Pei Huaijin took a slow sip of water, set the glass down, and looked at her.
“Miss Shen, you really do forget people once you put your clothes on.”
His tone was light, as if joking, but there was no hint of amusement in his eyes.
“In the bar in San Francisco,” he said, enunciating each word clearly, “Miss Shen was certainly not someone who didn’t drink.”
Shen Qingyu’s fingers tightened around the napkin.
“After going to the hotel,” Pei Huaijin continued, his voice dropping even lower, so low that only the two of them could hear, “Miss Shen was certainly not the well-behaved girl she’s rumored to be.”
Shen Qingyu froze completely.
No way, no way?!
The man from that night was really him…
Oh my god.
Shen Qingyu, you should go buy a lottery ticket.
Such a low-probability event, and you managed to run into it—the man you had a one-night stand with turned out to be the marriage partner your parents were so eager to arrange.
Shen Qingyu lowered her head, wishing there was a crack in the ground she could crawl into. Once inside, she could burrow away and escape to a place without Pei Huaijin, without arranged marriages, without any memory of that night.
She took a deep breath, trying to slow her racing heart, but it was useless. Her heart beat even faster, pounding so hard it felt like it might leap out of her throat.
She remembered sitting in the private room at Pei Garden last night, facing Pei Huaijin, poised and dignified, neither humble nor arrogant, acting like a standard, well-educated, never-out-of-line good girl.
And Pei Huaijin had known all along that she was the woman from that night.
Sitting across from her, watching her play the good girl all evening—what had he been thinking? He must have thought she was a joke. Embarrassing, so embarrassing, utterly humiliating.
Shen Qingyu’s mind began replaying every scene from that night, every detail she had desperately tried to forget, all flooding back now, as clear as a high-definition movie.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—
She let out a silent scream in her heart. Help, can someone give me a crack in the ground?
Shen Qingyu wished she could travel back to that night and lock herself in her apartment, never leaving. But time travel was impossible. She could only sit here and face reality.
The reality was—her one-night stand was the carefully chosen marriage partner her parents had arranged for her.
Shen Qingyu, you’re really done for.
She slowly raised her head, her movements sluggish, as if performing an extremely unwilling task. Her face was still flushed, an unnatural crimson from her cheekbones to the tips of her ears. Her eyes were red too, not from crying—she wasn’t that far gone—but from shame, a bone-deep, inescapable shame.
Pei Huaijin was watching her. He wasn’t smiling, not with the amused, condescending smirk she had expected to see. He was just looking at her, his expression more serious than before, waiting for her to speak.
Shen Qingyu opened her mouth, only to find her throat as dry as sandpaper. She picked up her water glass and took a sip. The water was cold, chilling her from her throat all the way down to her stomach, but it did nothing to extinguish the fire on her face.
Shen Qingyu buried her face in her hands, her fingers pressing against her burning cheeks. Her voice leaked through the gaps between her fingers, muffled and tinged with a despair on the verge of collapse.
“Can you pretend you don’t know it was me that night?”
Pei Huaijin chuckled. “No.”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again.
“Mr. Pei,” she said, her voice much softer, “then why didn’t you—”
“Expose you last night?” Pei Huaijin’s tone carried a hint of amusement. “You behaved so appropriately last night, I didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere.”
Shen Qingyu bit her lip, feeling the temperature on her face rise a few degrees again.
“Mr. Pei,” Shen Qingyu spoke up, her voice a bit dry, “what exactly do you want?”
Pei Huaijin leaned back slightly, his gaze resting on her face.
“Marry me,” he said, four words, crisp and clear.
Shen Qingyu: “?!”
“I need a wife whose family background matches mine,” Pei Huaijin continued, his tone calm. “It wouldn’t be a bad thing for Miss Shen to marry me. You should be aware of the Pei family’s influence, and it would also satisfy our parents. I believe I would be a very suitable marriage partner for Miss Shen.”
He paused, shifting his gaze from her face to the window. Sunlight fell on his profile, outlining the sharp line of his jaw even more distinctly.
