Chapter 379: Sometimes I Feel Like You’ve Planted Something in My Stomach
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Ruan Danchen did not know how what kind of story Yao Jingfei was making up about her and she was not interested either. She entered the office, put her bag aside and turned on her computer. She later called Song Yu to check up on her. She told Song Yu that she would visit once she had fully recovered to avoid passing it on to Song Yu and little Youjin.
After hanging up, she started pondering on the design of small development in the city’s north district.
Once Manager Zou arrived, he called Ruan Danchen, Chen Siyu, and Senior Du in for a meeting. He had work for them; he presented them with different types of houses each and had them come up with a few designs for each type.
Senior Du and Chen Siyu let Yao Jingfei handle some of the numerical data. Ruan Danchen, however, knew that Yao Jingfei harbored animosity toward her, so she did not ask her to do anything. Who knew if Yao Jingfei would be of help or just cause more trouble for her.
Ruan Danchen did not want to think the worst of her, but sabotaging her work was something that Yao Jingfei was completely capable of doing.
Besides, these kinds of incidents were not uncommon in Chengshi. Back then, Wang Liwei had stolen Song Yu’s design diagrams. This made Ruan Danchen more cautious about trusting others to avoid bringing unnecessary troubles to herself.
Moreover, Yao Jingfei had always been discontent when anyone brought her work to do. She always used her father as an excuse, putting others in an awkward position. Also, she was not efficient anyway.
Even if Yao Jingfei did not try to sabotage her work, her unproductivity would delay the entire project anyway.
Thus, despite it being troublesome, Ruan Danchen would still deal with everything herself no matter how big or small. After all, she did not have an assistant designer in Chengshi either—she had to do everything herself. It did not bother her back then and it would not bother her now.
She recorded the measurements made on Saturday into her computer. After drawing out the statistics and arranging the data, she began to work on the floor plan based on the numbers.
“Miss Ruan,” Jiang Yuan’s voice suddenly sounded above her head.
Startled, she looked up abruptly, nearly pulling a tendon in her neck.
Jiang Yuan’s eyes twitched subtly, his iconic warm smile was spread across his face. In Qilin, Qi Chengzhi and Qi Chenglin had always been single, making everyone view them as unattainable.
On the other hand, Cheng Dongge and Jiang Yuan, as their assistants, had exceptionally high positions in Qilin and were both young and handsome. Many female employees had become their secret admirers, and Jiang Yuan’s fanbase was larger than Cheng Dongge’s.
That was because Cheng Dongge always had a stern expression on his face. Although he was exceedingly attractive, many thought that he was unapproachable and was too uptight. He never cracked jokes and although he was courteous, he always maintained a distant attitude when greeting and nodding in acknowledgment.
On the contrary, Jiang Yuan smiled at everyone he saw. It was as if everyone in the world were his friends. He knew everyone in the company, no matter their status. He was truly gregarious and could strike up a conversation with anyone.
Without waiting for Ruan Danchen to ask, Jiang Yuan extended two boxed of medicine to her—a box of cold medicine and the other was an anti-inflammatory. “Miss Ruan, the general manager was afraid that you forgot to bring your medication, so he asked me to go buy you some.”
“…” Ruan Danchen was speechless.
What was that man doing? Before they went out that morning, he had already asked her if she remembered her medicine. She even double-checked and showed him the medicine in her bag to assure him. Why was he still worried that she had forgotten?
“Well, I’ll be heading back.” Jiang Yuan smiled and excused himself.
Ruan Danchen started at the medicine confusedly. Suddenly, she realized that the atmosphere in the office was completely off. She was shocked.
Turning around, she saw that everyone was glaring at her as if she had some kind of inappropriate relationship with the general manager.
Chen Siyu was close to her as they had been on a business trip together. Coincidentally, the water dispenser in the office was right beside Ruan Danchen’s desk, so she used her flask as an excuse to approach Ruan Danchen.
“Danchen, what’s going on?” Chen Siyu whispered, “First, you walked in side-by-side with the general manager, and now Special Assistant Jiang is bringing you medicine personally? Don’t tell me there’s nothing going on.”
“…”
At that moment, Ruan Danchen did not know what to say. Should she tell her that she was her girlfriend? That she was living with him? If she had said that, Chen Siyu might not even believe her.
Just then, her phone, which was placed on her desk, vibrated. It was an SMS. Chen Siyu glimpsed at it and saw that the sender’s name was set as ‘Sweetheart’.
Chen Siyu raised her eyebrows and nudged Ruan Danchen’s arm. “Your boyfriend?”
