Chapter 19
Yun Daixi understood the meaning behind his words, removed her hand from his shoulder, and lay back down on the bed.
The tide in her body had not yet subsided, and she was still anxiously awaiting Gu Li'an's final judgment.
After a long while, the sword of Damocles that had been hanging over his head finally fell, and he said, "Sleep."
Just like last time, I sat up and went down from that side.
"And you?" Yun Daixi also sat up.
"Go to the next room." The tone was cold and indifferent again.
He was truly cruel, using fire to arouse her desires, and just when she was fully prepared to be burned, he poured a basin of ice water over her head.
It was as if using a laser pointer to tease a cat, with a simple flick of the finger, she could follow the red dot and jump onto the extremely dangerous roof beam.
Okay. Good night.
Knowing full well that she couldn't keep him, and there was no need to, she decided that rather than causing him further anger, she should accept his forgiveness as a bargaining chip.
After he left, Yun Daixi got up and took a shower.
There was nothing belonging to Gu Li'an in this room; it was just a guest room.
The wardrobe was completely empty, as clean as a newly checked-in hotel room.
He hired a prostitute, but she was still taking calls from other men in bed. Whoever came would be disappointed.
Back in bed, she couldn't fall asleep anymore. Half of her body and half of her heart were hanging on the edge of a cliff, trembling slightly from the snow outside the window.
There's probably no alcohol here, and I don't know if there will be sleeping pills.
She remembered the pile of books in the living room, got up and left the room to get the one she had just opened.
Go to the living room; the lights are still on. Gu Li'an is sitting on the sofa, propping his head up with his hand and reading a book.
The warm light shone on his white cotton coat, like a ray of setting sun falling on the boy's shoulder, creating a tender and affectionate scene.
She had already stopped and was about to go back inside.
But Gu Li'an called out to him, "Come here."
Their feet were bound by the magical chains he had cast, and they followed his command to sit precisely where he pointed with his index finger.
"You can't sleep either?" He already understood why she had come out.
"Hmm." Yun Daixi smiled. Gu Li'an had whetted her appetite, and she was still hungry, so naturally she couldn't sleep, but she didn't dare to say it out loud.
He closed the book; it was Camus's *The Stranger*.
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She liked it very much because she could see a part of herself in it.
"I haven't been sleeping well since Miss Yun left Chenghe Garden that day." He murmured to himself, "Because I keep dreaming about you."
Yun Daixi didn't respond, waiting for him to say the next sentence.
"I thought my appearance was a good thing for you, which is why I sent you that invitation signal with that lipstick." He paused, then continued, "Have you felt much more at ease these past few days since I disappeared from your world?"
She had never thought about this question before and didn't know how to answer it for a moment.
He smiled, the answer already gleaned from the silence: "Judging from your demeanor today, you don't seem very welcoming."
She still didn't answer.
The silence finally angered him.
Gu Li'an leaned down, one hand bracing against the back of the sofa, the other gripping her chin, and commanded, "Look at me."
Their eyes met, and in his eyes fell a thick, fierce snow, even heavier than the snow falling outside the window. It had been falling for some time, and now a heavy layer had accumulated, blurring the emotions in his eyes.
Gu Li'an looked at her. Her eyes reflected the same, calm as a stagnant pool, making him wonder if he had misunderstood the meaning of that lipstick.
He knew from day one that this woman was using him, but these were minor matters, and he didn't care. He went along with her act and entered the Peony Pavilion in her dream to see what was going on.
But he never expected that this pipe dream would stir up his possessiveness.
Their eyes met, and for a long time, neither of them got an answer from the other.
Gu Li'an gave up and gently released her face.
He had hurt her in the same way last time, and he had already repented in his dreams. In a world unknown to others, he touched every inch of the place where he had hurt her.
But now that he was sitting right under him, he made the same mistake again.
He finally lowered his head and kissed the mole on her eyelid.
Extremely light, like a snowflake falling into water, gone in an instant.
He pulled away from her lips, went to the refrigerator, took out a bottle of Iluliaq with a black band, and took a sip: "If you really can't sleep, take some sleeping pills."
He poured one pill from the jar on the bar, but the dosage was too large, so he broke it in half and fed it to her, then handed her a fresh bottle of water.
