Because Qiao Qingman had drunk a full two bottles of coffee at the hotel entrance, as she drove straight toward Rongjing Villa, she felt exceptionally energetic.
She was very curious whether the male lead would kiss her back again tonight, and she was even more eager to see what the test results would be like tomorrow.
Just then, Aunt Zhuang’s call came through.
“Miss, I’ve found several chef instructors. Would you like to take a look?”
Several? That fast?
Thinking about it, it made sense. With a large sum of money in hand, who would think they had too much money?
However, Qiao Qingman was preoccupied with her kissing mission. She was also worried that if Gu Qianshi came home late past midnight, it would cause her kissing mission for today to fail. Right now, she had no interest in anything else.
Qiao Qingman held the steering wheel steadily with both hands and replied indifferently, “No need. You can decide for me.”
It was just a formality anyway. It was not like she truly needed to learn cooking from a teacher.
Unlike Qiao Qingman, who did not take this matter seriously at all, after ending the call with her, Aunt Zhuang excitedly made another phone call.
“Mr. Chen, there’s no problem on our miss’s side. When would it be convenient for you?”
“I’m available anytime. If Miss Qiao needs me, just contact me one day in advance,” came the reply.
After receiving the affirmative answer and not expecting things to go so smoothly, Aunt Zhuang happily hung up the phone.
Regarding the chef instructor, she had originally cast a wide net with a try-it-and-see attitude. She had never expected that such an influential figure in the culinary world would agree so easily.
And without any airs at all.
With Teacher Chen involved, no matter what dishes the miss wanted to learn, it would definitely yield twice the result with half the effort.
What she did not know was how much restraint the man on the other end of the line had exercised to keep his voice calm while saying those words.
*
On this side, Qiao Qingman skillfully drove her car to a spot near the main gate of Rongjing Villa.
Her thinking was very simple. She would wait here and directly stop Gu Qianshi’s car.
Then, catch him off guard…
But after waiting for quite a while, she did not see a single car.
Strange. Did this man drive his car into a ditch halfway? Why was he still not here?
A “ding-dong” WeChat notification interrupted Qiao Qingman’s thoughts.
She casually picked up her phone and saw a friend request.
Chen Leyan: [Hello, Miss Qiao. I’m Chen Leyan.]
Chen Leyan? Wasn’t that the one from outside the bar the night before last?
Why was he adding her?
To be honest, before her consciousness awakened, she had almost no impression of Chen Leyan and did not even remember what he looked like.
After all, her life back then had been set as a love-brained character. Her mind and eyes were full of the male lead. How could she possibly notice other men?
Based on her impression from the night before last, Chen Leyan was bright and handsome, the type of gentle, sunny older-brother figure.
This kind of boy was quite easy to develop a favorable impression of.
However, all of Qiao Qingman’s attention was on following the plot, figuring out how to kiss the male lead to save her life, and protecting her parents. Since she did not like him, it was better not to give him false hope.
Or perhaps Chen Leyan’s liking for her was also just a plot setting?
Thinking this way, Qiao Qingman ignored the friend request.
She opened the in-car refrigerator again and took out two more bottles of white peach–flavored coffee.
After drinking them, she looked at the still completely full refrigerator of coffee and suddenly felt stifled.
Living inside a book was one thing. Having to kiss the male lead and follow the plot to stay alive was also one thing. But what was with constantly feeling sleepy?
And on top of that, the male lead still had not shown up.
Just as she was getting close to losing her patience, a luxury car drove in from afar in the direction of Rongjing Villa.
But it stopped not far from Qiao Qingman.
The car door opened, and a man wearing a dark, custom-tailored suit, with a tall and well-proportioned figure, stepped out.
Was this the male lead she had been waiting for?
The man walked to the front of the car, opened the hood, and lowered his head to check. After looking for a moment, he took out his phone and made a call.
Could the car have broken down?
This was truly heaven helping her.
Qiao Qingman glanced at the time on her phone. It was a little past ten at night.
It was not past midnight. Her heart finally settled.
She got out of the car and walked up to the man, smiling sweetly. “Gu Qianshi? Good evening. We meet again.”
