Lu Boyan reached the pa.s.senger’s side of his car and opened the door. Su Jianan got in obediently. After settling herself into the pa.s.senger seat, Su Jianan took out a black card and handed it to Lu Boyan the moment he was in the car. “Here.”
Lu Boyan frowned. “The card doesn’t work?”
“You gave me the wrong card,” Su Jianan said earnestly. “My salary for two years is 480, 000 in total. But you gave me a credit card. What, you want me to use up exactly 480, 000 worth of credits and then return the card to you? But that’s going to be a real pain. How am I supposed to keep track of the amount I spend every time I use it…”
The crease on Lu Boyan’s brow deepened. “You only want two years’ worth of salary?”
He seemed to recall that yesterday Su Jianan had mentioned something about taking her responsibilities seriously for the next two years.
Why only two years?
“That was what you said, wasn’t it? You said that we’ll be getting a divorce after two years,” Su Jianan said. “It’s not like I can drop by every day after the divorce just to prepare your meals. Other people will probably think that we couldn’t get over each other…”
Lu Boyan’s knitted brow eased up. He did not retrieve the card. Instead, he stepped down on the accelerator, hard. The high-performing ONE77 propelled forward like an arrow leaving a bow. Su Jianan’s back slammed against the back rest. In a fit of anger, Su Jianan glared at Lu Boyan. But then she noticed the dark gloom on his face, which looked a lot like a ma.s.s of stormcloud.
Before they got their marriage license, Su Jianan had already experienced Lu Boyan’s icy coldness at the hotel. But that was just coldness. Now, he was… terrifying.
Yes. Terrifying. His long and narrow eyes were cold and dark. His entire body exuded a murderous air, as if he were a cheetah on the verge of going berserk.
The endless terror she felt had taken away her ability to speak.
All of a sudden, an ear-piercing screech rang out as the car braked. The ONE77 stopped in front of the police station authoritatively. “We’re here,” Lu Boyan said coldly.
Su Jianan tried hard to put a smile on her lips. “Thank you.”
Lu Boyan’s handsome face did not show any reactions. He did not even spare Su Jianan a glance. Anger rose within Su Jianan. She flung the door open and got off the car.
“Why is he acting like such a poseur? It’s not like I begged him to give me a ride. I could’ve ridden Jiang Shaokai’s car just fine, thank you very much!” Su Jianan thought.
Swiftly, the ONE77 left the police station in a whirl. The departure was hurried and without the slightest bit of hesitation or reluctance. Su Jianan recalled Lu Boyan’s warmth and gentleness back at Moon Chasing House. “As expected, that was just him putting on a show,” Su Jianan thought. Now that they were not under watchful eyes, it was back to treating her like she was his personal enemy.
It should have been the heart of men, not women, that were like needles at the bottom of the ocean!
However, Su Jianan was already used to Lu Boyan’s random outbursts. When she turned around, she had forgotten about all that had happened. She carried on her afternoon work without showing any signs of being affected.
After work, Su Jianan rushed home.
She would ensure that her twenty thousand monthly salary was rightfully earned by having dinner prepared before Lu Boyan’s return.
Lunch at Moon Chasing House had been oily, so Su Jianan deliberately prepared a mild dinner. She waited until 8pm, but there were no signs of Lu Boyan.
Uncle Xu was even more anxious than Su Jianan. “Young Madam, why don’t you… give Young Master a call?”
“Sure.”
Su Jianan pulled out her phone. Then it hit her that she had no idea what Lu Boyan’s phone number was.
Hah. What a joke that would be if it ever got out. She was Mrs. Lu, and yet she did not even know Lu Boyan’s phone number.
Uncle Xu took Su Jianan’s phone and dialled Lu Boyan’s number. After a while, they heard the voice of a female operator. “Hi. The number you have dialled is unavailable…”
“The Young Master probably has urgent matters to attend to,” Uncle Xu said, “Young Madam, why don’t you have dinner first?”
Su Jianan had always thought of meals as one of those things in life that should be prioritized. Meals and sleep should never be neglected. It could be that she had eaten too much for lunch, because tonight, she did not have much appet.i.te at all. After two measly mouthfuls, she set down her chopsticks. “Uncle Xu, when Lu Boyan gets back, please warm up the food for him. I’ll head back to my room first.”
