“You seem awfully interested in the subject of ‘liking someone.’”
Shu Wan pressed her lips together and said nothing.
Meng Huaijin lowered his eyes and looked directly at her.
“Do you know what it feels like to like someone?”
“…”
The heart Shu Wan had only just managed to calm down suddenly bounced back up like a glass marble.
Under the sharp, bladelike gaze of his eyes, she slowly shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Take good care of yourself.”
Meng Huaijin’s expression was serious.
“You started running a fever in the middle of the night. Why didn’t you call me?”
What would have been the point?
Even if she had called him and he had taken her to the hospital, wouldn’t he have gone straight back afterward to discuss the engagement date?
The girl lowered her eyes.
“Weren’t you busy with something important?”
“I was afraid I’d interfere with your happy occasion.”
The man gave a quiet “Oh.”
“So, it wouldn’t interfere now?”
“…”
Shu Wan immediately shut her mouth.
Meng Huaijin didn’t pursue the matter.
He also deliberately avoided discussing Jiang Jie with her.
He probably thought it was something between adults, something that had nothing to do with a schoolgirl like her.
Shu Wan understood all of that.
And she felt more disappointed than ever.
His world seemed so very, very far away from hers.
That afternoon, Jiang Jie came to visit her after hearing that she was sick.
She brought a bouquet of flowers.
Meng Huaijin happened to be there too.
Jiang Jie glanced at the completely empty bedside cabinet and smiled gently as she teased him.
“I knew a grown man like you wouldn’t know how to take care of a little girl.”
“You didn’t even buy her any fruit.”
Meng Huaijin gave her a faint glance.
“She has a pollen allergy.”
A look of embarrassment flashed across Jiang Jie’s face.
She immediately took the flowers outside and threw them into the trash.
Then she returned to the room and asked thoughtfully,
“Shu Wan, would you like some fruit?”
“I can go buy some with Huaijin.”
Shu Wan didn’t want any.
More accurately, she didn’t want anything Jiang Jie bought for her.
In the end, she still managed to send Meng Huaijin away with Jiang Jie.
It felt as though something that had once belonged completely to her had been forcibly taken away.
Lying on the hospital bed, the girl curled almost into herself, her head and feet nearly touching.
Her empty eyes stared fixedly at one spot.
The fire burning inside her was tearing her apart.
Destroying her.
Leaving her with no reason left at all.
But only a moment later, she suddenly panicked and pulled out her phone.
She called Meng Huaijin.
The phone rang two or three times before he answered.
“What is it?”
Shu Wan’s eyelashes fluttered slightly.
She didn’t speak.
The man’s voice immediately became heavier.
“Shu Wan?”
Still, she said nothing.
“Beep. Beep. Beep—”
The call ended.
Five minutes later, he returned.
Seeing her hunched over on the bed, Meng Huaijin’s eyes narrowed.
He placed a hand on her arm and gently turned her over.
“Shu Wan, where does it hurt?”
“I’ll call the doctor.”
The girl’s gaze didn’t move.
She stared at his face, so close that she could see every detail.
Sadness and bitterness suddenly filled her eyes.
“It hurts…”
The man’s expression changed.
A trace of concern appeared in his eyes.
“Where does it hurt?”
Her heart.
But all she dared to say was,
“My head hurts.”
In the end, Dr. Zhou diagnosed her fever as being caused by catching a chill.
And that was indeed what had happened.
In freezing weather, she had soaked herself in cold water for a full half hour.
In exchange, she had successfully caused the discussion of Meng Huaijin and Jiang Jie’s engagement date to be postponed.
When she had made that decision, she already knew she was crazy.
Completely crazy.
There was no turning back now.
She wanted Meng Huaijin.
She wanted everything that belonged to that man.
No one else was allowed to have him.
No one.
Shu Wan stayed in the hospital for three days.
When she was discharged, Meng Huaijin didn’t take her back to the Meng residence.
Instead, they returned to their little apartment.
The Lantern Festival hadn’t even arrived yet when Shu Wan returned to school.
