Chapter 34: Sincerity

It was already late at night, and most of the household was asleep. Only two of the maids were downstairs, finishing the final cleaning in the hall. When they saw Jiang Nai and Li Qingji coming downstairs fully dressed, the maids paused in surprise.

“Miss, Sir, are you going somewhere?”

Holding Jiang Nai’s wrist, Li Qingji replied calmly, “We need to go back for a bit. Please let Grandpa and Grandma know in the morning that we left early.”

Hearing his words, Jiang Nai felt her ears burning.

The maids, though puzzled by why they had to leave in the middle of the night, knew better than to ask too many questions about the family’s affairs. “Oh, of course.”

Li Qingji gave a brief nod, then led Jiang Nai out. Once in the garage, they got into the car, which quickly drove off from the residence.

The entire ride was silent. Jiang Nai sat in the passenger seat, her face seemingly expressionless, but inside, her emotions were in turmoil. She clasped her hands tightly, twisting them together. The truth was, she hadn’t been unprepared.

Even though she’d wrestled with doubts about “how much of Li Qingji’s affection for her was real, and how much was genuine,” she had quickly adjusted.

So, as before, she could accept matters between husband and wife…

It’s just that the suddenness of it all left her feeling a bit bewildered and anxious.

From the Jiang family residence to Tianlang, she didn’t really know how they made it through the drive. It seemed long, yet somehow very short, as her mind struggled to make sense of everything. Before she realized it, they were already parked in the garage.

“Get out.”

“…Okay.”

Jiang Nai opened the car door and followed Li Qingji into the elevator. She watched as the numbers on the elevator’s display ticked upward, each one mirroring the tension in her heart.

Ding—

Finally, they reached their floor.

At Tianlang, each floor was a single residence, so when the elevator doors opened, it was directly into their private space. Her heart started pounding as Jiang Nai quickly stepped forward, unlocked the door with her fingerprint, and slipped inside.

“Welcome home, Madam and Sir,” the smart home assistant greeted them as it activated.

“We have juice, milk, coffee, and mineral water at home… Which would you like? If you’d like coffee, I’ll prepare it right away.”

The door clicked shut behind them, but neither of them answered the assistant’s question. Jiang Nai turned back to look at Li Qingji. He was standing just inside the door, gazing down at her with an unreadable expression.

A brief silence filled the room—it was either the calm after a storm or the eerie quiet before one.

“What you said back at the house… were you serious?” Jiang Nai spoke, unable to bear the tension any longer, saying anything just to break the silence.

Li Qingji raised a brow. “About what?”

“About having kids.”

Li Qingji frowned slightly, then finally replied, “No.”

“Then why did you say it?”

Li Qingji wasn’t particularly interested in the idea of having children. But he didn’t want to admit that a certain photo had gotten under his skin.

“So, if you don’t want children, then why?” He moved closer, wrapping an arm around her waist, pulling her forcefully against him. “Is it because of yourself or… someone else?”

“Of course, it’s because of me,” Jiang Nai replied, puzzled. “What do you mean, because of someone else?”

Li Qingji lowered his gaze; his body was radiating heat, but his expression remained icy. “So Pei Xuan isn’t a reason?”

“What does this have to do with him?”

“You used to like him.”

Jiang Nai froze. “You…”

She couldn’t deny it, nor could she refute it. Because her past feelings for Pei Xuan were indeed a fact.

Li Qingji’s expression darkened. “So now that you’ve run into him again, you still feel something for him? Jiang Nai, do past feelings linger in your mind for this long?”

“I don’t! When did I say I still like him!” Jiang Nai felt shocked, angry, and unusually sour. “I know my limits. I won’t do something like that, let alone ruin this marriage myself.”

How could he know about this?

Why did he think she still liked Pei Xuan? Clearly, they had no interactions anymore.

“Really don’t like him?”

Jiang Nai turned her head away. “No, I don’t!”

Li Qingji felt an odd sense of satisfaction from her uncertain “No, I don’t.”

He moved her face back towards him. “In that case, throw that photo away.”

“What photo…” Jiang Nai started.

“The one in your bedroom, the one you’ve kept for so many years.”

Jiang Nai paused and then remembered. There was a photo in her bedroom with Pei Xuan in it. It was from when she had just joined the club, a group photo with Xue Lin, Meng Jie, and the others—four people together. She admitted, at first, she kept it there because she liked him and couldn’t bear to take it down.  Later, when she went abroad and returned, she just forgot about it and considered it just another random photo.

“I didn’t mean anything by keeping it there,” Jiang Nai looked up and glared at him. “I just forgot! I simply forgot!”

Li Qingji raised his eyebrows slightly.

