Jiang Qiaoxi has lived in a house of 50 to 100 square meters in Hong Kong for more than six years. Now he has returned to the mainland and moved into his and Yingtao's new home - Phase II of Nanshan Impression Mansion in the provincial capital, which is more than 160 square meters. Not only is there extra space, but there is also room that needs to be filled. He and Yingtao have a lot to plan for the future.
"Every time I go home, it's like a robbery." Jiang Qiaoxi said helplessly. He was holding tea leaves, rapeseed oil, and pheasant eggs in his hands, and he bent down to put them by the kitchen door. He took off his suit jacket and threw his car keys on the plate at the door. Lin Yingtao had a small bag on her wrist and a new quilt that her mother had made for them in her arms, which she placed on the sofa cushion.
"Mom and Dad think we are still young," Lin Yingtao said, walking to the door to change her shoes, and hugged Jiang Qiaoxi's shirt-wrapped waist again, "so they think we don't know how to live and lack everything."
Jiang Qiaoxi unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, reached his hands under Cherry's armpits, picked up his wife, and turned away.
Lin Yingtao smiled, her feet hanging in the air. The slippers she had just put on swayed twice in the air and then fell on the floor leading from the entrance to the master bedroom bathroom.
"Did you see that very luxurious hotel on the way home?" Lin Yingtao was sitting in the bathtub, her hair was covered with foam, and she was playing with a ball of foam in her hands. She turned her head and looked at Jiang Qiaoxi, who was leaning against the bathtub behind her, resting and listening to the news.
"What's wrong?" Jiang Qiaoxi opened his eyes, looked at her, stretched out his left hand and played with her hair.
"That hotel is opened by Wei Yong!" said Lin Yingtao.
As expected, Jiang Qiaoxi was stunned: "Who?"
"Wei Yong," Lin Yingtao held onto the edge of the bathtub. She stood up all of a sudden, splashing a pool of water. She turned around, facing Jiang Qiaoxi, and sat down again. There was foam under her shoulders. She was squeezed in the narrow bathtub, like a tutu skirt or a pure white wedding dress. "He used to be a gangster at the construction site in the mountains. He liked to bully people and never studied," Lin Yingtao said. She saw Jiang Qiaoxi staring at her face, and it was obvious that he didn't remember her. Lin Yingtao said, "He's doing very well now! His girlfriend is very rich, and she even opened a bar!"
"So amazing." Jiang Qiaoxi's eyes fell on her shoulders and collarbones, then returned to her face.
Lin Yingtao laughed: "Duchamp is really unbalanced!"
It’s the fourth day since Jiang Qiaoxi returned from Hong Kong.
He still wasn't satisfied with his newlywed life.
But Cherry had to go to work the next day, and there were more than ten children in her class waiting for her care.
So it can't be too late, and it can't be too extreme.
Old classmate Felinger added Jiang Qiaoxi's WeChat through a headhunter. He joked that he thought he had added the wrong person at first, wondering if someone had created a photo of Jiang Qiaoxi at Morgan Stanley to lure him into sex, but after looking at the empty Moments, he thought it must be Jiang Qiaoxi himself.
"You've been back for so many days and you didn't come to see me!" Feilinger said enthusiastically, "There's a dinner party tomorrow, and many big names in the investment circles of Beijing and Hangzhou will be there. Do you want to come? I haven't seen you for a long time. I heard that you are looking for a partner? I'll get you an invitation!"
Jiang Qiaoxi said: "I may not have time tomorrow."
Felinger said: "I have something very important to tell you, really, come on!"
Jiang Qiaoxi was a little annoyed. He didn't want to see Felinger, but this had nothing to do with Felinger himself.
It only has to do with the many past events that he deliberately ignored.
Jiang Qiaoxi has always had a long-term goal in his life: to escape from home, escape from this city, and escape from the past. But in the end, because of Lin Yingtao, he had to come back.
Have to start facing it again.
The MP3 player Yu Qiao gave him could not be opened. He did not know whether it was out of power or the battery was broken. Jiang Qiaoxi just hoped that the files stored in it were still there. He drove out and followed the navigation to the electronics street. Suddenly, Cai Fangyuan called him.
"Brother!" Cai Fangyuan said, "I will be in the provincial capital this afternoon. Let's meet in the evening! I have an invitation for you."
Jiang Qiaoxi frowned: "Feilinger wants me to go to a dinner party-"
Cai Fangyuan was surprised and asked, "Is it the meeting at Weiyong Hotel?? Damn, then we'll see you then!!"
Jiang Qiaoxi thought that Felinger had something important to tell him.
He was chatting with several fund managers when he suddenly turned around and saw Felinger walking towards him, accompanied by his female companion.
It’s Cen Xiaoman.
Cen Xiaoman went to the University of California, Davis, to study East Asian languages and cultures. After returning to China, she hosted two cultural talk shows on TV, which were very popular among talented people.
She was wearing a silver-white fish-scale long skirt, which made her look so ethereal that several fund managers around Jiang Qiaoxi turned around and looked at her in surprise.
Feilinger greeted and introduced them, exchanging business cards: "No, no, no, how can Xiaoman be my girlfriend? Good classmate, old classmate!"
