7 – Is Big Brother Shy?
A crowd had already gathered to watch. The man who had been hitting on her had his pride and dignity trampled underfoot by Jiang Wanning, and rage flared in him as he raised his hand to strike her.
Jiang Wanning immediately dodged backward, but something caught her foot, and her body tilted uncontrollably. Panic flashed across her face.
At that very moment, an arm wrapped around her waist and steadied her. At the same time, just as the wine-throwing man’s palm came down—two fists’ distance from her face—it was caught in a powerful grip by the other hand of the man beside her.
“What kind of skill is it, a man bullying a woman?”
Hearing that somewhat familiar voice, Jiang Wanning’s heart skipped a beat. She looked up and, sure enough, saw Fu Yan’s handsome face with its cold, chiseled features.
Jiang Wanning’s heart: thump, thump-thump, thump-thump-thump!
It was over! She was falling even harder for him!
Was this another case of the hero saving the beauty? Every single time, he could descend from the heavens and rescue her from danger. Why did Captain Fu have to be so impossibly handsome?
Stars sparkled in Jiang Wanning’s eyes.
The man had already lost face to a woman, and now he was being seized by the very person involved. His face flushed red and white with fury. “Let go! Aren’t firefighters supposed to save people? How can you just bully people like this!”
Feeling Fu Yan’s cold gaze and the increasing force on his hand, the pain was unbearable, and he shouted at the top of his lungs, “The firefighter is hitting me! The firefighter is bullying people!”
The words had barely left his mouth when his lips took a slap.
It was Jiang Wanning, swinging a waiter’s tray!
His mouth stinging, the man stood dumbfounded, momentarily forgetting how to react.
After striking him, Jiang Wanning darted behind Fu Yan, putting on a terrified, trembling act as if afraid of retaliation, with only her head peeking out.
“Everyone, don’t believe him! This man tried to grope me, and he even insulted people in the firefighting profession!”
A flash of grievance crossed Jiang Wanning’s eyes as she shot the man a provocative look and continued, “Since you look down on firefighters so much, I sincerely hope that one day your house catches fire, or you get trapped in a rainstorm, or your head gets stuck in a railing—and you’d better not call 119! You don’t deserve their sacrifice!”
Jiang Wanning’s voice was angry, laced with grievance, and impassioned, stirring up everyone around them.
Soon, the crowd began cursing the man.
They tore into him mercilessly.
His face turned the color of pork liver.
Fu Yan finally understood why Jiang Wanning had been so furious that she threw wine at him. He released his grip, and his thin lips coldly spat out a single word.
“Get lost.”
The man slunk away in disgrace.
Jiang Wanning picked up her bag and said to the crowd, “Thank you, everyone. The show’s over—feel free to disperse!”
With that, she took Fu Yan’s hand and started to lead him away.
Without a second thought, Fu Yan pulled his hand free.
Jiang Wanning froze.
Pressing her lips together, she shot Fu Yan a somewhat displeased glare. Then she stepped forward, grabbed his arm, and dragged him along, saying, “Come with me, mister!”
Fu Yan froze.
This time, he didn’t pull his arm away, letting the girl have her way.
When they reached a quiet spot where no one would disturb them, Jiang Wanning let go of Fu Yan’s arm. Without a word, her eyes curved with a smile as she looked at him like a wolf cub that had fallen into her trap, a gleam of triumph flickering in her eyes.
She stepped closer to Fu Yan, one step at a time, her body pressing nearer and nearer. The faint scent of the girl’s perfume drifted through the air into Fu Yan’s nose.
It smelled wonderful.
But Fu Yan wasn’t interested in playing along.
He gave Jiang Wanning a cool, indifferent glance and turned to leave, but she grabbed his arm, gave him a push, and pressed his arm against the wall in a kabedon.
Unfortunately, Jiang Wanning’s arms weren’t long enough.
She nearly toppled right into Fu Yan’s chest herself.
Fu Yan looked down at her, brow slightly furrowed, his gaze utterly calm. “What are you doing, miss?”
