My Darling

Chapter 8.3 — Your Smile that is Even More Enchanting (3)

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My Darling (我的曼达林) — Chapter 8.3

Wah! He finally officially (successfully) did it! ❤ But of course, with Jian Bianlin, it’s done in complete silence.Chapter 8.3 — Your Smile that is Even More Enchanting (3)

Both of their homes were out of the question…

Regardless of whether it was in front of her parents or his dad, to openly walk into one room with him and spend the night together was out of the question. Merely thinking about it already caused Chu Jian to feel so embarra.s.sed she could die. She sidestepped his action that was asking for more kisses. "Aren"t you really busy? Plus, Dad and Mom are both there. It wouldn"t be very good. It really wouldn"t be very good."

With a chuckle, Jian Bianlin swept his hair back from his forehead and lightly blew out a breath.

Continue rehearsing.

After Chu Jian left, he and the ensemble dancers practiced until past eleven o"clock, and everyone was exhausted. With sweat streaming down his face, Jian Bianlin lay flat on his back on the floor. Pulling over a towel, he threw it over his face and blocked the light out from his vision.

Soreness of muscles and the satisfaction of having a good sweat will allow people to swiftly become immersed in their own emotions—extreme fatigue, but also extreme satisfaction.

In this moment, what coursed through his mind were those things of the past that were vivid in his memory. Even the smell of the room, as well as the burning sensation of the sun on his skin, was very distinct.

"Jian Bianlin, Jian Bianlin."

His head hurt from listening to this. Turning, he looked against the light in that direction.

A quilt came hurtling toward his face, covering it and the upper half of his body. Chu Jian pounced onto him, pounding him fiercely a couple of times with her little fists. Then, without even waiting for him to push her off, she leapt off the bed again. "You are so bad! You actually tattled on me!" After saying this, she ran away…

He whipped off the quilt, not knowing at all what offense he had committed against her this time. It was only at dinnertime that night that he finally found out. Since learning that she was going to be attending preparatory cla.s.s for primary school, Chu Jian had been fussing and crying that she wanted to wear a red dress. Her parents would not buy one for her, so she had taken the pocket money that she had saved up for a long time, gone to the shopping centre, and bought a piece of fabric. After she had come back and, based on what she had imagined in her mind, cut the fabric into two pieces, one for the front and one for the back of the dress, she had successfully managed to break her family"s sewing machine. Then, when she was trying to repair the sewing machine, she had ended up kicking over two insulated carafes, knocking over two cactuses—

In short, the end result was that Chu Jian had been given a spanking.

At the time, it was only after his dad mentioned this that Jian Bianlin remembered that earlier in the afternoon, he had heard a racket next door and had popped over for a look. Hence, Chu Jian had thought that he had tattled on her. Not only had she taken revenge, she also refused to talk to him for a week. When Sat.u.r.day finally came, Chu Jian"s parents were not around, so Jian Bianlin"s dad pulled out some money and gave it to Jian Bianlin, telling him to take Chu Jian to have KFC. Only then was there at last some interaction between the two of them.

Purposely pa.s.sing through a shopping centre, Jian Bianlin searched for a long while until he finally caught sight of a red dress. Deliberately, he slowed his steps. Beside him, Chu Jian took a couple of covetous glances at the dress before finally speaking her first words to him since beginning her silent treatment toward him. "What do you think? Isn"t it really pretty? My mom just won"t let me buy it. She says it"s too showy…"

Jian Bianlin: "You really think it"s pretty?"

Chu Jian: "Of course it"s pretty."

Jian Bianlin was silent for some time. "I"ll buy it for you."

Chu Jian: "Really? That probably wouldn"t be right…"

Jian Bianlin: "Your birthday present for next month."

She was thrilled now and immediately accepted this gladly. "Oh yeah, that"s true. Last year for your birthday, I even gave you a globe."

That day, when he pulled out his lucky money[1] that he had prepared in advance and went to pay, the saleswoman was thoroughly amused. Never before had she seen two children who looked to be only in first or second grade buy clothes all alone. It was too novel a scene.

The towel covering his face was yanked off. A shaft of light stabbed against his eyelids. He used the back of his hand to block it before opening his eyes slightly.

Xiao Yu grinned. "Xie Ge told you to head over to where he is."

Jian Bianlin stretched out his arms wide. In a rather good mood, he flipped over and hopped to his feet. Grabbing his top and slipping it on, he picked up his baseball cap from the floor, clapped it on his head, and strode out of the dance practice studio.

