Sweet Gardenia - Chapter 22

The seat was empty, but the devil was in the world.

“No,” Lu Zhi looked at the sofa, “unless you let me cancel those fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll let you cancel them.”

“Really?”

“Mm.”

Suspiciously, she walked over, worried he was setting another trap. After all, she hadn’t… lain on him before. She said, “Do you want to turn off the lights?”

He was straightforward: “If I turned off the lights, kissing wouldn’t be the only thing happening today.”

“…”

Before Lu Zhi could find the right angle, his arm locked around her waist, his tongue instantly slipping inside. She couldn’t tilt her head back, so she had to lean further into him, sinking deeper. The taste of sea salt mixed with the coolness of mint surged wildly in her mouth. His other hand rested on the nape of her neck, gently stroking. Because of their position, his tongue delved deeper than ever before. Her mind turned to mush, as it always did when they kissed, and she instinctively moved, following the rhythm they’d practiced earlier. She tasted the faint lemon flavor at the root of his tongue, a sensation that gradually overwhelmed her senses. Realizing something, she almost pulled back immediately, but he pressed her back in, the sound of their kisses intense and unmistakable.

She had no idea how long they kissed.  Perhaps it finally reached the fifteen-minute mark. Breathless, she collapsed against his ear, gasping heavily. She could feel his kisses, damp with their mingled wetness, softly landing on the side of her neck. “You’re so clever, my dear. You learn so quickly.”

…

Her fingers tightened instinctively, feeling all the blood rush to her head. Her back burned with intense shame, as if her soul had left her body. If she could, she’d stay here forever, never having to face anyone again, and just die like this. It would be fine.

…

Had she imagined it, or had he really called her that?

Her thoughts were a chaotic mess. Unfortunately, she couldn’t just lie here until she died. Once she caught her breath, they got into the car.

She didn’t even have the nerve to ask, “Have you finished handling that important document?”

As he started the car, he received a call. The moment he answered, his grandfather roared, “It’s midnight and you’re still not home! What are you trying to do? Come to Li Lake Villa to collect my corpse?!”

Lu Zhi: “…”

Fu Yanshang: “I’m with her.”

She didn’t hear the rest of the conversation.

So now it was back to “her,” was it? Lu Zhi looked out the window, wondering if she had truly imagined it earlier.

Old man. So annoying.

By the time she snapped out of her daze and realized something was off, Fu Yanshang had been watching her for a while, and it seemed he had even said something.

She had completely tuned him out and only now turned to him. “Huh?”

“I said, we’ll be home soon. Do you want to stop by the supermarket to buy something?”

She was instantly alert, scrutinizing him almost immediately.

Fu Yanshang paused for a moment. “I meant it in a very proper way.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything else,” Lu Zhi said quickly, “and besides, in the office, you…”

She cut herself off abruptly. Fu Yanshang smoothly drove the car out of the garage and leaned back in his seat, asking her, “I what?”

You asked for it.

“You were doing things unrelated to work in the office. You’ll think about it often from now on,” she said earnestly. “Such special events will distract you from your work in the future.”

He kept his eyes on the road. “This will only motivate me to work harder in the future.”

“…”

–

Zhou Tian went out for work, and Lu Zhi was at home receiving drafts from the illustrator. After handling all her WeChat tasks, she started a movie as background noise while she slept.

The house was empty.  Uncle Zong and the aunties had all gone out. A light drizzle began outside, making it the perfect weather for sleeping. After finishing her work, she felt a bit dizzy from the busyness.

The movie poster hadn’t seemed too bad, but unexpectedly, the film contained some horror scenes. She fast-forwarded and paused several times before finally finishing it.

Now she felt even sleepier. She lay down and, before she knew it, drifted off.

She woke up startled by a nightmare. Her heart sank heavily, her mind felt like a muddled mess, and before she could even process the lingering fear from the dream, her fingers had already instinctively dialed a number.

Her WeChat vibrated twice in her hand before she snapped back to reality and quickly ended the call.

An inexplicable fear and confusion swirled wildly in her mind. She wasn’t fully awake yet, and it took her a while to regain her senses.

She stared blankly at the call screen.

…She’d had a nightmare, but why had she called Fu Yanshang?

Lu Zhi stared at her phone in a daze. As doubts arose, fragments of the dream flickered in and out of her mind. At least it was just a dream, she thought, pressing her fingertips to her forehead, still shaken.

Her phone vibrated again in her palm.

It was Fu Yanshang calling back.

She bit her lip. She had hung up after just two rings.  He probably hadn’t noticed and assumed she’d been waiting a long time.

She answered the call, groggily getting up to turn on the living room light and pour herself a glass of warm water. She heard him ask, “Why did you hang up?”

She paused for a moment before replying, “So you noticed.”

“My phone was on the desk. You hung up before I could answer.”

“Oh, well… it’s nothing,” she said. “Go back to your work. I don’t want to disturb you.”

“How can I focus on work when you’re like this?”

