In his first year of high school, Jiang Shiyan also liked Tang Yang. What did it mean that Jiang Shiyan, in his first year of high school, also liked Tang Yang?
Jiang Ya’nan looked at Chang Xinyi with an expression as if she had drunk fake alcohol.
Chang Xinyi, realizing the shocking nature of her revelation, let her gaze wander in all directions.
Chang Xinyi had booked a small private room with two sofas.
Jiang Ya’nan left her side and sat with Chang Xinyi, trying to put an arm around her goddess while batting her eyelashes. “Look at me, look at me…”
“I…” Chang Xinyi felt it wasn’t right to discuss the topic in depth when the parties involved weren’t present, but Jiang Ya’nan’s eyes were truly beautiful.
Chang Xinyi softened and spoke rather emotionally, “Actually, I had quite a good impression of Jiang Shiyan back then because he was fun to talk to and very cheerful. They used to play that shooting game back then.”
Jiang Ya’nan froze, “CF?”
“I think that’s the one,” Chang Xinyi couldn’t remember clearly. “Your brother was famous throughout our grade. He was closest to Song Jing. Song Jing was a noob, but your brother was a mobile sniper god, headshots with every shot.”
Was a goddess’s high school crush really that simple?
Jiang Ya’nan doubted, “But my brother was so fat he had no bones then, and his face was covered in acne. How could you…”
“If I wanted good looks, I could just look at myself, right? Appearance isn’t really important,” Chang Xinyi said matter-of-factly.
After saying this, she remembered her husband’s popularity and then caught Jiang Ya’nan’s mischievous expression. Chang Xinyi blushed slightly, gave Jiang Ya’nan a little push, and continued, “Anyway, your brother had a habit of keeping a diary then. I sat behind him and accidentally saw it once. His diary was full of praise for me, saying he liked me, but anyone with eyes could see that the one he liked was Tang Yang.”
Jiang Ya’nan was confused, “What kind of operation is this?”
“How to describe it,” Chang Xinyi thought for a moment, took a sip of juice, and said, “It’s like how I used to think I liked the taste of century eggs because I enjoyed green peppers with century eggs. Then I thought I liked the taste of meat because I enjoyed green peppers with shredded pork. Later, I found green peppers with potatoes delicious and thought I liked the taste of potatoes. In the end, I realized that what I liked was the taste of green peppers.”
Jiang Ya’nan listened, dumbfounded.
Chang Xinyi said, “I’m smarter, I realized your brother was my century egg. I don’t know if your brother ever realized Tang Yang was his green pepper, but please don’t push all the blame onto me, okay?”
This analogy struck Jiang Ya’nan as both bizarre and logical. “What about the diary?”
Chang Xinyi left her statement half-finished: “I don’t know how they are now, but your brother definitely liked or had liked Tang Yang back then.”
Jiang Ya’nan’s shoulders slumped, “You’re making me feel terrible.”
Chang Xinyi, being kind-hearted, patted Jiang Ya’nan’s hand. “Then let me tell you something that won’t make you feel bad.”
Jiang Ya’nan’s eyes lit up.
Chang Xinyi: “Yang Ge liked Song Jing before.”
How was that supposed to be comforting?
“Someone like Song Jing is irresistible to anyone,” Jiang Ya’nan felt even worse. “To be honest, Song Jing’s military uniform photo at 762 during his graduate studies, the one where he’s standing under a tree adjusting his cuffs, was so handsome it made my knees weak. Those hands, that face… I’m not exaggerating, my brother’s looks are at best on par with Song Jing’s. His only advantage might be that he has thick skin.”
Chang Xinyi chuckled, covering her face, “Does your brother know you talk about him like this?”
“Ah, no, no, no,” Jiang Ya’nan corrected herself, “I mean he’s super rich, super rich…”
They chatted for a while, with Jiang Ya’nan pressing Chang Xinyi for more details about the diary contents. Chang Xinyi kept things vague and finally raised her right hand to swear solemnly, “If I’ve told even half a lie, may I never be able to get hot water when I shower, may I get rear-ended while driving, may all my lipsticks break and my lip glosses and lotions shatter when I buy them.”
