First Marriage Then Love 《先婚厚爱》Chapter 102 Translation

102. Ling Ran’s provocation

Sitting inside Mo Fei’s car, An Ran’s eyes were glued outside the window to the landscape passing by. During the ride, neither had said anything. Mo Fei turned to look at her several times, and wanted to say something several times, but finally decided not to.

At the traffic light, the car slowly came to a halt. He turned to look at her one more time, and she was still in the same position, eyes glued outside, as if there was a beautiful scenery that could not be missed.

This time, Mo Fei eventually starts to say, “I heard about what happened between Cheng Xiang and Lin Li. Although I don’t really know the details, but from Cheng Xiang’s appearance, I think that she should give him a chance, after all he knows that he was wrong, knows that the person he loves is Lin Li.”

An Ran suddenly turns her head, looks at him and tuts, “He says he was wrong this time so he should be forgiven, then what about the damage that he brought to Lin Li?! Don’t tell me that Lin Li deserved it?” At the topic of Lin Li, An Ran suddenly got worked up.

Being in Lin Li’s shoes, loving one person for 10 years, how much more of these 10 years does a woman have! Because of Lin Li’s thoughts on love she single-mindedly concentrated her love on this man, and from the beginning he had thought of her as a substitute, treated her well yet used her to reminisce about another woman, never responding to her love, not even staying for their child. This damage, don’t tell me that it just needs that one line, ‘I was wrong, the person I love is you!’ could take it all away? That those feelings could be redeemed? She doesn’t have an answer, no one has the answer, so she shouldn’t take the risk and give it a try, because she doesn’t want Lin Li to get hurt ever again!

Mo Fei looks at her, and says, “Lin Li had loved Cheng Xiang for 10 years, is it really possible to let go of those feelings? Perhaps she still loves Cheng Xiang, and was just waiting for Cheng Xiang.”

“Ha!” An Ran sneers. She looks at him despicably and says, “Why are you men so self-righteous, always thinking that oh, your feelings to me are good, so you can wait for me later, have you ever thought how much hurt your selfishness could cause, and that damage may never completely heal!”

Mo Fei was shocked, he looks at her for a while but wasn’t able to come up with a reply.

“Beep beep--!”

A horn suddenly comes out from behind, and at this time Mo Fei finally reacts. He looks up, and the light was already green, the cars ahead were already long gone. The car behind continues to honk at them, and Mo Fei quickly moves ahead.

They arrived at the construction site, and An Ran was going to open the door to get off, but just as An Ran was about to open it, Mo Fei locks it.

An Ran turns to look at it, not really understanding his action.

“We’re here!” She frowns, as she reminds him.

Mo Fei stares ahead. Only a while later does he smile wryly, sneers, and begins to ask, “Cheng Xiang nowadays, was he the me from back then?”

An Ran looks at him. She found it funny, and asks, “Do you think there’s any use in talking about that stuff now?”

Looking at her, Mo Fei, in guilt, says, “I hurt you that much back then, I’m sorry!”

“What happened in the past, as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t mean anything now. I’ve already forgotten all the unpleasant things. My life now is very good, please, from now on, you don’t have to mention these things to me anymore, because there’s no need.” An Ran says apathetically.

Mo Fei laughs bitterly. He lowers his head to look at the steering wheel. A while later, he mutters, “Two months from now, Tong Xiao Jie and I will be divorced.”

An Ran looks ahead unconcerned. Whether he’s married or divorced is unrelated to her, with these things, she has no interest.

“After meeting you, I discovered that all the letters that I had written to you during my time at the US, not one of them had reached you. I asked around once I got back, I found out that they were blocked by Tong Xiao Jie. Ha, I had always thought that you were still angry at me, so you never gave me a call, a letter, but I never thought that would happen.”

An Ran frowns. She hated this, what’s the point of talking about this? She turns to look at him, and says, “I don’t care, whether I received those letters or not, our outcome is still the same. Ever since the day you turned around and left, we were bound to have this outcome.”

Mo Fei looks at her, and fixes his gaze on her. A while later, he has a wry smile as he turns around.

An Ran sighs deeply. She asks powerlessly, “Open the door. After I show you around, I still have to get back to the company.”

This time Mo Fei doesn’t say much, just nods, and opens the door.

An Ran does not stay in the car any longer, and instantly unlocks the door and gets out of the car.

The time it'll take to get back to the company from the construction site, it will be the time to knock off. Mo Fei offered to send her back, but she declined. When they got out of the site, by chance there was a taxi that had passed by, and she flagged it down.

