After dinner, Sister Jing went to visit her classmates in City C. Many people wanted to go to the famous night market in City C, so they asked Xieyi to go with them. Xieyi was so tired that she kept shaking her head and went back to the hotel. She and Sister Jing were originally assigned to the same room, but Sister Jing said she would not come back, so she had to get the key at the front desk and live alone.
As soon as she arrived at the hotel, she turned up the TV very loudly to make it feel less lonely. While taking a shower, Xieyi felt a slight toothache. At first, she didn't pay much attention to it, but later, she lay in bed in so much pain that she tossed and turned and couldn't fall asleep.
She simply sat up and continued watching TV, but it didn't seem to help. Once the pain started, even the ups and downs of her pulse could make the pain worse, and later it became not just her temple, but the entire right side of her skull and ear began to hurt.
Xieyi leaned on the bed with her head down, feeling very lost. She turned the TV to an entertainment program and turned up the volume. There were constant bursts of laughter coming from the TV. This not only failed to cover up Xieyi's loss, but made her even more depressed.
She was usually very optimistic and cheerful wherever she went, but once she was alone or sick, she would become extremely depressed and pessimistic. Just when she was struggling to find a clinic or buy some painkillers, the phone rang.
It’s Li Zeliang calling.
Xieyi covered her painful right cheek, hesitating whether to answer the call. She didn't like to be seen as so weak, especially in front of him, she felt like a weak person begging for mercy. She let the phone vibrate on the bedside table. It rang for a long time, but she didn't answer it. After a while, the text message alert sound rang again.
"Have you gone home yet?"
Obviously, Li Zeliang didn't think she didn't answer the phone on purpose, he probably just thought she was still outside and didn't hear it. Xie Yi sighed, thought about it and decided to reply him with three words: "I'm asleep."
Just when I was about to confirm sending, a phone call came in, so I pressed "Answer" instead of "OK".
She was stunned for a second, then slowly moved the receiver to her ear.
"Hello," she said.
"You went back?" he asked.
"Um."
She heard a lot of noise next to him, with people talking loudly from time to time, as if the meal was not yet finished. But the noise only lasted for a moment before it quieted down. It seemed that he had gone out to talk in a different place.
"Go to sleep?"
"Um."
She responded twice in a muffled voice.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked again, and the tone of his voice made Xieyi clearly feel that he was frowning when he said this.
"nothing."
"Are you alone in the hotel?"
"Um."
"What's wrong with you?" he asked again, seeming a little displeased.
"Nothing." She answered again without changing her words.
After she answered this, there was no response from the other end of the phone for a long time. The silence was so long that Xieyi almost thought that his or her phone had lost signal. It was not until the door of the private room opened and closed, and a little noise came out from the other end, that Xieyi was sure that he was really not talking on purpose.
Xieyi heard an acquaintance say hello to Li Zeliang as he passed by, breaking the silence on the phone. He put down the phone and exchanged a few words with the person absentmindedly.
Then he put the phone to his ear again: "What's wrong with you?" This was the third time he asked this, and his tone was much stiffer.
"Nothing..." Her temper also became worse, but before she could finish her words, he coldly hung up the call.
Xie Yi stared at the screen for a while, then pulled out the battery of her phone angrily and threw it aside. She sat on the bed, hugging her knees. He asked her what was wrong, but she didn't know how to answer. She suddenly felt a little repulsive to him, really repulsive. However, he didn't know how to accommodate her at all, and he hung up the phone so abruptly, and this was the second time in a day.
Doesn't he know that women in love will get angry and feel uneasy for no reason? Doesn't he know that when a woman is in a bad mood, she can be coaxed? In the past few days together, he was often so fierce to her, and often needed her to tease him with a smirk to prevent him from getting angry. Does he really care about her, or does he just treat her as a toy for fun
Xieyi thought of this, covered her painful right cheek, buried her head between her knees, and felt extremely sad. She didn't know why her heart suddenly tightened and she started to cry. She rarely cried in front of others, but she loved to cry when she was alone. She relied on the sound of the TV to cover it up, hugged the pillow and cried loudly, venting all her bitterness, not caring about the snot on it. She got tired of crying, so she turned to sobbing, raised her head and found a tissue to wipe her tears and snot.
At this time, the intercom phone at the bedside rang.
She knew that it was nothing more than the customer service department introducing the breakfast situation, or someone asking if they needed any special services, which was a common situation in business hotels when staying on business trips. She sniffed and picked up the phone.
Then I said “hello” in as calm a voice as possible.
Normally, the person asking for "special services" would hang up without saying anything when hearing that it was a woman who answered the phone. They both understood each other. However, after she said "Hello", she heard the other party hesitantly shout: "Xie Yi?"
Who else could this be
Of course, she couldn't escape his control. This reminded her of the movie, what was it called? The Matrix? No matter where she went, even if a nearby pay phone rang, it might be him calling her.
"You turned off your phone?" He asked angrily.
"You can hang up on me, but I can't turn off my phone?" She frowned and retorted with a nasal voice.