Ruan Danchen nodded honestly. Chen Siyu thought about it, then questioned, “I really am curious. I don’t think you’re a gold-digger in any way, but you have a boyfriend, so what’s going on between you and the general manager?”
Ruan Danchen pondered on it, then finally decided to tell her the truth—no matter if she would believe it or not. Nonetheless, just as she was about to speak, Manager Zou approached them and scolded, “Xiao Chen, why aren’t you working but chatting instead?”
Chen Siyu stuck her tongue out and hurried back to her desk with her flask in hand.
Manager Zou smiled at Ruan Danchen and left too.
Ruan Danchen turned to her phone to read the message. [Did you receive the medicine?]
Ruan Danchen was sure that Jiang Yuan must have reported to Qi Chenglin when he returned, but he just had to ask. It felt extremely deliberate. [I got it. Didn’t I show you that it was in my bag this morning? I brought my own medicine.]
Unexpectedly, Qi Chenglin replied, [I forgot.]
Ruan Danchen was speechless.
[Did you take your medicine this morning?] asked Qi Chenglin.
Ruan Danchen replied, [I did.] After that, Qi Chenglin did not text her anything anymore—he could be busy. Thus, she returned her focus on her work too.
…
…
Before this, Ruan Danchen did not have much to do in the design department. She spent her time browsing thought documents and familiarizing herself with the department’s previous projects. Thus, she was always on time to have lunch with Qi Chenglin.
However, now that she had actual work to do, she was so focused on her work that she lost track of time. Even when the office—which became extremely rowdy at lunchtime—suddenly quiet down into pin-drop silence, she did not notice a thing. Furrowing her brows, her head was buried deep in her work as she scribbled all over the floor plan.
She did not even hear the sharp, unified gasp of everyone around her. Only when a large figure appeared behind her, casting shadows on her diagram, did she turn her head away from her work.
She was staggered. Qi Chenglin was suddenly standing in front of her eyes. She did not know how long he had been there, standing tall, giving off a powerful aura.
He was still in his suit with one hand in his pocket. He looked indescribably dazzling.
Ruan Danchen’s jaw dropped. Taken aback, her lips moved but no words came out of her mouth. At the moment, she could not decide what to call Qi Chenglin. Subconsciously, her words slipped out. “You… Why are you here?”
Qi Chenglin extended his left arm toward her and pointed at his watch. “It’s lunchtime. You didn’t come upstairs so I came down to see you.”
With Qi Chenglin in front of her, she instantly forgot about the crowd around them. She acted like how she would when they were together outside the company. She did not think much about the situation and she did not pretend either. Putting away her diagrams, she said, “Ah, I was so busy that I lost track of time. I’m done now.”
Qi Chenglin caught a glance at the papers she had in her hand and frowned. “Why are you working on these trivial matters? Isn’t that the assistant designer’s job?”
Ruan Danchen glared at him with irritation. He knew full well why she was doing all these herself.
The entire design department was dumbfounded. What in the world was going on?
Why was Ruan Danchen acting so familiar with the general manager?
Several employees also noticed her glare. They thought, ‘Is she out of her mind?’
Senior Du and Chen Siyu, whose desks were next to each other, exchanged flabbergasted glances. Then could not help but think back on the way Ruan Danchen gave Qi Chenglin the cold medicine when they had lunch that Saturday; the way she got into his car without hesitation when he offered to send her home; and finally, the fact that she walked with him into the office this morning.
Now, it seemed like the situation was not as simple as Ruan Danchen trying to pursue Qi Chenglin.
Noticing her glare, Qi Chenglin was not the least bit angry for disrespecting him. Rather, he was thrilled. It was as if she became thick-skinned for him. Grinning ear-to-ear, he teased, “What are you glaring at? Are you being bullied here?”
Ruan Danchen was suddenly abashed. She finally remembered that she was in the shared office area and all her colleagues were staring at her. Her face burnt up instantly as she eyed Qi Chenglin.
He pretended he did not know her this morning yet he ran all the way down here to see her now. Why could this man not take things seriously?
“No.” Ruan Danchen had tidied up her things.
When she stood up, Qi Chenglin boomed, “Manager Zou, who’s the assistant designer here?”
When Manager Zou saw Qi Chenglin, he had already come out of his office. Nonetheless, he did not dare to get too close, to avoid disrupting the general manager and Ruan Danchen’s conversation. Hearing Qi Chenglin’s summoning, he speedily walked toward them and answered, “It’s Board Member Yao’s precious daughter, Yao Jingfei.”
Even though Yao Jingfei was always prideful about that, she could still hear the mockery in Manager Zou’s words.
