Chapter 50
That single sentence left Jiang Ling completely bewildered.
Ning Qiu… interested in Pei Ning?
What kind of interest? Interested in what exactly?
Jiang Ling’s brain started spinning at high speed, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation, while at the same time not forgetting to respond aloud: “Sure. If there’s a chance in the future.”
Ning Qiu smiled faintly, said nothing more, and walked straight into Nanjiang Restaurant.
Jiang Ling lifted his foot to follow her, only to remember after taking two steps that he was still holding the flowers. He hurriedly put them back in the car, then rushed after Ning Qiu again.
Ning Qiu had absolutely no intention of waiting for him.
At this point, Jiang Ling could not quite figure out what Ning Qiu was thinking.
She had taken the initiative to invite him to the class reunion, which was clearly a sign of goodwill and showed that she had decided to bury the hatchet.
She had fallen asleep in his car, which meant she no longer guarded against him and could also count as a kind of goodwill.
But then why had she suddenly brought up Pei Ning in front of him, and even emphasized that she was interested in Pei Ning?
Ning Qiu should not know Pei Ning at all.
Jiang Ling fell into thought.
Could it be that Ning Qiu was trying to hint something to him?
For example…
You already have a fiancée now, so I can’t accept your flowers, and I can’t accept your confession either.
The chain of logic in Jiang Ling’s mind magically clicked into place.
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. So he decided to test Ning Qiu’s attitude.
“Why did you suddenly come back? I didn’t hear any news about it before,” Jiang Ling asked.
Ning Qiu replied casually, “It was a last-minute decision.”
Jiang Ling pressed further. “A last-minute decision?”
“Mm.” Ning Qiu had already taken off her sunglasses, and her beautifully made-up eyes, rich and striking, swept toward him. “I booked the ticket last night.”
Jiang Ling froze.
Last night.
He had proposed to Pei Ning only last night. If Ning Qiu had really been paying attention to his news, then there was no way she had not seen it online.
Jiang Ling was almost certain now—Ning Qiu must have seen the news of his proposal, and that was why she hurriedly decided to come back to the country.
He nearly laughed out loud. The curve at the corner of his lips simply would not stay down.
He had guessed right.
Ning Qiu, who had rejected him so harshly more than ten years ago, had most likely changed her mind. That must be why, after seeing the news that he was about to formally get engaged to Pei Ning, she hurriedly altered her plans, flew back to China, and even took the initiative to contact him and show goodwill.
Lost in his joy, Jiang Ling failed to notice that Ning Qiu had put her sunglasses back on. Behind the dark lenses, those phoenix eyes of hers rolled the biggest eye-roll imaginable at him.
Idiot.
Ning Qiu cursed inwardly.
She could practically guess exactly what Jiang Ling was thinking right now.
Jiang Ling had guessed correctly—but only halfway.
She really had come back because she saw Jiang Ling’s proposal to Pei Ning. In fact, she had not even learned the news from the hot search—she had followed the entire proposal livestream from start to finish.
But she had not come back for Jiang Ling.
She had come back for Jiang Ling’s “prospective” fiancée.
Ning Qiu twirled a small lock of hair by her cheek around her long fingers.
She might be a “prospective” fiancée now, but what the future held…
Who could say for sure?
*
At the same time, in Summer Room directly opposite Spring Room—
Pei Ning, Lin Zhiqiao, and the others had also arrived early at Nanjiang Restaurant. The private room they booked just “happened” to be Summer Room, the one closest to Spring Room.
Sitting once again in that familiar private room, Lin Zhiqiao was filled with emotion.
He still clearly remembered that the last time he had sat in this room with President Song and Director Fang, he had also been waiting to eat gossip.
Wasn’t that just a coincidence? This time, it was exactly the same.
When Pei Ning brought them to Summer Room, it was not even 7:30 yet.
Lin Zhiqiao calculated the timing. The white moonlight’s flight had landed at six o’clock, and it would take about one hour and forty minutes to get here from the airport.
The timing was just right.
The cameraman from the production team had also come along, but the livestream was not on. Pei Ning had him turn it off.
Pei Ning said dinner counted as private time, so it was not part of the livestream schedule for the show.
Most importantly, she did not want Ning Qiu to be caught on camera.
