Chapter 56 Not a Toothpick
Seeing how everyone was still huddled in the kitchen, Bai Jingshu bounded over and asked, “Can we eat now?”
“Yes, yes… Let’s eat.” An Xia pushed Bai Jingshu over to the dining room, leaving Qin Muchen and Su Ziyue alone in the kitchen.
Su Ziyue glanced at the dining table and caught sight of An Xia waving a fist at her to cheer her on.
Why was An Xia cheering for her? Was it for her to get an alimony payment from the divorce?
Su Ziyue retracted her gaze and whispered, “Let’s eat.”
She wasn’t someone who was very thick-skinned; she had only just chased him off her doorstep last night, so she was feeling a little self-conscious now that they had met up again.
Qin Muchen himself was a flawless person. However, to her, this was far from enough.
A proper relationship should consist of both parties being honest with each other with no secrets between them.
Clearly, Qin Muchen was someone with plenty of secrets. When faced with an impossible relationship, the first thing she thought of was to mitigate the damage and keep herself safe.
She averted her gaze downward so that Qin Muchen wouldn’t be able to see her eyes and guess her thoughts.
He turned his head back and watched as the people at the dining table debated whether they should cook the meat or the vegetables first, completely unconcerned about him and Su Ziyue. Then, he took a step forward and reached out to grip Su Ziyue’s chin precisely and lifted it up a little.
Su Ziyue realized what he was about to do and widened her eyes in shock. Despite this, she still couldn’t stop his forceful invasion in the end.
He gripped her chin and pressed his lips against hers eagerly. Their lips bumped against each other, teeth clacking and breaths intertwining.
He kissed her so hurriedly and dizzyingly that Su Ziyue was forced to take a few steps back. Had Qin Muchen not pulled her back in time, she would certainly have tripped and fell onto the floor.
“Let’s eat.”
Su Ziyue pushed him off with a panicked expression on her face before turning around; she then walked toward the dining table.
An Xia rapped Bai Jingshu’s hand with her chopsticks. “You’re a man—how can you be this unreasonable! You can’t cook mala beef in clear soup!”
“But I like mala beef when it’s cooked in clear soup!”
Bai Jingshu dumped the remaining beef on the platter into the pot of clear soup.
An Xia was about to tell him off when she saw Su Ziyue and Qin Muchen approaching them. She leaned in from her seat across Bai Jingshuo’s and whispered, “Toothpick.”
Incidentally, Qin Muchen heard this as he sat down, so he glanced at Bai Jingshu with an odd expression.
Gooseflesh prickled all over Bai Jingshu as a result of Qin Muchen’s stare. “What are you looking at?”
Qin Muchen sized him up wordlessly, his gaze finally settling on the space right below his waist.
Bai Jingshu was alert. “If you’ve got something to say, then say it. Why are you looking at me?”
“Nothing.”
Qin Muchen’s expression was still off, but he did not continue to look at Bai Jingshu.
Apart from Su Ziyue and her tempestuous feelings, this meal went by peacefully.
Before Qin Muchen left, he looked at Su Ziyue with a gaze filled with meaning. All of a sudden, she recalled that Qin Muchen had bought the food for their hotpot yesterday.
…
Bai Jingshu followed Qin Muchen and crammed himself into the car.
“Why were you looking at me earlier?” Bai Jingshu asked from the passenger seat as he fastened his seatbelt.
Qin Muchen mulled it over. In the end, he decided to ask after his friend’s health; after all, they had been friends for years. “What’s going on between you and Miss An?”
“That flat-chested girlie? I just haven’t met such an unreasonable woman before!” He was primarily disgruntled that his years of pick-up tricks—which had always worked without fail—were useless on An Xia.
“There are some things that we, as men, have to restrain at times.” Qin Muchen’s expression was blank as he drove.
Bai Jingshu finally could detect the implications in Qin Muchen’s words. He stared at him fearfully and asked, “What do you mean?”
“I think that Miss An might not be too pleased with your performance in a certain area.”
Qin Muchen vaguely conveyed the implied meaning from An Xia’s words earlier.
Bai Jingshu’s face darkened immediately; it wasn’t like he could tell Qin Muchen that this moniker was something that Su Ziyue had suggested.
However, the enmity between him and An Xia grew.
Seeing how Bai Jingshu remained silent, Qin Muchen assumed that he agreed, but was too embarrassed to mention it; he did not follow up on it either.
He got to know Bai Jingshu when he went abroad at 14 years old; their years of friendship made him think that he should be concerned about his only friend.
“I’ve postponed the checkup to the afternoon. Let’s go together.”
Bai Jingshu glared at him and turned his head around, staring at the window to nurse his wounded feelings.
He wasn’t a toothpick; he was an eggplant!
…
The weekend had been packed, and Saturday ended with a hotpot dinner.
On Sunday, Su Ziyue and An Xia went out the entire day, leaving all their troubles and worries at the back of their minds.
Monday finally came, and Su Ziyue got up early for work. When she arrived at her office, someone came to look for her.
“Miss Su, the chairman has asked for you.”
“Alright, thank you. I’ll be over immediately.”
As soon as the person left, An Xia leaned in from her seat next to Su Ziyue. “Why is the chairman calling for you? You don’t think he’s out to get you now, isn’t he?”
“Relax—he’d just threaten me at most or put some pressure. He won’t do much to me for the time being.” Su Ziyue knew Su Youcheng’s behavior very well, and patted An Xia’s shoulder to show that she shouldn’t worry.
…
When she arrived at Su Youcheng’s office, she realized that Su Yige was also there.
“Ziyue.” Su Yige turned to look at her, a natural and graceful smile on her face.
Su Ziyue returned her smile. “Yige.”
Su Youcheng did not seem to have picked up on the hidden war between them and waved a hand at Su Ziyue. “Come, Ziyue. Give me a simple report about the talks with LK Group.”
Su Ziyue had also guessed that he called her in to ask about LK Group; she walked over and began her report.
Last week, they had immediately sent her to LK Group on her first day of work, but she wasn’t able to come to an agreement even after the whole day.
She gave a brief update on her report before Su Youcheng nodded. After a few minutes of silence, he said, “In that case, bring Yige with you as well the next time you go. She has more experience, so she can still help you if there’s anything you don’t know.”
Upon hearing those words, Su Ziyue looked up to glance at Su Yige. Su Yige was attempting to steal her credit.
“If Yige wants to come, then I have no right to object.”
Su Ziyue’s generosity pleased Su Youcheng greatly.
However, Su Yige wasn’t all that pleased; she had wanted to make Su Ziyue feel challenged and get her to kick up a fuss with Grandpa by making her assume that Grandpa only wanted Su Yige to come along because he was worried about Su Ziyue’s capabilities.
She hadn’t expected Su Ziyue to immediately say that she was the one who wanted to come instead.
“However, the chairman of LK Group isn’t quite well-tempered. Yige, you’ll have to prepare yourself mentally.” Su Ziyue was all smiles as her voice pitched higher toward the end. It sounded as though she was giving a kind reminder to Su Yige.
Su Youcheng agreed. “You can tell that he is a little eccentric because he has never once shown his face to the media throughout these years.”
“Then, what kind of person is the LK Group’s chairman?” asked Su Yige.
“He’s a handsome man. A very dashing one.”
And that man is not interested in you at all.
Su Yige’s eyes brightened.
Su Ziyue smiled indiscernably; based on her interactions with him, she knew that Qin Muchen would not fall for a woman like Su Yige. She was actually a little eager to see how things would turn out when they finally meet.
