Ji Jiayu was sprawled on the bed, hissing in pain, half-conscious between sleep and waking. In truth, more than anyone else, he’d been hoping Li Tangli would be here with him.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, he still refused to let up. Back turned to the door, he demanded without even glancing over, “Where did you run off to?”
“Finding medicine took a little time.” After a brief hesitation, Li Tangli didn’t mention what had just happened.
She first took off Gu Zhi’s jacket, folded it in half, and draped it neatly over the back of a chair.
Then she helped Ji Jiayu up, propped two pillows behind his back, and kept him in a half-sitting position while she tended to the young master’s medicine.
Li Tangli was very good at taking care of people—perhaps that was a trait shared by daughters from poor families.
Before crossing over, with no money to hire a caretaker, she had looked after her gravely ill mother all by herself—wiping her down, helping her use the bathroom, feeding her. She’d never let anyone else handle a single step.
Most of the time, she could only rush a few bites of food into her mouth during the trip from the factory to the hospital. To save money, she often made do with cold boiled water and dry mantou, so her stomach had been ruined by the strain too.
To her, taking care of Ji Jiayu was second nature.
With no hot water bottle on hand, Li Tangli soaked a towel in hot water, made sure the temperature was right, and pressed it against Ji Jiayu’s stomach. Whenever the towel cooled slightly, she went to reheat it.
Under her careful tending and the effect of the medicine, Ji Jiayu soon drifted back to sleep.
Li Tangli, however, didn’t close her eyes. She repeated the process for half the night, only dozing off briefly when the sky began to pale.
The next day, Ji Jiayu woke up feeling much better.
He pushed himself up, just in time to see Li Tangli step out of the bathroom.
She’d just finished washing up; there was still dampness clinging to the ends of her hair and her lashes. Her expression was weary, faint shadows of blue-black hanging beneath her eyes.
Ji Jiayu’s expression turned a little strange, and Li Tangli grew nervous in response. “Is your stomach still bothering you?”
He just stared at her for a good while before asking, awkwardly, “You didn’t sleep well last night?”
Li Tangli blinked. She was already used to tending the sick late into the night, so she hadn’t thought it was much of a hardship at all.
“I’m fine, ha—”
Before she finished, a yawn slipped out. She clapped a hand over her mouth on reflex, eyes going round.
Her clumsy, dazed look sent Ji Jiayu into laughter. “How can you be this stupid?”
She didn’t even know how to milk sympathy from him. Truly hopeless.
Scolded out of nowhere like that, even Li Tangli’s retort came out muffled and thick, like a wad of cotton swaying in the wind. “I’m not stupid.”
Ji Jiayu just laughed and leaned in, pulling her hand down and swallowing whatever words she’d meant to say. | BLACK LOTUS NOVEL Novel Archive | Black Lotus Novel
Normally he lacked for nothing and rarely needed anyone’s help with anything. Whoever was lucky enough to do him a favor was sure to find some roundabout way to make sure Young Master Ji knew about it.
But Li Tangli was different. She’d clearly kept watch over him all night—even in his sleep he’d been dimly aware of her care—and the dark circles under her eyes were proof enough. Any fool would know this was the perfect chance to play up how hard it had been.
Ji Jiayu had been willing to hand her the opening himself—already a rare enough thing—yet Li Tangli stood there at the foot of it, telling him carefully that she was fine, that it hadn’t been hard, too clumsy even to properly please him.
A woman this dense—not pretty, not clever either. Who else but him would ever want her?
Ji Jiayu lowered his eyes, gaze settling on Li Tangli’s lips. Small, kissed pink by him now, parted slightly as she caught her breath, her eyes damp. Desire stirred in him for this “utterly unappealing” woman.
So he thought, with great reluctance, that he’d just have to be magnanimous and play the good man—he supposed he wouldn’t mind her after all.
Li Tangli had no idea Ji Jiayu was being so “reluctant.”
She only wanted to sigh—why was he kissing her again?
And she couldn’t even dodge it. When they finally broke apart, Ji Jiayu was still staring at her lips, a dim light flickering in his eyes.
Sensing things were escalating, Li Tangli immediately pushed at his shoulder and stammered, “Ji—Jiayu, I want to go home.”
Ji Jiayu’s expression turned cold. “In such a hurry?”
Last night Ji Jiayu had insisted she stay over. Fortunately Zhang Meiting’s condition was currently stable, and Li Tangli had sent her a message. But she was still worried, her mind on her mother the whole night, barely able to sleep.