Pei Ning knew all too well how heavy the words “public opinion can kill” truly were.
If Jiang Ling and Ning Qiu appeared in the same frame on the livestream, then if Jiang Ling did even the slightest inappropriate thing, no matter that the fault would be his, there would definitely still be many people pointing their swords at Ning Qiu.
That was not the outcome Pei Ning wanted to see.
Summer Room had an excellent location. Looking down from the window, they could see the main entrance of Nanjiang Restaurant and part of the parking area as well.
Pei Ning sat by the window, and from there she could take in everything below clearly at a glance.
The moment Jiang Ling’s car appeared in the parking area, Pei Ning spotted it immediately.
Lin Zhiqiao, seated beside her, lit up with excitement: [They’re here, they’re here, they’re here!!]
The group, who had originally been sitting around the table, silently and with perfect tacit understanding gathered by the window and looked downstairs.
So everyone present saw Jiang Ling offer flowers to Ning Qiu, only to be rejected, then hurriedly put the flowers down and chase after her in a flustered, awkward state.
And the flowers he had brought were jasmine—the same flowers Jiang Ling often gave to Pei Ning.
Lin Zhiqiao summed it up: [That desperate simp look of his really hasn’t changed one bit from more than ten years ago.
He secretly glanced toward Pei Ning.
When a boyfriend who had only proposed to you the night before was already giving flowers to another woman the very next day, no matter who saw it, they would probably feel awful inside.
Lin Zhiqiao started thinking about how he should comfort Sister Pei if she got so upset that she cried later.
But when his eyes turned toward Pei Ning, he discovered that she was holding up her phone with a completely expressionless face, recording the exact scene of Jiang Ling offering the flowers.
Oh, and it was video too.
Lin Zhiqiao’s eyes widened slightly: [Whoa!]
[As expected of Sister Pei—even in a situation like this, she can calmly film the evidence!]
Jiang Ling’s figure disappeared downstairs. Not long after, faint footsteps sounded in the corridor outside.
For the sake of better gossip-eating, the group had not shut the private room door fully. Instead, they had left a tiny crack, not even a finger wide.
It was enough for the people inside to notice activity outside, while still preventing the people outside from seeing what was happening inside.
And right then, the conversation between two people in the hallway drifted clearly into Summer Room.
Jiang Ling: “Ning Qiu, how have you been doing all these years abroad?”
Ning Qiu: “So-so.”
Jiang Ling: “Now that you’re back this time, are you going abroad again? Or are you planning to stay in China for a while longer?”
Ning Qiu: “Haven’t decided.”
Jiang Ling: “China’s changed a lot over the years. Want me to take you around and help you get familiar with it again?”
Ning Qiu: “If I’m going shopping, I’d rather go with my girl friends.” She paused, then added, “Do you want to be one of my girl friends?”
Through the narrow crack in the door, Lin Zhiqiao saw that Ning Qiu seemed to sweep a glance downward across Jiang Ling’s lower half.
Ning Qiu: “That’s not impossible either.”
But Jiang Ling clearly failed to grasp what she meant: “Let’s not go as far as girl friends…”
Ning Qiu: “If it’s your fiancée, I might consider it.”
Jiang Ling fell into deep thought.
Was Ning Qiu hinting at something again?
The two figures disappeared into Spring Room.
Everyone in Summer Room let out a collective sigh.
Gong Tiantian shot Pei Ning a worried look. “Ningning, you…”
Pei Ning put away her phone, smiled faintly at the crowd who were all watching her with concern, and said, “Let’s eat. The dishes are all here.”
There would still be things to do after the meal. Right now, the most important thing was to fill their stomachs and save up enough energy.
After following Lin Zhiqiao eating gossip for this long, everyone present was now very experienced in exactly this.
There were two doors between them and Jiang Ling’s group, so they could not actually see what was happening in Spring Room.
But Lin Zhiqiao had 888, and everyone else had Lin Zhiqiao.
Without even knowing it himself, Lin Zhiqiao began an extravagant live broadcast of everything happening in Spring Room.
There were more than ten people in Spring Room altogether, all former high school classmates of Ning Qiu.
With so many people present, Jiang Ling still had to maintain his good-man image, so he did not do anything out of line.
