Chapter 51: Listen to Me 032

Chapter 51

Su Tao frowned as she saw the blood flowing from his hand to his shirtsleeve. She immediately grabbed some tissues to wrap around the wound, but the tissues were soon stained red with blood and could not stop the bleeding.

"How did you hurt yourself?" Su Tao looked at the shocking red and her voice involuntarily rose as her bright eyes glistened with moisture.

Xie Jin had not expected Su Tao to react so strongly. He thought he would have to pretend to be weak to gain her sympathy.

He panicked a little and pulled Su Tao's hand to reassure her, "It's nothing, I just got hurt while playing a game."

Su Tao looked at the spinning top and then at the others around them. Her usually calm tone now carried a hint of irritated questioning, "How could you hurt your hand so badly just from a game?"

Everyone else saw the accident and gathered around. Na Zheng Lai immediately called over the housekeeper to bring the first aid kit. He also asked the performers who had been playing games, "How could you hurt Chairman Xie's hand like this?"

Xie Jin allowed Su Tao to bandage him and waved his other hand magnanimously, "Forget it, I'm not blaming them."

The performers: ......

It had nothing to do with them in the first place.

After Su Tao finally stopped the bleeding and bandaged Xie Jin's finger, she recovered from her earlier loss of control.

The now calm and rational Su Tao looked at the ostrich-like performers, then at the broken glass on the ground, and thoughtfully glanced at Xie Jin, as if she understood something.

She said to the worried Na Zheng Lai, "Don't worry, Director Na. I'll take him to the hospital for a tetanus shot and he'll be fine."

Under everyone's concerned gaze, the two of them left in the car.

Su Tao glanced at Xie Jin, who was still pretending to be weak, and slowly asked, "So what really happened?"

Xie Jin staunchly stuck to his lies, "Like I said, we were just playing a game earlier. They wanted me to post an embarrassing photo on Weibo but I didn't want to. The glass broke during the argument and I accidentally cut my hand."

"Who could force you to post it if you didn't want to? You smashed the glass yourself right? Just to get me to leave with you?"

After Su Tao mercilessly exposed Xie Jin's lies, she let out a soft sigh, "If you wanted me to leave early, you should have just told me directly. Why hurt your hand over this?"

"I already told you but you still wouldn't go..."

He didn't dare rush her to leave. Just getting her to put on a coat took kneeling and begging with lychees already. If he forcibly made her leave, he was afraid even kneeling wouldn't work anymore.

"Were you...worried just now?" Recalling her earlier anxious reaction, a smile slowly crept into Xie Jin's dark eyes.

Su Tao ignored him and drove straight to the hospital.

Holding up her skirt, she ran up and down in Xie Jin's suit jacket to register, pay and collect medication under the watchful and admiring eyes of others.

Perhaps due to her exceptional looks or beautiful dress, many people even took out their phones to photograph her.

After going through all the procedures, Su Tao drove Xie Jin back to the villa. On the way, they passed by a Western restaurant and picked up takeout dinner for both of them.

Taking advantage of his injured hand, Xie Jin enjoyed Su Tao's meticulous care.

After feeding him dinner, Xie Jin suggested watching a movie. Su Tao washed some fruit and brought it over for him to eat.

Lounging comfortably on the sofa, Xie Jin admired his injured hand again. How clever he was to come up with this scheme! Not only did he avoid kneeling and begging, he even got such special treatment.

Sitting next to him, Su Tao watched the movie together. As she picked up a strawberry to eat it, Xie Jin leaned over to take a bite, his tongue lightly brushing her fingertips.

Holding up the finger he had touched, Su Tao looked at him and calmly took out a tissue to wipe it.

"You...shouldn't go home tonight. If something happens to me in my disabled state, there'll be no one to help me." Xie Jin scrupulously laid out the reasons for asking her to stay, with hopeful lights shining in his eyes.

"Mm."

Although Su Tao only softly murmured in reply, triumphant background music instantly sounded in Xie Jin's mind, along with fireworks bursting, as if celebrating the new year.

Admiring his obliging injured finger again, he raised his eyebrows and turned his wicked gaze on the other fingers, ready to sacrifice them anytime.

They finally finished watching an old foreign arthouse film. Despite Xie Jin's irritable personality, he enjoyed these kinds of movies. Su Tao would never understand his taste, and had started dozing off leaning against the sofa halfway through, as if listening to a lullaby.

Suddenly, she felt something press against her mouth and opened her eyes. A face was right in front of her, his eyes closed uneasily, long lashes lightly fluttering, brushing her eyelashes.

Xie Jin had barely touched her lips when he was discovered. His breath hitched.

