Even if there were 100, 1000 things that you don’t want to do, ultimately An Ran still pathetically came to work with a scarf wrapped around her neck. She even felt the stares upon entering the building, the receptionist stared at her strangely until she entered her office. She was practically red-faced and kept her head down until she entered her office.
“Hu…” She let out a long sigh. An Ran sits down, starts her computer, and places her briefcase on top of the desk, taking out all the materials that she had brought home yesterday.
She hadn’t even taken the next breath yet, when someone knocks on her door. It was Chen Cheng.
An Ran raises her voice and says, “Come in.”
Chen Cheng opens the door and enters, and passes on the document in her hands. She says, “This is the progress report from the yesterday’s trip.”
An Ran accepts it, and browses through it. She nods, “Okay, I got it. This afternoon come with me to meet Constructor Chen, regarding this manor project, when the time comes you can come with me to take a look at it. If there are any opinions or suggestions, we can all discuss it together.”
“You’re letting me take part in your project?” Chen Cheng was surprised, after all she was new, she was prepared to make tea, get water, retrieve documents and what not for the first month at the least.
An Ran raises her head, looks at her in the eye, and faintly asks, “Not confident?” A small smile appeared on her face.
“Of course I’m confident.” Chen Cheng says confidently. She always had full confidence in her profession.
An Ran nods, and takes out a copy of the blueprint from her drawer and hands it over to her, “This is the blueprint, take a look at it first, in the afternoon we’ll go to the sample room together.”
Chen Cheng accepts it with both hands, and notices that scarf that was wrapped around her neck. In this weather, why she is dressing up this way made her suddenly feel uncomfortable. She couldn’t help but be curious, and ask, “Gu jie, um, today’s weather is forecasted to be 28 degrees.”
The implication behind that speech was, wrapping yourself in a scarf like that, aren’t you hot?
An Ran was taken aback. Her face turns red, she started to feel uncomfortable. A while later does she awkwardly cough and says, “Cough, um, that, last night I forgot to close the window before I went to sleep. When I woke up today I felt like I was catching a cold, and felt, felt a bit cold.” As she says that, she was afraid she wouldn’t be convinced, and so deliberately coughed a few more times, and even rubbed her arms.
Anyone can tell that those were lame excuses. Chen Cheng tried her best to look like she was convinced and suppresses her laugh, but her mouth couldn’t help but curve up into a good-looking curve. She hugs the blueprint to her chest, nods, and says, “Then I’ll take my leave first.”
An Ran quickly nods, “En en, you can go.” Her face was incredibly red. She didn’t need a mirror, according to the heat on her face, she can see that her face was definitely as red as a tomato right now.
Until Chen Cheng had left, An Ran quickly grabbed the scarf around her neck, and used her hand to fan down her face. She had also seen the weather forecast last night, today really was going to be 28 degrees or even higher!
Her entire body was heated up, the little wind generated from her hand wasn’t even enough to alleviate the heat on her face. She goes into the drawer and takes out the remote control to the air-con, and sets it at its lowest temperature. Finally, after much difficulty, her face started cooling down. Sitting in front of her desk, An Ran couldn’t even process the documents and materials in her hands.
She felt that she should carefully think over Su Yi Cheng’s issue. He indeed is good. Not only can he cook, to her there was nothing fussy about him. She can’t deny it, he indeed is the rare good man. That she could marry him, she sincerely felt that she was fortunate enough. But, apart from one thing, towards his husband and wife duties his request for it was too much, no, it should be he needed it too excessively! He clearly goes to work every day, compared to the average person the pressures of work should be several times, no, ten times greater, but how is his energy so great every day! She doesn’t get it, really doesn’t get it!
Perhaps, she really needs to come up of a method to control this aspect, otherwise, sooner or later she thinks that she will be tormented to death, moreover, like today, this definitely won’t be the only time!
While An Ran was racking her brains on how to control Su Yi Cheng’s desire, she caught a glimpse of the rules and guidelines book on the table. An idea came to mind. Perhaps she could look at it to learn through the management of the company’s regulations.
As she thought about it she really will do it, as the printer was printing out a ‘preliminary agreement/ 3 basic rules’, An Ran raises her brows in satisfaction. She intends to give Su Yi Cheng this ‘preliminary agreement’ tonight and have him sign this.
When it was noon An Ran hadn’t eaten lunch yet, the main thing was that she felt too embarrassed, so she could only ring up the receptionist, and have her order a lunch box for her.
These days, she had gotten used to Su Yi Cheng’s cooking. Eating this lunchbox, it really wasn’t chewable. The Chinese cabbage became citron daylily, the meat you had to chew forever, and the nori soup, tasted like plain boiled water, no flavour at all.
