TCOR CH29

Chapter 29: He’s Not Really a Kitten

When Shen Wunian said Bai Qixuan’s name, my mind went blank for a moment, because ‘beating people up’ and Bai Qixuan really weren’t the same thing. But then I thought of Jin Huihuang. Did I think he was like that before I met Bai Qixuan in Jin Huihuang?

Sit down and treat the wound. At that time, Xu Meiqing brought the first aid kit.

I still had a lot of questions for Shen Wunian, and I really needed a place where the two of us could be alone. So I took a step forward, took the medical kit from Xu Meiqing and said, ‘I’ll do it, Meiqing. I’ve got experience. Then I took the kit in one hand and Shen Wunian by the arm and went to the second floor office.

The second floor is not only Shen Wunian’s office, but also a place to meet with clients. Most of the space is taken up by a set of brown leather sofas that look very comfortable. The brown glass coffee table has been polished to a high shine, and light floods in through the stained glass doors leading to the terrace, creating a kaleidoscopic effect in the sofa area.

What the hell is going on?’ I put the medical kit on the coffee table, turning my back on Shen Wunian and looking for something to use.

He said he wanted to talk to me, so I invited him to dinner. I never expected that as soon as we met, he would accuse me of setting him up, ask me what I was thinking, and say…’ He paused, unable to continue.

‘Saying what?’ I dipped a cotton swab into the hydrogen peroxide, turned and knelt on the sofa, gently turning Shen Wunian’s face to the side, holding his chin, carefully treating the wound at the corner of his mouth.

And you say I’ve got you under a spell and you’ll do whatever I say. He tilted his face up and the shadow of the stained glass window fell across him, leaving one side of his face in shadow and the other in full bloom.

So there was something about me.

I pursed my lips and felt a pang of guilt well up inside me. I’m sorry, I… I lied yesterday. I did have a fight with Brother Bai…’

I told him the whole story, including what Bai Qixuan had done in Jin Huihuang and his rude behaviour after drinking the night before.

I thought it would be hard to tell him, but once I started, it was like a dam bursting – the words just poured out.

Shen Wunian listened, his eyes slightly widened in shock: ‘No wonder he felt I had hurt him.

It’s my fault that I didn’t explain it clearly to him, and that’s why you suffered. Bai Qixuan didn’t know about the experiment between Shen Wunian and me. According to him, it wasn’t Shen Wunian who tried to drive a wedge between us, was it?

How can you blame yourself? If anyone is to blame, it’s… Qi Xuan himself. He was weak-minded and did the wrong thing,’ Shen Wunian said with a reassuring smile. But in doing so, he injured the wound and his face immediately crumpled in pain.

Don’t move, it’ll be over soon. To keep his face still, I had to increase the pressure in my hands.

My fingertips sank into his soft cheekbones, causing the flesh around his mouth to bulge slightly. Normally he did not look anything like the word ‘cute’, but at this moment he looked like a wounded little animal, pathetic.

Having finished with his mouth, I noticed that his nose was also a little red, so I took off his glasses to have a look.

Sure enough, there was a bleeding cut on his nose, probably caused by the edge of the glasses flying out and cutting him. Luckily it wasn’t serious.

As I tended to the wound, Shen Wunian obediently closed his eyes, his long, dark eyelashes drooping like black butterflies hanging upside down on the back of leaves to escape the rain. Each fall of the cotton swab was like a raindrop hitting the leaves, and the unpredictable landing caused the butterfly’s wings to tremble restlessly.

Does it hurt? I asked, moving more gently, disinfecting as I blew gently on his wound.

No,’ he said, his eyelashes trembling again.

My heart suddenly felt as if it had been touched by the wings of a butterfly, shaking wildly under an itch that could not be scratched.

Although Shen Wunian’s face had become like this, the meeting with Yu Xiaoshan in the afternoon could not be cancelled at will. After Xu Meiqing hurried downstairs, Shen Wunian looked at the time and got up to go to the stairs.

I’ll go first,’ he said, putting on his jacket and methodically straightening his tie. Didn’t I ask you to find out about Yu Xiaoshan this morning? Write a 2,000 word report for me this afternoon, the more detailed the better.

‘Oh, okay.’ I tidied up the desk, holding the rubbish in my hand, when something suddenly occurred to me. “Shen Wunian…”

He was holding the doorknob and stopped suddenly, looking back at me, waiting for me to say something.

“That… Galatea.”

That was the safe word Shen Wunian and I had agreed upon. He had said that as long as I said that word, the Pygmalion experiment would stop.

In the past, Bai Qixuan was an unattainable existence for me. I agreed to the experiment with the mentality of trying to save a situation, and I had nothing to lose either way. Now Bai Qixuan has gone from a moon in the sky to a big pancake in the gutter. I have completely given up on him, and there is no need to continue this experiment.

You’re not going to chase Qixuan anymore? Although it was a question, there was no expression of surprise on Shen Wunian’s face.

‘No.’

‘You don’t like him anymore?

‘Yes.’

He thought for a moment and nodded, “I said as long as you want to stop, I will stop no matter what.” He seemed very sad and with infinite regret, “What a pity.

I don’t feel pity.

When I was in it, I was too close to the situation to see it. I always felt that liking Bai Qixuan was the easiest way for me to find happiness. Only when I jumped out did I realise that this happiness was really too meagre, just some cheap industrial saccharine, which is always bad for the body when eaten in excess.

After Shen Wunian went downstairs, I checked through the blinds to see that he and Xu Meiqing had already left the house. I pushed open the stained glass door and stepped out onto the terrace to call Bai Qixuan.

“Hello? Little Ai…’

I didn’t really want to argue with him, but maybe I had just been treated violently, mistreated and beaten up not too long ago, and I knew it didn’t feel good. As soon as I heard his voice through the receiver, I couldn’t hold back my accusations.

