Not only Meng Jiaran on the other end of the phone, but even Meng Xianwen, sitting beside Ning Zhen, nearly choked on his wine after hearing those words. He turned his head and coughed several times.
Ning Zhen paid no attention to his reaction. She had waited so long for Guo Xia’s reply that the seas could have dried up and the rocks crumbled. Now that someone had finally called her of their own accord, she couldn’t be bothered to care why Meng Jiaran was calling. She continued, “Aren’t you curious what my yacht looks like?”
There was a brief silence on the other end before Meng Jiaran finally found a chance to speak. He cut her off at once. “No, I’m not curious. No one is curious!”
They had known each other for years, and he knew exactly what she was like. He sped up, rattling off his words in one breath: “I heard my brother’s voice. Give him the phone. And don’t send me any photos or videos of the yacht. I don’t care, and I’m not interested!”
Ning Zhen let out a mocking laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself. Who said I was going to send you anything? Fine, since you brought it up, I’ll send you some for you to look at. Don’t share them with anyone. You have to keep a low profile, you know?”
Meng Xianwen leaned forward and set down his wineglass. Her light, cheerful voice and the undisguised delight on her face, the pride she couldn’t contain, radiated unmistakable happiness. He found himself losing focus.
For Meng Jiaran, every second of that day was precious. He was practically on the verge of calling her “Great-Auntie” just to get her to hurry up. Swallowing his irritation, he said, “Fine, fine, you’re the most low-key person in the world. I know you have a yacht, okay? Can you give the phone to my brother and let him take the call?”
Only then was Ning Zhen reluctantly satisfied. She turned and handed the phone to Meng Xianwen, then remembered something and switched on the speaker.
Meng Xianwen didn’t come back to himself until Meng Jiaran’s voice came through.
Frowning, he took the phone from her. After a moment’s thought, he turned off the speaker under her annoyed gaze, as though he were worried she might eavesdrop. He even held the phone to his other ear. “What is it?”
Having achieved her goal of showing off, Ning Zhen finally spared a sliver of attention to wonder why Meng Jiaran had called. She had intended to listen openly, but Meng Xianwen had pulled this stunt instead.
The more he tried to stop her, the more determined she was to listen.
She edged closer to him until her face was almost pressed against his. Unfortunately, the wind was too loud, while the phone’s sound quality was so good that not a single word escaped. She couldn’t hear anything at all. So she simply stood up, braced a hand on his shoulder, and prepared to sit on his other side.
To her surprise, he tugged her toward him, and she landed squarely on his lap. Their eyes met.
Only then did she realize his sinister intentions. Could he stop using all his scheming against her?
With one hand holding the phone, Meng Xianwen stroked her waist with the other. His voice was low and unhurried. “What time is it? You’re still out cruising around. Don’t you have anything better to do?”
In the hospital room on the other end, Meng Jiaran heard the bland, disapproving tone in his brother’s voice. He held back again and again, barely managing not to retort, “If I’m cruising around because I have nothing better to do, then what exactly are you doing taking Zhenzhen out to sea?”
He said pitifully, “Brother, you two went out to have fun, while Yuqing and I are stuck here in the hospital…”
Meng Xianwen wasn’t unreasonable enough to restrict even this little bit of freedom. His tone softened slightly. “If you want to go cruising next time, go early. And don’t drive until the wound on your head has completely healed.”
“I won’t. I definitely won’t!” Meng Jiaran felt as though he had just been granted a pardon. Afraid his brother might change his mind and refuse to let him leave the hospital, he hurriedly added, “Brother, I won’t disturb you and Zhenzhen anymore. I wish you two happiness!”
Before he even received a response, he quickly hung up.
When the call ended, Meng Xianwen set the phone on the sofa beside them. Ning Zhen hadn’t heard what Meng Jiaran had said, but judging from Meng Xianwen’s replies, she could more or less guess what had happened.
She didn’t hesitate to complain about Meng Jiaran to his own brother. “Do you believe me? He probably started working up the courage the moment he woke up this morning. After mulling it over for more than ten hours, he finally managed to casually ask Yuqing if she wanted to go cruising. He’s absolutely hopeless!”