Several girls in their company were still preparing for the birthday event. Although they had the status of being his fellow colleague and were very composed when facing celebrities, they still could not help stealing a couple of extra glances when they suddenly saw such a hot guy stepping out from the dance studio, his short hair dampened and the view of his backside practically emitting an explosion of male hormones…

Tonight, Chu Jian for once was actually not with Jian Bianlin and was working overtime in order to take care of some of her work matters.

In various WeChat groups, including one for the nail salons, another for her nail aesthetics training business, one for national product distribution, etc., she chatted all the way until eleven o"clock. Voice messages were sent one after another, and now, even her voice was hoa.r.s.e. At last, everyone bid good night to one another, and the discussions could be considered concluded.

However, in just the s.p.a.ce of time when she went to get herself a cup of warm water, those several groups burst into pandemonium again.

Bombarding her were all sorts of screenshots of Weibo posts, photographs, and screenshots of the top-trending searches on Weibo. The Weibo screenshots all contained the same hashtag—#JianBianlinRuanXi#.

When Chu Jian saw these four words placed together, her heart gave a skip.

She was not very fond of using Weibo and did not even manage the Weibo account of her nail aesthetics company herself. Even though she had registered a personal Weibo account in the early years, very shortly after, it had been hacked, and when she logged into it again, it had been flooded with a mess of spam posts… Therefore, unlike the other people in her WeChat groups who would refresh their Weibos day and night, she was unable to get all the different latest, up-to-the-minute gossip.

There were people posting pictures and also people commenting and discussing.

The conversation tone was completely one used when talking about celebrity gossip, and they all shared the different pieces of explosive news that they had found out. This had all arisen because someone had leaked that, while filming his latest drama, A Black and White Film, Jian Bianlin had constantly had a girl by his side.

Since this scoop came out, everyone began to dig up that rumour about him from years back. Back when the rumour about Jian Bianlin and Ruan Xi was first leaked, there had been no such thing as Weibo, and hence, it had been relatively easy to suppress the story. Later, Ruan Xi"s team had tried once to hype up that piece of gossip, but Xie Bin had immediately stifled it again using a substantial sum of money. This year, however, Jian Bianlin had erupted in popularity, and he was also having his first foray into television dramas. With his birthday event just around the corner, this was the perfect combination of "the right time, the right place, and the right person," and consequently, now that this type of juicy gossip had burst forth, it would not be easy to control this time around…

All sorts of little things that served as "clues" were flying around: camera shots from that compet.i.tion where he and Ruan Xi had been captured in the same frame, the video clip of the two of them singing a duet in the compet.i.tion, the clips where they were each being interviewed, etc. There was no limit to the ability of netizens. A compilation had even been made of all of the interaction that Ruan Xi had had with Jian Bianlin in the thirteen rounds of the compet.i.tion, including even the look on her face and in her eyes when his name was mentioned. However, these were all merely attempts at looking for shadows that may or may not exist.

The real bombsh.e.l.l was still the set of photographs of Jian Bianlin and Ruan Xi together late at night beside a swimming pool.

Someone had even "exposed" that Ruan Xi and Jian Bianlin had recently both been in Hengdian during the same period in their schedules, and that person had stated with absolute certainty that the two had had dinner and spent the night together.

At first, Chu Jian had looked and read through everything carefully.

But as she read, she ended up feeling restless and irritable, and she wanted to toss down her mobile phone. Instead, though, as if she had obsessive-compulsive disorder, she logged into the Weibo account of her nail aesthetics company and used it to specifically search up on the news. She even downloaded those six late-night, poolside photos that had been taken at an angle that left things quite to the imagination, zoomed in, and scrutinized them with seriousness to try to see what exactly the two people had been doing…

Unable to help herself, she gloomily hugged her blanket for quite some time.

Under her covers, her mobile phone had been vibrating for a long while. When she pulled it out and saw that it was Tong Fei, she already knew generally what the call was about and did not pick up. Scared that Tong Fei would fall into incessant-calling mode, she directly powered off the phone.

She had thought that she was just being jealous and would be better after a sleep.

But she could not fall asleep at all.

The whole night, her stomach churned. She felt uncomfortable, and her heart was fl.u.s.tered. She wanted to call him to ask, but yet felt that doing so would be so petty of her. Back when Jian Bianlin had gotten angry over Xu Jing, she had thought that Jian Bianlin"s reaction had been baffling and unreasonable. Yet, whatever had existed between him and this girl was way in the past as well. To now go and ask him, "Did you ever kiss her? Have you ever been with her like you have with me and…?" was something that was too awkward, and she could not set aside her pride to do it.

