The man tilted his umbrella slightly to shield Mu Ran’s entire body, walking past He Yuncheng without looking sideways.
“Hungry or not? Perfect timing, I’ll take you out for dinner.” Lu Chengfeng raised his wrist to glance at his watch, speaking on his own accord.
“I’m not hungry.” Mu Ran gently brushed away Lu Chengfeng’s hand.
“If you don’t eat, your stomach will hurt again.” Lu Chengfeng completely ignored the question, seemingly determined to take Mu Ran with him. After speaking, he even coughed twice.
Unable to outlast him, Mu Ran could only nod, smiling apologetically at He Yuncheng. “Well, I’ll be heading off first today.”
He Yuncheng bit down hard on his back molars, forcing out a smile. “Be careful not to get wet, Brother Ran.”
“What do you want to eat?” In the car, Lu Chengfeng wiped the water off himself in a leisurely manner.
The car’s air conditioning was on, and the warm breeze blowing over him chased away quite a bit of the chill.
Mu Ran also noticed that most of Lu Chengfeng’s clothes were already soaked through, and the clothing bag had vanished chances were it had already been given away. He wondered if that girl would like it.
Only, why had Lu Chengfeng switched back to his usual demeanor?
“Did you change your clothes? She didn’t like it?” Mu Ran still couldn’t restrain his curiosity and asked.
Lu Chengfeng’s expression flickered evasively, his fingers awkwardly covering the corner of his lips.
Looking at that guilty expression, Mu Ran had a feeling nothing good had happened.
“Spit it out already! If you keep things hidden and secret, don’t come crying to me later when you fail to chase her.” Of all things, Mu Ran disliked trouble the most.
Lu Chengfeng lowered his gaze. “Yeah, he was on a date with someone else, so I changed my clothes back.”
Huh?
Mu Ran’s face fell, and he honestly didn’t know what to say.
That shouldn’t be right. According to standard procedure, shouldn’t the other party have accepted the gift, expressed how much they liked it, and then set a time for the next date? Besides, given Lu Chengfeng’s qualifications, why on earth would someone choose to dump him in favor of dating someone else?
Mu Ran analyzed a strange underlying scent from the clues at hand.
“Lu Chengfeng, you wouldn’t happen to have a crush on someone who already has a partner, would you?”
Lu Chengfeng looked somewhat unhappy. “I don’t know, but he just looks like he doesn’t like me.”
“Then haven’t you reflected on where you might have ticked him off?” Mu Ran pressed further.
If he hadn’t even seen Lu Chengfeng at all, then it definitely wasn’t a problem with the clothes.
“I don’t know,” Lu Chengfeng answered honestly. “Things were fine just recently, but lately, he might have someone he likes.”
Mu Ran carefully analyzed Lu Chengfeng’s potential competitors, completely unable to think of anyone who could pose a threat to him.
“Lu Chengfeng,” Mu Ran began earnestly, his hand reaching into his pocket before he remembered that Lu Chengfeng disliked the smell of smoke in the car. He hesitated and ultimately didn’t pull out a cigarette. “Actually, snatching someone else’s partner isn’t very moral.”
Though morality didn’t count for much in novels anyway.
Stealing someone for love, angrily slipping drugs, and taking things by force were a dime a dozen.
“We probably…” Lu Chengfeng dragged out the end of his sentence, seeming somewhat lacking in confidence. “…haven’t gotten together yet.”
Looking at Lu Chengfeng’s desolate expression, amidst his heartache, Mu Ran felt a sliver of joy.
It hurt that Lu Chengfeng didn’t like him, but he was glad to be the very first person to witness Lu Chengfeng looking like this.
Mu Ran patted his own face, striving to sober himself up. “Fine, as long as they aren’t together yet, there’s still hope. You still have a chance to salvage this.”
“Then what should I do?” Lu Chengfeng asked with a deadpan expression, his gaze burning intensely.
Mu Ran pondered for a moment, suddenly recalling novels and movies he had read some time back. An idea that felt slightly incongruous when applied to Lu Chengfeng popped into his head.
“Do you like ‘green tea’?” Mu Ran asked.
Lu Chengfeng nodded stiffly. “I like it. I like Enshi Yulu green tea.
Silence a stillness bordering on the absolute.
Mu Ran took a deep breath, but ultimately couldn’t help pulling out a cigarette, clamping it between his lips, and rolling the car window down by a crack, feeling somewhat melancholic.
Why on earth had he thought of actively taking on this task? Wouldn’t it have been better to let Lu Chengfeng figure it out on his own?
Ever since they were kids, he had wondered why Lu Chengfeng could never tell who liked him. Even when girls wrote love letters to him—though not entirely straightforward—things that Mu Ran could spot at a single glance would only prompt Lu Chengfeng to comment, “Her grammar has too many errors, I can’t even fix them all.”
Now the puzzle that had confused him for so long finally had an answer.
Lu Chengfeng simply didn’t possess a romantic bone in his body! In other words, Lu Chengfeng fundamentally had no clue how to date; in his eyes, all flirtatious glances were interpreted as facial tics.
“I didn’t mean green tea as a drink.” Mu Ran stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray, immediately pulled out his phone to open a search engine, and handed it to Lu Chengfeng. “Take a look.”
Lu Chengfeng took it. Stamped across the screen in large, bold red characters were several striking words:
【How a Green Tea Bitch Is Made!!!】
It had everything, ranging from dining etiquette to acting spoiled.
Lu Chengfeng pointed at himself in disbelief. “You want me to… study this?”