As she spoke, she realized that she was complaining with genuine feeling, while Meng Xianwen hadn’t heard a word.
He was watching her mouth move as she talked, his expression calm.
After spending so much time together, they were naturally familiar with what each other’s eyes meant. Ning Zhen’s eyelid twitched. She planted both hands on his shoulders and tried to slip away, but she was still too late.
“Hey!”
The world spun around her. He had scooped her up around the waist and stood, forcing her to hurriedly hook her arms around his neck. She looked up and collided with his deep gaze. Speechless, she gave up struggling and rested her head against his shoulder.
He looked at her for several seconds before carrying her around the sofa and downstairs. The spiral staircase was narrow, and Ning Zhen clung tightly to him, afraid she might fall.
That bastard was taking advantage of every inch he could get, deliberately pausing on the stairs.
All she could do was use enough force to nearly strangle him, hugging him even tighter.
The sea was restless, and the swaying made Ning Zhen’s vision blur. Amid the ceaseless rocking, something deep inside her seemed to sink beneath the surface, then be pried open—aching and soft all at once.
Waves rose and crashed against the boat, their rapid pounding drowning out even her whimpers.
After weathering that overwhelming dizziness, she managed to open her eyes. Following his gaze, she looked down, and her breath caught.
Under the glaring light, she briefly came back to herself. She casually hooked up the dress that had fallen beside the bed and draped it over his face.
A smile had just begun to appear on her face when he pulled her back. In the next moment, she sank down completely.
…
Perhaps it was because they were at sea, but Ning Zhen’s sleep was restless. She opened her bleary eyes, propped herself up on one elbow, and looked around in confusion. There was no one in the room, and she couldn’t hear anything from the bathroom either.
Her drowsiness vanished. She threw off the thin blanket, got out of bed, and yawned as she walked out of the room. The sight before her, however, was so beautiful that she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
The sun had risen, scattering orange morning light across the sea. The waves glittered beneath it.
Meng Xianwen stood by the railing on the deck, holding up his phone to take pictures. He seemed dissatisfied with the results. Eventually, he ran out of patience and put his phone away.
Ning Zhen pressed her lips together to hide a laugh.
She vaguely remembered that, before falling asleep the night before, she had indeed mumbled something about wanting him to wake her so she could take pictures of the sunrise and post them to her social media.
She knew it! He had agreed aloud but clearly hadn’t taken it seriously.
Still grumbling inwardly, she hunched down and crept toward him on tiptoe. She was practically going to pounce on his back and scare him half to death!
Meng Xianwen had noticed her approach long before she reached him.
Now, with her arms wrapped around him from behind, a pleased smile flickered in his eyes.
“Are we heading back to the harbor?” she asked.
He hummed in reply. The two of them looked out at the sea of orange before them. Ning Zhen was so absorbed that she even forgot to take out her phone.
After a moment, she deliberately teased him. “This isn’t the gift too, is it?”
“When did I ever say the gift was any of this?”
She heard the amusement in his voice and immediately perked up. “Then what is the gift? Tell me, tell me!”
Meng Xianwen paused for a few seconds. “It’s in my office. I forgot to bring it.”
The cool sea breeze cleared some of the fog from Ning Zhen’s early-morning mind. He had tricked her again!
He had done it on purpose—deliberately letting her mistake the stars and the sunrise for the gift, then telling her he had prepared something else but had inconveniently forgotten it in his office.
Did she want it? Then once they docked, she could accompany him to the company and work overtime with him.
Ning Zhen: “…”
All she could do was grit her teeth and say, “You’re so annoying!”
Annoying as he was, the hook had caught her all the same. By noon, when they docked and disembarked, she was sitting beside him in the car on the way back to Hengxing.
Of course, she had no intention of letting him rest with his eyes closed. She pestered him, demanding to know what the gift was one moment and calling him devious the next.
Meng Xianwen’s ears began to ache from her nonstop chatter. He lowered the partition, covered her mouth with one hand, and manually muted her.
By the time they arrived at Hengxing, it was already afternoon.
It was Saturday, and the twenty-third floor was deserted. Ning Zhen squeezed past Meng Xianwen and slipped into the office. After sweeping her gaze around the room, the first thing she noticed was the safe. When she walked over, she discovered that its door was open.