Not wanting to make a big deal out of it, and still not fully understanding why she’d called him, Lu Zhi replied simply, “It’s just that there’s no one at home, and I had a scary dream. I accidentally called you. It’s fine now. I won’t go back to sleep.”

He hummed in acknowledgment. “Still no one home now?”

She listened for a moment. “Seems not.”

“Then keep the call connected,” he said. “Sleep if you want. My meeting is almost over, and I’ll be home soon.”

She murmured an “okay,” unsure if she actually wanted to sleep again. From the sounds on his end, he seemed to be in his office attending an online meeting. Perhaps it wasn’t his turn to speak yet, which was why he could call her back.

She disliked being interrupted while working, so she wisely refrained from disturbing him further. Arguing over who should hang up first would only prolong things, so she said nothing more.

On the other end, she could hear his steady breathing and the sound of typing. Was it an international meeting? Was he typing in English? Lost in thought, she lay back down on the bed. The rhythmic sound of keyboard clicks was strangely hypnotic. Even though she’d decided not to sleep, drowsiness crept over her once more.

When she woke again, she could hear voices downstairs, and Fu Yanshang was in the bedroom, having just taken off his coat.

She blinked and noticed a flash of silver. Pointing at his chest pocket, she asked, “Why haven’t you taken off your fountain pen yet?”

He followed her gaze and, after a moment, said, “…Forgot.”

She nodded, sitting up while wrapped in the blanket, her mind slowly booting up from its dormant state.

As he loosened his tie, he asked, “What was the nightmare about?”

She lowered her head. “If I tell you, you’ll definitely laugh. I’m not saying.”

He raised an eyebrow, giving her a displeased look.

“Really, it’s nothing,” Lu Zhi insisted. “You don’t need to hear it.”

“If I describe it to you like this,” he paused, “would you be more interested in listening?”

“Then you can’t discriminate against me.”

For some reason, he chuckled.

“Little girl, it’s perfectly normal to be afraid of these things.”

Lu Zhi said seriously, “I dreamed that zombies were eating my brain.”

“…”

“And they were eating really loudly, seriously.”

“…………”

–

That night, when she fell asleep, Fu Yanshang was still working. She turned on the aromatherapy diffuser to soothe her nerves and, fortunately, didn’t dream again of zombies eyeing her brain greedily.

The next day at the studio, during lunch, she brought up the topic with Li Siyi. Li Siyi suddenly seemed electrified, waving her arms excitedly: “You reminded me, I had a similar experience once when I was in an online relationship. I had a nightmare and called my online crush.”

“So it’s normal, right?” Lu Zhi said, “What did he say?”

“He wasn’t as good as your husband. He told me not to call him out of the blue next time,” Li Siyi’s mouth twitched downward uncontrollably. “But maybe it was because he was in his last year of high school, about to take the college entrance exam, and his family was strict. He was probably afraid they’d find out he was dating.”

“…”

Lu Zhi: “What kind of relationship were you even in?”

“A relationship with a younger guy, is that not allowed?!”

Lu Zhi lowered her head, picking at the potato chunks in her bowl, thinking uncertainly that she seemed to be getting a little dependent on him.

Not good.

In the afternoon, they moved on to reviewing player feedback. The closed beta storyline was gradually improving, and they had added limited-time dating events, among other features. The feedback this time pointed out that the character movements during the dating segments weren’t natural enough.

Lu Zhi dragged the animation back and forth: “To be honest, they’re a bit off.”

Li Siyi: “But we’ve already hired a pretty expensive modeler. If we want someone better, we might have to try reaching out to those in the animation industry.”

“Do we have enough time?”

“It’s a bit tight.”

She spent the whole afternoon searching and finally found a modeler from the animation industry who had also worked on character modeling for some highly popular games, with excellent reviews.

Unfortunately, their bio on Weibo already stated that they were no longer taking on freelance projects.

Li Siyi: “I see their IP is in Su City, and their studio doesn’t seem too far away. It’s about a 40-minute drive. Why don’t we go there tomorrow and try to talk to them?”

“Alright, meeting in person might increase our chances of success.”

After finalizing the next day’s plans, Lu Zhi kept thinking on her way home that she needed to get Fu Yanshang’s contract signed as soon as possible, especially since the game was about to launch.

Coincidentally, not long after she got home, Li Siyi sent her a long list of shares. Curious, Lu Zhi clicked on it and found it was from a popular relationship blogger sharing tips on how to keep the spark alive in her marriage. Lu Zhi started feeling drowsy after just three seconds and instinctively swiped to look for new videos.

But after a moment, as if rationality returned, Fu Yanshang saw her swipe back to the video. Still, she couldn’t help yawning as she found the comment section’s summarized “commonly used phrases to charm men,” casually copied several of them, and pasted them into her frequently used quotes.

She also opened the chat window with him, rehearsing how to paste them as quickly as possible.

Fu Yanshang: “…”

“Instead of copying and pasting all this nonsense whenever you remember,” he said, “why not do something practical?”