Fang Erlan closed the door shut. She noticed that he seemed to be inspecting her master bedroom, and then her spare room.
Upon seeing this, Fang Erlan felt that it was the right move to have bought a bed to place in her spare room…
“Where’s your cousin?”
“Ah, he took a leave from work, so he won’t be coming for some time. He has some urgent matter to attend to.”
“I made her leave just now.” Yan Ge stood there, as if he was trying to explain himself. “I didn’t know she barged into my house.”
“Why didn’t you change the passcode?”
“I’ve grown used to it already, that’s why I didn’t change it. I’ll definitely change it tonight.”
Fang Erlan pointed to the sofa. “Take a seat.”
After sitting down, he asked, “Were you angry earlier?”
“What’s there for me to be angry about?” Fang Erlan refused to admit that she was indeed upset earlier. “But do you really have no more feelings for her?”
“Of course. How long has it been already? Before I started filming the show with you, I’d already broken up with her for some time.”
“She said you were the one who wooed her.”
He admitted openly, “Yes.”
“Only when you like someone a lot will you take the initiative to woo them.” When Fang Erlan said these words, she couldn’t help but feel slightly dejected.
“This theory is not completely right.”
Fang Erlan looked up at him abruptly and muttered, “That day when your father called you because he injured himself, we weren’t done talking. Do you still remember?”
“I do. I was waiting for you to ask me about it all these while, but you never mentioned it.”
Hearing his answer, Fang Erlan’s heart rate accelerated rapidly. It was as if her heart was in her mouth.
She unknowingly tightened her grip and started stammering.
“I… you… I was waiting for you to mention it as well… I thought you had forgotten…”
Yan Ge’s mood brightened up significantly, and the corner of his eyes were creased into a smile.
“That day, the last words you said to me were that you felt I was asking you if you wanted to be my girlfriend. That’s right, it was exactly what I meant.”
After the elephant in the room was addressed, her breathing became much smoother. With a coffee table between Fang Erlan and him, the two had their eyes locked and continued to stare at each other.
To have the person one liked ask one to be his girlfriend…
No woman on this earth would possibly not feel overjoyed, right?
But while she felt overjoyed, she was suddenly reminded of the warning Xiao Chenyang had given her before he left.
It was as if a bird flying midway in the sky was suddenly shot down and landed on the ground terribly injured.
Fang Erlan started to feel absolutely annoyed with Xiao Chenyang at present. If he had not created so much trouble for her, would she be in such a difficult position?
Who was he to suddenly barge into her life and upset all her plans, even interfering with her future happiness?
“Why aren’t you speaking?” he asked.
Fang Erlan recovered from her trance, but her words were stuck in her throat. “Let me think about it.”
She did not wish to reject him because of Xiao Chenyang. After all, this was the person she liked.
But at the same time, she could not just agree to date him immediately. She had to wait for Xiao Chenyang to return and try her very best to convince him. She wanted to fight for her own happiness.
“I thought you would agree immediately.” He added, “After all, you like me to the extent that you’ve already forced a kiss on me when we were filming.”
Seeing how he mentioned this incident again, Fang Erlan’s face instantly flushed as red as a tomato.
“It happened ages ago already, can you stop mentioning it…?”
“How was that ages ago? It was just within the past six months.”
“Yan Ge!”
“Yes? Aren’t I here? Why are you being so loud?”
“I know I was silly back then. Now that I think back, I didn’t know what I was thinking back then either.” She said in an embarrassed manner, “It was probably my vengeful heart acting up.”
“In the future, I welcome your vengeful heart to act up frequently toward me.”
She grabbed a cushion and threw it at him. “Dream on.”
“How long do you need to think about it?”
“This is a big decision, I need to think about it properly and not act rashly.”
“So, how long would it take?”
“How about two months?”
Yan Ge was stunned. “Why don’t you take two years to think about it?”
The thing is, she didn’t know when Xiao Chenyang would return!
When he did, she would still have to take some time to deal with him.
It was best if he would stop annoying her and never appeared in front of her ever again.
“One month?”
“I can’t wait that long, I’ll give you half a month at most,” he responded as he stood up from the sofa. He’d really thought that given her character, she would agree to it on the spot. It never occurred to him that she would need time to consider it.
“Half a month it shall be, then.”
….
As she lay down in bed, Fang Erlan felt that everything seemed like a dream to her. She stretched her legs and rested her arms behind her head, immersed in happiness while fretting at the same time.
Indeed, she had wanted to immediately agree to date him tonight.
However, the stress Xiao Chenyang was giving her overwhelmed such thoughts. She didn’t know if he would return in half a month. If he didn’t, she would have to make her own decision.
—
When An Xiaoning was eating breakfast, Fan Shixin passed the morning paper to her.
The headline printed on the paper was the news of Commander-in-chief Jin’s retirement.
The way An Xiaoning saw it, it was a pretty clever move, stepping down from power in time and living a peaceful life.
“Their whole family is moving to a city farther away to live.”
“But the newspaper didn’t report that.”
An Xiaoning placed the newspaper down. “Last night, the new master of the Autumn Palace gave me a call.”
Fan Shixin suddenly understood. “I see.”
“Are No. 5 and No. 8 here?”
“Not yet. They usually arrive here at a little past seven. It’s not seven yet.”
“Okay. You should go and have breakfast. It’ll be another busy day today.”
“I’ve eaten already. Young Madam, you have your breakfast. I’ll go out to do some inspection.”
“Alright.”
After she was done with her breakfast, she went upstairs to get her bag and phone. She suddenly realized that she had a few missed calls, all from No. 5.
While going downstairs, she started to return his call.
Before her call went through, a figure came running into the living room.
“No. 5, I was just about to return your call. If you can’t reach me, you can call Chief Fan directly.”
“I called you when I was almost here. Since I was already closeby, I didn’t try calling the Chief. Sister, No. 8 is missing.”
“What do you mean No. 8 is missing? A huge man like him…” An Xiaoning paused for a moment before continuing, “Is missing?”
“He lived at Ms. Mo’s place every day. We usually start eating breakfast at around 6:30 am. He wasn’t there at 6:45 am, so I thought he could have woken up late and waited ten more minutes for him. Since he still didn’t appear, I went to the 32nd floor of the opposite building to find him. But Ms. Mo said she received No. 8’s text last night saying that he wouldn’t be returning because he went to handle some matter with Sister. Ms. Mo thought he was probably busy so she didn’t call him to confirm. Yesterday, we came back from the office with you. I even saw him entering the stairway when we arrived back at Sanqiao. How was it possible that he didn’t return?”
He managed to explain the whole situation in an exceptionally quick pace, but An Xiaoning understood every word he said perfectly.
“You said the two of you went back yesterday night and that you saw him enter the stairway. But Mo Li said she received his text last night saying that he would be handling some matter with me. So, in reality, he didn’t return?”
