Jin Fubai enclosed her, the distinctive agarwood fragrance lingered by her ears. Xiang Yu’s back was a little stiff. She was originally playing games on her mobile phone so her sitting posture was very casual and her back was not straight. Now she wanted to sit upright but she felt that she can’t even perform such a slight movement naturally.
Xiang Yu thought a little confusedly:
Did it begin?
Has he started charging for her lunch?
But Jin Fubai just finished those few words, got up and distanced himself. He took the cigarette box out, smiled and joked with her, “So curious about me? How about I show it to you?” As he said that he put the cigarette box and a small box of agarwood sticks in front of Xiangyu.
Opening the box Xiang Yu lightly smelt the agarwood. There used to be an elder in her family who made offerings to Buddha and Xiang Yu would often smell agarwood when he chanted the “Great Compassion Mantra” when she was a child. Unfortunately, Buddha didn’t cure his illness and the elderly had already passed away many years ago. Thinking of her childhood, she couldn’t help feeling a little sad.
Fortunately, Jin Fubai spoke at this moment, “Done eating? Do you want to go back to take a nap?” His words were soft as if this nap was not about each of them sleeping alone, but about them embracing each other to sleep.
Xiang Yu’s sadness disappeared and there was now a male singer singing English songs on the stage, the tone was very soothing. In such a soothing tone, she didn’t dwell on the major matter at hand, neither saying “okay” or “no”, she only answered, “Let’s go.”
When she waited for the elevator, Xiang Yu’s mobile phone kept vibrating in her hand. It was an unfamiliar number. She picked it up but did not speak, and the person on the other side called out, “Yuyu.”
The voice was too familiar, and Xiang Yu didn’t even frown, she took the phone away from her ears and hung up the phone in a routine manner and directly blocked the number.
These actions fell into Jin Fubai’s eyes and as he pressed the elevator door button he asked casually, “Who made you so annoyed?” The design of the elevator was user-friendly probably due to the children who would use it. The button to open the elevator door is located relatively low. Tall people like Jin Fubai when pressing the button did not have the kind of gesture where their fingers pointed upwards, but instead tilted down, the raised bones on the back of his hand resembled a white jade fan.
Xiang Yu stared subconsciously for a long time.
The elevator stopped on their floor, and the elevator door opened with a “ding”. Her face was calm with no visible expression.
“My ex-boyfriend.”
Xiang Yu said as she stepped out of the elevator, “We just broke up a month ago.”
“Why did you break up?”
Xiang Yu couldn’t help but look at Jin Fubai. She didn’t think he was a man who would ask such a question so she was a little surprised. She saw Jin Fubai’s serious expression and suddenly understood that he was asking her what she thought.
There is a type of probing before “every beginning”.
The restaurant is located on the 5th floor, and Jin Fubai’s suite is on the 7th floor. It was just that during the ten or so seconds of the elevator running, Xiang Yu finished her one year of relationship in a few simple words. She is not a person who can speak ill of her ex-boyfriend, only that Zhao Yanmo’s understanding of hard work in a certain sense is not the same as hers.
Jin Fubai summed up the reason to be, “Because he is not capable?”
“No.” Xiang Yu shook her head, sighing comfortably and naturally. “Because he ignored my feelings during his so-called hard work, he let me feel unloved and uncared.”
Jin Fubai unexpectedly hit the point, and he was not partial to either, he smiled and said, “Men and women have different ways of thinking, maybe your ex-boyfriend just wants to make plans for you in the future and wants to stay in Beijing.”
The elevator reached the floor, and the metal door slowly opened to the sides. She looked back at Jin Fubai and smiled at him as if for not understanding, “As long as two people are in love, it does not matter how bad their situation is, they can still be happy and satisfied. But now that the affection between them is gone, why would one try to stay.”
This sentence is like the silver hairpin of Xi Wangmu, drawing a galaxy between Xiang Yu and Jin Fubai that was hard to cross.
- Xi Wangmu is a goddess in Chinese mythology she is the wife of the Jade Emperor.
Jin Fubai still swiped the door of the suite with his key card and made a polite gesture to let Xiang Yu go in. Xiang Yu also asked him if he would like to have a cup when she was making coffee, just like she did a few days ago.
But they avoided any other unnecessary communication.
Jin Fubai went to the airport early the next morning, he took a car with a Changsha license plate and drove Xiang Yu with him. The weather in Changsha completely cleared up, the blue sky appeared once again, white clouds floated above the ground, the city was washed thoroughly by the heavy rain, and the street vendors working were also smiling.
Xiang Yu put her suitcase in the trunk of the car and when she sat in the back seat Jin Fubai joked, “Am your driver?”
