Meng Xianwen took the box of cold medicine back from her and, under Ning Zhen’s watchful gaze, snapped a picture and sent it to the family doctor: “I have cold symptoms—stuffy nose, runny nose, sore throat, but no fever. Can I take this medicine?”
Seeing him type, Ning Zhen assumed he was consulting someone.
The first person who came to mind was Lu Yuan.
She asked glumly, “Are you asking Lu Yuan?”
Meng Xianwen didn’t even raise his eyes. He was human too, and he could lose his temper. In fact, his temper was no milder than Ning Zhen’s. When he was with her, even if he couldn’t be endlessly tolerant, he did his best to suppress his negative emotions.
And after all that, she said she was annoyed and tired.
“What would he know?” His tone was flat. “You said it was a minor thing yourself. Is it really necessary to bother him?”
Ning Zhen was left speechless.
But no matter how angry she had been, half of it went out of her at once. She truly didn’t have the energy—or the heart—to argue with him the way they had earlier. In fact, she had regretted it as soon as the argument was over. She had always been like this: when she was angry, she acted without thinking. The whole world revolved around her; she was the most important person, and she didn’t want to understand anyone else. Why should she have to understand other people?
But after an argument, she felt even worse.
Some things, even when they reflected what she truly felt, were never things she had intended to say out loud.
She only ever thought about seeing things from the other person’s perspective after the argument was over.
While waiting for the doctor’s reply, Meng Xianwen wasn’t idle. He gave her a long, meaningful look, then turned and left the room. He went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water at a comfortable temperature, and returned. Patting her leg, he said, “Have some water.”
“I’ve already had a lot today.”
She covered her stomach. “I feel like I can hear it sloshing around whenever I move.”
The corners of Meng Xianwen’s lips twitched, as though her description had eased his mood. His phone screen lit up with the doctor’s reply. She could take the medicine. It was currently the peak season for colds, so she should keep a close eye on her symptoms. If they worsened, she should consider going to the hospital.
After thanking the doctor, he sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her without saying a word.
His gaze was intent and deep.
Ning Zhen accidentally met his eyes and wondered if he was contemplating how to strangle her that night.
He had looked so furious earlier that his face had practically turned black.
“I’ll listen.”
Just as their gazes locked, Meng Xianwen suddenly said those words in response to her.
Ning Zhen was silent for two seconds before she could no longer hold back. She lifted her leg and kicked him. “Go away.”
He lowered his head after all.
In both the physical and emotional sense.
Meng Xianwen rested his ear against her stomach. Looking down at the top of his head, she turned aside and smiled, then deliberately shifted her stomach.
“Did you hear anything? If I keep drinking this much, I might end up with water intoxication.”
He didn’t get up immediately, continuing to rest his head on her stomach.
Neither of them spoke. She tentatively reached out, slipped her fingers into his hair, and gently scratched his scalp. He was looking down, and so was she.
After a long while—
She began to feel uncomfortable with his weight and pushed at his head. “Get up. You’re so heavy!”
Meng Xianwen sat up, still staring at her. After a while, he said, “Let’s leave everything else aside. What’s past is past. But why did you have to hide it from me when you were sick? Was I supposed to stay away for days and only come back after you were better?”
The fact that he had lowered his head didn’t mean he thought he was wrong.
It was simply that, in that moment, her feelings mattered more than who was right or wrong.
Ning Zhen rolled her eyes. Again with this!
He wanted to argue the point, and she wasn’t about to back down either. With one swift movement, she sat up, nearly knocking his nose with her forehead.
“Fine. Let’s go back to this morning. I say, ‘Honey, I’m feeling a little unwell. I think I’ve caught a cold.’ What would you do?”
Meng Xianwen was amused by her solemn performance.
She always had a way of making his temper flare one second and putting it out completely the next.
“Don’t laugh. Can you be serious for once?” she demanded, glaring at him.
