Zhang Xiyue spent two hours carefully having a “conversation” with Cheng Mingjiao.
Although Guo Fengnian’s words had prepared her for what was coming, after hearing about Cheng Mingjiao’s attempts to chase lightning on rainy days and crash cars on sunny ones, she still realized that she hadn’t been prepared nearly enough.
Cheng Mingjiao even defended himself with complete conviction. “I wasn’t acting recklessly when I did those things. I had research to back me up. According to the data, car crashes, lightning strikes, and sudden death are the three most effective ways to travel through time. I wasn’t planning on transmigrating as a soul, so sudden death was out of the question. That left me with trying—”
Before he could finish, Zhang Xiyue hugged him.
Cheng Mingjiao immediately grew wary. “…What are you doing? Is this our last supper? Do you think I’m too crazy and want to break up with me?”
“I’m not breaking up with you. I’m just a little shaken by what might have happened.”
“What’s there to be afraid of? Whenever I did those things, I had professionals with me…”
His mouth was still stubborn, but his arms had already wrapped around his girlfriend.
They held each other for a long, long time. It wasn’t until his stomach began staging a persistent protest that Cheng Mingjiao reluctantly let go of Zhang Xiyue.
“Come on,” Zhang Xiyue said, breathing out softly. She was feeling a little better now. “Let’s get something to eat.”
“Hey, Zhang Xiyue.” Cheng Mingjiao stopped her.
After Zhang Xiyue had fiercely objected to being called “Wife,” he had gone back to calling her by her full name. In exchange, Zhang Xiyue would never call him by his full name again.
So, after going around in a circle, he didn’t have to change anything, while Zhang Xiyue could no longer scare him by calling his name. Cheng Mingjiao was very pleased with this arrangement.
“Zhang Xiyue.” He called her again.
Zhang Xiyue raised an eyebrow, silently asking what he wanted.
Cheng Mingjiao lifted his chin, unable to hide his smugness. “You’re madly in love with me, aren’t you?”
This wasn’t the first time she had heard him ask that question, and she couldn’t help laughing.
“…What are you laughing at?” Cheng Mingjiao asked, his brows knitting together.
The corners of Zhang Xiyue’s lips lifted even higher. “Yes. I’m madly in love with you.”
Cheng Mingjiao froze, and his ears suddenly turned red.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, hurrying toward the door.
Zhang Xiyue followed at a leisurely pace. “You were the one who asked. Why are you getting shy now?”
“…Zhang Xiyue, don’t make things up.” Cheng Mingjiao quickened his pace.
Although he managed to escape, Zhang Xiyue still had a few serious words with him over dinner about his attempts to travel through time, firmly ordering him not to do anything reckless again.
Cheng Mingjiao didn’t like being lectured, but whenever he met her gaze, all he could do was nod and agree.
Still, he had to say a few words in his own defense. “I really didn’t put myself in danger. I swear.”
Zhang Xiyue answered with a perfunctory hum or two, clearly unconvinced.
Cheng Mingjiao felt helpless, but he didn’t try to explain any further.
He knew exactly how low the chances of successfully traveling through time were, and he knew that what he had been doing was pointless.
Since he knew that, he would never truly put himself in danger and make his family and friends worry for nothing… though they had worried anyway.
But what could Cheng Mingjiao do? He was simply too lonely.
When Zhang Xiyue left, she hadn’t told him that separation could hurt this much.
Seeing the dresses in the wardrobe hurt. Seeing the skincare products she hadn’t finished using hurt. Even seeing the snacks she hadn’t had time to finish hurt.
He was always in pain—constantly and endlessly, with no end in sight and no hope at all. All he could do was rack his brain for ways to pass the time, so he wouldn’t have to endure that torment every waking moment.
Experimenting with different ways to travel through time had been his way of passing the time.
“This is good.” Cheng Mingjiao placed a piece of salted egg yolk chicken wing in Zhang Xiyue’s bowl.
