The Adonis Next Door: 100 Days of Forced Love

That night, they ended up staying there for a full two hours.

By the time Gu Yu Sheng sent Qin Zhi Ai home, it was already 12pm.

That night, Gu Yusheng did not send Qin Zhiai home on his bike as he had previously, but in a car from his garage.

At that point, Qin Zhiai didn’t know much about cars, and merely felt that that car looked extremely stylish and cool. It was only after many years that she found out that the car was an Audi, one car costing several a good several million RMB.

After they arrived at the ground floor of the building of Qi Zhiai’s house, Qin Zhi Ai pushed open the car door, said ‘See you later’ to Gu Yu Sheng, got off the car and closed the door. Just when she had taken two steps towards the building, the window of the car behind her rolled down, and she heard Gu Yu Sheng’s voice, “Xiao Zuo Ai?” [TN: Xiao Zuo-Ai means “Little Make-Love”]

Even though he had already called her “Xiao Zuo Ai” many times that night, her face still turned red every time. With her back still facing him, she paused her steps, too embarra.s.sed to turn around to look at him.

She heard him push open the car door and light a cigarette with a lighter. After around half a minute, his voice came from behind her, “I’m really sorry for missing the movie last time. I was delayed because of a situation at home.”

This evening, it wasn’t that Qin Zhi Ai hadn’t considered asking him why he didn’t come that day, but she was afraid that he had only agreed to go with her in pa.s.sing and hadn’t even kept their date in mind in the first place. That was why, even though she had wanted to ask several times, she couldn’t build up the courage to ask. Now that he had suddenly given her an explanation, a trace of joy sprang up in her heart.

“If you have no plans this Sunday, let’s go to watch a movie in the afternoon at 3:30pm again.”

Before Qin Zhi Ai had the time turn around to look at Gu Yu Sheng, he had spoken again.

He was inviting her to watch a movie in the weekend at 3:30pm.

The joy in the depths of Qin Zhi Ai’s heart instantly blossomed like millions of flowers.

She was too happy, so happy that for a short while she even forgot answer him. He called her again, “Xiao Zuo Ai, so do you have time on Sunday or not?”

“I do!” She answered instinctively. It was only after she replied that realised that how ruffled she had sounded. From behind her, she heard the sound of his low heartbeat, and her face immediately turned slightly red. She bashfully said “See you on Sunday”, and rushed towards the building. She hadn’t even run two steps before he grabbed her by her wrist, squeezed a slip of paper into her palm, and said, “This is my phone number, so you’ll have a way to contact me if something comes up.”

His scalding palm made her whole body feeling it was burning. She threw off his hand from her wrist, expressed her understanding with an “Oh”, and gripped the slip of paper in hand a bit tighter.

He stood there without saying a word.

She hung her head, and stood in front of him for a while before saying, “I’m going in now.”

He didn’t say a word, and after waiting for half a minute, she took a step.

Just as she was pa.s.sing him, he called to her again, “Xiao Zuo Ai?”

Qin Zhi Ai stopped her steps and with cheeks puffed out in indignation, she was about to turn around and angrily say, “Could you stop calling me Xiao Zuo Ai?”

However, before she could voice those words, he spoke again, “I’m joining the army on Wednesday next week.”

Qin Zhi Ai’s head, which was still in the progress of turning, froze on the spot.

Joining the army……He’s going to serve in the army? He wasn’t going to university and was going to join the army as a high school graduate? Those dreams he had told her, were not simply just dreams, but actually something he was going to achieve for real.

It took a long time for Qin Zhi Ai to wake up from her thoughts. She slowly moved her gaze towards Gu Yu Sheng. Those words that she had been planning to seethingly vent out to him had been pushed out from her brain from his three words “joining the army”.

When Qin Zhi Ai’s eyes landed on Gu Yu Sheng, he had just blown out a mouthful of smoke. The entwining smoke shrouded his face, making it so that Qin Zhi Ai couldn’t clearly see his expression. His voice was spiritless yet graceful, and sounded particularly beautiful under the night sky, “I’ll be gone for five years. I won’t be coming back to Beijing for at least five years.”

Five years…… He won’t be coming back to Beijing for five years. That would mean that for five years…… For five years, she won’t be able to see him.

Qin Zhi Ai’s suddenly tightly grabbed onto her own clothing. She stared at Gu Yu Sheng, not daring to suck in a single breath, afraid that if she breathed, her tears would come rolling down.

Gu Yu Sheng tilted his head slightly and stared at a nearby street lamp for a while. He looked like he still had something he wanted to say to Qin Zhi Ai but in the end merely turned his head back to Qin Zhi Ai and said to her, “See you on Sunday.”

