Ruan Yan held out all afternoon, and in the end still called Jiang Tingnan around dusk.
Jiang Tingnan picked up fast.
It was rather noisy on the other end, and Ruan Yan sat bolt upright in bed, asking warily, “Where are you?”
“Just got to the internet cafe, baby.”
“You’ve got your dorm sorted already, that quickly?”
Jiang Tingnan gave an “mm.”
In truth there had been nothing much to sort. He had none of the patience for himself that he had for Ruan Yan, and his things were simply heaped in a corner.
Ruan Yan said in a clingy voice, “I miss you, husband.”
The sound of typing paused. Jiang Tingnan’s voice dropped a little. “I miss you too, baby.”
“Don’t hang up. You get on with your work, just leave the phone beside you, the way we used to.”
Jiang Tingnan did whatever his wife told him. “All right.”
The noise in his ear was chaotic. Without Ruan Yan along, Jiang Tingnan was certainly sitting in the main hall, and the din mixed with the clatter of keyboards poured through the earphones straight into Ruan Yan’s ear.
But it made him feel safe.
Back when Jiang Tingnan was courting him, the man had known how to do nothing at all except keep his head down and send money, money, money, until Ruan Yan was half exasperated into laughter.
So he’d taught Jiang Tingnan step by step.
“My roommate was seeing someone back then, and every day he’d be in the dorm cooking up phone congee.”
The hint could hardly have been broader.
But Jiang Tingnan didn’t agree straight away.
The “dating coach” Jiang Tingnan had hired had told him that he spoke too bluntly and would easily upset Ruan Yan, and that he’d do best to say as little as possible.
He didn’t want to refuse Ruan Yan, so he pretended not to follow. “Baby, what congee are you talking about?”
Ruan Yan looked at him without expression. “Phone calls. Calling me. Understand?”
Out of moves, Jiang Tingnan said honestly, “I’m not very good at chatting.”
“You don’t have to talk. Just leave the phone beside you.”
From that day on, President Jiang started cooking phone congee for the first time in his life.
His own life was monotonous. Work, and then more work.
Ruan Yan’s was another matter entirely.
With a Bluetooth earpiece in, he could hear Ruan Yan opening a bag of crisps on the other end. Ruan Yan was probably on the sofa at home, expertly pulling up some comedy variety show, and before long the sound of him giggling came through.
The itch in Jiang Tingnan’s chest was unbearable.
Had he been beside Ruan Yan at that moment, he could have held him, served as his backrest, and kissed his cheek whenever he went helpless with laughter.
Jiang Tingnan’s phone was recording the whole time, and he cut out every sound Ruan Yan made: the sounds of him eating, his breathing as he slept……
It was as though he had a collecting habit when it came to Ruan Yan. Ruan Yan’s photographs, his voice, his scent, all of it hoarded away bit by bit.
He had been working for some unknown stretch of time when Jiang Tingnan noticed the sound from the phone had stopped. Frowning, he broke off and pressed at it, only to find it had run out of battery and switched itself off.
Jiang Tingnan took the phone up to the counter and asked whether he could charge it.
The attendant glanced at him and produced a charging cable. “Ten yuan each.”
Jiang Tingnan pulled out the money without hesitating.
“It’s getting late. You want a pot of instant noodles, brother?”
Jiang Tingnan set the ten yuan on the counter. “No noodles. Just the cable.”
The attendant was speechless. “Money to charge your phone but no money to eat?”
Jiang Tingnan was ordinarily the sort who wouldn’t spare a stranger half a sentence more than necessary, but now, whether because he was ten years younger and his frame of mind had shifted, or because of everything around him, he held the phone and said flatly, “I’m charging it to call my wife.”
The attendant, “……”
Damn. A proper case of love-brain.
In fact Ruan Yan had fallen asleep on the other end long before.
Until Han Qiu woke him from outside the bed curtain. “Ruan Yan? Ruan Yan? Do you want to go and eat?”
A few minutes later the curtain drew back and a fluffy head poked out. “Eat!”
Ruan Yan got up to change.
He shook out his clothes and several red banknotes fell from them.
He froze.
Jiang Tingnan must have tucked them in while he wasn’t looking.
It wasn’t much, nothing at all beside the millions Jiang Tingnan used to transfer him without a second thought.
But Ruan Yan knew.
This was every last bit of money Jiang Tingnan had left.
There wasn’t even a jacket in his suitcase.
“What’s wrong?” Han Qiu asked quietly. “That child bridegroom of yours really is good to you.”
Doing all the work and handing over money besides.
Ruan Yan said nothing, tucking the money neatly under his pillow. “Let’s go, we’ll eat at the canteen.”
Over the meal, Ruan Yan took a photo and sent it to Jiang Tingnan.
Jiang Tingnan replied quickly.
【Why is there no meat dish】
【Go and order a meat dish. Be good, baby.】
Ruan Yan asked what he’d eaten.
It was a long while before Jiang Tingnan sent a picture.
Ruan Yan opened it.
Whoa.
How lavish.
Three dishes and a soup, for one person.
He typed coldly.
【Jiang Tingnan, you got this picture off the internet, didn’t you. There’s still a watermark in the bottom left corner.】
……
Back that night, Ruan Yan made a point of being the last to shower, propping his phone up to one side in the bathroom and calling Jiang Tingnan.
First he sternly denounced the heinous crime of Jiang Tingnan deceiving his wife, then softened his tone and whined that he couldn’t reach his own back.
“I may as well go and wash at the public bathhouse, then somebody could help me.”
A surge of temper rose in Jiang Tingnan. “You wouldn’t dare.”
His voice was loud. Ruan Yan’s was louder.
“Are you shouting at me?”
