Chapter 218: The Pursuit of Romance (1)
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
She quietly lowered her head, her slender fingers stroking the teacup in her hand. Rubbing and rubbing the delicate ceramic, she then suddenly stopped. Her long eyelashes fluttered a few times. As Mu Yuchen lowered his head and closed in, he could see her being absent-minded and dazed.
He fell silent for a moment, then sighed helplessly. Softly nagging her entwined with some warmth, he teased, “I didn’t know that you could be this emotional. This isn’t a good thing. You should fix that…”
She then slowly lifted her head to look at him, a hoa.r.s.e voice coming through. “Am I bothering you by feeling rueful and wanting to vent for a little? What’s wrong with being emotional?”
Clearly, she was upset and approaching at him with such rage. Nevertheless, he was used to it, so he just looked down and chuckled. Without arguing with her, he poured her some tea as he said in a low voice, “How was the situation on the other side today?”
Initially, the moment she spoke, Xi Xiaye had already realized that she was wrong. She wanted to take her words back, but she could not. When she looked up at him, what greeted her sight was his calm, smiling, handsome face. Instinctively, she eased off a little.
She bowed her head and sipped her tea, then said plainly, “I checkmated Xi Xinyi, yet she still wanted to use her old tricks to get back at me. Had Vice President Liu not been around, I would’ve wanted to give her a few slaps like a King Kong’s finger. I almost wanted to pinch her bones to pieces.”
When she thought about this, Xi Xiaye could not help but frown. There were still faint twinges of pain from her arm. Meanwhile, the moment she said this, Mu Yuchen’s eyes instantly hardened across her.
“Where did she hurt you now?”
Xi Xiaye reflexively pulled up the sleeves on her left arm, a clawed bruise on her fair arm greeting his sight with a shock. If it were not for the two layers of clothes in between, there would probably have been bloodshed.
“Don’t you know how to resist?” He frowned and held her by the wrist to take a better look. “Put some medicine on that when we get back. Next time, be smarter. When you see her with that Han Yifeng, maintain a 10-meter distance.”
When he said this, loathing flashed through his eyes. He had a very bad impression of Han Yifeng and Xi Xinyi.
“It’s fine. She didn’t get to scratch me. In a few more days, the bruise will go away on its own.”
She pulled down her sleeve and drank more tea before she stuffed a piece of dessert into her mouth. “Have you eaten? Looking at the time, there seems to be another hour before it’s time for work…”
“I don’t have too much of an appet.i.te. I’ll make some good food when we get home tonight. Let’s not work in the afternoon. Let me bring you somewhere.” As he said this, without even waiting for her answer, he already pulled her to get up.
“Where are we going?” Xi Xiaye quickly emptied her cup to wash the dessert down. She set aside the cup in a hurry. “It’s not good to just skip work for no reason.”
She did not want to leave a bad record at work.
“You are now accompanying the Chairman to do an on-site inspection. Obviously, it doesn’t count as skipping work,” he answered matter-of-factly.
Xi Xiaye could not help but shoot him a sidelong look. In the end, she could only follow his lead and walk ahead.
…
On the way, it was him who drove because the driver who had sent her over earlier had already gone back.
She asked him where he was bringing her, but he did not answer. He just returned a very mysterious smile to her. Finally, Xi Xiaye got lazy to keep asking him after that.
She turned the music player up, then leaned against the car window and closed her eyes to rest.
While the weather was still gloomy outside, it was not raining as it had been earlier. There were only the occa.s.sional drops falling from the sky as the cool breeze blew, showing signs of drying the ground.
The car sped along the main street, pa.s.sing through the misty rain as they drove towards a certain direction in the city center.
As Xi Xiaye was sleeping soundly, she faintly felt the car come to a stop. Then, she heard the sound of a car door opening and closing.
She opened her drowsy eyes and pulled at the blanket. She was not sure when it had covered her. Turning to look at the seat beside her, she realized that the man had already gotten down from the car.
She lifted a hand to rub her blurry eyes and sit upright. When she looked out of the car window, she saw his tall and handsome figure standing outside.
She looked around and vaguely felt that the surroundings were quite familiar. After some thinking, she pulled the blanket on her away and fixed her slightly messy, long hair. Then, she pushed the car door open and got down too.
“Why are we here?” She reached his side and cried out. Her voice had a joy that could not be disguised.
Mu Yuchen turned to look at her, his eyes reflecting a warm light. When he saw her walk over, he gently hugged her by the shoulders and said in a low and sentimental voice, “I’ve been meaning to come back and take a look. I haven’t been back for quite a long while now.”
Xi Xiaye looked up at him and saw that he looked rather relaxed and happy. His face had a calm smile too. Following his line of sight ahead, what entered her sight was a wide, green area. There were quite a lot of mango trees and peach trees planted. At the moment, the peach trees were in full bloom with bright, vivid colors…
Past the green area were school buildings that had just been freshly painted and were surrounded by several tall water banyans. The students would only be back to school after the 15th day of the lunar year, thus at the moment, the entire school compound was silent.
The large and small cemented paths towards the school buildings were very clean. They looked like they had just been swept. As it was engulfed in the misty rain, the scene before them looked a little surreal.
There was a faint fragrance of the peach blossoms in the air, mixed with the soil. The earthly scent seemed to relax her depressed mood quite a bit.
She let him hug her, and then lifted a slender finger to point towards one of the school buildings. “I was in the eighth cla.s.s. Our cla.s.s is right there. The hostel I stayed in was in that block over there, just right across the boys’ hostel. The two blocks that were called ‘mandarin ducks building’…”
When she said this, she suddenly remembered some rather happy memories and the smile on her face became increasingly radiant. Abruptly, she turned to him and asked, “Which cla.s.s were you in?”
“The first cla.s.s.” He chuckled and walked towards the clean pathway ahead. “Let’s take a walk.”
Xi Xiaye shrugged. Suddenly, she felt that she should not have asked this question. A top student like him would obviously be in the best cla.s.s.
The mango trees that were planted all those years ago on both sides of the pathway towards the multi-function building had grown to be very tall. The flowerbeds below were even planted with delicate, unnamed flowers.
Xi Xiaye remember that the year she had graduated, these mango trees were not very tall yet. When it was the season, the trees would bear a few mangoes. Then, a lot of students would toss stones at the mangoes to get them down. The head teacher could never catch them all, especially those mischievous boys…