chapter 57

Lu hugged Ai. She was totally drunk. He felt funny and ridiculous. She really felt safe with him.

“You know you are not a heavy drinker. Why did you drink so much? Reckless girl.”

Ai kept looking at Lu, giggly. But the man who came into her mind was another one when she looked at Lu’s face.

Once at the top floor of the library building, Qin Zhan held her hands, asking awkwardly but expectantly, “Ai Changhuan. Would you like to be my girlfriend?”

Ai was pretending to look at the moon. She almost fell down when she heard it. She turned her head back, stumbling over, “What…what did you say?”

Qin Zhan raised his head up, as if he were a dope. “If I don’t want you to be my girlfriend, why did I hang out with you? Why did I get myself hurt for beating those ruffians away?”

Her face turned burning red. But she still nodded gently. She nodded again and again in case he didn’t see it clearly.

Qin beamed, rubbing her head, “Silly girl!”

Ai closed her eyes. Qin Zhan stepped closer to her. When he was about to kiss her lips, Ai was so nervous that she dodged him. What she saw was Qin’s gloomy face.

She smiled weakly, and pulled his arms. “Let me do this. Don’t move.”

To let her kiss him easily, Qin Zhan went down on his knees. Ai held his face with her hands, gasping deeply, and moving closer to him.

This was her first kiss. So she thought she should do it seriously. She chose the best angle to kiss him.

But when she almost touched his lips, there came a beam of light behind them. And then there was a shout, “Who are there?”

It was the librarian!

“Run!” Ai gave up kissing. She dragged Qin and ran away at once.

Although she didn’t get her first kiss on that day, they were wild with joy, running and laughing as if they went back to their childhood.

But, everything vanished without any sign. Qin disappeared and she married another one…

She couldn’t help shedding tears. Her hair by her ears were soaked. The laughter in her dream seemed to echo in her mind again. Who were there, running to the distance hand by hand and laughing? It was strange that she couldn’t see them clearly.

There was a gentle voice whispering to her ear, calling her name. “Changhuan…Changhuan…”

Then it was a soft sigh, surprisingly. Ai couldn’t hold her tears any more. She called out a name in a choked voice, “Qin Zhan…”

The name struck Lu hard like a thunderbolt. His whole body seemed to be frozen. But Ai still stroked his face restlessly, “Qin Zhan….I miss you so much…Where are you? I…I don’t want to marry anyone else…Take me away…Can you? Qin Zhan…Qin Zhan…”

Lu glared at Ai sinisterly. He clenched his blue-veined fists. It was a bad omen of rage.

Why? Why she called another man’s name after being drunk. Wine in, truth out. Was the man more important than anything else in her heart? No matter how great the effort he made, she failed to be changed at all.

How could he compromise?

Lu got up. With a big wave of his hand, the lamp on the night table crashed into pieces to the ground.

Blood dripped. His hand was cut by the glass. The blood gurgled from his palm and dripped on the white slippers beside. It was startling.

Lu had to admit that he was jealous. The gloominess and depression shrouded him and choked him. Glaring at Ai who frowned slightly on the bed, he couldn’t help reaching her neck.

What should he do to let her forget that man? Was death the only thing that could free themselves?

Ai was startled by the bang of the lamp. She held her shoulders and huddled up. But when Lu came closer to her, she clung to him with her hands and legs.

Perhaps because she smelt the familiar scent, she seemed to be much more relaxed and didn’t feel scared any more. She snuggled in Lu’s arms and rubbed his shoulder at ease.

He looked at her face right in front of him, and Lu’s expression was beyond description. “Why? She doesn’t love me but she can lie in my arms at ease? Doesn’t she know I will be her slave of love?”

He raised his hand and touched her forehead. She beamed with her mouth up and said in a low voice, “I am sleeping now. Stop touching me.”

Even though there was rage burning in his heart, he couldn’t do anything but surrender. Was there any point being sulky? She wasn’t aware of it all and slept soundly.