Yun Daixi's throat tightened from the icy water. After swallowing, she said, "Go back to the room. I'll be leaving early tomorrow. I have a meeting and need to fly abroad."
"When will we meet again?" she asked instinctively, not wanting her heart to be constantly on edge, unsure when someone might suddenly squeeze it.
"I'm not entirely sure either. If you need anything when I get back, I can come to you right away," he said, extending an olive branch.
What awaits us is still uncertainty.
Yun Daixi laughed at herself for being so foolish as to seek certainty from him. Right now, she was still a woman who deserved to sleep in the guest room even if she slept with him.
"Okay." She nodded with a smile.
This time, in a moment of impulsiveness, he deliberately took his copy of "The Stranger" from the sofa, as if to assert his own identity. @Unlimited great stories, all at Jinjiang Literature City
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Gu Li'an's dosage of sleeping pills was much higher than hers. She only took half of it, but it still made her sleepy after reading a few pages of the book. She didn't wake up until after nine o'clock in the morning.
When I went out to the living room, a maid was tidying up the empty bottles on the table.
Seeing Yun Daixi come out, she greeted her with a smile: "Hello, Mr. Gu has already left. He asked me to let you know. Is there anything you'd like for breakfast? The porridge is ready, or would you like some milk?"
"Let's just have some porridge." She was a little hungry; she had barely eaten anything at the dinner party yesterday.
The maid served porridge and placed it on the table, then brought out fried eggs and other side dishes: "Please enjoy. I'll continue tidying up."
They didn't ask her name, giving her plenty of space.
After breakfast, she called Chi Muye and asked to meet him at the company.
He circled Yun Daixi three times before stopping as he entered, finally letting out a sigh of relief: "I couldn't get a response to you no matter how I called you yesterday. I thought you had fainted. I went to your house to look for you but no one was there. I almost called the police."
"What could possibly happen to someone so old?"
"That's not necessarily true. You handle so many things every day. I knew something was wrong when the tax issue came out last time. I was afraid you'd run into some danger if you tried to handle it all by yourself…" He rattled off words incessantly.
Yun Daixi felt a pang of guilt. There was someone in this world who cared about her so much, yet she couldn't offer him anything in return.
"Okay, I know," she interrupted him, "Now is not the time to stand here properly."
The topic finally had to return to, but Chi Muye still didn't want to face it, covering his ears with both hands and whining, "I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it..."
Yun Daixi ignored him and went on to explain her plan: "After your concert next month, I will release a press release. I sent you the content on my phone last time. It's just the two of us who know about it. Understand?"
"I don't understand," he continued, feigning ignorance.
You can never wake someone who is pretending to be asleep. Whether Chi Muye truly doesn't understand or is just pretending not to, he's using this tactic very well now.
"It's okay, I'll remind you, just do as I say."
"So what if you just don't want to?"
"I said, let's abandon the contractual relationship. You go your way, and I'll go mine."
He panicked a little, and all his previous pretense vanished: "Are you betting that I won't leave?"
"There's no need to gamble. Whether I leave or stay, it won't be a fatal loss for me; it's just like losing a piece of fat meat," she said frankly.
Considering Mr. Gu's relationship with him, perhaps parting ways would actually be the best choice for him.
"Fine, I surrender. How could I possibly be a match for you, Yun Daixi?"
Of course he wouldn't leave; if he left, he would lose even more chances to see her again. She would have a million reasons not to see anyone from that rival agency.
"That's good, be a good boy." She said, as if comforting her younger brother. "I'll give you back the passwords to those accounts after all this is over."
Her expression was calm, as if she didn't understand the meaning of those English letters at all.
"Okay." Chi Muye lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and exhaled the smoke. "I'll wait to hear the news of being dumped."
After saying that, he slammed the door and left.
Later that evening, I received a call from Bo Tao, whose tone was extremely flattering: "President Yun, we have a new variety show coming up, and the director and team are top-notch in the industry. We'd like to invite one of your artists to participate?"
She replied, "Of course! It's such a great opportunity, I'll go and ask the little kids I'm with for some candy."
"Great! I'll arrange a place to meet tonight and we can discuss the details."
