He turned his face away, coughed awkwardly twice, and said, "Come in." After that, he helped Xieyi in and put him on the sofa. When he was about to get up and take off his coat, Xieyi grabbed his collar.
"What for?" he asked.
"You can't be taken away by others." She said sadly.
He paused, sat next to her, raised his eyebrows and said, "It seems that you are not drunk at all."
Xieyi blushed all of a sudden and said hastily: "Why am I not drunk? I am just drunk..." At this point, she suddenly felt that her explanation was superfluous.
She looked at Li Zeliang again. The man was trying very hard to hold back his laughter, and his expression was completely gloating after exposing her trick. She was so angry that she rushed over and wanted to bite him hard. Unfortunately, she didn't think of the right place to bite. She saw that the angle of his chin was better, so she opened her mouth and bit his chin. To her surprise, the taste was so good that she couldn't help but bite it a few more times. But her canine teeth were very sharp, and although she didn't bite hard, it hurt so much that his eyebrows wrinkled together, and she laughed.
"Freehand." He rubbed his chin.
"Um?"
"It hurts me," he said.
"How could that be? I just bit it gently." Although she said that, she couldn't help but lean over to take a closer look. Sure enough, there were a few shallow teeth marks on the skin of her chin.
Xieyi pouted guiltily and touched the teeth marks with her fingertips, "Ayan, I'm sorry..." and then blew at them childishly.
Her fingers touched his skin, which was tingling. Her face was close to him, and she pursed her lips and blew gently. The breath disturbed his mind. He tilted his head and sealed her mouth. Xie Yi's eyes widened in surprise at first, and then he slowly recovered. This was completely different from her light kiss, which destroyed her breathing rhythm in a few seconds.
His kiss was a little unfamiliar, and he didn't dare to go straight into her mouth, just licking and sucking lightly. Xie Yi in his arms tried hard to adjust her breathing, then put her hands on his shoulders, opened her mouth slightly, and responded to him immaturely and beautifully.
A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, and he held her arms tighter, pulling her closer to him. During the lingering, her mind went from a semi-conscious state to a dizzy state, as if she was standing in the clouds, and then she felt like she was holding a piece of rich chocolate, the silky and smooth feeling lingered on the tip of her tongue, and then melted away bit by bit.
This time, she seemed really drunk.
Their lips and tongues finally parted. She opened her eyes timidly, but did not dare to look at his face. She leaned on his chest, panting lightly, and the soft touch on her lips lingered for a long time.
Li Zeliang calmed himself down and said slowly: "The one at the door doesn't count, this is the first kiss."
"Why?"
"Why so many whys?" His face darkened.
Hou Xiaodong once told her that Li Zeliang is a type of human being that is not easy to get close to, but if he does not reject your approach, it means you are halfway to success.
Now it seems that she has succeeded in the other half.
Just that one kiss seemed to have suddenly shortened the distance between her and him. It was not until that day that Xieyi realized that all her hard work was not in vain. He also liked her. From then on, the follower became a girlfriend, and the serf turned over and became the master. Xieyi happily welcomed the new day, but unfortunately, after a few days, she found that there seemed to be no difference in the treatment of the girlfriend and the follower. He would still be mean to her and meddle in her affairs.
But... it seems to be a little different.
On the first day of New Year's Day, Li Zeliang took Xieyi and several foreign students he knew and drove to Düsseldorf to watch the New Year's countdown. When it was almost midnight, they walked to the Rhine River. The people waiting for the countdown were already crowded. Although there was a drizzle, people's enthusiasm did not diminish at all. Xieyi also jumped around excitedly with others, and he indulged her to let her make noise. There is a famous bar street by the Rhine River, one after another, full of people from the surrounding areas to welcome the New Year's countdown. The temperature dropped sharply in the middle of the night, and everyone gathered together, waiting for the arrival of the New Year while standing and drinking.
Li Zeliang stopped Xieyi from drinking to warm herself up. She looked at him gloomily.
"Am I not afraid of the cold?" When she spoke, her breath turned into a cloud of white mist. In order to emphasize that the temperature was very low, she deliberately blew out a few breaths of hot air to prove it.
Later, Xieyi took him by the hand, left the group, and ran to the bridge alone.
"The Rhine flows right under my feet!"
The Rhine River in this section was much wider than what she had seen before, and in this atmosphere, she felt even more excited. She leaned over the railing and looked down. She could just see her own shadow under the bridge lamp on the river surface. At first, she thought it was fun, but after watching it for a few more minutes, she felt dizzy.
The wind on the bridge was even stronger, and she shrank her neck due to the cold. Li Zeliang unbuttoned his coat and wrapped her in it from behind. Xie Yi was stunned for a moment, and then naturally leaned into his arms. He just rested his chin on the top of her head, so intimate. The sharp cold wind was blowing everywhere, but Xie Yi felt warm at the moment. Some people couldn't wait any longer and lit the fireworks themselves.
"Ayan." She called him.
"Um?"
"I feel like I'm very happy." Xie Yi said softly.