Jiang Nai felt puzzled. “Li Qingji, are you jealous about this, which is why you’re acting strange today?”

“So what if I am?”

Jiang Nai immediately regretted asking that question. 

Because words like “jealous” seemed totally inappropriate for Li Qingji, and she thought he would just sneer at them. But she didn’t expect him to immediately admit it. He admitted that he was jealous. Jiang Nai froze. Her heart seemed to be pulled, and all the emotions she had been deliberately ignoring and burying in herself suddenly resurfaced at this moment.

The idea of just focusing on her own life… not worrying about how much he liked her…

It wasn’t true.

She was still worried. Worried that she might like him too much, worried that he might not like her as much, worried about emotional imbalance in the future, and worried about being hurt—and how much hurt there might be. She was too timid, afraid of trouble, and just one bump on the ski slope was enough to make her retreat.

“That… I’ll handle the photo,” Jiang Nai said. “As for Pei Xuan… I definitely don’t have the intention of having my cake and eating it too!”

“Who’s the bowl and who’s the pot?” Li Qingji lowered his head and bit her lip, feeling the dark mood of the entire night lift all of a sudden.

Actually, he wasn’t sure if Jiang Nai truly didn’t like Pei Xuan anymore, but at least she promised not to like him again. Pei Xuan wouldn’t be a real interference between them, so he chose to ignore it.

Jiang Nai winced slightly as her lips were bitten. “Ouch, it’s going to break the skin…”

[Master, are you injured? If your skin breaks, it needs to be cleaned immediately, and you should use hydrogen peroxide and iodine tincture for treatment.] Suddenly, the voice of the smart butler filled the room.

Jiang Nai: “…”

Li Qingji looked at her slightly reddened lips, his breath becoming heavier. “The defective product still has many problems. It can speak even without being called.”

Jiang Nai: “But it’s showing concern for me…”

“It should follow instructions, and it shouldn’t appear unless called.” Li Qingji’s finger gently traced the back of her neck. “Otherwise, don’t you feel like there’s a third person here?”

Jiang Nai froze, and then suddenly, she did feel like there was a third party observing them. She pushed him away. “There are bugs to fix, so it can be improved. Now let me go…”

“I won’t let go.”

Li Qingji’s eyes darkened even more. She tried to escape his hold to catch her breath, but he directly pressed her against the wall nearby and kissed her. The moment their lips touched, it was like a movie that had been paused midway suddenly resumed, with the main characters’ emotions intact, driven by the background music, drawing closer and closer, enticing the heart.

Every kiss deepened and intensified, but his lips and tongue were unusually soft, teasing and tangling with hers, repeatedly. Jiang Nai soon found herself unable to stand, her heartbeat growing more and more erratic.

She tried to distract herself, pressing down on the wild thumping in her chest, telling herself to calm down—this was just a normal thing for both of them…

But it was useless. Her rationality couldn’t function at this moment. She was easily distracted by his kiss, helplessly watching herself become infatuated, falling into it, just like at the ski resort hotel, losing her strength and softening in his embrace.

[Master, do you still need the medication? If there’s none at home, I can place an order for you immediately.]

Li Qingji was interrupted and shot the device a cold look. “Shut up.”

The next second, he picked her up and carried her towards the master bedroom, leaving behind the innocent-sounding smart machine in the air. Jiang Nai’s lips were tingling, and in this position, she could only cling to him like a koala.

She rested her cheek on his shoulder, her face burning, her neck and ears flushed with heat. The short walk felt long as she tried desperately to stay calm, thinking about how to proceed, how to end it. But even when she was tossed onto the bed, she couldn’t complete the thought process. And when he leaned down to kiss her again, her mind completely shut down.

This kiss was more urgent, more forceful than any before, sending waves of shivers through her.

She began to suffocate, her vision gradually blurring.

…

“Drawer…”

In the heavy night, her voice had become soft and unsteady. At the last moment, Li Qingji remembered the original purpose of their return and reached into the drawer.

But after pulling out the box, he seemed to pause, and then a series of sounds followed…

“Where did you buy this?” he asked her midway.

Jiang Nai, in panic, was confused. “Hmm?”

“This. Where did you buy it?”

Jiang Nai answered, “The supermarket…”

Li Qingji asked in a hoarse voice, “Didn’t you even look at it?”

“What?”

Li Qingji didn’t answer her anymore.

Jiang Nai didn’t understand what he meant until later, when she ended up suffering because of it… and then, she finally realized. The night was still thick and heavy, with the stars hidden by the city’s lights, leaving an endless stretch of darkness in every direction.

The room, with the lights turned off, felt the same—endlessly vast.

