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Chapter 2 – Love Affair
When Duan Jialin recounted her rotten luck with Tao Zhanqiu to others, she would lament that she was the one who had brought it all onto herself. Why did she go to a bar? What business did she have to seduce some handsome man? The most important question was: why the person who she had lured into bed for the first time had to have been her teacher.
Zheng Min lowered her voice on the other end of the line and rang Duan Jialin. “Duan Duan, you’ll have to hurry back for the roll call.”
At a cacophonous bar, Duan Jialin constructed her image to present a front. She made a show of holding up her phone to her ear as she deliberately stroked her wavy curls that she so carefully conditioned. “Hello? Oh, Xiao Zheng. Let’s talk about President Wang some other time,” she replied.
“What? Xiao Zheng? President Wang? I’m telling you, Duan Jialin. If you don’t come back for the roll call, you’ll really have to report to the office!” Zheng Min sat in the front row of the lecture hall. The sharp-eyed Wang could immediately see how many people were missing from the vast and well-lit classroom.
“Just email me the statement.“ Duan Jialin glanced at the extraordinarily beautiful man beside her.
”What?! Where are you right now? Why is it so loud over there?” She abruptly hung up the phone before the person on the other side of the line could finish.
Duan Jialin switched her phone to flight mode and deposited it into her burgundy backpack by her side. She smiled in a flirtatious manner and purred, “Sorry about that. Work, you know.”
The beguiling specimen scrutinized her from top to bottom and smiled. Duan Jialin’s heart skipped a beat.
“Is something the matter?”
“Oh, it’s nothing!” Duan Jialin smiled obsequiously, eager to eat the person in front of her alive, preferably tied to a bed.
“Tao Zhanqiu.” He held out a hand with slender fingers. His nails were trimmed into a round arc, enclosing pink fingertips.
“Duan Jialin.” She hurriedly returned the gesture. Just a simple handshake had turned her into a starry-eyed fool.
Who is Duan Jialin? Duan Jialin is the Second Street’s ultimate flower. A legendary figure in the Student Union of A University, who has been pursued by the president of the Student Union of A Uni for two whole years, but still refuses to yield to his prestige. When she was still a freshman, she drank the entirety of Second Street to shame. Just by mentioning her name, someone would chime in and say, “Hoh, that girl? She’s a gem.”
“You’re not a student?” Tao Zhanqiu queried.
“No, no. I’m already working.” Duan Jialin was putting on a false front, banking on her looks to fool him.
“And I thought the people who lived in this area were all students,” he chuckled as he picked up his drink from the bar counter and took a swig.
The wine was swallowed with a gulp as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with the action. Duan Jialin could feel butterflies in her lower abdomen as her eyes roved over his lips, to his jaw, to his slender neck, and down the slightly protruding Adam’s apple. Her heart jumped in her throat following his gulp.
This man must be an outright sinner. Duan Jialin thought to herself as her fingers picked at the smooth surface of the wine glass.
“There’s a neighborhood up ahead. I love to come here to pass time when there’s nothing better to do. Lively, yeah?” Duan Jialin felt like she had to say something, so she did just that.
He flashed a smile her way and nodded as he looked around. His eyebrows. His eyes. Everything about him was top-notch. Duan Jialin caressed his exposed forearms with fluttering fingertips on a whim and asked, “You just arrived?”
“En.”
“Working?”
“En.”
“You work in the area?”
He nodded.
“This bar is still fairly new. It was still under renovations two months ago. I guess that they’re counting on the September intake. More students to profit off of.” Duan Jialin tried to fill the silence with empty conversations. Even the bar was not spared.
“Hm, I assumed so.” This person was perfect in every way, just that he was a man of few words. Duan Jialin scratched her head and decided to push for the conversation to continue.
She continued to ‘interrogate’ him.
“You told me you won’t drink with students the moment you saw me. Do I look that young?” She was all smiles as she stared at him. Duan Jialin had her eyes on the man the moment she came inside and managed to get a drink with him. Unfortunately for her, Zheng Min rang up two sentences in.
“A habitual thought.” There was a small upturn in the corner of his lips. “I thought the only people going in and out of this neighborhood were students.”
There are two shopping streets across from A University, collectively known as First Street and Second Street. The neighborhood teemed with students, which led to it bustling with snack bars and internet cafes alike; rows and rows of them.
“You work nearby, but don’t live nearby?” she asked, wanting to get a clearer picture of the situation.
“I live nearby. Not familiar with the area as I’ve just arrived.” He seemed ready to settle his check and leave.
Duan Jialin’s chance had come. There was no reason to let go when she met such a beautiful creature! She recalled the WeChat fortune teller’s words. ‘You shall meet your fated one within the next few days.’ She never thought she’d actually meet him.
As Duan Jialin continued to stare blankly, he lowered his head and queried, “Where do you live? I’ll walk you. It’s dangerous at night.”
She nodded as though possessed, picked up her bag, and trailed after him. Duan Jialin stood at 5’4. Tao Zhanqiu is much taller than her; a conservative estimate would place him at 6’1. He wore a white shirt with the top two buttons open, khakis, and a pair of sneakers. Casual and comfortable. He was likely a recent graduate as well judging by his youthful mien.
“Which way?” The two left the bar and stopped by the road. Duan Jialin was inwardly rejoicing at her luck and failed to catch his words.
When Duan Jialin finally came to herself, she suppressed a foolish grin and pointed in a random direction. She wasn’t expecting him to actually walk her home anyway.
The leaves on the roadside rustled as they strolled down the pathway, echoing her joyful mood. She finally took that leap of faith after all these years and managed to abduct a stunner to take her home.
“What school did you graduate from?” She looked up and asked. Behind her came a lopsided bicycle with wonky handlebars. Perhaps the cyclist was still learning. Either way, her attention was focused solely on the person next to her, which caused her to fail to notice it rushing her way.
With a sudden shift of her shoulders, she collapsed into the arms of a man whose strong arms were wrapped around her waist. Her ear was pressed against a firm chest. ‘I might as well take advantage of this situation,’ Duan Jialin thought to herself. She pressed in closer, distinctly hearing every little change in the man’s heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Duan Jialin’s lips curled upward into a satisfied smile as she clung onto him unmoving. From the very first moment she set eyes upon him, her head was filled with thoughts about spending the rest of her life with this very man.
“Duan Jialin. Duan Jialin?” he whispered her name. As if plunged into a dense fog and engulfed by the finest of wines, her heart throbbed with a tenderness that only served to complicate her train of thoughts. She finally understood the sentiments of a feudal lord playing war to win a beauty’s smile. And now she was no different than a fatuous and lustful ruler addicted to the hypnotic allure of the man’s sex appeal.
“Uh… stop tugging on my shirt.” Just like that, Tao Zhanqiu was taken advantage of on the main street. Duan Jialin was unwilling to release him from her grasp, only responding when he patted her head in which she finally flashed a crafty smirk before letting the other go.
“That was dangerous.” He clarified his earlier actions.
The perpetrator continuously apologized on the sidelines, awkwardly watching the two flirt before daring to come forward to ruefully greet Duan Jialin, who waved her hand jovially and assuaged, “Hey, it’s okay. Thank you. Be more careful next time.”
The guilty party stood stupefied. Surely, this young lady wasn’t brain dead at such a young age.
Duan Jialin was left with an emptiness within her when Tao Zhanqiu’s warm hands left her waist. She subconsciously tucked a tuft of hair behind her ear as they chatted with each other on the street.