My Favorite Ship Became My Sister-in-Law - Chapter 25

Shi Yue got out of the car and closed the door with a firm but gentle thud. Standing by the roadside, he waved goodbye to Ji Chenchuan through the open window. Ji Chenchuan gave a slight nod and drove away. Shi Yue watched until the car disappeared into the flow of traffic before heading toward his tutoring center.

Once class was finished, Shi Yue did not take a taxi home. Instead, he asked the driver to go to the construction materials market. He planned to ambush Ji Chenchuan and see what he was doing.

Shi Yue had the taxi stop ten meters away from the storefront. He stepped out with his backpack, instinctively tiptoeing as he always did when he was about to commit a small prank. He crept toward the store, planning to scare Ji Chenchuan, but to his surprise, Ji Chenchuan had already spotted him the moment he reached the door.

Ji Chenchuan was sitting on a leather sofa in the reception area talking to a client. Since his seat faced the entrance directly, Shi Yue was caught the second he arrived. Because he was in the middle of a business negotiation, Ji Chenchuan did not call out to him, acknowledging him only with a slightly surprised glance.

His plan having failed, Shi Yue pouted his lips in dissatisfaction and entered the store. He did not want to be a disturbance, so he sat quietly on a chair next to the cashier counter and listened to the conversation between Ji Chenchuan and the clients.

The clients were a man and a woman. The woman was around thirty years old, dressed provocatively, and her delicate features were clearly the result of high-end plastic surgery. The man was portly and old enough to be her father, but their tightly interlaced fingers made it obvious they were lovers.

After listening for a while, Shi Yue noticed that the woman kept intentionally asking irrelevant questions to draw Ji Chenchuan’s attention. Whenever he answered, she would strike a pose or act in an affected, flirtatious manner. Zhang Ping was also present, and every time she did this, he worked even harder to distract the man so that the boyfriend would not notice her blatant seduction of Ji Chenchuan.

Ji Chenchuan shot several warning glances at Zhang Ping, but Zhang Ping intentionally ignored them. Ji Chenchuan suppressed his rising anger, nearly wanting to kick them out; this deal was not worth the trouble.

“I want to install spotlights in the bedroom. I like the feeling of being followed by light when I dance on the bed; it makes me feel like we are the only two people left in the world,” the woman said coquettishly to the man, while simultaneously casting a flirtatious glance at Ji Chenchuan. “Do you think my idea is good?” she asked Ji Chenchuan in a sweet voice.

Ji Chenchuan’s family only sold materials and did not handle renovations, so this was yet another irrelevant question. The man, completely oblivious to the fact that his girlfriend was hitting on Ji Chenchuan, thought she was being thoughtful and agreed with everything she said.

Ji Chenchuan’s patience reached its breaking point. He was just about to kick them out when Shi Yue, who could also no longer stand the display, let out a loud, intentional cough. This unexpected interruption stopped Ji Chenchuan’s next move.

Both Ji Chenchuan and the woman looked at Shi Yue. Shi Yue gave a fake, sheepish smile.

“Did you choke?” Ji Chenchuan asked urgently.

Shi Yue was wearing a short-sleeved school uniform today. Beneath the loose sleeves, the perfect muscle lines of a young man were visible. The woman seemed to have discovered a new, delicious prey; she smiled suggestively at Shi Yue and began making provocative, enticing movements.

The anger Ji Chenchuan had been suppressing finally exploded. He pointed at Shi Yue and said to the woman, “He is my brother. He is in his second year of high school, probably about the same age as your child. Have some decency, Madam.”

Shi Yue looked at Ji Chenchuan in shock. He had never realized Ji Chenchuan could be so cutting with his words; the woman was likely to be fuming.

Sure enough, the woman’s face turned red with shame and rage. She was only thirty, and Ji Chenchuan saying her child was as old as Shi Yue was a blatant insult to her age. She stomped her high heels in anger and dragged the man away. The man was baffled; the conversation had been going well, so he did not understand why she had suddenly lost her temper and demanded to leave.

Seeing the “cooked duck” fly away, Zhang Ping was extremely agitated, saying Ji Chenchuan was too impulsive and should not offend clients. Ji Chenchuan knew the reason for Zhang Ping’s excitement was simply the loss of a commission. He gave Zhang Ping a meaningful look. “Uncle-in-law, my family is in the construction materials business, not the people-selling business.” Remembering Ji Chenchuan’s repeated warning glances, Zhang Ping was too intimidated to speak further.

Shi Yue had never seen Ji Chenchuan so serious, and he was almost too afraid to make a sound. He watched Ji Chenchuan silently, only to see Ji Chenchuan’s expression soften the moment he looked at him. Ji Chenchuan took the car keys from the cashier drawer and said warmly, “Come on, I will take you out to eat.”

“How did you know I had not eaten yet?” Shi Yue asked with a smile as he followed him.

“You finish class at eleven-thirty, and now it is twelve-thirty. It takes fifty minutes to get here from your tutoring center, so ten minutes is not enough time for you to eat.”

Shi Yue had only asked casually, but he had not expected Ji Chenchuan to have calculated the time so precisely.

There was a food street near the materials market, about a twenty-minute drive away. Ji Chenchuan took Shi Yue directly there. Shi Yue looked at him in surprise. Since He Lin decided he should take the path of competition for guaranteed admission, he had endless classes and exams to the point where he had almost lost his natural craving for delicious food.

“Do not just stand there. Eat whatever you want; it is my treat,” Ji Chenchuan said with a smile.

“Chenchuan-ge, why are you so good to me?” Shi Yue’s heart felt warm. He thought that no one else in the world understood him as well as Ji Chenchuan did; he knew what Shi Yue wanted without any reminders or requests.

