i Hua has always been curious of what kind of a person would AiLin be. After seeing her from the park, she had looked into AiLin’s background but it was odd and it didn’t match up. Most of it said that she ca from abroad but when her informants brought back the information asking which "AiLin" was she looking for.
The current AiLin in front of her didn’t seem like she was born from a rich family but she does have an air that made one rethink their action before talking with her, a pressuring atmosphere that made people froze before they spoke to her. But that was all. She wasn’t devastatingly pretty, she’s older than her, and she had nothing more in her than a mother who is hated by her own grandmother. In terms of looks, age, and family situation, AiLin couldn’t match up to her.
An old woman and ugly, thought i Hua while staring at AiLin.
AiLin herself could tell that i Hua was studying her looks and seed dissatisfied at the end as she had tried to hide her scoff. Though AiLin didn’t really care about it. Suddenly between them i Hua coughed and placed her hand on Li JingYi’s shoulders, as she had said she loved touching others more than she should have. "Can you get water, JingYi? Please?"
"Alright, alright, a warm one for your throat Okay?" Li JingYi saw her nod and went off to the vending machine. Though it wasn’t far, he had left her alone with i Hua who then looked and assessed her emotions with a wide smile.
i Hua was younger than her but perhaps by only three years. Young, adorable, and have those glimr of youth that sparkled up her eyes. But she still appeared immature to AiLin who was calr in retrospect.
"There was a ti when in our childhood," said i Hua while speaking as she stared at JingYi, "JingYi and I was lost in the garden after a party. The owner of the house had a maze garden and I didn’t know where I was. Suddenly JingYi disappeared and I was left alone there with no one else."
"Must have been scary," AiLin remarked blandly.
"Yes but it wasn’t an utterly scary mory to . Not long after that my savior ca."
AiLin still didn’t react.
"Li ZiChen, Brother ZiChen, he ca to find . He knew instantly where I was, he always knew. Because I was crying, he then danced with under the moonlight. Since then I love him."
Subtly, under the curtains of her long lashes, AiLin turned her gaze to i Hua. She had wondered what the initial narrowed look that i Hua had sent to her but only now did she realize it was a sense of jealousy. The girl acted as if it was her first ti seeing her but it seed she had known about her relationship to Li ZiChen. Perhaps not the fact that they lived together though seeing how she was still maintaining the triumphant smile on her lips.
"I know him best," said i Hua again.
"Therefore you don’t want to take away your place?"
i Hua’s face faltered as AiLin’s tone was direct.
She smiled, "I do not want to pressure you or anything, but as a girl, you should be supportive no?"
A chuckle passed from AiLin’s lips, "Oh dearest. Do you think because you like soone, others couldn’t like that person too Miss i Hua? I think you forgot that you and Li ZiChen aren’t in a relationship for you to be saying this to . I don’t owe you anything to be supportive to you."
"What?"
i Hua seed pissed off by the truth.
"Miss AiLin, it isn’t that we aren’t in relationship. We aren’t yet," she stressed her last words, "It’s because Brother Zi Chen owe you sothing. I heard him talking to soone before that he owed the woman ’Ai Lin’ sothing and he would repay it. Once he repaid what he owed, he will co to . He’s always been. But don’t take advantage of his kindness and demand him to like you because he had owed you sothing, that’s embarrassing don’t you think?"
Owe her?
Li ZiChen owed her sothing?
As she thought it wasn’t only her family that had beguiled him to reaching out his hand to her with the contract. There was sothing else. Sothing. But she never recalled ever helping Li ZiChen before. Had he mistaken her for soone else? But considering how ticulous he is, that seed even more impossible than a frog flying across the sky with a cape.
"You get , don’t you?" Urged i Hua.
"No," AiLin responded coldly as she scoffed right across i Hua’s face, "After all I have never begged another woman to stay away from the man I liked, so no, I don’t get you."
i Hua’s face flushed red from embarrassnt that crawled over to her neck. She narrowed her eyes and then let tears dropped down from her two eyes, wetness filling her blushed cheeks.
