The man entered the elevator cabin, the space instantly became narrow, oxygen flow slow.
Silence became another kind of noise.
Making her hear more clearly the chaos inside her body.
Qiao Ling scraped at the cold elevator wall, trying hard to tear apart the erotic dream images in her mind, she secretly glanced sideways at the man standing next to her, as a result — with just one glance — the spring dream images she had just torn apart sewed back together again.
She annoyedly closed her eyes tight.
Rip rip rip rip rip rip!
She opened her eyes, glanced at that face of his.
Brain: Sew again————
The elevator slowly rose upwards, Qiao Ling really couldn’t stand this kind of awkward silence, carefully asked the other party: “Uh, that.”
“Do you still remember me?”
Previously she didn’t look carefully, this time she only realized, he had curly hair, but it didn’t look like the kind done in hair salons, it looked like naturally curly hair texture.
Black and very clean, the hair was a bit long already, when lowering his head it would cover his eyes, looked fluffy and soft.
Such a flower-arm curly-hair thin-muscle cool guy.
Chen Kuang’s gaze that was staring at the elevator numbers shifted over, swept a glance at her.
Then withdrew his gaze again, love-to-answer not love-to-answer. [a Chinese phrase meaning indifferent, not enthusiastic about responding]
Qiao Ling’s back spine stiffened, got scared into shrinking again from his glare.
Really good-looking, just too fierce.
She forced herself to continue chatting: “Last time when you came to the shop, was there something you needed?”
“Our shop recently, experience handmade products have group-buying, very cheap.”
After Chen Kuang heard, again swept his gaze over the same way.
As if if she said one more sentence, he would kill someone.
Qiao Ling didn’t dare look him in the eye anymore, looked at the floor button he pressed, probingly asked: “Mm? 20th floor.”
“Is it for work or living by yourself?”
She nagged on and on up to this point, only then did the other party finally open golden mouth.
“Live.”
Maybe because of running a shop doing service industry, already desensitized to this kind of cold indifferent conversation attitude, plus his appearance made Qiao Ling’s temper better than usual, thinking of the neighborhood aunties’ blessings, she rarely shared with the other party: “Although I don’t know if you’re long-term renting or short-term, but if living on the 20th floor, remind you to definitely be careful of the resident in 2019 door.”
“I also just heard that household’s origin unclear, fierce and scary, very hard to provoke, best not to have conflict, even for guys, going out also must protect yourself well.”
After saying these, Qiao Ling felt she was simply a beautiful and kind-hearted angel.
His attitude so indifferent, she still actively reminded about safety issues.
She really was a good person, Bodhisattva Niangniang would definitely bless people like her with prosperous business.
At this moment, Chen Kuang’s expression changed a bit, turned his head to stare at her harmless-looking small face.
“Origin unclear, fierce and scary?”
Qiao Ling was just repeating word for word what the neighborhood aunties said, didn’t feel there was any problem: “Mm, that’s right.”
The elevator stopped at a middle floor, opened, but no one came in.
At this moment, the man who had been standing at the other end suddenly straightened his body, turned, and step by step approached.
Seeing the distance between the two people getting closer and closer, Qiao Ling got nervous, spoke even more: “Which unit do you live in? If it’s far from that one, then there’s probably nothing to worry about.”
Chen Kuang didn’t speak, just kept approaching, forcing closer.
The elevator doors automatically closed, bang, and the space once again entered a cramped state.
The atmosphere blended into a kind of unspoken urgency and ambiguity.
Qiao Ling had nowhere to hide, pushing back her back just bumped into the wall, watching the tall and big man press closer, her throat tightened.
Why was he suddenly coming close?
Chen Kuang took long steps step by step approaching, calmly observing her gradually tense expression, finally stopping just exactly at the red line of male-female safety distance.
From his high vantage point, she looked like a hamster trembling in fear.
Chen Kuang put his hands in his pockets, “Then that’s not so coincidental.”
“I just live in 2019.”
Qiao Ling’s panicked gaze completely froze, like a stop-motion animation, staying still for over ten seconds, foolishly looking at his somewhat stinky-faced expression.
?
?!!!
While the two were in this standoff, the elevator silently rose to the 20th floor.
Chen Kuang slightly lifted his chin, with a bit of an interrogating posture.
The light illuminated the faint layer of dark circles under his eyes.
Being disturbed and even gossiped about, his face pulled down, simply opened his mouth and continued making things difficult for this woman in front of him who was already obviously embarrassed into silent social death: “I have no interest in your shop’s group-buying.”
“Looking for you is because your place is very noisy.”
Chen Kuang pressed forward another step, gloomy and impatiently emphasized: “You really don’t feel it yourself?”
Qiao Ling instantly became fully clear.
Shame plus embarrassment rushed to her head, her whole body broke out in sweat, weakly covering her mouth to apologize: “Sorry, I…”
She watched the man turn and walk out of the elevator, weakly added a sentence: “Today, today the shop is closed, there won’t be any sound…”
The other party didn’t even turn his head.
Bang.
The elevator closed.
……………
For the next half day, Qiao Ling died in her own shop, completely losing the will to live.
