Shoutout to Alinaza for the commission!
Lantern Festival was a major holiday in Tongcheng.
The willow trees on both sides of the Fuchun River had already hung up colorful lanterns early on, and the branches sprouting tender leaves were wrapped with light tubes studded with tiny bulbs.
Once night fell, the branches were filled with golden light, quite like a scene of “fire trees and silver flowers.”
“Every year on Lantern Festival night, the Fuchun River holds a lantern show. One wooden boat after another is hung full of lanterns, meandering along the river. The lights sinking under the water and the lights on shore reflect each other, it’s beautiful and bustling. Tonight Mom will take you to see it, let your dad watch the shop.”
This year’s Lantern Festival, among the three siblings, only Jiang Se was here.
Jiang Tang’s dance troupe had a Lantern Festival performance, she was the lead and naturally couldn’t come back. Jiang Ye had only a few days left before his competition, and his coach was tugging his ear every day reminding him not to lose focus.
Thinking of the more than twenty thousand steps on New Year’s Eve, Jiang Se slowly swallowed the last mouthful of eight-treasure porridge and said: “I’ll just join the fun for half an hour.”
Yu Shiying agreed, “Didn’t you say you have a friend coming to the bar tonight? About what time will he come? Should we ask him to come along to watch the lantern show?”
“No need, he has a banquet tonight, he’ll only be free after nine. We’ll go see it once it’s dark, then I’ll wait for him at the bar.”
“Does he know the way? Our bar is in the most inconspicuous spot on Fuchun Street; if you’re not paying attention you’ll walk right past it. You should send him a location pin.”
“He’s been to ‘Wangchuan,’” Jiang Se looked at Yu Shiying and said with a smile, “My first day arriving in Tongcheng, he and his cousin came here.”
Yu Shiying froze slightly.
She certainly remembered the night Jiang Se returned to Tongcheng; she just didn’t know which one it was.
“The tall one or—” Realizing both were tall, with only two or three centimeters of difference, Yu Shiying switched the question, “the one who doesn’t like to smile, or the one who likes to smile?”
Doesn’t like to smile or likes to smile?
That was indeed an accurate way to ask.
It was just that the one who didn’t like to smile had, in her presence, turned into someone who liked to smile quite a bit… always lifting the corners of his lips a little, looking at her with a half-smile.
“The one who doesn’t like to smile,” Jiang Se said, “You still remember him?”
Yu Shiying was stunned again upon hearing this.
Earlier Little Ye said this person didn’t get along with Sese, and from the indifferent tone Sese used when mentioning him, she also thought they weren’t in contact anymore.
“I remember. The photo you took with him before, I still have it saved on my phone.”
Jiang Se slightly raised her brows: “A photo?”
Yu Shiying took out her phone and showed her the photo taken back at the Cen family’s place. “At the time I asked the housekeeper if I could take a few of your childhood photos; the housekeeper said yes.”
Of course there was more than just that one photo on her phone, but in this particular photo, Sese’s smile was clearly different from the others.
Jiang Se quietly looked at that old photo framed in a walnut-wood picture frame.
In the photo, one of the men was smiling gently and warmly; the other had lowered brows and eyes, appearing especially noble and aloof.
Truly someone who didn’t smile much.
Yu Shiying then asked if only he was coming tonight.
Jiang Se nodded, thought for two seconds, then said: “His name is Lu Huaiyan, he’s the CEO of the Lu Corporation in Beicheng. The major investor of the Tongcheng film city project and the old-district redevelopment project is the Lu Corporation.”
Seeing her introduce Lu Huaiyan so seriously, completely different from how she introduced Fu Yun last time, Yu Shiying’s heart stirred slightly. She smiled and asked, “What kind of drinks does he like?”
Jiang Se said, “You don’t need to worry about him, just let him pick for himself when he gets here.”
Jiang Se ate dinner directly at “Wangchuan,” dishes delivered by the private-kitchen owner from across the street, all local Tongcheng dishes. Yu Shiying gave her back two bottles of alcohol.