This was far worse than being struck by lightning five times. Jiang Ya’nan tried to stop her while hugging her and calling her “darling goddess.”
Then, the two faced each other and made phone calls, chatting about trivial matters. Finally, the side door opened, and Tang Yang and Jiang Shiyan came in, looking travel-worn.
“Getting stuck in traffic so late at night is frustrating,” Tang Yang took the bag from Jiang Shiyan’s hand and tossed it onto the sofa.
Chang Xinyi stood up to hug Tang Yang, affectionately and happily saying, “Later, I’ll make you praise yourself three times as punishment.”
Deputy Director Tang, always one to get things done, immediately began, “My standards are too high, my taste is too good, and I like Chang Xiaoyi too much.”
Chang Xinyi, completely smitten, made a soft sound and nuzzled against Tang Yang several times.
Jiang Ya’nan also leaned in to hug Tang Yang, pretending to be sad, “Yang Jie, don’t you like me?”
“I like you, and I like Aunt Yi too,” Tang Yang said with curved eyebrows and eyes.
Since the two in front had hugged Tang Yang, Jiang Shiyan naturally opened his arms towards Tang Yang, “Yang Jie, what about me?”
Tang Yang patted his arm once, “You must be hugging the wrong person.”
It was Chang Xinyi who had come from so far away.
Chang Xinyi made a sound and reasoned, “I’m a married woman, a married woman. I hereby authorize Tang Xiaoyang to accept Big Boss Jiang’s hug on my behalf.”
Tang Yang glanced at Chang Xinyi, unable to do anything about her, and raised her arms to accept Jiang Shiyan’s hug.
Jiang Shiyan, however, lowered his hands, “I have my pride too, you know. The moment has passed!”
Tang Yang lowered her hands, “Well, I have my pride too, you know. The moment has…”
Before Tang Yang could finish, Jiang Shiyan quickly hugged her and let go just as fast, then pulled her onto the sofa, sitting on the outer side himself.
There was a gap between Tang Yang and Jiang Shiyan. As the two latecomers ordered drinks, Chang Xinyi’s gaze darted back and forth between them.
As Jiang Shiyan handed the menu back to the waiter, Chang Xinyi suddenly pointed, “Yang Jie, something is crawling on the window beside you—”
“Ah, where, where!” Tang Yang exclaimed in shock, moving towards Jiang Shiyan.
“Don’t be afraid, where?” Jiang Shiyan half-embraced her, naturally pulling her closer to him, but saw nothing.
At this point, Chang Xinyi, holding back her laughter, said, “Sit closer, it’s easier to talk.”
Tang Yang let out a sigh of relief. In the dim lights of the small bar, she hadn’t noticed how close she was to a certain someone.
Jiang Shiyan scanned the window, making sure there weren’t any small insects or animals before withdrawing his gaze. Outside, the dance floor was full of boisterous youngsters. He didn’t like it and moved closer to Tang Yang.
Tang Yang, usually guarded around others, had no defenses when it came to Chang Xinyi’s drinking games.
Chang Xinyi was very measured in her actions. Even though the bar’s atmosphere was conducive to going overboard, she swayed back and forth on Jiang Ya’nan, playfully roughhousing with Tang Yang. She and Jiang Shiyan maintained a polite distance, as did Jiang Shiyan.
But the more they behaved this way, the more Tang Yang seemed to see a sense of first love and watchfulness between them, making her drink even more enthusiastically.
“Do you still want your stomach?” Jiang Shiyan frowned as he watched Tang Yang drink one glass after another.
Tang Yang mumbled, “I’m not drunk.”
Jiang Shiyan couldn’t bear to watch anymore and tried to snatch the glass from her hand. Tang Yang barely dodged, then noticed something and froze, her eyes wide open, “You, what happened to your hand there?”
