First Marriage Then Love

An Ran looks at him in shock. Only after a while does she ask, "So how is Ling Ran now?"

She did not expect that tonight would be this eventful.

"It"s not a big deal, the wound wasn"t deep. Only a few st.i.tches, she"s now being observed at the inst.i.tution. I called and informed Mayor Ling." Su Yi Cheng says faintly. He was exhausted, and leaned against the sofa, tilts his head back with his eyes closed. He felt like his entire body was lacking strength.

An Ran rubs his face. Although she doesn"t know how he was feeling right now, but she can understand his helplessness. She quietly says, "Go wash up."

Su Yi Cheng opens his eyes and looks at her. He smiles at her, "I"m fine."

An Ran nods, "I"ll tidy up the room. Just go shower first."

Su Yi Cheng doesn"t object. He rises up slightly and gives her a peck on the lips. He walks over to the bathroom, looking beaten and exhausted tonight.

An Ran disposes of the fragments of ceramic as well as the traces of cake. By the time she had wiped everything clean, Su Yi Cheng still hadn"t come out. She goes into the kitchen and opens the fridge. She puts the cake that Su Yi Cheng had bought in the fridge, and glances at the door. She closes the fridge. From the cupboard, she grabs a bag of noodles, washes the pot, fills it up with water, and turns on the stove

Actually the Gu household is considered to be quite traditional. Their lifestyle leaned more towards Chinese style. At home they do celebrate birthdays, but they very rarely ate cake, regardless of whose birthday it was. Lin Xiao Fen would always prepare longevity noodles, with lots of yolk and ground beef, added with home-brewed rice wine. It was especially fragrant.

Su Yi Cheng was done and wiped himself with the towel as he came out of the washroom.. He could smell the faint fragrance of wine.

However, since they don"t have any home-made fermented rice wine, An Ran could only add a few drops of cooking wine instead, even though the fragrance of the wine wasn"t as sweet as rice wine, but the flavour was pretty much the same. She puts the noodles aside, and goes back to take some eggs from the fridge. She puts some cooking oil into the pan and cracks the eggs and lets it sit for a few minutes. The yolk hadn"t even congealed yet, when she turned off the stove. She uses the remaining heat to warm the egg, this way the egg would be tender and taste fresh.

When everything was done, An Ran then adds the egg on top of the noodles, allowing the yolk to spread across the surface of the noodles. She places the bowl of noodles on the counter, raises her head, and only then notices that Su Yi Cheng was standing in front of her. She faintly smiles at him , and points towards the dish, and says, "Come. One can celebrate a birthday without cake, but you must eat noodles."

Su Yi Cheng also smiles. He sits down in front of the counter, and accepts the pair of chopsticks that was handed to him. He takes a mouthful of the eggs, the egg-broth, which had a faint fragrance of wine. It seems like ever since he moved out of his home he hadn"t eaten birthday noodles. Every year his mother would still call him and tell him to come home, but he had always delayed these stuff. If he wasn"t doing inspections he had meetings, by the time he"d come home it"d already be too late, he"d be too tired to even move, and thus didn"t bother to drive all the way back to the courtyard. After a while, his mother also knows the nature of his work, and doesn"t push it. However, she wouldn"t forget to call him to wish him a happy birthday.

"Is it good?" An Ran stared at him with wide eyes, antic.i.p.ation in them.

Su Yi Cheng looks at her funny appearance and nods. He takes a spoonful of the dish and places in front of her mouth, hinting her to open wide.

An Ran chuckles and opens her mouth, before saying, "At home, during birthdays my mom would always cook longevity noodles. It"s been a long time, and thus I"ve gotten used to this taste." Saying that, An Ran appeared to remember something, the corner of her mouth slowly rises to a smile.

"Then another day we will go to father and mother"s house. I will find mother and steal the recipe, from then on every year on your birthday, I will cook these noodles for you." Su Yi Cheng responds, Naturally, his tone was void of any embarra.s.sment or awkwardness.

An Ran was dazed, looking at him. A while later, the smile on her face turns sweeter.