But in such a noisy atmosphere, I wonder if he heard it. She didn't know why he could destroy everything so calmly one year later. If a person wants to lose everything and be deserted by everyone for love, it is unrealistic. She knows this, she doesn't have such extravagant hopes. But if he said he didn't care about her at all, she didn't believe it.
Xieyi was sitting in front of the tombstone. Seeing that it was getting dark, she stood up and turned around, and found Zhan Dongzhen not far away. Zhan Dongzhen couldn't find her when he went back, and his first thought was that Xieyi had come here. It turned out to be quite good.
"Dongzheng is not collapsed, right?" she asked.
"Not bad." He smiled.
"You didn't lie to me?"
"When did I ever lie to you?" he said.
"Don't give me that. Didn't you lie to me after I got into a car accident? And you even arranged a mixed-race boyfriend for me while I couldn't remember. You're so smart."
Zhan Dongzhen chuckled, embarrassed to answer. Xie Yi and the others all called that a car accident. In fact, they all knew that it was not a car accident. The car ran out of the road without any signs of braking, and rushed straight down the road towards the cliff by the river. All the signs at the scene showed that she was either deeply drunk or attempted suicide.
She doesn't drink, so she's obviously the second type.
Li Zeliang went to Germany, and after they met, Xieyi got into a car accident. Fortunately, someone called the police and rescued her from the water. After being unconscious for two days, Xieyi woke up and remembered nothing. But when she saw him, she tilted her head and hesitated for a moment, and asked tentatively: "Dongdong? Are you Dongdong?" At that moment, Zhan Dongzhen couldn't describe how much he liked to hear her call this nickname that he once despised.
It turned out that she remembered him, but she had lost her memories of her adulthood and the time she spent with someone.
Xieyi remembers that on the last day, he was driving and said to the phone calmly: "When I was a sophomore, I watched a movie called Cinema Paradiso. The old man in the movie told the male protagonist a story that I really want to tell you."
"Xie Yi!" He interrupted her on the other end of the phone and ordered, "Stop the car right now!"
"Ayan, please listen to me, okay? Please listen to me for the only time, okay? Just listen to me." Her tone was surprisingly calm, but there was a kind of despair in her calmness.
"Once, the king held a banquet for his daughter. A soldier was standing guard nearby and saw the princess passing by him. The princess was a stunning beauty and the soldier fell in love with her at once. But how could a humble soldier be worthy of the king's daughter? One day, he finally managed to get close to the princess and told her that he couldn't live without her. The princess said to the soldier, 'If you can wait for me for a hundred days, and wait for me under the balcony day and night, after a hundred days, I will be yours.' After hearing this, the soldier waited under the balcony, one day, two days, ten days, twenty days... Every night the princess looked out, and he stood there all night. The wind and rain could not stop him, crows landed on his head, bees stung him, but he did not move. But on the ninetieth day, the soldier was pale and thin, tears flowed from his eyes, he could no longer hold on, and even had no strength to sleep. The princess kept watching him. Finally, on the night of the ninety-ninth day, the soldier stood up, picked up the chair, and left."
She had always thought that she would cry after telling this story, but unfortunately, when she blinked, there were no tears in her eyes. Li Zeliang on the other end of the phone did not speak.
"I never understood why he left before, why he didn't wait until the next day. Now I think, maybe they have missed the moment of love. Love is fair, if you keep giving, you will get tired. When the soldier left on the night of the ninety-ninth day, did the princess feel heartbroken? If she felt heartbroken, why didn't she open the window before that and let the soldier in?"
The car turned a corner and saw the beautiful Rhine River.
She wondered if the Rhine River was very cold at this time of year. She wondered if it would be freezing cold if she fell into it, or if she would not feel anything at all.
She said the last words before hanging up the phone.
"Ayan, I am tired after guarding under your window for ninety-nine days. I have to leave now."
"Do you regret it?" Zhan Dongzhen asked her on the way back.
"No." Xie Yi said, "I don't regret it at all."
A week later, Xieyi returned to City A.
On the way, she trembled as she turned on her long-unopened cell phone. A lot of messages popped up all of a sudden, filling up her mailbox in two or three seconds. One by one, there were reminders of missed calls and various text messages.
Xieyi lightly pressed "Delete All".
She didn't want to see it, and she also believed that Li Zeliang would not look for her. He was such a proud person. She lied to him and retaliated against him, making him in such an embarrassing and awkward situation. If he hated her, that would be the best. When this hatred became mutual, she had the perseverance to persevere.
Many people who are not related to Tang Qiaoli look at freehand painting with a strange eye.
"Where did you go? Why is my phone unreachable?" Wu Weiming asked.
"Going back to my hometown to visit relatives." Xieyi smiled.
"I heard that Li Zeliang..."
"Daming, I brought you some local specialties." She interrupted Wu Weiming.
Wu Weiming didn't know about Xieyi and Li Zeliang's past, and wanted to comfort Xieyi. However, Xieyi immediately interrupted him. After exchanging a few pleasantries with Wu Weiming, Xieyi went to her office to find Qiao Hanmin and handed in a resignation letter.
