Extra 8. Spring 2018
After arriving in the imperial city, Xu Cheng and Jiang Xi’s life was not much different from how it had been in Yucheng, only that they had moved from one metropolis to another.
Only, the house had become a rental. But Xu Cheng quite liked it. He had always regretted not having accompanied Jiang Xi through every rental she had once lived in. This time, his wish was “fulfilled.”
Watching Jiang Xi little by little decorate the place, turning it warm and into a home that belonged to the two of them, and being able to take part in that process himself, he felt deeply content.
Of course, the work environment had changed as well. He had briefly said goodbye to colleagues and networks he had known for years and come to the unfamiliar imperial city. Yet Xu Cheng adapted quickly. In the past, his work had often brought him into contact with higher-level ministries, and with his strong abilities in communication, coordination, and improvisation, he soon took things in hand.
Xu Cheng remained busy with work, and Jiang Xi’s studies grew ever more demanding. Returning to campus, she was like a newly sprouted bud, absorbing nourishment with abandon. By her second academic year, she had quit all her part-time jobs and devoted herself entirely to studying.
Even Xu Cheng could see that her painting skills had advanced by leaps and bounds.
Xu Cheng said, “Ms. Cheng Xijiang, in the future you will surely be a great painter.”
Jiang Xi said excitedly, “Officer Xu, when that time comes, I’ll support you.”
“Alright. Miss.”
“I’ll buy you anything you want!”
“Right now, I want a kiss.”
“mua~”
Xu Cheng still drove Jiang Xi and Jiang Tian to and from school. Jiang Tian’s school was closest to home, so the two of them had plenty of time together in the car. Amid their busy lives, they never forgot to share what they had seen each day.
“It’s just a pity…” Once, stuck in traffic, Xu Cheng rested his hand on the steering wheel, a thought stirring, and said, “There are too many cars around. It would be better if it were a mountain road…”
Jiang Xi understood instantly, both shy and laughing. “Pervert!”
Xu Cheng raised a brow. “I meant mountain roads don’t have traffic. What are you thinking? Little hooligan.” As he spoke, he reached over and kneaded her waist. She let out a soft whimper. The two of them took advantage of the traffic jam to press close and kiss, only separating with restraint for fear the kiss might spark into something more.
The next second, they were already chattering seamlessly about a new topic.
However, one night, Xu Cheng discovered that during the time he had been away, there was a painting of a nude male figure among Jiang Xi’s works. He had not paid much attention at first. But Jiang Tian happened to pass by, pointed at it, and said, “Teacher Huang Wei. Jiejie’s friend.”
He even had a name here with Jiang Tian. After asking around, Xu Cheng learned that this person was a part-time teacher at Jiang Tian’s school and also a part-time model at Jiang Xi’s school.
Jiang Tian added, “Teacher Huang Wei always talks with jiejie.”
Xu Cheng glanced at him. “Jiang Tiantian.”
Jiang Tian nodded. “I know. Brother Xu Cheng is my only brother-in-law.”
“Didn’t spoil you for nothing.” Xu Cheng patted his head. “You should say that to that Teacher Huang.”
A few days later, in the car, Jiang Xi said, “Jiang Tian said something very strange to one of my friends today. I don’t know who taught him that.” She cast him a glance, asking though she already knew.
Xu Cheng fixated on another word. “Friend? How come I didn’t know you had this friend?”
“A model from school.”
“What kind?”
Jiang Xi coughed lightly. “A nude one.”
Xu Cheng stared at her through the rearview mirror, a little fierce.
Jiang Xi said, “Oh come on, what is there to be jealous about? It’s for assignments.”
Xu Cheng gave a cold snort. “Jiang Tian said you talk a lot. Is that also for assignments? Jiang Xi, that’s exactly how I seduced you in the beginning. You think I wouldn’t know?”
Jiang Xi could not hold back a laugh. “There are more than a dozen people in the classroom drawing together, hahaha.”
“…” Xu Cheng ignored her.
Jiang Xi leaned closer. “Are you angry?”
Still ignored.
So she reached out and touched his abs.
“Save it.” Xu Cheng said coolly. “That trick won’t work.”
Jiang Xi touched his chest, her voice soft and sweet. “Really won’t work?”
Xu Cheng gritted his teeth, pulled the car over to the roadside in one swift motion, and bit down on her fiercely.
Jiang Xi was kissed until her gaze turned moist and bright. Smiling, she said gently, “Xu Cheng, my classmates, my teachers, anyone who appears around me, all of them know I have a boyfriend. A very, very good boyfriend.”
She was the same as him. Every gift he had given her, from hair ties to water cups, from necklaces to shoes, had seeped into every part of her life. She never hid it, and would even happily introduce them to the people around her.
She liked him that much. All the radiance born of that liking shone upon her face.