After they finished eating, the mother and daughter strolled slowly along the Fuchun River for half an hour. After nightfall, Fuchun Street was packed full of small vendors. Jiang Se guessed a few lantern riddles and brought three lanterns back to the bar.
Fuchun Street tonight was lively to the point of boiling over, and “Wangchuan” was packed with not a single seat left.
Jiang Se disliked the noise and hid in the back courtyard, taking the chance to snap a picture of the back-yard door for Lu Huaiyan. She told him: 【Come in through the back door; too many people in the front.】
He probably had his phone in hand at that moment; right after she sent the message, he replied: 【Switch the camera to front and take another one.】
He was telling her to send him a selfie.
Jiang Se really did switch the camera and took a photo.
Although the back courtyard lights were on, the lighting was dim, cold, and pale, and the effect looked like she was shooting a ghost.
Jiang Se sent the photo and asked him: 【Do I look like a ghost?】
The girl in the photo had already tried to find the best-lit spot. Her palm-sized face was slightly tilted up, her cheeks glowing a pearl-white, her gaze cold and still, pupils dark, lips bright red.
Lu Huaiyan furrowed his brows, looked at the photo for several seconds before exiting, and replied: 【More like a demon.】
Jiang Se finished reading his message and was about to type when suddenly a creaking sound came from behind her.
She lifted her eyes, and there stood the man who told her she looked like a demon, tall and elegant by the wooden door, an overcoat draped over his arm, white shirt, black pants, temperament cold.
He took a long stride, walking toward her against the light. His deep, sculpted features sank gradually into the glow, and the thick night slowly settled behind him.
Lu Huaiyan picked up the orange lantern sitting by her feet and said with a smile: “Do I look like a scholar captured by a female demon?”
Jiang Se said leisurely: “I have no time tonight to suck your life essence.”
Lu Huaiyan’s hand holding the lantern paused: “Your period came?”
“Mm.”
These days he’d been back in Tongcheng, and the two of them had only gone at it freely that first night.
The next few days he left early and returned late, so busy he couldn’t split himself in two, naturally having no time. Tomorrow he would be heading to Hong Kong City, and both of them were somewhat tacitly aware of what might or might not happen tonight.
Lu Huaiyan didn’t show any regret on his face, and said with a half-smile: “So your period is my love rival? It picks the day before I leave every single time.”
“……”
Jiang Se couldn’t be bothered to explain to him how regular her period was. “What do you want to drink? I’ll go in and get it for you. There are too many people inside, we’ll drink here in the back courtyard.”
Lu Huaiyan glanced at her: “Not taking me inside to greet your parents?”
Jiang Se met his gaze and said solemnly: “My mom doesn’t like people who don’t smile.”
Lu Huaiyan actually let out a helpless laugh: “Tell me, since the moment I met you, when have I not been smiling?”
With the hand holding his coat, he pinched her chin and called her “Miss Heartless.”
Jiang Se didn’t joke with him anymore. She twisted the door handle and said to him: “My parents are at the bar counter right now. Tell them what you want to drink.”
As soon as the door opened, the noise surged through the crack along with the sound of pipa strings like pearls falling on a jade plate. The closer they walked to the bar counter, the stronger the wave of sound became.
Jiang Se hadn’t exaggerated, there were truly a lot of people at “Wangchuan” tonight.
The bar counter wasn’t a place to talk, so Jiang Chuan simply handed the shaker in his hand to the bartender and, together with Yu Shiying, brought them back to the courtyard.
Because of the few words they had heard from Jiang Ye and Jiang Se earlier, Jiang Chuan and Yu Shiying’s impression of Lu Huaiyan wasn’t good.
At first they were a bit stiff, but Lu Huaiyan was certainly not someone ordinary in either mind or method.
Tonight he had deliberately changed into a white shirt and put on a pair of scholarly gold-rimmed glasses. Relying on his handsome, refined appearance and his gentle, polite manner of speech, he successfully coaxed his future in-laws into completely changing their first impression of him.
