The Early Spring - Chapter 46

Chapter 46 - At Wit's End

Shang Zhitao felt she couldn't move forward or retreat. Luan Nian had blocked off every single path of hers, leaving her feeling rather helpless. Coming out of the hospital, she curled up on the sofa in Luan Nian's living room with a cup of boiled water he had prepared for her right beside her. Luan Nian kept forcing Shang Zhitao to drink water; the moment his gaze swept over her, she had to take a sip.

She listened as Luan Nian spoke on the phone with his mother: "A mild pneumonia caused by a mycoplasma infection, accompanied by coughing and high fever. What should she take for it?"

The other end of the line talked for a long time, and then Luan Nian replied:

"It's not me. I'm asking for a friend."

"I know. Bye-bye."

Luan Nian hung up the phone, went to grab his coat, and told Shang Zhitao, "Ask Alex for leave. Take five full days of sick leave."

"I still have work."

"Once you burn to death, you won't have to think about work anymore."

"Then I'll go home to rest."

Hearing this, Luan Nian stopped what he was doing and looked straight at Shang Zhitao. He asked bluntly, "What are you acting so awkward about?"

Shang Zhitao pressed her lips together in silence, and Luan Nian glanced at her. "Organize your thoughts. We'll talk when I get back."

Shang Zhitao really did start organizing her thoughts. Even though she had a fever and her brain wasn't working very well, she still managed to extract the main points: First, what happened between us was an accident; second, a relationship like ours violates morality; third, we have already ended the relationship, and I was the one who initiated it. Therefore, we shouldn't do anything that looks ambiguous.

As Shang Zhitao thought and thought, she fell asleep.

People with fevers are prone to sleepiness, Luan Nian's sofa was exceptionally comfortable, the thin quilt draped over her was warm, and it was quiet here—free from the drilling sounds of renovations. Everything was just right, making it far too ideal for sleep.

Carrying a bag of things, Luan Nian returned and saw her sleeping soundly curled up on the sofa. Her face was flushed red with fever, a fine layer of sweat glistened on her forehead, and a wheezing sound came from her nasal passages as the virus inside her body fought a war.

He took off his coat and turned toward the kitchen.

He had just bought a lot of things outside—all from the recuperation checklist sent by his mother, Dr. Liang. Dr. Liang had even wished his friend a speedy recovery and emphasized the need to properly heal, warning that if pneumonia wasn't fully cured, suffering would follow with recurring flare-ups later on.

If Dr. Liang knew that her friend was sleeping right inside his home at that very moment, who knew what she would think?

Luan Nian cooked a meal for Shang Zhitao, keeping the phone memo beside him with Dr. Liang's notes on what she could eat and what she needed to avoid. He didn't delve into why he felt a twinge of worry and urgency when Shang Zhitao fell ill; he simply felt she was a bit pitiful, being all alone in Beijing.

It's just misplaced sympathy. He summed it up this way.

When did you start feeling sympathetic toward others? he asked himself while cooking.

The meal was ready, but Shang Zhitao was still asleep. Luan Nian sat on the sofa flipping through a magazine, while on the stove in the kitchen, rock sugar and snow pears simmered slowly over a low flame. Luan Nian had countless magazines at home; in his free time, he would flip through them to see what was currently trending on the market. Every now and then, he would reach out to test her forehead for a fever, and it felt a bit better than before.

Shang Zhitao woke up in the dim light and saw that Luan Nian had turned on a small desk lamp. Even under the light, the lines of his face remained unsoftened—a cold and aloof person. She felt a bit sad; no one had told her what to do when falling for such a person. She just watched him quietly, waiting for an opportunity to speak so she could pour out the mental draft she had prepared.

Hearing the movement, Luan Nian turned his head to look at her. "Awake?"

"Mm."

"Let's eat."

Shang Zhitao was slightly surprised, swallowing back all the words that had been right on the tip of her tongue. She coughed a few times and followed Luan Nian to the dining table.

"Thank you for your trouble."

"Change how you address me."

"What?"

"Aren't you tired of constantly saying 'you' formally like that?"

"Oh."

Luan Nian had made a few vegetable dishes along with a pot of slow-simmered beef. Receiving such special treatment made Shang Zhitao feel somewhat flattered, and the mental draft she had prepared before sleeping vanished entirely. She ate quietly, occasionally glancing at Luan Nian and finding that he was still the same—a cold, icy figure, as if the person who had smiled so brightly in Hokkaido hadn't been him at all. After finishing the meal, she felt she should leave, but Luan Nian brought over a small ceramic bowl of stewed snow pears with rock sugar.