Su Yi Cheng looks at her and smiles back. He lowers his head and continues to eat. He was actually already full, due to the matter with Ling Ran he didn"t have much of an appet.i.te, but this ordinary bowl of noodles, to him it had a unique flavour. That faint fragrance of wine roamed about his mouth, like an illusion, it seemed as if this was the tastiest noodles he"d ever eaten.

After finishing the noodles, An Ran stayed in the kitchen to put away the bowl and chopsticks, while Su Yi Cheng went into the study. He finished up the pile of work that Ling Ran had interrupted from before, and when he came out An Ran was already finished washing up and was sitting on the bed, in her hands holding a magazine about foreign architectural projects. She earnestly looks through it and studies the distinguished styles of buildings.

Su Yi Cheng sat on teh other side of the bed, reaching out to encircle her so she could lean against his shoulder. Embracing her, he looks through the magazine with her.

An Ran looked very earnest, appearing to mumble something to herself. When he was sending Ling Ran to the hospital, he looked at her as she was leaning against his chest, he could see that she was slowly losing consciousness. As he looked on, to his surprise he did not have any feeling of love, but just worried, worry about someone he knows.

After 7 years, he doesn"t understand why she had suddenly returned, as if she was really thinking of redeeming something. Then is it necessary to wait 7 long years for that? Perhaps he really should go and find Zhou Han to talk about it some time.

He isn"t actually concerned about the reason for her return, doesn"t care about when she had returned, he doesn"t care about those at all. Call him cold-blooded, call him ruthless, seeing them cheat right in front of his face, giving him the excuse that nothing happened, and begging to get back together with her, that was fundamentally impossible, as he was never that generous.

He had to admit, he was a heartless and resolute man. Once he lets go, he wouldn"t turn back. Before he had ignored hundreds and thousands of people"s intimate relations. He had never liked sloppiness. It was like that before, and it still is like that now.

"Yi Cheng?" Su Yi Cheng was brought out of his train of thought. He looks at the An Ran in his embrace, looking at him blankly. He smiles at her.

"What are you thinking about?" An Ran asked. She called several times, but didn"t see him react.

Su Yi Cheng smiles at her faintly and shakes his head, "Nothing. Are you done reading?"

An Ran doesn"t ask further, and gracefully yawns. She just says, "Really tired. Still have to get up early tomorrow for work." As she was speaking she wanted to slide her body to lay down on the bed.

Su Yi Cheng copies her and lies down with her. She rests her head on his arm like a pillow, and he lies on his side, putting his other arm around her slim waist. He allows her to adjust herself so she can comfortably embrace him.

Looking at her face, her long, curled eyelashes were her eyes slightly moving down. She slowly closes her eyes, and he gives her a small kiss on her head. He slowly falls into her pace of breathing, and falls asleep with her.

When he was about to fall asleep, he can hear her dazedly say, "Husband, happy birthday."

Hearing that, Su Yi Cheng"s once-exhausted eyes immediately opens wide. He looks at the smirking girl in his embrace, and chuckles heartily. After laughing, he reaches out and uses his strength on her, so she can press closer to him.

The next day, Su Yi Chang had already woken up, exercised, and prepared breakfast. An Ran rocks herself out of the bed, and routinely goes to the wardrobe. She opens the cabinet, and then discovers, that all her work clothes were in a suitcase, and the clothes she wanted to change into today were already put aside on top of the bedside cabinet.

An Ran washed her face and changes her clothes and comes out of the room. Su Yi Cheng was making poached eggs was transferring them to the plate. Seeing her come out, He smiles at her and tells her to come over to eat breakfast. As they ate, Su Yi Cheng asked her to try her best not to do overtime, as he was going to pick her up, and they will be moving to their new home tonight.

An Ran doesn"t object, and nods.

In fact, for the past two days after the unceasing discussions with Constructor Chen, the both of them finally settled on the same opinion. Now, they just need to carry it out according to the blueprint, and implement it accordingly, and they need to ensure that the quality is maintained at the same time, if they are able to have enough time left over, then they can schedule the internal preparations ahead of time. Also, they already arranged for the factory to begin producing the model, and they estimated that the model should be finished the day after tomorrow.

