As one of the top high-end restaurants in Haishi, the nights at Yongfu Hui were always filled with a hypocritical bustle.
Lou Fan wore a tailored suit dress, her long, straight black hair hanging down like a waterfall. She raised a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, revealing her fair and delicate face.
“Next week, our company will be participating in an exhibition in Jingshi. I hope President Tomioka can come and attend,” she said in fluent Japanese. Her pair of peach-blossom eyes were naturally brimming with autumn water, the mole at the corner of her eye reflecting in the red wine glass before her, making her look at everyone with twelve parts of deep affection.
“Ms. Lou certainly has a good capacity for alcohol.” Several men at the table said, flushed with wine, raising their glasses as they tried to crowd closer to Lou Fan.
Lou Fan’s long eyebrows furrowed slightly, but she quickly relaxed them. She raised her wine glass and nodded to the slightly older woman beside her: “Then let me propose a toast to everyone on behalf of our President Chen.”
Using President Chen as a shield, those men found it difficult to take the opportunity to force-drink Lou Fan, so they had to return to their seats looking somewhat sullen.
President Chen patted Lou Fan’s shoulder with satisfaction, then turned to smile at everyone at the table: “It’s about time. Let’s finish this glass and call it a night.”
Chen Man was past fifty, the silver threads in her black hair carefully gathered up. The tone of her speech was like her person, steady and dignified.
“Yes, yes, yes. It’s getting late now.” The man who had just tried to cozy up to Lou Fan was now hunching his back, adopting a deeply ingratiating and flattering posture toward Chen Man.
Lou Fan quietly curved the corners of her lips.
After seeing President Chen into her car, Lou Fan closed the door for her last: “Get some sleep early, President Chen. I’ll send you the exhibition proposal tomorrow morning.”
“I’m at ease when you handle things.” Before winding up the car window, Chen Man glanced at a young girl wearing a hoodie standing under the street lamp by the roadside.
“Your younger sister has come to pick you up again.” Chen Man indicated toward Lou Fan with a kind smile. “You two sisters have such a good relationship.”
Without looking, Lou Fan knew it was Qin Peiran.
Watching Chen Man’s car drive off a distance, Lou Fan then walked toward the street lamp.
The girl in the hoodie stood straight under the streetlight just like that. She looked to be only of college age, but her cold appearance carried a slight sense of distance. Her eyes were slender and her lips thin. As she watched Lou Fan sway her waist over, those thin lips pressed together slightly.
“Have you been waiting long?” Lou Fan walked over and, taking advantage of her high heels, draped her entire arm over Qin Peiran’s shoulder, throwing the weight of her body onto her.
A faint scent of alcohol melted into Lou Fan’s coquettish tone, drilling into Qin Peiran’s ears.
“How much did you drink today?” Qin Peiran pulled Lou Fan’s arm down as if unaccustomed to it, smoothly reached into Lou Fan’s pocket to fish out the car keys, and walked toward a Mercedes-Benz E300 Coupe parked by the roadside without looking back.
“What are you doing?” Lou Fan was somewhat displeased by Qin Peiran’s actions of maintaining physical distance, but since she was always like this, Lou Fan didn’t pursue it further and took a few quick steps to follow.
“I drank very little today,” Lou Fan got into the front passenger seat, taking advantage of the twilight to lightly trace her fingers over the back of Qin Peiran’s hand as she skillfully shifted gears. “With President Chen around, it’s much better.”
Qin Peiran didn’t dodge that wandering hand, only asking again, “Did you take your hangover medicine?”
“I took it, I took it.” Lou Fan said as she leaned closer to Qin Peiran, lowering her voice right beside her ear, her intoxicated voice carrying a flirtatious languor. “I take it every time, and you ask every time. What, worried about me?”
Qin Peiran didn’t speak. She just glanced at the rearview mirror, pushed Lou Fan away a little, and stepped on the accelerator.
Lou Fan was already long used to this. She just smiled faintly, propping her head up with her arm to gaze at the night scenery flying past the window.
Arriving home, Lou Fan tossed her handbag onto the sofa and collapsed onto it entirely.
Even though she had taken hangover medicine, a headache was still inevitable.
“You’re drunk.” Qin Peiran fished her up from the sofa. “Go sleep in bed.”
“I don’t want to.” Lou Fan hooked her arm around Qin Peiran’s neck, planting a light kiss on her lips. “I haven’t taken a bath yet.”
The kiss carrying the scent of alcohol was imprinted on Qin Peiran’s lips. She lowered her head, watching Lou Fan in her unwitting drunkenness.
The black and soft bangs rested on Lou Fan’s forehead, making her fair and petite face look even more exquisite and three-dimensional. Whether it was her glossy fair skin, long black eyelashes, or bright red lips, all were already moving enough, yet they all fell far short of that pair of alluring peach-blossom eyes shifting with color, hazy with the mist of post-drinking intoxication, making one’s heartbeat skip a beat.
