Chapter 300: I Still Want to Kiss
After putting her socks on, Xie Youchen casually picked up the lamp that had fallen on the floor and set it on the coffee table.
Jiang Qingli looked at the back of Xie Youchen, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted in his sharp suit, then glanced down at herself.
The blanket over her shoulders was something she’d bought more than a decade ago, a warm yellow throw covered in a slew of cute cartoon animals. Her socks were from high school, bearing a particularly childish fire-breathing dragon pattern...
It all clashed completely with her exquisite makeup and the shimmering hem of her dress.
"Hey," Jiang Qingli couldn’t help but mutter. "This isn’t romantic at all. Who acts like this after confessing? You’re like an old man."
Xie Youchen finished setting the lamp down and asked, "Am I old?"
He didn’t turn around. His voice was low and sounded a little pathetic, as if he were afraid she would scorn him.
Jiang Qingli raised her voice. "I never said that! I said ’like’—I was talking about your actions, not your age."
She reached out, grabbed his fingers, and tugged him toward her, coaxing him playfully. "You know what they say, ’An older woman is a treasure.’ Well, you’re three years older than me, so I guess that makes you a treasure, too."
Xie Youchen turned back to her, the corner of his lip twitching into a faint smile. "You’re talking nonsense again."
Jiang Qingli stared at him, unblinking.
His beautifully shaped, thin lips still glistened. She had done that.
It was hard to ignore her stare. Xie Youchen’s breathing grew heavier. "What are you looking at?"
"Don’t play dumb." Jiang Qingli licked her lips. "I want to kiss you again."
He clearly hadn’t expected her to be so blunt, and his body went rigid.
Jiang Qingli drew out the words. "Hurry up—"
With a firm tug on his fingers, she pulled the invincible Marshal of the battlefield staggering down to sit beside her.
Jiang Qingli draped her arms over his shoulders and slowly leaned in.
Xie Youchen’s expression remained impassive, but as she tilted her head up, he instinctively lowered his own to find her lips, meeting her halfway.
Jiang Qingli raised an eyebrow and deliberately paused.
He paused as well, watching her quietly.
’What’s going on? He’s not being proactive anymore.’
’So much for liking me. Why does it feel like he’s treating me like a child?’
Just as their lips were about to touch, a buzzing sound rang out.
Normally, Jiang Qingli couldn’t be bothered to answer her terminal, but the memory of Xie Youchen dutifully putting on her socks made her hesitate.
She decided to resort to the most cliché trick in the book. Deliberately letting go of him, she reached for her terminal. "If you don’t want to kiss me, then fine. I have other people who do—mmph!"
Before she could finish speaking, Xie Youchen snatched the terminal from her hand, disconnected the call, and tossed it into a corner. Then, cupping the back of her head, he lowered his and crushed his lips to hers.
The sound of the rain outside seemed to grow louder.
It beat against the glass like an unceasing melody.
But all Jiang Qingli could hear was her own deafening heartbeat.
...
Xie Youchen didn’t let her go until her lips were numb.
Jiang Qingli was starting to regret teaching Xie Youchen how to breathe during a kiss.
He’d learned the skill, but now *she* was the one being kissed breathless!
’Damn it! I’ve lost the upper hand again!’
Like a petty teacher whose prized student had stolen her secret techniques, Jiang Qingli pulled the blanket up over her head, turned her back to him, and gave him the silent treatment for a full thirty seconds.
Staring at the cartoon-animal-covered back of the blanket, Xie Youchen realized he might have gone too far.
His self-control, it seemed, was still not enough where Jiang Qingli was concerned.
’Perhaps... I’ll scare her in the future.’
Just as Xie Youchen was reflecting on his actions and carefully choosing the words for a sincere apology, Jiang Qingli turned back around. She poked her head out from under the blanket, her eyes glistening from the intensity of their kiss.
