He draped his arm over her shoulder, staggering as he walked, pressing down so heavily that Qiao Ling nearly fainted from exhaustion when entering the house.
Once Chen Kuang entered the home, it was as if he had walked into the place he was most familiar with and felt safest in. He kicked off his shoes without care and walked straight toward the sofa bed that belonged to him.
Qiao Ling busied herself locking the door and hanging up clothes, glancing around. She found that at some unknown point, there were already many of Chen Kuang’s things in the house.
His suitcase, his shoes, the books he often flipped through, and the things he usually carried in his pocket when going out.
Even though the two of them had only agreed to a short-term living arrangement, looking at it now, there was basically no difference from a cohabiting couple.
But the distance between them always existed right there, as if no matter how close they got, they would forever be lacking that most crucial step.
Qiao Ling changed her shoes, first boiled hot water, then walked toward the living room.
Chen Kuang had thrown himself directly onto the sofa bed after coming in, still wearing the windbreaker that carried the chill of night, lying flat with a languid posture.
His eyes drooped, and his gaze shifted following her movements, then watched her squat down in front of him.
Qiao Ling raised her hand and waved it in front of his eyes, then felt she was a bit silly, pulling her hand back, “Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere?”
She pinched her nose, “The smell of alcohol on you is too strong, just how much did you guys drink?”
Chen Kuang lifted his arm, brought it in front of his nose and sniffed, “Smells bad?”
“It’s okay… doesn’t alcohol always smell like that.” Qiao Ling was actually experienced in taking care of drunk people—when her dad went out for social drinking, she and her mom would always take care of him. She patted the windbreaker on his body, “You can’t stay like this, change clothes first, drink some honey water before sleeping.”
Chen Kuang listened but didn’t move, just quietly looking at her like that, always carrying a bit of a smile in his eyes.
“I seem to have drunk too much.”
Qiao Ling couldn’t understand the meaning of that look from him, but she was still made to feel uneasy from being stared at, “Of course you drank too much. Why are you staring at me all the time? It’s weird.”
Having known him for a little over a month, it felt like only at this moment did she get to know the real Chen Kuang.
Her impression of him was already greatly different from the beginning, with only two things unchanged: he really was a very sexy person.
Even though on the surface he still looked fierce, as long as he pulled a face it would scare her.
But—
Qiao Ling felt that he must be a person who was gentle at his core.
So gentle it made people sad.
“Don’t sleep yet, wait for my honey water.” She really couldn’t handle his deep gaze anymore, stood up and went to make hangover-relieving honey.
Walking to the kitchen, Qiao Ling took out honey, scooping it with a spoon, unable to help but recall what Xie Lisheng had talked about—the latter half of Chen Kuang’s experiences.
【His dad’s liver cancer very quickly emptied out basically all the family’s money. In order to maintain his dad’s treatment, Chen Kuang had to go to school, work part-time, and help his mother run to the hospital at the same time.】
【That time wasn’t like when you went to university. He’s really clever, made money writing code for people, helped with errands for delivery that couldn’t enter the school gate, delivering things to the dormitory door. At least sixty or seventy trips up and down the building every night. Trending computer devices, game consoles, phones—he acted as a middleman in the market, selling cheap at school.】
【I always felt that with his ability to endure hardship, sooner or later he’d make it big.】
【His father barely managed to hold on for a year and a half. During the second half of junior year, he passed away. Chen Kuang’s family was left with nothing but loss. The only good news was that in senior year, the school offered guaranteed postgraduate recommendation. His professor persuaded him for a long time, and he stayed on to do grad school.】
【I originally thought, with his situation, Chen Kuang would just go straight to work and earn money. Didn’t you also say, his family ran out of money?】
【That’s right. During that time, Chen Kuang wrote quite a few programs to sell externally. It just so happened my startup was just beginning, so I pulled him into the team to do back-end development for me.】
【Then, when he was in the second year of graduate school, something happened in his family again.】
Qiao Ling picked up the hot water kettle, poured honey into the mug, turned around, confirmed that Chen Kuang hadn’t fallen completely asleep yet, and let out a breath of relief.