Shang Zhitao's heart suddenly gave a sharp, painful wrench.

Treating a bed partner this well made it suddenly possible to imagine how he must have treated Zang Yao; that care without a doubt surpassed anything she could imagine.

She drank the snow pear soup with her head down, then stood up, put on her coat, and said, "Thank you for taking care of me. I'm much better now, so I won't disturb you any longer."

Luan Nian furrowed his brows and said nothing more than, "I'll drive you."

"Then I'll have to trouble you."

Shang Zhitao didn't want to say those things anymore; she felt that standing firm by her actions was more effective than any words. She got into Luan Nian's car, and as they neared her destination, she searched her bag for her keys—her keys were missing. How could they have vanished? They had clearly been placed in a very secure spot inside her bag. So she called Sun Yu. Hearing how hoarse her voice was, Sun Yu asked if her condition had worsened. She replied that she was much better. "My keys are gone. What time are you coming back?"

"I'm on my way to Tangshan right now. There's a matchmaking event tomorrow, and I have to go supervise."

"That's fine. I'll ask Zhang Lei."

After hanging up, she remembered that Sun Yuanzhu had gone to the Northwest and Zhang Lei had gone to Chengdu. Clutching her phone, Shang Zhitao had no idea what to do.

Luan Nian's car made a U-turn and headed back toward his apartment complex.

"You can just drop me off at the intersection, or there's a hotel nearby." Refusing to return to Luan Nian's place was her final shred of stubbornness.

"Die in a hotel?" Luan Nian's tongue was exceptionally venomous when he was angry, though he didn't get angry often. The few times he had lost his temper over the past half-year were all because of Shang Zhitao.

Stunned by that biting remark, Shang Zhitao genuinely grew angry. She stared out the car window in silence; because of her cold and her anger, her breathing sounded a bit heavy, her chest rising and falling.

Luan Nian knew best how to pinch someone's weak spot. Right then, he recited a phone number and asked, "Is this it? Go stay at a hotel, and I'll call your family to explain your situation, making it clear that if anything happens to you or if you suffer any lasting complications, it has nothing to do with the company."

Shang Zhitao's bravado instantly evaporated. Luan Nian struck like a snake hitting its target seven inches down, going straight for her Achilles' heel. She didn't want her parents to know she was sick and worry about her; after all, she always told them over the phone: I'm doing great, my colleagues love me, my boss thinks highly of me, my income is plenty for me to spend, and at this rate, I'll be able to buy a house in Beijing before I turn thirty.

If someone like Luan Nian called her parents, he would surely say her performance was barely satisfactory, that she hovered constantly on the verge of being fired or optimized out, that her income was merely lower-middle tier within the company, and that buying a house before thirty was impossible. He would probably even add: Your daughter seems to have a rather loose personal life.

With how venomous his tongue was, he would definitely say things like that.

"I just didn't want to trouble you."

Luan Nian glanced at her indifferently and said coolly, "Don't worry. The relationship between you and me is over, but we did sleep together a few times after all. Consider this my after-sales service. Once you're fully recovered, you and I will have a clean break." Then he mimicked Shang Zhitao's tone: "I will never tell anyone else about what happened between us."

...Unable to out-argue him, Shang Zhitao could only nod. "Then I thank you."

"You're welcome. It's only right."

After all that tossing and turning, the two of them ended right back at Luan Nian's place. Seeing their car drive out and then drive right back in, the residential security guard couldn't help greeting them: "Mr. Luan, back so soon?"

Then he smiled at Shang Zhitao. The security guard always felt Shang Zhitao didn't look like someone in an illicit profession, and Luan Nian didn't look like the type to hire prostitutes either, yet she didn't look like Luan Nian's girlfriend either. Their relationship was truly strange.

The guard wasn't the only one who was curious.

Shang Zhitao was curious too.

What kind of person was Luan Nian anyway? Such a hard-hearted man, yet he cooked a patient's meal for her; surrounded by so many women, yet he dared to bring her home; while everyone else would run as far away from a pneumonia patient as possible, he took care of her.

"Could you lend me a T-shirt? I don't have pajamas, and I still need to take out my contact lenses..."

