Chapter 81#
Chapter 81#
On the way home, Zhao Rong barely spoke to Qiao Nanqi.
Qiao Nanqi truly acted like a driver taking someone home, silently gripping the steering wheel, quietly sitting in the driver’s seat and driving.
Sometimes he couldn’t help but glance in the rearview mirror.
Zhao Rong and Liang Youjun were sitting in the back seat.
If the lights weren’t deliberately turned on in the car at night, it would be dim inside, relying entirely on the halo of light from the streetlights flashing outside, only vaguely illuminating people’s silhouettes, making their expressions unclear.
He could only see Zhao Rong and the young man sitting close together, chatting occasionally. The young man played on his phone, and every now and then, he would talk to Zhao Rong and share things.
“…”
“…I think this place is pretty good!” Liang Youjun handed his lit phone screen to Zhao Rong.
“I’m familiar with this attraction,” Zhao Rong smiled, clearly very patient with him. “Pick a day during the off-peak season when there are fewer people, and I can take you.”
“Boss, you’re so kind. The tickets…”
“When have I not reimbursed you?”
“I meant to say I’ll treat you this time! Although all my money comes from you, I feel bad always letting you pay.”
“Isn’t that just burying your head in the sand?”
“…”
Qiao Nanqi thought about covering his ears, yet he also felt that being able to hear Zhao Rong’s smiling voice like this, he should be content.
The last person he loved and who loved him—his mother—he couldn’t keep, and he had no chance to recapture that feeling in the long years that followed.
This person who once—yes, once—loved him, and whom he now loved, he could occasionally catch a glimpse of him in the endless days and nights of the future…
It was enough.
The car slowly stopped at Zhao Rong’s doorstep.
The moment Qiao Nanqi stepped on the brake, he met Zhao Rong’s forward gaze in the rearview mirror.
The streetlights in the community were very bright, and although it was still night, he could somewhat make out Zhao Rong’s expression.
Zhao Rong seemed to see him look up and said, “Even in Zhuxi, Young Master Qiao is still so resourceful.”
He had just called him Qiao Nanqi, but at this moment, he suddenly became a little more distant.
Qiao Nanqi’s whole body stiffened.
He realized what Zhao Rong was saying.
—Zhao Rong had never told him his home address from beginning to end.
Qiao Nanqi had never been so careless, so much like a defeated deserter, as he was today.
He was clearly not someone who would forget such important details, yet when his mind was filled with Zhao Rong, he truly forgot.
He wanted to apologize, to explain that he had no ill intentions, that he had merely sat outside for a while on New Year’s Eve.
But he remembered Zhao Rong telling him earlier that apologies only existed between people who were entangled.
Zhao Rong didn’t need his apology.
At this moment, he didn’t even have the right to say “I’m sorry.”
Qiao Nanqi swallowed the apology, smoothly pressed the brake, his voice slightly hoarse from not speaking for too long: “I won’t… act presumptuously again.”
Liang Youjun had originally wanted to chat with Zhao Rong naturally, but with Qiao Nanqi speaking like this, he suddenly didn’t know whether he should talk or not.
He glanced at Zhao Rong, who nodded slightly and said, “Mm. Are you leaving these two days?”
Qiao Nanqi was stunned.
The word “leaving” carried too much weight; no matter who it was directed at, it was enough to crush him.
After Zhao Rong moved out, and after Zhao Rong married Lu Xingping in front of him, he finally had this brief moment of closeness, but Zhao Rong…
Was Zhao Rong trying to drive him away?
Qiao Nanqi turned to look at Zhao Rong, his voice low and with a hint of pleading, “Can I stay a few more days?”
Liang Youjun, watching from the side, couldn’t help but rub his eyes and touch his ears—was this really that Young Master Qiao from Yangcheng?
The Qiao Nanqi he heard about from others was someone who could be described with any word like “excellent” or “arrogant,” and anyone who spoke of him would be a little afraid. Even he, who had only met Qiao Nanqi once or twice, had long heard of his reputation.