She lowered her gaze, staring at the flowing boiling water, thinking: I wonder what he was thinking at that moment back then—after two years had passed, hearing his mother was diagnosed with lung cancer again?
Thinking and thinking, Qiao Ling’s hand holding the kettle started trembling uncontrollably.
His father’s liver cancer drained all the family’s savings, making his undergraduate life a thousand times heavier than his peers.
And his mother’s lung cancer forced him to drop out in his second year of grad school, giving up further education to go out and work, making money to fight cancer for his family.
And that year, Chen Kuang was only twenty-three years old, the same age as she was now.
At her age, he was carrying pressure and grief on his shoulders that normal people couldn’t even imagine.
【Although Chen Kuang had some savings at that time, supporting a cancer patient definitely wasn’t enough.】
【One day he suddenly came looking for me. I thought he was coming to borrow money, but in the end, he said he wanted to sell me the back-end program he made for me as a package.】
【I didn’t agree to buy it out, but I gave him the money.】
Xie Lisheng valued his skills and didn’t agree to Chen Kuang’s request to cut ties and end cooperation just for the sake of urgent money. Instead, he asked him to invest in the company with technology shares; that money counted as an advance hiring fee.
But Chen Kuang repaid that money not long after, through another channel.
Qiao Ling took a spoon, scooped a bit to taste both flavor and temperature.
It was really unbelievable.
Stock trading.
For most people, stocks were a game that didn’t belong to their class at all.
Chen Kuang, on the other hand, dared to take the last bit of his savings and throw it into the stock market—small rolls into big, big rolls into even bigger—and once he earned enough for medical expenses and living costs, he immediately withdrew, leaving only a small part inside to continue speculating.
He was too daring, also very smart, and his insight in this area was sharp, plus he had good luck.
As Xie Lisheng put it, only someone like Chen Kuang who wasn’t greedy and didn’t rush blindly could make money using this method.
With the added bonus of profit shares from Xie Lisheng’s company’s tech stock, because of these income sources, he could keep watch in the hospital wholeheartedly, staying with his mother and fighting the illness.
He had already done things that ordinary people absolutely couldn’t do, but so what.
Four years later, which was just last year, his mother still passed away.
Qiao Ling carried the steaming honey water back to the living room, looking at the drunk man in front of her, her throat constantly turning sour.
For eight years, he had never bowed his head to fate—no matter how hard it was, he would always fight back with everything he had.
But after fighting all the way, what did he manage to hold onto?
She put down the honey water, squatted down, lightly patted his arm, “Don’t sleep yet, wake up, drink the water.”
Chen Kuang furrowed his brows, opened his eyes with difficulty, looked at Qiao Ling’s face, and suddenly raised his hand to cover his eyes: “I really drank too much.”
She was helpless: “Of course you—”
“I just dreamed of my mom.”
Qiao Ling froze.
Chen Kuang covered his brow and eyes, the corners of his mouth always raised as he spoke.
“It was too hot, so I dreamed of when I was a kid, in summer, she was riding a bicycle sending me to attend Olympiad Math class.”
“Saying what.” He laughed half a breath, the end of his voice sounding a little strange: “Saying her son is definitely a good seedling bound for Qingbei.” [Qingbei: short for Tsinghua University and Peking University, the top two universities in China.]
“Once her son gets into a prestigious university and makes a name for himself, the two of them can just wait to enjoy life.”
Qiao Ling suddenly lowered her head, her eye sockets swelling and aching.
Chen Kuang.
Why do you say, Heaven has to treat you so cruelly.
You were originally supposed to be someone soaring upward, with a happy family.
She endured the bitterness, in her mind echoing Xie Lisheng’s final request to her.
【I’ve told you what you wanted to know, now you promise me one thing.】
【The operating system Chen Kuang made back then is still the core part of our back end. Until now it’s still in use. Help me persuade Chen Kuang, come back to Qinnan City with me to continue doing IT. Mixing days away as a bartender in this kind of small crappy city is wasting his talent.】
He’s very outstanding, the kind of outstanding that even hardship can’t cover in dust.