He restrained his smile and glanced at her. “I wouldn’t casually change confirmed work arrangements. A lot of people are waiting for me, and your cold is only a minor thing.”
Ning Zhen pursed her lips.
What did he mean by that? What did he mean?
She could call her cold a minor thing herself, but why did it sound so irritating when he said it?
“I’d have the doctor come over and look after you,” he continued. “Then I’d have them report your condition to me regularly.”
Ning Zhen immediately said, “What if I still had to work today? Did you ever think of that?”
Meng Xianwen remained calm. “Aren’t you working from home?”
“But I don’t want to!” she shouted. She almost sneezed again and hurriedly pulled out a tissue to cover her nose. If a bubble of snot suddenly appeared while they were arguing, either he would strangle her or she would strangle him. In any case, only one of them could survive.
“I don’t want some stranger—even if it’s a doctor—coming over to look after me. I’m not that sick,” she said. “And if they have to keep reporting my condition to you, does that mean you’ll have to control what I eat and what I drink? When people are sick, don’t they just want some peace and quiet? Oh, so just to put your mind at ease, I’m supposed to put up with all this hassle? I’m sick. I feel awful!”
Meng Xianwen watched her quietly.
He really couldn’t see how she—or her voice—looked anything like a sick person.
But he was also completely relieved.
“You’re right about everything,” he said.
Ning Zhen’s heart gave a little jolt. He had conceded far too quickly, which always made her feel as though some trap was waiting for her.
She eyed him warily.
Sure enough, after nodding, he said gently, “Fine. Let’s go back to yesterday morning. You say, ‘I’ve caught a cold and I don’t feel well,’ and I say, ‘It’s nothing. Do whatever you want. Just drink more hot water.’”
When he finished, he looked at her with leisurely composure. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Ning Zhen: “…”
She drew a deep breath.
She knew it. She knew it!
So annoying!
With a thump, she flopped back onto the bed and turned her back to him, refusing to acknowledge him.
Meng Xianwen gave an inscrutable little smile. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
Ning Zhen continued to face away from him coldly. He took the opportunity to lie down behind her, his warm breath brushing the back of her ear.
“This time, I’ll listen to you. I also want to see how you handled colds in the past and how you got better.”
“My body is my business, of course!”
He kissed her hair. “But you said you were tired. What exactly were you tired of?”
“You know perfectly well.” She let out a cold snort. “You won’t let me do this, and you forbid me from doing that. Even if I don’t listen, it still gets annoying and makes me feel…”
Her voice dropped until it was barely audible.
“Like I’m not your girlfriend.”
“If you’re not my girlfriend, then what are you?”
Meng Xianwen thought to himself, What an ungrateful woman. If she weren’t his girlfriend, then even if she were hospitalized, he might not necessarily go visit her. Sending her a message to ask how she was would already be the limit of his decency.
“I’m your landlord!”
She began to laugh too. “You live in my house every day and still try to boss me around. Is that reasonable?”
Hearing the softness in her words, he tightened his arms around her and held her closer.
“Zhenzhen, I don’t really know how to be in a relationship with a girlfriend. I’ve never had any experience before.”
Ning Zhen immediately snorted again, loudly through her nose.
She knew his tricks all too well. “You have no experience, but do I? Why should I have to be the one to put up with you?”
It was both of their first relationships. Who did he think was more important than the other?
“Put up with me?” Meng Xianwen was so exasperated that he laughed. “Fine. If that’s what you say it is, then so be it.”
“How have I not been understanding of you?” Ning Zhen turned around to face him and counted off the reasons on her fingers. “Take the last time we picked up the car—”
“That’s in the past. Why bring it up?”
“You say it’s in the past, but it isn’t in the past for me!” she protested indignantly. “If I told people what happened last time, I’d be the one in the right. But to make you happy, I hugged you and kissed you. Doesn’t that count as being understanding? Don’t think you’re the only one who’s ever been understanding, or that you’re the only one who’s suffered and made sacrifices.”