“There are those cold skewers you like. Do you want some?” Ji Chenchuan did not answer the question because it was one he could not answer right now. Instead, he pointed to a cold skewer stall.

“Yes, of course!” Shi Yue had a brilliant smile on his face. “And I want twenty skewers today. Since you are paying, I am going to make you go broke.”

Ji Chenchuan smiled slightly. Cold skewers were only one yuan each, so this “making him go broke” was a bit of an understatement. Shi Yue walked to the stall and ordered twenty skewers.

After eating something spicy, he wanted something sweet. Shi Yue was certain the cold skewer stall and the hand-rubbed sparkling iced jelly shop next door shared the same owner. Shi Yue and Ji Chenchuan each ordered a bowl of iced jelly and sat facing each other. The shops on the food street did not have indoor seating, so customers used the communal tables in the middle.

It was peak lunch hour, and the street was incredibly lively. While Shi Yue was asking Ji Chenchuan to guess if the owners were the same, he noticed two long-haired girls at the next table glancing over from time to time and whispering. Finally, they stood up and walked toward Ji Chenchuan.

When they reached him, one girl pushed the other forward, encouraging her to be brave. The girl looked quite shy and said in a small voice to Ji Chenchuan, “Handsome, can I add you on WeChat?”

Ji Chenchuan was just putting a spoonful of iced jelly into his mouth. Hearing this, he looked up at the girl and was about to say something when Shi Yue beat him to it.

“He does not add friends. Why don’t you add me instead?” Shi Yue smiled at the girl before shifting his gaze to Ji Chenchuan. “Right, Chenchuan-ge?”

When he said the word “ge,” Shi Yue intentionally drew out the sound. He had never used such a tender and lingering tone to call Ji Chenchuan before. Ji Chenchuan’s hand holding the spoon tightened imperceptibly. He looked at Shi Yue with a half-smile and gave a soft “Mm” before politely telling the girl he did not add strangers. The girl looked back and forth between them, and the subtle atmosphere made her feel as if she were intruding on a couple. Her face turned bright red, and she quickly ran off with her friend.

“No need to thank me; I knew you did not want to add her.” A look of mischief appeared in Shi Yue’s curved eyes. Before Ji Chenchuan could respond, he said mockingly, “But seriously, Chenchuan-ge, you attract too many ‘bees and butterflies.’ In the future, your girlfriend might have to spend all her time fighting off others all over the world.”

“Is that so? Then you should get prepared.”

“Huh?”

Ji Chenchuan spoke so suddenly that Shi Yue did not hear him clearly. He asked for clarification, but Ji Chenchuan did not repeat himself. A handsome arc formed at the corners of his mouth as he stood up to order two plates of fresh shrimp dumplings from a nearby shop—Shi Yue’s favorite.

By the end of the meal, Shi Yue felt he had lost out; he had satisfied his taste buds but stuffed his stomach to the point of discomfort. He had to walk back and forth in the store to help his digestion. Ji Chenchuan could not help but laugh. Seeing him laugh, Shi Yue grumbled that Ji Chenchuan had tempted him with food and caused him to overeat.

While they were bickering, they heard the screech of brakes as a silver pickup truck stopped in front of the store. A man covered in plaster got out, and before he even entered the store, his loud voice boomed inside, saying he needed to restock.

It was clearly an old client. Ji Chenchuan took a pack of Chunghwa cigarettes from the drawer. Once the man entered, he stood up unhurriedly, greeted him, and handed him a cigarette. To avoid interfering with the business, Shi Yue stepped aside.

Seeing that Ji Chenchuan was an unfamiliar face, the man assumed he was new and might not know the ropes. He originally wanted to ask for Zhang Ping, but after a short chat with Ji Chenchuan, his opinion immediately changed. He listed the goods he needed, and Ji Chenchuan noted them down on paper.

“That was fast,” the man said in surprise. Ji Chenchuan asked the man to drive to the warehouse and called for workers to load the goods.

A moment later, two porters arrived. The man was not restocking much—just over a ton of bricks. They expected the loading to take half an hour, but just as they started, one porter received a call from his wife saying she was in labor and needed him to get to the hospital immediately. The porter looked anxious and conflicted.

“Adding a new member to the family is a good thing,” Ji Chenchuan said, letting the porter leave for the hospital.

“If you let him go, who is going to load my truck?” the man asked Ji Chenchuan. He said he was in a hurry and urged him to move faster.

“I will call someone else,” Ji Chenchuan said. “In this situation, how can you not let him leave?”

However, after three calls to other porters, all of them were busy loading for other shops. Without a word, Ji Chenchuan took off his jacket, placed it on the counter, and prepared to load the truck himself, wearing only his white ribbed undershirt.

Loading required two people: one to carry the goods to the truck and another to stack them. Shi Yue had been standing nearby, but seeing Ji Chenchuan preparing to load, he ran over to stop him. “Chenchuan-ge, your injury just healed. Let me help you load; you go rest.”

“It is too dirty, covered in dust.” Looking at Shi Yue’s bright white school uniform, Ji Chenchuan told him to step aside, saying he would just make a few extra trips and carry less each time. Zhang Ping, seeing this and fearing he would be asked to help, quickly hid away.

Shi Yue refused to budge. Knowing he could not convince Ji Chenchuan with words, he simply followed behind him and began carrying goods to the truck. Ji Chenchuan could do nothing about him. A pack of bricks weighed thirty pounds; he only allowed Shi Yue to carry two at a time, while he carried four.

Ji Chenchuan’s powerful arms gripped the bottom-most pack with the other three stacked on top. The effort caused the veins in his arms to bulge with an enticing strength, and the firm abdominal muscles beneath his shirt were outlined in the shape of bricks. Shi Yue was secretly amazed; he had never realized Ji Chenchuan’s physique was this good.