The next day afternoon, Li Tangli received a message from Gu Zhi: 【Not eating dinner at home tonight, don’t wait up.】
The phrasing he used was “at home”—whose home, exactly, did that mean?
There was no point digging into it. Fortunately, through gradual exposure, Li Tangli had grown used to this kind of wording and didn’t find anything strange about it. She only replied with an “okay.”
Gu Zhi had a social obligation to attend that evening, but worried about Li Tangli staying alone in the apartment, he couldn’t wait for the gathering to wind down and took his leave early.
Even so, it was nearly nine thirty by the time he got home.
At the banquet, cups had been passed around and toasts exchanged, so a few drinks had been unavoidable. Gu Zhi was still lucid, but walking felt like stepping on clouds, his feet unsteady beneath him, and along with it his thoughts drifted, floating somewhere in midair.
He opened the door and stepped inside. The apartment was silent, the living room pitch black, with only a thin sliver of light leaking out from the crack of the second bedroom’s door frame.
He knocked lightly on the door twice. “Li Tangli.”
No one answered.
He checked his watch by the faint light, confirming it was still early—not late enough for her to have already gone to sleep.
“Li Tangli? Are you there?”
Could it be she wasn’t home?
The moment that possibility occurred to him, his expression turned grave. Combined with the alcohol in his system, his usual composure gave way, and without regard for propriety, he yanked the door open, swift and reckless.
Li Tangli was sitting perfectly fine in the room.
Her back was to him, seated at the desk, bent over writing something.
At the sight of her, the heart Gu Zhi had felt hanging in the air finally settled back into place. He walked over quietly and noticed she was wearing earphones, her expression troubled.
Whenever she got nervous, she liked to lick and bite her lips, and her lower lip, a shade darker than the upper, always ended up looking damp and swollen from her own worrying at it.
Following her gaze, Gu Zhi saw a set of English test questions pressed beneath her arm. She’d hesitated for a long while, pen raised, before finally writing a C beside the question number.
Gu Zhi stood there stunned for a moment.
She was studying?
Li Tangli was doing a listening exercise.
Having taken leave from the restaurant, her free time these past few days had increased considerably. During the day she did online part-time work and visited Zhang Meiting at the hospital; in the evenings she could steal extra time to study. Looking on the bright side, it was a blessing in disguise.
She’d looked into it carefully at a bookstore before—the high school textbook content in this world wasn’t much different from her original one, so studying more could only help. — Black Lotus Novel Archive · Black Lotus Novel
If she managed to make it back safely, Li Tangli hoped to take the adult college entrance exam as soon as possible, to fulfill her mother’s dying wish at the earliest opportunity.
This particular listening set was last year’s mock exam, and it was difficult. The audio babbled unintelligibly through her eardrums, sliding smoothly across the surface of her brain without leaving behind a single useful piece of information.
After the recording finished, she pulled out the answer key and checked them one by one. On the last question, she’d hesitated between two options, and in the end resolutely picked the wrong one.
Just as she was regretting it, something faintly cool brushed against her earlobe, and the next moment, the earphone in her left ear was pulled free.
A slightly husky voice rang out clearly: “Listening practice?”
She turned her head and, without expecting it, found Gu Zhi standing behind her to the right, an earphone pinched between his fingers.
Her gaze traveled up along his stomach, his chest, his throat, before meeting the eyes that were watching her.
His voice tonight carried an unusual magnetism, the tone lifting slightly at the end, making her ears itch just from hearing it.
Li Tangli’s heartbeat skipped half a beat. Pretending to be casual, she rubbed at the shell of her ear and pulled out the other earphone as well. “Mr. Gu, you’re back?”
“Mm. I called your name and no one answered—I thought you weren’t home.”
“The volume was a bit high, I probably didn’t hear it.”
“I did really badly, don’t look—” Seeing Gu Zhi glance at the exam sheet, her face flushed, and in a hurry she tried to flip the paper over.
He stopped her instead, saying flatly, “Aren’t there plenty of correct ones too? You did well.”
Under the lamplight, the girl tilted her head up to look at him, her eyes glistening, catching flecks of light, whether from shyness or something else unclear—like the surface of a lake rippling under the afternoon sun.
The more he came to know her, the quieter he found her to be. Whether sad, afraid, or happy, whether facing something good or bad, Li Tangli was always quiet, never making a fuss. Being obedient to a fault, it had turned into something closer to passive endurance.
Gu Zhi saw it, and found he truly couldn’t help but look after her.
It was precisely this kind of pitiable stillness that had, again and again, driven him to cross the line.
Just like now—as if his soul had been seized, he reached out his hand without meaning to.