“I don’t remember.”
He brushed his fingertip over her cheek. “Then humor me again.”
Ning Zhen nearly spat in his face.
She stared at him, but her heart had already softened. She was no longer cool or detached at all. There was another person in her heart now. He had moved in effortlessly, making her heart race like thunder one moment and leaving her so stifled she could hardly breathe the next.
Did he feel the same way?
He probably did.
Otherwise, after getting so angry with her that he had already left, why would he have come back to take her temperature?
She muttered, “Then remember this well!”
With that, she kissed him, thinking that perhaps it would be nice to pass the virus on to him and let him experience for himself what it was like to be unable to breathe through his nose while being so infuriated that his head buzzed.
Damn him!
The moment her lips touched his, he opened his mouth and pulled her into the kiss, refusing to let go.
When the long kiss ended, it was as if all their unhappiness had vanished into thin air. Breathless, she asked him, “Does that count as being understanding of you?”
Meng Xianwen laughed helplessly.
If that counted as being understanding, then he was being understanding of her every single day.
He had no choice but to wrap his arms around her. He said nothing more, and his silence served as an admission.
Over the next few days, Ning Zhen fought the flu virus with more determination than she had ever shown before. She had decided to go head-to-head with it, determined to make him open his eyes and see that she had managed to stay lively and healthy for more than twenty years for a reason.
Within a few days, she had recovered completely.
But to her disappointment, even though they had slept in the same bed for days, he still hadn’t caught it from her!
Heaven really was blind!
When they got up that morning, she waved herself around in front of him. “Well? I’m completely recovered. I’m my own doctor!”
Meng Xianwen looked at her thoughtfully and nodded. “It really was nothing serious.”
“Hey!”
He was extremely vindictive. Whenever she said something he didn’t like, he made a point of throwing it back at her again and again.
Ning Zhen walked over to the table, about to argue with him, when he calmly set down his teacup and reached out to pull her onto his lap. The two of them tussled for a while, until she burst into laughter. Once she had finished laughing, she announced, “This matter is temporarily over. Temporarily!”
Just like the car-pickup incident, she would bring it up again someday.
Meng Xianwen: “…”
“I was going stir-crazy these past few days.” Ning Zhen let out a long breath. “I made plans to go singing with Guo Xia. You’re on your own tonight—work as late as you want.”
Meng Xianwen had no intention of working late.
The moment she mentioned Guo Xia, he thought of what Lu Yuan had said several months earlier. That afternoon, after pondering it in his office for a while, he sent a message:
[If you’re free today, come take a drive with me.]
Half an hour later, Lu Yuan replied:
[okk]
When the two men met up, neither had brought a driver. Lu Yuan’s car was better suited for a leisurely drive, so they drove around without any particular destination in mind. Eventually, they found a quiet, open place and sat listening to music. Lu Yuan teased him, “Do we still have to go get some fried chicken or something?”
Meng Xianwen turned his head toward the car window and smiled. “I can’t eat that stuff.”
They had been friends for many years. How could Lu Yuan fail to see that Meng Xianwen’s mood was not as carefree as he pretended?
After thinking it over, Lu Yuan decided it could only have something to do with Ning Zhen. At this point—or, more accurately, over all these years—she was the only person who could leave Meng Xianwen utterly helpless.
“So, I’m curious.” Lu Yuan lowered the window and rested one arm outside. “How did you and Zhenzhen end up together?”
Meng Xianwen fell into thought.
He had meant to consider how he should answer the question, but his mind refused to obey him, filling instead with every moment he and she had spent together.
Lu Yuan continued waiting for his answer. After staring at him for a while, he said in exasperation, “What are you smiling about?”
“The navigation.”
“What?”
Meng Xianwen leaned over, tapped the center console, and said matter-of-factly, in a calm and unruffled tone, “A fried-chicken place. I’ll pick up a portion to take home.”