Uncle Xu stared at Su Jianan’s back and sighed. “Things between them seemed to have shown some improvements too. I wonder what happened this time…”
Su Jianan got back to her room. After a bath, she chatted with Luo Xiaoxi while reading a book. Slow and soft music emanated from the room’s top-quality speakers. Su Jianan felt that she had not been affected by Lu Boyan’s absence at all. What she did not notice was that she had kept her door slightly ajar just so she could be aware of any movements downstairs.
There were no signs of Lu Boyan’s return even until 12am. Numerous possibilities flashed across Su Jianan’s mind – He was busy, he was in trouble, or… he was with Han Ruoxi.
Su Jianan felt a strange emotion at that last guess. She did not dare to probe any deeper into that emotion. Instead, she quickly closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
The following day, Su Jianan was roused by the alarm clock. She got out of bed at the speed of light and began her morning routine. Still groggy from sleep, she went downstairs.
Lu Boyan was sitting in the living room.
Su Jianan rubbed her eyes. “Hey, when did he get back?” she thought.
Su Jianan was still chewing over her thoughts when Lu Boyan looked ever. Su Jianan smiled. “Morning.”
Lu Boyan hesitated for a brief moment before he spoke, “I had overtime, so I slept at the company.”
“Huh?” Su Jianan’s eyes widened in surprise. “You didn’t come back last night?”
In truth, Lu Boyan did not have time to come home this morning too. But he had taken two hours off his busy schedule all the same just so he could come home and explain to Su Jianan the reason for his absence last night.
But this, what kind of reaction is this? She did not even know that her husband was missing home for the whole night?
Noticing the strange look on Lu Boyan’s face, Su Jianan cleared her throat. Her movements were rather weak and unsure when she handed the credit card back to him. “Um, this. Yesterday, you forgot to take the card.”
Lu Boyan’s eyes narrowed. Su Jianan had a feeling that he was about to snap, so she piped up, “I don’t need this card!” Other than electronic products and camera lenses, her usual purchases were not lavish at all.
“You either take the card, or you can consider your duties as voluntary labor.”
Lu Boyan turned around to leave.
“Young Master!” Uncle Xu shouted as he trailed after Lu Boyan. “Please come back! You haven’t had breakfast yet!”
“…” Lu Boyan kept walking without so much as a backward glance. Uncle Xu stared at Su Jianan and sighed.
Su Jianan released her own sigh. “Seems like Lu Boyan has had a rough night…”
“Young Madam, actually the Young Master’s mood had turned sour only after he got home,” Uncle Xu said. Obviously, his words meant more than what they sounded.
For a moment, Su Jianan went blank. “So he hates coming home that much, huh? Poor guy. Must’ve been tough on him.”
Uncle Xu released yet another long sigh. Poor Young Master indeed.
Since then, Lu Boyan had suddenly become very busy. He was rarely home for dinner. He was missing during the mornings either.
At first, Su Jianan had been overjoyed. Because with the way things were, she was practically claiming her salary without having to serve Lu Boyan at all! Nothing in this world could feel more awesome than something like that!
It was also for the same reason that on the rare occasions that she had run into Lu Boyan, there was always a grin on her face, as if the unhappy incident that noon had never happened. Lu Boyan, on the other hand, seemed exhausted every time she saw him. He would head straight to bed whenever he got home and leave before she woke the second day.
A few times, when Su Jianan got home from work and saw the empty living room, she was. .h.i.t by a sudden feeling of unfamiliarity.
Lu Boyan’s longest absence from home lasted four days straight. Uncle Xu did not mention him and Su Jianan had refrained from asking about him due to pride.
She was starting to miss him.
She missed the way he looked during his occasional smiles.
She missed his voice.
She missed the warmth of his dry palms.
She wondered if he really was busy or if he was just… unwilling to come home.
Su Jianan squatted in front of her bed, hugging a detective novel. She did a quick count in her head and found she had only seen Lu Buoyan four times in the past half month.
Today, Lu Boyan was about to break his record by being absent from home for five days straight.
Today marked the fifth day she had not seen Lu Boyan.
Why was she remembering all these figures anyway? “Seems like being good in math and being sensitive to numbers isn’t such a good thing after all…” she thought.