When afternoon came in Huang De Xing brought in a new girl and introduced her as the new colleague. She was about the same age as Ling Lin, and Ling Lin was looking at her dazedly, a little surprised. Her complexion didn’t look so good.

Huang De Xing just introduced her simply, and only said that this girl was Chen Cheng. She wasn’t incredibly beautiful, but her eyes looked especially bright and full of expression, adding radiance to her ordinary looks, making people unable to ignore her.

Huang De Xing continued to talk, and said that this Chen Cheng was a freshly graduated college student of last year, at that time she always won domestic prizes, during her school years she was scouted by some famous construction business from Shenzhen, but because of her own personal reasons she had to let go of the opportunity, becoming a member of ‘Jing Cheng’ today, and she will be "sincere"* in being a strong backbone for the company.

*Jing Cheng = sincere

An Ran actually wasn’t that interested in this kind of person, and was even doubtful of Huang De Xing’s words of praises, after all, after Ling Lin’s example, when Huang De Xing told her that she will be Chen Cheng’s mentor, An Ran didn’t have great expectations for this girl. 

In the office, An Ran pa.s.sed on some old project information and materials to her, and just faintly says, “Get familiar with our past projects over the next few days, after a bit, I’ll slowly let you adapt to the smaller cases.”

Chen Cheng reaches out and accepts the pile of material. She smiles her faintly and says, “Actually, I don’t think looking at the past projects will do me much use, because those were all works of other people. They aren’t my style.” In between speaking, the expression on her face started to show this matchless self-confidence.

An Ran was surprised at her words. She puts down the doc.u.ments in her hand, and raises her head to look at her, with eyes of investigation.

Seeing her not speak, Chen Cheng continues to speak, “But, I will still conscientiously start, because I want to find those who are lacking, this way the next time if I come across the same case style, I will avoid it well. If Architect Gu doesn’t have anything else to talk about, I will be on my way.”

An Ran just nods, and faintly says, “Go.”

When it was evening and time to knock off, Su Yi Cheng was right on time and was downstairs. He happened to b.u.mp into Huang De Xing, and the two exchanged polite greetings. Huang De Xing was still enthusiastic in making an appointment with him, and Su Yi Cheng just faintly smiles and says that he’s been busy recently, and he will see after time has pa.s.sed. Then he says that he still has some matters this evening, and went straight to the car with An Ran and left.

In the car, she looks at the rearview mirror and watches Huang De Xing’s figure get smaller and smaller, until finally there was only a dot of Huang De Xing left. An Ran sighs and regretfully says, “Director Huang has such patience.”

Su Yi Cheng just faintly smiles at her, to actually find himself at this position, he’s seen these types of people many, many times, nearly wanting to pull on these relations at times. He’s unfazed at these kinds of pestering.

Neither of them were in a rush to go home, and instead went to a pretty nice Western restaurant. To celebrate their house moving, they decided to settle their meal in this restaurant.

The business seemed good, after sitting down for a while, only when they barely sat down did the waiter come and give them the menus. After a long time had pa.s.sed they didn’t see the waiter come back to take their orders. It’s a good thing the atmosphere was good, the dining hall had piano playing, it seemed they didn’t prepare any wind instruments. The accompaniment seemed to be just of string instruments, listening to it had a charm and mood.

“Are you two ready to order?” A waitress came over to them. It seemed as if she had run over here, her breathing a little rapid.

An Ran was about to order, but the instant she raised her head she couldn’t help but be shocked. This waitress wasn’t just anyone, but it was the person that Huang De Xing had just introduced earlier, Chen Cheng. And Chen Cheng also couldn’t help but be shocked as well, also surprised that she would run into An Ran at this place. However she very quickly recovered, and gave a professional smile to them, asking, “What would you two like to order?”

An Ran also recovered, and nods. She orders salad and noodles for herself, while Su Yi Cheng orders seafood risotto and stew.

After Chen Cheng left, Su Yi Cheng then looked at An Ran and asked, “You know each other?” Seeing the expression on both their faces, it was evident that they both recognized each other.