Lu understood how he felt about inability and failure for the first time in his life. He couldn’t be tough in front of Ai.

Alright. It was impossible for him to let her go. What he could do was persuading her to stay with him, no matter what kind of way he used.

Lu was awakened by punches next day. When a series of punches fell on his face, nose, eyes and even his temples, he was irritated and grasped her hands tight. And he pulled her aside and pressed her down on the bed.

He opened his eyes and found Ai glaring at him. He frowned, “What are you doing?”

Hearing what he said, Ai grew even angrier. She flung herself out and waved her arms to get rid of Lu. She then slapped on Lu’s face and hurled a question, “Lu Zhanke. What did you do to me last night? Why do we lie on the same bed?”

It was a real headache. He cleared the broken lamp away last night. The wound on his hand was not too big so he pasted a bandage and went to bed. But not long after he fell asleep, he felt noise beside him. When he opened his eyes, he saw Ai jumping down from the bed and rushed to the restroom. She threw up.

Lu got down from the bed hurriedly. But what happened next was too horrible for him to recall. After a long time of suffering, Lu carried her on his shoulders coming out from the restroom and wrapped her with a bathing towel. Lu took a cool shower, tired out. Then he also went to bed.

She called another man’s name while sleeping and treated him in this way after waking up. Lu was the one who got irritated, “Ai Changhuan. What’s wrong with you?”

He talked to her in such a harsh tone for the first time.

Ai looked at him in shock. This asshole felt her up last night. Now she asked for an explanation. How could he act so impatiently and even glared at her maliciously? “Men only learn how to cherish a woman before they get her?” Ai felt she was angered and wronged as well. “You did something disgraceful to me last night. How could you deny it?” How could he be so angry to her?

“What the hell I did?” Lu frowned.

Ai’s face turned red and her expression became terribly bad. How could he have the nerve to ask her? She didn’t have the nerve to answer!

She glimpsed at the red spot on the bath towel next to her. She gnashes her teeth, “Isn’t…isn’t the virgin’s…?” She couldn’t say it out, really.

Lu looked along her eyes, only to see a bath towel. “Why a bath towel makes her so weird? Or is she complaining I didn’t dress her in her pajama last night?” He peeped at her expression. It could be the reason why she got sulky. But she wouldn’t get so sulky because of it. There must be another reason.

Then he looked closely. There was a dry spot of blood at the corner of the towel. So he could make a guess that the spot was there last night. Maybe it was from his palm when he grabbed the towel with strength. But, what was the connection between Ai’s anger and it?

Lu racked his brains about it. When he was about to ask, what Ai said before just came into his mind. “Is she thinking that I slept with her last night so she got so angry?”

Lu was a loss whether to cry or laugh. He would have intended to explain but Ai acted as if she wanted to kill him. The rage in his heart fired up. “What’s the point of being angry? We are couple. Isn’t it the common thing that will happen between a couple?”

Or because she kept her virginity for that man?

Lu’s eyes were filled with indifference when he thought about these. Even though nothing happened between them, he shouted, “So what? I have the right to do that!”

He admitted it? How could he have the nerve to admit?

Ai was shivering with fury. Her hands and legs kept flinging. “Lu Zhanke. You are an asshole. Did you ask for my permission? How could you do that?”

Lu was sulky originally. He grew even irritated when Ai started to accuse him. He clamped her down with arms, his expression turning horrible. “Nonsense! Do I need to ask for your permission? Have you ever asked about what I think?”

“Do you know my heart hurts when you are still obsessed with another man?”

Ai frowned and pulled out one hand from him. She slapped on his face, “You jerk! Bastard!”

She used the greatest strength she could use. And because she was in fury, she slapped harder than she did before. Even Lu got dizzy.

Ai was frozen there. She didn’t expect she slapped him with such a great strength. The dread seemed to weigh in the air. Lu seemed to be on the verge of losing control.