Blossom through the Cloud - Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Speeding cars kicked up dust on the overpass, and the sunlight refracting through the car window was glaringly harsh.

A faint, almost imperceptible, crisp fragrance lingered inside the car.

Ruan Sixian sat quietly in the passenger seat. Her drifting thoughts were drawn in by the scent. She sniffed lightly, somewhat curious about where the smell was coming from.

There was no air freshener on the dashboard, nothing hanging from the rearview mirror, and the storage compartment on the side was completely empty.

Her gaze gradually searched toward the driver's seat just as Fu Mingyu stopped at a red light and looked over at her.

Ruan Sixian: "..."

The moment their eyes met, she turned her face away, staring coldly ahead.

She began to rethink exactly why she was sitting in his passenger seat.

She must have been dizzy from the sun and maddened by Fu Mingyu.

This man was simply too shameless. He had blocked her at the entrance of Century Airlines, right in the middle of the day with people coming and going. If she didn't get in the car, he wouldn't leave, leaving them to be openly stared at by passing employees.

He was a dignified director, a future CEO—couldn't he have a little shame?

Judging by his stance, if she hadn't gotten in the car today, he probably would have followed her all the way home.

"I'm not angry because of you today." After stewing in silence for a long time, Ruan Sixian decided to take the initiative and explain the core issue, otherwise Fu Mingyu would overthink things again. "The weather is too hot and I'm irritated. No matter who it is, I'd have this temper."

Fu Mingyu gave a mild, "Oh."

Ruan Sixian frowned at him. "I mean it."

There was still no fluctuation of emotion on Fu Mingyu's face. "Mhm, I know."

But why couldn't Ruan Sixian bring herself to believe his words?

What was wrong with this person? Did he just like it when people got angry at him?

Ruan Sixian held her breath and glared at him with bulging eyes, but he had no reaction whatsoever.

After suffocating herself for ages while the other party didn't even let out a peep, Ruan Sixian chose to shut her mouth.

She knew that if she opened her mouth again at this moment, she might just get led into another one of his traps.

She was tired. Truly tired.

Silence filled the car for a long while before Fu Mingyu suddenly asked, "What are you thinking about?"

Ruan Sixian said expressionlessly, "Oh, I'm thinking about getting my driver's license as soon as possible."

Just to avoid being dragged into someone's passenger seat simply because she didn't have a car.

How could Fu Mingyu not hear her underlying meaning?

Get a driver's license and drive her own car, preventing him from using this excuse to forcefully pester her.

He wondered if she had this kind of thought when she got into Yan An's car.

He let out a cold laugh.

"Ruan Sixian, where exactly do I fall short compared to Yan An?"

Ruan Sixian looked at him, baffled. "Why are you bringing him up all of a sudden?"

Fu Mingyu narrowed his eyes slightly.

In truth, he really hadn't wanted to ask this kind of question.

He hadn't even ever thought about comparing himself to Yan An.

But they had both been rejected all the same—

"Why can you talk to him calmly and let him drive you around, but not me?"

He turned his head to look at Ruan Sixian. "What is the difference between me and him?"

Of course it's different.

This sentence almost blurted out of her mouth, but fortunately, Ruan Sixian slammed on the brakes at the last second.

But where was it different?

Fu Mingyu would definitely press her for an answer, but she circled through her thoughts and still didn't know how to reply.

Anyway, it was just different.

Stopping precisely at a red light, Fu Mingyu halted the car and stared straight at Ruan Sixian, waiting for her to continue.

Ruan Sixian twitched the corners of her mouth and said, "You're more handsome than him, happy now?"

Fu Mingyu once again showed no reaction, slowly retracting his gaze. The green light ahead lit up, and he stepped on the gas pedal.

The car sped out, the scenery before them rapidly retreating backward as the interior of the car returned to silence.

However, just when Ruan Sixian thought her obviously perfunctory answer had let the topic pass, she heard him say lightly, "Oh, so you're afraid you'll fall for me?"

"..."

"Fu! Ming! Yu!"

The person beside him seemed to have reached the limits of her patience once again; one more poke and she would explode.

He knew she would get angry the moment he said those words, but hearing her reaction, an inexplicable trace of pleasure welled up in Fu Mingyu's heart.

He faintly curled the corners of his lips and said no more.