“And,” he looked at her, “we already had an encounter that night. If we marry, it wouldn’t feel so unfamiliar when we spend time together afterward.”
Shen Qingyu’s fingers tightened around the hem of her skirt on her knees.
“However,” Pei Huaijin’s tone suddenly softened, losing some of its cold edge, “I respect Miss Shen’s feelings. If you truly don’t want to marry me, we can end things here.”
Shen Qingyu opened her mouth, but before she could speak, he spoke again.
“But what happened that night is already done,” his voice was neither too loud nor too soft, each word enunciated clearly. “Even though it was consensual, and I originally thought we wouldn’t meet again. But since fate has brought us together again, and it’s a marriage arranged by our parents—”
He looked at her, something flickering in his cool eyes.
“I still hope Miss Shen will give it serious consideration.”
Serious consideration. Shen Qingyu remained silent for a long time.
She lowered her head, staring at the white patterns on the tablecloth, her fingers still clutching the hem of her skirt.
Then she looked up.
“Mr. Pei,” she said, her voice steadier than before, “I don’t think you’re a suitable marriage partner.”
Pei Huaijin’s expression didn’t change, only his eyebrows lifted slightly, urging her to continue.
“You can casually have a one-night stand with a stranger,” Shen Qingyu said, her face heating up again, but she didn’t stop. “How can I be sure you won’t do the same with someone else after we marry? I won’t accept being cheated on.”
When she said the words “being cheated on,” her voice trembled slightly, but her gaze didn’t waver. She looked at Pei Huaijin, waiting for his reaction.
Pei Huaijin looked at her and remained silent for two seconds.
Then he laughed—not the faint, barely-there smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth, but a low chuckle that came from deep in his chest.
“Don’t worry,” he said, the laughter not yet fully faded from his voice. “I have a strong sense of morality. I wouldn’t cheat.”
Shen Qingyu looked at him, unconvinced.
“To be honest,” Pei Huaijin’s tone softened even further, “that night was my first time too. And I don’t have a girlfriend or a lover.”
He paused, looked into her eyes, and added, “That night, it was Miss Shen who took the initiative.”
Shen Qingyu’s face instantly flushed again. Of course, she knew it was her who had taken the initiative, and she wished she could erase that night from her memory entirely.
Pei Huaijin watched her flushed face, and the slight curve at the corner of his mouth reappeared.
“If you’re worried about my character,” he said, his voice neither too loud nor too soft, “thinking I’m the type who can casually have a one-night stand with a stranger—”
He paused for a second.
“Miss Shen, at our core, we are the same kind of person.”
Shen Qingyu froze.
“It seems even more suitable for marriage,” Pei Huaijin said after finishing his sentence. He picked up his glass of water and took a sip, his expression as calm as if he were commenting on the weather.
Shen Qingyu sat there, the six words “at our core, we are the same kind of person” echoing repeatedly in her mind.
If he was the type who could casually have a one-night stand with a stranger, then so was she. Pei Huaijin was right—at their core, they were the same kind of person.
Shen Qingyu lowered her head, staring at her hands resting on her knees. Her fingers were still trembling slightly.
She took a deep breath and looked up.
Pei Huaijin was watching her, his gaze softer than before, waiting for her response.
“Mr. Pei,” she said, her voice slightly hoarse but each word spoken clearly, “please give me some time to think about it.”
Pei Huaijin nodded.
“Alright,” he said.
He didn’t press with questions like “How long will you need to think?” or say anything like “Don’t keep me waiting too long.” He simply nodded, then picked up his knife and fork and continued eating his now-cold steak.
Shen Qingyu watched him and suddenly felt—
This person might truly be the same kind of person as her.
Quiet, restrained, hiding all their loss of control where no one could see.
She lowered her head and looked at the steak on her plate, picked up her knife and fork, cut a small piece, and put it in her mouth.
The beef was a bit tough, the sauce had congealed, and it didn’t taste very good.
But she chewed it a few times and swallowed it anyway.