Qi Chenglin nodded. In a distant tone, he condemned, “No matter what status you have here, you must still do your job. What kind of employee comes here but don’t work?”
“General Manager, I did do my job,” Yao Jingfei refuted instantly. She stood up, pointing at the documents and materials on her desk. “These are all part of my job. It’s Ruan… Miss Ruan that doesn’t hand me any work, so how would I know if she has a task for me? How could you blame me for that?”
Yao Jingfei might not have said it explicitly, but her words clearly denoted that it was Ruan Danchen who was trying to frame her.
Qi Chenglin glared at Yao Jingfei coldly through his deep, dark eyes. After so long, it was the first time he ever looked her in the eye.
His cold stare made Yao Jingfei terribly distressed. Qi Chenglin did not say a word. His gaze shifted away from her and when it landed back on Ruan Danchen, the coldness completely melted away. Everyone in the company had only seen that warm and tender eyes on one other person—Qi Chengzhi when looking at Song Yu.
Seeing that, even the dumbest person on earth would know what the relationship was between Qi Chenglin and Ruan Danchen. However, no one knew how long this had been going on or whether it had started before she joined the company and had hidden her identity when she first came. The hilarious part was, Yao Jingfei had always thought that Ruan Danchen was a rank below her.
“Let’s go.” Qi Chenglin extended his hand to Ruan Dachen.
Ruan Danchen felt extremely shy as she felt the entire department’s gaze falling on her. With her scalp itching and her face burning, she put her hand on Qi Chenglin’s palm and walked out of the design department hand-in-hand.
On their way to the elevator, they ran into many people. When they greeted the general manager, their gaze could not help but fall on her too.
If it were not for Qi Chenglin holding her hand, her legs would have given way. At that moment, their steps were almost completely in sync.
She said she wanted things to progress naturally and go with the flow. Was this Qi Chenglin’s idea of natural progression?
When they entered Qi Chenglin’s office, she could finally let out a sigh of relief, as if she had just come back from a war.
Although it was difficult, she still inevitably had to go through this. Now that the cat was out of the bag, she felt rather relieved.
“I was wondering why weren’t you making any moves. I knew you were harboring some bad intentions. You were waiting to do that since morning, weren’t you?” Ruan Danchen sat on the sofa and took off her heels. She sat cross-legged on the sofa—it was exceedingly comfortable.
Qi Chenglin’s long, bony fingers opened the box of takeout he ordered and presented it neatly in front of Ruan Danchen. He had always been a cool and haughty man. Even when doing this, he gave off an air of superiority, yet his hands moved elegantly as if the movements had been deeply engraved in his bones. When serving Ruan Danchen, his movements flowed like water in a river. He did not even need to think about it.
As Qi Chenglin handed her a pair of chopsticks, he asked, “Isn’t this the ‘natural progression’ you wanted? The truth is, I wanted to pretend to pursue you once again, but whenever I see you, I can’t help but act as we do typically.”
“What do you mean ‘again’? You’re talking as if you’ve pursued me before,” Ruan Danchen mumbled. What he did was stick firmly onto her without giving her a chance to reject him.
Qi Chenglin glanced at her and fed her a small spoon of corn. “When one takes the initiative to make a move, that’s called pursuing. If it weren’t for me taking big steps toward you, Mu Huaisheng would’ve seized the opportunity instead.”
“…” Ruan Danchen glared at him from the corner of his eyes. “Why are you bringing up Mu Huaisheng again?”
“His company never had many professional relations with Qilin, yet he abruptly came all the way here to become our client.” Qi Chenglin scoffed. “Does he think I’m stupid?”
Ruan Danchen did not bat an eye about him being overly-cautious. She stuffed a spoonful of corn kernels into his mouth. Then, she suddenly recalled, “Did you deliberately make Special Assistant Jiang buy me medicine too?”
“You said you wanted to go with the flow, so all I did was go against it,” Qi Chenglin explained earnestly.
“…” Ruan Danchen was rendered speechless.
His actions truly were out-of-nowhere.
Speaking of which, she thought of the nickname he set in her phone. “Hey, what did you set my name as on your phone?”
Qi Chenglin handed his phone to her. “Look for it yourself.”
Ruan Danchen took the phone. The fact that he was fully transparent with her warmed her heart.
After all, most men would never let their girlfriends check their phones.
Especially when it came to the contacts list and texts—who knew what kind of dirty secrets their girlfriends might find. Worst yet, they might be cheating.
