Volume One, Chapter Six: Bao, Would You Like to Come Out for a Drink?

After everyone else had left, Jiang Chen took the initiative to ask Wen Li, who was standing motionless in place, "Why did you come here?"

"I heard you were in a car accident, so I came to check on you."

It was the same pattern: he asked, she answered.

Wen Li asked, "Is it anything serious?"

Seeing that she remained rooted to the spot, Jiang Chen retorted with a voice as sharp as venom, "Thanks for your concern, but I'm not dying yet."

He hadn't been like this before.

Wen Li frowned. "Can you not speak to me like a normal person?"

This seemed to trigger some sensitive, fragile nerve, prompting a roar of accusations from him.

"If you don't like my tone, why don't you cover my mouth again? You're quite capable of that, aren't you?"

"You decide to break up, you decide to call off the engagement—in this digital age, a grown person like you can just vanish into thin air. You're like a reincarnated caveman. Is there anything you aren't capable of?"

"I'm sorry."

Facing his barrage of blame, Wen Li could do nothing but apologize.

"I told you, I don't want to hear it."

Jiang Chen was highly agitated. His eyes were streaked with blood, and the IV drip attached to his hand swayed precariously with his movements.

When a man decides to be unreasonable, he can be far worse than any woman. Wen Li didn't want to argue with a patient; she shouldn't have come today.

"I'll leave now."

Seeing her turn to leave, Jiang Chen scrambled out of bed in a panic, accidentally tripping over the IV stand and nearly falling.

Hearing the commotion, Wen Li stepped forward to steady him. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

Jiang Chen took her hand and pressed it against his own chest, right over his heart.

...

The hospital room door opened again. It was Qi Min.

She froze for several seconds, staring at their intimate posture, before hesitantly testing the waters, "Are you two... back together?"

Ensuring Jiang Chen was standing firmly on his own, Wen Li immediately pulled her hand away and stepped back to create distance.

Her actions answered Qi Min's question better than words.

Jiang Chen, annoyed that she had ruined the moment, asked impatiently, "Why are you here?"

Qi Min shifted her gaze away from Wen Li, a flash of jealousy and unease crossing her face, but by the time she looked back at Jiang Chen, her expression was calm. She shook the thermos in her hand.

"Auntie made some soup and asked me to bring it by since I was in the neighborhood."

The "Auntie" she referred to was, unsurprisingly, Zhou Minzhi.

Seeing that Qi Min had set the items down but showed no sign of leaving, Jiang Chen began to usher her out without mercy. "Thank you for the trouble. The soup is here, so if there's nothing else, you can go."

Qi Min ignored the hint. "I'm not busy. I was just thinking I could catch up with Wen Li; we haven't seen each other in so long."

She took Wen Li’s arm and asked with a beaming smile, "Right?"

Wen Li nodded, "Mhm," and sat down with her on the sofa.

Jiang Chen sat back down on the hospital bed, his peripheral vision locked onto Wen Li. He couldn't get enough of the sight of her, unwilling to even blink for fear that if he looked away, she would disappear again.

Wen Li and Qi Min were not only strangers, but their relationship was also terrible. It could be described as one-sided hostility, or perhaps, more severely, bullying.

Yet, at this moment, the other woman kept holding onto her, chattering away about trivial matters, reminiscing about the "good old days."

Wen Li felt like she was sitting on pins and needles. She wasn't really listening, and when she saw it was getting late, she stood up to say goodbye to both of them.

Jiang Chen stood up as well. "I'll take you."

"No need."

Given his driving skills, especially after just having an accident, he’d likely send her straight to the afterlife.

Qi Min interjected, "There’s no reason for a patient to be driving. I’ll take you." She assumed the stance of a family member.

Wen Li politely declined, "Neither of you needs to."

Qi Min chased after her, grabbing her arm at the elevator. "Wen Li, I think it's necessary to remind you to stay away from Jiang Chen. You two have already broken up."

Wen Li wasn't oblivious; she could see Qi Min's feelings for Jiang Chen, and she had no intention of interfering or rekindling their past.

However, the other woman's characteristic hypocrisy made her uncomfortable, proving the old saying that "a leopard cannot change its spots."

So, instead of saying, "You're overthinking it," she said ambiguously, "That has nothing to do with you. Focus on yourself."

Having failed to gain the upper hand with Wen Li, Qi Min returned to the room and tried to lecture Jiang Chen.

Before she could speak, she was shut down. "I'm a patient and I need to rest. You can go now."

He lay back down, turned his back to her, and ripped out the IV line because it was in his way.

When Wen Li emerged from the hospital, Zhou Huaiqing was still parked in the same spot, his high beams flashing insistently.

He honked his horn as she approached, then stood in front of the car in silence.

He rolled down the window. "Done? Did the doctor say what's wrong with you?"

Wen Li replied coldly, "Nothing serious."

Zhou Huaiqing spoke with biting sarcasm, "Right. Truth-telling requires a lie detector, which isn't exactly the hospital's specialty."

"Get in. I'll take you home."

Take, take, take. Wen Li was sick of hearing the word "take."

Was she some sort of cheap object that they could just pass around?

"I can go back myself. You don't need to waste your precious time monitoring me."

Wen Li had never had the right to make her own choices, not even regarding her own travel, living her life in constant, cautious fear.

Seeing her eyes well up, Zhou Huaiqing said sheepishly, "I meant well. I was just afraid you'd be kidnapped by human traffickers."

"Even if a trafficker wanted to kidnap me, they'd probably think I was too much of a burden and not worth the effort."

The little girl was getting quite a temper.

Zhou Huaiqing sat in the car, pulled out two phones, one in each hand, and held them out to her. "Two choices."

"One to Shen Jingshu, one to Wen Yang. Take your pick."

He had her trapped.

"Jerk."

Wen Li angrily reached for the back door, but the man in the driver's seat called out, "Sit in the front. Don't treat me like your chauffeur."

Wen Li stomped to the other side, climbed into the passenger seat, and slammed the door shut, emphasizing her dissatisfaction and mounting rage.

Zhou Huaiqing's ears were practically ringing. "Easy. This car is expensive."

"If you can't afford to maintain it, don't drive it. A Wuling Hongguang would suit you better."

"My long legs wouldn't fit."

...Wen Li remained silent.

Before the car had gone far, her phone screen lit up again. It was another message from Ling Dan.

【Babe, want to go out for a drink?】