CH 4.2

Until June 7th, whether it was in the hospital ward or the company’s high-level meeting, Luo Qi didn’t meet Jiang Shenghe.

During the period, Secretary Ju called her and asked her for her ID card information to book a high-speed rail ticket to Suzhou.

Luo Qi asked, as a by the way, where the hotel was booked.

According to Jiang Shenghe’s instructions, Secretary Ju booked a five-star hotel in the center of Suzhou city. Everything in the urban area was good, but the traffic jams were considerable. The boss never liked to live in busy places when he was on a business trip. This time he made an exception: he said he wanted to meet a friend, and it was more convenient to live in the city center.

When Luo Qi heard the address of the hotel, it was less than 500 meters away from the alley where her house was, so she had enough time to go home at night.

Secretary Ju only knew that Luo Qi was from Suzhou, but she didn’t know where her family lived.

“Is your home far from the hotel? The itinerary is not tight this time. If it’s not too far, you can go home and stay overnight.” 

Luo Qi said, “It’s very close, only about a ten-minute walk. If there is no work dinner, I can be your guide and take you around.”

Secretary Ju was not polite, “Then I will definitely rely on you.”

She added, “There is no dinner on the night of the 8th—it’s Chief Jiang’s private itinerary. As long as Chief Jiang has private arrangements, he will give us a holiday, so we don’t have to follow him. In the evening, we two can go out shopping. After shopping, you can go home and stay over.”

Luo Qi felt that it was not appropriate—if she was on a business trip with Jiang Yueru, she could do a bit of personal matters, but it is her first time to go on a business trip with the big boss and it’s still better to leave a good impression. “I will go home and see my parents, but I won’t stay at home; I’ll go back to the hotel.”

Secretary Ju told her to go home with peace of mind, Jiang Shenghe was only strict with them during working hours, and was more considerate of his subordinates after work, and always gave them half-a-day personal time off when they were on business trips like this. In fact, they would usually meet up with friends or visit scenic spots, and Jiang Shenghe never looked for them during this period.

She talked about her own experience, “I once went on a business trip to my hometown, and Chief Jiang offered to let me go home to accompany my parents. So you can go home with peace of mind and stay for one night and one more morning. You will only have work in the afternoon of the 9th. For that meeting, you just need to make sure to show up on time.”

Luo Qi said gratefully, “Thank you, Master.”

“It’s not my credit, if you want to thank someone—thank the boss, Chief Jiang,” Secretary Ju said. “But I love to hear you call me ‘Master’. Anyway, I’m busy, so goodbye.”

They hung up the phone with a smile.

Luo Qi then told her mother the good news: she’ll be going to Suzhou City on the afternoon of the 8th and will go home in the evening and stay overnight.

Her mother asked: [Is Shixiao free to come back? You have to choose the wedding dress as soon as possible. It will take three to four months to make it by hand. Try to get it done before November, so that there is still time to change it if it doesn’t fit.]

Luo Qi didn’t ask Pei Shixiao; he has been working overtime every day recently, and every video call he was still in the office. [He shouldn’t be free.]

Mother: [Then mother will accompany you. You try it on and make a video for Shixiao to watch.]

Luo Qi: [OK.]

Her mother did not forget to remind: [Remember to put an umbrella in your bag before you come back; the rains this year might come early.]

Luo Qi: [There is always an umbrella in the bag.]

Without noticing it, half of this year has already passed, and it was the rainy season again. At this time of the year, the old houses in the alleys will return to damp and emit a faint, musty smell.

Her father always tried to find ways to dehumidify, but the old house was next to the river, and the river would rise up during summer, so the effect of dehumidification was not at all obvious.

After getting engaged to Pei Shixiao at the beginning of this year, her mother specially told her not to bring Pei Shixiao home for dinner for six or seven months, for fear that he might not be used to the damp smell.

_______

On the eighth day, the sky in Beijing was clear.

Luo Qi only brought a small suitcase and set off early to the train station. It was more convenient to take the high-speed rail to Sucheng than the plane, and the scenery along the road was not bad.

When she arrived at the station, she pushed the suitcase to the business class waiting room.

From a distance, she noticed the tall figure standing by the door of the waiting room. Her attention was drawn, not because of the man’s broad shoulders and long legs, but because of the inexplicable sense of psychological oppression that came from seeing the boss.

Jiang Shenghe—sunglasses on, arms folded—was on the phone.

For some reason, he suddenly turned his face and looked in her direction.

When other women passing by saw Jiang Shenghe, what they felt was the unconscious masculine aura coming from him, but Luo Qi didn’t care to appreciate it—she’s busy thinking that she actually arrived later than the boss!

At this moment, Jiang Shenghe ended the call, and he lowered the phone from his ear.

He didn’t wait for her at the door on purpose, it’s only that he received a call from home; there were several subordinates in the waiting room, and it was inconvenient to say some things in front of them.

“Chief Jiang,” Luo Qi greeted him. 

Jiang Shenghe nodded, “Go in.”

Secretary Ju sat with a few colleagues, chatting quietly. They saw her come in and waved to her.

Luo Qi put her luggage next to the sofa and sat down next to Secretary Ju.

Secretary Ju pointed to the flat shoes on her feet and winked at her.

Luo Qi smiled, instantly understanding that it was convenient to go shopping in Suzhou wearing flat shoes.

There were a total of five people on this trip, including Luo Qi, and they were all booked in the same carriage.

When they got on the train, Secretary Ju and the others didn’t sit according to the seat number on their respective tickets; instead they just casually found seats. Luo Qi was Jiang Yueru’s person, and she was considered an outsider compared to them, so they were all very polite to her and left the two best independent seats to her and Jiang Shenghe.

She didn’t hurry and walked behind Jiang Shenghe, waiting for the boss to choose a seat first.

Jiang Shenghe knew that Luo Qi often took this high-speed rail, and she had already seen the scenery along the way many times. She might not be interested in looking for a long period, and she might not necessarily look out the window at all during the trip, but he still left the seat on the side with a better view for Luo Qi to sit on, and picked the other side for himself.

Luo Qi put away her suitcase, thinking about how to pass the time.

This train was not an EMU1, and there is basically no privacy to speak off between the seats. No matter what she does, the boss sitting next to her would be able to see it clearly.

She didn’t intend to pretend to be actively busy with work in front of the boss—the boss would see through it in a glance—so she simply took out a tablet to watch a movie.

She put on the earphones and, almost out of habit, Luo Qi opened the movie that had already been viewed four times from the list of favorites.

Today was the fifth time for her to watch.

It’s a niche movie. She was studying abroad when it was released, and Pei Shixiao accompanied her to the cinema to watch it twice, but he was not interested in it and just came purely to keep her company.

Pei Shixiao seemed to have endless patience with her—obviously he didn’t like it, but he still offered to watch it with her again.

As the high-speed rail left the city, the view became wider.

Jiang Shenghe turned his head and saw Luo Qi taking pictures of the view outside the window. She took several shots a row then looked at the pictures taken. As if the shots were not satisfactory, the phone was pointed outside the window again.

How long she took the pictures was how long he secretly watched her.

____________

FOOTNOTE:

1EMU trains business class would have seats like this. Luo is lamenting that she and Jiang Shenghe are seated on normal carriage seats and she can’t hide. ↩︎

Apologies for missing all of the previous week’s updates. I got sick, and then my internet provider had technical problems and I didn’t have the patience to deal with how mind-numbingly slow it got.