Just as Lin Zhou was about to brace herself against the man with both hands, Gu Minxuan squeezed in front of her. He planted one arm against the elevator wall and leaned his body back as far as he could, shielding Lin Zhou within the space he created. He even left about a fist’s width between them so she wouldn’t feel pressured.
Lin Zhou lifted her head and glanced at Gu Minxuan. There was a smile in his eyes, as if he were saying, Hurry up and thank me. She deliberately turned her head aside and pretended not to notice. Out of the corner of her eye, she seemed to catch a trace of disappointment on his face.
There was a faint cologne scent on Gu Minxuan. You couldn’t smell it from a distance; only at such close range could you catch a hint of it.
Lin Zhou felt the scent was somewhat familiar, as if she had smelled it somewhere before, yet she couldn’t recall where. For some reason, it made her heart race and her cheeks flush.
The elevator soon reached the first floor. There were quite a few people checking in, and the elevator quickly emptied out. Gu Minxuan stepped aside, and Lin Zhou no longer smelled the cologne. Her emotions finally settled down a little.
The indoor tennis court was on the second floor. Gu Minxuan had booked one and even asked the staff to prepare a set of tennis clothes for Lin Zhou.
After they changed, both of them were dressed in white with red trim. A staff member smiled and said, “Sir, your girlfriend’s outfit matches yours really well. It’s practically a couple’s look.”
Gu Minxuan openly sized Lin Zhou up. The fitted short-sleeved T-shirt and ultra-short pleated skirt outlined her curvy figure. She usually wore professional attire, but the short skirt gave her a completely different charm. “It does match pretty well.”
He couldn’t help stepping forward and pulling Lin Zhou along. This time, it wasn’t her wrist but her palm. Her hand was soft and warm, just the right size to be completely wrapped in his large hand. He deliberately teased her. “Let’s go, girlfriend.”
Lin Zhou showed him no mercy at all and pulled her hand back. “Stop taking advantage of me.”
“In other countries, hugging and kissing are just polite greetings. What’s holding hands compared to that?” Gu Minxuan said nonchalantly. “Assistant Lin, what era are we living in now? Men and women keeping a strict physical distance went out of fashion long ago.”
“I’m not an overseas student. That doesn’t apply to me.”
The two of them went back and forth as they walked side by side into the private court.
“I’ll teach you how to hold the racket first,” Gu Minxuan said as he moved to stand behind Lin Zhou.
Before he could make a move, Lin Zhou spun around and dodged to the side.
“President Gu, please demonstrate. I’ll watch and learn,” Lin Zhou said warily. She didn’t say much, but her body language was obvious.
Gu Minxuan laughed helplessly. “Assistant Lin, you don’t have to avoid me like the plague, do you? It’s as if I’m especially fond of taking advantage of you.”
Gu Minxuan rarely acted intimate with women. Forget initiative getting close to them, unless it was necessary for work, he usually couldn’t even be bothered to engage.
Yet Lin Zhou was interesting. He couldn’t help wanting to tease her.
Lin Zhou sneered inwardly. Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing? Outwardly, she said calmly, “You’re overthinking it, President Gu.”
Gu Minxuan deliberately leaned closer, lowered his head, and bent toward her. “Are you this evasive with Chairman Feng as well?”
Lin Zhou took another step back, a hint of irritation appearing on her face. She understood what Gu Minxuan meant, he was probing her relationship with Feng Hexu.
Since Gu Minxuan already knew about her former engagement, she didn’t bother hiding anything and replied with thinly veiled sarcasm, “Chairman Feng is far more of a gentleman than you.”
In other words, Feng Hexu would never do something so rude.
Gu Minxuan chuckled softly and didn’t argue further. He straightened up and began teaching Lin Zhou properly.
Lin Zhou was a quick learner. She soon grasped the basics of tennis and could even rally with Gu Minxuan for several rounds.
Sure enough, exercise could make people forget their troubles for a while. After an hour, Lin Zhou was drenched in sweat and had almost forgotten the displeasure Chengdu had caused her.
Both of them were flushed and sweating, their damp hair clinging to their heads, looking utterly disheveled.
They looked at each other and couldn’t help laughing, bluntly tossing two words at one another: “So ugly.”
Seeing that Lin Zhou’s mood had improved, Gu Minxuan asked, “I heard you cut off Chengdu’s source of income. What kind of filthy thing did he do? You don’t strike me as someone who takes revenge over minor slights.”
If she really were that kind of person, she would never have played tennis with him.
He could sense Lin Zhou’s dislike of him, yet she never let that affect her work. Not only did she refrain from making things difficult for him, she even helped him openly and discreetly.
Someone so capable of separating public and private matters usually wouldn’t act so ruthlessly.
“Source of income?” Lin Zhou rolled the words around in her mind and caught the underlying meaning.
So Chengdu’s haggard appearance was due to problems at work, and wanting to reconcile was merely an attempt to reclaim some of his former business. She had thought Chengdu had finally realized her worth. It turned out he had only realized her value to his career.
“I never touched the cake he was holding,” Lin Zhou said, her mood souring again, and she no longer felt like exercising. “Lawyer Qin invited me to dinner today for the same reason, didn’t he?”
She quickly understood Qin Cheng’s intention. “President Gu, you can pass this message on to Lawyer Qin. I didn’t interfere with any of Chengdu’s cases. Since so many people dislike him, it’s clear he’s done more than just wrong me.”
With a knot of anger in her chest, she turned and walked out without looking back. Gu Minxuan called after her, but she ignored him, pretending she’d gone temporarily deaf.
Gu Minxuan smiled bitterly. He had only asked casually, yet he had still managed to upset her.
After returning home, Lin Zhou removed Chengdu’s phone number from her blacklist and took the initiative to call him. With Gu Minxuan’s public assertion of “ownership,” Chengdu no longer pestered her. Though his words carried some reluctance, he still agreed to go to the service center three days later to handle the property transfer.
The transfer went smoothly. Seeing with her own eyes that her marital home had become someone else’s dowry made Lin Zhou feel inevitably pained.
Ten years of acquaintance had ultimately ended in separate paths. Love was simply too fragile.
“Lin Zhou, I’ve resigned,” Chengdu said. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was visibly thinner.
Lin Zhou couldn’t tell whether it was work that had crushed him or love. Sometimes she even wondered whether Chengdu had truly loved her. Other times she thought he probably hadn’t, if he had truly loved her, how could he have betrayed her?
She felt as if she were split in two, no longer herself. Rational as she was, she had lost herself in this relationship.
“Mm,” Lin Zhou replied lightly, as a form of acknowledgment.
“I’m planning to go to S City. Take good care of yourself. Food from outside is never clean. If it really doesn’t work out, hire an hourly helper to cook for you.”
It wasn’t that Lin Zhou couldn’t cook. In the past, she was simply too busy with work to spend time on it, so Chengdu had taken on most of the household chores.
Aside from cheating, Chengdu had been good to her in many ways. Lin Zhou understood that clearly. But what did understanding his good do? She had a cleanliness obsession when it came to feelings. Once unfaithful, there would be no second chance. Even if Chengdu truly repented and wanted to salvage the relationship, she was unwilling to invest herself again. Rather than living in constant suspicion in the future, it was better to cut cleanly now.