Shoutout to Alinaza for the commission!
A small episode that didn’t cause any real accident didn’t affect the two’s mood.
At the end of Liyuan Street, Jiang Se held the milk tea in her hands, took out the key, and opened the door.
Because of the holiday, tonight “Wangchuan” wouldn’t close until dawn; right now the courtyard didn’t have a single person.
Jiang Se went in to turn on the lights, Lu Huaiyan moved his gaze away from her back, slowly looking around.
“Do you usually live here?”
“No, this is my parents’ place, I rented an apartment myself.”
“Where’s the apartment?”
Jiang Se walked deeper into the house, casually said: “Just nearby, want something to drink?”
“No need to specially make me something.” Lu Huaiyan didn’t follow inside, both hands in his coat pockets, standing in the center of the courtyard, looking toward a tree by the wall, saying, “That candied osmanthus you brought up the mountain that day, it’s from this tree?”
Osmanthus trees fear cold; Jiang Chuan had wrapped the trunk with straw matting, tied with strips of red ribbon, the leftover ends of the ribbon fluttering in the wind.
At the side, the persimmon tree still bore fruit, the orange-red persimmons hanging beside lanterns; under the dim yellow light, the snow-laden persimmons seemed to glow.
Jiang Se gave a faint “mm,” also walked to the middle of the courtyard, and stood with him looking at the glowing persimmons in the winter night.
“These persimmons are the ones I asked Dad to leave. The window of my room faces this persimmon tree. I like that when I push open the window I can see these persimmons.”
Following the persimmon tree, Lu Huaiyan found the room and the window Jiang Se spoke of; the pine-wood window was tightly shut at the moment.
“I thought you don’t live here normally.”
“I don’t.”Jiang Se said lightly, “But since that’s my room, even if I don’t live here, it’s still my things, I can do as I please.”
Lu Huaiyan’s eyelids lowered a little, he turned his head and slanted her a glance.
“Mother once considered staying in Tongcheng two more years.”
Without any lead-up, he suddenly brought up Han Yin, his gaze falling on her face not heavy nor light, like chatting casually.
Jiang Se calmly met his eyes, smiled and said: “And then?”
“Asked her the reason, she said she wanted to accompany me more. But very soon, she changed her mind again, decided to leave Tongcheng as originally planned when spring begins next year. Guess why she changed her mind?”
Jiang Se lowered her eyes, sipped her milk tea, slowly swallowed, and said blandly: “Because I told Auntie Han that you brought me souvenirs from Europe and even invited me to your place to see the gift.”
Lu Huaiyan let out a soft laugh.
After learning this from Jiang Se, Han Yin called him that very day, asking if that ‘red luan star’ was Sese.
“Don’t think you can fool Mom, when have you ever taken the initiative with a girl.” Han Yin’s always-calm tone had rare desperation, “Sese said she really liked the souvenir you brought back, that was something you specially picked for her, right?”
Lu Huaiyan had never intended to hide his thoughts about Jiang Se; he laughed immediately and countered: “Didn’t I say, I’d tell you once the eight characters have a stroke? If you’re too rushed, be careful, you’ll scare her away.”
Those words were no different from admitting it.
“Got it, Mom promises not to drag you back.” Han Yin was truly happy, sighing emotionally, “When you were young you were impatient with everyone, same with Sese, not a shred of patience, even making you dry a few pieces of clothing had you unhappy. And, before, your grandfather hinted so many times that Sese was a suitable match, you never listened. Who knew, round and round, it’s still her.”
Of things related to Jiang Se when they were young, Lu Huaiyan didn’t remember much, only the incident of falling into the water left some impression. Moving a little forward in age, he remembered more.
He remembered there was a period when Jiang Se always liked following Cen Li to the Lu house; every time she saw him she would properly call out “Older Brother Huaiyan.”
Back then she was sixteen or seventeen, acting very obedient; clearly she didn’t like Peking opera, yet always accompanied his grandfather to the theater, her research in Peking opera could be considered high-level, coaxing the old man into always wanting to set her as his granddaughter-in-law, to the point that during that period Lu Huaiyan barely returned to the old house.
