CH 10

[T/N: Jiang Jun’s flashback of her past with Du ended at Chapter 9, they are still at the restaurant in the present.]

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Jiang Jun exhaled the smoke from her cigarette, stood up, and walked to the window to open the window. “You get three questions. If you ask more, I won’t answer. Go ahead and ask.”

“The first question, who are you dating?”

Jiang Jun remembered her earlier kiss with Yuan Shuai and couldn’t help but want to laugh, but she couldn’t figure out what Du was trying to set up by asking this question. She forced a smile and replied, “A man, a very good man.”

Du narrowed his eyes. “Is that the answer?”

“Yes.”

Du sneered and slowly closed in on Jiang Jun. Jiang Jun had nowhere to escape, so she could only try to press up close to the window. Du used his body to trap her. Jiang Jun didn’t struggle; it was useless to struggle, and she wanted to see what tricks this man was playing. Was it possible that he wanted to use his good looks to get his way?

The building really was too old. Jiang Jun felt that there was cold wind coming from behind and couldn’t help but suggest, “Shall we change positions? This window is so dilapidated that I’m afraid it’ll fall. Also, don’t use this kind of shady posture, you promised before that you wouldn’t mess with your own,* nor lay hands on female subordinates.” [T/N* Idiom; a rabbit doesn’t eat the grass near its own burrow. It’s used here to mean that you shouldn’t try to date your close friends/coworkers/people in the same unit or department]

“Were you treating me as your boss when you scolded me?” Du let go of Jiang Jun and let her escape to a safe area away from the windowpane.

Jiang Jun only found it funny to hear Du say that. “Hah, you’re really petty. Hurry up and ask the second question, I’m anxious to go home and sleep.”

“See, look at you, is this the tone you use to talk to your boss? Okay, second question, what will it take for you to agree to marry me?”

Jiang Jun suspected that she had heard wrong. Marry? Du was proposing to her? Didn’t this guy have a wife? He wanted to take her as a mistress?

Seeing that she didn’t answer, Du smiled very happily. “OK, I’ll take that as your agreement. So then the last question, do you prefer to live in Taiping Mountain or Qianshui Bay? Shi Ao is also good, it’s more secluded.”

Jiang Jun tremblingly stretched out her hand and waved it in front of Du’s eyes. “Du, are you high on drugs?”

Du laughed and forcefully wrapped his arms around Jiang Jun’s waist, brushing his lips over her earlobe, whispering, “Is it okay for me to lose my mind over you?”

Jiang Jun only felt a fire burning up from the soles of her feet and rushing straight into her head. She murmured to herself, “Or I’ll take you to the hospital for a checkup. Hey, you…” Du’s hot and wet tongue slipped into her mouth without a hint of hesitation. Jiang Jun felt like he was going to swallow her. She panicked and only wanted to push him away, all her calm shattered to pieces by this kiss.

“Be good and kiss me,” Du held her face and ordered.

“I won’t.” Jiang Jun covered her mouth with her hand, pushing him hard and stomping on him, like a fuming shrew.

“Please, you don’t know how much I’ve thought of this day, it’s driven me crazy. Be good, I want you.”

Jiang Jun was forced to look directly at him and the man in front of her was like a ferocious beast. She enjoyed the thrill of fighting side by side with Du against competitors, against clients, and against other belligerent associates in the company. Du’s ambition and militancy had created countless battlefields for Jiang Jun. In her mind, Du was a mountain, a mountain that she could never cross, which frustrated her, but at the same time, made her worship him more and more. This perhaps was the so-called animal instinct. Now, the man that she looked up to was looking at her as if he were bewitched, and begging her.

She licked her lips in bewilderment and Du caught the tip of her tongue in one bite and sucked hard. This kind of a kiss was completely different from the feeling that Yuan Shuai had given her.

Yuan Shuai! Suddenly Jiang Jun remembered Yuan Shuai. The heat and warmth that Yuan Shuai brought to her put her incomparably at ease. This was something that no one else could give to her, including Du.

Jiang Jun pushed Du away with all her strength and stumbled away, but Du grabbed her arm and dragged her back into his arms.

