After Trying To Pursue The Cold, Elegant Beauty. I Ended Up Being Flirted With Instead - Chapter 40

It was rare for Li Zhiyun to be so direct.

Six years ago…

Some forgotten scenes suddenly rushed into her mind.

In high school, for a period, Wen Zhu would occasionally talk about someone else. She had looked that person up just a transfer student from Hong Kong City who would leave sometime, she hadn’t paid any attention to her.

Yet, it was this transfer student who gave Wen Zhu the first idea of leaving the Pei family, of leaving her under her wings…

She had gone to see that transfer student.

Those cold eyes now eerily overlapped with Li Zhiyun’s gaze.

Pei Xiubai stared, wide eyed in disbelief: “It’s you?”

How could it be Li Zhiyun?

So, Li Zhiyun had been appearing by Wen Zhu’s side even from that early time?

Seeing the dramatic changes in Pei Xiubai’s expression, the mockery on Li Zhiyun’s lips deepened. “It seems President Pei remembers.”

She reached out, pushed away the hand Pei Xiubai was clutching on her collar, and slowly and methodically straightened her clothing.

A simple action, performed by her, radiated an innate noble aura.

“Pei Xiubai,” Li Zhiyun’s voice was very calm. “In matters of the heart, there is no first come, first served. No one will wait for you forever.”

With that, she turned and walked away, not looking back.

She thought Wen Zhu must have gone straight to her house. She needed to hurry back; she shouldn’t let her wait too long.

After Li Zhiyun left, Pei Xiubai stood frozen in place alone, head lowered, making her expression unreadable.

Behind her, Jiang Xinxin looked at Pei Xiubai’s back, unsure whether she should step forward.

She really wanted to ask, was Pei Xiubai truly here to take Wen Zhu back for marriage?

Then what about her? What did she count for?

Didn’t Pei Xiubai say that she was the one she loved most and that she would give her a proper status?

But seeing Pei Xiubai looking so dejected, Jiang Xinxin ultimately swallowed all her bitterness.

She walked up, gently looped her arm through Pei Xiubai’s, and spoke in a very soft voice: “President Pei, it’s cold outside. Shall we go back first?”

On the other side, at the Li family home.

As Li Zhiyun reached the doorway, she heard Wen Zhu and Jiaojiao’s laughter coming from the living room.

“No, no, Aunt Wen, your pronunciation is so strange!”

It seemed Jiaojiao was teaching Wen Zhu to speak Cantonese (Hong Kong City dialect), but Wen Zhu wasn’t doing well, and Jiaojiao was seizing the opportunity to tease her.

Li Zhiyun stood outside the door for a moment, listening to Wen Zhu’s clear laughter inside. She wasn’t sad.

She curved her lips, pushed the door open, and walked in.

“Auntie, you’re back!”

Jiaojiao’s eyes lit up the moment she saw her, and she immediately waved. “Hurry, hurry! Come listen to Aunt Wen speak Cantonese; it’s hilarious! She actually pronounced ‘I like you’ as ‘I’ll kill you’!”

Jiaojiao was still tattling, and Wen Zhu’s face flushed slightly in embarrassment, frantically signaling with her eyes.

Ahhh, shut up, please!

Li Zhiyun walked over and sat down naturally beside Wen Zhu.

She looked at Wen Zhu and repeated in standard Cantonese: “It’s Ngo zung yi nei (I like you).”

Good heavens…

Wen Zhu’s legs felt a little weak.

When Li Zhiyun spoke Cantonese, her tone was a degree lower than usual, and the end of her words lifted slightly, like a feather lightly sweeping across one’s heart.

It carried an intense, whiskey-like depth of affection.

Wen Zhu forced herself to calm down, telling herself that the other person was just correcting her pronunciation, and she shouldn’t overthink it!

But she still felt her cheeks heating up. She averted her eyes and changed the subject: “Did you… go for a walk?”

Li Zhiyun’s gaze fell upon her reddened earlobes. She shook her head.

“I went to pick you up.”

She paused, then added: “But I didn’t expect you to have already arrived.”

It was rare for Li Zhiyun to be so direct.

Wen Zhu was stunned and looked up at her.

Li Zhiyun, however, no longer looked at her. Instead, she reached out and hugged Jiaojiao, who had rushed over, and asked with a smile, “Should Auntie and Aunt Wen have the next game, alright?”

Jiaojiao tilted her head in confusion.

Didn’t Auntie call Aunt Wen over to play chess with her?

Why was it turning into a match between her and Aunt Wen?