Later was her coming-of-age ceremony. That day, when she walked down the stairs wearing the Fu family’s antique bracelet, the engagement with Fu Jun became something tacitly understood in their circle.
Probably to avoid suspicion, she no longer went to the Lu house. In the following years they each had their own busyness, aside from occasionally bumping into each other at banquets, they almost had no contact.
Instead, after arriving in Tongcheng, they saw each other more than in the previous few years.
Some meetings were coincidences, some were him deliberately contriving to see her.
He was perfectly clear inside; if he weren’t the one taking initiative, this girl would never come close to him.
“Why did you change your mind?” Lu Huaiyan looked at her without missing a beat, “Didn’t you want Mother to stay longer so the old district redevelopment could be delayed further? Couldn’t bear to use Mother, or did you suddenly realize, someone else is more suitable to use than Mother?”
When he spoke, the corners of his lips always carried a bit of a smile, his tone light, no joy or anger could be heard.
Jiang Se’s dark eyes quietly looked at Lu Huaiyan.
Night wind shook down the snow gathered on the branches, and the red ribbon behind him rose and fell, adding a bit of blood color to her clear eyes.
Ever since he asked about the qipao shop on the phone, she knew some things couldn’t be hidden.
Of course, she hadn’t planned to hide them.
A man that smart, any tiny clue, he could grasp; better to lay it right under his eyelids openly.
Jiang Se didn’t rush to answer his question, only asked him: “Lu Huaiyan, that day at Hanshan Temple, you said you were getting to know me again, then now, do you know me?”
When she looked at him, her palm-sized face tilted slightly up, lips moistened by warm tea were a bright red, and when they curved a little, they formed a very beautiful arc.
“If I didn’t know you, how would I let you into my room in the middle of the night? And how would I, right after getting off the plane, come here to find you without resting?” His Adam’s apple sank slowly. Lu Huaiyan said in a low voice, “I know better than anyone, right now you are Jiang Se, not Cen Se.”
“Then after knowing me?”Jiang Se walked forward two steps, and when only an arm’s distance remained between them, she lifted her head relentlessly and asked him, “What are you going to do?”
Lu Huaiyan lowered his eyes and laughed softly, then quickly lifted them again, “You don’t know what I’m going to do? Or is it that what I’ve done isn’t obvious enough?”
The wind seemed to grow a bit stronger, snowflakes rustling down.
After Jiang Se entered the house she untied her scarf, and a clump of cold snow foam touched her neck, making her whole person shiver without warning.
She seemed especially afraid of the cold.
The tip of her nose and her lips were frozen into a very vivid red.
Jiang Se lightly lifted her hand and patted away the snow on her neck.
The snow lump slowly fell, and the rustling sound of it hitting the ground was suddenly replaced by another kind of rustling sound; a wave of warm wind carrying the smell of agarwood suddenly wrapping around her.
Lu Huaiyan draped the coat on his body over her shoulders, his hand reaching into the collar, slowly pulling her black long hair out from inside the collar. The man’s hand didn’t touch the skin of the back of her neck, but Jiang Se seemed to be able to feel the heat in his palm.
Her brows paused lightly, and then she heard him say: “Your hair is a bit longer than last time.”
One sentence made Jiang Se recall in the Junyue parking lot, the scene of a few strands of her hair clinging to his shoulder from static.
She raised her eyes.
Lu Huaiyan was also looking at her; after his long, bony hand finished adjusting her hair, he caught the two sides of her collar, and with a gentle tug, pulled her toward him.
He lowered his head, the tip of his nose brushing past the tip of her nose, his gaze level with hers.
“Although I know you understand everything in your heart, I think I should still make it even more obvious.” The man’s pitch-black eyes were like a blade hiding its edge. “Did you hear my mother mention it? The old monk at Hanshan Temple said my red luan star would move this year. Jiang Se, you are that red luan star, I want you.”
When he said he wanted her, his voice had no waves, no ripples, his expression unmoved as the eight winds.
Only those deep, moist-black eyes leaked a bit of what was inside.
That same kind of unhurried, expressionless sense of invasion.
Jiang Se did not avoid his gaze. Her ink-black eyes stared straight back at him.