“I was wrong, baby.” Jiang Tingnan’s voice sounded hoarse, like a sleepy lion. “Don’t go and wash at an outside bathhouse.”
Ruan Yan sometimes found Jiang Tingnan’s stubbornness funny.
He kept such a tight hold on him.
Sometimes when Ruan Yan went out in something slightly revealing, Jiang Tingnan would be unhappy about it.
He remembered one occasion when Ruan Yan was going to a friend’s shop for the evening in a pair of shorts, and the sight of those pale, soft legs put fire in Jiang Tingnan’s eyes.
For once his face darkened and he forbade Ruan Yan to go.
They hadn’t been married long then, and it became their first fight as a married couple.
Ruan Yan shouted and hit, leaving several red slap marks across Jiang Tingnan’s face, and Jiang Tingnan didn’t dare answer back or raise a hand, only sat there in silence, and still would not let Ruan Yan out the door.
Having vented, Ruan Yan went back to the bedroom with red eyes, threw every piece of clothing out of the wardrobe across the bed, then folded them all again one by one.
This was in fact a habit of Ruan Yan’s. When he was angry he had to do something to work it off.
At home in the old days it had been manageable, with only a few garments to get through. Now, with a dressing room that size, Ruan Yan folded until his hands ached.
One fire hadn’t gone out before another was piled on top of it.
All Jiang Tingnan’s fault!!
What did he go buying him this many clothes for!!
After searching through several rooms, Jiang Tingnan finally found him, and the sight of his wife folding clothes with red eyes frightened the soul clean out of him. He thought his wife was leaving him.
Jiang Tingnan hurried over in several quick strides and caught Ruan Yan tightly from behind, his voice low and hoarse. “Baby, I was wrong, I’ll never make you angry again.”
Ruan Yan’s hands stilled. “?”
He spoke without giving anything away. “You were shouting at me a moment ago. What was it you said? Today I simply will not let you out that door.”
Jiang Tingnan was sunk entirely in the terror of his wife not wanting him. He pulled Ruan Yan’s hand to his own cheek and rasped, “Hit me, baby.”
Jiang Tingnan’s face was covered in the red marks Ruan Yan had slapped into it in his anger.
Ruan Yan pouted a little. “I’m not that fierce, am I? Husband, do you think I have a particularly bad temper? I can’t compare with anyone you knew before.”
Jiang Tingnan hurriedly said, “No. Baby is the best.”
“Oh. So you really have compared me to them.”
“……”
President Jiang, undefeated at the negotiating table, was now so flustered before his wife that he hadn’t the faintest idea what to say to placate him.
He could only repeat, over and over, “Baby, I was wrong.”
Ruan Yan stroked his face. “Husband, did it hurt when I hit you?”
Jiang Tingnan didn’t dare say a word, afraid of getting the answer wrong again.
“Who told you to be so fierce. If you thought my shorts were too short, you could have simply said so, instead of sitting there with a stern face. Don’t bring your company routine home with you.”
Jiang Tingnan said quietly, “I didn’t.”
How could he? He held Ruan Yan in his palms for fear of dropping him, held him in his mouth for fear he’d melt.
He simply…… wanted to hide his wife away and let nobody else look at him.
The water rushed on noisily.
Ruan Yan lathered himself up, and out of pure mischief announced to Jiang Tingnan every place the suds went.
“Now I’m doing my chest. Jiang Tingnan, did you know there’s a little mole here?”
Did he know?
Jiang Tingnan thought.
What a ridiculous question.
He knew every inch of his wife’s body. That small red mole on his chest, he’d lost count of how many times he’d bitten it.
At the thought, his breathing turned heavier. He was alone in the dormitory just then, lying on a bed whose boards were cold and hard, though Jiang Tingnan seemed not to feel it at all, the blood running hot through his whole body.
Without thinking, he reached a hand downward.
He had only just tugged his waistband loose when Ruan Yan’s voice came crisply down the line. “Jiang Tingnan, what are you doing?”
Jiang Tingnan went still.
They were plainly only on a call, not a video, yet Ruan Yan seemed to know precisely what Jiang Tingnan was up to.
He was like a wicked little kitten. “Husband, don’t forget what you said. With me not beside you, you don’t do it even once.”
Jiang Tingnan had a breath lodged in his chest that would go neither up nor down.
“You were the one who packed my clothes. You didn’t steal a pair of my underwear, did you?” Ruan Yan asked, knowing full well.
Jiang Tingnan said nothing.
“You scrub too hard. Last time you nearly rubbed a pair of my underwear right through.”
Jiang Tingnan said quietly, “I’ll buy new ones.”
“So wasteful? And what happens to the old ones? You can’t wear my size.”
No, he couldn’t wear them.
But he had his own uses for his baby’s underwear.
Ruan Yan rinsed off the last of the suds, and before hanging up gave Jiang Tingnan a stern warning against any secret handiwork.
Jiang Tingnan laughed softly twice and coaxed him. “Get to sleep early, baby.”
Having dawdled a good while in the bathroom, Ruan Yan came out with his face flushed from the steam. Jia Cheng shot him a glance and muttered, “Disgusting.”
He probably knew by now that Ruan Yan’s temper wasn’t as mild as it looked from the outside, which was why he kept his voice so low.
Ruan Yan didn’t hear him, and didn’t spare him the slightest scrap of attention. He put his things away, and before climbing into bed, counted through the wardrobe, and sure enough, one pair of underwear was missing.
No wonder he’d been so enthusiastic about organizing that wardrobe. Lining his own pockets, was he.
Ruan Yan couldn’t keep the corner of his mouth from lifting. He hummed a little tune as he got back into bed, straightened the bedding, and paused as his hand went under the pillow.
Hm?
Ruan Yan froze.
Where was his money.