An Ran felt that she wasn’t one who wasted food, but this lunchbox, actually was quite unpalatable and very hard to swallow. Finally, An Ran couldn’t force herself anymore, and covered up the lunch box. She takes a big sip of her coffee.
At this time, a quarrel started to erupt from outside. With such a large cafeteria downstairs, most would go out to eat. At the corner, Ling Lin and Chen Cheng stood beside An Ran’s sample model of the manor project. As they quarrelled their faces were somewhat red.
“You again, Chen Cheng why are you so persistent.” One of her arm was captured by Chen Cheng, as Ling Lin spoke sharply.
Chen Cheng stared at her, clucking her tongue as she asks, “If you don’t want anyone to know it is impossible, what are you trying to do, destroy this model?”
Back then she and Ling Lin went to school together. When they graduated, she secretly destroyed her model, and even stole her blueprint.
“Why do you care what I do, you better hurry and let me go, or else, you better believe that I will tell Huang De Xing to fire you!” Ling Lin refuted arrogantly. Her tone was menacing.
“What, are you gonna use your position to threaten others, are you gonna bring out your father mayor? Back then because of you I couldn’t go to Shen Zhen, now are you going to push me out of Jing Cheng? Ling Lin, apart from the fact that you have a powerful father, what else do you have?” Chen Cheng looked at her as she spoke. She was irate. She tightened her hold on her arm.
“Hiss---!” Ling Lin couldn’t help but groan, doing everything she could to throw her off. She shouted, “You shrew, let go of me!”
Chen Cheng does not let go of her arm, “I’m not letting go. I want to see, later when everyone comes back, see how well you quibble.”
“So what if they know that I destroyed the model, you think Huang De Xing will fire me? Don’t be so stupidly naïve, I am the mayor’s daughter. Huang De Xing was too late to curry favour with me, you think he will let me go? What a joke.” Ling Lin said proudly. Back then she wanted to go into the business and do an internship. Originally she wanted to go to ‘Xu Dong Construction’, but, Xu Dong was too strict, and she couldn't even pass the first round of exams. Ultimately she came here to Jing Cheng. In fact, she knew that she wasn’t architect material, she couldn’t even get the understand the basic knowledge of drawing scales, but as long as she was Ling Chuan Jiang’s daughter, Huang De Xing will give her father face, and would never fire her.
“Heh, you are so brazen and have no sense of shame. Don’t tell me you don’t even have an inkling of shame, holding your own father’s power as a weapon. In reality you don’t even understand design, during our school years you plagiarized my work!” Chen Cheng was furious, but she had no alternative, because society was just like that, Ling Lin was a golden child, she was Jiang City’s first daughter, so even though they knew that her work was plagiarized, the school board wouldn’t say anything. And she could only watch her own work get plagiarized by someone else, have someone else write their name on it, while she had no means at all.
“So what? What are you gonna do by telling the board, in the end everyone else will stand by me, this time will be exactly the same, even if you tell Huang De Xing, tell everyone, then what, you obviously experienced it before, clearly know the outcome, yet you want to do it again. Do you think I can get Huang De Xing to fire you or not?” Her face sinister, Ling Lin looked at her with menace. Then she swung her arms, and managed to shake off her grip and pulled her hand far away.
Chen Cheng couldn’t stand, and recoiled a few steps back until she caught balance again. Her arms hung down and couldn’t help but clench into a fist, glaring at Ling Lin.
Ling Lin kneads her red hand, and sneered, “Just you see if I can blacklist you from Jiang City.”
“You think you can hide the truth from everyone*.” Chen Cheng said stiffly. She understood clearly that she could, as long as she relied on the mayor’s golden title, she knew that she could do anything.
*literally ‘hide the sky with one hand’
“Heng.” Ling Lin snorted coldly, “Then wait for Huang De Xing to fire you, see whether I could hide the truth or not!”
“You won’t be able to fire her.” An Ran said steadily, walking over to them.
Hearing that, Ling Lin ad Chen Cheng were both surprised. They thought that everyone was gone and it was just them, they did not expect that An Ran was also here!
When she stood in front of them, she turned to look at Chen Cheng, then at Ling Lin. She steadily said, “I won’t let you fire her.” As she said that, she also took a look at her model, and continued, “Also, as to the fact that you wanted to destroy my model, I will tell Huang De Xing, and ask the company to investigate.”
“You dare!” Ling Lin snarled, looking at her with large eyes. Her appearance made people cautious, it was a ghastly sight.
“Why wouldn’t I dare?” An Ran said expressionlessly as she stared at her.
“You think you’re so great now that you’ve married brother Yi Cheng? Don’t forget, brother Yi Cheng is just merely the mayor’s special assistant, furthermore is under my dad, you think Huang De Xing sees brother Yi Cheng’s reputation bigger or my dad’s?” Ling Lin sneered.
