Ni Jiu (Intoxicated) - Chap 68

Shen Tingwei woke up early in the morning but the side of the bed was empty.
Lian Jue should have left early. Before leaving, he opened the curtains in the room halfway for him. The sun should not have fully risen yet. The thin morning light pierced through the glass and sprinkled on the end of the bed. The head of the bed was half shaded by the curtains, making it easier than usual for him to wake up to the light in front of him.
Shen Tingwei turned over, turned his face to the side of the empty bed, closed his eyes and slowly woke up.
Last night, Shen Tingwei thought Lian Jue wanted it at first. After all, the two of them couldn’t find a reasonable reason to sleep in the same bed other than doing such a thing but Lian Jue didn’t. It seemed that he simply left him to sleep in the room. Lian Jue’s sleep quality was very good. He fell asleep not long after and his sleeping pattern was very regular. After he lay down, he kept sleeping on his back. The pose hasn’t changed much.
Shen Tingwei seldom lay beside Lian Jue when he was awake, so it was not easy to fall asleep. It was difficult to maintain a position without falling asleep. Since Lian Jue was sleeping, he did not dare to turn over with great movement. He only dared to adjust the position of the hands and feet slightly trying to find a more comfortable position to help sleep.
It was already early in the morning when he returned to his room. It was probably in the second half of the night when he was about to fall asleep. He vaguely felt that he was being hugged from behind by Lian Jue and asked in a sleepy voice in his ear. “Why don’t you sleep?”
He couldn’t remember what he answered or if he didn’t have time to answer at all, so he fell asleep.
Last night, the conjecture that Lian Jue existed in a susceptible period was overturned but Lian Jue’s repeated abnormal performance made him less able to objectively think about Lian Jue’s behavioral motives.
But subjectively, he was very reluctant to think about falling in love. Lian Jue had shown resistance and rejection to him from the very beginning and even thought he was the kind of person who would do anything for money. Lian Jue and him are people from two worlds, in multiple senses. He does thinks that he just cooks a few meals for Lian Jue or that having a baby will make Lian Jue feel more than responsible for him.
Shen Tingwei looked down at the thin wrinkled quilt beside him, as if the person on the bed had left and the temperature was still there.
Thinking so, he reached out and touched it and found that the so-called temperature was just his illusion.
Shen Tingwei took back his hand, suppressed the nameless loss in his heart and got up.
Kang Tong was going back to school this afternoon. The dry cleaners brought the washed uniforms in the morning. They were British-style short-sleeved shirts and light gray shorts. A small school badge was printed on the upper right corner of the shirt. It looks very foreign.
Shen Tingwei helped him tie his neck tie, fix the turned down the collar of his shirt and tidied it up. He watched him get into the driver’s car through the glass.
Shen Tingwei was at home alone. He had nothing to do after knitting the scarf for Kang Tong.
Chang Xing asked him to go out to drink milk tea but his body does not allow him to go out and he couldn’t find a good reason. He could only excuse himself not being in Yishi for a while. Chang Xing looked a little disappointed and said that they make an appointment when he came back.
No less than Shen Tingwei’s panic at home, Lian Jue was busy all morning and didn’t start to eat lunch until after two o’clock.
Lin Chen knocked on the door during his break and came in to confirm with him the work schedule for the afternoon and evening. Seeing that Lian Jue had no objection, he couldn’t help but say: “The meeting at night can actually be moved to nine o’clock tomorrow morning. The other party has a relationship with us. There’s a twelve-hour time difference, so the time is perfectly fine-”

Lian Jue raised his head and glanced at him. Lin Chen’s voice got stuck for a while and reminded euphemistically, “Today is the Qixi Festival, President Lian.”

Lian Jue looked at Lin Chen without knowing why but it made Lin Chen feel a little uncomfortable, as if he wanted to get off work early and go back to the Qixi Festival mission of the online game. With that set of equipment, he gritted his teeth, pretended to be very considerate of the boss and asked, “Don’t you have to go back to accompany Mr. Shen earlier?”