“For real? Then I can’t afford to sit,” Xiang Yu said with a smile.
In fact, it was a pity, Xiang Yu looked at the scenery passing by the window and somewhat comforted herself: people who are unsuitable are unsuitable, just like how she is obsessed with boiled hibiscus flowers in bone broth from the restaurant in Changsha, but it was impossible to bring the chef in her suitcase.
She looked at Jin Fubai’s profile. Treat it as a memory.
Probably because the continuous rainfall hindered transportation for too long, the airport hub was packed of people. Xiang Yu guessed that Jin Fubai would use the VIP aisle to check in when as he booked first class, but he didn’t. He walked quietly next to Xiang Yu so she turned her head to ask, “Are you checking in here too?”
In front of them was a crowded check-in counter, there were more than 20 people at each window all wearing different coloured attire looking a little messy. Jin Fubai took off his sunglasses and just smiled.
Half an hour later after queuing to check in too, she remembered that there was a vase in her suitcase that she was bringing home, she had bought it from a scenic spot while travelling. The ceramic vase was fragile so she needed to sign her name on a document before the airport was willing to check it.
When signing Xiang Yu lowered her head, with her mid-length hair falling down, blocking her eyes. Jin Fubai stood beside her and took out the hand that was in his pocket, picking up the strand of hair with his fingertips to help her tuck it behind her ears.
The tip of the pen sliding on the paper paused for a while. She did not raise her eyes, and her voice was inaudible, “Thank you.”
The check-in staff put a sticker marked “Fragile” on Xiang Yu’s suitcase. Obviously, she saw the interaction between Jin Fubai and Xiang Yu, so when she talked, she had a “joyful” smile, “Your luggage has been checked in, this is the flight ticket. Please go to the left for the security check.” She probably thought that they were a loving couple.
After the security check, they stood at the passageway where the security check ended. Xiang Yu stood with Jin Fubai holding the ticket. In front of them was the spacious and bright window of the airport, several planes could be seen parked on the parking ground and the white wings dazzled under the sun.
The flights to the same place were scheduled on the same plane, and the next one was also on the way. But Jin Fubai raised the ticket in his hand, waved, then smiled and said, “Till we meet again, Xiang Yu.”
Xiang Yu also smiled and said, “Thank you for these past few days, until we meet again.”
They walked in the same direction, but they didn’t stand side by side like once before. Both of them know that each other’s “see you again” was actually just out of formality.
The domestic flight did not take long, Jin Fubai read half of the magazine and then closed his eyes slightly. When he opened his eyes again the plane landed at Beijing Airport. The first-class cabin had already left, and he also set forth to leave.
The flight attendant smiled and said ‘goodbye’ to each passenger, but when Jin Fubai got up, he said, “Mr. Jin, take care.” Jin Fubai nodded slightly and stepped off the plane.
There was a girl who he was familiar with in the economy class behind him but he didn’t stop.
Did he hesitate? Actually, he did.
Few people in his social circle marry someone that they truly love. To be more precise, love does not exist in their families, only the benefits of a person do, like the roots of a big tree, crudely complicated yet something unable to be broken.
Everyone is aware that their life is set to be on such a path so they do not break it. Love is a luxury.
During the past few days, Jin Fubai came to understand Xiang Yu, from her lazy and careless attitude towards her career life, he knows that she is not from a very rich family, but she must still be somewhat privileged since she didn’t have the financial pressure to work right after graduation and she still had the money to travel for a month.
Her attitude towards “love” is obviously different from theirs. Xiang Yu wants innocent and passionate feelings; she probably didn’t care whether she fell in love with someone rich or someone poor. She had previously said that once a person was truly in love, the situation they were in didn’t matter because either way they would be happy and satisfied.
Jin Fubai couldn’t cope with this kind of pure love. To be honest, he was a little scared.
It was impossible to not be afraid, women in his social circles were mostly schemers, and they come and go. He couldn’t remember their appearances and names clearly but he still remembers what they have in common, vanity and the ability to deceive.
If a gift was not good enough, you can send a car, and if the car was really not good enough, then gifting a house was good. This kind of scheme was somewhat of a benefit towards them too, after all, a “scheme” means that it would not be troublesome to part with.
Compared to Xiang Yu, this girl is so extravagant, she only wanted love.
How extravagant was love, who could handle it? Anyways, he couldn’t.
When Jin Fubai got out of the airport, he saw the driver rushing over, “Mr. Jin.” He had no luggage and with his hands in his pockets, he looked at the driver, “What’s wrong?”