Li Tangli twisted her fingers together, looking troubled. “I want to go back and check on my mom. Yesterday—”
Ji Jiayu sat up irritably, cutting her off. “Suit yourself.”
Li Tangli opened her mouth helplessly, but couldn’t think of anything to say to smooth over his mood, and closed it again in silence.
She’d learned her lesson from fleeing the hotel in a panic last time, so this time she’d come prepared with a change of everyday clothes to wear home—that way, even if she ran into her mother, nothing would give her away.
Before leaving, Li Tangli made a point of tidying the room, as if it were her way of apologizing to Ji Jiayu.
She picked up her bag and said her awkward goodbye. “I’m heading out. Get some rest.”
Ji Jiayu ignored her.
He didn’t even turn his head. The curtains were drawn tightly shut, the room dim, the only light coming from the phone in his hand. Its cold glow fell across his fine features, casting a faint shadow of gloom.
As if he cared whether she stayed.
Truly a stupid thing.
Didn’t she know his stomach had been in agony just last night? Why couldn’t she have stayed a little longer this morning to keep him company—and even leaving, she couldn’t manage a single kind word?
Kids raised in circles of money and privilege matured strangely early, forced along by wealth. The little girlfriends and boyfriends of all those young masters and young ladies—which of them didn’t have sweet words rolling off their tongues without effort? “Baby, darling,” “I love you most, forgive me”—tossed around like it cost nothing.
Only Li Tangli stood off to the side each time like a block of wood—couldn’t drink, couldn’t play games, awkward as a student waiting to be scolded by a teacher, unable to even coo a single sweet nothing. All she knew was to tell him to drink less, to stand by with a cup of warm water.
With Ji Jiayu still fuming, Li Tangli had no choice but to leave the same way she’d come.
Reaching the courtyard, she hesitated, stopped, and looked back.
Unfortunately, Ji Jiayu, sulking inside, didn’t see Li Tangli’s hesitation. But another man, who happened to be standing on the balcony, caught the whole scene.
Gu Zhi’s biological clock, shaped by years of disciplined routine, was unnervingly punctual. No matter how exhausted he’d been the night before, he still got up on time for work as usual.
He was straightening his tie when he caught sight of someone in the courtyard.
For a moment, he almost didn’t recognize her.
She wore a plain long-sleeved top and jeans, simple in style—shabby, even. Clothes that looked years old, the collar of her top loose and stretched out of shape, revealing the delicate line of her collarbones; her blue jeans washed pale from wear.
Her face was clean and bare, her hair pulled back simply into a low ponytail, a bag in her hand. In an instant she’d transformed from the garish nightclub hostess he’d seen the previous two times into a shy, reserved girl.
As she walked out, she looked back twice. Her expression didn’t look like reluctance to leave so much as some private worry.
Gu Zhi thought idly—she was his girlfriend, after all, and had looked after him all last night. Wouldn’t Ji Jiayu see her home himself? The walk down from here to the foot of the hill wasn’t short.
To be clear, even knowing that Ji Jiayu wasn’t particularly infatuated with Li Tangli, and had even treated her rather badly, Gu Zhi felt no sympathy for the girl whatsoever. He thought it was, at most, exactly what she’d brought on herself.
Still, it did remind him of something. He hadn’t yet settled accounts with Ji Jiayu for bringing someone home to fool around with.
So he simply called his secretary, pushed his meeting back half an hour, and walked straight toward Ji Jiayu’s room.
He turned the doorknob, and the room, surprisingly, wasn’t the mess he’d expected.
The bedding was smooth and neat, a few pieces of clothing folded on the chair, even the belt coiled up tidily off to the side. No trash scattered carelessly across the floor.
Gu Zhi was a little surprised, but quickly realized who must have done this. · BLACK LOTUS Novel Archive | BlackLotusNovel
After all, the odds of Ji Jiayu crawling out of bed at the crack of dawn to tidy a room were about as good as an asteroid hitting the earth.
Though Li Tangli had cleaned up fairly thoroughly, as if the housekeeper had already been through, plenty of telltale traces still remained.
The room still hadn’t quite lost that certain charged scent, and in the trash can, brazenly discarded, sat a used condom.
It wasn’t until his gaze landed on his nephew, sprawled shamelessly on the sofa, that Gu Zhi’s face darkened.
What Ji Jiayu was wearing was unmistakably the short-sleeved shirt Li Tangli had had on last night.