Naturally, she would also feel jealous at times.
Once, after encountering Jiang Qinglan on the boat, a small grain of sand had lodged in her heart. There was also his former girlfriend, He Ruolin. But long ago, after Xu Cheng explained everything clearly, she had let it go.
Xu Cheng put her at ease. From the very beginning of their relationship, all his friends and colleagues knew he had a girlfriend. The number of people trying to set him up dropped sharply. Occasionally, there were still some who lacked tact and insisted on introducing someone, but he would shut them down without politeness, and they would not bother him again afterward.
However, not long after coming to the imperial city, something happened.
That day, Jiang Xi was painting at school when some classmates were discussing a piece of social news:
“Oh my god, someone actually used a gun to rob a cash transport vehicle??”
“They were shot dead on the spot.”
“Just one shot. A sharpshooter. Just like in TV dramas.”
“Such an amazing police officer.”
Jiang Xi painted with complete concentration, until someone said, “Damn, this cop is so handsome! And his shooting is accurate too.”
She leaned over to take a look, and at a glance recognized Xu Cheng. His figure was taut and upright, a pistol gripped in his right hand, his profile severe and cold. His presence was so powerful it seemed to burst out of the screen.
To outsiders, it was an imposing, icy kind of handsomeness. But Jiang Xi felt a lingering fear afterward. She hurriedly called him. He was still in the middle of work, his tone brief and firm. “I’m fine. Don’t worry. Busy. I’ll hang up first.”
She quickly said, “Mm, mm…” Hearing his voice, she felt reassured.
But people at the scene had taken quite a few photos of Xu Cheng. Because of his striking looks, his forceful presence, and his overwhelming masculine aura, he went viral online all at once.
Soon, someone dug up his position, his résumé, and the major cases he had handled. For a time, he was even more fervently admired.
Although the cyber police and platforms quickly intervened and suppressed the surge of attention, Jiang Xi still watched with great interest as countless netizens praised Xu Cheng from every angle. She read it with relish, feeling happy for him.
Not long after, however, a female producer from the entertainment industry managed to get Xu Cheng’s WeChat and said she wanted to invite him onto a variety show. Xu Cheng politely declined, but the other party persisted, inviting him every few days, saying that even just giving her a chance to talk face to face would do.
One night, she even sent over a selfie. Jiang Xi happened to see it.
Her lips curled, and hugging her sleepwear, she went to take a shower. When Xu Cheng tried to follow her in to wash together, she actually pushed him out and locked him outside the bathroom.
When Xu Cheng finished washing and got into bed to hold her, her small body twisted away to one side, her tone edged with sarcasm. “Go have that face to face chat with her, then.”
Xu Cheng pulled her into his arms. “I haven’t done anything. You’re taking it out on me. That’s not reasonable.”
“I don’t care about being reasonable!”
“Alright, alright, you’re the miss, you don’t have to be reasonable.” He touched her lower back and kissed her lips.
“No kissing.” She turned her head away.
She was like a fish that would not stay pinned down, her head shaking fiercely. He simply started from her chest instead. She half sprang up, still refusing.
One “stubbornly resisting,” “firmly refusing,” the other “forcing,” “not yielding an inch,” and it gradually turned into a kind of playful tension, each teasing the other until they grew more and more sensitive, more and more restless.
She kicked and pushed, whining “no,” “don’t,” her voice making his heart go soft and tremble.
He grew fierce and forceful, “forcing” her head still as he kissed her wildly; holding her legs as he explored freely, stirring numbness inch by inch across her skin.
With one hand he pinned both her wrists above her head, his knee pressing behind her leg, easily restraining her as he murmured low, “Really don’t want it, or just pretending?”
Her cheeks flushed, she bit her lip and said nothing.
He smiled, lifting the crook of her leg.
She whimpered, “Really don’t want.”
“Too late.” He breathed by her ear. “Baby, enjoy yourself.”
“Ao wu…” Her toes curled tightly against his shoulder.
That night, they lost themselves completely. Jiang Xi even worried at one point that the neighbors might hear, burying her face in the pillow in embarrassment.
The next day, she had already forgotten about that female producer.
And the next day, Xu Cheng changed his WeChat profile picture to a photo of him holding her from behind. As for that producer, he blocked her.
She also forgot the faint unease she had felt during the incident. In this day and age, the internet could stir up great waves with ease. Her identity, she did not know whether it might affect Xu Cheng.
Very soon, someone reminded her.
During the winter break of 2018, Xu Cheng took leave to visit family, and the two of them returned to Yucheng for the Spring Festival.
One day, Xu Cheng went out to eat with Zhang Yang, Jiang Hehu Hai, and a group of others, while Jiang Xi went to a fruit gathering with Huang Yaqi and Shu Cai.