The flames roaring inside him burned fiercer under the fuel of alcohol, a stark contrast to his face, which remained expressionless despite his heart nearly overflowing its banks.
His eyes only lowered halfway as the back of his finger brushed lightly against her soft, flushed cheek. He watched her instinctively close one eye, her lashes trembling.
This was the very limit of what he allowed himself to do.
His hand resting against her face was cold. Before Li Tangli could even react, Gu Zhi withdrew it as if nothing had happened.
As though nothing at all had occurred, he cautioned her: “Don’t get your eyes too close to the page, you’ll ruin your eyesight. Go to sleep early.”
“Mm…”
Li Tangli hesitantly touched the spot on her cheek where his knuckle had brushed, her heart pounding, and sat there dazed for a moment.
The English words on the page swam about like little tadpoles. She shook her head hard, gnawed at her pen in frustration, and gave up studying entirely.
She poked her head out instead and saw Gu Zhi leaning back on the sofa with his eyes closed, rubbing his brow. Thinking of the faint trace of alcohol she’d caught on him earlier, she asked quietly, “Mr. Gu, are you drunk?”
He opened his eyes. “Mm, had a bit to drink. Did I scare you?”
With Gu Zhi admitting it so openly, it was she who ended up looking like the one making a fuss over nothing.
Seeing that he looked a little worn out, Li Tangli said instead, “There are apples and oranges in the fridge. Do you want some hangover soup?”
“Sure, thank you.”
Making hangover soup was simple enough—peel and cube the fruit, then simmer for five minutes. Since the flavor leaned sour, she added a piece of rock sugar as well.
While she worked, Gu Zhi went back to his room to change into home clothes, taking off his watch along the way. When Li Tangli brought the bowl of soup over, her eyes landed immediately on the scar on his wrist.
Before, his left wrist had always been covered completely by his watch, with only the edge of the scar barely visible.
It turned out there were wounds on both the inner and outer sides of his wrist. The outer scar ran deep near the back of his hand, its shape jagged and severe—the original injury must have been serious, and she could make out the marks left by stitches.
On the inner side of his wrist was a horizontal white scar.
Li Tangli stared at it in disbelief for a moment, then quickly looked away.
Her heart lurched, but she didn’t dare ask further. She was utterly stunned—in her mind, Gu Zhi had always been someone mature and dependable.
Why would he have had thoughts of self-harm? And when had it happened? · black lotus novel Novel Translation Site · Black Lotus
The scar on Gu Zhi’s wrist stood out unnaturally in her mind, circling there, refusing to fade for a long while.
Occupied by all sorts of guesses, Li Tangli nearly forgot what she’d meant to say.
Before heading back to her room, she remembered: “Mr. Gu, I have some things tomorrow evening, so I won’t be back for dinner.”
Gu Zhi’s steps halted. He turned to look at her. “Going out with who?”
Even with some distance between them, Li Tangli still found it hard to meet his eyes directly—she couldn’t quite say why.
Her gaze slid away. “Ji Jiayu.”
He set the bowl in the sink and turned on the tap, saying in a very level tone, “Alright. What time will you be back? Do you need me to pick you up?”
Li Tangli said hastily, “No need, I’ll head there myself, and as for when I’ll be back… I might not be sure.”
…Was she planning to stay out all night? Did that mean she’d be spending the whole night with Ji Jiayu?
The moment she stepped through her door, Gu Zhi’s movements came to an abrupt halt.
The sound of running water splashed on. He braced both hands against the counter, motionless, his face dark enough to drip.
The address Ji Jiayu had sent was the club where they’d first met—also the place Li Tangli used to work.
Stepping into the private room, she first glanced left and right, and only when she saw Ji Jiayu still sitting alone, with a spot reserved beside him, did she let out a breath of relief.
She hadn’t yet figured out how to face Shu Ran.
Should she pick a fight? Or go head to head with her for Ji Jiayu’s favor? Either way, she doubted she could handle it.
Ji Jiayu hadn’t seen Li Tangli in over half a month.
She wore a milk-tea colored knit dress, fitted to her body, with a slightly low square neckline that revealed a bit of soft, pale collarbone. Her shoulders and back were slender—still the style he favored.
She’d also thrown on a short cardigan over it, which made her look considerably more presentable, not too exposed.
The moment she sat down, Ji Jiayu noticed she’d left a seat’s worth of distance between them and narrowed his eyes, displeased.
When he was unhappy, he never bothered asking Li Tangli’s opinion—he simply reached out, hooked an arm around her waist, and pulled her straight over.
Once satisfied, he gave her side a pinch and remarked idly, “Seems like you’ve lost weight?”
