Jiang Wenzhe stood quietly behind her with one hand in his pocket, his eyes narrowing slightly as he clenched his teeth and tensed his jaw, his gaze both scrutinizing and probing.
Lin Sangyu looked as if she’d seen a ghost, frozen in place.
Amelia, sensing the awkward atmosphere, gently nudged Lin Sangyu’s arm and whispered in her ear, “Is this the friend you were talking about?”
It felt a little scary.
“Yes, that’s right.” Lin Sangyu didn’t even turn her head to look at Amelia as she replied; her gaze was fixed firmly on Jiang Wenze.
Jiang Wenzhe tilted his chin slightly and said gently, “Is this your new friend?”
Lin Sangyu pressed her lips together and nodded mechanically: “Mm-hmm.”
Jiang Wenzhe calmly raised his wrist to check the time. A faint curve formed at the corner of his mouth, but the muscles around his eyes remained taut—not even the outer corners of his eyes crinkled. “It’s almost dinnertime. Round up your friend, and let’s go eat together. I’ve made a reservation.”
Though his words were gentle, for some reason they always carried an air of authority.
Amelia and Lin Sangyu exchanged glances, not daring to say a word.
One felt guilty for having led the innocent child astray and been caught red-handed.
The other felt secretly ashamed for her earlier brazen remarks.
“What’s wrong? Did I interrupt you?” Jiang Wenze’s smile widened as he casually undid the top button of his shirt collar, leaning back lazily yet elegantly in his chair, his eyes fixed intently on Lin Sangyu.
Amelia felt a tightness in her throat, as if an invisible weight were hanging over her head. She was a tactful person, so she raised her hand and patted Lin Sangyu’s shoulder in a comforting gesture, then turned and said politely to Jiang Wenzhe, “Not at all—I’m the one who’s interrupting you. I have something else to do, so I’ll be on my way. You two go ahead and eat.”
Jiang Wenzhe nodded politely and said, “Well then, take your time. No need to see you off.”
Amelia quickly downed the last bit of her coffee and slipped away immediately.
Seeing that she had left, Jiang Wenzhe took a step toward Lin Sangyu and said with a hint of regret, “Your friend seems to have something to attend to, so it looks like it’ll just be the two of us having dinner.”
He picked up the camera bag Lin Sangyu had set aside; it felt somewhat heavy. Turning to the two bodyguards behind him, he instructed, “From now on, when she’s not using the camera, help her carry it.”
“Yes, boss.”
Jiang Wenze glanced at the two bodyguards standing at attention and instructed, “You two can head back now. You’re off early today.”
Upon hearing this, the tension in the bodyguards’ shoulders and backs suddenly eased. After exchanging a few polite words, they walked out of the café in unison.
Turning back to look at Lin Sangyu’s slightly nervous face, Jiang Wenze bent down, leaning close to her, and asked, “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“Nothing,” Lin Sangyu paused for two seconds, then stood up flusteredly, her face almost touching Jiang Wenze’s, her eyes darting around as she said, “Let’s go. Let’s grab something to eat.”
Before leaving, Jiang Wenzhe glanced at the two pieces of cake on the table, which were now nothing but crumbs, shook his head helplessly, and still managed to say, “Eat less dessert next time.”
Caught red-handed again for her sweet tooth, Lin Sangyu immediately played the good girl, blurting out, “I know, I know. I promise I won’t eat any next time.”
Jiang Wenzhe had lost count of how many times he’d heard that line.
Every time she was caught, it was always the same story.
*
On the way to the restaurant, Lin Sangyu curled her fingers nervously, tugged at the hem of Jiang Wenze’s shirt, and said with downcast eyes, “Jiang Wenze, I feel like you’re a little upset.”
“Is that so?” Jiang Wenze neither confirmed nor denied it, merely asking her, “Why do you think I’m upset?”
Outside the car window, London’s nightscape was a tapestry of cold fog, warm lights, and shifting shadows. A few scattered stars were haphazardly strewn across the ink-blue sky, while the lights of classical and modern buildings unfolded in succession, flowing slowly as the car sped by.
“Do you think I’m shallow and a bad person for wanting to marry three men?”
Lin Sangyu gazed at the scenery outside the car window and belatedly realized that what she was doing really wasn’t very good. Here she was, born as a human, yet still applying the same social rules she’d followed back when she was a sugar glider.
I guess that makes me a total jerk, doesn’t it?
Jiang Wenzhe chuckled derisively: “No, I think you’re pretty ambitious.”
Lin Sangyu murmured softly: “That’s not true at all.”
Jiang Wenzhe piled on: “Once you’ve dated 108 men, you can even publish a book. I’ve already thought of the title: *After Dating 108 Men, I’ve Figured Men Out*. What do you think of that?”
Lin Sangyu was flustered, her face burning.
“Can we just skip this topic? I really won’t bring three men home in the future—I swear.”
Jiang Wenzhe’s gaze rested quietly on her cheeks, taut with shame and embarrassment.
She was just a child who didn’t understand anything yet.
So it was understandable that she didn’t know how to handle romantic relationships properly—he could just guide her properly in the future.
But if she made the same mistake again…
No, that can’t happen—it must be nipped in the bud.
The man-made Milky Way, flowing steadily with the traffic, was strangely in sync with the rhythm of his heartbeat. Jiang Wenzhe remained silent for a long time before finally calling her name in a deep, resonant voice: “Lin Sangyu.”
Lin Sangyu looked at him in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
“You have to be faithful in a relationship,” Jiang Wenzhe said, his thick eyelashes fluttering slightly. “You can’t lead someone on and then abandon them.”
