Chapter 19#
“Wine?”
Jing Xinglan was stunned, but then chuckled: “Yes, I have some. What, do you want me to drink with you?”
To his surprise, Qiao Jing actually nodded.
But Jing Xinglan’s brows furrowed instead. He could sense that Qiao Jing’s mind was currently in a very confused and troubled state; otherwise, he wouldn’t be thinking of using alcohol to numb himself.
But wasn’t Qiao Jing a web novel editor? Was it really so bothersome that an author under him had writer’s block?
Jing Xinglan had wanted to ask him the reason, but although they were desk mates in high school, their relationship could only be described as average. So, after thinking about it, he still said nothing, only getting up to go home and retrieve two bottles of red wine and two glass cups.
Qiao Jing silently climbed up from the floor.
The two sat on the floor like that, drinking cup after cup.
Jing Xinglan watched the young man silently downing wine, and suddenly became curious: What is Qiao Jing like when he’s drunk?
…But he soon found out.
“Jing Xinglan, let me tell you a story,” Qiao Jing’s eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed. “Want to hear it?”
“I do want to,” Jing Xinglan put down his glass, looking with complex emotions at Qiao Jing, who was talking to the black cat. “But I’m right here.”
“Oh.”
Qiao Jing put down the terrified 008, turned his head as if nothing was amiss, his dark, vacant eyes staring straight at the man sitting cross-legged on the floor. He suddenly propped himself up with his hands on the ground and leaped up from the floor.
“Tell me,” he said, one hand on his hip, the other pointing to the sky. “What do you see?”
Jing Xinglan looked up at the ceiling: “A chandelier?”
“Wrong!” Qiao Jing shouted. “It’s a big plane! A big, big plane!”
Saying this, he began to imitate the sound of a plane taking off, spreading his arms expressionlessly and “woo-woo-wooing” as he ran wildly around the living room.
Jing Xinglan: “…”
He rubbed his forehead, thinking with a headache and amusement: So, does someone with social anxiety develop social prowess when drunk?
Qiao Jing “flew” around the living room for a while. Probably feeling tired, he lowered his arms and collapsed onto the sofa.
Jing Xinglan thought Qiao Jing had fallen asleep and, fearing he might suffocate himself with a pillow, wanted to go over and turn him over. But Qiao Jing grabbed his tie and pulled him sharply closer.
The man stumbled.
To maintain balance, he had to kneel on one knee on the sofa, his arms propped on either side of the neck of the person beneath him.
This was a very ambiguous posture. If he weren’t sure the person in front of him was drunk, Jing Xinglan would definitely think Qiao Jing was playing hard to get.
“Let go.”
“No,” Qiao Jing said seriously. “Doctor, I’m not dead yet; I can still be saved.”
Jing Xinglan: “…I know, you’re just drunk.”
He looked down at his wrinkled tie. His clean-freak tendencies flared up, and he couldn’t help but let out an irritated “Tsk.”
Qiao Jing thought for a while with his muddled brain but still couldn’t understand Jing Xinglan’s words.
But he knew he was very uncomfortable now—physically uncomfortable, and mentally uncomfortable. His head was throbbing as if something was on the verge of coming out, but he just couldn’t grasp it.
He suddenly felt his life was a failure.
“Do you like Jing Hua Shui Yue?” He stared fixedly at Jing Xinglan in front of him. The man’s identity switched back and forth between “annoying high school desk mate” and “the doctor protagonist from my own pen.” “Are you… stupid from studying medicine?”
“What?” When did I study medicine?
Jing Xinglan didn’t take that remark to heart much. He was busy trying to rescue his tie from Qiao Jing’s hand. “Alright, let go. I’ll help you to bed.”
“I won’t let go,” Qiao Jing stubbornly insisted. “What do you like about him? What he writes is trash; even dogs wouldn’t read it.”
Hearing these words, Jing Xinglan’s face darkened.
Even though he knew Qiao Jing was drunk, slandering his favorite author in front of him was something he couldn’t tolerate. Jing Xinglan took a deep breath, silently repeating “don’t argue with a drunkard” several times, and pried Qiao Jing’s fingers open one by one.
“If Jing Hua Shui Yue’s writing is trash, then no other author should live,” he straightened up and said flatly. “And why would you buy a bunch of trash and put it on your bookshelf?”
Qiao Jing: “To remind myself.”
“What do you mean?”
But this time, Qiao Jing didn’t answer him.
The young man staggered up from the sofa and headed straight for the study.
Jing Xinglan had a bad premonition.
“Wait—what are you doing!?” He widened his eyes, watching Qiao Jing take out the signed book he had so desperately sought, and tear it in half in a flash. His voice immediately began to tremble with anger. “Stop it right now!”
He snatched the book from Qiao Jing’s hand, his heart aching to the point of breathlessness.
A rustling sound came from ahead. Jing Xinglan, unable to bear it any longer, looked up, but the angry expression on his face instantly froze when he saw Qiao Jing’s appearance.
