After Losing My Memory, I Suddenly Had A Fiancée - Chapter 53

Xixi watched the whole spectacle of Jiang Zhi and Ji Fanghuai playing the game of mutual lip-nibbling. She didn’t know what was going on, but her two owners were hugging and gnawing at each other’s mouths, their hands and feet not behaving either.

Xixi: “Meow?”

Ji Fanghuai was kissed senseless by Jiang Zhi, her mouth filled with a faint taste of bitter melon.

Jiang Zhi suggested taking a shower. She had only been able to wipe herself down these past few days in the hospital and felt she wasn’t truly clean.

“It’s not suitable for you to take a shower right now,” Ji Fanghuai’s voice was a little soft. She shouldn’t have fed Jiang Zhi bitter melon; Jiang Zhi’s taste buds weren’t stimulated, but hers were.

Jiang Zhi looked at Ji Fanghuai’s full lips, then proceeded to unwrap the gauze on her right hand, revealing the scabbed wound on her palm. Her five fingers also had injuries, but they were shallower. She said, “I can cover it with plastic wrap; it’ll be fine.”

Ji Fanghuai grasped Jiang Zhi’s hand. The wound on the palm ran almost across the entire width of her hand. No wonder the hotel staff thought it was a suicide attempt. She noticed the gauze was new and couldn’t help but chuckle, “You sent me away that day just for this?”

Jiang Zhi felt a bit embarrassed and said, “I was afraid I would faint again if I saw the blood and lose face in front of you.”

“What nonsense are you talking about? How would that lose my face…” Ji Fanghuai’s face flushed. She quickly shifted her attention back to Jiang Zhi’s hand, skeptical. “Are you really sure this hand is okay?”

“It’s fine for showering. As for other things…” Jiang Zhi paused deliberately and glanced at Ji Fanghuai. “As for other things, you don’t need to worry. Both my hands are flexible.”

Jiang Zhi wrapped her right hand in plastic wrap and, with the help of her left hand, successfully finished her shower, emerging with a dry-hair cap on.

Ji Fanghuai was relieved to see that the wound hadn’t seeped water. She then removed the dry-hair cap. Jiang Zhi’s hair was semi-dry, semi-wet, and she could smell a faint, clean fragrance.

Ji Fanghuai used the hairdryer to meticulously dry Jiang Zhi’s scalp. She said, “Are you going straight to sleep since you’re showering now?”

Jiang Zhi nodded. “The hospital bed wasn’t comfortable.”

Ji Fanghuai said, “Then I’m going to shower and sleep too. But when we sleep, you can’t be restless with your hands or feet, or your mouth.”

Jiang Zhi said, “Don’t worry.”

While Ji Fanghuai went to shower, Jiang Zhi was doing her skincare routine at the dressing table. When Ji Fanghuai finished, Jiang Zhi dried her hair for her. The two of them went back and forth, lively and happy.

Ji Fanghuai flopped onto the bed. “Sleep, sleep.”

Jiang Zhi lay down beside her.

Ji Fanghuai suddenly sat up. “I’m going to check on Xixi.”

“She just ate canned food, she won’t be hungry,” Jiang Zhi reached out and hugged Ji Fanghuai, smelling a faint milky scent on her—the smell of body lotion.

The two of them quietly enjoyed this moment of peace, returning to the long-lost embrace. Ji Fanghuai’s mind was filled with thoughts, as if time had returned to their home in City A.

After all the twists and turns, they were back where they started.

Their future life should involve less turmoil.

Lin Mianmian: “Happy New Year! Wishing you a Happy New Year.”

Ji Fanghuai tapped open the message from Lin Mianmian. A festive little figure popped up in the center of the screen, with four gilded characters—”Gong Xi Fa Cai” (Wishing you a prosperous new year)—bouncing out of its mouth one by one.

Ji Fanghuai replied, “Happy New Year.”

Actually, there wasn’t much of a New Year’s atmosphere where she was.