Even though she was in a smoothly moving car, Lin Sangyu felt as if she were suffering from seasickness. She replied slowly and hesitantly, “I understand.”
“If you do it again, I’ll dump you.”
Sure enough, the separation anxiety immediately struck a nerve in Lin Sangyu, causing a dull, tugging pain.
Trembling with fear, she mimicked the way she used to behave as a child at the orphanage when punished for misbehaving. She held out both hands, palms up, raised them above her head, and said, “I won’t do it again. Go ahead and hit me.”
The sound of tires scraping against the ground mingled with Jiang Wenzhe’s soft sigh. He reached out with his right hand, pressed her hands down, and cradled them tenderly in his own.
Jiang Wenzhe held her hands, interlacing their fingers.
The touch of their skin against each other was, in fact, a very intimate gesture.
Even with just their palms pressed together, they could clearly feel the texture of each other’s skin and its warmth. If he were just a little more greedy and moved his fingertips up slightly, he might even be able to longingly touch that hidden pulse.
Jiang Wenzhe asked her, “Lin Sangyu, do I look like the kind of person who would hit someone?”
“No,” Lin Sangyu shook her head.
“Then don’t do that again. It’s not right,” Jiang Wenzhe said solemnly, like an elder. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know. I won’t do that again,” Lin Sangyu replied, her head bowed.
Why was she speaking with her head down again?
Jiang Wenzhe reached out with his other hand to lift her chin and said, “One more thing: don’t casually accept strangers’ advances when you’re out in public, especially in a foreign country where you don’t know your way around. It’s easy to get scammed or put in danger.”
“But Amelia is a good person,” Lin Sangyu added, “She looks like a good person at first glance.”
“So you judge people solely by their appearance?” Jiang Wenzhe was a little annoyed.
Lin Sangyu said innocently, “What else is there? Isn’t there such a thing as ‘facial features’?”
Jiang Wenzhe: “……”
Lin Sangyu said matter-of-factly, “ “Besides, if I didn’t go by looks, I wouldn’t have been so persistent back at the villa that they couldn’t get rid of me—and then I wouldn’t have met you. And aren’t you a good person, too?”
Jiang Wenzhe quickly picked up on the key point and asked, “So you were just attracted to my looks back then?”
Lin Sangyu nodded her head like a chick pecking at grain.
“Get out of the car.”
Suddenly, Jiang Wenzhe shook off Lin Sangyu’s hand, got out of the car on his own, and only then turned to say to Lin Sangyu still inside.
“What’s wrong now?”
Why was Jiang Wenzhe angry again?
Jiang Wenzhe’s face was dark as night; his fingertips clenched the car door tightly, and his tone was harsh: “We’re here. Let’s eat.”
Intimidated by his expression, Lin Sangyu shrank her neck and said pitifully, “Then don’t be so mean.”
“How am I being mean to you?”
Lin Sangyu planted her hands on her hips, took a deep breath, and then snapped at Jiang Wenzhe, “You ARE being mean to me! And really, really mean!”
It’s always like this—does he think I’m his punching bag?
Lin Sangyu lunged forward, shoving Jiang Wenzhe—who was standing by the car door—aside with a forceful shove, then strode off with a stomp, stomp, stomp.
All that was left was a defiant retort: “Angry? Who doesn’t get angry?”
That shove instantly doused the flames of Jiang Wenzhe’s rage. As his anger dissipated, he watched the back of her head grow increasingly distant as she approached the restaurant, and he actually found himself chuckling to himself.
He shifted his stance, leaning against the car door with his arms crossed, looking on with amusement.
Ten minutes later, that head—which had already been far away—reappeared in his field of vision.
Lin Sangyu, moving at the super-duper lightning-fast speed of one meter per hour, reluctantly shuffled toward him, her face brimming with venom.
After what felt like an entire century, Lin Sangyu felt she had completely lost face in front of Jiang Wenzhe.
Both angry and coy, she said, “Jiang Wenzhe, I don’t think I can get into the restaurant. The server said I need a reservation to get in.”
Jiang Wenzhe teased, “So they kicked you out?”
Lin Sangyu couldn’t resist correcting Jiang Wenzhe’s wording, in a bid to salvage her precariously thin layer of dignity: “Not ‘kicked out’—I was ‘asked’ to leave.”
“Oh, so you were ‘invited out,’ not ‘kicked out,’” Jiang Wenzhe repeated. “I actually thought for a moment that you’d come back because you weren’t mad at me anymore.”
“Jiang Wenzhe, you’re such a good person—just let bygones be bygones,” Lin Sangyu said, clasping her hands together in front of her chest with a sincere expression.
“But,” Jiang Wenzhe said, looking embarrassed and as if he were about to say something but held back, “I still think I should be considerate of your feelings. I’m afraid you might still be mad at me.”
Lin Sangyu completely lost her composure and started making a scene: “Jiang! Wenzhe! How could you do this to me!”
It worked. Jiang Wenzhe immediately changed his tone:
“Silly girl, let’s go.”
Before Lin Sangyu could even react, Jiang Wenzhe took her hand and practically half-dragged her as he took the first step.
Once she’d adjusted, Lin Sangyu was back to her playful self. Leaning against Jiang Wenzhe, she said, “Jiang Wenzhe, you really are such a good guy.”
Jiang Wenzhe shot her a sidelong glance: “Can’t even a meal shut you up?”
Lin Sangyu immediately pressed her thumb and index finger together, making a zipper gesture in front of her lips to signal silence.
It wasn’t until she actually took her first bite of fries at the restaurant that she spoke up: “Jiang Wenzhe, my mouth’s been zipped shut.”