CH 2

So many years had passed since their young and frivolous days, when they had both experienced breakups. Neither of them had fallen in love or married, instead idling away the time together in such an unclear way. Jiang Jun didn’t think, and didn’t dare to think, about the future for the two of them. She herself will definitely never find someone to fall in love with again, but Yuan Shuai is handsome, desirable, rich and powerful, and sooner or later he will have to start a family. At that time she will be left solitary and pitiful,* and she didn’t know how she would live then. [T/N* idiom, solitary and impoverished, but I chose pitiful since it suits the context better.]

She was a little depressed today; Yuan Shuai is thirty three and she was headed toward the big thirty mark herself. Even though she had made up her mind to be a single strong woman, when she sees others being all lovey dovey, she can’t help but still feel sour. If she continues like this, she’ll get an endocrine disorder or bring on menopause.

Jiang Jun drank a few more glasses in her melancholy but Yuan Shuai was in a good mood, his eyes full of smiles and laughter. He didn’t try to stop her and even gulped down cup after cup with her. On the TV, there was a melodramatic show in which young pretty men molested the auntie-class women: “A spring night is worth a thousand dollars…”

Jiang Jun felt that she really couldn’t waste the good situation at this moment, so in one breath she stood up, brandished her arms and shouted, “I’ll sing a birthday song for you… Beijing’s golden mountains shine light on the earth…”

Yuan Shuai secretly breathed a sigh of relief and thought: She’s finally drunk, right? It really wasn’t easy. This girl’s capacity for alcohol was downright scary, if he hadn’t already gone to the bathroom to force himself to throw up twice, he wouldn’t have been able to last until now. He waited patiently for her to finish singing, but Jiang Jun was very excited, repeating it several times like a broken record, and didn’t seem like she intended to stop.

Yuan Shuai felt that it would take too much time if this continued, so he quietly stretched out his foot and tripped Jiang Jun. Jiang Jun was singing and dancing to her heart’s content, delighted. But inexplicably, her center of gravity was unstable, and she fell into Yuan Shuai’s arms, her head dizzy. She seemed to want to say something and Yuan Shuai leaned close, but she didn’t speak for a long time.

His warm breath and the strong smell of wine made Jiang Jun even dizzier, and she insisted on shouting “BA ZHA HEY!*” [T/N* a shout with no specific meaning, from Tibetan] The night’s craziness was finally over, the person just didn’t know.

Yuan Shuai put his arms around the unconscious Jiang Jun and fiercely kissed her flushed face a few times before whispering: “The spring night is worth a thousand dollars. I have been waiting for all these years. Tell me, do you think I should spare you? “

He had planned a long time ago, then procrastinated for many years, but it was time to do it.

The wine was the original Wuliangye (Five Grain) liquor brought by Yuan Shuai. Good wine is good wine. When Jiang Jun woke up, she didn’t suffer from any hangover and had not even a bit of headache or dizziness. In fact, everything was fine, except that there was an extra person in her arms.

Yuan Shuai was nestled in front of her chest, his hair tousled, gently snoring in his sleep. His upper body was smooth, the muscular lines defined, and his skin was better than hers. Jiang Jun’s thigh was wrapped around Yuan Shuai’s waist and the position was as ambiguous as ambiguous could get. Jiang Jun was completely confused, what was this, where, huh? Wasn’t it just drinking a little wine and chatting about life, how did this happen? She tried to adjust her position slightly and thought: Fortunately, at least the situation isn’t like you’re in me and I’m in you.

Jiang Jun closed her eyes again, calmed her breathing, and suggested to herself: “Zhong Jiang Jun, you are dreaming.”

Yuan Shuai gave a vague “mm” and a certain organ on her lower abdomen slowly woke up, making Jun Jiang overwhelmed with embarrassment and at a complete loss. The revolutionary friendship that had been maintained for so many years was ruined by a few glasses of old wine, which inexplicably had led to a romantic affair. This realization made her even more ashamed and confused than from a certain organ saluting her.

At 8:10 in the morning, Jiang Jun would usually be in the bathroom brushing her teeth, but now she sat on the toilet and smoked nervously. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting. Her legs were going numb and the small of her back was sore, but she didn’t dare to go out, let alone make a sound. Her heart was so messed up and the previous scene was too shocking, so it even made her think of thoughts that she shouldn’t have: that her Yuan Yuan-gege actually was a man. No, he had always been a man, but it was just that she had ignored the fact that he was a man. But that wasn’t right either, nothing is right now, everything is all messed up.

At 8:15, the financial news started, and Jun Jiang was still sitting on the toilet, stepping on a cigarette butt, and biting her fingernails.

On the other side of the door, contrary to expectations, Yuan Shuai was calm. He knew that very early in the morning, at 5 o’clock, Jiang Jun left his side to go hide in the bathroom. When she came out with a cigarette, trying to find a lighter, he narrowed his eyes to see it clearly. Without a care, he turned over and closed his eyes again, continuing to rest. After taking a nap, he glanced at the bathroom door and saw that the person was still inside, smoke drifting out from under the door. Was this girl was trying to become an immortal or something?

He sat up slowly, pondered for a while, then raised his hand to his chest and pinched himself a few times. Feeling that it was not enough, he did it again with more force, before bending down to put on his shoes. He took a towel from Jiang Jun’s closet and wrapped it around his waist. He was not sure what to do next.

Yuan Shuai opened the window and stood in the sunlight, lighting a cigarette. The more the situation was deadlocked like this, the more he has to stay composed. The initiative was never in his hands, so at this point, the only good strategy was to stay put.

Jiang Jun chewed all her fingernails and took several showers before she calmed down. She felt that psychologically, the best solution was to act as if nothing had happened.

