Love Has Fireworks - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Continuous Small Frictions

When Qian Fei rushed to the Wangfujing Department Store, Hu Zining was waiting for her at the entrance holding two cups of cola.

Just as she was about to apologize again for being late, he handed over the cola and said, "You ran all the way here, didn't you? Look how out of breath you are. Quick, take a sip to calm down!"

The moment she took the cola, she felt so touched that she could almost cry. She felt her luck was simply too good; she was already nearly twenty-seven and on the verge of becoming a leftover woman who couldn't get married, yet the heavens had actually spared such an attentive and considerate good man for her!

While Hu Zining went to exchange the tickets, she couldn't resist calling Yao Jingjing to quickly express the joy in her heart.

"Vixen, how on earth did I manage to meet such a considerate and gentle good man? He even praised me for being beautiful!"

Yao Jingjing, however, poured cold water on her like a reflex. "Qian Baboon, let me tell you, men like this are usually seasoned players who have spent a lot of time around women. Their skills in coaxing women are incredibly high! Still, for him to go against his conscience and praise your face as beautiful when you only slapped on some cheap moisturizer can be considered his good deed for the day!" She paused, shifting her tone. "Joking aside, what he is actually like, I won't have time to see for myself. These past couple of days, I've been on standby and could leave at any moment, so there won't be time for you to throw me a farewell dinner or anything. Be extra careful with everything yourself! Take things slow with him for now, don't rush into the wedding chamber or anything. I'll thoroughly check him out for you when I get a chance to come back later!"

Qian Fei barked back at her, "Scram! The biggest motivation for me to find a partner is to enter the wedding chamber early to regulate my increasingly imbalanced endocrine system. Who has the time to wait for you!"

She hung up the phone, and Hu Zining returned with the tickets. He had exchanged them for a screening starting in five minutes.

The movie starred Fan Bingbing and was called Double Xposure. The plot was a bit chaotic, and as Qian Fei watched, she grew increasingly confused, even falling into a drowsy slumber for a while in the middle. Having finally endured until the credits rolled, she heard Hu Zining ask her with lingering enthusiasm, "What did you think?"

Steeling herself, she replied, "It was truly spectacular! How did the screenwriter think of such a creative concept like time travel and rebirth? They are too talented!"

Hu Zining's smile grew a bit dry. "This wasn't a time travel or rebirth movie!"

Qian Fei couldn't hide the confusion in her heart. "But didn't Fan Bingbing live two lives, with different things happening both times?"

Hu Zining patiently explained, "She didn't live two lives. The events in the first half were actually just hallucinations imagined by Fan Bingbing!"

Qian Fei let out an "oh." "So you're saying Fan Bingbing had schizophrenia!"

Hu Zining chuckled. "Qian Fei, you really are an interesting girl!"

Being praised out of nowhere, Qian Fei suddenly felt her heart surge with emotion.

Hu Zining asked Qian Fei if she was hungry, and Qian Fei said, "I actually am a bit hungry! Let's go grab some food!"

They randomly found a restaurant and ordered some dishes.

When they finished eating, Qian Fei rushed to settle the bill. Hu Zining said, "How can a woman treat a man!" while reaching for his wallet.

Qian Fei blocked the waitress immediately, preventing her from taking Hu Zining's money. "You can't treat me to every single meal! Besides, you already treated me to the movie!" She handed the money to the waitress.

As Hu Zining put his money back into his wallet, he lamented, "Qian Fei, you really are a different kind of girl!"

These words were music to Qian Fei's ears, and her face flushed with pure delight.

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Hu Zining proposed to escort Qian Fei home. Qian Fei checked her watch and saw it was only a quarter past nine, so she said, "No need, it's still early. I'll just take the subway back. We are heading in two completely opposite directions, so it's not convenient for you to escort me!"

Hu Zining then escorted her to the subway station.

While Qian Fei was on the subway, she received a WeChat message from Hu Zining.

"Qian Fei, I had a very wonderful time today. Thank you for treating me to dinner! I really like you. If you think I'm alright too, let's make our relationship official! What do you say?"

Qian Fei stared at her phone for a full minute, feeling her heart thumping wildly.

Over the past few years, she had been hooked solely on the single tree that was Wang Ruohai, and she had almost forgotten what it felt like to be pursued by the opposite sex. It turned out to be such a beautiful and surging sensation; she felt as if she had returned to being eighteen years old.

Taking a deep breath, she replied to Hu Zining: "Sounds good to me!"

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Qian Fei returned home feeling completely refreshed.

She felt that the moon she saw when looking up on her walk back was so damn round, so round that everything she looked at seemed pleasing to the eye.

That was until she returned home. The moment she unlocked and opened the front door, her good mood instantly vanished into thin air.

The house was a complete disaster area, with water everywhere, fully adopting the rhythm of a massive flood.

She poked her head into the kitchen and saw that the faucet was still running heavily, gushing water. She hurriedly waded through the water, shut off the faucet, and pulled the plug from the sink.

She walked back and knocked on the door to Gui Lili's bedroom several times, but there was no response. Thinking no one was home, she took off her coat and rolled up her sleeves, preparing to start cleaning up the house. Just then, Gui Lili rubbed her eyes and opened the door.

She had actually been sleeping in the room, and the loud rushing sound of the faucet hadn't woken her up at all.

Qian Fei felt herself slip into a state of speechlessness.

"Ah!" Gui Lili cried out as she looked at the water filling the house. "How can there be so much water!"

Qian Fei looked at her and said weakly, "You plugged up the sink and forgot to turn off the faucet!"

At this moment, the front door clicked outside. Li Yifei was back.