That forced his mind, unbidden, back to the scene from the night before.
All at once, those small, subtle details slipped free of their innocent meaning and pointed, faintly but unmistakably, toward the mess of kiss marks and fingerprints left on the girl’s neck and the backs of her knees.
“Weren’t you leaving? What are you doing back here?”
Hearing footsteps, Ji Jiayu felt more than a little smug inside. He assumed it was Li Tangli, having had a change of heart, and slowly turned his head—only for the corner of his raised lips to freeze stiff.
Because the person standing in his room wasn’t Li Tangli. It was Gu Zhi, his face utterly blank.
Almost by reflex, seeing the bone-chilling look on Gu Zhi’s face, Ji Jiayu instinctively stood up and took a step back.
“Uncle, what are you doing here? Wait—when did you get back?”
Gu Zhi didn’t answer directly, his mouth pressed into a flat line. “Had a good time last night, did you?”
Ji Jiayu’s face changed.
Because Gu Zhi had bent down and picked up the belt draped over the chair.
Ji Jiayu bolted, legs pumping.
Moments later, his howls—half indignant, half pained—tore through the roof, loud enough that even Li Tangli, already some distance away, turned back in confusion.
At the center of the old residential complex where Li Tangli and her mother lived stood an old banyan tree.
A few stone stools and a stone table had been set up beneath it, along with some simple exercise equipment. The surfaces of the machines had been polished to a shine, worn smooth by the spry old men and women who used them every day.
That morning, the neighbors gathered under the tree noticed Zhang Meiting was alone and couldn’t help but ask, “Meiting, where’s your girl today?”
Li Tangli started work at ten, and usually took Zhang Meiting downstairs for a couple of laps around eight to get some exercise.
“A friend of hers got drunk, so Tangtang saw her home. It got too late, so she just stayed the night—didn’t come back to sleep yesterday.”
Zhang Meiting sat down and complained to the group, “Honestly, she really doesn’t need to walk with me at all! Do I look like someone with problems these days? She doesn’t get home from work until past ten every night. I tell her to sleep in a bit in the morning, but no, she insists on getting up to keep me company.”
Catching the note of pride hidden in her words, everyone couldn’t help but laugh.
Little Li had been quite the rebellious one a couple of years back, causing enough trouble with Zhang Meiting that the whole neighborhood knew about it. But these past few months, she seemed to have grown up and come around—working hard, earning money, taking care of her mother. Sensible and filial now. No mother could be happier.
Seeing her mother sitting under the tree chatting with the neighbors, cheeks rosy and looking in good spirits, Li Tangli, just arriving home, finally let her guard down.
Zhang Meiting looked her over with concern first before asking, “Did you come back on your own, or did your friend drop you off?”
She leaned to peer past her, and Li Tangli quickly stepped in front, lying, “She drove me to the gate and left.”
There was quite a difference between lying over text and lying to someone’s face. She’d always been an honest kid, and now, nervous, she found herself picking at her nails again.
Luckily Zhang Meiting didn’t notice how stiff she seemed. She patted her thigh and said urgently, “Oh—the corn your aunt just sent from back home, grown in her own field, so fresh! You should’ve given some to your friend! She hasn’t gone far, has she?”
Li Tangli quickly stopped her. “She was in a rush to get to work. She’s definitely gone by now.”
Zhang Meiting pointed at her, exasperated. “Honestly, you troubled someone’s home for a whole night—next time you see her, you’d better thank her properly.”
Li Tangli lowered her head, afraid her act would slip. She mumbled something vague and made an excuse to go home and rest first.
Having checked on Zhang Meiting and set her mind at ease, she finally had the mental space to deal with the male lead’s situation.
She sent Ji Jiayu an apology text first, carefully asking if she could bring him some yam and pork rib soup next time to help settle his stomach.
Of course, Ji Jiayu wasn’t about to reply right away. Li Tangli could only pray he’d cool off soon.
With some time before work, Li Tangli took out the jacket from her bag—clearly expensive, impeccably tailored.
Before leaving, she hesitated a moment, then decided to take the jacket off the back of the chair with her too.
Because Gu Zhi was obviously the sort of upper-class man who was particular about his appearance, immaculate down to his hair and the tips of his shoes—probably had a touch of a cleanliness obsession, even.
The jacket hadn’t been worn directly against his skin, but she’d had it on herself after all, so just returning it as-is didn’t feel polite.
Li Tangli decided she’d wash it herself first before mailing it back.