Luan Nian walked into the guest room, opened the wardrobe where two sets of loungewear hung, and then went to the bathroom, pulling open a drawer that held a contact lens case, lens solution, and women's skincare products.

Shang Zhitao had no idea what was going on—why did these things exist in his home? Luan Nian merely shrugged. "Share them with the other women." Half-joking and half-serious, he even pulled out different colored sticky notes: "Stick these on so people won't wear or use the wrong things."

No matter how foolish Shang Zhitao was, she could tell Luan Nian was teasing her. These had clearly been prepared specifically for her, because she was the one who had once asked: Pajamas, bath towels, contact lens solution...

What had Luan Nian said back then?

Can't you pack your own bag?

So he was that kind of person. Someone who looked like he didn't care about anything, but actually listened to every single word you said.

So the reason he tacitly allowed her to leave things at his place was because she was his sole bed partner in this city?

With her mind wandering wildly, Shang Zhitao went to take a shower and put on the pajamas Luan Nian had prepared for her. The pajamas were very comfortable, but since she wasn't wearing underwear, she felt a bit self-conscious. Luan Nian knocked on the door to deliver her medicine. She scrambled under the covers, leaving only her head exposed, watching him place the medicine on the bedside table while stubbornly refusing to come out.

Luan Nian was driven to an amused laugh by her behavior. "Haven't I seen it all before?"

"?"

"What are you afraid of?"

...“A single man and a single woman alone together isn't appropriate," Shang Zhitao said earnestly.

"Mhm." Luan Nian raised his leg to walk away, pausing at the door to drop a parting remark: "Didn't feel like anything was inappropriate when we were being intimate, did you?"

He closed the door and left.

Under Luan Nian's coercion and temptation, Shang Zhitao stayed at his place for a full week, until she went for a follow-up checkup and the doctor declared the inflammation gone before he agreed to let her leave. Coming out of the hospital with Luan Nian, Shang Zhitao returned to his place to pack her things—which amounted to nothing more than those two outfits—and stuffed them into her backpack. Wanting to use the bathroom before leaving, she caught sight of the contact lens solution sitting prominently right there, and her heart suddenly gave that familiar, painful wrench. To this day, she still couldn't fathom why Luan Nian would prepare these things for her, nor the Christmas gift left sitting on the sofa; all of these things gave her the illusion that Luan Nian actually cared about her just a little bit.

Suddenly, a wave of grievance welled up in her chest.

Standing still for a long moment, she finally pushed open the door and walked out to find Luan Nian waiting for her at the entrance. She walked straight up to him, locked eyes with him, and asked earnestly, "Why are your words so vicious?"

"Are my words vicious to everyone, or just to you?"

Luan Nian didn't know why she was asking these questions, his brows furrowing slightly.

Whoever gets serious next is a fucking bastard! Shang Zhitao told herself in her heart, reaching out to grab the lapel of Luan Nian's collar, pulling him forcefully toward her, and biting down hard on his lips.

Neither of them brought up the matter of the relationship ending that Shang Zhitao had previously declared. Having just recovered from her illness, Luan Nian was somewhat gentler and more patient than before. Yet no matter how frantic Shang Zhitao grew, he pinned her hands above her head, refusing to yield to her wishes and satisfy her right away.

Luan Nian held a grudge; now that he was fired up, why had she been so breezy when she talked about ending things? He simply wouldn't give her what she wanted—to put it bluntly, he was punishing her. Only after teasing her until she grew frantic and her eyes turned red did he press his lips against hers and ask, "Not ending it anymore?"

Feeling like her mind was about to slip away, Shang Zhitao shook her head slightly, her lips brushing against his as she took the opportunity to slide the tip of her tongue into his mouth.

They couldn't fool themselves, nor could they fool each other. No matter how venomous the words spoken aloud, the body was the most honest. Both of their bodies liked each other the best—liking each other far more than anyone in the past. In the end, neither could quite control themselves, and Luan Nian bit down on her earlobe, asking viciously, "Still want to throw tantrums?"

Shang Zhitao shook her head, a mist of tears welling in her eyes. Suddenly feeling a pang of tenderness, Luan Nian softened and pulled her tightly into his embrace.

Luan Nian finally forced himself to admit that the cup of wine he drank after Shang Zhitao proposed ending their relationship had tasted bitter, and deep down, he had felt a twinge of regret.

He truly loved her body.