She turned around in surprise.
Meng Xianwen had already sat down at his desk, looking utterly serious, as though he was about to devote himself wholeheartedly to work and had no desire for any conversation.
A thought flickered through Ning Zhen’s mind, and she roughly guessed why he had left the safe open.
A gift was a gift; a reward was a reward.
She couldn’t be bothered to waste time arguing with him. She took the velvet box from the safe and opened it with bated breath.
Inside was a complete set of jewelry.
The sapphire was similar to the one on his brooch, surrounded by glittering diamonds. Her gaze was instantly captivated. With the slightest movement, the light rippled across the stones.
She stared at it for a long while before reluctantly closing the box. Then she floated over to the desk. The more she looked at his face, the more pleasing it seemed. Without caring whether he was handling official business, she leaned over and planted a loud kiss on his cheek.
He raised his brows. Once she had finished kissing him, he turned his face away, placed a hand against her forehead, and pushed her back. “Stop fooling around.”
Ning Zhen was positively overjoyed. She gave a soft hum, broke into a radiant smile, and ran back to the safe to admire the jewelry set.
For the next hour, she kept herself busy taking photos from different angles. Before long, the small space in the office was no longer enough for her. Seeing that he was working seriously, she didn’t want to disturb him, so she quietly slipped out and headed to the communal refreshment area.
As Ning Zhen raised her phone to take a selfie, a figure suddenly appeared on the screen. She turned around and was astonished to see Xu Lai.
“Senior, are you working overtime too?”
After a brief moment of surprise, Xu Lai replied with a smile, “I happened to be passing by, so I came up to take a look. I’ll be back at work after the holiday next Monday, and I wanted to organize my work in advance so the handover would go smoothly.”
Ning Zhen gave him a thumbs-up.
His work style was practically identical to that of his boss.
She keenly caught on to a particular word and looked puzzled. “Handover?”
Xu Lai nodded gently. “Two months from now, I’ll be reporting to one of the branch offices.” He paused. “I’ll be going with Young Mr. Meng.”
“Are you going to be his executive assistant?” Ning Zhen looked incredulous. It made sense for Xu Lai to be Meng Xianwen’s assistant, but for him to assist Meng Jiaran? How was that supposed to work?
“No.” Xu Lai was concise. “Mr. Meng wants me to oversee part of the branch’s management. Young Mr. Meng will be going with me and starting from the ground up.”
Ning Zhen blinked.
She understood. Meng Xianwen must have arranged for Meng Jiaran to learn under Xu Lai’s guidance.
It seemed even his own older brother couldn’t stand seeing him spend all day doing nothing.
“So you’ve been promoted?”
Xu Lai considered it, then nodded. “You could say that.”
“Congratulations!” Ning Zhen barely managed to suppress her envy and jealousy. She was genuinely happy for Xu Lai. On a whim, she took two bottles of guava-lemon juice, handed one to him, and clinked the bottles together. “Cheers.”
Xu Lai couldn’t help laughing.
“What are you two talking about?” a deep male voice asked.
They both turned toward the sound. Meng Xianwen was walking down the corridor at an unhurried pace.
Xu Lai greeted him with a smile. “Mr. Meng.”
Meng Xianwen came to Ning Zhen’s side. Seeing the drink in her hand, he took it from her naturally and unscrewed the cap for her, though his words were directed at Xu Lai. “You’re supposed to be back at work next Monday. What brought you here today?”
“I was passing by and decided to organize a few things ahead of time.” Xu Lai chuckled. “I guess I was lucky enough to run into you.”
Ning Zhen secretly smiled, finding the statement deeply accurate.
Meng Xianwen’s expression was warm. “How was your holiday?”
Xu Lai replied, “Very relaxing. I accompanied my parents to a few cities to unwind.”
Meng Xianwen still had work to finish. He had temporarily set aside his business to look for Ning Zhen. After chatting with Xu Lai for a few minutes, he slipped an arm around her and led her back to the office.
They murmured softly to each other as the afternoon sunlight stretched their shadows long across the floor. They seemed to be discussing something as ordinary as what to have for dinner, yet even such mundane little matters were suffused with tenderness and affection.