Is she like this when she drinks with other people?
Qin Peiran felt a bit displeased. Watching Lou Fan’s completely unguarded appearance, she reached out and pinched her cheek.
“It hurts.” Lou Fan frowned slightly.
Qin Peiran released her hand, her thumb rubbing against Lou Fan’s red lips, smudging a trace with considerable dissatisfaction.
“Mmm.” Before Lou Fan could voice her protest, Qin Peiran kissed her.
The kiss was deep and fierce, as if wanting to swallow up the alcohol breath lingering in their mouths together. Lou Fan’s post-drinking tongue became even softer than usual. Qin Peiran didn’t know where this sudden burst of temper came from, venting it entirely on that deft and soft tongue.
Until Lou Fan reached out to push her away, Qin Peiran finally released her mouth, the two of them pressing their foreheads together and panting.
“Help me take a bath, okay?” Lou Fan licked the saliva overflowing from the corner of her mouth, her gaze following the direction of her tip of the tongue as she looked back at Qin Peiran. “Please.”
Just a single word, spoken like morning dew trembling among flowers.
The two of them were already too familiar with each other. Four years of tacit understanding made Qin Peiran instantly understand what Lou Fan wanted.
Yet she didn’t want to give it.
Even though Qin Peiran’s own breathing was absurdly heavy as well.
“You’re drunk. Go to sleep first, and wash tomorrow.” Qin Peiran skirted around the issue, refusing to meet Lou Fan’s alluring eyes directly.
Yet Lou Fan was unwilling. She pulled Qin Peiran’s hand to wander over her own body, and using her fingertips, popped open the buttons of her own shirt.
The soft plumpness pressed into her own palm, but as if still unsatisfied, Lou Fan guided that hand all the way down.
“I’m begging you, wife.” Lou Fan narrowed her eyes slightly, making a wronged, ultra-coquettish expression, a routine she had used for a full four years.
“I can hold you while you sleep.” Lou Fan acted like a child when she was drunk. It was precisely because Qin Peiran knew this clearly that she proposed a condition for exchange. “All night long, the kind where my arm won’t let go even if it gets sore.”
Lou Fan clearly hesitated for a fleeting moment.
Yet alcohol apparently won out over reason. Being persistent, Lou Fan leaned into Qin Peiran’s embrace, her voice coming in fits and starts: “I want both.”
Qin Peiran let out a long sigh and carried Lou Fan into the shower room.
The hot steam exhaled by the two of them misted between skin that caused goosebumps to spike. Qin Peiran’s hoodie had long been tossed onto the ground, leaving her wearing only a T-shirt underneath, which was thoroughly drenched by the hot water.
As for Lou Fan, she was stark naked, limp against Qin Peiran’s shoulder.
“Is this enough?” Qin Peiran asked. She looked Lou Fan up and down from top to bottom, her cold gaze carrying a restrained, detached thinness when lowered.
It was as if this passionate, lustful episode had nothing to do with her at all.
Lou Fan recovered slightly, straightened her body, wrapped her arms around Qin Peiran’s waist, and stared straight at her like that.
Wet, thick amorous feelings swirled softly in her eyes, looking far from enough.
Just as Qin Peiran prepared to reach the hand resting on her waist downward once more, she heard Lou Fan give a soft “Mn” in a rejecting tone.
“That’s enough.” Lou Fan caught Qin Peiran’s halfway-extended hand, gazing at the other’s slender brows which lacked emotional fluctuations, her defense line of sobriety after drinking completely collapsing once more. “Do you love me?”
“I love you.” Qin Peiran kissed Lou Fan’s cheek so lightly that Lou Fan felt no real sensation from it.
She wanted to ask again, but felt it unnecessary anyway.
Besides, whether there was love or not only ever held meaning for flirting between the two of them.
“Such a good girl.” Lou Fan patted Qin Peiran’s head like rewarding a puppy that had just learned how to shake hands. “Help me wash, and then hold me to sleep.”
Qin Peiran didn’t speak, simply skillfully pumping a dollop of shampoo from the edge of the windowsill.
Having consumed alcohol, Lou Fan fell asleep extremely fast. Looking at the older sister in the crook of her arm, who was a full ten years older than her, now curled up in her embrace like a kitten, her long, smooth black hair scattered over her shoulders, her face showing nothing besides that full red mouth and the ultimate extremes of black and white.
This person’s name, appearance, and personality were all complex and intense, Qin Peiran thought to herself.
The next day was Saturday. Lou Fan had a rare, fully satisfied sleep. She first stretched her arms out long before opening her eyes to look at Qin Peiran, who had already woken up.