“Young Madam!” She heard Uncle Xu’s anxious voice followed by a series of frantic knocks on her door. “Young Madam!”
Su Jianan flung the novel away and went to open the door. “What’s wrong?”
“Young Master was hospitalized.”
As Su Jianan sat in the car on the way to the hospital, her hands were trembling slightly.
Uncle Xu told her that Shen Yuechuan had called to say that Lu Boyan had been hospitalized. Then he had hung up hurriedly without giving any further details. She did not even want to think how bad the situation must have been.
Right then, she felt as if her heart was suspended in midair. Bottomless fear and panic pervaded her heart.
A man like Lu Boyan seemed almost invincible. Su Jianan had never imagined a day where he would end up hospitalized.
Even more unexpected was the fact that she would feel this frightened at the news of his hospitalization.
When they reached the hospital, Su Jianan rushed towards the internal medicine’s ward as if nothing else mattered. It took her considerable effort to locate Lu Boyan’s room. When she pushed open the door and saw the man lying on the hospital bed, her steps halted immediately.
He had lost so much weight in just five days. He lay there on the bed, his face pale and dotted with green stubble. Although his current look did not make him any less handsome, it gave him a morbid and unhealthy look.
He really had fallen.
Su Jianan’s eye sockets grew warm. As she walked towards the bed, it felt as if she had just roused from a dream. “Lu Boyan, wake up…”
She wanted Lu Boyan to open his eyes and look at her with his usual subtle smile. She wanted him to flick her forehead and call her an idiot.
“Lu Boyan, open your eyes and look at me…”
Tears fell from Su Jianan’s eyes and dripped onto the back of Lu Boyan’s hand.
If this were a scene from a TV drama, the male lead would have been woken up by the burning sting of the female lead’s hot tears. He would have slowly opened his eyes and began to gently dry the female lead’s tears.
Instead, Su Jianan heard Lu Boyan’s voice. “What’s so nice about looking at you?”
His voice sounded a little weak, though the infuriating teasing tone capable of rendering anyone speechless was still there.
“You’re awake?” Somehow, Su Jianan had forgotten her anger. She swiped away her tears swiftly. “I’m calling the doctor!”
Lu Boyan clutched Su Jianan’s hand in his own and pulled her back. “Call the doctor for what? I’m not ill.”
His sight lingered on Su Jianan’s face.
For the past half month, he had been so busy that he barely had time to take a sip of water let alone see her. Now when he looked at her, he saw a pair of earnest, sincere, and red-rimmed eyes.
“Falling ill isn’t something to be ashamed of, you know,” Su Jianan said in a soothing voice, “Just admit that you’re ill. I won’t tease you about it.”
“…”
Right at that moment, Shen Yuechuan entered the room. He had just finished dealing with the hospital procedures. Seeing the redness in Su Jianan’s eyes, the alarms went off in Shen Yuechuan’s head. “Jianan, please don’t be scared. Boyan is only like this because he hadn’t been eating on schedule for the past five days. It’s his old gastric problems, that’s all. Well, he nearly had gastrointestinal perforation, but he won’t die.”
“You have gastric problems?” Su Jianan stared at Lu Boyan. “Gastric problems are a form of illness too! Yet you’re still claiming that you aren’t ill?”
Lu Boyan pinched the bridge of his nose.
Seeing that the IV drip had run out, he went to work on the catheter attached to his hand.
Su Jianan stilled Lu Boyan’s hand movements. “Let me.” Like it or not, she still held a surgeon’s license, so she was clearly more adept at this task than Lu Boyan.
With great care, she removed the catheter from Lu Boyan’s hand. After dealing with the needle wound, she placed a cotton wool ball over it. “Press on it.”
Her white, slender hands tugged at his palm. Her touch felt warm and tender. Lu Boyan suddenly did not feel like letting go. So he feigned a look of agony. “Help me press on it. Let’s go home.”
“Hey!” Shen Yuechuan said, “I just went through your admission protocols!”
“You stay if you like. I’ll cover the fees.”
Shen Yuechuan looked as if he was about to cry.
“Running around like this is tiring, okay?” Shen Yuechuan thought. Scaring Uncle Xu on purpose just to trick Su Jianan into coming here took a lot of brain juice too. Now, what did he get after going through all that trouble? Free two nights’ stay in a hospital room! What a cheapskate!