She lay on the workbench, also didn’t dare to move the hammer to work again, her entire mind filled with replaying back and forth the image of the neighborhood aunties saying he fought people outside, and the image of him fiercely telling her in the elevator that he lived in 2019.
【Xiao Qiao ah, absolutely stay far away from that 2019 household, don’t even make eye contact, absolutely don’t provoke him.】
Qiao Ling grabbed the rubber mallet, wishing she could smash her own head twice.
Why did she have to say those two self-important sentences!!
In her twenty-three years of living, she had never been this embarrassed before!
Actually today Qiao Ling was supposed to work on a custom order from the online store, but because of that sentence from the man downstairs, she was so scared she didn’t dare make any movement over 100 decibels, slowly and sluggishly only finished making one ring by evening.
She was cleaning the ring when she received a WeChat call from her cousin Qiao Jing.
“Little sis, got plans tonight? Come sit over at brother’s place?”
“Your bar is finished?” Qiao Ling kept working, put him on speaker.
“Already trial operating for two weeks okay! You’re too busy, I send you messages and you don’t even properly reply.” Qiao Jing always sounded so full of energy every time he called, like his qi and blood were very strong.
“Seriously, come quick.”
Qiao Ling didn’t know what was fun about going to his bar when she wasn’t someone who liked drinking.
Their family of seven aunts eight uncles [a Chinese phrase meaning a large extended family] were all steady, honest-living people, yet two worrying rebellious ones appeared.
One was her, who after graduating didn’t take graduate exams or civil service exams, the other was Qiao Jing, who already had bad grades and still drifted around messing about everywhere.
After cousin came back from out of town, he found a business partner and opened an Egypt-themed bar nearby, decorated it for a long time, only recently opened.
Qiao Ling actually didn’t really like hanging out with cousin, she always felt that even though both were starting businesses, she wasn’t as unreliable as cousin.
Didn’t want relatives bundling them together again to nag.
“Ge, speak honestly, you must have some matter.” She ruthlessly exposed him.
If he just wanted to treat her to drinks, why wait until almost two weeks after trial operation to call?
She wasn’t stupid.
Qiao Jing “uh” several times, dry laughed and admitted: “There’s a little sesame-sized matter I want to trouble you with.”
“Ai! When did ge ever screw you over, why are you so guarded!?”
“Back then when you came back from your ethnic minority grandmother’s place, everyone laughed at you saying you were like an out-of-town person who couldn’t even speak Mandarin properly, but ge I shielded you single-handed! Forgot so fast!?”
Qiao Ling held the hammer and knocked it at the phone call interface through the air, mouthed at him: ‘Bringing up old accounts again! Can’t you do anything else!?’
“Say it, what exactly do you want.”
“Just…” He stammered explaining the situation.
……………
Evening 8:30, Qiao Ling arrived according to the address at this bar called epic near the office building.
She walked to the entrance, looking at the black and gold bar exterior door, started doubting if she was really too easygoing, already this grown, yet still accompanying cousin messing around.
Pretending to be an ordinary customer to go into the shop to make things difficult for the suspected love rival intern bartender of cousin, questioning the other party’s professional skills, then letting cousin show up in front of the beautiful shop manager he liked, fiercely suppressing the intern bartender love rival’s momentum.
This kind of extremely childish scene—she actually agreed to it!?
Qiao Jing had always secretly liked the beautiful shop manager who ran this bar, the business partner was also this beautiful woman.
Then before opening, the beautiful shop manager brought in an intern bartender, the two’s relationship seemed very good, giving Qiao Jing a strong sense of threat.
And that person just happened to be cold and arrogant, acting all impressive every day, he got so angry that he came up with this inferior plan, wanting to teach the other party a lesson, best if he could directly get him out.
No matter what, he, Qiao Jing, was also the deputy manager, what was a mere bartender acting all cocky for!!?
That was all the background information cousin explained to her.
Qiao Ling stood at the bar entrance, really regretting it.
If you like the shop manager, why not confess properly, doing things like this behind the scenes to the love rival? Too boring already!
Cousin said today that love rival was on duty, already working, and for now it was just him as the only bartender busy, once she entered the bar she’d know who.
When Qiao Jing described the other party’s appearance, he unwillingly said one sentence that he looked pretty good, the kind you’d recognize at a glance.
For even the love rival to admit appearance conditions, that meant truly very handsome.
Qiao Ling sighed, stepped up the stairs, deciding to go meet this love rival bartender who made cousin lose his mind.
Either settle the other party.
Or be settled by the other party.
Anyway, she wouldn’t come to this bar again!
Dingling—— she pushed the door open and entered.
“Welcome.” The first thing she heard was the beautiful shop manager’s voice.
Qiao Ling wasn’t too used to this kind of bar atmosphere, holding the door handle she timidly raised her head, sweeping her gaze toward the bar counter——
At first glance, she locked onto the love rival cousin mentioned.
Because at this moment, there was only him inside the bar counter.
He was holding a shaker, hearing a customer enter, raised his head and across that bit of distance, locked his gaze onto her.
As if by coincidence or not, Qiao Ling was not unfamiliar with this love rival brother.
Because this afternoon, she had just found out, he lived right below her.