Wen Zhu knew that Li Zhiyun’s skill in chess was far superior to hers.

She would probably lose badly, but she didn’t mind. She just smiled. “Alright.”

There was a ready made chessboard on the second floor balcony.

The two sat across a pear wood zhaomu table. Jiaojiao, having brought a bowl of pre-cut honeydew melon from somewhere, sat beside them, swinging her little legs and acting as the referee.

It was still Wen Zhu’s turn to play Black and make the first move.

She played very seriously. For a time, the only sounds on the balcony were the crisp click of the stones landing on the board and Jiaojiao’s crunching of the melon.

But her approach was still rusty; every move was slow.

In contrast, Li Zhiyun placed her pieces quickly, yet her gaze wasn’t solely on the board, as if she were thinking about something else.

Soon, Wen Zhu realized she was once again cornered into a death trap.

But as she played, she sensed something strange.

The opponent’s White pieces had clearly formed an encircling force. With just one more move, she could completely devour her Black pieces, ending the game cleanly and swiftly.

But Li Zhiyun deliberately avoided it. Every time, at the last moment, she intentionally left a slight gap, allowing her pieces a chance to breathe.

Was this some kind of malicious pleasure for her opponent?

She secretly looked up and caught sight of Li Zhiyun as she lowered her eyes to place a piece, her eyelashes casting shallow shadows on her eyelids.

Wen Zhu didn’t know, and Wen Zhu dared not ask.

She could only continue placing her pieces in silence, attempting a counterattack in the face of desperation.

But her limited skill was truly insufficient against Li Zhiyun.

Every struggle was like fluttering within a net the other person had already laid out, only dragging herself deeper.

The board was almost full. Wen Zhu finally couldn’t hold it in anymore.

She looked up and asked the confusion in her heart: “Miss Li, you could have won long ago. Why… have you consistently left me room for a living piece?”

The moment she finished speaking, Li Zhiyun seemed as if she had been waiting for this exact question.

She poured Wen Zhu a glass of water and gently placed it on her left side.

Then she lowered her gaze, her voice very soft: “Go chess emphasizes choice and sacrifice, but some pieces, even if they harm the overall situation, one is unwilling to easily give up.”

As her words fell, she placed a stone, securely protecting the weak Black pieces on Wen Zhu’s board that were about to be consumed.

Just like some people once you meet them, you cannot bear to let them fall into a difficult situation.

Her words were spoken lightly, but every single character was like a small stone, heavily dropping into Wen Zhu’s heart.

The black jade chess piece in her palm began to feel hot.

This feeling came out of nowhere, surging like a tide, instantly drowning her.

She seemed to have seen a scene like this somewhere, heard words like this, seen a profile like this.

Her memory felt like a tape being rewound, suddenly drifting back to her high school days.

She attended a very good international high school. When Pei Xiubai was idle, she joined the equestrian club. Learning to ride required expensive equipment, and the maintenance fees for the horses were exorbitant.

Wen Zhu, an orphan living under someone else’s roof, didn’t dare to go.

But she had to wait for Pei Xiubai to finish school and go home together.

So, after careful consideration, she eventually found a club she could join for free the Go club.

She actually quite liked Go.

In the Go club, people rarely spoke; they just looked down and played. Only at times like these could Wen Zhu feel her heart settle down.

But the Go club wasn’t always so peaceful.

Because there was a transfer student in the club.

Every day, people would come outside the Go club, just to see her.

She was reportedly from Hong Kong City and had won the World Go Tournament championship at a young age.

She was only temporarily transferring there because she had to attend an important competition and couldn’t fall behind in her schoolwork.

She seemed to be unaccustomed to the local environment and always wore a mask, covering most of her face, her eyes clear and cold, radiating an air of aloofness that kept people away.

Wen Zhu knew of this person but had never exchanged many words with her.

Until one day, she couldn’t find an opponent.

That transfer student sat down across from her.

It was near dusk, and the spring peach blossoms were in full bloom.

The wind outside the window lifted the ends of her hair. Her voice was as cold as she was.

“Classmate Wen, please guide me.”

Too familiar.

In that game, the favored girl across from her also seemed to pour her a glass of water like this, step by step allowing her to survive until the very end.

And then, she said the exact same words to her.

“Some pieces, even if they harm the overall situation, one is unwilling to easily give up.”

With a “buzzing” sound.

It was as if a string had snapped in her mind.

The smooth black Go piece slipped from her fingertips.

With a “clink,” it dropped into the glass cup in front of her.

The water surface rippled outward in circles, mirroring the trembling of her heart’s lake at this moment.