She asked again, "Just the two of us?"
The person opposite smiled very politely: "How could that be? There's a whole table of people here, the director and his team. We'll definitely get Mr. Yun's people here over this meal."
Yun Daixi breathed a sigh of relief, fearing that another President Gu might suddenly appear out of nowhere.
I immediately agreed, and soon after, I received the restaurant's location address from him personally.
When they arrived at the restaurant that evening, Yun Daixi asked her assistant and driver to wait outside.
They brought along Li Chengru and He Jialu, who frequently participate in variety shows. The two, one male and one female, are lively and energetic, making them perfect for variety shows.
It just so happens that the season of the variety show that Li Chengru was filming was about to finish recording. I wonder if that's why He Botao thought of using the variety show as leverage to invite her out at this time.
There was a large table of people in the private room, many of whom Yun Daixi had met before. The director was a young man named Yang Ming. He sat down and introduced Yang Ming to everyone: "Yang Ming is the director of our new program 'Love Announcement.' He is young and has many ideas. Although he has only been in the industry for a short time, the two programs he worked on before were very popular."
Yun Daixi had watched those two programs and found them quite good. She politely clinked glasses with him, saying, "I hope Director Yang can mentor Chengru and Jialu more."
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Yang Ming also politely stood up and lowered his glass slightly to clink glasses.
Throughout the entire dinner, Bo Tao remained extremely restrained and did not utter a single word about Gu Li'an.
We mixed baijiu and red wine, opened three or five bottles, and everyone in the room got quite drunk.
After a few rounds of drinks, He Botao, whether truly drunk or not, pulled out a contract in black and white and slammed it on the table, saying in front of everyone, "President Yun, we've hit it off immediately. Sign it today, and we'll start recording tomorrow! Right, Director Yang?"
Yang Ming didn't say anything, but clinked glasses with him and drank all the liquor in his glass to show his sincerity.
"If you had told me earlier that it was so urgent, I should have gone to your company this afternoon to sign the contract, and then we could have had a celebration banquet tonight."
Yun Daixi took the contract and looked it over. It was just a simple cooperation agreement, inviting two artists from Yun Daixi's company to participate in a variety show recording, with some key conditions regarding the time and broadcast.
At a cursory glance, there shouldn't be any major problems; they're all similar to other contract formats in the industry.
The biggest question is probably why they had to choose this time, in front of so many people.
He Botao took a pen, signed the contract on the client's side, and pushed it towards Yun Daixi: "Cooperation should be done at an auspicious time. You know, President Yun, I believe in this the most. Tonight is the most suitable time."
Everyone in the private room was watching Yun Daixi. She didn't have time to read the terms carefully, but signing them rashly would be too impulsive.
She tried to put the contract away, but He Botao pressed down on the other corner of it: "President Yun, filming starts tomorrow, so don't miss out. I'm thinking of you even in this urgent situation, President Yun, won't you do me the honor?"
Yun Daixi tapped his finger on the contract with the tip of her pen, signaling him to remove it.
His smile was perfect: "Since Mr. He is in such a hurry, let's sign it tonight, and everyone will be happy."
He signed the contract with three characters in running script: Yun Daishi.
To bring the wonders of Chinese pictographs to their fullest potential.
The contract was made in duplicate. After seeing Yun Daixi sign it, Bo Tao and I put the contract away and invited everyone to raise a glass.
That night, Yun Daixi put on a show at the table and got completely drunk. In the end, she was helped out by Li Chengru and He Jialu, one on each side.
As she reached the door, she didn't forget to hug He Botao goodbye: "President He, from now on, treat Chengru and Jialu as your own artists. If they do anything wrong, point it out and I'll have them correct it."
He Botao nodded repeatedly: "What's mine is yours from now on."
Ha. Yun Daixi found it amusing; this was exactly the result she wanted.
While waiting for the driver to pick them up at the door, the two men acted so boldly they were practically brothers, putting on an even more elaborate show than their own artists.
After the driver dropped Li Chengru and He Jialu off, Yun Daixi instructed, "Find a place where there are traffic police."
Tonight's drama needs the help of the traffic police to let her blow into the breathalyzer test tube to vouch for the signed agreement.