Qiao Qingman had fully prepared herself. As soon as the man turned around, she immediately did what she had done before, cupping his face and going in for a kiss.
The goal was to catch him completely off guard, hehe.
The next moment, the hands she had raised to hold his cheeks were effortlessly caught by one of the man’s large hands as he turned around.
Qiao Qingman froze, then heard the man speak unhurriedly. “Is Miss Qiao trying to kiss me again?”
Qiao Qingman, whose intention had been exposed: “……”
Even so, had her persona of being deeply in love with the male lead already sunk that deeply into his heart? He even knew that the first thing she did upon meeting him was to kiss him?
Complaints aside, Qiao Qingman still tried her best to maintain her smile. “N-no, of course not. I just… just like you too much and missed you too much, so I came to see you.”
Help. That sounded way too mushy.
She really felt like she was about to start shivering, seriously.
But since today’s kissing mission was still not completed, Qiao Qingman could only bite her lower lip hard and force herself to continue being mushy. “You know it too. I started liking you from the very first moment I saw you.”
Wait, had the male lead changed suits?
She clearly remembered that when he walked out of the hotel entrance, he was wearing an off-white one, was he not?
“Like me?”
The man’s voice, half-smiling but not quite, interrupted Qiao Qingman’s wandering thoughts. “Miss Qiao’s way of liking someone is rather special.”
Special to the point that she did not even know who he actually was.
Hearing the deeper meaning in the man’s tone, Qiao Qingman fell silent. “……”
It was indeed quite special.
What could she do? She did not want to “like” him either. Was she not being forced into this?
But wasn’t this man’s dislike of her also rather special? Not only did he kiss her back every time, but he even kissed her so intensely that it was as if he were tasting the flavor on her lips. She was kissed until she felt dizzy. Who was she supposed to complain to?
The more Qiao Qingman thought about it, the more annoyed she became.
She lifted her chin and looked down at the man towering over her. “That’s right. I just really like you. So what?”
She really did not know what this man ate growing up to be so tall.
Even with her chin raised, Qiao Qingman still felt as though she was being looked down on from above.
She silently rose onto her tiptoes, trying to reduce the height difference between their gazes.
Unfortunately, even when she stretched herself almost straight, she barely reached his ear.
And because her feet were stretched too straight, her toes could not support her entire body. On top of that, her hands were restrained by the man, leaving her with nothing to hold onto for balance.
Before long, Qiao Qingman could no longer stand steady. Her body involuntarily tipped straight forward.
“Ah—”
Qiao Qingman’s breathing tightened as she nearly crashed into the man.
The man took advantage of the moment to release her hands.
Watching her rub her wrists with a pitiful expression, Gu Qingshan slipped one hand into his pocket and looked at her with clear amusement.
Qiao Qingman felt uncomfortable being stared at.
The system reminded her in a timely manner: [Host, you made the male lead think he was only worth one thousand yuan, and you even stepped on him hard. No way he believes you.]
Qiao Qingman: [?]
Just because of that?
Fine then.
Qiao Qingman took a quiet, deep breath. “Are you still angry? I can explain. I know it was wrong to hire a private detective, and I won’t do it again. But at the bar… I saw you laughing and chatting with another girl, and I was very sad. That’s why, that’s why I stepped on you.”
“In the end, wasn’t it all because I like you that I got angry?”
The more Qiao Qingman spoke, the more reasonable she felt she was. Her small mouth kept going. “I’ve liked you for so long. My whole heart has been stuck to you. But you had just kissed me, and then you turned around and… Isn’t it normal for me to get jealous?”
Right. Looking at it together with the plot, the male lead deeply kissed her one moment, then turned around and fell in love with the female lead at first sight?
Or was it that he fell in love with the female lead at first sight one moment, then turned around and deeply kissed her?
Pah. Scumbag.
Somewhere, the real male lead, who was driving toward Rongjing Villa, suddenly sneezed for no apparent reason.
At the entrance of Rongjing Villa, Gu Qingshan listened to Qiao Qingman’s explanation. His brow lifted slightly, and the emotion in his eyes was dark and unreadable. “So you stepped on me because you were jealous?”