Ten minutes later, the car slowly pulled up downstairs.

Ruan Sixian didn't even thank Fu Mingyu when she got out, but he didn't mind. It was him who insisted on driving her home anyway.

Fu Mingyu just sat in the car, watching her stride into the lobby until she disappeared into the elevator.

His phone suddenly chimed. Fu Mingyu glanced at it; it was a message from Zheng You'an asking if he wanted to see the photos taken today.

Photos of Ruan Sixian?

Fu Mingyu replied: Okay.

After receiving this message, Zheng You'an locked herself in the darkroom.

Even though film cameras had gradually been discontinued, Zheng You'an still believed in their color reproduction and image clarity, so the darkroom remained a sanctuary in her heart.

She had high standards for photography. Fortunately, her family was wealthy enough to support her reckless spending, and the lenses in her house were piled up like mountains.

And her achievements were also quite impressive. When she was thirteen, her family hosted a photography exhibition for her. She studied abroad at fifteen, and over seven years, she had taken many photos, quite a few of which won awards. Her father was proud of her and would bring up her achievements to anyone he met. Her friends often asked her to take photos for them, their eyes full of admiration.

Even her teachers had almost never criticized her work.

The confidence cultivated since childhood made her increasingly strict with her own work. Even though this was just for a recruitment promotional video, she treated it like shooting an art film.

But what had Fu Mingyu said?

"It's indeed not very good."

Even though so much time had passed, Zheng You'an still felt uncomfortable whenever she thought of that phrase.

Me saying that I didn't shoot it well is being modest. You saying that I didn't shoot it well means you're blind.

The more she thought about it, the more unconvinced she felt. Not even the soothing music in the darkroom could ease her mood.

Once the photos were developed, she admired them alone for a long time.

Your Century Airlines has absolutely never had such artistic promotional photos.

Absolutely never.

After sending the scanned high-definition photos to Bo Yang's email, Zheng You'an waited quietly for Fu Mingyu's evaluation.

However, half an hour passed without any response from the other party.

Unable to hold back, Zheng You'an sent another message: Brother Mingyu, have you looked at them?

At this time, Fu Mingyu had just returned to Century Airlines.

The newly drafted "Negative Application List for Flight Data" lay on his desk; this was his most important task recently.

Upon seeing Zheng You'an's message, Fu Mingyu replied, "Wait a moment, I'm busy," and headed to the conference room.

It was the first meeting held regarding the reform of flight quality monitoring, and the shareholder representatives sitting below had all come with dissenting opinions.

This meeting lasted for a full seven hours.

By the time Fu Mingyu walked out of the conference room, the sky had already turned dark.

Bo Yang followed behind him and said, "Chairman Fu just called to ask about today's meeting. Should we return the call now?"

"There's no rush," Fu Mingyu said, walking toward his office. "There's no need to report to him before the results are finalized."

After sitting down in his office, Fu Mingyu took off his suit jacket, draped his arm over the backrest, and lazily looked at the neon lights outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

After the cacophony of arguments filling his head slowly faded away, Fu Mingyu rubbed his brow bone and suddenly remembered something.

"Bo Yang, didn't Miss Zheng send over some new photos today?"

Bo Yang nodded. "They were sent over ages ago. Would you like to see them now?"

Fu Mingyu: "Mhm."

The photo files Zheng You'an sent were huge, taking Bo Yang a long time to unzip.

While waiting, he propped up his chin and watched the progress bar, his eyes half-closed.

He really wanted to tell Miss Zheng to just send the photos of Ruan Sixian. Their busy Boss Fu wouldn't have the energy to look at anyone else's anyway.

Twenty minutes later, Bo Yang displayed the photos sent by Zheng You'an on the monitor in the office.

Fu Mingyu sat on the sofa in a relaxed posture. Holding the remote, he flipped through a few pictures but didn't see the photos he wanted to look at, so he jumped straight to the directory and directly selected Ruan Sixian's pictures.

Beside him, Bo Yang thought expressionlessly: As expected.

Who knew how much time had passed; it wasn't until Bo Yang was about to fall into a deep meditative trance on the spot that Fu Mingyu finally swiped casually through the other photos.

But a few seconds later, he flipped back to Ruan Sixian's photos.

There was no telling how long he was going to look at them this time.