“She’s a new intern at our company, right now she’s with me, but I’m not too sure why she’s here. The company clearly has this rule – cannot have other jobs.” An Ran says puzzled.

Su Yi Cheng nods slightly, not asking any more.

The orders arrived very quickly, however Chen Cheng did not come out and inform them.

By the time they left the restaurant it was nearly 8 o’clock. Su Yi Cheng said had packed up their stuff, so all they need to do is carry their bags and directly check into the new place.

An Ran doesn’t object, nods, and walks towards the apartment with him. It really was convenient, combining both their things including clothing and other stuff only took up two bags, however books and doc.u.ments were actually quite a lot. Su Yi Cheng told her not to worry about those things, she only needs to grab what’s important and bring it with her, as for the rest of the books and magazines etc., those can wait until another time, and anyways the rooms are empty, it hadn’t been sold yet.

The new apartment wasn’t too far from the old apartment, driving there only took 15 minutes. Naturally, this is only because they travelled by car, if you were to travel by other means, it would actually be quite far. However, her company and the new apartment were in the same neighbourhood, and it was just a 5 minute walk. An Ran carried the clothing, while Su Yi Cheng carried the large suitcases. It carried the materials that An Ran and Su Yi Cheng needed for work.

As before they were on the 10th floor, but compared to the room configurations of before, everything was on one floor. An Ran enters, still hadn’t turned on the lights yet, the room was pitch black. It was different from what she had imagined, although it was a new house, An Ran did not smell any trace of paint. On the contrary, there was actually a whiff of something sweet. She strides in. The light controls were sound-activated, so when they stepped in, the lights turned on, slightly dim, it carried a feeling of warmth, but wasn’t overly dazzling. In the dark An Ran could vaguely see the layout of the rooms. Right after the entrance was the living room. Compared to the last time they visited, there was a sofa this time, TV, furniture, etc., all were completely prepared. Su Yi Cheng puts down his suitcase, and reaches out to hit the switch by the wall. This seemed to be the main switch, with one press, the lights in the living room, kitchen, etc,. all switched on, illuminating the entire house.

It was actually still the same layout, only now it was fully equipped with things. White sofa, balcony complete with curtains that are also white, but also has a light yellow muslin screen. Above it is a hand-made embroidery of flowers, delicate. Pretty ta.s.sels circle around the curtains, through the muslin screen, An Ran can see a deck chair and small table out on the balcony. She puts down the things in her hands, as An Ran was attracted to the balcony. She walks over to it, pushing the windows open to go out. The balcony was a lot bigger than she imagined, not only was there a desk chair and small table, on the other side that was covered up by the curtains, pleasantly surprised, was a swinging chair. The fencing around the balcony was specially built with vines, and growing within it where many types of flowers of which An Ran did not know of.

“Goodness, how pretty.” An Ran cries out sincerely. She really likes this kind of design, beautiful and bucolic.

From behind Su Yi Cheng lets go of his suitcase, and circles his arm around her waist. He places his chin on top of her shoulder, and softly whispers into her ears, “You like?”

An Ran nods repeatedly, “Yes, yes.” Right now she could imagine, in the afternoon over the weekend, she can grab a book, have a cup of sweet caramel macchiato, sit down and enjoy the afternoon wind and sunshine with her book. That is exactly what she’ll do.

“From now on during our leisure time we can come here together and sit, drink tea and chat.” Su Yi Cheng holds her, slightly rocking both their bodies, his voice faint and distant.

An Ran covers his large hand with her’s, and faintly nods, “En.” She carries a smile, she was satisfied, and blessed. The two stand out on the balcony for a while, then they turn around to go back inside. The saloon-style counter joined the kitchen and the living room. The last time it had a rough outline, this time there was a stool, above the counter there was a lamp hanging over it. The liquor cabinet in the kitchen was filled up with all sorts of alcoholic beverages, at a glance, really does have a mood and flavor of a small bar.

Su Yi Cheng lets go of her, and asks, “Do you want a drink?”

An Ran raises her brows, and asks, “Is it to celebrate our house moving?”