In her impression, the New Year should be about family reunion, but she only had Jiang Zhi by her side. The New Year also meant big meals, but because Jiang Zhi was restricted to liquid food, she also ate very plainly. During the New Year, elders usually give red envelopes to the younger generation. The only elder for her and Jiang Zhi should be her grandmother, but her grandmother didn’t like her.

However, whether it was the New Year or not didn’t matter. What mattered was that she wasn’t alone anymore.

Lin Mianmian: “Fanghuai, is it very boring over there? I’m going to City B in a couple of days to play, and it’s on the way, so I’ll drop by to see you. We can go out for hotpot then.”

She thought Ji Fanghuai was still at home by herself.

Ji Fanghuai: “Sounds good.”

Ji Fanghuai: “Also, Jiang Zhi and I are back together.”

Lin Mianmian saw the message: “!!!”

“It’s a long story, so I’ll keep it short,” Ji Fanghuai used the voice-to-text function to send a rough account of how she and Jiang Zhi reconciled.

Jiang Zhi was sitting right next to her. Thinking that some things were awkward to say out loud, Ji Fanghuai switched to typing manually.

“I still like her, actually. It’s just that at the time, I felt the fact that she lied to me crossed my bottom line. But when I found out she was in trouble, I was so scared, scared of losing her. Don’t you think I’m being a hypocrite and overly dramatic?”

Lin Mianmian, who was single her entire life: “Not at all. Matters of the heart are like drinking water; only you know if it’s hot or cold. I actually thought you two would eventually get back together, but I didn’t expect it to start with a misunderstanding. Luckily, it was just a misunderstanding.”

Ji Fanghuai glanced at Jiang Zhi beside her and said, “Yes, luckily it was a misunderstanding, but I still feel very scared when I think about it now. Mianmian, call me when you arrive; I’ll come pick you up. Gotta go for now, bye.”

Lin Mianmian: “Bye.”

Jiang Zhi sat beside her, looking blankly the whole time, watching Ji Fanghuai sometimes use voice-to-text and sometimes type manually. Every time Ji Fanghuai switched to manual input, Jiang Zhi would lose focus for a moment, then take out her phone and lurk in the company group chat.

Ji Fanghuai noticed Jiang Zhi was fully focused on her phone and couldn’t help but ask curiously, “What are you doing?”

Jiang Zhi handed the phone to her and said, “Sending red envelopes.”

Ji Fanghuai took it and glanced at it. As she scrolled up, she was surprised to see people in the group chat still posting work summaries on New Year’s Eve. “Are there really that many people working in your company during the New Year holidays?” she asked in surprise.

Jiang Zhi found nothing unusual. “That’s how the gaming industry is. The bigger the holiday, the greater the traffic. When others are on vacation, they’re working overtime. But don’t worry, I’m not a wicked capitalist. There’s overtime pay, and our company has a shift system, so the Spring Festival holiday can be accrued.”

Ji Fanghuai: “…”

She looked again and saw dozens of unread messages in the group chat. The red envelope Jiang Zhi had just sent out was already claimed, and the group was full of people sending various messages.

“Thank you, CEO Jiang.”

“Happy New Year, CEO Jiang.”

“Thank you, boss.jpg”

Ji Fanghuai tapped on one at random and saw the red envelope amount was 8888 yuan. No wonder the employees were so happy.

She returned the phone, and Jiang Zhi suddenly asked, “Fanghuai, do you want a red envelope too?”

Ji Fanghuai didn’t even think about it and said, “No.”

Wouldn’t that be asking Jiang Zhi for money?

She wasn’t short of money now. The compensation for emotional distress Jiang Zhi had given her was still there, and she didn’t have any major expenses, with Xixi being the biggest one currently.

“I also think digital red envelopes sent via phone lack a personal touch,” Jiang Zhi took out a thick red envelope from behind her. “Fanghuai, Happy New Year.”