“What’s the matter? Can’t read Chinese, or do you not understand when they’re put together, Master Scholar Lu?” Mu Ran sat leisurely to the side, wearing the expression of someone watching a good show.
“It’s too sickening, I can’t do it.” Lu Chengfeng sneered at the guide.
“Sickening?” Mu Ran snatched the phone back and flipped up and down through it. “What’s sickening about it? Why don’t I think so?”
“Why don’t you try it yourself?” Lu Chengfeng’s mouth twitched. He genuinely had no idea how to force lines like “Brother~ Good brother~ I’m scared to stay home alone at night~” out of his mouth.
Mu Ran’s competitive streak flared up instantly. He rolled up his sleeves. “Let’s try it then.”
As a result, the very first line made him halt his movements.
Uh, it actually was a bit difficult to say out loud.
After a long while, Lu Chengfeng felt his arm being wrapped around. Tilting his head slightly, he saw Mu Ran’s blindingly pale wrist twining around his forearm like a water snake.
Shifting his gaze forward, Mu Ran’s short black hair fell across his forehead, partially obscuring his brows and eyes, while the corners of his pink lips curved upward in a bewitching expression. It was clearly a forced, deliberate look, yet on Mu Ran’s face, it possessed an intoxicating, soul-stealing charm.
Lu Chengfeng averted his face awkwardly.
Mu Ran’s body closed in on him a fraction more, his voice soft, lingering, and melodious: “Brother, when are we going home?”
He could distinctly feel Lu Chengfeng’s body stiffen into a steel plate—even a thousand-year-old mummy wouldn’t be as rigid as him.
Mu Ran let go of his arm and reflected on himself.
Could it really be that sickening?
Or was it because Lu Chengfeng hated being entangled like this by another man?
If so, he should probably find a girl to help Lu Chengfeng practice instead.
That didn’t seem right either; girls could only teach girls.
Wait, he felt like he had misunderstood something.
This looked suspiciously like a female-oriented green tea tutorial!
God save me!
Mu Ran felt like the awkwardness right now was enough for him to scrape out an entire villa with his toes. Lu Chengfeng must think he was utterly disgusting, right?
“Right now.”
Hm? Amidst his musings, Mu Ran thought he heard Lu Chengfeng say something.
“What?” Mu Ran asked instinctively.
Without looking back, Lu Chengfeng replied, “I said right now. We’re going home.”
That immersion speed this raw material was truly teachable.
As their eyes met, a cheerful mobile phone ringtone chimed inside the cabin, and Lu Chengfeng caught a glimpse of the caller ID on the screen.
It was the flower shop owner.
With a puzzled look, Mu Ran answered it.
“Is this Boss Mu?” a middle-aged man’s voice came through the other end of the line.
“It’s me. Is there something you need?” Mu Ran felt his brain wasn’t working very well, as if there was something he couldn’t quite remember.
He recalled that the flowers for his company were always ordered by Lu Chengfeng, so calls shouldn’t be coming through to him.
The man asked in a very soft, utterly lacking-in-confidence voice: “Um… do you still want those 9,999 roses? They’re… about to rot.”
This order was the largest his flower shop had taken in recent times, so the owner and a few employees had carefully guarded those blooms, terrified something might go wrong. In the end, Boss Mu had only paid a deposit, saying he would come pick them up once he locked down a date in a few days and that it wouldn’t take too long.
Yet this wait had dragged on for several days. Looking at the flowers withering day by day, he genuinely wanted to pickle them all in formaldehyde and pray until dawn every single night, begging them not to rot.
MD!
Swallowing nervously, Mu Ran felt his hand tightening until he almost crushed his phone. “I’ll pay the final balance normally. I’ll have my assistant pick up the flowers tomorrow.”
Overjoyed, the man accepted eagerly, showering him with non-stop expressions of gratitude. “Thank you, Boss Mu! Wishing you eternal harmony and a hundred years of happiness together!”
Hanging up the phone, Mu Ran stared straight ahead, blinking his aching eyes and thinking: Why aren’t we home yet? I want to get out of this car.
How was this phone call any different from a public execution?!
“Who did you order flowers for?” Lu Chengfeng asked from the side, with “perfect” timing.
“I…” Mu Ran licked the corner of his lips, instantly launching into a frantic brainstorming session. Yet the things that normally tripped right off his tongue felt as though his brain had been vacuumed out the moment he faced Lu Chengfeng—he couldn’t even cobble together a plausible excuse.
Lu Chengfeng simply watched him with tranquil composure, his thin lips parting slightly. “9,999 roses, huh?”
“Well, I… I ordered them for a friend.” Mu Ran awkwardly fabricated an excuse, silently resolving to make Lin逸 settle all the previously prepared confession arrangements tomorrow so that this whole incident could act as if it never existed!
“Let me guess.” Lu Chengfeng’s demeanor was calm as water, though turbulent waves raged beneath the surface. “Who are you planning to give these to? He Yuncheng? A hundred years of happiness together?”
Discounting the “hundred years of happiness” part, the rest of those words finally gave Mu Ran a convenient excuse.
“He mentioned liking roses before anyway. Since he’s just a kid and his birthday is coming up, I wanted to give him a surprise. I just didn’t expect the owner to act so fast and order the stock straight away.” Mu Ran scratched his head, completely oblivious to any flaws in his story.
“Got it.”
Such a cold response.
Mu Ran hurriedly tried to remedy the situation. “I know you don’t like those tacky things. Next time it’s your birthday, I’ll buy you what you like too.”
“Oh, so you do know that birthday gifts should be things people actually like.” Lu Chengfeng put on a remembering expression. “Yet when it was my birthday, someone seemed to have only given me a single cake.”