“I fell while walking, wasn’t careful,” Jiang Shiyan brushed it off, “Stop drinking.”
“Someone who can fall while walking has no right to nag,” Chang Xinyi scoffed, “Yang Jie’s drunk, aren’t you going to take her home?”
Tang Yang, slightly tipsy, mimicked, “Yang Jie’s drunk, aren’t you going to take her home?”
Jiang Shiyan sighed, “I’ll take her, I’ll take her!”
Chang Xinyi: “Aren’t you going to carry her?”
Tang Yang imitated: “Aren’t you going to carry her?”
Jiang Shiyan promptly replied: “I’ll carry her, I’ll carry her!”
Chang Xinyi and Jiang Ya’nan exchanged knowing looks: “Don’t you want to hug her?”
Tang Yang: “Don’t you want to hug her?”
Jiang Shiyan, at his wit’s end, rubbed his temples repeatedly: “I’ll hug her, I’ll hug her!”
Chang Xinyi let out a long “Ooh,” while Tang Yang, in her drunken state, reached out to Jiang Shiyan for a hug.
During the intermission, Tang Yang sobered up a bit.
Chang Xinyi was video calling her son and turned the camera towards Tang Yang, instructing, “Call her godmother.”
The little mixed-race boy said softly, “Godmother.”
Tang Yang’s heart melted. She let out an “Aww” and praised him extravagantly and sincerely.
Chang Xinyi couldn’t bear to listen anymore and covered her mouth, turning the camera to Jiang Shiyan and instructing, “Call him godfather.”
The little boy obediently said, “Godfather.”
As it approached midnight, the atmosphere in the bar was reaching a critical point, like a balloon about to burst, with lights flickering near and far.
The temperature was rising. As Jiang Shiyan took off his jacket, he pondered that Chang Xinyi’s teaching method seemed slightly off and raised the question.
Chang Xinyi didn’t accept his critique: “Yang Jie is a woman, so she’s called godmother. You’re a man, so you’re called godfather. What’s wrong with that?”
As she spoke, Chang Xinyi pointed the camera at Jiang Shiyan, smiling like a flower: “Otherwise, you can let James call you godmother, and Yang Jie godfather. I’m OK with that too!”
James fell back in fright on the video screen, while the adults off-screen burst into laughter.
When the four left the bar, Jiang Shiyan hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol, while the three women were all quite drunk.
Chang Xinyi’s mother came to pick her up by car, taking Jiang Ya’nan along as they were headed in the same direction.
The small bar was very close to where Tang Yang lived, so Jiang Shiyan supported the stumbling, unsteady little drunk on her way home.
He had asked, “Do you want me to carry you?”
Tang Yang struggled to shake off his hand: “I can walk!”
Jiang Shiyan asked, “Do you want me to hug you?”
Tang Yang insisted: “I can walk!”
Passing by a pharmacy, Jiang Shiyan asked, “Do you have hangover medicine at home?”
Tang Yang replied stubbornly: “I can walk!”
Jiang Shiyan slipped his arm through Tang Yang’s and carried her to the pharmacy with one arm. He said to the clerk, “Please get me some hangover medicine.”
Tang Yang tilted her head and chirped, “I can walk!”
Jiang Shiyan felt a headache coming on.
“Alright, alright, you can walk,” he coaxed. After leaving the pharmacy, Tang Yang was still chanting “I can walk” like a mantra. Jiang Shiyan finally let go of her, “Okay, okay, you can walk. Let’s see you walk then?”
Tang Yang was like a child learning to walk, hands outstretched, trying to balance.
However, whichever direction she walked in, Jiang Shiyan would move in front of her, his arms hovering protectively around her.
Tang Yang changed directions three times, swallowed, and seemed to be giving herself a pep talk: “I can walk…”
Her voice had weakened a bit.
Jiang Shiyan, patient as if coaxing a child, said, “I know you can. Walk forward, I’m here.”