In the past, Du had also very subtly flirted with her. Jiang Jun became used to his lack of restraint and pretended to be oblivious and ignorant of it. Du was always accurate in assessing the situation and knew that Jiang Jun hated it when others tried to cross the lines of friendship in the workplace,* which never ended well in public or in private. Du had expressly agreed with this sentiment and had promised that he would not have any unclear relationships with female subordinates. [T/N* the same rabbit idiom as before, the closest English equivalent is the rather vulgar “don’t shit where you eat” meaning don’t pursue coworkers]

“Let me go.” Jiang Jun stared at him with her head held high, “Enough, we’ve crossed the line, are you trying to force me to resign?”

“Just a moment, really, I won’t touch you, just for a moment.” Du wrapped his arms around Jiang Jun, hugging her so hard her ribs almost hurt.

Jiang Jun really didn’t know how to end this. She took a deep breath and kept calm. “Okay, I’ll count to three. The two of us will forget about this, just consider it as a drunken lapse of control.”

“I was reckless about what happened today, I apologize.” Du let her go and, not allowing her to decline, helped Jiang Jun fix her clothes. “Let’s go, I’ll send you home.”

On the way, Du asked Jiang Jun, “If I’m defeated this time and have to leave, what are you going to do?”

Jiang Jun pressed herself to the car door, staying as far away from Du as possible. “That’s a problem for senior management. Who wouldn’t want a capable and talented employee like me?”

“What if I want you to continue to be with me?”

“As long as you can offer my salary.”

When the car stopped in front of the apartment, Du had the driver to get out of the car first. He held Jiang Jun’s hand and said, “What I mean is, be with me, not in a work relationship, but in a personal relationship.”

“Are you done with this?” Jiang Jun shook him off and yelled angrily, “I’ll tell you one more time, I’m not Linda, and I’m not interested in sleeping with you. If you still think of me this way, I’ll hand in my resignation tomorrow.” After she finished, she opened the door and got out of the car.

Du got out of the car from the other side, chased after her, and took her arm. “You really have no feelings for me?”

Jiang Jun broke free without hesitation. “You have no right to ask me this question at all. If you have an extramarital affair, you should go to hell and have your tongue cut out. I respect you very much, but I’m not so cheap as to be your mistress. Without you, I’d have some regrets because I will have lost a friend, but it wouldn’t affect my future life. I believe it’s the same for you.”

Du seemed to be relieved. “Listen to me, I’m divorced, and all the formalities are being done. So, give me a chance to woo you, not just for sex, but for a real relationship.” He circled her waist and said in a low voice, “I’ve been waiting for this day for a really long time.”

Divorced? Jiang Jun didn’t even know what day it was anymore. The surprises just kept coming, a constant bombardment. She stared at Du intently. No matter how she looked, he didn’t appear to be a loverlike man; this wasn’t some sort of plot to bring her down, was it?

Jiang Jun pressed her hand to her forehead and weakly said to Du, “Don’t tell me that you’ve divorced for me. Even if you say it, I won’t believe it.”

Du laughed, took her hand and pressed it to his own cheek, touching it a few times affectionately. “Whether I did or didn’t, time will tell.”

Jiang Jun was truly confused by his adoring attitude and avoided his eyes, not daring to look directly at him. She looked past Du’s shoulders, her gaze falling beyond him, and saw Yuan Shuai standing on the steps of the apartment, against the light. She didn’t know whether he was looking at them or staring into the darkness in the distance.

Jiang Jun watched dumbly as Yuan Shuai turned around and left, feeling like she was being squeezed hard around her neck, unable to catch her breath. She pushed Du away in a panic and ran in through the door. She faintly heard Du’s shouting and the sound of the security guards trying to stop her, but she couldn’t be bothered to turn back. Even if the sky itself were falling, she still had to explain things to Yuan Shuai first.

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[T/N Our girl really knows how to put Yuan Shuai through the wringer, huh? Happy Lunar New Year’s to everyone, hope you all have a safe, healthy, and prosperous year! What really happened during that first drunken night is finally revealed in the next part…]