As if probing how much truth was inside and outside his words.
Lu Huaiyan was looked at by that probing gaze and laughed: “Let me tell you another secret. You asked me why the Lu Corporation wanted to join the Tongcheng project. Actually, the real reason is you. You resist me, and yet you seem to really like your relatives here in Tongcheng, and coincidentally the two Cao brothers are both eyeing your relatives. I have to create some value for myself, so I can establish a ‘connection’ with you that you won’t resist so much, right? So I had the Lu Corporation get involved.”
That night after seeing Cao Xun, after Jiang Se and Jiang Tang left, he went to the 27th floor and officially informed Cao Xun that the Lu Corporation wanted to join the Tongcheng project.
At that time Cao Xun’s palm had been sliced open by Jiang Tang, and the hand holding the door was still bleeding outward.
He narrowed his eyes at Lu Huaiyan: “Didn’t Chairman Lu say they weren’t interested in the project here? What made you change your mind?”
“My reason for changing my mind need not trouble Chairman Cao. Since Chairman Cao wasn’t satisfied with the contract from a few days ago, then we’ll draft a new one. Only this time there is an additional partner, our Lu Corporation. Besides,” Lu Huaiyan gave a light glance at Cao Xun’s still-bleeding hand, his tone still indifferent, “I suggest Chairman Cao properly discipline your younger brother. The way he looks at Jiang Se, I extremely dislike it.”
It was precisely because Lu Huaiyan had his eye on Cao Liang that Cao Xun decided to send him away.
This conversation with Cao Xun, Lu Huaiyan didn’t let Jiang Se know.
But indeed, because of her, he decided on the spot to make a move on the Tongcheng project.
He was always like this, when he set his eyes on something, he took action, never hesitating.
Jiang Se looked at his moist-black eyes through her lenses and smiled warmly: “Such a big project, just to establish a ‘connection’ I won’t resist? Aren’t you afraid of losing everything?”
“Don’t worry, I never do losing business,” Lu Huaiyan released his hands, straightened up, lightly brushed away the snow fallen on her shoulder, and curved his lips, “and this investment has brought me a great surprise.”
As he spoke he stepped back, leaning against the stone table under the tree, one hand braced on the snow-covered tabletop, lowering his eyes to look at her.
Clearly a relaxed posture, yet it made Jiang Se’s mind tighten slightly.
She looked deeply at him: “What kind of surprise?”
Lu Huaiyan tilted his head a little, looking at her in an even more relaxed posture.
Without the coat, he only had a thin shirt on; the cold wind was fierce, snow falling in swirls, yet he seemed not to feel the cold. He couldn’t even be bothered to brush off the snow on his shoulders, letting it soak into a deep patch of wet on his shoulder.
“Although I don’t know your true purpose for coming to Tongcheng, it must be related to the qipao shop at No. 39 Jinxiu Alley.” The man’s gaze seemed able to penetrate the human heart. “Jiang Se, is that qipao shop now some kind of ‘connection’ that forces you and me to be entangled?”
This was the surprise in his eyes?
Jiang Se’s gaze didn’t move, still looking at him.
“Sort of. The qipao I want can only be made by the original owner of the qipao shop. Before the qipao is made, no one can touch that shop. Of course, the most important reason is that the shop was originally supposed to belong to me.” She lifted her eyelashes, withdrawing the smile from her lips, looking at the snow drifting midair, and said one word at a time, “And what is mine, no one can touch, including your Lu Corporation.”
Her voice leaned cold, not that soft and sweet tone. When she spoke with a smile, she gave a warm spring-breeze kind of kindness; when she didn’t smile, it became a kind of distance that kept people a thousand miles away.
From her words, Lu Huaiyan heard the distance, and also the coldness.
She had an unusually strong attachment to that qipao shop, yet also an extreme coldness toward it. As if it was something that belonged to her, yet something she extremely hated.
Lu Huaiyan quietly gazed at the snow falling on her black eyelashes, thinking of the eyes that overlapped with the lamplight when he had just brushed her eyelashes.
Eyes that seemed unable to let any light in.
He suddenly said: “Jiang Se, you can use me as much as you want.”