When she returned to the company, she was going to sit down on her chair, but someone began to knock on the door. When she got up, unfortunately, An Ran had knocked over the documents that was on her desk. She bends down to collect them, so she didn’t get to see who was at the door, and just yells out, “Come in.”

The door was pushed open, An Ran hears the clacking of high-heeled shoes on the floor, ‘clack clack clack’. She assumed it was a woman.

When An Ran gets back up again to take a seat after collecting her stuff from the floor, she raises her head, and was taken aback. She did not expect to Ling Ran in her office!

Ling Ran seemed to have lost a lot of weight compared to the last time she saw her, her entire body seemed thin and pallid. Today she was dressed in a white gown, making her pale face look white as paper.

Ling Ran faintly smiles at An Ran, that smile looked morbidly beautiful.

“Can I take a seat?” Ling Ran softly asks.

An Ran took a while to come to her senses. She looks at her, and nods, “Sit.”

Ling Ran smiles slightly and sits in front of An Ran. She fixes on An Ran, and softly smiles as she speaks, “The other day, on Ah Cheng’s birthday, I lost myself. Luckily Ah Cheng sent me to the hospital.”

An Ran tightens her lips, and just asks, “Is Miss Ling doing well?”

“Thanks for your concern, I’m a lot better.” Nodding, Ling Ran was still smiling as she sofly replied. She reaches out and lets her take a look at the injury on her wrist. The wound was still healing, and it was a bit frightening to look at.

Ling Ran continued, “After that time, I finally dared to face Ah Cheng’s feelings.” Saying that, she raises her head and looks at An Ran, a faint smile appears on her face.

An Ran returns her gaze, a while later does she steadily start to speak, and goes along with her, “Is that so.”

“I’ve thought of giving up once, sincerely wanted to wish you well, after all it was I who did wrong and caused it. Those years in America, there wasn’t a moment when I didn’t regret making that fatal mistake, I spent those 7 years punishing myself for that mistake, even thinking of him was hard to swallow, but I couldn’t muster the courage to return to look for him. I know, I know that he couldn’t have not cared.” Ling Ran thusly said.

An Ran doesn’t reply, just looks at her. Her expression, compared to before, hasn’t changed much.

Ling Ran continued, “But I still couldn’t forget him, that longing compelled me to return, even though I knew that he didn’t completely forgive me, even if he truly does not love me, he would still let me be by his side, quietly looking at him was okay, so long as I knew that he was okay, everything else didn’t matter. So when I saw you guys, I sincerely wished you guys well.”

“Then should I say thank you?” An Ran asks, still without a smile.

Ling Ran smiles, shakes her head, and says, “I’m saying that was what I thought before, but now.” Ling Ran pauses. After a while, she continues, “I found it impossible, I couldn’t lie to myself and say those false blessings, seeing you and Ah Cheng together, I was too jealous and it drove me crazy, I couldn’t stop thinking that if that incident never happened, how would Ah Cheng and I be right now, if not for that incident, perhaps we’d have been married, perhaps we’d even have children. Ah Cheng would definitely be a good father, a good husband, we would have been happy, blissful.” Ling Ran said, she looked immersed in her own fantasy, unable to escape.

“But there are no if’s, isn’t that so?” An Ran says, her tone was calm, but enough to break her from her fantasy. “Just as no such things as medicine that'll treat regret, what had happened, how could you imagine the ‘if’s’ like it never happened?”

Ling Ran looks at her, and flashes her a ruthless look, but quickly conceals it. Underneath, her hands were clenched into a fist, looking at her it seemed like she was trying her best to hold her smile, her tone was a little rigid as she says, “Really there are no if’s, and that is why you could obstruct me and Ah Cheng.”

“Even if there was no me, there would be someone else, the problem of you and Yi Cheng, the root of it does not depend on whether I am involved or not.” An Ran bluntly says.

Ling Ran doesn’t say anything for a while. She looks at her for a long time. She suddenly smiles, and says, “Doesn’t matter if it were you, or someone else, none of that is important.” Saying that, she looks at the grotesque scar that she had done on herself, and says, “I just couldn’t let go of Ah Cheng, I couldn’t stand seeing Ah Cheng with another woman, whatever blessings were just lies, I couldn’t say them. Like that, I decided to face my own heart, I prepared myself to fight with his other woman, no matter who they were, I have confidence, if I thought of doing it, I would definitely accomplish it.”

She looked straight at An Ran, she carried a faintly provocative smile. The two faced each other like that. A while later, An Ran then faintly asks, “Miss Ling, you coming here today, is to declare war?”

Ling Ran raised her eyebrow, and shrugs, “If you think so, whatever.”