“Then I’ll have to see, see if you can move Chen Cheng.” An Ran faintly smiled. Her manner of speaking was neither fast nor slow, she was calm and collected.
“Gu An Ran, you think I wouldn’t dare!” Ling Lin was breathing heavily, clearly her anger was not light.
An Ran looked at her coldly. She no longer wanted to entertain her nonsense. She advances and examines the prototype model in the glass box. Fortunately, it wasn’t destroyed yet.
She turns around and looks at Ling Lin, and just faintly says, “From now on if I see any damage to the model, doesn’t matter if it was you or not, I will, without exception, have the investigation look into you. Perhaps Huang De Xing will give Mayor Ling face, but I will not.” After she was finished she no longer paid attention to her, turns around and looks at Chen Cheng, “Come with me.” Then she walks over to her office, not at all paying attention to Ling Lin’s strange shouting and yelling.
Chen Cheng followed her into the office. She was surprised to know An Ran’s identity, she was surprised to know that she was the missus of a government official, but it was somewhat different from what she had imagined. She didn’t seem to have that overweening attitude of an official’s wife.
“You said that Ling Lin had plagiarized your work?” An Ran faintly asked.
Chen Cheng nods, “En.”
“No wonder.” An Ran muttered to herself. No wonder she felt that Ling Lin’s record differed from her usual work like sky and ground… She had plagiarized someone else’s work, it wasn’t even her design at all. “No wonder the difference was so big.”
“En, what did you say?” Chen Cheng couldn’t really hear what she had said.
An Ran shakes her head, and just says, “Nothing.” Then she tidies up the things on her desk, grabs her suitcase, and addresses her, “Shall we go, we can go take a look at the progress of the sample room.”
Chen Cheng quickly nods. She goes to her own desk and tidies up the stuff, then follows An Ran to leave.
The matter of looking over the degree of the sample room, it took the entire day to deal with it, thus by the time she returned home the sky was already dark. And Chen Cheng truly had a gift in designing, so she brought her, and she was able to point out the little problems with the sample room.
Entering, the lights in the vestibule had heard her footsteps and switched on, at the same time, the lights in the living room also turned on. It was clear that Su Yi Cheng was home, as the kitchen counter was emitting that recently-and-well-finished-steam from the dishes. It looked especially appetizing. When she looked again, she started to recall the hard-to-swallow-meal that she had earlier, and An Ran’s stomach started to grumble. She hadn’t washed her hands, didn’t even use chopsticks, and directly used her hands and grabs a piece of the dish, grabbing the sweet and sour pork and putting it directly into her mouth. The sweet and sour flavour was even better than those of famous restaurants; it was extremely good.
From behind, unbeknownst when Su Yi Cheng had come out from the studio, from behind he wraps his arms around An Ran’s waist, places his chin on her shoulder, and says, “Why’d you come home so late.”
An Ran takes another piece and puts it in her mouth, speaking with her mouth full, “Went to the construction site today, so, so came home late.” Ah ah ah, compared to the lunchbox that afternoon, An Ran simply thought that Su Yi Cheng’s craftsmanship was heavenly, it really was so delicious! As she thought that, she stretched out to grab another piece.
Su Yi Cheng nods, and releases her. When she was about to stretch out to grab another piece, he stretches out and gives her hand a light pat, smiling gently, “Wash your hands first, why are you acting like a glutton.” Eating like that without washing your hands, not using chopsticks and just using hands, it seemed as if she hadn’t eaten for several days.
An Ran mischievously pulls out her tongue, and says, “I ordered a lunchbox takeout, but it was so unpalatable, couldn’t even take a bite. It really was too unpalatable.”
Su Yi Cheng teasingly pinches her nose, and says, “Wash your hands first, we can eat right after.”
“Okay.” An Ran enthusiastically nods, and goes around the counter towards the kitchen. She turns on the tap and washes her hands, then turns around and takes a seat in front of the counter. Su Yi Cheng had already prepared a bowl of rice for her and placed it on the counter. An Ran reaches out and accepts the chopsticks from Su Yi Cheng, and gives him a sweet smile, “Thanks!”
The two eat their meal, An Ran took the initiative and volunteered to do the dishes. Su Yi Cheng doesn’t refuse it, as tonight he actually has a lot of work that hadn’t been completed. He turns around and goes over to the studio, aiming to finish the work as soon as possible.
An Ran tidies up the kitchen, then carries her briefcase into the bedroom. Because of the sample room she had to come home late, so she couldn’t bring any work back. She massages her sore neck, then grabs a pair of pyjamas and heads to the bathroom. The washroom here was 3x bigger than the other apartment. Not only was there a shower room, there was also a large bathtub. She was exhausted and sore from head to toe. Tonight, An Ran has decided to pamper herself and give herself a nice bubble bath.
