When Will My Childhood Sweetheart Marry Me?-Chapter 168: It Doesn’t Stop Me from Loving You
Her eyes slightly widened in discontent as she called up the compiler.
The original function was designed to continuously avoid bombs and flames, moving the target 10cm, and then dying.
Pei Yan leaned against a wall with a smile in his eyes, his left hand reaching into his pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes, feeling very good about himself as he reached for the lighter in the drawer, only for Jiang Shuyao to snatch it away from him.
"Just one cigarette."
"No."
The day they made up, she had asked him why he started smoking again. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚
His answer was that without smoking, he would die.
She wasn’t fool; she vaguely guessed why Pei Yan had picked up smoking again.
But the more she thought about it, the more guilty she felt.
Smoking was not a good thing, especially since he was still young.
Having smoked since he was nineteen, his lungs would probably be riddled with holes by the time he was old.
Returning to the main point, Jiang Shuyao nonchalantly stashed the lighter in her clothes and cocked her head to ask him, "Everyone dies eventually, so what’s the point of this game?"
The nicotine craving hit, and Pei Yan felt quite uncomfortable.
He licked his slightly dry lips and carelessly closed his laptop, "It’s meaningless, it just serves as a reminder to myself that what I hold in my hands is not for others to dictate."
The air froze for two seconds.
Jiang Shuyao struggled to maintain her composure.
"Your foster mother’s situation, you haven’t gotten over it, have you?"
Listening closely, her voice tightened a bit.
Pei Yan leaned in and roughly ruffled her hair, "Don’t think too much about it, whether I can get over it or not doesn’t stop me from loving you."
"..."
The bell for class rang, interrupting Jiang Shuyao’s thoughts, her mind a mess, only retaining the echo of his last statement.
Many words from his mouth seemed light yet significant.
If someone asked her why she fell for someone full of flaws.
Perhaps in her eyes, all of Pei Yan’s flaws, when related to her, turned into the most lethal qualities.
He Shumiao and Fang Wei sat in the first row, and Zhong Yuan rarely appeared midway through class, forming a tactical position with his dorm mates, directly taking a seat at the back of the classroom along the diagonal.
Jiang Shuyao carried her textbook and walked forward, not realizing until she had gone quite a distance that Pei Yan’s little game had employed object-oriented programming syntax; had he really previewed two-thirds of this semester’s programming content in just a week?
Standing in the aisle dumbfounded for a while, the realization finally made the girl break into a smile.
That guy really wasted his three years in high school.
...
Early on a Saturday morning, from Teacher University, Tang Xing gave a life-threatening call.
"Yaoyao, wake up."
"There’s a concert today at Seaside City with lots of celebrities, let’s go see it."
"Oh, yeah right, Chen Jin posted tickets on his circle, ask Boss Pei to get them from him, I feel a bit embarrassed to ask."
"Yaoyao?"
"Yaoyao!"
"Yaoyao..."
From seven to eight o’clock, her phone vibrated every five minutes on average, making it difficult to ignore and continue sleeping.
She opened WeChat to see a screen full of emojis; Jiang Shuyao scrolled up for a long time before finding Tang Xing’s main message.
At Seaside City, there was a huge open-air stage where developers often hired third-rate singers to perform, attracting publicity. The entrance tickets were not expensive, but securing the front three rows was not easy.
Thinking she had not seen that girl in almost a month, Jiang Shuyao replied with a ’yes’ on WeChat and began rustling about, dressing and freshening up.
Passing by Zhong Yuan’s bed, which was already empty, she had developed a habit of looking towards the opposite side every morning as she woke up.
The autumn heat was fierce, and the highest temperature in Rong City had soared to thirty degrees again.
Jiang Shuyao rarely wore a skirt, which was the only one in her closet—the one Pei Yan had given her.
Beneath the girls’ dormitory, Pei Yan stood beside a flower bed making a phone call; he caught a glimpse of the girl’s delicate figure emerging from a distance and casually extinguished the cigarette between his fingers, tossing it into the nearby trash can.
"I’ve got something to handle, I’ll hang up first."
Pei Donghan wanted to say more, but all he heard from the phone was the busy tone.
That little brat.
Nearly twenty, and still doesn’t know how to respect his elders, Pei Donghan thought angrily as he pressed the internal line to call his assistant in to ask about the launch of the west extension line in Seaside City.
It was the second time Pei Yan saw Jiang Shuyao in a skirt, and he felt worlds apart from that night in Jinggang.
Her white chiffon skirt swayed gently around her slender calves; with each step she took, his eyes followed her.
He observed her intently, as if he could never get enough.
Jiang Shuyao opened up the sun umbrella and struggled to hold it over his head, "You’ve come back from volunteering and grown a full three centimeters. Even basketball stars don’t grow that fast."
Her pouting, complaining look was incredibly cute.
With a lazy smile, Pei Yan took the handle of the umbrella from her hand, his large hand wrapping around her shoulder, pulling her close to his side.
"That’s better, you silly."
"..."
A week into classes, this was the first time they had stepped out of the campus as boyfriend and girlfriend.
Their intimate relationship was now out in the sunlight, and Jiang Shuyao felt somewhat awkward.
As they walked, she subconsciously kept a distance from him. Pei Yan lifted his arm, frowned, and sniffed at his shirt cuff.
A very faint smell of smoke reached his nostrils.
Earlier, by the flower bed, that had been his first cigarette after changing clothes, and he’d only smoked a third of it.
He had quit smoking before to meet Lin Zhen.
Now, if Princess disliked the smell of smoke like Lin Zhen did, that would be a tragedy.
They took a taxi to Seaside City, and the driver asked if they were going to the show. After receiving an answer, he began to praise enthusiastically, "The residential area on the west extension line is great. My son is planning to get married next year; he’s buying his wedding house there. Zhizhen is a big company; its stock has soared since the launch, you should choose such developers with guarantee when buying homes."
Though his words were a tad exaggerated, Jiang Shuyao listened with rapt attention.
So the performance today in Seaside City was organized by Zhizhen. She turned to Pei Yan and asked, "Do you have internal tickets? Ones closer to the front."
If not, they’d have to ask Chen Jin.
The person beside her seemed nonchalant, not responding to her but casually continuing the driver’s topic. "It’s inevitable for the stock market to rise during a launch; dozens of operators work day and night, it’s only fair that the capitalists harvest your ’leeks.’ "
His lips curled with a distinct interest and mockery, which oddly gave Jiang Shuyao an impression,
Could it be that Uncle Pei isn’t really this guy’s dad?
The driver was momentarily lost for words. Buying a new house was supposed to be a happy and auspicious event, yet it sounded so different coming from the mouth of that young man in the backseat.
The atmosphere undeniably turned awkward.
Luckily, dealing with a taxi driver was just a one-time transaction, otherwise if it were some acquaintance, the situation could turn utterly cold.
The half-hour drive from Rong University to Seaside City went by quickly.
When they got out, the area around the event venue was packed with people.
Chen Jin and He Qingzhou had arrived ten minutes early, followed shortly by Tang Xing, whose first action was to give her a big hug.
Jiang Shuyao and Pei Yan stood together, the surging crowd not dimming the understanding in their gazes.
Chen Jin secretly sighed.
Reflecting on that night in Jinggang, when they had sat with their heartbroken Boss the whole night, it was still vivid in his mind.
Now, Brother Yan had won his beauty back, radiant and full of pride.
While they could barely compete for anything hot even in eating shit.
Brothers and Boss, such was the difference.