Jiang Xi’s gathering ended earlier than Xu Cheng’s. After saying goodbye to everyone, she took a shortcut from the restaurant toward the bus stop. After Qiu Sicheng and the others had been brought to justice, she was no longer as afraid of quiet roads.
But in that dim alley, she sensed someone following her. Without thinking, she took out her phone and dialed Xu Cheng’s number.
The man rushed up behind her and yanked her around. “Why are you running?!”
Jiang Xi screamed. When she saw his face clearly, her pupils widened, words caught in her throat. It was Jiang Hao.
“What, don’t recognize me?”
“Big… big brother, when did you get out?” Jiang Xi’s heartbeat was unsteady as she hung up the call she had just placed.
Jiang Hao had just been released from prison. His hair was cut very short, his face had grown broad and swollen, square and filled with hostility.
“You still call me brother?” Jiang Hao raged. “In these ten years, did you visit me even once? Other people had family bringing them food and clothes, and you treated me like I was dead in there?! Do you know how I lived all these years?!”
Truthfully, Jiang Xi and Jiang Hao were not close. Both of them were only close to Jiang Huai.
Jiang Hao and Jiang Huai were close in a way that did not resemble cousins, but brothers born of the same parents. Jiang Huai and Jiang Xi were close in a way that did not resemble two people without blood ties.
Yet no matter how distant, they had still grown up under the same roof. After the Jiang family fell into ruin with deaths and injuries, only the two of them remained in this world.
Although Jiang Hao was Jiang Chengguang’s son, he truly had little ability and was not very clever. He only followed Jiang Huai’s instructions, assisting him. Anything requiring him to stand on his own, he could never accomplish.
He also lacked presence and character. During these years in prison in Jiangzhou, bearing the identity of a member of the Jiang family, it went without saying that he must have suffered quite a bit of hidden loss and humiliation.
“In the past, I did not have the ability to visit you,” Jiang Xi said. “Just keeping myself and Tiantian alive was already very difficult.”
Jiang Hao’s face looked even darker in the night, but he did not question Jiang Xi’s words. One disabled, one mentally impaired. In his eyes, they had naturally been barely clinging to life.
He let out a rough snort. “But now you’re a university student, and you’re still messing around with Xu Cheng, aren’t you? Jiang Xi, do you even have any shame? Do you know he got your whole family killed?!”
“He didn’t!” Jiang Xi’s gaze was resolute. “It wasn’t him. Dad, Uncle, they brought it on themselves, harming others and themselves. You’ve been locked up for more than ten years and still don’t understand reason? Even if it weren’t Xu Cheng, the Jiang family would have been finished long ago. Can’t you see it yet? The times have changed! It’s not like before anymore!”
“Big brother, as long as a person is still alive, they can start over. But if you still can’t see the truth and refuse to be reasonable, then your whole life will truly be ruined, with nothing accomplished.”
The anger in Jiang Hao flared up at once. He pointed at her nose and cursed, “Where’s Jiang Huai?! Say one more word, go on, say he also deserved to die for his sins? Your father raised you, and you repay him like an ungrateful wretch. And what about Jiang Huai? Will you still have the face to face him in the future?”
Jiang Xi said nothing.
“How did the Jiang family produce something spineless like you? Damn it, the old saying is right. Once a woman’s been fucked, she goes soft all the way to the bone!”
His words were filthy. Jiang Xi felt her blood rush straight to her head, her face burning hot and stinging, yet her tone remained calm. “Weren’t you born from a woman?”
Jiang Hao flew into a rage and swung a slap at her. Jiang Xi raised her hand to block, took the blow, staggered back two steps, nearly falling.
Just then, the streetlamp in the alley flickered on, the light revealing a vivid red handprint across Jiang Xi’s forehead and the back of her hand.
Jiang Hao knew how much force he had used and froze for a moment.
Jiang Xi’s dark eyes fixed on him coldly for a long while, then she turned and walked away.
“He’s a police officer! Countless merits, an unlimited future. And you, even if you go to university, you’re still a Jiang family daughter! If I expose this, you won’t even be able to stay in school. You still think you can become a painter, become the future bureau chief’s wife?” Jiang Hao refused to let her go and stepped forward to grab her.
Jiang Xi snapped like a string breaking, and struck back with a slap across Jiang Hao’s forehead, clawing and hitting him. The two of them grappled together.
Jiang Hao had not expected Jiang Xi to suddenly turn fierce. She scratched and clawed, her fingers surprisingly strong.
At first, he actually could not subdue her. But he was still a man, far stronger. With one hand he seized both her flailing arms and shouted angrily, “Are you asking for a beating? I’m your brother!”
He slammed her by the neck, raising his hand for another slap. Before it could fall, his wrist was seized tightly by someone.
No comments:
Post a Comment