Lian Jue looked at Lin Chen for a long time. Lin Chen joined his company after graduating from university and has worked with him for many years. He has always been very clear that it is not just a meaningless festival like Qixi or Valentine’s Day. Now he heard Lin Chen mention it specially and he persuaded again and again uncharacteristically, as if he was deliberately reminding him of the importance of this festival. Lian Jue thought again that Shen Tingwei communicate much with Lin Chen on weekdays, which made Lian Jue vaguely have some kind of association in his heart and thus misunderstood his meaning.
Shen Tingwei is the kind of person who is very good at life, likes flowers, desserts, cats and cute things. If Shen Tingwei ever thought about letting Lin Chen come to lobby, he felt excusable.
So Lian Jue pondered for a moment and said lightly, “Then push it.”
In the afternoon, Lin Chen and Lian Jue left the company together. The driver took Lian Jue back first. Passing a flower shop on the way, Lin Chen asked him if he wanted to buy a bouquet of flowers for Mr. Shen.

Lian Jue never liked flowers but he still accepted Lin Chen’s suggestion. He still remembered that Shen Tingwei waited for him late last night because he didn’t hug Shen Tingwei well during the day, so he lowered his eyes and looked depressed. He felt that if flowers could make Shen Tingwei happy, he would occasionally be willing to spend such gimmicks to pay for specific festivals to stimulate consumption.
Lian Jue doesn’t often step into a place like a flower shop. He carefully selected it for a long time under the enthusiastic recommendation of the flower shop owner. In the end, he chose the unremarkable bouquet of red roses in the center of the container.
Because of the hot sale of roses for the Qixi Festival, his arrival was not a coincidence and there were only two bundles of packaged roses left in the store. During his selection process, a boy who looked like a student came in and bought one of them with a clear purpose. When the checkout was scanning the code, the boy chatted with the flower shop owner and shyly said that on the Qixi Festival, of course, he wanted to send roses.
So this very cliché sentence became the reason why Lian Jue bought the last bouquet of roses.
When paying, the store owner took out a card and asked him if he wanted to write something. Lian Jue took the pen handed over by the other party, thought about it for a long time, put it back on the counter and said it was over.
After Lian Jue paid the payment and returned to the car with this exaggerated bouquet of red roses. The driver smiled at him and said, “Your wife will like it.”
Even the tactic thinks so. He gently placed the bouquet beside his seat, took the laptop that Lin Chen handed over and looked at what he had just marked in the document.
The car turned around and drove past the door of the flower shop. Lian Jue raised his eyes and swept to the door of the flower shop. He clearly saw someone walking out with the same rose in his hand.
Only then did he realize that the so-called only two bunches left by the shopkeeper was just a promotion for the flower shop.

Fortunately, the rose next to him was blooming beautifully. He didn’t feel any regrets because he rarely buy gifts and only asked the driver to speed up the car appropriately.
The car stopped outside the courtyard of the villa. Lian Jue got out of the car with the bouquet decorated with black glossy paper and black gauze that was very hard but easy to shape and walked into the courtyard.
His expression and pace were the same as usual. He held flowers calmly. The roses were covered with several layers of soft Sydney paper. He always protect the one place that was prone to wrinkling with his free hand.
The fragrant rose scent lingered in his nose. He habitually compared the smell he smelled with the smell on Shen Tingwei’s body and involuntarily came to a conclusion that was not objective. He thought the scent of roses was cheesy but with the added condition that Shen Tingwei might like it, it was not so unbearable.
He came back very early today. The sound of entering the door was very soft. Shen Tingwei was lying on the sofa in the living room with his back to him. His legs were covered with the blanket that Lian Jue asked to take away last night. He might be fascinated by reading books the he didn’t notice the door slamming.
It wasn’t until Lian Jue changed his slippers and deliberately closed the door of the shoe cabinet, making a big or small movement that he turned his head in shock, seeing Lian Jue first, a little surprised: “Why are you so early? —”
His eyes stopped on the rose in his hand again, his voice stopped and his eyes were even more surprised.
In the few short steps that Lian Jue walked towards him, he was silent, except for the sight of Lian Jue, who was getting closer and closer, his body did not make any movement. His eyebrows and hearts furrowed imperceptibly.
Lian Jue put the rose on the coffee table not far from him and then he didn’t finish his words and replied, “My work was done earlier today.”
Shen Tingwei didn’t move or look at his face, his eyes stopped on the bouquet of roses in full bloom in front of him. The blood on his face gradually faded and even the color of his lips slowly faded.
Lian Jue couldn’t find the expression he wanted on his face and was a little puzzled when he saw Shen Tingwei suddenly raise his hand to cover his mouth, frown tightly and abruptly looked away from the rose. As if it was very difficult enduring the sight of it. He quickly lifted the thin blanket covering his legs and ran towards the bathroom on the first floor.