Zhang Xiyue returned the favor by giving him a cherry tomato.
Cheng Mingjiao looked at the cherry tomato in his bowl, and the corners of his lips lifted by a single pixel.
Zhang Xiyue was back. That was wonderful.
Cheng Mingjiao, who had taken everything for granted his entire life, was expressing his gratitude to heaven for the first time. With an almost sacred sense of reverence, he ate the cherry tomato Zhang Xiyue had given him…
Mm. It was incredibly sour.
Cheng Mingjiao had never been one to suffer in silence. He immediately spat out the tomato and lodged a serious complaint. “There are so many sweet tomatoes. Why did you have to give me a sour one?”
“…I didn’t taste it. How was I supposed to know it was sour?” Zhang Xiyue asked, baffled.
“Then why didn’t you taste it first?”
Zhang Xiyue was silent for several seconds before asking, “Do you realize that I’m just your girlfriend right now, not your assistant-girlfriend?”
Cheng Mingjiao: “?”
Zhang Xiyue put down her chopsticks and rested her chin in her hands, smiling sweetly. “If you keep being unreasonable, I really will hit you.”
Cheng Mingjiao: “…”
One threat from Zhang Xiyue was enough to make the Emperor behave for a few minutes.
But only a few minutes. After that, he began dredging up old grievances. “You used to lie to me all the time…”
Zhang Xiyue pretended not to hear him.
“You weren’t even the first person to hit me. You hit Chen Mingjiao before you hit me…”
Zhang Xiyue’s eyelid twitched.
Cheng Mingjiao was about to say more, but Zhang Xiyue decisively changed the subject. “What was Little Ming’s reaction when I suddenly disappeared that day?”
“What reaction could he have had?” Cheng Mingjiao was unhappy that she had changed the subject so blatantly, and even more unhappy that her new topic involved someone else. Still, he took his girlfriend’s question seriously. “At first, he thought your phone had lost its signal. Then, after a day passed, he came looking for me.”
At that point, he seized the opportunity to put in a word against Little Ming. “If it had been me, I would have figured out a way to find you immediately, instead of waiting a whole day before pretending to care.”
Zhang Xiyue ignored the latter part. “So what did you tell him?”
Cheng Mingjiao glanced up at her. “I told him you had an urgent matter and had gone abroad.”
Zhang Xiyue: “…That’s it?”
Cheng Mingjiao: “Mm.”
Zhang Xiyue: “He didn’t suspect anything?”
Cheng Mingjiao: “No.”
How could Zhang Xiyue possibly believe that?
“Really, he didn’t. He just stared at me for a few seconds, then turned around and left,” Cheng Mingjiao emphasized.
This time, Zhang Xiyue believed him, but it only left her even more confused.
No… How could Little Ming have believed such a flimsy, hole-ridden excuse?
No matter how she thought about it, Zhang Xiyue couldn’t understand. She asked again, “I’ve been gone for so long. Didn’t he come looking for you again?”
“He did. He comes by every few days.” The mention of it clearly annoyed Cheng Mingjiao. “That man really has no sense of boundaries. Every time he comes, he stays at my place for at least half an hour before leaving. If I happen not to be home, he just waits outside my door until I return and open it. Then he sits in our home for ages before finally leaving.”
Zhang Xiyue frowned. It was hard to imagine that someone with Chen Mingjiao’s personality would spend so long shamelessly lingering at Cheng Mingjiao’s place.
And even stranger, after lingering, he would simply leave without making a fuss.
Zhang Xiyue clicked her tongue and asked how he had explained things to everyone else.
“I told them the same thing—that you’d gone abroad.”
Zhang Xiyue: “…I’ve been gone for so long without contacting them once, and they didn’t suspect anything at all?”