Jiang Se blinked, turning her eyes to look at Lu Huaiyan.
The man faintly hooked his lips: “You know clearly you can’t hide your little scheme toward my mother from me, yet you still wanted to test my bottom line. Now I’ll tell you what my bottom line is.”
He stepped toward her, lifted his hand, using the pad of his thumb to wipe away the snow stuck to her eyelashes, looked at her black-obsidian eyes, and slowly said: “You can’t bear to use my mother, and even if you really used her, you wouldn’t feel good about it. Better to use me to death. Jinxiu Alley, the qipao shop, or— in a few days, the Cen family’s New Year’s Eve banquet, as long as you want, I can destroy it.”
To use him, then she cannot avoid him, hide from him, resist him.
She had to get close to him.
The harsher the use, the closer she must be to him.
When he spoke, it was always that tone. An English elegance full of distance, a deep magnetic voice, unhurried pacing, the tone clearly not heavy, yet making it impossible to ignore what he said, as if every word coming out of his mouth carried weight, able to make one’s heart thump loudly.
The moment Lu Huaiyan’s words fell, Jiang Se heard the sound of fireworks.
She thought it was an illusion.
Tongcheng had banned fireworks for many years; only New Year’s Day, Spring Festival, those big holidays, allowed government-scheduled fireworks at fixed times and locations. A Western holiday like Christmas Eve, at most it would be like that group of kids earlier, secretly setting off some sky rockets.
Lifting her eyes to look, it really was fireworks.
In the night sky filled with fine snow, that dazzling firelight illuminated every snowflake. What fell from the sky no longer seemed like snow, but fleeting starlight.
This round of fireworks lasted a full ten minutes or so, and in the dim snowy haze, another glow soon lit up.
It was actually a brilliant shining apple, and in just a few breaths, that apple transformed into a rose.
Jiang Se thought of the candied apple Jiang Ye casually bought for her, and with a kind of tacit understanding, her lashes lifted a little and she looked at Lu Huaiyan.
He had not looked at the fireworks even once from beginning to end.
Not even the final drone show; he didn’t look, just kept his quiet gaze on her.
Because of this sudden fireworks and drone performance, lively noise drifted over from the Fuchun riverside.
Faintly there were people yelling hoarsely: “Which overbearing boyfriend is this lacking virtue, still letting us single dogs live or not?!”
They remained silent in such clamor, staring at each other.
Using eyes that also held a cold feeling to look at the other.
A few breaths later, Jiang Se spoke first: “Assistant Li worked hard.”
“……”
Lu Huaiyan let out a low laugh.
For the first time in his life he wanted to do something romantic for a girl, and she praised another man right to his face.
Not a hint of being moved or stirred, calm as a bystander.
Thinking of Li Rui’s firm certainty that any girl would like it, Lu Huaiyan thought he ought to be angry right now.
But the truth was, he only lowered his eyes and smiled faintly.
When he raised them again, all the smile was gone, and he said in an official manner: “But he didn’t do this well. Whether fireworks or the show, you didn’t like them, couldn’t even compare to someone else’s candied apple. I originally wanted to deduct his overtime pay. But since you think he worked hard, fine, you’ve saved his overtime pay.”
Hearing this, Jiang Se said: “That candied apple was something Little Ye bought casually for me, I didn’t like it much either.”
She turned and walked toward the nearest persimmon tree, stood beneath it looking at the reddest persimmon, and after a moment, turned back to look at him, “Lu Huaiyan, the Christmas Eve apple you gave me, I’ve accepted it. I’ll return you a frozen persimmon, will you eat it?”
She said she had accepted the Christmas Eve apple he gave.
Lu Huaiyan lifted his eyes to catch her gaze.
The girl was wearing his coat, standing beneath the tree looking sideways at him. Brows and eyes clear and bright, that glance she cast over, faint and soft, was like a frame sliding slowly across an old film.
His gaze fell into those eyes and paused for two seconds. Lu Huaiyan stood up and walked toward her, faintly smiling as he said: “Eat, why wouldn’t I eat? Because of your frozen persimmon, Assistant Li’s overtime pay tonight, double.”