Qiao Jing stood blankly in the study, like a lost child, his eyes vacant and empty, tears streaming down his face.
“What should I do? I really can’t think of it…”
Jing Xinglan held the book stiffly, feeling as if he had done something terribly wrong.
Even when Qiao Jing’s books were confiscated by the teacher in high school because of him, he had never cried!
The man carefully walked over and very slowly patted Qiao Jing’s shoulder: “If you can’t think of it, then don’t. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself.” After a pause, he added, “By the way, didn’t you say you wanted to tell me a story?”
Qiao Jing nodded with red eyes.
Jing Xinglan let out a long sigh of relief when he saw Qiao Jing stop crying. He led the person back to the sofa in the living room and sat down.
But Jing Xinglan didn’t expect that Qiao Jing actually told him a proper story.
It had to be said that Qiao Jing had a great talent for storytelling. Jing Xinglan, who had only intended to coax him to sleep and then leave, unknowingly became engrossed in the story. Even when Qiao Jing stopped, he pressed: “What happens next?”
“Next,” Qiao Jing said vaguely, “next…”
He suddenly closed his eyes, tilted his head, and fell asleep on the sofa.
Jing Xinglan: “…”
The man’s expression changed unpredictably, but in the end, he just let out a deep sigh.
Forget it, it’s not the first time I’ve encountered a bad ending.
He laid Qiao Jing flat on the sofa, tidied up the living room, and then got up to leave.
But before leaving, Jing Xinglan hesitated for a while and still took away the “mutilated” signed edition of Great Physician of the Common People.
Consider it payment for inviting Qiao Jing to drink this time, he thought.
The next day.
“Host! Host, don’t do anything rash!”
008 looked at Qiao Jing, who was standing at the edge of the balcony with vacant eyes, so scared that the entire cat clung to his leg, unable to be pulled off.
Qiao Jing: “…”
No, let go. Let him die.
He recalled all his actions in front of Jing Xinglan while drunk and wished he could escape this planet.
Too embarrassing!
Seeing his dazed look, 008, fearing Qiao Jing might actually do something rash, quickly advised: “Host, it’s okay, we still have other ways! At worst, we can destroy the evidence!”
Although I’m very sorry to Jing Xinglan, the little black cat revealed its claws with a murderous look, but for Qiao Jing, let me take the initiative to clear up the trouble for my host!
Qiao Jing: “…No, that’s really not necessary.”
The doorbell rang. Qiao Jing’s body stiffened for a moment. Despite his extreme reluctance, he walked over and opened the door.
“Awake?” Jing Xinglan sized him up and smiled.
Qiao Jing hung his head, gripping the doorknob tightly, and nodded almost imperceptibly.
Seeing him like this, Jing Xinglan actually missed Qiao Jing’s previous “uninhibited and passionate” drunken state. He chuckled and said, “I just came to check on you. Since you’re awake, that’s good. But can you tell me what the ending of that story is?”
Qiao Jing opened his mouth: “…I don’t know either.”
The story he told Jing Xinglan was actually a truncated excerpt from Song of the Earth. Qiao Jing had thought he had already figured out the ending, but now he wasn’t so sure.
Was such a cold and intelligent future really the ending he wanted?
“Is that so,” Jing Xinglan sighed, as if he had expected it. “Actually, I wrote an ending myself. Do you want to see it?”
Qiao Jing suddenly looked up: “What is it?”
Jing Xinglan took out a piece of paper from his pocket: “I don’t really like tragedies, and this story always gives me a fairy tale-like feeling, so I thought of a piece of news I saw before. It would be best if it could help the author who has writer’s block.”
Qiao Jing looked at the handwriting on the paper, slowly widening his eyes.
So that’s it. This is the ending he truly wanted!
“Thank you,” he said, taking the paper, genuinely grateful.
Jing Xinglan waved his hand: “No need to thank me. I just wrote it casually. But…”
“But what?”
Jing Xinglan stared at him for a long moment, then suddenly smiled: “I think I know your identity now.”
Qiao Jing’s heart skipped a beat, but he remained calm on the surface: “Is that so?”
“It’s too obvious,” Jing Xinglan said with a confident tone. “This story you told me is Song of the Earth, right! So, you must be Yan Heqing—”
Qiao Jing gripped the white paper tightly.
“—’s editor,” Jing Xinglan said in a deep voice. “Am I right?”
Qiao Jing stared blankly at him.
“Don’t worry,” Jing Xinglan comforted him. “I’ll keep your secret. He is indeed a very promising author, but his writing style is still a bit more immature compared to veteran big shots like Jing Hua Shui Yue. You don’t need to be too anxious; authors need time to grow.”
After his words fell, the black-haired young man was silent for a moment.
“Jing Xinglan.”
“Hmm?”
“Move aside. I’m closing the door.”
“…”