—

The ringtone of a certain brand of phone sounded like a death knell, enough to wake someone who almost died the night before with its alarm. When Jiang Nai opened her eyes, her throat was dry, and her temples were throbbing sharply in protest from lack of sleep. She stared blankly for a couple of seconds, then turned her head to see the person who had set the alarm now lying back down.

They each slept on their own pillows, but were positioned quite close.

The effects of last night still lingered, and at that moment, the two of them just stared at each other, both seeming to react. Li Qingji didn’t speak, just looked at her. As he gazed, a subtle change appeared in his eyes.

Jiang Nai recognized that look well—it was the same look he gave her last night, a gaze that had made her cry out in pleas for mercy, with no remorse from him at all. Her heart skipped a beat, and she quickly shifted backward, only to feel a sharp pain from the movement that caused her to frown.

“What’s wrong?”

Li Qingji’s face changed slightly, and he reached out to grab her arm, trying to pull her back.

“Don’t touch me.” Jiang Nai murmured, “…It hurts.”

Li Qingji quickly sat up. “Where does it hurt?”

Jiang Nai couldn’t bring herself to answer. Her face turned red almost instantly.

Li Qingji frowned. “All those things last night were… special versions…”

“Don’t say it!” Jiang Nai trembled, “I, I just picked whatever!”

“You asked for it.” Li Qingji said, but he gently lifted the blanket. “Let me see.”

“No need.” Jiang Nai quickly pulled the blanket back down, “It’ll heal on its own.”

Saying this, she turned around to grab the clothes she had thrown on the floor, wrapped herself in them, and staggered towards the bed’s edge.

“Where are you going?”

Jiang Nai, barefoot on the floor, answered, “Work…”

Li Qingji frowned and followed her to lift her up. “How are you going to work now?”

Jiang Nai said, “Boss, does that mean if I go to bed, I don’t need to work anymore…?”

“…”

“Put me down.”

Li Qingji had no answer for that. Of course, he could let her skip work, but with her personality, it was obvious that wouldn’t happen.

“Put on slippers before you walk.”

“Oh.”

Jiang Nai entered the bathroom, locked the door, and took a shower. Standing naked in front of the mirror, she realized the situation was even more intense than she had imagined. She didn’t dare look for long and quickly dressed.

When she finished washing up and came out, Li Qingji was no longer in the bedroom. The room was still in disarray from last night, and she didn’t want the maid coming today to notice. She quickly picked up the scattered clothes on the floor.

While picking up the clothes, she noticed several small torn packages on the nightstand.

“…………”

It wasn’t because there had been too many times last night, but… each one couldn’t last long, and they all got used up quickly.

“Leave it, I’ll clean up.” Li Qingji, having finished washing up in the bathroom, came in. He wrapped his arms around her from behind. He was refreshed, and his mood seemed much lighter, as if last night’s gloom and violence had been forgotten.

Seeing that he was also looking at the items on the nightstand, Jiang Nai hurried to explain: “I didn’t buy counterfeit products. I really got them from the supermarket. They’re the real deal.”

“I know.”

“So how come…” Jiang Nai cautiously asked, “Is it because you’re not very skilled?”

Li Qingji’s faint smile instantly disappeared: “I’m not good at it?”

Jiang Nai cleared her throat and quietly said, “I meant, your way of using it was a bit off…”

Li Qingji’s face darkened: “This one you bought is clearly much smaller, and it says ‘ultra-thin,’ so it’s normal for it to tear with a little force.”

Jiang Nai: “…Oh.”

Li Qingji turned her around, frowning: “So, I’m not good at it?”

Jiang Nai forced a laugh: “I was just talking nonsense!”

In the face of Li Qingji’s increasingly dangerous expression, she broke free from his embrace and hurried out of the room. Li Qingji had a meeting at Siningte in the morning, so Chen Min was scheduled to appear at the house today.

“Good morning, Miss Jiang.”

Jiang Nai had just come out of the room when she saw Chen Min standing neatly in the living room.

Her face was still flushed, and she lowered her head a little, trying to avoid eye contact: “Good morning, Chen Min.”

At that moment, Li Qingji also came out of the master bedroom.

Chen Min said, “Boss, there are two meetings this morning—one is with the finance team…”

“Take my car,” Li Qingji suddenly interjected.

Chen Min paused, realizing the boss was speaking to Jiang Nai, who was about to leave.

Jiang Nai lowered her head and started putting on her shoes: “No need.”

“Can you drive yourself?”

This sounded odd, especially with someone else in the room!

Jiang Nai felt embarrassed and quickly replied, “Of course I can!”

With that, she quickly put on her shoes and, as though she couldn’t wait to leave, rushed out the door.

Li Qingji: “…”

Chen Min, noticing something, slightly furrowed her brows and lowered her head, not saying a word.

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