She looks at her for a while, An Ran nods, and calmly says, “Then I understand, however I don’t believe that you doing this has any meaning.” Although she and Su Yi Cheng hadn’t been married for long, their understanding of each other isn’t that much, but she doesn’t believe that Su Yi Cheng is that kind of sloppy person, otherwise, he wouldn’t be that heartless to the older Ling sister.

“I have the final say whether it’s meaningless or not.” She ceased speaking, and gets up, “I just wanted to say that, hope you can remember what I said today.”

An Ran stares at her, doesn’t speak, doesn’t nod, and doesn’t shake her head.

Ling Ran gives a disdained smile, turns around, and leaves An Ran’s office.

An Ran watches the door open and close. She dazes off, and after a while she then returns to her senses and went to grab her blueprint, and was about to modify it, when she recalled that she had given it to Huang De Xing to take a look. Due to Mo Fei, the blueprint was still in Huang De Xing’s office, and he hadn’t given any feedback on the blueprint, whether it was good or not.

As she thought of that, she was about to head over to Huang De Xing’s office. According to the layout of the entire office, her and Huang De Xing’s office were on either side, and in between it was the hall. So when An Ran was heading over Huang De Xing’s office, she inevitably had to cross the hall. As Ling Ran wasn’t a staff, she wasn’t busy like the rest were. She watches her cross the hall, and even gave her an ambiguous smile.

An Ran doesn’t pay attention to her, and just goes directly to Huang De Xing’s office. She knocks on the door, and only hears Huang De Xing’s loud voice call her in. She then pushes the door open to enter.

Unexpectedly, the guest hadn’t left yet, their back was towards the door. An Ran did not get to see his face.

She does not care to know. In any case when it comes to the business side of the industry, it was all Greek to her, and does care much for it.

“Director, about the blueprint I gave you earlier---” Not waiting for An Ran to finish, the man turned around to look at her. Seeing An Ran, his eyebrows rose in surprise.

An Ran was also surprised. “Zhou Han!” She did not expect that man to be Zhou Han!

Huang De Xing looked at Zhou Han in surprise, then looks at An Ran, and says, “An Ran, you, you know Director Zhou?”

An Ran nods her head dazedly, and just says, “En, w-we’ve met a few times before.”

“What a coincidence, you work here?” Zhou Han asks her indifferently, his tone calm without waves.

“En.” An Ran nods, and gives him a faint smile. She doesn’t say much more, and just turns to Huang De Xing and says, “Director, the blueprint I gave you before, have you taken a look at it, are there any questions?”

“Oh, I’ve looked at it.” Huang De Xing nods. He picks up the document that he had just placed down and hands it over to her, “I'll give you full authority for this case, the design plan, whatever you think needs improvement just do it as you see fit, you’re in charge of everything, no need to ask me.”

An Ran nods and accepts the paper, then turns to Zhou Han and smiles and nods at him. Taking the blueprint, she leaves the office.

It took the entire day for An Ran to finish work, just before she got off she texted Su Yi Cheng, asking what he wants to eat today, she’ll cook, after she finishes work she’ll head to the supermarket, and tonight she will make use of the cookbook and make him a meal.

Although An Ran’s culinary skills has some criticism, and one should not have too much expectation for it, but seeing her word it that way, so as to avoid knocking down her confidence, Su Yi Cheng still decided to praise her in reply. Then he suggested a simple meal, telling her, that he actually has some unfinished work, and will be home in about half an hour.

An Ran quickly sent an ‘OK’, showing that she didn’t mind. In fact she still needs to learn, needs to research how the dish should be, there are a lot of preparations.

Today seemed to be a day of chance encounters. When she was waiting for the elevator, she found that there was another person waiting for it, tall and erect, his suit manually tailored, appearing to be of superior quality. He was holding a briefcase, seeing her come over, he gives her a slight nod, no smile, as his expression had always been so.

An Ran stood beside him, and gave him a smile, “What a coincidence. Are you also working together with the company?”

Zhou Han glances at her, then turns to look at the elevator display, “Planning to, but it doesn’t seem like Director Huang has any intention.”

Regarding that, An Ran doesn’t make a comment. She doesn’t know what conditions and opportunities are needed for the collaboration, those are not the things she worries about. She is nothing but a small architect, she just needs to make a perfect design and that is all. Decision-making and such, those are the things the executives can deal with.

The two stand there in silence for a while. An Ran seemed regretful has she says, “Jiang City is really small, it seems that there are several businesses, did not expect that you were also in the construction industry.”

Zhou Han faintly raises his lip, “Really is small.”

The elevator dings, the door opens. There was no one else inside. Zhou Han, being a gentleman, lets An Ran go first, and follows An Ran afterwards. He reaches out to press the close door button, when suddenly a pair of high-heeled shoes can be heard clacking about, then a gentle voice starts to call out.