Tang Yang’s eyelashes fluttered, she took two steps forward and buried her head in Jiang Shiyan’s chest.
Jiang Shiyan chuckled and smoothly scooped her onto his back.
Perhaps it was the breadth of a man’s back, or perhaps it was Jiang Shiyan’s steady gait, but the little drunk remained quiet the entire way.
When Tang Yang was renovating, Jiang Shiyan had visited her home once. Now, following his memory to the door, Jiang Shiyan fished out the keys from Tang Yang’s bag, unlocked the door, entered, closed it, and then placed her on the sofa.
Jiang Shiyan was about to get her slippers from the entryway.
Suddenly, Tang Yang grasped his hand.
Jiang Shiyan turned to look at Tang Yang.
Tang Yang’s large, bright eyes stared directly at him. Her eyelashes were long and fine, and when they fluttered lightly, they cast fan-shaped shadows in her eye sockets.
“Is Chang Xinyi your first love?” she asked, with a hint of pitiful vulnerability in her voice.
Jiang Shiyan replied without thinking, “I don’t have any first love.”
Tang Yang pursed her lips, “You do, you’re lying.”
Jiang Shiyan was bewildered, “I don’t.”
Tang Yang, aggrieved, “You do!”
Jiang Shiyan didn’t understand how they had gone from her learning to walk to this, “I don’t.”
Tang Yang shouted, “You do.”
Jiang Shiyan: “I don’t…”
Before he could finish, he saw Tang Yang’s lips quiver, on the verge of tears. How could he persist…
Jiang Shiyan gently patted the back of Tang Yang’s hand, “Okay, okay, I do, I do. If you say I don’t, then I don’t. If you say I do, then I do.”
At this, Tang Yang started crying, “Wuwuwu, I knew you had a first love.”
Jiang Shiyan felt a tightness in his chest and hurriedly grabbed tissues to wipe her tears, “I’m telling you I don’t—”
“You have a first love and you’re still deceiving my feelings!” Tang Yang wailed, accusing him even more heart-wrenchingly, “You care about me! You pretend not to look at me! You hit Gan Yiming because of me! You still say the injury on your hand is from falling while walking! You care about me!” She sobbed again, “Is it so hard to admit that you’d do anything for a brother, wuwuwuwu.”
Jiang Shiyan didn’t know how she had gone from talking about first love to brotherhood, nor did he know where she had learned phrases like “deceiving feelings” from which TV drama.
Jiang Shiyan nervously twisted his neck, “So you saw all that…”
Tang Yang sniffled, looking pitifully at his hand with red eyes.
Jiang Shiyan wasn’t sure how sober Tang Yang was, so he carefully explained, “You know I’m not usually violent. Gan Yiming was a special case, really,” Jiang Shiyan said, “I’m kind, gentle, and very loving. Usually, when I’m working overtime and Vegetables comes to roll on my keyboard, I won’t hit it…” He would only snatch its bow, threaten to shave it bald with scissors, and put the can it was eating on top of the TV cabinet…
Before Jiang Shiyan could finish, Tang Yang suddenly spoke, “Jiang Shiyan.”
“Hm?”
She asked with great concern, “Does it hurt?”
Her voice was soft and tender at the end.
Jiang Shiyan’s breath caught as he fell into Tang Yang’s bewildered, watery eyes.
“I’ll get you some medicine,” Tang Yang said, turning to get off the sofa.
She could barely walk steady.
Jiang Shiyan came to his senses, worried, “It’s just a surface wound, it doesn’t hurt. Can you find the medicine?”
Tang Yang didn’t respond, stubbornly supporting herself against the wall as she walked to the liquor cabinet. She took down a miniature medical kit from the shelf, rubbed her eyes, and took out a spray bottle and a cotton swab. Forgetting to close the box, she returned to the sofa.
Tang Yang held the spray in one hand and Jiang Shiyan’s hand in the other, “I’ll spray it for you to wash away the bruising,” she said very seriously to Jiang Shiyan, “You must tell me if it hurts, okay?”