Once Jiang Chuan and Yu Shiying left the courtyard, Jiang Se sat down on the swing and looked at Lu Huaiyan: “My parents seem to like you quite a bit.”
Lu Huaiyan held his drink, leaned back against the thin wall, lowered his eyes with a soft laugh, and said pointedly: “Uncle and Auntie guessed your feelings.”
Knowing their daughter felt differently about this man, they naturally viewed him with more favor.
Lu Huaiyan had grasped this bit of parental psychology and successfully reversed the not-so-good impression he previously left.
Jiang Se didn’t say anything.
The scene of the two standing here made it hard not to recall the night they met in Tongcheng.
That night Lu Huaiyan had drunk a cup of sour and bitter plum alcohol concentrate, and she had even pinched out the cigarette in his hand.
The man now learned from her and started bringing up the past: “Was that drink you ordered for me last year on purpose?”
Jiang Se openly gave a soft “mm”: “Who told you to look at me with that bad expression?”
“What was so bad about my expression?”
“Impatient, no patience at all, yet still forcing yourself to appear in front of me.” Jiang Se said flatly, “Just looking at it annoyed me.”
Lu Huaiyan stared at her for a long moment, then downed all the plum alcohol in his glass in one sip, set the glass down, walked over, grabbed the swing’s rope, lowered his lashes, and said: “I’m the one bringing up old scores, how did it become you bringing up old scores? Want to bite me a few times to vent?”
Saying that, he bent down to kiss her.
Jiang Se tapped her toes and sent the swing arcing backward, smiling: “There’s surveillance in the courtyard. There wasn’t before, only after you came here last year did it appear.”
“……”
When she smiled, not only her lips curved, but her brows and eyes curved as well.
This only happened when she was truly happy.
Lu Huaiyan looked at her. After a moment, he smiled and said: “Then I’ll kiss you when we’re home.”
He grabbed both her small fists that were holding the swing ropes and continued: “You’re not wrong. Back then my expression was bad. How dare I fail to recognize the greatness of Miss Jiang Se.”
Jiang Se: “……”
After saying that, he tugged the swing toward himself, his gaze meeting hers directly: “Today is the 142nd day since Lu Huaiyan met Miss Jiang Se.”
–
That night, as soon as they returned to the apartment, Jiang Se was pinned against the wall and kissed by Lu Huaiyan.
It was Lantern Festival, the elderly couple next door were heading out to join the festivities, so naturally they went to bed later than usual.
While the two were kissing in the entryway, reluctant to part, they could still hear the neighbors watching short videos and complaining about the decline of moral standards.
Jiang Se couldn’t help pushing him away, breathing lightly: “Why must you bring this on yourself?”
He was already pressing uncomfortably against her.
Kindling a fire with his kissing yet unable to do anything further, forced to hold back, if that wasn’t asking for suffering, what was?
Lu Huaiyan said: “Don’t you love watching me suffer and swallow bitterness? Just right, I’m paying for that plum alcohol.”
Seeing him mention that cup of plum alcohol again, Jiang Se rolled her eyes at him. She was just about to speak when her lips were blocked again.
When she woke up the next day, her lips were still swollen.
Not badly, just very red.
She had arranged with Zhang Yue to go to Hanshan Temple to watch the sunrise today. As soon as the alarm rang she tried to get out of bed, but her feet hadn’t even touched the floor before Lu Huaiyan dragged her back.
“Stay with me a little longer.”
When he slept recently, he always liked to hold her tightly. Jiang Se pushed away the arm resting across her ribs. “I already made plans with Boss Zhang to watch the sunrise.”
“No time to take me to the airport, yet you have time to watch the sunrise with someone else.”
“……”
Jiang Se felt like he was about to throw out another “scumbag” line, so she turned her head and shot him a look.
But the man on the bed didn’t bring up “scumbag” again. He loosened his hold very cooperatively, his clear eyes gazing at her, and said: “Be careful on the road. When you see the sunrise, remember to take a picture for me.”