Cen Xiaoman tucked her curly hair around her ears and gave the managers a photogenic smile. She raised her eyes, her eyes suddenly reddened, and found that Jiang Qiaoxi was looking down at her.
After the managers left, Felinger made an excuse and left too.
Cen Xiaoman stood alone in front of Jiang Qiaoxi.
She wanted Jiang Qiaoxi to just look at her and see how good she was, which made her feel her exposed back start to tremble.
From a very young age, because of her excellence and obedience, and because of Aunt Liang's tacit approval, from elementary school, junior high school, to high school, Cen Xiaoman has always been the only girl who can appear by Jiang Qiaoxi's side, inseparable from him, studying and going home with him. Not only classmates in the school, but even teachers say that they are the "golden boy and jade girl."
"Jiang Qiaoxi," Cen Xiaoman said with a smile, her voice trembling with nervousness, "What a coincidence, meeting you here."
Jiang Qiaoxi said: "You have become more beautiful."
Cen Xiaoman's face turned red.
Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly turned his head and looked at Felinger in the distance.
Cen Xiaoman hurriedly explained: "Feilinger is not my boyfriend. I, I have never had a boyfriend. Jiang Qiaoxi, I have always been waiting for you—"
Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his head and looked at her.
"I'm already married to Lin Qile." Jiang Qiaoxi smiled.
The color faded from Cen Xiaoman's face.
Jiang Qiaoxi looked at her with a friendly look.
Felinger leaned against the window, chatting with someone while turning his head.
He felt that Xiaoman and Jiang Qiaoxi seemed to be having a good chat, and Jiang Qiaoxi actually smiled.
That's right, he thought, the Lin Qile that Xiao Man was worried about would not be her love rival at all - a man has eyes. Jiang Qiaoxi was just a student before, studying optics and mathematics, but now he has seen the world, and sooner or later he will know that Aunt Liang's vision is right.
Cen Xiaoman refused to believe it: "You...really got married?"
Jiang Qiaoxi took out his left hand and showed her the wedding ring.
"The wedding hasn't taken place yet," Jiang Qiaoxi raised his eyes and looked outside the banquet hall. "It will be held in October."
Cai Fangyuan came in from outside wearing a suit. He was chatting with someone with a smile when suddenly a striking beauty walked away quickly from beside him.
Cai Fangyuan saw the handsome guy Jiang Qiaoxi standing opposite him, and he stretched out his hand and greeted him: "Manager Jiang!"
Feilinger had promised Cen Xiaoman's mother that he would always stay with her, but Xiaoman insisted on leaving, and Feilinger had not yet spoken to Jiang Qiaoxi.
Felinger was puzzled and said, "So what if he got married? So many people get married and divorced!"
Cen Xiaoman turned around, tears streaming down her face as she said, "Feilinger..."
"Ah?" Felinger frowned.
Cen Xiaoman wiped her tears and said, "From the beginning... we shouldn't have met Aunt Liang..."
The Didi driver drove over, and Felinger helped her open the door and asked Cen Xiaoman to send him a WeChat message when she got home.
Fehringer watched the taillights of the car disappear into the intersection.
In Felinger's memory, Jiang Qiaoxi always had a gloomy face. He studied and took Olympiad mathematics classes every day. Felinger and Cen Xiaoman seldom spoke to him for fear of interrupting his train of thought.
They were like the left and right guardians of Jiang Qiaoxi. They were very young at that time, and what Aunt Liang said sounded like an imperial decree, and that imperial decree was so correct: Jiang Qiaoxi was a genius, he should participate in competitions, and he should not be disturbed by others at school.
Although he was just a child, he was given a strange "privilege", although Felinger did not understand what that "privilege" meant. Jiang Qiaoxi never expressed any opinion. He went home from school with them every day in silence and went to study Mathematical Olympiad in silence. His silence could be explained by his talent. The character of a genius always seems to be like this.
Before we knew it, we had been friends and classmates for twelve years, from elementary school, junior high school, to high school. What a deep friendship this must be.
There were only a few times when Jiang Qiaoxi turned his face against Feilinger.
The first time happened in the second grade of junior high school. Felinger opened the love letter Jiang Qiaoxi received as usual. Not only Aunt Liang knew about it, but everyone knew about it and laughed. When Jiang Qiaoxi came back from the game, he saw the letter. The look in his eyes when he looked at Felinger was as if a small flower he had waited so long for had bloomed, but was blown away by Felinger's gust of wind.
Later, Jiang Qiaoxi received another letter, also sent from Qunshan. Feilinger didn't dare to open it and only told Aunt Liang about it.
After reading it, Jiang Qiaoxi didn't say a word for several days. When the teacher called him in class, he couldn't answer anything. Or maybe he didn't want to answer at all. He didn't want to pay attention to anyone.
When Felinger walked back into the venue, he saw Jiang Qiaoxi chatting and laughing with their high school classmate Cai Fangyuan.
"I just called Lin Yingtao and asked her why she wasn't going!" Cai Fangyuan said, "She said, 'I hate fake smiles the most. They make your face look tired!'"