He was silent again, as if analyzing some clues, and then suddenly asked: "Are you feeling unwell?"
"None of your business." She said angrily.
"You have a cold?"
"I don't have any, and it's none of your business."
"You have a toothache?"
"none of your business."
"Have you taken the medicine?" he asked with a frown.
"It's none of your business if it hurts me to death." She said sullenly, wanting to return all the resentment for being rejected just now to him.
He became good-tempered and didn't get angry. He just said, "Wait for me two minutes."
Xieyi put down the phone, thinking that he had something urgent to do, or an important call to answer. She pouted, her resentment still lingering in her stomach, and he disappeared again. In short, even this man didn't seem to be in a hurry when he heard that she was sick.
She ran to the bathroom and looked at her slightly swollen cheeks in the mirror. Exactly two minutes after she came out, the phone in the room rang. He was indeed educated in Germany and was very punctual.
"I just asked Secretary Lin to check. There is a flight to City C at 11 o'clock. You wait for me in the hotel." He explained the matter concisely in three sentences, and there was no room for doubt.
"What are you waiting for?" Xie Yi was unable to digest the meaning of those words for a moment.
What did he just say
"Are you serious?" After a while, she put the battery back in her phone and sent another message.
"Fake."
"oh."
She replied with a single word, then leaned back on the pillow to watch a TV series. She kept switching channels, but was never satisfied. The toothache had caused her entire head to twitch. She kept switching channels until many local stations said goodnight. After an unknown amount of time, her eyelids began to droop, and she finally wanted to sleep. She half-heartedly heard the phone ring again. She reached for the receiver of the landline, and after a long pause, she realized it was her cell phone that was ringing.
At this moment, it was about three or four in the morning.
"Hello." She put the phone to her ear.
"Xieyi, open the door."
"Ah?" She was a little confused.
"Open the door to your room."
"What?" She sat up.
"Open the door."
She wondered and walked over to do as she was told.
She turned off the lights in the room and went to sleep, so the light was very dim. When the door opened, the light from the corridor shone in from behind him, and a tall and slender figure came into her sight. At that moment, she stood there.
It took a moment for her brain to coordinate with her movements, and then, she couldn't help but stand on tiptoe and open her arms to hug him. He actually... really appeared in front of her suddenly, like a miracle.
This was the first time she hugged him so actively.
He was in a good mood. He helped her back into the house, closed the door with his backhand, and then bent down to kiss her, a kiss that was so sweet that it was sickening.
"I thought you were teasing me."
"I never tease people." This is the truth. After saying this, Li Zeliang took out some medicine from his bag for her to take, then helped her pack her things and left the hotel.
In the taxi, Xieyi asked: "Why don't you live here?"
He squinted at her, "Do you want your roommate to come home in the morning and see me lying on her bed?"
This... is indeed a problem.
"So where are we going now?"
"A place." Li Zeliang said absentmindedly, looking at the street lights outside the window.
It was almost five o'clock, the sky was beginning to turn pale, but the temperature was a bit chilly. The taxi drove into a secluded community next to Xueyuan Road. They got out of the car and went up to the third floor. Li Zeliang took out his keys and searched for a long time but couldn't find the right one.
Xieyi asked nervously, "Are you sure you can get in?" It was the middle of the night and it was easy to be mistaken for a thief.
He stared at her expressionlessly and said, "I'm sure." Then he found a spare key under the flowerpot next to him.
The sofa and bed in the room were covered with cloth, as if no one had lived there for a long time, but every place was spotless, as if someone came to clean it frequently. It was a two-bedroom house with simple furnishings. Without thinking much, she found the bedroom, fell on the bed and fell asleep. The curtains were drawn in the room, and she didn't know when she slept. She just felt her stomach growling, and she struggled to open her eyelids. What appeared in front of her was Li Zeliang's sleeping face.
He lay on his side facing her, eyes closed, lips tightly pursed. He hadn't woken up yet, maybe he was really exhausted. He hadn't slept all night and had flown nearly a thousand kilometers to the hotel to find her, just because of her little toothache. If he still said that he didn't care about her at all, it would be a lie.
When he was asleep, his brows were relaxed, and his breathing was slow and quiet. His eyelashes were not long but very dense, and had the same light brown color as his hair. She couldn't help but reach out and touch them. Unexpectedly, this slight movement woke him up. When he slowly opened his eyes, he still looked sleepy, with a confused look and a little childish.
Xieyi chuckled in his heart and closed his eyes pretending to sleep.
He turned over and lay flat in a daze, rubbed his eyes, looked at Xie Yi, and returned to the position of lying on his side facing her. However, he did not continue to sleep, but stretched out his hand to pull Xie Yi into his arms and said, "How dare you tease me while I was sleeping."
Xie Yi suppressed his smile and continued to close his eyes.
"Still pretending to sleep? Let me show you how I'm going to deal with you." He raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to kiss her ear.
She had been extremely ticklish since she was a child, and the moment the hot breath from his lips sprayed against her ears, she couldn't help but scream, laughing loudly while dodging and pushing his chest away.