Tang Yang spoke as if coaxing a child.
Jiang Shiyan nodded, hiding his innermost thoughts.
Tang Yang sat cross-legged on the sofa, while Jiang Shiyan sat sideways, closer to her.
There was a light in Tang Yang’s eyes that Jiang Shiyan could see clearly. Tang Yang’s hair tips were slightly curled, just brushing against Jiang Shiyan’s forearm.
Jiang Shiyan’s throat felt a bit dry.
As Tang Yang tentatively looked for the right spot, before she could spray, Jiang Shiyan started calling out, “It hurts—”
“Ah!” Tang Yang quickly closed her eyes and cried out even louder than him.
After the first round of shouting, Tang Yang adjusted her emotions. Just as she was about to press the nozzle, Jiang Shiyan said, “It hurts—”
“Ah!” Deputy Director Tang began her second round of conditioned responses.
After the second round, Jiang Shiyan took advantage of her attempt to spray and hissed, drawing in a sharp breath.
Tang Yang imitated him, hunching her shoulders and drawing in a cold breath. However, as she continued, her eyelids grew heavy, and her breathing became even and prolonged.
Had she… fallen asleep while playing around?
After all the walking and buying medicine, it was already early morning.
As Tang Yang slept, her little head nodded back and forth, looking like it was about to fall forward. Jiang Shiyan suddenly reached out to support her face.
Tang Yang’s skin was delicate, as white and fine as the finest mutton-fat jade.
From Jiang Shiyan’s angle, he could only see her full forehead and brownish hair.
The grandfather clock in the corner went “tick-tock, tick-tock.”
In the resulting quietness, Jiang Shiyan wanted to see Tang Yang’s sleeping face but was afraid of waking the little drunk.
He thought for a moment, keeping his hand still while slowly bending his body towards her face, then turning his head to face her.
Tang Yang rarely got drunk. In Jiang Shiyan’s memory, he could count the occasions on one hand.
When she was drunk, she was noisy, but once asleep, she became exceptionally well-behaved, not moving or struggling, like a soft, exquisite doll.
Her eyebrows were drawn, fine, and long like willow leaves. Her eyes were large, with long, fine lashes.
With Tang Yang, Jiang Shiyan deeply experienced the theory of relativity—before, when Tang Yang was slightly chubby, he thought her eyes were small. In his mother’s words, she was “fat-squinted.” Now that Tang Yang had slimmed down to a willowy figure, Jiang Shiyan felt her features were large, so large that he could see every detail, slowly, and carefully, allowing him to vividly recall her high school appearance in his mind.
Back then, she didn’t know how to apply makeup, her face bare, probably just using Dabao cream. The scent of SOD honey was the same as on his face. And those same eyes—she loved to smile, with a dimple that sometimes showed and sometimes didn’t. Every time she smiled, her eyes curved like crescent moons.
Then there was her delicate nose, now with a red tip from drinking.
And then her lips, small and exquisite, with a pronounced cupid’s bow. Her lipstick had long since faded, and as her lips parted slightly, the warm yellow wall light played on them, making them look red, moist, and glossy, seemingly sweet and soft… he wanted to kiss them.
Without the excuse of being drunk, without the purpose of silencing her, without uncontrollable anger or any other motive, it was just a simple, genuine, heartfelt… desire to kiss.
He wanted to kiss her.
As Jiang Shiyan thought this, he did just that.
Jiang Shiyan’s throat bobbed.
With one hand supporting her face and the other braced against the sofa behind her, he consciously, rationally, yet somewhat uncontrollably, gently, and truly touched her lips.
There was a lingering fruit and wine fragrance, the sensation so soft it was almost unreal, like touching a cloud…
That brief moment felt too short; Jiang Shiyan felt he hadn’t experienced anything.
He gazed at Tang Yang’s peaceful sleeping face, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. Then, with great trepidation yet extraordinary boldness… he secretly kissed her again.