Jiang Qiaoxi laughed so hard that his shoulders shook.
Cai Fangyuan was puzzled: "I say, you smile like a fool from morning till night, and you still feel tired!"
An angel investor came over. He and Jiang Qiaoxi were old acquaintances of his former boss at Morgan Stanley.
Cai Fangyuan went out to make a phone call.
"I say," Cai Fangyuan said to the planner on his phone as he stood at the end of the corridor outside the venue, "Do you still remember the cards we played when we were young, the Little Raccoon Water Margin cards! Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms... At that time, we bought boxes of instant noodles just to collect these cards! Right! Can't we make a game like this?"
The planner paused on his phone and asked: "How can we make a profit? Just collect cards?"
“Can’t you think for yourself?” Cai Fangyuan was so confused that he turned around and whispered, “A few days ago, you spent more than 100,000 yuan on that thing, AKB and Yo-Yo Ma!! Think for yourself! Think outside the box!! Where did you spend the money? Why did you spend this money!!… Oh, yes, why do you guys spend money on things that you can’t even touch or pick up girls!! Think about it!! Think hard!!”
Suddenly, someone behind him said from a distance: "President Cai!"
Cai Fangyuan turned his fat body around, hung up the phone and put it in his pocket. He said in surprise: "Oh, Boss Wei!!"
Jiang Qiaoxi added a few people on WeChat and received a message from Lin Yingtao, asking him what time he would be home: "Did you eat enough there? Do you need me to make you some midnight snack?"
Jiang Qiaoxi replied: "I didn't eat a single bite."
Lin Yingtao said, "Why don't you eat?"
Jiang Qiaoxi said: "No one eats it. No one eats it."
Lin Yingtao said, "Why not eat the food? Eat a few bites while they're not paying attention! It doesn't cost any money!"
Boss Wei Yong opened a small table next to the banquet hall and chatted with Cai Fangyuan. When Jiang Qiaoxi arrived, he quickly stood up, shook hands with Jiang Qiaoxi in a friendly manner, and invited him to sit down.
"The headquarters' house was sold too early," Wei Yong said to Cai Fangyuan with emotion, "I heard that they are going to build a park there, so the house price will have to be raised by one or two thousand."
"Not only that," Cai Fangyuan hinted to him, "there must be supporting facilities next to the park!"
Jiang Qiaoxi recalled the time in the mountains when Wei Yong rode his bicycle over and Cai Fangyuan trembled and hid beside Yu Qiao.
"Jiang Qiaoxi," Wei Yong suddenly looked at him and said, "We never spoke to each other in the mountains before!"
Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly said, "I think you look like someone."
Wei Yong laughed: "I know, it was Lin Yingtao who said that I look like an ugly Andy Lau!"
Jiang Qiaoxi glanced at Cai Fangyuan and said, "Like my landlord in Hong Kong."
Cai Fangyuan immediately slammed the table and looked at Wei Yong's face again: "Damn it, you and my investor are simply brothers who have fled overseas! Let me introduce you two to each other!"
The dinner outside slowly ended. Wei Yong drank some wine and talked with Jiang Qiaoxi and Cai Fangyuan about their childhood.
"I really miss it when I think about it now," he said with a smile. "Back then, we were in the mountains and there weren't that many people on the construction site. On weekends, Uncle Lin, Lin Yingtao's father, your father-in-law!" He said to Jiang Qiaoxi, "took a few of us little boys. You two hadn't gone yet at that time. We rode our bicycles and went fishing together! Oh, I got sunburned! Uncle Lin is such a good man. He was just giving me a lesson while he was fishing. How could the fish possibly bite?"
Cai Fangyuan smiled and glanced at Jiang Qiaoxi.
Wei Yong said to Jiang Qiaoxi, "When you first transferred to Qunshan, I remember very clearly that little girl Lin Yingtao came to me one day in a rage, with her hair braided in two braids and her hands on her waist, asking me not to bully you."
Jiang Qiaoxi raised his eyebrows and laughed silently.
Wei Yong innocently wondered, "To be honest, I don't bully anyone all the time! I just tease my brother Fang Yuan sometimes!"
Cai Fangyuan covered his face and cursed "alpaca" with a smile.
Jiang Qiaoxi came out of the hotel, took out a cigarette, opened the car door and got in. When Lin Yingtao learned that the dinner was actually held in Wei Yong's hotel, she said worriedly, "Come back soon, don't stay there!"
Jiang Qiaoxi asked: "Do you miss me?"
Lin Yingtao said coquettishly: "Go home quickly... I'm so bored..."
The author has something to say: －－－－－－－
Notes to this chapter:
* "AKB's Yo-Yo Ma": On June 8, 2014, the results of the sixth general election of AKB48 were announced, and Mayu Watanabe from Team B won the championship.
* "Didi Driver": In January 2014, Didi and WeChat reached a strategic cooperation and launched a "subsidy" marketing campaign for WeChat taxi fares. Since then, mobile payment has been rapidly popularized in mainland China. In March 2014, the number of users exceeded 100 million. In May 2014, the product was renamed "Didi Taxi".
*d2bw