“You’re sure?”
Sure that she liked Gu Qianshi enough to be jealous, yet did not even know whether the man standing in front of her was really Gu Qianshi?
Moreover, according to the surveillance footage, Gu Qianshi only met the other girl after Qiao Qingman had stepped on him.
Gu Qingshan was almost amused by anger.
Did Qiao Qingman not realize that whenever she lied, her cheeks turned completely red?
Yet she herself felt that she was speaking with exceptional sincerity.
Seeing the male lead question her, she nodded without hesitation. “Of course. I was jealous. If I’m lying, let heaven strike me down.”
Before her words had even finished, thunder and lightning suddenly erupted overhead.
In an instant, it tore through the night sky and boomed across the heavens.
Qiao Qingman’s heart jolted.
She lifted her head in shock and saw that the night sky, which had been clear just moments ago, was now thick with dark clouds.
Qiao Qingman, who had never been afraid of thunder and lightning: “?”
What was going on? The weather forecast did not say it would rain today. Why was there thunder all of a sudden?
She truly could not wash herself clean even if she jumped into the Yellow River now.
Then she looked at the male lead. As expected, he was staring at her with a meaningful gaze.
Qiao Qingman: “……”
She quietly clenched her palms, her body gradually tensing.
What should she do? What should she do?
Could she still manage to get a kiss today?
So awkward. So scary.
Fortunately, there was no more thunder or lightning. Otherwise, Qiao Qingman really would have cried.
And Gu Qingshan took in every single one of Qiao Qingman’s reactions.
At this moment, the night sky held only sparse stars.
A bright, clean moon hung high in the cloud-covered sky. The softened, dim moonlight filtered through the clouds and poured down onto Qiao Qingman, giving her an air of fragility, as if she needed someone to protect her.
The girl’s fair skin was flushed with a deep blush. Her long, thick eyelashes trembled lightly, like a butterfly isolated from the world, fluttering its wings. Lively, yet heart-achingly delicate.
Catching sight of Qiao Qingman’s fingers, tense to the point of turning pale, a flicker of emotion passed through the man’s otherwise indifferent eyes.
Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a beam of headlights approaching from afar. Gu Qingshan took a step toward Qiao Qingman.
Qiao Qingman instinctively stepped back.
Then, when she accidentally stepped on a small stone and felt pain under her foot, she suddenly remembered that she still had a mission today.
What was she so afraid of?
“I, I was just jealous. I just like you. So what?”
Qiao Qingman suddenly stepped forward, wrapped her arms around his neck, rose onto her tiptoes, and kissed him.
When the system broadcast sounded in her mind, [Fourth-day kiss. Check-in successful.], Qiao Qingman, having completed today’s kissing mission, finally let out a long sigh of relief inside.
Next, she wanted to quickly pull away from the man’s lips and drive her car elsewhere to catch up on sleep.
To prepare for the next day’s kissing plan…
But before she could act, the man who had finally been successfully kissed by her suddenly turned and pressed her against the car door for some unknown reason.
A scorching kiss came crashing down like a tidal wave.
Qiao Qingman: “……”
Another failed retreat? The male lead kissed her deeply again?
System, didn’t you say the male lead has no missions? Are you people even reliable?
Forget it. She would wait for tonight. Tonight, she would definitely sneak a kiss while the male lead, Gu Qianshi, was asleep.
Then she would see whether he would come looking for her on his own tomorrow.
If the male lead also came to find her…
Hmph.
What she completely did not know was that at the very moment she was turned around with an arm wrapped around her waist, a limited-edition Bugatti sped past from behind the man kissing her, heading straight toward Rongjing Villa.
Gu Qianshi was focused on driving. Out of the corner of his eye, he casually caught sight of two people passionately embracing and kissing beside a car. He calmly withdrew his gaze, thinking to himself, what was wrong with young people these days?
He had only gone back to the old residence once, and he had to witness something like this?
And also, could these two not go home before kissing?
Did they really have to kiss right at someone else’s gate?
Did they have no sense of manners at all?