“Have I?”
Li Tangli had nearly toppled into his arms from the pull.
Strange to say, though it hadn’t been that long, she found she’d grown unused to Ji Jiayu’s sudden bursts of intimacy.
And besides, he’d said they were done—yet judging by how things stood today, it seemed he still intended to carry on as before.
Then what had been the point of him bringing up breaking up at all?
A pop song played through the surrounding speakers. Some young lady’s male companion held a microphone, singing along.
A few of them were playing a drinking game—finger-guessing, commonly called “boxing fists”—with the loser drinking as punishment. Li Tangli had been dragged into playing at first, lost several rounds in a row, and couldn’t hold her liquor besides.
Ji Jiayu, finding her hopeless at it, never let her join in again.
Even though she merely sat quietly off to the side, the glances cast her way, open or veiled, never seemed to stop.
Li Tangli had already grown nearly numb to it.
Not just Ji Jiayu—every last one of the young men and women around him looked down on Li Tangli from the bottom of their hearts.
She was just a nightclub hostess—if not for Ji Jiayu’s lapse in judgment in taking a fancy to her, what right did she have to sit as an equal among them?
But today was different. Beyond their usual condescension, their gazes now carried something else mixed in—pity.
Pity that she’d been dumped? Pity that she’d been cheated on?
They assumed Li Tangli was still being kept in the dark, entirely unaware of Shu Ran’s existence.
Little did they know, Li Tangli had long since found out about Shu Ran, and had already panicked over it—even though Ji Jiayu still hadn’t said a single word about it to this day.
The private room was thick with the smell of smoke and liquor, and Li Tangli, unable to blend into their lively atmosphere, listlessly glanced at her phone and found a new message had come in twenty minutes earlier.
It was from Gu Zhi, saying to come home early tonight.
Ji Jiayu also sensed something off in the air. He glanced back and saw Li Tangli beside him staring at her phone screen, a faint smile on her face.
A sudden unease surged through him. He gripped her shoulder and leaned in suspiciously. “What are you looking at?”
Li Tangli instinctively tilted the screen toward her body. Before Ji Jiayu could make an issue of it, at that critical moment, the door to the private room opened. BLACK LOTUS NOVEL Novel Archive · Black Lotus
The one who walked in wasn’t a server bringing drinks, but a tall, striking young woman.
The instant he saw her, Ji Jiayu’s face darkened first. “Shu Ran, why are you here?”
His voice came out unusually cold and hard, the voice of someone with a guilty conscience.
Li Tangli looked at the uninvited guest in astonishment.
So this was the female supporting antagonist, Shu Ran?
That’s right—Shu Ran was the very person who’d helped her that day at the buffet restaurant.
Standing in the doorway, Shu Ran looked as though she’d been wounded by Ji Jiayu’s cold attitude.
She said, downcast, “Jiayu, was I too much? But… today’s my birthday, and I wanted to spend it with everyone…”
Even a pretty girl’s sorrow had its own particular charm.
Everyone present hurried to smooth things over: “Alright, alright, since you’re here, just sit down.”
It was too late to send her away now. What’s more, Shu Ran’s cousin Shu Ziyi was also present, and having been friends with him for years, some face had to be given.
Taking the excuse everyone offered her, Shu Ran gracefully made her way to Ji Jiayu’s other side.
Ji Jiayu lowered his voice and hissed through gritted teeth, “I told you I’d come by later to keep you company.”
Shu Ran pouted. “But I missed you.”
She fussed with her carefully styled hair, angling herself slightly, and across from Ji Jiayu, shot Li Tangli a wink and a smile.
Only the curve of her lips moved—her eyes held not a trace of amusement. The smile that didn’t reach her eyes read more like a silent provocation.
Unlike Li Tangli, Shu Ran clearly got along with this crowd far more easily.
Her temperament was warm and easygoing; she could chat with anyone, and even in games she never fell behind.
Though she’d only just joined their circle recently, she left the awkward, tongue-tied Li Tangli in the dust without even trying.
Even a fool could see that Shu Ran and Ji Jiayu were far from just acquaintances—their elbows kept brushing against each other, and though Ji Jiayu tried his best to keep his distance, he couldn’t quite hide the details.
He tiptoed through the whole thing like walking a tightrope, and when Shu Ran had first arrived, he hadn’t even dared to look at Li Tangli’s expression.
After a moment, he finally forced himself to glance at her as if by chance, only to find Li Tangli’s expression showed no reaction at all.
Neither downcast with hurt, nor flushed with anger.
…She was just looking at her phone again.
Ji Jiayu finally began to sense that something was off with her.