Ji Fanghuai didn’t know when Jiang Zhi had prepared the red envelope. While other people’s red envelopes were usually small, Jiang Zhi’s was twice the size of a normal one. Without even opening it, she could tell there was a thick stack inside.

Ji Fanghuai thought it would be a wad of cash when opened.

The fact proved she was too materialistic.

Inside the red envelope was a household registration book (hukou) and some photos.

Jiang Zhi said, “I’m giving you the household registration book first. Whenever you decide you want your relationship with the head of the household to be ‘spouse,’ we’ll go get married.”

Ji Fanghuai: “…”

The more Jiang Zhi insisted on marriage, the more guilty Ji Fanghuai felt, because she still hadn’t found the engagement ring.

She had searched carefully inside and outside the bedroom these past few days, but the ring was nowhere to be seen.

She distinctly remembered throwing it towards the bedroom door from the bed. The ring should either still be in the bedroom or have bounced into the living room, but she couldn’t find it. Ji Fanghuai planned to move the sofa later to check.

Jiang Zhi then added, “These are our old photos together.”

Ji Fanghuai looked at the photos of a youthful-looking Jiang Zhi, unable to resist comparing them to the current her. The Jiang Zhi in the photos looked a bit aloof, while the current Jiang Zhi was like a ripe fruit—very tempting.

Ji Fanghuai suppressed those distracting thoughts and continued looking at the photos. From the shooting angle, it was obvious that most of them were initiated by her, as she was in the front and Jiang Zhi was behind, using the front-facing camera of a phone.

She joked, “You’re so calculating, deliberately hiding behind me to make your face look smaller.”

At the time, her face still had baby fat, and she was closer to the lens, making her face look a size bigger than Jiang Zhi’s.

Jiang Zhi said helplessly, “You insisted on dragging me to take these photos, so of course I was in the back.”

Ji Fanghuai didn’t care about that. She wanted to see what a young Jiang Zhi looked like, but after searching for a long time, she found no childhood photos. Besides their photos together, there were a few single shots of her, obviously taken by Jiang Zhi, some of which might even have been secretly taken.

When taking those earlier photos together, Jiang Zhi probably hadn’t realized her feelings for her yet; her eyes were deliberately focused on the camera. But in the later photos, Jiang Zhi’s gaze had changed.

Ji Fanghuai finished looking at the photos, then organized them like treasures, planning to keep them safe. These were her past memories, and perhaps they could help her recover them.

She said, “This one is folded.”

She pulled out a photo with a crease.

Jiang Zhi said nonchalantly, “It’s fine, I have a whole album of backups.”

Ji Fanghuai: “…”

Ji Fanghuai’s biggest worry right now was still the engagement ring. She hadn’t been wearing a ring these past few days, and Jiang Zhi hadn’t asked, but she knew that pair of rings held a different kind of significance.

The house was only so big, yet she couldn’t find it. While Jiang Zhi was putting the photos away, Ji Fanghuai moved the sofa out, hoping the ring had bounced from the bedroom and into the sofa’s gap.

Jiang Zhi asked curiously, “What are you looking for?”

Ji Fanghuai quickly straightened up and said, “Nothing.”

She regretted not taking a closer look when she threw the ring back then; otherwise, she wouldn’t still be looking for it now.

Unfortunately, she was a terrible liar, and Jiang Zhi didn’t believe her at all. Ji Fanghuai had no choice but to confess, “I’m looking for the engagement ring. I threw it in a fit of anger before, and I don’t know where it went. I have to find it today.”

She was determined to win against that ring.

Jiang Zhi smiled and said, “If you really can’t find it, don’t worry about it. Hold out your hand.”

Ji Fanghuai obediently held out her hand. Jiang Zhi then said, “Close your eyes.”

Ji Fanghuai dutifully closed her eyes.

Jiang Zhi took off her own ring and carefully placed it onto Ji Fanghuai’s finger.