During the second week after school started, her final class of the afternoon had just ended.
While checking her phone for messages, she happened to see Meng Huaijin in Meng Chuan’s Moments.
He had gone to the Jiang family’s housewarming banquet.
Meng Chuan knew how to be discreet.
The footage only showed Meng Huaijin for a brief moment.
But after Shu Wan replayed the video countless times and listened to the audio over and over, she managed to piece together the fleeting image with the snippets of conversation buried beneath the background noise.
The man held a wineglass in one hand.
He was dressed in a suit, looking strikingly handsome and composed.
Standing beside him was Jiang Jie, dressed in an elegant evening gown.
It seemed that everyone had already accepted that he would become the Jiang family’s future soninlaw.
One person after another came over to toast him.
Along with their flattering words, they didn’t forget to shower the pair with praise.
They said the two of them were a perfect match.
A match made in heaven.
They said everyone was already looking forward to drinking their wedding wine.
Some even asked where they planned to buy their future home.
With Meng Huaijin’s status and position, attending this kind of social gathering was nothing unusual.
He probably attended such events every few days.
Shu Wan had accompanied him to several before.
He had always handled himself with ease.
Always dignified.
Always perfectly at home in both political and social circles.
In the past, Shu Wan had looked at him as though she were looking at a god.
But this time, she found the sight painfully glaring.
Because the person standing beside him wasn’t her.
The Jiang family’s housewarming banquet was lowkey.
They hadn’t invited many guests.
But everyone who came carried considerable weight.
They were all influential figures who had recently been active in the political sphere.
Wherever there were people with status, there were inevitably occasions where everyone put on an act.
Meng Huaijin sat lazily in a sandalwood chair.
One arm rested casually over the back.
A cigarette he had barely smoked was held between his slender index and middle fingers.
After years of navigating this world, his handsome appearance and social smoothness, his strength and understanding of human relationships, had all been tempered into the sharp, composed gaze of his eyes.
When people approached to greet him, he responded absentmindedly.
When someone offered him a drink, he casually took a glass of brandy from a server’s tray.
He raised it slightly in acknowledgment, his thin lips merely brushing the rim.
He didn’t actually drink.
When the guard’s call came through, the cigarette between his fingers had just burned itself out.
He crushed the butt into the ashtray and asked,
“What is it?”
“Captain, I’m at the school gate to pick up Shu Wan.”
“But it’s already been more than an hour since school ended, and she still hasn’t come out.”
“I called her, but her phone is switched off.”
“Do you think a teacher kept her after class?”
One moment, Meng Huaijin had been dealing with important national matters.
The next, he was dealing with his “little troublemaker” going to school.
The contrast was almost absurd.
Meng Huaijin first called her homeroom teacher.
After confirming that Shu Wan hadn’t been kept after class and had left the school immediately after dismissal, he decisively called the local police station.
“Help me find someone.”
The person on the other end was confused.
“Who are you?”
“Are you reporting a crime or—”
“Meng Huaijin.”
“…”
“Sir, please wait a moment.”
Meng Huaijin searched through his phone and selected a photo of the girl’s ID card.
He sent it over.
Three minutes later, the police station called back.
“Sir, she’s at an Internet café.”
“Huai—”
Jiang Jie smiled as she walked toward him.
“My father wants us to…”
Before she could finish, the man had already stood up.
Without even seeming to hear her, he turned around and strode out of the Jiang residence.
My father wants us to discuss the engagement date…
The rest of her sentence remained unspoken.
Jiang Jie stared at his departing figure.
Her expression gradually became calm and unreadable.
This was Shu Wan’s first time entering an Internet café.
The moment she sat down, the pungent smell of cigarette smoke made her feel like throwing up.
Combined with the noisy sounds of games all around her, it made her frown repeatedly.
In the end, she could only put on her headphones, turn the volume all the way up, and play her favorite songs on repeat.
At first, she had simply felt aimless.
She hadn’t planned to come here.
She had only overheard a few schoolmates quietly talking about Internet cafés outside the school gate and made the decision on impulse.