“Qiao Ling.” He called her.
Qiao Ling lifted her head in a fluster, seeing him as calm as always, with not a trace of sadness in his eyes.
Her heart twisted even more painfully.
On Chen Kuang’s body, he pointed at the honey water on the coffee table, “Help pass it to me, I’m a little thirsty.”
She glanced back at that cup of honey water, didn’t move, then turned her head back.
Chen Kuang saw her staring foolishly at him, eyes curling as he urged: “Stunned? Give it to me.”
The next second, Qiao Ling knelt on the carpet, holding onto the edge of the sofa, leaned in——
Lightly kissed his lips.
Chen Kuang’s expression froze right there.
Qiao Ling kissed nervously, her lips trembling.
About the same as in her dreams, his lips were very soft, cool.
After a brief touch, Qiao Ling withdrew back to her original position, quietly meeting his gaze.
After that kiss, the way the two of them looked at each other had a violent chemical reaction.
Words were being transmitted silently between them.
The first to react was Chen Kuang.
He lay on the sofa bed, pulling at his dry voice line in a teasing tone: “You drank too much too?”
Qiao Ling clenched her fingers tightly, shaking her head, both sour and panicked inside.
“It’s you who’s too drunk, your mouth even fell onto my face.”
Chen Kuang moved his lower lip a little, as if savoring the sensation.
Though his expression was relaxed, the subtle shake in his gaze exposed many things.
He lightly chuckled, helpless: “Qiao Ling, why do you always like to lay hands and feet on me?”
“Because I look good, I’m your type?”
Seeing the girl in front of him not speaking, her eyelashes trembling frequently, Chen Kuang gradually restrained his deliberate ease, his aura sinking down.
After a while, he looked up at the ceiling, as if persuading in a bitter-mouthed elder tone: “You just stepped out of school, the people you’ve met are still limited.”
“Men who look like me and suit your taste, in the future there’ll be a lot.”
“I’m quite a bit older than you, already twenty-eight. As I age, I’ll get uglier and uglier, by then you—”
Before he finished speaking, a shadow suddenly fell on his lips again.
As well as a warm, trembling touch.
Chen Kuang completely froze, this time even forgetting to close his eyes.
Qiao Ling kissed him again this time, lasting several seconds longer than last time, and even boldly stretched her tongue to lightly lick his lower lip.
The last lip-touch, the other party didn’t reject.
That’s why she dared have this one, clearly telling Chen Kuang with a kiss:
“But you don’t understand me. What I want isn’t just a handsome guy who suits my taste.”
“Right now, I just want you—older than me, with even more flaws than me.”
To want the Chen Kuang in front of her, whose personality wasn’t perfect, who’d suffered quite a lot, and who liked to avoid step by step when it came to feelings.
Qiao Ling kissed him, remembering a casual sentence her cousin said long ago.
【Let me tell you, what kind of nature a man has, you’ll see it all clearly after a round of drinking.】
She lay on Chen Kuang’s chest, both hands pressing against him, her breathing rapid and sticky.
Qiao Ling’s heart was pounding wildly, facing his gradually warming eyes from up close, she asked.
“Chen Kuang, do you want to do something to me.”
Would he feel that man-woman kind of desire towards her?
If even that didn’t exist, then the basics of talking about love wouldn’t even be there.
The moment that sentence landed, Chen Kuang’s emotions completely thickened, the heat of drunkenness reaching the extreme.
He was like a sinner being grilled in purgatory, while this piece of soft and pure ice flower that could save him was now right in front of his eyes.
Within easy reach, easily within grasp.
Chen Kuang raised his hand, fingertips trembling slightly in mid-air, then truly encircled her waist.
The other hand gripped her wrist, pulling her over in one go——
Qiao Ling’s whole body tingled numb, thinking: It’s coming.
In the spinning of heaven and earth, she closed her eyes.
Yet as five or six seconds of stillness passed, Qiao Ling suddenly opened her eyes, overtaken by astonishment.
Between adults, toward her who had already implicitly agreed, there were so many actions he could do.
But of all things—
Chen Kuang chose only to quietly, hold her tight.