“Good morning.” Lou Fan massaged Qin Peiran’s crown in a fine mood, as if coaxing a child. “Is my good girl not having classes today?”
“It’s Saturday.” Qin Peiran tugged at Lou Fan’s wrist, stopping her from continuing to ruffle her hair. “Besides, I graduated a month ago.”
“Hss.” Lou Fan used the heel of her palm to press against her temple. “My brain is fried from drinking. I’宁m sorry.”
With that, she reached out to pinch Qin Peiran’s cheek again: “No help for it, I still think of you as just a little kid.”
When the two of them first met, Qin Peiran was only eighteen, just after finishing the college entrance examination, so much so that even four years later, in Lou Fan’s eyes, Qin Peiran was still that kid who had just graduated from high school.
“I’m twenty-two,” Qin Peiran said.
“Twenty-two is so young, mm, then a little, little kid!” Failing to notice Qin Peiran’s hesitation and unspoken expression, Lou Fan sat up in bed, glanced at the bright sun outside the window, and turned back. “What do you want to eat for breakfast? I’ll make it.”
The summer morning light was gorgeous, gilding the scene with an illusory golden edge. Lou Fan’s smile melted into the blazing sun, stinging the pupils of Qin Peiran’s eyes with a dull ache.
Hearing the increasingly rapid drumming of her own heart, Qin Peiran opened her mouth: “Anything’s fine. I have something to say after we eat.”
Lou Fan straddled Qin Peiran’s waist, her tongue skillfully and smoothly prying open the seams of her lips for a deep, lingering kiss woven with heat. Before the person beneath her could react, she darted away swiftly, pulling the bedroom door shut behind her: “Why are you being so serious? Rest a bit more, I’ll call you when it’s done.”
Qin Peiran stared at the closed door, her lowered fingertips gripping the bedsheet tightly, relaxing only after a long while to leave an unironable crease behind.
“Tomato and egg noodles.” Lou Fan placed two bowls of noodles on opposite sides of the table, her long hair casually gathered up with a claw clip, a stray lock slipping down beside her ear. Her wrist was also soft like her waist. As Qin Peiran watched those slender, fair wrists gently place the bowl in front of her and start to withdraw, she kissed it right then and there.
“Ah.” Lou Fan paused, her suspended wrist unsure whether to pull back or stay put.
Qin Peiran didn’t show the slightest bit of awkwardness. She was always so calm, as if everything were under her control and yet as if everything had nothing to do with her, even though the action just now clearly originated from her own hand.
Lou Fan twitched the corner of her mouth, smiling as she sat back down in her seat.
The two of them tacitly remained silent, each playing with their own cellphones until Qin Peiran’s phone gave a ding sound. She glanced at WeChat, her gaze dimming.
“Why aren’t you accepting it?” Seeing Qin Peiran holding her phone without any further action, Lou Fan shook her own phone and said to the other, “It’s the first of the month today, sending your living allowance over.”
It seemed this bowl of noodles was destined to remain unfinished.
“No need.” Qin Peiran said very softly, to the point that Lou Fan didn’t hear her at all.
“What?”
“I said.” Qin Peiran transferred the money back, raising her voice, “no need.”
She pushed the bowl slightly forward, stood up under Lou Fan’s puzzled gaze, opened an app on her phone, and placed it right in front of the other person.
“This is my internship salary. I’ve already passed probation early, and next month it will be higher.” Qin Peiran scanned Lou Fan’s expression, which never bothered to hide anything in front of her, trying to find a shred of what she wanted from it, though she didn’t even know what that was herself.
Yet it wasn’t there on Lou Fan’s face.
Qin Peiran lowered her eyelids.
Lou Fan began counting on her fingers, muttering and calculating in her mouth: “You’re really amazing. Your salary for your very first job right after graduation is three times higher than mine. Truly worthy of Haida University. Hey, my school was a bit lacking. So you see, studying hard is still useful. Oh right, are you busy after passing probation at this job? Will you always have to work overtime? Do you have to entertain clients? Let me tell you, your body won’t be able to handle a job where you drink every day. I’ll have to change jobs sooner or later myself. You do have your five social insurances and one housing fund, right? What about the housing fund?”
Qin Peiran observed Lou Fan’s expression and answered them one by one.
At the end, looking at Lou Fan’s gratified expression, she added: “So you don’t need to give me living expenses anymore.
“Thank you very much for these four years, but I don’t think I’m very suited to this kind of monetary relationship.”
Qin Peiran opened her mouth, wanting to say something more, but swallowed it back when she heard Lou Fan’s next sentence.
Lou Fan propped her arms up, resting her head sideways, smiling brightly as if looking at an outstanding artwork she had crafted with her own hands: “That’s wonderful, your future.
“Then let’s part on good terms.”