Shu Wan didn’t like playing games.
After arriving, she had no idea what to do with the computer in front of her.
So, she simply listened to music while working through a practice test.
This attracted all kinds of strange looks.
Everyone seemed to think she was some kind of weirdo.
Shu Wan didn’t care about their stares or whatever they were thinking.
After finishing the test, she felt a little sleepy.
She rested her head on the computer desk, intending to take a nap.
But she couldn’t actually fall asleep.
For some reason, she had a feeling that he would come.
She just didn’t know how he would appear.
She didn’t have to wonder for long.
Two light knocks sounded on the desk very close to her ear.
That familiar feeling.
That familiar scent coming from the person standing beside her.
In an instant, it seemed to cleanse the entire Internet café of its smoke and noise.
Even though she had been mentally prepared, Shu Wan’s heart still rose uncontrollably.
It bounced wildly inside her chest.
There was anticipation mixed with nervousness.
Nervousness mixed with infatuation.
And even an excitement she could barely suppress.
So, this is what it feels like to be cared about.
At that moment, Shu Wan knew.
She had already fallen into an abyss from which there was no return.
“Shu Wan.”
The man’s voice was calm.
Yet it carried a meaning unlike anything she had heard from him before.
Anger.
The girl raised her head.
She turned and met Meng Huaijin’s eyes, cold and dry as a forgotten well.
In the end, she was still afraid of him.
“Come out.”
Perhaps because he cared about her dignity, Meng Huaijin didn’t lecture her in the middle of the crowded Internet café.
Shu Wan put her backpack on and lowered her head as she followed him.
They left the Internet café and got into the car.
“Why was your phone switched off?”
That was the first thing he asked.
Her fingers tightened and loosened around the strap of her backpack.
“Maybe it ran out of battery.”
Meng Huaijin stared at her for a long while without moving.
Miraculously, he didn’t say anything.
Instead, he simply asked,
“What do you want to eat?”
“Let’s buy something.”
The girl froze.
Then she shook her head.
Her voice was as soft as a kitten’s.
“I want to eat something you made.”
Zhao Heng, the guard driving the car, kept glancing at them through the rearview mirror.
He was terrified the entire way.
He was genuinely afraid his captain would erupt in anger.
After all, the gloomy expression Meng Huaijin had worn when he arrived had been enough to make it feel as though Beicheng could rain for half a year straight.
But Zhao Heng kept subtly trying to defend the girl.
“Maybe the young lady was just under too much academic pressure.”
“She probably went to the Internet café to relieve some stress.”
“She’s going through adolescence. Everyone has a rebellious phase.”
“She’s already very obedient.”
“My younger sister was much worse.”
“During her rebellious phase, she smoked, drank, got tattoos, and occasionally even brought some bleachedhaired boy home just to make my parents furious.”
“Now that’s what I’d call a headache.”
“But Shu Wan is different.”
“She’s a rose you’ve carefully nurtured and protected.”
“She’s always been sensible.”
“She knows perfectly well what she should and shouldn’t do.”
“So, she probably just went to the Internet café because school has been too stressful lately.”
Meng Huaijin had remained silent at the time.
Judging by his current reaction, though, he must have taken some of it to heart.
When they got home, Shu Wan put her backpack on the desk and arranged her practice books one by one.
Meng Huaijin followed her inside.
He looked at the girl who had naturally taken over his study as though it were her own.
“Nothing you want to say voluntarily?”
Seeing that he didn’t seem about to lose his temper, Shu Wan casually asked,
“You went to the Jiang family’s housewarming banquet today.”
“Did you settle the date for your engagement with Miss Jiang?”
In the end, she was still too young.
The answer she desperately wanted to know slipped out before she could stop herself.
The moment she asked, she regretted it.
Meng Huaijin took off his suit jacket and hung it on the hook.
The darkness in his expression hadn’t faded in the slightest.
He narrowed his eyes and scrutinized her.
His tone was cold and merciless, like an executioner raising his blade.
“Why are you so concerned about whether she and I are getting engaged?”