Just now, in that instant, Qiao Ling actually very much regretted saying that sentence: “Do you have business?”
Because according to reason, as someone doing service industry, one cannot, just because the other party’s appearance completely does not look like someone who would play DIY handicrafts, arbitrarily judge people by appearance, and say this kind of so very guest-chasing words.
But when the other party spoke out: “This place is a shop?”
She immediately put away the guilt.
Didn’t wrongly accuse him… he really is here to collect pro-tection fee!!
Qiao Ling’s mood, for a moment, was mixed with five flavors【五味杂陈: idiom; means complicated feelings】, on one hand afraid of this person’s from-inside-to-outside emitting pressure aura, on the other hand, because the other party’s external condition was really hard to look away from.
He, asking me what’s the situation…
Me, what situation could I have ah?
Qiao Ling timidly lifted her eyes, attempting to use her gaze to throw the question back.
He received her this one glance, raised his eyebrow slightly.
Qiao Ling was so scared she swished and avoided eye contact, tightly clutching the rubber mallet in her hand, “That, if it’s our shop has some ques—”
The word ‘question’ hadn’t yet been spit out, behind her, the shop again exploded with a burst of calling voices.
“Shop Manager!! Come quickly!”
“Boss, this fire gun is acting crazy!!”
Once hearing there’s a problem with the fire gun, Qiao Ling, afraid there would be dangerous situation, completely couldn’t care about the man blocking the doorway, turned her head and just ran back: “Coming, coming! Don’t panic, what’s wrong with the fire gun!?”
She flusteredly and hastily ran off into the distance, shrinking into a thin thin back figure under his eyes.
Chen Kuang squeezed down a pile of nameless fire【无名火: idiom; sudden anger for no reason】, hadn’t yet spoken out when he was already left hanging at the door by this short-bean-ding-like boss.【矮豆丁: slang for very short person】
“……”
Originally downstairs, separated by one layer of ceiling, he already heard the noise as loud enough, didn’t expect arriving at this floor, the other party opened the door wide, volume multiplied upwards.
Those people’s flat-head hammers clang clang clang, where is it forging silver, it’s simply hammering on his head.
Chen Kuang furrowed his brows tightly, hand holding onto the door frame, using strength so much that the back of his hand popped up bulging veins.
A belly full of curse words reached the mouth, he turned his head aside, only clicking his tongue once facing mid-air.
Agitation caused by severe sleep deprivation is a kind of emotion that can swallow up rationality.
His temper rose up, he just wouldn’t leave.
Quite had a kind of posture of “I just want to see how long you can remember there’s still a person at the door.”
Just at this time, the phone in his pocket buzzed buzzed vibrating, Chen Kuang took it out for a glance at the caller, the heavy eyes deepened slightly again.
He lifted the phone, pressed the answer button while turning his head back, using the corner of his eye to again glance slantingly at that small figure darting around busily in the crowd.
“Calling at this time for what.” Chen Kuang opened mouth making the call, turned body and left the shop entrance.
“You still know I need to sleep huh?”
The tall and pitch-black figure disappeared in the passageway, the wind at the shop entrance instantly flowed smoothly.
The pressure aura gradually dissipated, even the little rabbit’s smiling expression on the flower basket on the door board seemed to relax a few degrees.
Qiao Ling had just finished solving the trouble caused by the customer who had used the fire gun without permission. Remembering there was still a person at the door, she hurriedly turned her head to look back——
But she only saw an empty space.
That person came so urgently, yet ended up throwing out two cloud-and-fog harsh words and just left?
A bit baffling.
Qiao Ling walked to the door and looked around left and right, yet could not find that strange man.
The customers were still calling for her, so she could only mumble in her heart, reached out and closed the shop door, continuing to be busy.
………………
At 10:30 in the evening, the last customer left, work finished, shop closed.
A day’s busyness ended, Qiao Ling was so tired that she completely threw this small episode from the evening to the back of her mind. After going home, washing up, she buried her head into the quilt and fell into a deep sleep, hurriedly looking for Zhou Gong to relieve fatigue.【周公: Zhōu Gōng; reference to Zhou Gong in Chinese idiom 梦周公, meaning dreaming/sleeping】
But as she dazedly rowed a small boat across the dream river, the one she saw was not Zhou Gong, but…
That certain man’s handsome face.
The scene constructed in the dream was unfamiliar.
Brown sofa, black carpet, cold and indifferent style decor, very masculine private space.
She squinted her sleepy eyes open, tilting her head up, the slowly clearing vision reflecting the man’s sharp jawline contour.
She had never observed the opposite sex from this angle before. From this perspective, he seemed even more specifically handsome than in the evening.
The folding degree of his face was very high, bone structure sharp and perfect, the high nose bridge made him seem a bit inhumane.
【面部折叠度: literally “face folding degree,” slang for facial features that look good from multiple angles】
His eyelids had folds, always drooping with thin emotions, eyelashes very dense.
The eyes instead were the gentlest part of the entire face.
But in the next second, these gentle eyes suddenly slanted down to glance at her.