After walking out of the bathroom, she told Yuan Shuai what was on her mind. As Yuan Shuai understood what she meant, he expressionlessly adjusted his shirt that had only two buttons left, hating it with all his heart. What does it mean that nothing has happened? His face was still blank, but there was a chill in his voice: “Do you really think we can still be the same as before?”

Jiang Jun didn’t understand what Yuan Shuai’s words meant. Did he really mean to draw a line between them over this matter? She was a little upset and thought to herself: I’m not even fussing over my first time,* yet you are an old hand but acting* so worked up over it? [T/N* She says she was in the “original packaging” and describes him with the Japanese loanword傲娇tsundere aka someone who acts unfriendly/cold, but is warm and soft inside]

But when she looked up and saw that the red rash and blood on his chest was almost gone, she lost confidence and almost raised a hand to slap herself. She was quite pure and was embarrassed to even see a couple kissing on the street. She couldn’t blindly go overboard, how could she dare to attack Yuan Shuai?

Jiang Jun felt she should apologize, speaking coyly, “Yuan Yuan-gege, I….”

Seeing Jiang Jun’s reddened face, Yuan Shuai knew that continuing this talk would yield no results, so he could only drop the subject and try to persist at another time. He stood up and touched Jiang Jun’s head. “You little heartless one. Okay, don’t you still have a meeting in the morning? Hurry up, I will wait for you downstairs.”

Back in his apartment, Yuan Shuai kicked the low stool at the door. He really didn’t understand what Jiang Jun’s heart was made of—how was it unable to be warmed when covered, and impossible to penetrate?

On the way to the company, Jiang Jun felt nervous and secretly looked at Yuan Shuai from time to time. Yuan Shuai appeared magnanimous, wearing a smile and looking unhurried.

Arriving downstairs in the office, Jiang Jun opened the door like a thief who had done something wrong, trying to quickly sneak in, but Yuan Shuai grabbed her arm. Jiang Jun looked at him apprehensively, while Yuan Shuai took out a Band-Aid and put it on her neck, then grinned and pinched her cheek, saying in an intimate tone: “Cover the evidence of the crime, cover it tightly, don’t show it.”

Because of this small thing, Jiang Jun rushed into the bathroom and cooled her face for ten minutes before she recovered her composure.

Du’s secretary knocked on the door and asked if she was unwell. Jiang Jun stood up, took two deep breaths, opened the door and went out, letting out an extremely fake laugh: “I’m fine, but my stomach is a little uncomfortable.”

The other party asked with great concern: “Can you still attend the meeting?”

“Yes.” Jiang Jun smoothed out the wrinkles on her skirt and walked into the meeting room with her head high.

She appeared to sincerely compose a reason to apologize to everyone for being so late, and she engineered a way to give everyone face. As for whether they believed it or not, Jiang Jun didn’t care, they weren’t the ones who paid her salary anyway.

“Come with me.” Du glanced at her through non-prescription glasses, closed the document, got up and walked out.

Jiang Jun walked out of the conference room with him to the office area.

“What’s wrong with your neck?” Du abruptly turned his head to look at her.

Jiang Jun didn’t even think about it, but the standard answer came out: “Mosquito bites.”

Du stopped, his expression like he was watching a monkey show: “In November? Mosquitoes? You might as well just say allergies, and also, don’t put that on. Trying to hide it just makes it more conspicuous.”

Jiang Jun blushed with shame. She was definitely not intentionally shy, but she had no experience in this matter.

Back in the office, Du sat down with a serious face and said, “The official job appointment will come down next month. You have to be very careful before that. Recently, there have been frequent personnel transfers. Everyone is staring at you. I hope that today will not happen again.”

Jiang Jun nodded. “I know.”

“James has a client that he can’t handle. The opponent is Tianhui. You take it over.”

Jiang Jun hesitated a little: “We still have some joint projects in the works with Tianhui, so if we close the net on them now, the losses are somewhat large.”

Du leaned back in the boss’s chair, holding a cigar, and smiled like a grandmother wolf: “Don’t be so small-minded. It’s the right time to kill, not cooperate with, the opponent.”

“Understood, I will go to arrange it immediately.”

“Don’t worry for a while.” Du got up and poured a glass of mineral water for Jun Jiang. “Come on, to honor our future vice president with water instead of wine.”

Jiang Jun took the water glass and automatically went on high alert, maintaining her smile and pretending to flatter him. “You are too kind. Who doesn’t know that you became an executive director at the age of twenty-six, a milestone figure in the Asia-Pacific region of investment banking.”

Du noncommittally took a cigar out of the box and dangled it in front of her.

Jiang Jun was a woman of taste and recognized the finer things, so she stretched out her hand and snatched it. “Hiding such good things in private.”

“There’s still better, when the time comes I’ll gift them to you.”

“We’ll talk about it later then, I’ll go out to do things first.” Jiang Jun knew that the price of Du’s cigar might be a liter of blood in exchange. This guy never trades at a loss.

“Hey!” Du held down Jiang Jun’s hand and Jiang Jun was pulled toward him. When she looked up, she saw the sophisticated crow’s feet of his smiling eyes and shivered subconsciously.

“Next time you’re late, you will ask me for leave.” Du touched the tip of her nose with his finger, the gesture so sappy that Jiang Jun’s back twitched in reaction, her skin prickling.

After that, for the whole day, Jun Jiang constantly kept looking for things to do, cigarette kept in her hand, and downing cup after cup of coffee into her stomach.

~ ~ ~

[T/N So I know it looks like Yuan Shuai just took advantage of her while she was drunk in a totally non-consensual manner but he’s not like that, I promise, so don’t hate him! What happened on this one night will be cleared up later in the novel.]