In face of those tears, AiLin was stunned. Her words were harsh but was it more harsh than i Hua’s own words? No. Yet the girl had cried pitifully as if she had slapped her across the face, another trick up her sleeve.
"Miss AiLin," said i Hua as she smiled while her tears dripped down, an actress who knew when and where she should cry, "Do you really believe that people will be on your side? Listen carefully, Brother Zi Chen has always been mine."
AiLin then saw i Hua’s eyes moving upward at the person who was walking out of the elevator with six people following behind him. In a dark blue suit today, Li ZiChen’s hair was parted in half with half of it combed back and the other let loose. He was holding to a flower bouquet given from an event which he had placed toward a staff mber when he looked in front and his eyes lit up that sparked dimd when he found that AiLin was standing in front of the crying i Hua.
It seed not only were the two here but also Li JingYi who had ca and rushed toward i Hua’s side, confused why she was crying and was trying to soothe her not to cry.
i Hua said, "I know I was out of place to ask you about your grandmother but you didn’t have to go that far, Miss AiLin."
AiLin wondered what bullshit was happening. She didn’t want to spare her energy to i Hua and rolled her eyes in return.
"W- What happened?" Li JingYi was pressed between a hard place and a fiery pit, not knowing what to do.
"I talked to Miss AiLin about her family but she suddenly told that— that..."
"That?" AiLin urged and saw how quick more tears dripped from i Hua’s face and she sighed. Li JingYi was also looking at her, hoping for so help but she shrugged her shoulders as she turned around to see Li ZiChen. His face from afar... it was indeed scary.
When he was alone with her, she felt that he was more understandable. But now standing from afar, surrounded by people who are most talented in their field, he seed like soone unattainable, soone so illustrious, and not many could simply wish and hope to touch.
He looked too perfect for her to comprehend his interest in her, soone who is...
When he reached to their side, his eyes first studied her and then assessed the tears that adorably fell from i Hua’s eyes.
All of a sudden she was thrust back to eight years ago. When she was also put in similar situation when her bullies tried to pin a bla on her. She had begged for soone to believe her but the teachers instead brushed off her words and believed the majorities which were all her bullies. Since then she had made a point not to try to make soone believe her.
But for so reason seeing Li ZiChen looking at i Hua and the girl then crying, hoping for him to understand her and what the villainous AiLin had done, her heart and lips felt the need to tell him that she had done nothing wrong and that the girl had cried on her own.
But.
"AiLin," Li ZiChen’s voice that entered her ears felt foreign. She couldn’t again deduce what emotion was passing in that few tone that was calling up her na.
Anger? Disappointnt?
i Hua is their childhood friend while she is a stranger, what the girl wanted to show her was how she is nothing in this group. That she is the outsider.
"AiLin," he called her again and suddenly she felt firm hands on her shoulders. Her eyes shut tight, her hands flew over her face as if to shield her head and only then did she realize what she had done.
She opened her eyes wide, seeing Li ZiChen whose brown eyes were wider than her. He seed shocked, shocked to see that she had lifted her hand, that she had tried to protect herself as though soone was going to hit her.
He then narrowed his eyes and touched her forehead gently, pulling away, "You’re pale. You have a fever, AiLin."
"Huh?"
She slowly moved her eyes to both Li JingYi and i Hua who were as shocked as her, confused why instead of finishing the problem as soone had cried behind him, he had pressed his hands to her forehead as if that was more urgent.
Wordlessly, Li ZiChen then placed his hand on her back and the other one under her knees. Her view tilted and by the ti she knew it she was on his arms, carried as if she was as light as feather.
"Doctor! Assistant Kang, call the doctor now! Bring him to my office, get so congee, and push the eting from three o’clock to seven evening. No, clear my schedule for the entire day."
Reviews
All reviews (0)