If this weren’t Zhuxi, and if Liang Youjun’s relationship with Zhao Rong wasn’t what it was now, he wouldn’t even dare to make those gestures of feigned intimacy with Zhao Rong just now.
But his boss remained completely unmoved.
Zhao Rong said, “It seems you don’t plan to leave these two days. Since you know where my home is, you should also know that I opened a bookstore, right? Tomorrow, I promised Youjun I’d take him to an attraction, the day after tomorrow, are you free?”
These words clearly weren’t meant to drive him away, so Qiao Nanqi breathed a sigh of relief and nodded.
“Then if you haven’t left the day after tomorrow, come to the bookstore.”
With that, Zhao Rong opened the car door and got out.
Liang Youjun immediately followed.
Their charade lasted until the very last moment. Liang Youjun, who understood the game well, immediately linked arms with Zhao Rong again as soon as he got out of the car. He didn’t go back to his own home but followed Zhao Rong into Zhao Rong’s house.
Qiao Nanqi was still in the afterglow of Zhao Rong’s words.
—“Come to the bookstore.”
This wasn’t driving him away; it was even… an invitation?
Countless secret joys instantly bloomed in his heart.
But before this secret joy could erupt into a colorful fireworks display, he suddenly became afraid.
How could Zhao Rong give him hope?
Perhaps it was just to find a quiet place and a quiet time to tell him something that would make him never appear again.
He sat in the car, anxious and nervously expectant, watching Zhao Rong and Liang Youjun enter the house hand in hand, one after the other. The door closed, and he could no longer see what was happening inside.
He could only see bright lights coming from the windows, and two indistinct figures passing by, close together.
Was that person living with Zhao Rong?
That’s right, they were both people kept by his side, so of course they lived together.
Would they share a room?
Perhaps.
Qiao Nanqi, look.
Even if Zhao Rong only had a fake marriage with Lu Xingping, he would still meet new people, and you wouldn’t even be qualified for guilt or joy.
From now on, with flowers blooming and the rest of his life bright, you are the most superfluous person.
Inside the house.
Zhao Rong sat on the sofa, hugging a cushion, head bowed, and said to Liang Youjun, who was sitting beside him, “Thank you for today.”
“I’m not blind,” Liang Youjun seemed to sense his fatigue, and deliberately lightened his tone to ease the atmosphere, saying, “I can tell, boss, you wanted to use me to make him back off. Anyway, this isn’t Yangcheng, so it won’t ruin me… right?”
Zhao Rong was amused by his final hesitant question and said, “Don’t worry, he seems… a bit different now.”
In the past, Zhao Rong himself wouldn’t dare to anger Qiao Nanqi. Even when he moved out of Qiao Nanqi’s house, he was worried that Qiao Nanqi would directly deal with him and the Chen family together.
But now, unknowingly, he even brazenly did many things in front of Qiao Nanqi that he knew Qiao Nanqi wouldn’t like, would make him angry, or even sad.
Not afraid at all.
When he was in the car, listening to the man’s tone, so afraid of his refusal, his heart suddenly paused.
Such gentleness, such soft whispers, and the lightness with which this person played the piano in the auditorium—for a moment, it was as if he was pulled back thirteen years, to a young Qiao Nanqi who glanced at Zhao Ming in the hospital room and smiled, telling him, “So you’re not a little liar after all.”
Had this person become a new version of himself, or… had he reverted?
He didn’t know.
But he knew that everything had to come to an end.
“The day after tomorrow, that,” Liang Youjun suddenly asked him, “Do I still need to go to the bookstore?”
“Just come as usual. It’s not like I’m doing anything special; I just need to talk to him.”
“Oh, okay.”
Zhao Rong rested his chin on the cushion, emptying his mind, and unconsciously began to daydream.
After a while, Liang Youjun said, “That car is still outside.”
Zhao Rong glanced out the window and said, “Go turn off all the lights.”
“Huh?”