"Are you leaving?" Qiao Hanmin asked.
“Yes, it caused trouble for Sister Qiao.”
"Maybe you just want to take a long vacation to rest. I'll give you another ten days off?" Qiao Hanmin tried to keep her.
"Sister Qiao, I..."
"Think about it again, Xieyi. At least finish what you are doing and wait for us to recruit the right person again."
Qiao Hanmin said this, it was business as usual, Xie Yi could only nod. She had originally planned to finish her business here and never come back, and from then on their lives would never intersect again.
However, the opposite happened.
In the afternoon, Xieyi suddenly received a call from a lawyer. The lawyer’s surname was Qiu and he was very famous in the legal community in City A.
"Ms. Shen, as Mr. Li Zeliang's attorney, here is a property donation contract that needs your confirmation and signature."
"What gift contract?"
"Mr. Li signed a gift contract with me a month ago, and the recipient is you, Miss Shen."
Xie Yi listened to the astronomical amount and put down the phone blankly. She held her head and couldn't help but smile bitterly. What did he want to do? Use money to atone for his sins? What exactly was in his mind, perhaps no one could figure it out. She hesitated, dialed his cell phone with her mobile phone, and before pressing the confirmation button, she changed to the landline to call his office phone, and it was Xiao Lin who answered the phone.
"Xiao Lin, I'm Shen Xieyi, I'm looking for Mr. Li." she said.
"Freehand?" Xiao Lin was stunned for a moment, "Mr. Li... he's not here."
"Thank you." Xieyi smiled. Did he refuse to answer all her calls and let Xiaolin take over
"Xie Yi, please dial Mr. Li's private number."
Xieyi would definitely not do as he said. She was very stubborn since she was a child. When her stubborn temper came up, she would go the other way if someone said something. Both her father and mother were helpless with her. However, such a child was always willing to listen to him. When she went home to take a shower, Xieyi opened the closet and found that many of her clothes and daily necessities were left at Li Zeliang's place. She had never gone back to get them. However, there were some necessary things in it.
She ruffled her hair and thought of a way to ask Zhou Pingxin to make a phone call for her. No one answered the phone in the apartment. She and Zhou Pingxin quickly ran downstairs and dialed the landline again. After confirming that no one was there, Xieyi handed the door card to Zhou Pingxin and asked her to go up. If she met Li Zeliang, she could say that she was helping her get something.
As a result, three minutes after Zhou Pingxin went up, a phone call came in: "Xieyi, no one is there."
"Oh, all right."
"Come up and help pack up. There are so many things." Zhou Pingxin said, "Come up. I'll be here if Mr. Li comes back."
So, Xieyi had to go upstairs. She entered the room without thinking much and hurriedly packed her luggage. When she was collecting her jewelry, her earrings fell under the bed, so she had to bend down to get them out. When she stretched out her finger, she touched something and pierced her finger. She picked it up and saw that it was a piece of dark purple glass. The color of the fragment was very special, so Xieyi recognized it at once. It was a crystal vase placed on the bay window. Xieyi almost broke it once, and now it is really broken.
Thinking of this, Xieyi suddenly understood something. She looked around, then went back to the living room and looked again. All the fragile and easily damaged ornaments in the house had been replaced. It was estimated that after a robbery, everything that could be broken was broken by him.
Xie Yi lowered his eyelids. Could it be that this was the day when he understood the truth
She sighed, but it was consistent with his current temper. He would smash things when he was angry. The Li Zeliang before was completely different. When she left, Xieyi put the room card on the coffee table. When she closed the door, she took a last look at the room card on the shoe cabinet, and she felt a mixture of emotions. She ran to his house without saying a word and secretly took something, which was not appropriate after all. Xieyi thought about it, and after saying goodbye to Zhou Pingxin, she called Li Zeliang on the way.
The phone rang many times, but no one answered until a voice prompt came in. A while later, when Xieyi had just arrived home, he called back.
"I am Shen Xieyi."
"Yeah," he said.
"I just went to your place to get something. I'm sorry I didn't tell you in advance."
"Hmm." He said the same word again.
"Goodbye." Xieyi said.
After she said these two words, time seemed to stop for a moment, and he paused. She didn't know where he was, but she could tell from the phone that it was very quiet around her, and she could almost clearly feel his breathing.
"Goodbye." He replied calmly with two words, then hung up the phone, making it almost seem like his pause just now was an illusion.
Xieyi put down her phone and sorted out her luggage, but she saw a book in the pile of clothes - Mankiw's "Principles of Economics". It was probably put in by Zhou Pingxin when she was packing for her. Did Zhou Pingxin think she would read such a boring book? This type of book, Shen Xieyi, always stayed away from it. Xieyi smiled bitterly and flicked the book. The pages turned over like a fan, but she saw a few familiar words on the last few pages. She turned it back in confusion, and then she saw her name written on it. It was written by someone and was written over and over again many times.