Su Yi Cheng couldn’t deny and nod, “Are you pleased with the new house?”

“I love it.” An Ran smiles in reply. She advances and sits on the stool in front of her, placing her arms on top of the counter. Smiling as she looks at him, she asks, “Excuse me, which c.o.c.ktails are tasty and pretty looking?”

Su Yi Cheng wrinkles his brows, vexed. He spreads out his hands to show that he was helpless, “This place only has tasty red wine.”

An Ran thinks about it, “Good enough, I’ll just have red wine. But if it’s not good, I’m not paying for it~”

“At your service.” Su Yi Cheng turns around and grabs a bottle of 86 year-old wine. He grabs a goblet and puts it in front of her. After opening the wine it was awake, then he pours it into two cups, swaying the wine in the cups. He brings it up to his nose, and takes a whiff of it. A while later, he takes a small sip, then closes his eyes and enjoys the flavouring of the wine.

An Ran was not picky about wine, even if she followed his actions, she wouldn’t be able to tell at all if the wine was good or not, rich or bland. She looks at him vexed, and says, “Not tasty.”

Su Yi Cheng smiles, and goes around the counter. He stands in front of her, raises his head and takes a sip from his cup, then smiles and fixes his gaze on her.

An Ran was confused, so she looks at him suspiciously, “W-what are you doing?”

Su Yi Cheng was still smiling, then leans over to cover her lips. He transfers the mouthful of wine into her mouth, along with the kiss.

An Ran’s eyes turn wide, for a period of time she couldn’t react. When she does, her entire face turns incredibly red. She wanted to push him away, but he holds onto her tightly, she couldn’t move an inch. She gulps, and as a result a little bit of the wine went down her throat. This method of wine tasting, she has never tried it, and she couldn’t even describe what kind of feeling it was.

Su Yi Cheng kisses her for a while, then finally lets her go. Seeing that An Ran hadn’t fully swallowed the wine, as Su Yi Cheng let go of her, a little bit of wine seeps out of the corner of her mouth. This kind of situation, really was bewitching.

Su Yi Cheng couldn’t restrain himself and advances, kissing the part of her lips where it was stained with wine. Then, when his lips her pasted onto her’s, he asks, “Does it taste better now?” His voice was hoa.r.s.e, this ambiguous atmosphere, was heart-stirring.

An Ran seemed to be intimidated by him, even after a while she couldn’t react. Then she quickly swallows, half pushing him. She looks at him and asks, “You, is this how you teach other people to taste wine?”

Su Yi Cheng smiles, and nods. He pats her burning face, and mutters, “Just you.” His voice was dark and seemed especially magnetic, bewitching.

An Ran stares at him, repeatedly gulps, besides swallowing her saliva, she still tasted the wine. The red light from the chandelier casts onto her face, gave a misty appeal, the atmosphere immediately heated up, the ambiguous atmosphere surrounded the two people.

Su Yi Cheng cups her face, and leaves kisses on every nook of her face, eyes, eyebrows, nose, and finally her lips. His pa.s.sion came quick, not even waiting for An Ran to react, he had already brought out her deeply hidden desire.

An Ran doesn’t know how she was brought into the room, she hadn’t even had the time to check out the new room, because when she woke up it was already early morning. Last night the both of them were frantic, so much that even though it was eight o’clock, Su Yi Cheng hadn’t gone on his morning exercise, but was still laying down on the big bed, holding her and sleeping soundly.

Suddenly the cellphone by the bedside table goes off, rousing the two people who were wrapped around each other.

The sudden sound shook her. Out of habit, she sits up. Su Yi Cheng sits up with her. He holds her lightly, he says, “Don’t worry, it’s the phone.” He reaches out to the bedside cabinet and grabs the phone, directly answers it. Not even waiting for him to open his mouth, Qin Yun’s loud voice asks, “Ah Cheng ah, are you not home with An Ran? I rang the doorbell for a long time and didn’t see you come out?”

---END OF CHAPTER---

What a sweet chapter~ Sorry for taking so long with this chapter guys, feeling quite lazy in the new year