After that, he took two drags on his cigarette in his mouth, put it out,  threw it into a rubbish bin on the side, turned around and returned to his car.

By the time Qin Zhi Ai recovered from his words ‘I’ll be gone for five years’, Gu Yu Sheng’s car was no longer in sight.

For those few days, Qin Zhi Ai was both happy and sad.

She was happy about her date with Gu Yu Sheng, sad that Gu Yu Sheng would be leaving Beijing very soon.

The Qin Zhi Ai in those days had thought all along that maybe Gu Yu Sheng was a bit interested in her. Or else, why did he know where she lived? Or else, when Jiang Qian Qian was forcing her to apologise, why did he start a fight to stand up for her? Or else, why did he exert all efforts to protect her from his father’s blows? Or else, why did he talk to her about his pa.s.sionate dream of fighting for the greatness of his country? Or else, why did he personally invite her out before he left Beijing? Even giving her his phone number……

But, did you know? It was raining heavily that Sunday and like the previous time, she arrived at the movie theatre very early. She waited for a long time but he still hadn’t come. Under the heavy rain, she walked for over one hour before she finally found a public telephone booth. She dialled his number but the response was ‘The number you have dialled is currently inactive.’

She didn’t dare to believe, and was unwilling to believe. She dialled his number over and over again, dialled those twelve numbers until they were imprinted in her heart. But the voice on the other end continued to reply with those same words, ‘The number you have dialled is currently inactive.’

She was extremely sad that day, so sad that she didn’t dare to confront the fact that Gu Yu Sheng had stood her up two consecutive times.

She was so sad; a small part of her did not dare to accept reality. She believed that as long as she dialled his number, it would reach him and he would answer the phone. However, even when it reached nightfall, when the street lamps were starting to wan, the number he had given her was still an inactivated number.

In the end, after hearing the phrase, ‘The number you have dialled is currently inactive,’ who knows how many times, like an inflated ball, she clutched the phone receiver in despair, squatted down, and broke down into sobs.

♦♦♦♦♦

Even though this was a dream, the sound of weeping was especially clear, becoming more and more distinct, distinct to the point that, in the end, Qin Zhi Ai’s body was ruthlessly shaken awake. “Miss? Miss?”

After a long while, Qin Zhi Ai finally opened her eyes and saw the taut face of the housekeeper standing by the side of her bed.

When the housekeeper saw that Qin Zhi Ai was awake, she released a long breath. “Miss, you nearly frightened me to death. I noticed that you still hadn’t gotten out of bed even though it’s already late, so I came up to check on you and then found you crying without stopping.”

Qin Zhi Ai blinked and hastily raised her hand to touch her face. It was dripping wet.

As it turned out, the extremely distinct weeping that she had heard just a moment ago was just not a dream, she had been crying along with her dream in reality……

“Miss, were you thinking about something sad? You were crying so heartbrokenly.” The housekeeper handed Qin Zhi Ai a warm cup of water.

Qin Zhi Ai accepted the cup, gave her thanks, and after drinking half a cup, she finally said, “No, it was a nightmare.”

“You had a nightmare? It scared you to that state?” The housekeeper asked curiously.

Qin Zhi Ai didn’t answer her and instead took a glance out the window and saw that the sunlight was already bright and dazzlingly, indicating it was approaching noon. Changing the topic, she said, “I’m hungry. Go downstairs and prepare me some food. I’ll come down after I wash up.”

The housekeeper could tell that Qin Zhi Ai didn’t want to speak further and did not press her with more questions. She agreed with an “Okay,” took the cup of water and left the bedroom.

After the housekeeper left, Qin Zhi Ai leaned against the headboard, and after a moment of daze, she raised her hand, rubbed her face, got off her bed, and entered the bathroom.

She hadn’t removed her makeup last night and had also cried. Her face right now was like a palette, an appalling, tragic sight.

Qin Zhi Ai took a very long time before she managed to wash her face clean. Afterwards, she sat in front of the dressing table, effortlessly made herself up into the guise of Liang Dou Kou and went down the stairs.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Qin Zhi Ai heard the housekeeper’s voice and turned to glance at the housekeeper’s direction. The housekeeper was on the phone.

“Miss? She’s awake. She doesn’t seem to have any big problems, but just before, when I went to her bedroom, she was crying……. Why was she crying? Miss said that she had a nightmare…….”

After the housekeeper said that line, she suddenly noticed Qin Zhi Ai and then said into the phone, “Mr Gu, Miss has come over, I’ll pa.s.s the phone over to her……”

With no explanation whatsoever, the housekeeper shoved the receiver into Qin Zhi Ai’s hand.