Unfortunately, the bed was so small, how could she escape? She turned her attack into defense, reaching out to tickle his armpits. He grabbed one of her hands and was about to grab the other, so she fought back with all her hands and feet. She was quite strong, and after using her not-so-useful teeth, she managed to stop him from succeeding. She bit and gnawed the arm that he was trying to grab her with, forcing him to retreat.
"It seems that you are in the same group with Erlang Shen."
"Why?" She was out of breath from playing, and she didn't let her guard down at all when she asked the question, for fear that he would talk to her deliberately to divert her attention so that she could take advantage of the opportunity to attack.
"It's the reincarnation of Howling Sky Dog."
"Bah, bah, bah, you are the Howling Sky Dog!" and then he tried to bite him again.
"Look, isn't this irrefutable evidence? I don't know if there's rabies."
She was so angry that she wanted to bite him to vent her anger.
They were so engrossed in the fun that they forgot themselves. Xie Yi smiled and kicked his leg while struggling with him. Both of them stopped moving at the same time, and Li Zeliang frowned slightly.
"Did I hurt you?" Xieyi let go of her hand and asked with a worried look on his face.
The moment she relaxed her guard, he clamped her hands with lightning speed and pinned her down. This time she really couldn't move at all, and Li Zeliang had a completely smug expression.
"You cheated!" she said angrily.
"All's fair in war." He grinned.
"You're annoying, annoying!"
"How dare you say I hate you?" He raised the corner of his lips, put her wrists together, held them firmly with his left hand, and then freed his right hand to easily tickle her armpits.
"Go away, don't touch me." She dodged in a hurry, but her limbs were in his grasp, so it was useless to dodge. As soon as his fingers touched her itchy spots, she screamed and laughed, and she was out of breath after just a short while.
"Are you still calling me annoying?" he asked haughtily.
"It's just... annoying." She would rather die than surrender.
So he tickled her waist again. Xieyi wanted to cry and laugh at the same time, but she couldn't hold it back. Both of them had a layer of sweat on their heads.
"Stop it." She giggled until tears came out.
"Will you still say I'm annoying in the future?"
"No more talking." She began to compromise.
"Who's not talking?"
"Shen Xieyi won't say anymore." Her righteous spirit didn't last for more than a few minutes before she surrendered.
"Shen Xieyi, who do you hate if you don't tell me?" He pressed on step by step, and would not give up until she was convinced.
"Shen Xieyi stopped saying that Li Zeliang is annoying." She admitted her mistake very straightforwardly this time.
He was quite trustworthy. He stopped attacking immediately after hearing this and nodded contentedly, "Why didn't you just say it earlier? Why did you force me to use torture?"
But Xieyi waited for him to relax, smiled slyly, broke away from him and prepared to take the opportunity to tickle his waist and fight back. But Li Zeliang acted before her, dodged quickly, and then successfully clamped her hand again.
"Now you're in trouble." He suddenly said seriously.
"I was wrong." This time she was smart enough to admit her mistake immediately.
"This is a repeat of the past. I'm afraid it won't be as easy to let go as last time." He knew exactly where she was most ticklish, so he leaned over and opened his mouth to tease her earlobe.
He held it in his lips and flicked the little earlobe back and forth with the tip of his tongue, making her feel as if many ants were crawling in her heart, making her feel itchy and unbearable.
"Don't kiss there." She screamed and shook her head hard, but unfortunately she couldn't get rid of his lips.
He said seriously: "You are not allowed to kiss there, so I'll kiss this side." He pretended to switch to the right ear.
"Don't kiss me! I admit my mistake." She begged for mercy loudly.
He had been teasing her on purpose in the first place, so how could he give up so easily? He was about to kiss her again.
Xie Yi was in a hurry and couldn't help shouting, "A Yan, you are not allowed to kiss me!"
His body suddenly paused and he stopped moving.
He put away the playful look he had just had with her and looked at her seriously.
"You..." He uttered a sound but didn't follow up with any conclusion.
Xie Yi took advantage of his hesitation and quickly escaped from his clutches. She jumped to the side of the bed and winked at him triumphantly, "It seems that A Yan is indeed your name."
"You...how did you know that?"
"I peeked at the note in your study, and this name was on it." She said as if her evil plan had succeeded.
"Yeah." He responded, lowered his eyes but didn't say anything more. This made Xieyi, who had wanted to proudly return the phrase "All's fair in war", feel at a loss for a moment.
"Are you angry?" She looked at him.
"No." He smiled calmly, lay down again, spread his arms, and said, "Xieyi, come here, I'll hold you."
Xieyi had just suffered a loss from him, so there was no way he would go back so easily.
"Perhaps you are trying to defraud me again."
"really not."
After hearing his assurance, she half-believingly sank back into the quilt and rested her head in his arms.
"Why do you call me A Yan? I've never heard anyone call you that." As soon as she said it, she felt that the last sentence was redundant. She didn't have much contact with the people around him. Who in the company dared to call him that? And Uncle Tan in the old house wouldn't do that either. In order to emphasize the importance of this question, she asked again: "Why do you call me A Yan?"