The reunion really was just a simple class reunion.
Ning Qiu had spent all these years abroad and had not seen her old classmates in a long time, but her lively and outgoing personality made it easy for her to quickly blend right back in.
Someone brought up, “Ning Qiu, it’s been so many years now. Jiang Ling’s about to get married. You must already have a boyfriend too, right?”
All the old classmates present knew how fiercely Jiang Ling had pursued Ning Qiu back in high school, so bringing it up now was just a form of teasing.
Ning Qiu waved a hand. “What boyfriend? My studies were enough to crush me. Where would I even have the energy to date?”
That person looked surprised. “Ah? So you’ve really been single all these years?”
Ning Qiu answered righteously, “Academics are my partner. The one true main wife, impossible to shake.”
Everyone burst into laughter.
But when those words reached Jiang Ling’s ears, they turned into something else entirely.
Too busy studying to date?
Who was she trying to fool!
She was clearly still hung up on him.
Jiang Ling took a sip of tea, in a mood so good he could hardly stand it.
Then suddenly he remembered that he was now someone with a “prospective” fiancée.
And at this moment, Pei Ning’s existence had instead become an obstacle.
Jiang Ling lowered his eyes, and his gaze darkened slightly.
He needed to come up with a way to both free himself from Pei Ning’s restraints and still preserve his perfect image, without giving anyone grounds to criticize him.
Meanwhile, in Summer Room—
[The white moonlight has it so bad. Such obvious rejection, and Jiang the scumbag still thinks it’s a hint and a coy refusal… does this dog scumbag really have zero self-awareness at all?! She’s that outstanding—how could she possibly ever take interest in a delusional idiot like you!]
Lin Zhiqiao muttered in his heart and decided to open a few melons to soothe the discomfort brought on by the scumbag.
[Let me see… whoa, it’s actually the white moonlight’s melon!]
[Huh? My dear heavens, the white moonlight is actually our Sister Pei’s fan?!]
The moment that thought came out, everyone’s eyes snapped toward Pei Ning.
Pei Ning had just picked up a fish ball from her bowl with her chopsticks. Hearing this, her hand trembled, and the fish ball plopped right back into the bowl.
She looked startled, and even her heartbeat skipped into disorder.
Ning Qiu… was actually her fan?
Lin Zhiqiao’s eyes sparkled with excitement: [Good lord, Ning Qiu has apparently been a fan of Sister Pei’s for almost seven years! Wouldn’t that mean she became Sister Pei’s fan less than two years after Sister Pei debuted? She’s practically an elder-generation fan!]
Pei Ning’s grip on her chopsticks tightened slightly.
Counting the time, Ning Qiu should have become her fan the same year she got together with Jiang Ling.
Could it be that Ning Qiu only started paying attention to her because of Jiang Ling?
Pei Ning did not know.
But seven years… yes, that really did count as an old fan.
Pei Ning lowered her head and took a sip of tea, unable to clearly define how she felt right now.
Since the reunion in Spring Room was obviously not ending anytime soon, the group in Summer Room tacitly slowed their eating.
While eating, Lin Zhiqiao did not forget to keep following the progress in Spring Room.
[The white moonlight got forced to drink a little by everyone, said she was feeling a bit dizzy, and wanted to step outside to get some air and sober up.]
[Ah, Jiang Ling followed her too, saying he was going to the bathroom… what bathroom? More like he just wants to find an excuse to be alone with the white moonlight!]
[She doesn’t even want to give you the time of day, so how do you still have the nerve to go trailing after her?!]
At that moment, Pei Ning suddenly set down her chopsticks. “I’m going to the restroom. You all…”
Every single hand shot up in the room: “Me too!”
Pei Ning’s movement paused for a fraction of a second. She looked like she wanted to laugh, but she did not stop them.
She stood up and opened the door. At almost the exact same moment, the door to Spring Room across the hall also opened.
Jiang Ling appeared in the doorway.
He did not look toward the opposite room at all. His eyes followed Ning Qiu, who had already walked halfway down the hallway.
“Ning Qiu, wait!” Jiang Ling called out.
Almost at the exact same time, Pei Ning spoke too, her tone full of surprise:
“Jiang Ling?”