Her voice was a little husky as she called out to him softly, "Hey... Xie Youchen..."
Xie Youchen gently placed a hand behind her back, asking softly, "What is it?"
"You... how are you so good at kissing?" Jiang Qingli pursed her lips. "You haven’t... practiced with anyone else out there, have you?"
Xie Youchen gazed down at her, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
He saw right through her. She was asking the question on purpose.
Because they both knew the answer was no.
Jiang Qingli had no intention of hiding her motive. She knew he’d see through her, but she had to ask anyway. She just wanted to hear Xie Youchen say it himself—
—that in the three years she’d been away, in all those long years, he had only ever liked her, only ever loved her.
That she was the sole subject of all his romantic fantasies.
In the warm light, Xie Youchen’s expression softened.
It felt as if a fine, persistent rain were falling in his heart, soaking it through with everything related to her.
Xie Youchen’s voice, more tender than the night itself, spoke the words she longed to hear, one by one.
"I have never thought of anyone else."
"I only love Ah Li."
He wasn’t very good at saying these things, but if she wanted to hear them, he would say them over and over without complaint.
She had known the answer all along, but hearing it still sent a jolt through her heart, a pleasant, tingling numbness.
’It felt so good.’
The corners of Jiang Qingli’s lips curled up, but she quickly suppressed the smile, afraid of looking too smug. She feigned a little surprise, but even with her mouth closed, the glee spilled out from her eyes, which shone more brightly than the moon.
Xie Youchen watched her, smiling.
"Then how did you get so good at kissing?" Jiang Qingli pressed on.
Her moment of triumph was over, but she wasn’t about to let it go. The little devil in her mind was cracking its whip. ’He must have done a lot of prep work in secret, then acted all mature and experienced in front of me.’
’It was just like when he taught her how to dance—he’d first become an expert himself, then come over to act as her teacher.’
Jiang Qingli had long wanted to tear off that mask of practiced maturity, and today she was determined to make him admit there was something he *wasn’t* good at.
But she never expected him to think for a moment and give her a serious answer. "Perhaps... because I’ve imagined it too many times."
His calm, unhurried façade cracked open, revealing the molten lava beneath.
It was just like when he’d taught her to dance.
He had to have gone over the moves countless times in his mind to be able to perform them so smoothly.
The profound emotion in his words struck Jiang Qingli right in the heart.
She had never imagined he loved her this much.
She couldn’t help but ask in a small voice, "So if I hadn’t agreed to be with you... what would you have done?"
Xie Youchen thought for a moment. "Ah Li, do you remember when we were kids, we had to write an essay on ’My Dream’? You said you wanted to reach great heights."
Jiang Qingli didn’t quite understand why he was suddenly bringing this up. "I remember."
She suddenly recalled asking Xie Youchen what his dream was back then.
He had been very young too, his childish face already showing hints of the man he would become. He had answered seriously, "Then I’ll help Ah Li achieve her dream."
The image of the boy from her memory overlapped with the young man before her now.
Xie Youchen raised a hand to gently caress her cheek. He placed a kiss on her forehead and whispered her name. "Ah Li, we will never be apart."
Beneath his gentle certainty lay a hidden obsession.
-
Xie Youchen had known for a very long time that there were two kinds of bonds in this world that could make two strangers inseparable.
One was blood. The other was mutual interest.
He could no longer achieve the former, but the latter was certainly possible.
The girl he loved already had an abundance of affection from other men. Perhaps his own love wasn’t worth mentioning, perhaps it was even a burden.
But luckily, she was ambitious. She wanted to reach greater heights.
The Xie Family was already in the palm of his hand.
He could provide her with a great deal of support. He was very useful.
-
If they could not be connected by blood, then he would make them a tightly-knit entity of shared interests, to taste glory and disgrace together, to be entwined until death in the struggles for power.
Jiang Qingli and Xie Youchen would not be separated. Not in this lifetime, not ever.