He was dead serious, his expression even a little stern.
“Behave yourself.”
Those two words made Jiang Wanning snort with laughter. She blocked Fu Yan’s path, refusing to let him leave, her gaze traveling from his face down to the flame-blue dress uniform he wore, deeply captivated by the color.
Her hands, however, stayed perfectly well-behaved.
No funny business.
She held a kind of reverence for that uniform of his, and didn’t do anything disrespectful or out of line.
Her mouth was another matter.
“I’m not doing anything, and I wasn’t planning to. Why should I behave myself, Captain Fu? That day, when you pulled me out of the car, why didn’t you behave yourself then? You could have just not saved me, or taken me to the hospital instead—but you kissed me.”
“Captain Fu~”
The more she spoke, the softer her voice became, almost coquettish. “I never officially told you my name. I’m Jiang Wanning—’wan’ as in evening, ‘ning’ as in lemon.”
She smiled faintly, her eyes curving into crescents.
That radiant smile softened the coolness and aloofness in her eyes, giving her an unexpectedly striking beauty—the kind that made it impossible to look away from her smile.
“Captain Fu, give me your phone number, or at least add my WeChat. What’s your answer? Tell me right now.”
Fu Yan pretended not to understand.
What answer? There was no answer.
He repeated the same words: “Miss Jiang, I’d suggest you go home and do some research online. Look up why mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is needed when saving someone in an emergency, what mouth-to-mouth resuscitation actually is, and how it’s properly performed.”
With that, he pushed past Jiang Wanning.
He was cold, formal, all business. “Sorry, I have things to attend to. I need to go.”
And he really did.
Tonight, he’d received notice to inspect this bar’s fire safety equipment—to check for violations and potential hazards.
He just hadn’t expected to run into Jiang Wanning again.
To see her in another confrontation with someone.
And apparently, once again, it was because of him. Perhaps because of his identity as a firefighter, some people were deliberately targeting them.
Jiang Wanning: “You’re not allowed to leave!”
She couldn’t figure out whether this man simply wasn’t interested in her—no spark, no attraction, didn’t like her, looked down on her—or whether he was just a blockhead.
A hopelessly dense oaf!
She’d made herself so obvious. How could this man not get it?
Couldn’t he see she was pursuing him?
Jiang Wanning abandoned the soft approach and went hard, threatening: “Fine, Captain Fu, if you won’t give me your number or add my WeChat, then I’ll just come to your station and demand them! I’ll tell everyone you took advantage of me, that you harassed me—that not only did you kiss my mouth, your hands also touched my…”
She stopped mid-sentence, straightened up, deliberately thrust her chest forward a little, and glanced down at her own fullness.
Fu Yan’s eyes involuntarily followed her gaze.
Landing right on her chest.
One second—that was all it took before Fu Yan immediately looked away.
As if he’d seen something he shouldn’t have, he awkwardly adjusted his cap, his eyes darting elsewhere.
Jiang Wanning laughed. “Aww, is big brother blushing?”
That word again.
Fu Yan’s gaze darkened. His eyes met Jiang Wanning’s smile, his expression stern and unsmiling. “Who are you calling ‘gege’? I don’t have a little sister. Don’t go around calling people that.”
“You, of course.”
Jiang Wanning leaned her face in close, wanting to see whether Fu Yan had blushed, whether the tips of his ears had gone red. What she wanted even more was to see the galaxy of stars hidden in his eyes.
“Captain Fu, am I not allowed to call you gege? Captain Fu, how about I call you gege from now on? Gege, Captain Fu, Fu-gege?”
“Which one do you like?”
Jiang Wanning was like a clingy, coquettish cat—wherever Fu Yan went, she followed.
As they passed through the corridor, they ran into a few men whose gazes all landed, as if by unspoken agreement, on Jiang Wanning’s coldly striking beauty. A wandering hand took the chance to grope at her waist.
Before that hand could touch her, Fu Yan caught it.
“Jiang Wanning.”
Fu Yan asked in a flat voice, “He was about to touch you just now. Do you want to report it to the police?”