As for all those talks about what occurred in Hengdian between the two, she did not believe any of it. That day, Jian Bianlin had just arrived in Hengdian, finished off his night shoot, and then rushed through the night back to Shanghai again.

And plus, he was so touchy-feely with her. He wouldn"t… with someone else, right?

All night long, Chu Jian"s head felt as if it was packed with careening trains, and clasping her blanket against herself, she suffered all the way until morning lightened the sky. At six o"clock, the living room began to have some movement. This was the forever-unchanging morning wake-up time of Chu Jian"s parents.

… Chu Jian"s eyes stung. Her brain felt muddled. Her mind was in a fuzzy state.

Still, she was unable to sleep.

"Little Jian?" It was her mom"s voice.

Jian Bianlin? Chu Jian thought she was hearing things.

"Auntie." It really was Jian Bianlin"s voice.

Chu Jian sat up and rolled off the bed.

Opening her bedroom door, she saw that he truly was in the living room. He was standing in front of her dad and mom and had not even had the chance to change into slippers yet. The instant he heard the movement, he immediately looked in her direction. His eyes were murky pools.

This scene, this feeling—it was as if time had turned back.

That morning when he had had a high fever and brought the absence request slip over, it had also been six o"clock and he had also stood in this same position, facing her parents.

"You know that your uncle and I get up at six, so you deliberately timed it perfectly to knock on the door?" Chu Jian"s mom smiled.

Jian Bianlin pulled off his ball cap, his hair plastered messily against his forehead. His entire gaze was filled only with Chu Jian, whose complexion was pale from a sleepless night.

"Auntie," Jian Bianlin requested in a quiet voice, "I want… to have a couple of words with Chu Jian."

"Go on over." Chu Jian"s mother was utterly amused. "What are you afraid of us for?"

Without speaking, Jian Bianlin walked over.

He had been calling the whole night, but Chu Jian"s phone had been shut off. He had dared not knock on the door in the middle of the night but had also been scared that if he returned home, he would miss her should she step out of the house, so he had sat in the stairwell for the entire night.

Waiting, until six o"clock…

Jian Bianlin reached his hand out to take hers, but Chu Jian reflexively evaded his action. First, she was still feeling jealous, and second, her dad and mom were right there…

"Could you give me the ring?" he softly asked, his voice scratchy.

Ring? Chu Jian gave him a blank look.

Quietly, he waited for her.

He"s asking me to give the ring back to him? Chu Jian carefully mulled over that sentence. Only a moment ago, she had actually been touched by his sudden appearance so early in the morning. Now, though, she was like someone who was riding a roller coaster, laughing while gazing out at the view from up high until, with a vroom, she was plummeting downward from the highest point, her heart instantly rushing up into her throat.

Her heart was fl.u.s.tered. Her throat was sore.

But still, she lowered her head and pulled off the ring, stuffing it into his palm.

Her nose tingled. The view before her eyes grew blurry.

Jian Bianlin, you rotten b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Last night, I was still thinking that you would never do anything to hurt me. b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You give me the ring when you want to hop in bed with me, and now you"re asking for it back…

Jian Bianlin held his silence for some time. After roughly gauging what a reasonable distance between them should be and then taking half a step backward, he bent his right knee and knelt onto the floor—

He had no experience and hence had knelt down too hard. His knee pulsed with pain… While Chu Jian was still frozen in blank surprise, he felt for her hand. Actually, his palm had long broken out with perspiration and was clammy. "Chu Jian…"

Oh no, he was too nervous. The words he had prepared the entire night on the stairs were now all wasted.

Behind him were her parents. Completely unable to speak, Jian Bianlin could only feel for her ring finger and then slip the ring back onto it again. His pointer finger stroked that band and her several fingers for a long time.

"Jian Bianlin…" Chu Jian"s voice was thick as she called him softly.

Both my dad and mom are watching…

With a low "mm," he brought his lips to her fingers.

The warm breath that he exhaled made her want to pull her hand away. Tears were still in her eyes but her face had already completely reddened, and she did not dare look at her parents either. "Hurry and stand back up…"

[1]压岁钱 "ya sui qian." During the Lunar New Year period, money, called "ya sui qian," is given in red envelopes by elders to young people . It represents blessings and well wishes for the year. It is referred to as "lucky money" in English.

Completed:
1 of 1 Prologue
31 of 36 Chapter segments
0 of 1 Epilogue

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