Bai Qixuan, how could you hit someone? I already told you that the conflict between us was not caused by Shen Wunian, and he had nothing to do with it. He wasn’t trying to trick you, and you shouldn’t have said that about him. You’re an adult, you should be more careful and rational before you do anything!

Bai Qixuan was silent for a few seconds and sneered, “Ha, he complained pretty quickly.

‘What…’ I took a deep breath, “He didn’t make it up. I saw it with my own eyes. I’m his assistant now.”

This time, Bai Qixuan was even more silent.

‘Did you two get together?

I gripped the phone tightly, “We’re not together.”

Do you take me for a fool?’ He suddenly shouted out of control, ‘You were hugging in the car park in broad daylight, the kiss marks on your neck and the tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of clothes you have on, you fucking slept with him ages ago. Why are you pretending?

I was taken aback, completely shocked by this rude and impolite Bai Qixuan.

You’ve found someone better, so of course you don’t look at me anymore. But I’m telling you, Zhong Ai, the high branches are not so easy to climb, and everything has its price. Shen Wunian can’t possibly be honest with you.

If he were standing in front of me, I would probably have rushed up and fought with him. Wang Xiangyang did, and so did he. Why do these people like to slander others and spread rumours about them?

Even if I was with Shen Wunian, what does that have to do with him? Why does it sound like we betrayed him when he says it? If I remember correctly, he rejected me when I first confessed to him.

I’ll say it again, I’m not with Shen Wunian, and I certainly haven’t slept with him. But you’re right about one thing, you’re not as good as him. I didn’t want to give Bai Qixuan another chance to go crazy, so I hung up after the conversation and quickly blocked him after that.

I leaned against the balcony railing to catch my breath for a while. I was still angry, so I unfriended him again on WeChat.

After a while of blowing in the cold wind, my mind stopped racing. I went inside and returned to the first floor.

Ni Shan was making coffee. When she saw me coming down, she didn’t say anything at first, but kept looking at me out of the corner of her eye. Finally, she couldn’t hold back any longer and came over to me with her coffee.

“Are you all right? Your eyes are so red,

I wiped the corner of my eye with the back of my hand, “It’s nothing, just the wind blowing too long.

I pressed the power button on the computer and prepared to write a report on Yu Xiaoshan as soon as possible, according to Shen Wunian’s homework.

While waiting for the computer to boot up, I noticed that the girl next to me had not left. I wondered what was going on and said, ‘What’s wrong?

Ni Shan stirred her coffee cup and said, ‘You and Mr Shen… have you known each other for a long time?

I thought she was going to ask me something.

‘Not long, we just met during the New Year,’ I told her truthfully.

Oh, I saw how close you were and thought you had known each other for a long time.

Were Shen Wunian and I that close? With my hands on the keyboard and my eyes glued to the screen, I fell into deep thought.

Don’t think too much about it, I was just talking nonsense,’ Ni Shan said, laughing nervously when she saw that I had stopped talking, before sitting back down at her desk.

Neither Shen Wunian nor Xu Meiqing returned until 6 o’clock, so Ni Shan and I turned off the lights and left for the day.

On my way home on the subway, I got a message from Shen Wunian saying he hadn’t finished work yet and would be back late, so I should order takeaway to eat alone.

I’d always eaten alone before, but after a few days I seemed to have got used to having someone sitting across from me, talking and eating with me.

You two seem very close…

Thinking about Ni Shan’s and Bai Qixuan’s words, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was a little too used to Shen Wunian’s presence. Not only was I used to his company, but I was also used to physical contact with him. It felt like… I was becoming more and more dependent on him.

This is not good. I’m not a real kitten who can just close her eyes and meow for love. If this goes on, I’ll get used to it and it’ll be annoying…

When I got off the tube, I went straight to a nearby ATM and withdrew most of the money in my account. I saw a food cart on the street and bought a box of fried noodles to eat.

Back in my quiet flat, I ate alone. I rolled up my sleeves and started the big project for the night – taking all the clothes in the wardrobe and laying them out on the bed, calculating the price of each one.

Although the clothes tags were gone, the labels were still on and I was able to search the internet to find out which brands cost how much.

I ended up calculating all night, lying on the bed, and the total price kept making me faint.

I wrote down the amount stroke by stroke, then signed and sealed it, put the note I had written and the 5,000 yuan I had taken out on Shen Wunian’s desk, and then went to take a shower.

When I came out, I saw that Shen Wunian had already returned and was standing by the table looking at my IOU.

You’re back.

He pinched the piece of paper and turned to me, ‘Is that so formal?

‘Keep it safe, don’t lose it. I walked up to him and tapped the IOU lightly, saying seriously, ‘Just give me half your salary every month from now on and I’ll pay it back slowly.

You really don’t have to do that. I told you, I have a lot of money…’ He handed me the note, as if to give it back to me.

It feels good to be able to rely on other people, but a friendship that only takes is not a lasting one.

I returned it firmly: ‘It’s your business if you have money. I also said that I would pay for both the medical expenses and these clothes.

Yawning, I went to my room. Almost at the door, I thought of what I had not said to Bai Qixuan and turned back: ‘By the way, if Bai Qixuan bothers you again, you must avoid him, and it would be best to… report him to the police.

Shen Wunian looked up from the IOUs in his hands: ‘Report him to the police? It’s not that serious.

Looking at his increasingly swollen lips, I became serious: ‘Do you still want to be beaten by him?

He was stunned by my question and finally had to give in.

……Okay. After saying that, he let out a long sigh, as if he was deeply regretting the loss of his friendship with Bai Qixuan for no reason.