“Wait.”

He wasn’t listening carefully to see if the voice was familiar or not, Zhou Han presses the open button, and holds the door open when the door tried to close again. There seemed to be two or more people, their footsteps were a little hectic.

Waiting for the two people to appear from the corner, An Ran could then clearly see their faces. Just a curious coincidence, today there seemed to be way too much of it. The pair wasn’t just anybody, but they happened to be sisters, Ling Ran and Ling Lin.

An Ran subconsciously looked at Zhou han, only to see his arm stiffen. He was still expressionless, but one could tell from his eyes that he was clearly astonished and startled.

Ling Ran also naturally saw An Ran and Zhou Han in the elevator. Her formerly smiling face stiffened at once, and her footsteps along with her expression, slowly comes to a halt, she stared blankly.

“Han, brother Han.” Ling Lin was also surprised to see Zhou Han, then looks on worriedly at her older sister.

After the shock, Zhou Han does not reveal any of his emotion. He steadily says, “Not coming in?” His voice was still calm, not one bit shaky, you couldn’t tell his emotion from his tone.

Ling Ran’s small face turns pale. Looking at him she shakes her head, as if she had seen a ghost she turns around to leave.

“S-sis….” Ling Lin calls out worriedly. She looks at Zhou han, and promptly follows after Ling Ran.

On this side, Zhou Han releases the button. An Ran couldn’t tell any difference in his expression, just as if, Ling Ran who he was just talking to, was a stranger, not making a difference in his mood.

However, An Ran did not miss that tightly clenched fist beside his leg, that fist exposed his true emotion. It turns out he isn’t as aloof as he appears to be.

The atmosphere in the elevator was strangely heavy. An Ran wasn’t sure what she should say, if she could say anything. Thankfully, the elevator arrived quickly, and she headed to the door from the elevator. Zhou Han appeared to have adjusted his mood, as An Ran had noticed his fist slowly relaxed.

At the entrance, Zhou Han’s car was parked by it. He turns to look at An Ran who was behind him, walking slowly. He asks politely, “Would you like a ride?”

An Ran faintly smiles and shakes her head, “No need, my house is nearby.”

Zhou Han nods, looks at her, just says, “Well then, goodbye.” After that, he turns around and gets in his black Benz. Then, with one swift motion, starts the car. The car seemed to be fast, because a moment later it was already on the road, and disappeared down the corner.

An Ran, a while later, breaks her daze, and heads over to home. She directly goes to the supermarket downstairs and prepares the ingredients for tonight’s dinner, then returns home. She puts down her briefcase and gets engrossed in the kitchen, and from the cupboard takes out the cookbook that she had borrowed from Lin Li. Luckily the book had a recipe of the ‘fried shrimp with green beans and corn’ that Su Yi Cheng had mentioned.

By the time Su Yi Cheng had opened the door, he could smell something burning. He raises his brows, as he had a bad feeling. He grabs a pair of slippers from the shoe cabinet, pulls off his tie, and calls out as he walks into the room, “An Ran?”

There was no response, but as he went into the living room, the burning smell got stronger. He frowns, and places his briefcase on the sofa, and noticed that An Ran’s briefcase was also on the sofa.

He turns to look at the kitchen, but doesn’t see An Ran.

“An Ran?” Su Yi Cheng once again raises his voice, as before, no one replied. He walks over to the living room puzzled, pushes the door open, but no one was there. The studio, empty, bathroom, empty, even the guest room, there was no trace of An Ran.

He goes back to the living room. Su Yi Cheng worriedly calls out, “Where are you?” He takes out his cellphone. He doesn’t have to go through his contacts list, as he had already memorized her number. He dials her number, and hears the ‘du du—’ simultaneously. An Ran’s cellphone also rings from the kitchen.

Su Yi Cheng looks towards the kitchen, raises his brows. He doesn’t hang up the phone, and heads to the kitchen, only to see a pan on the floor. In the pan, there was a black reef and some undistinguishable corn beans and shrimp. Above the pan, a pair of eyes that looked wronged, a sorry figure. The white face was smeared with black -- nose, cheek, all of it.

An Ran looks at him in guilt. She points to the stuff in the pan, and mutters, “The book made it sound simple. But I followed by the book, I made it a few times and they all turned out like this.”

Hearing that, Su Yi Cheng then noticed the garbage can beside her, and in it were several of those blackened things.

“What a load of crap recipes, totally not reliable!” An Ran, peeved, throws the book into the trash can.

Looking at the scene, Su Yi Cheng admitted that he was evil, because currently he was holding back a laugh!

---END OF CHAPTER---


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