“No.” Cheng Mingjiao seemed a little smug when he brought this up. “That’s mainly because my personal credibility is so excellent. When I told them you had gone abroad on urgent business and couldn’t contact anyone in the country, they simply assumed that you’d gone overseas because of some emergency. Not a single one of them suspected anything.”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
Great. Now she was even more confused.
After dinner, Zhang Xiyue asked to use Cheng Mingjiao’s phone to contact Chen Mingjiao, but he refused.
Zhang Xiyue assumed he was still upset about the time she had gone looking for Chen Mingjiao, so she took a step back and said that contacting Zhou Ce and the others would be fine too.
She had been gone for so long that she really missed those friends.
Cheng Mingjiao refused again. “Why do you need to contact anyone else? Isn’t it enough just to stay with me?”
Seeing his stubborn expression, Zhang Xiyue realized that she still hadn’t given him enough reassurance, so she stopped bringing up contacting the others.
After spending several days accompanying Cheng Mingjiao like this, she finally managed to smooth the Emperor’s ruffled feathers.
Early one morning, before she was fully awake, she heard someone say in her ear, “Get up. I’m taking you to work.”
Zhang Xiyue’s eyes flew open.
It had been a long time since she had last come to Yuhuang, and her state of mind was now completely different from before.
The moment she stood outside the assistant’s office, Zhang Xiyue actually felt a little nervous.
Cheng Mingjiao noticed her unease and suddenly called her name. “Zhang Xiyue.”
Zhang Xiyue instinctively looked at him. “Hmm?”
Cheng Mingjiao said, “There’s nothing to worry about. If they don’t welcome you, I’ll fire them.”
Zhang Xiyue: “…Oh. Thanks, but there’s no need for that.”
“Go chat with your friends,” Cheng Mingjiao said.
Zhang Xiyue laughed and immediately reached for the door.
Seeing how decisively she moved, Cheng Mingjiao felt a little sour inside.
But before that sour feeling could take root, Zhang Xiyue released the doorknob, threw herself at him, and kissed him once. “I’ll come find you later, Mr. Cheng.”
With that, she went straight inside.
Bang.
The door closed, and through the glass decoration in the door, Cheng Mingjiao saw his own pleased expression.
Fine. Sometimes, when the words “Mr. Cheng” came from Zhang Xiyue’s lips, they weren’t so unpleasant after all.
Inside the room, Zhang Xiyue had barely come to a stop before everyone’s eyes turned toward her.
So much time had passed, and the colleagues who had been away on business elsewhere had returned as well. Zhou Ce happened to be there coordinating some work, which meant everyone was present.
Facing their stares, Zhang Xiyue suddenly remembered Cheng Mingjiao’s warning that he would fire anyone who didn’t welcome her. She put on a stiff smile and said, “Hi, long time no see.”
Everyone stared at her for several seconds before Fangfang suddenly let out a shriek and charged over.
She was like a fish dropped into water, instantly bringing the entire office to life.
Zhang Xiyue was surrounded on all sides. She hugged her old friends and greeted the new ones, and the nervousness she had felt before entering vanished completely amid everyone’s enthusiasm.
After the initial greetings, Fangfang dragged Zhang Xiyue over to her desk. “Didn’t you run off? Why are you back again? Did you two get back together?”
Zhang Xiyue paused. “Run off?”
“Yes, just like last time.” Fangfang looked completely at ease. “Honestly, what is wrong with you? Every time you break up with the Emperor, you disappear without a trace. You don’t even bother to tell us…”
“Wait a second.” Zhang Xiyue finally pieced it together. “You thought that I disappeared for so long because Cheng Mingjiao and I broke up?”
“What else would it be?” Fangfang asked in return.
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
When Zhang Xiyue fell silent, Fangfang laughed. “The Emperor is really too proud. He told everyone that you had gone abroad because of an urgent matter. Hahaha, what a ridiculous excuse. But we were afraid he’d lose his mind, so we didn’t expose him. Do you know how hard it’s been pretending along with him all this time? Hahaha…”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