She takes off her clothes and lies down in the large bathtub. It was as if all of her sore muscles immediately relaxed, she closes her eyes and leans her head back, enjoying this moment of peace and comfort. In fact she had always wanted to have this wonderful bubble bath, but unfortunately the bathroom was too small, and couldn’t fit in a bathtub. But no matter as the present was good, the bathtub was large enough, immersing herself in this bath was such a pleasure.
She didn’t know how long she had been in the bath for, An Ran had fallen asleep, when the ice-cold water unwittingly made her shiver. She quickly gets up from the bathtub, grabs a towel hanging by the shelf and dries herself, then grabs her undergarments and pyjamas and dresses herself.
She towel dries her hair, and gives her skin a simple cleanse. She was going to sleep early tonight, and when she put herself in bed, she suddenly recalled that she had made up a ‘preliminary agreement’ for Su Yi Cheng earlier this afternoon.
At that moment, the sleepiness that was weighing down on her immediately dissipated. She grabs the ‘married couple agreement’ from her briefcase, skims the content of the agreement. She smirks, gives the A4 paper a flick, then directly heads over to the studio.
“Knock knock knock…” She politely knocks on the door first then pushes the door open.
She sees Su Yi Cheng with a document in his hands, reaching out to grab a pen from time to time and draws something. Seeing that she had come in, he lifts up his head, and gives her a warm smile.
“What’s up?” Su Yi Cheng faintly smiles and asks her.
Standing in front of him, An Ran confidently says, “I have something to talk to you about. Can I take a few minutes of your time.”
Su Yi Cheng nods, and says, “Of course.” He puts down the document in his hands, and looks at her earnestly, waiting for her to speak.
An Ran, pleased, smirks, then hands over the ‘married couple agreement’ to him, and says, “I think it’s better if we decide on a married couple agreement or pact.”
Upon hearing that, Su Yi Cheng raises his brows, and plays along with her, “Agreement?” What is that?
An Ran directly gives him the piece of paper in her hands, at the same time explaining, “Also known as a married copule agreement, I feel, regarding our married couple activity, we should make a conscientious agreement.”
Su Yi Cheng receives the so-called ‘married couple agreement’, and takes a look at it seriously. The corner of his mouth couldn’t help but make a good-looking curve. A while later, he raises his head and asks her, “Isn’t it a preliminary agreement*? Why is there only one rule?”
*约法三章 translated figuratively is preliminary agreement, or basic rules, but literally it translates to ‘three-law agreement’.
Her so-called preliminary agreement, is just one rule repeating itself three times.
‘Married couple activities, once a week!’
‘Married couple activities, once a week!’
‘Married couple activities, once a week!’
Even at the bottom right corner of the paper she had already signed her own name on it, the bottom left corner, was a blank space, ready for his signature.
“I feel like that one rule is quite important.” An Ran says earnestly. In fact everything about him was good, the rest was excellent, except for their married couple activities, it was too excessive, so for her own consideration, she felt that she needed to exercise control on their frequency.
Su Yi Cheng chuckles. He looks at her, and bluntly asks, “Don’t you think this is too ruthless to me?”
“Cough cough cough…” An Ran coughs unnaturally, “Um, I looked into it, data shows, that once a week is the best, it is not negligent, not high frequency. It can maintain an even better affection between married couples, doing it too frequently, on the contrary can make people easily get tired of it, no longer have that fresh feeling, directly impacting the affections between husband and wife.”
Su Yi Cheng chuckles. Really, she even went that far to find a justification for it. If he doesn’t agree to it that would be too inexcusable. He nods, and says, “En, makes sense.”
An Ran was secretly delighted. Her eyes smiled, “You also feel that it’s reasonable.”
“En.” Su Yi Cheng nods, then takes the pen and looks over each word, and signs his name on the bottom left corner. Then he passes the agreement to her, and asks, “It’s agreed then.”
An Ran hurriedly nods, staring at the signature at the bottom of the paper, three words, Su Yi Cheng, signed across the space. How joyful was her smile. Looking at it after a while, An Ran then takes the ‘married couple pact’ and carefully folds it. She puts it in her desk drawer, then turns to ask Su Yi Cheng, “You need anything else? Do you want me to get you a cup of coffee?”
Su Yi Cheng declines and shakes his head. However the expression on his face, seemed as if he was in a good mood.
“Then I won’t bother your work anymore.” An Ran smiles and nods, and withdraws from the studio.
Su Yi Cheng carried a funny smile in his eyes. He stares at her desk drawer for a while, then laughs and takes his gaze back. His eyes were twinkling with some kind of crafty plot.
---END OF CHAPTER---