His voice still carried a little hoarseness, his whole demeanor lazy and languid, the blanket draped across his waist, revealing smooth, bare lines of his chest.
They slept under one blanket. Jiang Se found it just right, but he felt hot. Feeling hot yet insisting on hugging her to sleep, the only solution was to sleep shirtless.
Every night she slept wrapped in his warmth.
Jiang Se withdrew her gaze and softly said, “Mm.”
On her way downstairs, she happened to receive a call from Guo Qian.
The time difference on her end was thirteen hours behind Tongcheng. At this moment, Miss Guo was attending a Lantern Festival party hosted by her Chinese classmates.
As soon as the call connected, Guo Qian mysteriously said, “Guess who I ran into at the gathering?”
“Who?”
“Fu Jun’s former darling,” Guo Qian said, “that girl from the Conservatory who sang opera. After Fu Jun died, didn’t she disappear? Turns out she came to the U.S. for further studies. She looks like… she still hasn’t walked out of the shadow of Fu Jun’s death.”
Jiang Se remembered that girl.
Before the Cen and Fu families arranged their marriage, Fu Jun had always had a first love.
The two fell in love in high school, and this was never a secret in Beicheng. Even Jiang Se, who was several grades apart from them, knew about their story.
To say Fu Jun loved that girl, he couldn’t bear to defy Old Master Fu for her, and he never refused the engagement with the Cen family. To say he didn’t love her, he never had anyone else around him, it was always that girl, protected like his very eyeball.
Cen Li always said Fu Jun was a hypocrite, partly because of this.
Jiang Se and Fu Jun had once agreed that after she graduated from university, they would go ahead with the engagement as usual, but the wedding would be postponed indefinitely.
Fu Jun had looked her over with great interest for a long moment, then smiled and said, “Looks like you also don’t want to marry me. If you’re willing to wait until Grandfather steps back and I take over the Fu Corporation, we’ll dissolve the engagement.”
Neither of them had the slightest interest in one another; when they met, it was just for show, acting out a performance.
Until their last meeting, when Fu Jun, for some unknown reason, suddenly tried to kiss her out of nowhere.
Jiang Se hurriedly dodged, and even splashed a glass of alcohol at him on the spot to wake his mind.
The man didn’t seem angry at all; he wiped himself with a napkin as he smiled and said, “I’m starting to think marrying you wouldn’t be bad.”
In the quiet hallway, Guo Qian was still talking: “It’s normal she can’t move on. After all, back then, Fu Jun pampered her like he was about to lift her to the sky. Being loved by a young master like that, who could ever forget?”
Jiang Se reached into her bag to find her Bluetooth earphones, but her thoughts drifted.
Love?
She had also thought so at first, which was why she didn’t want to become the wicked queen in Cinderella’s story, planning to drag things out a few years and then break off the engagement.
But that inexplicable kiss from Fu Jun was also a fact.
What kind of man who already has someone in his heart would take the initiative to kiss another girl?
Fu Jun had been acting strange that whole day, and the way he looked at her…
Jiang Se walked slowly down the stairs; her hand had already touched the Bluetooth earphones, and she was just about to put them on when a scene flashed quickly through her mind.
That day, the place she and Fu Jun met was the revolving restaurant in Beicheng.
When the waiter led her to the private room, Fu Jun was already waiting inside.
He was on the phone. The moment the padded door was pushed open, the man’s gentle, smiling voice drifted lightly over: “A toad from Bo County dares to covet swan meat?”
That line was buried under the restaurant’s music; Jiang Se didn’t hear it clearly and didn’t take it to heart, assuming Fu Jun was scolding someone who dared to covet his sweetheart.
A toad from Bo County…
No wonder she always felt the words “Bo County” were very familiar.
Turns out she had heard it from Fu Jun.
Her footsteps suddenly stopped in the dim, narrow corridor; Jiang Se raised her eyes, her gaze gradually turning sharp.
Another coincidence?
Fu Jun also knew someone from Bo County, and he, too, died in an “accident.”
