Chapter 16.2 - The Fragrance of that Tea (Part 5)
He smiled faintly, the small dimple at the corner of his mouth deepening. He opened his eyes and said, “Is this your way of thanking me?”
Ai Jingchu’s sudden voice startled her, and she almost drove them into the river, but thankfully the car had already stopped.
“I… I…” Zeng Li didn’t know what to say, so she started the car again and continued driving.
He straightened up slightly. “Did Zhou Wen call you?”
“Yes. She said you would deal with them and asked me to plead for them,” Zeng Li confessed honestly.
“They’re messing with you,” Ai Jingchu said.
“Why?” Zeng Li asked, surprised.
“They couldn’t get an answer from me, so they tried testing you because they think you’re easy to deal with,” Ai Jingchu explained.
“Really?” she asked.
“Eighty percent sure,” he replied.
Zeng Li didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They had been messing with her, and she was still worried about them.
She drove silently, her demeanor more serious, which made her seem a bit distant compared to her usual shy, timid expression. Ai Jingchu couldn’t help but glance at her again. She had no nails, but her nails were painted pink, and she wore fish-shaped earrings, which reminded him of something in his pocket.
He thought she was upset and said, “They’re just kids. Don’t take it too seriously.”
“They’re about the same age as me,” Zeng Li replied.
“They haven’t been exposed to society like you, you’ve been working already,” Ai Jingchu explained.
“You’re really protective. You said you’d be a strict teacher when we were drinking tea,” Zeng Li commented.
“That’s not contradictory,” he replied.
At that moment, Ai Jingchu pulled something from his pocket and handed it to Zeng Li. “Is this yours?”
Zeng Li turned her head slightly and saw it was a black hair tie with a round little fish made of pink beads, the same one she had worn in her hair today.
“How did it end up with you?” she asked as she moved her hand from the steering wheel to take it from him.
“I found it on the ground,” Ai Jingchu replied.
Because patients often lie down, he sometimes finds things that fall out. He rarely picks them up, not because he’s too lazy to bend down or doesn’t want to be bothered, but because the ground is often dirty, and touching things would dirty his gloves. So, he would just remind people instead. But this time, for some reason, he picked it up, and when Zhou Wen’s voice was heard, he even put it in his pocket.
After thanking him, Zeng Li hesitated and said, “Actually, I…”
“You’ve already passed the intersection,” Ai Jingchu interrupted.
Zeng Li hurriedly slowed down. “I was talking to you and didn’t notice.”
“It’s fine. Just turn at the next intersection. There’s a small road you can take to loop back. It’s very close,” Ai Jingchu said.
Following his directions, she turned off the main road into a one-way street. The road ran next to the river, an old street. Recently, the government had been working on a riverside redevelopment project, and the residents had all been relocated. The houses were about to be demolished, and there were almost no streetlights or pedestrians. If Ai Jingchu hadn’t been there, Zeng Li definitely wouldn’t have dared to drive down this road.
The light was dim, so she turned on the high beams and continued driving. Suddenly, she saw a car parked in the middle of the road.
“This car really has no civic sense,” Zeng Li muttered.
“Can you get past it?” Ai Jingchu asked.
Zeng Li stopped and looked at the car. “I’ll try.”
She slowly maneuvered the car around the parked vehicle, but something about the car seemed to move. She wasn’t sure if it was just her imagination.
Suddenly, Ai Jingchu said, “Forget it, let’s turn around.”
“Why?” Zeng Li asked. It was a one-way street, and if they drove the wrong way, they could get fined for running a red light.
Ai Jingchu looked at Zeng Li, unsure whether to explain. The situation had caught him off guard. He tried to find a polite, indirect way to explain, but it was difficult.
At the same time, the rear window of the parked car rolled down, and a head popped out. It was a couple.
In an instant, Zeng Li understood what had happened and froze in place.
Ai Jingchu, however, was calm. “Since it’s like this, let’s just wait.”
So, they sat quietly for about two or three minutes.
Zeng Li’s face grew redder and redder as she realized she was sitting in a car with a man, waiting for another car to have an affair. Thankfully, the other party had the decency to stop, probably just dealing with the aftermath. The problem was, their car was the same model and color as theirs.
Zeng Li felt uncomfortable and quickly turned off the headlights.
Ai Jingchu said, “Don’t turn them off.”
Zeng Li was puzzled.
Ai Jingchu explained, “So others don’t misunderstand.”
Zeng Li was even more confused. “Misunderstand what?”
After asking, she suddenly realized.
On a dark riverside road, two cars, two couples, sitting in pitch-black cars...
She had a flash of realization—a couple's showdown—and her heart skipped a beat.
The ancient people who coined that term would probably cry.