“Mr. Jin, Mr. Li asked you to meet him. He said that I should accompany you to him. Would you like to head there now?” This “Mr Li” the driver was talking about is Jin Fubai’s friend Li Chi, and the hotel he stayed in Changsha belonged to Li Chi.
Jin Fubai, “Okay.”
The driver showed some hesitation, and Jin Fubai glanced at him, “Is there anything else?”
“There is news from Changsha, asking about the car you used to drive to the airport…what should be done with the thing in the back seat? “
Jin Fubai doesn’t like cumbersome things. He never takes luggage when he goes out, and he didn’t remember what he put in the back seat. Things that he couldn’t remember were treated as “not important”, so he said lightly, “Toss it.”
The driver’s complexion became a little weird, and he reminded Jin Fubai awkwardly: “Throwing banknotes is illegal.”
Under Jin Fubai’s faint gaze, the driver said that there was a red envelope on the back seat of the car in Changsha with Jin Fubai’s name and a few auspicious words written on it.
Only Xiang Yu had been in that car. Jin Fubai’s eyes reacted, “Send it to me.”
Instead of going to Li Chi’s place, he waited in the VIP lounge of the airport. He waited for several hours and the thing he waited for did not arrive. He instead waited for Li Chi, who was full of gossip.
When Li Chi arrived at the airport, Jin Fubai was sitting on the chestnut-coloured sofa drinking coffee. He didn’t know what the waiter was saying, he tilted his head slightly, as if listening. After the waiter left, Li Chi who wore greenish sunglasses and an off-white suit twisted in front of Jin Fubai step by step, “What’s the matter? I was waiting for you. What kind of coffee are you drinking at the airport?”
Jin Fubai glanced at him, “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?”, Li Chi pointed to his nose, the tone of voice as if he was singing, “You got a girl. Now you don’t want to talk to your best friend after staying at that hotel for a few days? Don’t think I don’t know what happened in Changsha. I watched the monitoring of the hotel lobby, in a few words that girl left with you? Amazing, bro Jin! “
Jin Fubai didn’t bother to answer and took a sip of coffee.
“Say something, didn’t you think that these kinds of things were boring, you usually find it annoying for women to be on your side, so why did you look at that one?” Li Chi didn’t give up, chattering endlessly, “The monitor didn’t show clearly, is that girl particularly beautiful? How beautiful? Is it more beautiful than that mixed raced one I found for you last month?”
Jin Fubai leaned back on the chair, since he saw Li Chi he had not spoken a word.
He was somewhat scary when he was like this, but Li Chi did not flinch. He took off his sunglasses and continued, “You don’t want to talk about it, but why didn’t you bring her back? I heard that the girl didn’t come with you and left you with money…”
Jin Fubai knew that Li Chi had nothing good to say, otherwise, he would not have driven all the way to the airport to gossip. When he lifted his eyelids, he heard Li Qi bashfully say, “Brother Jin, the girl slept with you for a few days, did she leave a prostitute fee when she left?”
At this time, a woman dressed as a flight attendant walked over and respectfully called, “Mr. Jin.” The woman said, “This is the thing in Changsha that you asked to bring.”
The flight attendant who had just landed flew over from Changsha and handed Jin Fubai a bag. The bag did not weigh much, Jin Fubai poured out the contents, it was a red envelope.
Li Chi’s leather shoes clicked on the tiled floor, and he said a sentence next to him, “Ayyy~ the prostitute is here.”
Jin Fubai was too lazy to pay attention to him, his attention was on the red envelope: he didn’t know where Xiang Yu got the red envelope from but the material was really cheap. The thin paper on the seal was ripped by the person who stuffed money into it. The pattern on the cover was printed with “A hundred years of marriage, happy wedding”, and a bunch of unrecognizable patterns and golden lines, it was not aligned, and the printing was off.
The words on the back were probably written by Xiang Yu——
I wish Jin Fubai good luck and wealth; hope you are happy every day.
Obviously, she wanted to split the expenses of the past few days that she owed the other. Yet, it’s like a grandma giving a red envelope to her grandson, and she still has the nerve to write some auspicious words, and did not know that something was wrong.
The word “Jin” was wrong, and she drew a heart shape very strangely. Additionally, the fountain pen didn’t dry out properly, and it had been touched by something, so the heart shape faded a bit revealing the outline of the wrong words.
“Jin” can be written as “Jinn” as well. The corners of Jin Fubai’s mouth curved.
The red envelope was filled with 10,000 yuan and did not need to be opened, people who often handled money would know it by weighing it in their hands.
Jin Fubai stared at the red envelope for a while, and then suddenly frowned. It seems like he is not willing to stay as a stranger to Xiang Yu.
Author: 殊娓
RiahTrans 