Bo Yang wanted to get off work.

Taking a step forward, he asked, "Do you need me to send these photos to your phone?"

Fu Mingyu lifted his gaze, staring piercingly at Bo Yang.

Bo Yang instantly sobered up; all traces of sleepiness vanished.

However, in the next second, he heard Fu Mingyu utter a single word.

"Yes."

At the same time, Fu Mingyu unlocked his phone, and dozens of messages flooded in instantly.

He skimmed through them roughly, automatically ignoring the unimportant ones, but became somewhat curious when he saw that Zheng You'an had sent him several messages in a row.

Six hours ago.

"Have you seen them? What do you think?"

Four hours ago.

"Brother Mingyu?"

Two hours ago.

"President Fu? Have you looked at them?"

Ten minutes ago.

"President Fu, just take a casual look, it's fine even if you just give some feedback [Smile]"

Seeing her so eager, Fu Mingyu recalled those photos once more.

The scenes selected for the photos, the shooting angles, and the visual composition were all very distinct, and the lighting was used cleverly.

However, they were excessively refined while lacking a spontaneous atmosphere.

In summary, they were a set of exquisitely detailed portrait works, but as promotional materials, they put the cart before the horse.

But this wasn't important. It was just a recruitment promo, so it didn't matter if it was used for Zheng You'an to practice her skills.

Fu Mingyu grabbed his jacket and stood up, preparing to go home. At the same time, he replied to Zheng You'an with a simple phrase.

"Not bad."

This message sank like a stone in the ocean; Zheng You'an didn't reply again.

When he got in the car, the driver asked Fu Mingyu where he was heading.

Fu Mingyu closed his eyes briefly. "Mingchen Apartments."

The night was thick, ten thousand homes lit up with lights. The car windows were tightly shut, making the interior quiet and cool.

Fu Mingyu loosened his tie and slept for a while, naturally opening his eyes just as they were about to arrive at Mingchen Apartments.

He slightly turned his head. Looking out the window, he suddenly said, "Stop the car." -

Ruan Sixian had lived here for a few months but had never properly familiarized herself with the surrounding environment. It wasn't until tonight, when she wanted to cook for herself and opened the map to find a supermarket, that she discovered there was a pedestrian street two or three kilometers away.

She took a shower and went out, strolling over slowly. But before she even entered the supermarket, she saw a long line queued up in front of a clam glass noodle shop.

Walking toward it, the aroma was enticing.

Before she knew it, Ruan Sixian had stopped in her tracks and stood at the very back of the line.

With such fragrant clam glass noodles, why would she still bother cooking for herself?

She had been in line for nearly twenty minutes, yet the queue had shifted less than two meters. Standing on her tiptoes to take a look, she saw that the shop owner was busy preparing takeout orders again.

Ruan Sixian rubbed her stomach, starting to consider just giving up. If she waited any longer, she would starve to death.

Right at this moment, her phone chimed.

She opened it to look, and surprisingly, it was a message from Fu Mingyu.

[Fu Mingyu]: Want to have dinner together?

The moment his name appeared, it dragged up the events from inside the car that morning.

Even thinking back on it now, Ruan Sixian still felt something wasn't right.

Why couldn't she articulate exactly how he was different from Yan An?

She also wanted to know why she simply couldn't talk to Fu Mingyu calmly.

Even when Fu Mingyu said, "You're afraid you'll fall for me?", she realized she actually was afraid.

This feeling was too irritating, and she absolutely did not want to experience that atmosphere again.

[Ruan Sixian]: No thanks, I've already eaten.

After replying to the message, Ruan Sixian exhaled a breath.

But immediately after, his message arrived again.

[Fu Mingyu]: I am right behind you.

Ruan Sixian's breathing hitched, her back instantly stiffening.

How was this guy appearing and disappearing like a ghost!

Without turning her head to look, Ruan Sixian simply looked down and typed.

[Ruan Sixian]: Behind me is a pig farm.

At times like these, one's senses were especially sharp. Ruan Sixian felt someone behind her closing in.

Yet she still didn't look back.

Until a few seconds later, an older woman walked past her carrying a trash can and returned inside the shop.

Fu Mingyu did not walk over, but his message did.

[Fu Mingyu]: Well, I have been thinking about raising a pig lately.

Ruan Sixian: "..."