He opened his mouth, the voice even colder than it was in the evening: “How long do you still want to sit on me?”
Qiao Ling was shocked, looking down, finding herself actually sitting in his lap!!
No wonder her butt and back felt hard, completely lacking the softness of a quilt.
In panic, she struggled in his arms, hands randomly pushing and grabbing at his arms. Qiao Ling focused her gaze and met eyes with the python on the tattoo on his right arm.
The python was lifelike, getting closer and closer in her vision, as if the next moment it would rush up and bite someone.
No, that’s not right——
It really was rushing at her!!
As a result, the man at the same time tightly encircled her, not allowing her to escape.
Qiao Ling was so scared she couldn’t breathe.
Aoo—— save me!!
!!
She abruptly woke up from the dream, staring at the ceiling of the bedroom.
“……”
In the end, was it a spring dream【春梦: erotic dream】 or a nightmare.
Dreams that feel overly real make people unable to wake up clearly for a long time after waking, endlessly recalling, attempting to retrieve the feeling inside the dream.
Qiao Ling dazedly blanked out for a long time.
When the fright from the dream dissipated, in her brain was left only that thin-muscle tattoo cool guy’s handsome face. She finally admitted——it was just a spring dream.
Towards a man she had only met once, hadn’t even spoken more than three sentences with.
She had dreamed.
Qiao Ling annoyedly buried herself into the quilt, like a worm gloomily wriggling around for a while. In the end, admitting defeat, she crawled out, took out her phone, and opened the little yellow-comic【小黄漫: slang for erotic manga】she had bookmarked for a long time but never had time to look at, starting to carefully appreciate it page by page.
There are always a few days in a month.
Blame it on hormones!
“Eat” something good to reward herself a bit! Forget that person in her head!
Just like this, waking up at 4:30 in the early morning because of a dream, then hugging her phone and looking at lewd content for two hours, until 6:30 when mom and dad both got up. Afraid of being discovered by them that she hadn’t slept properly, she quickly put down her phone, hurried to fake-sleep before mom habitually came in to tuck her quilt.
Then as she was pretending, she really fell asleep.
Finally relying on the 11 o’clock noon alarm to get up with difficulty.
Because sleep was not continuous, and also several days of continuous high-intensity work, in the afternoon when she went out to the shop, her whole face was drooping.
Either reading too much of that kind of thing consumed too much dopamine, or she had been sucked of essence and energy by the man in the dream.
She had a completely drained appearance, walking forward like a walking corpse.
The composition of the nearby comprehensive office buildings was very complicated, rented out externally, doing all kinds of businesses.
Most were privately rented and decorated as homestay hotels for external rental, some were small companies, educational institutions, and then there were people like them doing nail salons, DIY shops, and script-kill【剧本杀: live role-play murder mystery game】.
She bought some things, carrying them as she walked to the residential activity area near the office building, running into a few aunties from one building.
These aunties and big sisters all had their own homestay hotels in the building, also living in the building themselves, becoming familiar from coming and going.
They were chatting, and upon seeing her, insisted on pulling her to chat a few words.
“Right, Little Qiao ah, you must be careful.”
The auntie spoke in pure Binyang accent: “Aiya ma ya, we were just talking about a young guy who just moved into the building, really not some good type.” 【滨阳口音: Bīnyáng kǒu yīn, local dialect/accent】
Qiao Ling took a handful of sunflower seeds from the auntie’s hand, cracking them, her big eyeballs turning: “Newly moved in, who?”
Another big sister told her: “It’s really coincidental, living just below you, door 2019, you haven’t run into him yet?”
The big sister pursed her lips, very exaggerated: “At a glance, doesn’t look like any good person, not to mention going out in the middle of the night every day, that day my old man even saw him in the alley fighting several people.”
“Aiya ma, that guy, really fierce, scary.”
“Fighting people?” Qiao Ling gasped silently.
The auntie warned her: “There are too many people coming and going in this building, we simply don’t know the details. You, a young lady, must make sure to go around him, not even let your eyes meet once, you understand?”
She was scared by their exaggerated description, imagining in her mind a big brother from society with full body fat and a scarred face. In the season of August, she shivered and nodded.
“Okay, okay, rest assured.”
Qiao Ling bid farewell to the street aunties and entered the building, muttering about this matter in her heart.
Even though it was downstairs, not having run into him even once was also a bit strange.
If it was really like they said, with such a terrifying appearance and aura, if she saw him she should have been left with a deep impression.
The elevator slowly closed toward the middle. Just as it was about to completely close, suddenly a hand forcefully reached into the gap, prying strongly to one side——
Qiao Ling was already thinking about scary things, seeing this brute-force scene, her shoulders gave a shiver.
She resentfully raised her head, meeting Chen Kuang’s cool gaze.
The elevator was forcibly stopped and opened again.
Qiao Ling unconsciously took two steps back, shrinking to one side, her whole mind full of that dream she had about him last night, so ashamed she couldn’t lift her head.
Chen Kuang lightly glanced at her, turned his body and squeezed into the elevator, pressing the button for the 20th floor.