Ruan Danchen looked through Qi Chenglin’s entire contacts list — all the women on the list were those that she knew. They were only women of the Qi family and no one else—not even Wei Ran’s. This was Qi Chenglin’s private phone, and only those who he was extremely close to knew this phone number.
Other work-related communications were all handled by Jiang Yuan.
On this matter, he had the same system as Qi Chengzhi.
After browsing through his entire contacts list, she scrolled to the entry ‘Softie’ and clicked into it—it was her phone number. She blushed. She did not ask why did he set her name as Softie, but she knew he must have had some crude thoughts in his mind when he thought of it.
Seeing Ruan Danchen fully absorbed in his contacts list, Qi Chenglin took a piece of vegetable and fed it to her. “It’s not a novel, how are you looking at it for so long? There are only a few names in my contacts list.”
Although she still had the chopsticks in her hand, her hand did not move. She waited for Qi Chenglin to feed her while she looked through her phone. Suddenly, he turned the screen toward him and asked, “Why did you set Yan Beicheng and the others’ names like this?”
Yan Beicheng was set as Yan Er 1; Han Zhuoli as Han Er; Gui Zhiqian as Gui Er; Wei Ziqi and Wei Zilin as Big Wei and Wei Er respectively, just to differentiate between the two of them; Chu Zhaoyang as Boring Chu.
The last one she could understand. Chu Zhaoyang was truly a boring man; he never talked much. She thought the name suited him well.
Qi Chenglin fed her a piece of meat. “Well, all of them are so dumb and reckless. I don’t think I’m doing them justice if I don’t set their names like that. Besides, it’s so tiring to enter all their names. This is way easier to type and to distinguish between them.”
“…” Ruan Danchen was at a loss of words.
This man seemed to be quite childish sometimes. She wondered if Yan Beicheng and the others knew that he had set their names as these.
Eventually, she realized that she had not moved her chopsticks in a while, but she was already full after being fed by Qi Chenglin.
After having lunch, she did not wait for the hallway to become empty like before. Since their relationship was already out in the open, she could go straight back to her department. Qi Chenglin did not even need to bring her to every department. Gossip spread like wildfire; news of what happened in the afternoon must have spread all over the company now.
Even so, Ruan Danchen was a little vexed. She knew everyone would huddle around her and bombard her with questions the moment she returned to the office. The mere thought of it made her yawn.
Qi Chenglin went out to dispose of the takeout boxes. When he came back, he saw Ruan Danchen slouching on the couch with a troubled expression.
“If you’re so worried, just don’t go back to the design department this evening,” Qi Chenglin advised, smiling.
Ruan Danchen turned to him lazily. “Sometimes I feel like you’ve planted something in my stomach—how else can you read all my thoughts so well?”
“We’ve exchanged saliva and I’ve been inside you every night. My fluid is in you, down there. Who knows, maybe they’re doing something in your stomach right now.” Qi Chenglin sat down beside her and pressed his elegant hand on her lower abdomen.
“…” Ruan Danchen felt as though her face was burning.
…
…
Ruan Danchen lazed around, dragging time on. In the end, she waited until lunchtime was over before she returned to the design department. This way, her colleagues would not be able to crowd around her asking her questions. As for their stares, she quickly forgot about them when she buried her head deep in work.
Not long later, Yao Jingfei received a call from human resources, requesting her to head to the department.
After an hour or so, all the employees received an email; Yao Jingfei had lost her position in the company. Tomorrow, a new assistant designer would take her place.
After a few minutes, Yao Jingfei came back with a dark expression. She glared at Ruan Danchen murderously. “You really are wicked!”
Ruan Danchen did not care; Yao Jingfei was a troublemaker and in no way a productive worker. Ruan Danchen did not mind her being fired at all.
Only then did her colleagues understand why Manager Zou was so kind to Ruan Danchen all this while and why Ruan Danchen was brave enough to dismiss Yao Jingfei.
Turned out, she was not backed by Mrs. Qi, but the general manager himself.
When Ruan Danchen first applied, there were already rumors going around that Yao Jingfei was extremely discourteous with Ruan Danchen. Could it be that the general manager shifted Yao Jingfei into this department just to get on her nerves?
In the end, the entire design department did not get much work done that day. Although their eyes were on their computers, their minds were fully occupied by the gossip and drama that unfolded today.
When working hours ended, Ruan Danchen started tidying up her desk. Suddenly, she heard Manager Zou greeting, “General Manager.”
Shocked, Ruan Danchen looked up abruptly—Qi Chenglin was standing at the doorway. He nodded at Manager Zou. Manager Zou swiftly moved out of his way and thus, Qi Chenglin entered the office.
