get down the mountain. You don’t need to send me. Also—” Jiang Se held out the jade charm. “Your thing.”
Her tone when she spoke wasn’t much different from just now.
But Lu Huaiyan could feel those barbs she hid in her bones sticking out again.
This kind of sharpness seemed directed only at him.
Seeing he still didn’t take back that peace charm, Jiang Se was just about to lift her eyes to look at him.
And just then, Lu Huaiyan suddenly called out: “Jiang Se.”
He lowered his eyes to look at her: “You seem very resistant to me?”
The question was abrupt, and utterly baffling.
Not like something he would say.
Since when did young Chairman Lu of the Lu Group care about what others thought of him.
Silence for a brief moment.
A clap of thunder rolled through the clouds.
It was going to rain.
A flicker of annoyance rose in Jiang Se’s heart.
“Am I? Does it matter?”
She smiled and countered, the dimples at her lips the same measured smile Lu Huaiyan was familiar with.
Lu Huaiyan stared at her for a moment, then suddenly reached out, lightly clasped Jiang Se’s wrist, and pulled her into the space right next to him.
The distance between them closed rapidly.
That faint, warm agarwood scent that had appeared in her dreams flooded from all directions and slipped into her breath.
Jiang Se lifted her eyes in a daze, the smile fading from her lips, the annoyance and shock in her eyes laid bare.
Lu Huaiyan looked into her eyes, a low laugh seeping from his throat.
“Feel it? Your whole body is resisting me.”
A thread of coolness brushed Jiang Se’s neck with the wind, raindrops cracking against the ground, thunder rumbling.
It was raining.
And it was the thunderstorm she’d always hated.
Her lip line slowly straightened.
The negative emotions that had been building up since the qipao shop suddenly swelled to the extreme.
Jiang Se looked at the ink-dark eyes behind Lu Huaiyan’s lenses, and in a flash, she violently yanked the glasses off the bridge of his nose.
The metal frame scraped across the right side of Lu Huaiyan’s cheek, leaving a long thin red mark.
Her nearly rough movement didn’t cause even a ripple in his expression; he didn’t even blink.
Without the lenses as a barrier, his gaze was like the edge of a blade, filled with aggression.
He had always been like this.
Beneath the noble, cold exterior was an aggressive chill full of force.
“You know I’m resisting you, and still you cross the line.” Jiang Se let out a laugh, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “Since when did Chairman Lu become this bored?”
That night in the bar, he clearly found her boring to the extreme.
So what was this now?
Teasing a cat? Or teasing a dog?
Or perhaps, thinking she was boring and fake at the same time, he just had to rip off this mask on her face?
Jiang Se stepped back half a step.
Lu Huaiyan let go of her wrist accordingly, though he released her, the gaze he leveled on the girl was sharp and chilling.
Jiang Se wasn’t unfamiliar with that kind of look.
That silent, probing feeling again.
Hunter and prey.
Her face went cold as she met his eyes: “Lu Huaiyan, what are you scrutinizing?”
Her calling him Lu Huaiyan was much more pleasant to the ear than calling him Chairman Lu.
Lu Huaiyan slowly tucked his hands into his pockets. He didn’t bother with the glasses Jiang Se had pulled off, nor with the coat he had dropped on the ground when grabbing her wrist.
“Not scrutinizing. You can take it as——” He looked at Jiang Se, the corner of his lips lifting lightly, “Jiang Se, you can take it as me getting to know you again.”
Getting.
To know you.
Again.
This answer was not within Jiang Se’s expectations.
In a flash of bewilderment, she looked at him and very lightly, very slowly knit her brows.
Without the glasses in the way, the man’s clean, cold, sharp features were outlined clearly in the flashes of lightning.
The red mark on his cheek highlighted a cold, austere, almost frosted whiteness.
His gaze was completely unhidden, as if a blade grazed over every bit of her exposed skin before settling in her dark eyes.
Jiang Se couldn’t see through his gaze at this moment.
The heavy, wet air tangled with the faint agarwood scent.
That scent was warm and rich, the kind he had used since childhood, completely at odds with his cold, frosted temperament, yet somehow coexisting in contradiction.
The heavy rain covered the entire world, and the long corridor was cut off by the rain into an isolated corner of its own.
Until hurried footsteps barged in.
“Mr. Lu, Laywoman Han asked this little monk to bring you a parasol.” The little monk angled his arm down, shook the rain off the umbrella, and offered the other umbrella in his hand to Lu Huaiyan. “She said the rain is heavy, don’t let Miss Jiang get drenched.”
Lu Huaiyan accepted it and thanked him.
Even with the red scratch across his face, his voice and manner remained perfectly proper.
The little monk glanced at him, then at Jiang Se, and made a one-handed bow, his young face both innocent and worldly.
“Then this little monk will go back for evening lessons. You two walk slowly.”
After the little monk left, Lu Huaiyan opened the large black umbrella, bent down to pick up the coat at his feet, and retrieved the glasses blown down the steps.
The glasses’ frame was bent outward, tragic like a noble sacrifice.
Lu Huaiyan’s lips lifted slightly. He tossed the glasses into the trash, walked up the steps, and came to Jiang Se’s side.
The black umbrella spread over both their heads as he said: “I’ll take you down the mountain.”
Catching Jiang Se’s glance, he hooked his lips and said, very gentlemanly: “Or do you want me to carry you down? After all, it’s not like you’ve never been carried by me before.”
“……”