Liang Youjun was stunned for a moment, then understood Zhao Rong’s intention.
He got up and extinguished the lights in the living room and rooms one by one.
He specifically noted the order, first turning off the outside lights, and finally extinguishing the small night light that had always been on in Zhao Rong’s bedroom.
The entire house was dim.
The faint sound of a car engine starting came from outside the window. Zhao Rong looked out again, only to see the car’s headlights shining, gradually moving further away.
Only then did Liang Youjun say, “You said in the car just now that we’re going to an attraction tomorrow?”
“I wasn’t just saying it casually. Tomorrow, we’re going to have fun.”
“Yay! I’m going back now, boss, get some sleep.”
The next morning, Zhao Rong took Xu Xin’s family and Liang Youjun to visit a local attraction in Zhuxi.
He just wanted to clear his head. Besides the urgent matter of handing over the medical team, there wasn’t anything else they absolutely had to do immediately, so they naturally decided to go.
On the way, Xu Xin stammered for a long time before saying, “Little Zhao, Little Liang, I have some good news…”
Sister-in-law Xu couldn’t stand it anymore and said directly, “I might be pregnant.”
Zhao Rong was looking at the new cat photos the pet shop girl had sent him, and hearing this, he was immediately delighted.
“I’m going to be an uncle?”
“Then I’ll be a godfather?” Liang Youjun leaned forward.
Zhao Rong laughed, “If you’re a godfather, what can you teach? Sixth-grade history problems?”
“Math problems work too.”
Everyone burst into laughter.
Meanwhile.
Qiao Nanqi stayed alone for a night in a hotel near Zhao Rong’s home.
He didn’t sleep a wink.
Zhao Rong’s words last night were clearly conciliatory, but listening to them, he felt increasingly uneasy.
He had already assumed Zhao Rong would reject him, and these conciliatory words were more like a knife hanging, not yet fallen, hovering above his head, always swaying but not dropping, insisting on waiting until the next day.
As a result, he naturally tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
In the morning, Xiao Wu sent him photos of the cats still in Yangcheng, and he eagerly sent them to Zhao Rong.
Zhao Rong replied with a landscape photo taken from inside a car.
“Good morning, thank you for sending me cat pictures.”
“I’m at an attraction, taking some pictures of trees as a return favor.”
There was clearly no sign of Zhao Rong in the landscape photo.
But perhaps the accompanying text and the photo somehow conveyed Zhao Rong’s obvious joyful mood, and as Qiao Nanqi looked at them, he finally felt some comfort.
Only then did he slowly fall asleep when the sun was high in the sky.
However, this sleep was not good either.
He woke up after only a few hours of sleep, and then forced himself back to sleep.
This went on and on, in a daze, until he finally made it to the time Zhao Rong told him to go to the bookstore.
Xiao Wu, who had finished his New Year’s holiday, also came from Yangcheng and picked him up at the hotel early in the morning.
Before going out, Qiao Nanqi specifically cleaned up his slightly emerging stubble, ironed the white shirt he was going to wear until there wasn’t a single wrinkle, and put on a watch to cover the faint tooth-mark scar on his left wrist.
He was clearly a bit haggard from insufficient rest, but he tried his best to hide his discomposure, always making himself appear somewhat spirited.
Zhao Rong said he might not love him.
But if Zhao Rong no longer loved him as a person, and only had a little love for his appearance, for his hands, then he should still take good care of himself.
Xiao Wu had followed Qiao Nanqi for so many years and truly felt that their boss was suffering too much now.
“Sir, if you’re going to see Mr. Zhao,” Xiao Wu said, “why don’t you try…”
He wanted to say “just be a bit disheveled,” but then thought the word wasn’t quite right, so he paused and said tactfully, “Why not be a bit more casual? Perhaps Mr. Zhao will soften.”
Qiao Nanqi, however, merely said indifferently, “To make him soften towards me in this way now would be an insult to him.”
It seemed… he had already insulted Zhao Rong for many years.