"What happened?" Looking at the water covering the floor, he also appeared quite vexed. He barked at Gui Lili, "You did this again, didn't you?"

Qian Fei looked up at the ceiling.

It seemed this girl hadn't done this for the first time.

Gui Lili looked at Qian Fei with a face full of innocence and said, "I'm so sorry, Qian Fei! I wanted to fill it with water to wash the rag, who would have thought I'd fall asleep so quickly! But for a normal sink, isn't that overflow hole at the top supposed to connect to the drain? Why isn't yours connected? If it were connected, this wouldn't have happened..."

Her voice was so weak and fragile that for a split second, Qian Fei genuinely felt that she herself was the one in the wrong for choosing such a defective sink.

"Cut it out! Is it really that hard for you to honestly admit a mistake just once? You always look for excuses everywhere!" Li Yifei chimed in from the side.

Gui Lili's tone instantly shot up, completely reversing her fragile demeanor from a moment ago. "Li Yifei, you still have the nerve to blame me! If you hadn't abandoned me at home all by myself on a major weekend, would this have happened! When I asked where you were going and who you were eating with, you wouldn't say. What do you mean by keeping secrets from me like this!"

"I can't be bothered with you!" Li Yifei ignored her, taking off his suit jacket and tossing it onto the living room sofa while irritably tearing at his collar.

Driven mad with rage, Gui Lili slammed the bedroom door with a loud "bang" and hid inside, refusing to come out.

Qian Fei could faintly hear Gui Lili crying. The crying sounded so miserable, as if it were recounting all the grievances in the human world, making her feel thoroughly uncomfortable. Goosebumps broke out on her arms, and she whispered to Li Yifei, "Why don't you go into the room and coax her a bit? Honestly, thinking about it, on a major weekend, you ran off to the Cheng Mansion Feast by yourself to enjoy fine wine and delicious food while leaving her at home to wash rags. Reflecting on this matter, it really is quite pathetic!"

Li Yifei glanced at her, a hint of confusion in his voice. "Are all you girls this fickle? When you first start dating, you're all gentle and clingy like little birds, but once you're officially together, it's nothing but crying and wailing?"

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Qian Fei spread her hands. "Who hasn't experienced an early menopause! Besides, if you didn't provoke her, she probably wouldn't be crying and wailing like this..."

This broad generalization of his was quite massive, covering half the sky.

"You should still go in and coax her. The sound of her crying is giving me the creeps!"

Li Yifei hesitated for a moment before stepping toward the bedroom. Right before reaching the doorway, he suddenly doubled back and said, "Don't tell her about me eating at the Cheng Mansion Feast tonight!"

Qian Fei blinked, then nodded. "Fine! I'm a lover of peace. I only manage the rent, I don't work part-time as a neighborhood committee auntie!"

Li Yifei gave her another look, then turned and entered the room.

After a short while, Gui Lili stopped crying. A moment later, she emerged from the room to help Qian Fei clean up the house.

By the time the apartment was fully tidied up, it was already past eleven o'clock. Qian Fei had spent the night bending over until her back ached and her shoulders throbbed. Returning to her own room, she washed up quickly and crawled into bed.

Her phone's notification light was flashing continuously. She saw that Hu Zining had sent her a WeChat message an hour ago, asking what she was doing.

Looking at the time, she figured Hu Zining was already asleep, so she didn't reply.

After a short while, another message came through.

She thought it was from Hu Zining, but it turned out to be a text message from Li Yifei.

"I'm very sorry about today. The floorboards have warped from being soaked. Calculate how much it costs to replace the flooring, and I'll transfer it to you along with the rent next time."

In her life, Qian Fei could least tolerate when someone showed a good attitude in admitting a mistake. The moment their attitude softened, she would immediately let bygones be bygones—especially when the apology came from someone like Li Yifei, who looked completely incapable of ever admitting a fault.

"It's fine. Anyway, the apartment will need a full renovation once I stop renting it out in the future, so let's forget about it this time."

However, the moment she sent the text, she immediately began to regret it. Why were her hands so reckless? Why did she have to make things difficult for her own wallet...

On Monday at work, taking advantage of the lunchtime chat with everyone, she recounted the story of her apartment being flooded.

After hearing about the text message she had sent, her colleagues unanimously told her not to give up on treatment and to keep taking her brain-damage pills on schedule.

Xiao Yuan even slammed the table and stood up. "Qian Fei, can you stop acting like such a saint? Look at how you spoiled your ex-boyfriend! Now you're starting to spoil your tenants too!"

Only Hu Zining, upon learning of the matter, praised her immensely: "Qian Fei, you really are a kind-hearted girl!"

Qian Fei felt that no matter what others thought, in the end, having such a person who could say these words to her was entirely enough.

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The co-living arrangement slowly unfolded, and along with it, various troubles began to spread out as well.

Qian Fei felt that she was practicing a new tolerance skill every single day.

The two next door were exceptionally wild. They frequently returned very late, made a massive racket when they came back, and occasionally argued while washing up or speaking. Not a single time did they fail to wake her up.

Qian Fei was good in every aspect, except that she found it difficult to voice complaints to others. As long as a matter remained within the margins of tolerance, she would choose to keep silent.

Thus, amidst the clattering and banging noises from next door, she silently bought twenty pairs of earplugs on Taobao and began wearing them to sleep every day. From then on, as long as the two next door weren't fighting exceptionally fiercely, she would basically not be disturbed from her sleep.

Lately, however, she noticed that the frequency of the couple's arguments next door was becoming more and more regular. She felt she was on the verge of experiencing nervous exhaustion from the sound of their bickering.

And aside from the issue of returning late, there were many other troubles as well.