Chapter 18 What Secret Is Xi Qingchuan Keeping?

• Moments of bliss were oftentimes fleeting. If I had the ability to freeze time, I would make it stop at the happiest period of my life.
• I remembered how my mother had loved to laugh then. She hadn’t been ill and in bed every day then. My father would visit us every so often and we would drive out and have fun together. We would have picnics. I would get my socks dirtied while walking in the grass and burst out into tears. My parents would spend a long time trying to cheer me up again.
• It had been after that when I had had to go to school on my own. Once, I had slipped and fallen. My knee-length sock had gotten torn in the fall. My knee had bled. I had secured a wad of tissue on the inside of my sock then and continued my walk to school. I hadn’t cried at all.
• Happiness made one vulnerable. Who knew?
• I could only strive to stay strong like the resilient blade of grass after having weathered storms.
• Fortunately, after some time, my father had brought me back to the Xiao residence.
• I struggled my way to wakefulness and was surprised to see Xi Qingchuan sitting beside me. He was looking at me with something like annoyance and exasperation in his eyes.
• So, it hadn’t been my mother. It had been Xi Qingchuan.
• The fever seemed to have come down. I felt better now. I smiled at him.
• “Thanks for taking care of me last night.”
• “There’s no need to be so polite,” he said coldly. “If someone hadn’t kept weeping and wailing while holding onto my arm without letting go the entire night, you’ll find someone else sitting here right now.”
• It was then that I realized that I had my fingers wrapped tightly around his arm. His front of his very expensive pajamas was all rumpled and stained with tears and snot.
• I let go of him immediately, my hands raising in surrender.
• “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m just particularly fragile when I’m sick.”
• He sat before me and began to unbutton his top, one button at a time, revealing his firm and muscular chest.
• I got a fright. I instinctively shrank away from him.
• “What are you doing?”
• I had barely recovered from being sick. There was no way I could engage in any form of physical activity at the moment.
• He pulled his top off and threw it next to me.
• “You’re the one who did this to my clothes. You can get it cleaned.”
• I see. Laundry. I could do that.
• I wasn’t that sick. I just had to sweat it out. I’d be fine the next day.
• I was currently unemployed. My father had wanted to find me something to do in his company. He had been saying that since I had begun my internship. My stepmother hadn’t approved of that though. As if I might somehow take over the entire company just because I got a job inside.
• I had no such ambitions at all. My hopes for the future were extremely modest.
• I wanted to locate Ni Yizhou and find out if he still had any feelings for me. I wanted to buy over the small house that my mother and I had lived in and spend the rest of my quiet life there.
• See, I was just an ordinary girl. But after that day with Xi Qingchuan, it seemed like I was no longer a girl anymore, but a woman.
• I had nothing to do, so I decided to hang out with Qiao Yi, who also had nothing to do. She was wealthier than I was. Her mother wasn’t someone you messed around with. She had usurped the position of her husband’s former wife and was now Mrs. Qiao, the legitimate lady of the house. The allowance that Qiao Yi got from her family for a single month was more than what I was given for a couple of years.
• Even though I was no longer feverish, my legs still felt slightly shaky as I walked down the stairs. I held onto the banister as I descended slowly, one step at a time. My sisters-in-law’s voices drifted up as they gossiped downstairs.
• “Guess what I saw last night? I couldn’t believe my eyes. She might look the way she looks, but she’s secretly a vixen. She charmed her way into Qingchuan’s arms last night. They were kissing openly in the corridor.”
• “Really? That’s not strange at all. I mean, look at how she stole the limelight last evening.”
• “I’ve said this many times. Xiao Shi might be beautiful, but she doesn’t have the charms a slutty fox like Xiao Sheng has. Why did she give up such a good match to her sister?”
• “Xiao Shi’s not that charitable. Didn’t she leave Qingchuan because of that thing?”
• I wasn’t in the habit of eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. But their conversation had begun with maligning my good name and gone on to some secret that Xi Qingchuan was keeping. I couldn’t help my curiosity.
• I was focused on the voices drifting from below and hardly paying attention to the steps. The sudden emptiness beneath my foot sent me clutching the banister desperately, saving me from a quick trip down. The two women talking downstairs looked up, rolled their eyes at me and left.
• What a good-for-nothing I was. I had been on the verge of discovering some secret Xi Qingchuan was harboring and had thwarted my own efforts.
• The undiscovered secret continued to plague my thoughts after I left the house to meet Qiao Yi. What happened with Xi Qingchuan? What made Xiao Shi decide to break up with him?
• I could tell that Xiao Shi was still in love with Xi Qingchuan. Her boyfriend Kang Zitai had been present at the charity ball last night, but she had had eyes only for Xi Qingchuan the entire night.
• There must be something seriously wrong with Xi Qingchuan. Something so wrong that Xiao Shi had had to leave him.
• Was it because of Xi Qingchuan’s relationship with Bai Yu?
• So, I wasn’t the only one who knew that Xi Qingchuan was gay?
• But he didn’t seem like a full-fletched homosexual. Why else would he commit those acts with me?
• Wild ideas filled my head. The painful slap that Qiao Yi gave me on my shoulder brought me back to my senses.
• “What?” I stared at her dumbly.
• “You were going to walk right into my car. What do you mean, ‘what’?” She said and pulled her car door open. “Get in. I’m going to bring you somewhere awesome today.”
• I climbed in without asking her where we were headed for. I was just going to follow her lead.
• Qiao Yi whistled merrily as she drove. She had obviously put her romance with Sen behind her.
• I stared at her smug profile.
• “You cured your heartbreak?”
• “Of course.”
• “How?”
• “By getting into another relationship, of course! I’m going to introduce you to my boyfriend today.”
• “You go through boyfriends faster than I go through my underwear,” I said in amazement.
• “Is that so? Let me see what color your underwear is then!” She laughed, her head darting towards me. I had a fright. I pushed her face towards the front of the car hastily.
• “Lady, drive your goddamn car. Two lives rest in your hands!”
• “Aren’t you the only passenger?”
• “Aren’t you a living and breathing person too?”
• I could see all her teeth in her smile. I liked Qiao Yi not because of how similar our family backgrounds were, but because she was someone who so easily fell into happiness.
• It didn’t matter the burdens that she had weighing down her shoulders. She always managed to break out into a smile.
• It dawned on me. I had survived the past few days because of her stupid, smiling faces.
• I leaned my cheek against my palm and stared at her, lost in thought. She ran her fingers through her hair. There was no way she could make it any shorter.
• “You mesmerized by my beauty again?”
• “Yes, you’re right. Charmed to death, I am.” I turned away and was instantly captivated by the scene flying by outside the window.
• It was spring. The meadows were crowded with rapeseed flowers. Butterflies, white ones and yellow ones, danced from flower to flower. Sunlight showered its warm rays onto my face. Ah, the feeling of spring.
• It had been a long time since I had felt so relaxed.
• Qiao Yi took advantage of my distraction, stealing a touch on my cheek without warning.
• “We’re here, my little beauty.”
• Her car stopped before a courtyard. The two-storied building before us had a huge courtyard. Roses scaled the fences. The flowers were just beginning to blossom. Specks of red and pink hid amongst clusters of green leaves. It was a beautiful sight.