Figuring he would get a beating anyway, he decisively planted a solid kiss. Su Tao frowned, "You..."

"I'm wrong." Xie Jin's apologies now rolled right off his tongue, so skilled it made one's heart ache.

Su Tao was a little more awake now. She dodged him, stretched lazily, and yawned as she got up to go sleep in the guest room upstairs.

Familiar with the place, she picked a room with an attached bathroom but discovered she had not brought anything with her.

Xie Jin slowly exhaled, gazing into Su Tao's clear and bright eyes. After hesitating for a long time, he said softly: "A year ago, the day you left."

"After I left, you couldn't sleep?"

"It's not that I couldn't sleep. It's that as soon as I fell asleep, my dreams were full of your departing figure. Later after taking sleeping pills, I started being able to dream about our past happiness again, so I gradually became dependent on them."

Su Tao's brows remained furrowed, frowning more and more. She asked uncomprehendingly: "Why didn't you tell me about faking your foot and hand injuries to gain my sympathy?"

Xie Jin hesitated for a moment, lowered his eyes, and said softly: "Because that was real."

Because it was real, he couldn't say it.

The foot and hand injuries were just excuses to get close to her. He didn't really want to worry or sadden her.

From the moment she said she had slept drunk with the young man she first met on the bridge, he knew that little Su Tao still loved him.

It was just because of the misunderstanding from that photo, and her emotional fastidiousness, that made it so she couldn't accept him.

If she really didn't want anything to do with him at all, she would never have revealed her true feelings while drunk.

So he couldn't tell her about his real pain, or she would cry.

She wanted independence, and he supported her.

If she didn't want romance, he could wait.

He was even willing to play the role of her shield.

He was confident that he could dote on her until the moment she was willing to let go of her reservations and accept him again.

"I've been much better since finding you, especially when we were sleeping in the same house. Just one pill stopped me from having that nightmare, and I didn't need any pills at all sleeping next to you. I really am much better now."

Xie Jin had only wanted to reassure her, but his words made Su Tao even more distressed.

So it turned out he had always wanted to sleep with her because when he was with her, he didn't need to take pills.

Misty tears welled up in Su Tao's clear eyes, and a glistening tear rolled down her face, falling onto the back of Xie Jin's hand.

The warm tear was like magma to Xie Jin, scalding his hand.

Even though it scalded him, he immediately reached out to catch her falling tears, as if cradling a priceless gem, unwilling to let a single drop fall to the ground.

"Good girl Su Tao, don't cry. I can't catch them all, I'll have to go get a basin."

Xie Jin's words made Su Tao break into a smile amidst her tears, but the tears flowed even more fiercely. Crying and laughing at the same time, her expression was very complex.

Tears also welled up in Xie Jin's eyes, but seeing her like this, he laughed out loud too. He took out his phone and recorded her laughable and pitiable appearance.

"What are you recording?" Su Tao reached out to grab his phone, but Xie Jin nimbly dodged away.

"Your schizophrenic expression is perfect for making emojis." Although tears were still streaming down Xie Jin's face, he laughed and teased.

Su Tao wiped away her tears and pouted, casually picking up the small makeup mirror from the table and holding it up to his face: "You should take a look at your own expression, it's even more suitable."

Amidst their mutual mockery, they had both stopped crying, and calmed down a bit, feeling a little awkward.

Xie Jin put away his phone and coughed lightly a couple times, concealing his previous loss of composure. "Well, you should sleep early. I'll go out first."

Su Tao called for him to wait. "Wait, you, are you going to take pills again?"

Xie Jin honestly nodded. "Now I only need half a pill."

Su Tao pursed her lips, her slightly reddened eyes flickering meaningfully as she asked: "Medicine is one-third poison, isn't half a pill still quite damaging to the body?"

Clearly, Xie Jin didn't understand her implication, and reassured: "It's fine, the doctor said one pill daily, timed exercise to detox, it doesn't affect health."

Su Tao patiently hinted again: "Then if there are ways to sleep without taking pills, why insist on taking them?"

At this moment, Xie Jin seemed to have an iron blockhead, still not understanding her meaning: "No, I don't want to take pills either, but the key is that apart from sleeping with you, there is no other way to sleep without taking them."

Su Tao looked at him with clear eyes. "Well, so..."

Xie Jin blinked his deep-set eyes. "So...half a pill will be fine."

Su Tao: "..."

Su Tao's face went from flushed to pale. She knew she shouldn't have tried to imply anything to someone whose mind goes straight at critical moments.

With her left hand, she crooked a finger at him, and with her right, she authoritatively pointed to the bed behind her, "Lie down, sleep."