Chapter 42: "Fine, I'll coax you."

When Gu Shiyan stepped out of 1101, his phone was filled with missed calls from Assistant Song. He glanced at the screen just as another call came in. His dark eyes lingered on it for a moment before he finally answered.

“Get back here!” came a thunderous voice, aged yet furious, making Gu Shiyan pause in surprise.

The last time the old man had been this angry was when his cousin had been exposed by the media for getting a model pregnant out of wedlock.

Recalling Luo Xing’s smooth string of actions, Gu Shiyan found himself both exasperated and amused. The tip of his tongue, still tingling from a bite, pressed against his teeth as he tried to quell the sensation.

He drove back, and before he even caught sight of anyone, the old man’s curses rang out ahead of him.

“You brat! So you remember how to come home!”

Gu Shiyan bent down to get out of the car, shut the door, and tossed the keys carelessly to the man waiting beside him. He rubbed his ear, then walked forward.

“Well, you told me to come back, so of course I had to,” he drawled, his tone as nonchalant as ever, only infuriating Gu Taihua further.

The old man hurled his phone at him, which Gu Shiyan caught smoothly with one hand, the tendons showing in a tense arc that spoke of restrained strength.

“How could you treat someone like that! I told you to take her out and show her a good time! And now you let a young girl come back home in tears?”

Gu Shiyan looked at the phone in his hand, then tossed it to Assistant Song. “I did take her out, even let her meet her idol. She ran off on her own—I didn’t abandon her.”

If anything, it seemed more like Luo Xing had abandoned him.

Gu Taihua had no patience for his explanations. “If you hadn’t bullied her, would she have come back crying?”

Gu Shiyan didn’t refute that, only asked quietly, “Is she home?”

That question made Gu Taihua hesitate. “So in your eyes, this still counts as her home?”

Gu Shiyan said nothing more and walked inside. He saw Gu Yunzhi sitting on the sofa. Their eyes met for a moment, and Gu Yunzhi motioned for him to sit down.

He paused—he had never cared for being lectured by elders. But remembering this was Luo Xing’s grandmother, he sighed and sat. “Grandma Gu.”

Gu Yunzhi had calmed down considerably, her gaze no longer angry. “You and Xingxing are dating, aren’t you?”

Gu Shiyan fell silent.

She sighed. “I know you young people have little patience for the nagging of our generation, but as Luo Xing’s grandmother, there are things I must say.”

Gu Shiyan looked at her, sitting upright for once, none of his usual casualness showing.

“You two aren’t suitable for each other,” Gu Yunzhi said bluntly.

He raised his brows slightly. “Grandma, your granddaughter was the one who pursued me.”

He truly didn’t understand—why did it seem as if he was the one relentlessly chasing after her?

“Let me put it plainly, then. Xingxing probably just found you handsome. She’s always been curious, interested in everything, but she can’t stand hardship or persist with things. Her parents think that if she ever wants to get married, it should be someone of equal standing. If she doesn’t, they’re perfectly willing to support her for life. It’s not that I don’t think highly of you, but even if her parents were here, they wouldn’t agree to you being with her.”

Gu Yunzhi herself couldn’t understand how Xingxing had gotten involved with anyone from the Gu family, let alone with Gu Taihua’s grandson.

After living in this circle for so many years, she truly believed Luo Xing wasn’t suited for Gu Shiyan.

“So you mean I’m not good enough for her?” he asked.

Gu Taihua, wheeled in by Assistant Song, immediately retorted, “That mouth of yours can’t say a decent word, and now you’ve made the girl cry. Tell me, is that something a man should do?”

Gu Shiyan ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Fine, I get it. You’re all on her side, aren’t you?”

He couldn’t be bothered to argue further. “She’s upstairs, right?”

Gu Taihua snapped, “Are you going up there just to make things worse?”

Gu Yunzhi said, “She’s been crying.”

Ignoring their words, Gu Shiyan replied, “I’ll go make it up to her, all right?”

He stood outside Luo Xing’s door, gritting his teeth at the tightly shut entrance. So now she knows how to close the door properly? No, this wasn’t a careless gesture—it was intentional, meant for him.

He twisted the handle. The door wasn’t locked from the inside. Luo Xing never had the habit of locking her door, he realized. At home, her parents probably never entered her room without permission or touched her things, so she never bothered with it.

Unlike him, who grew up in his own house as if in a den of bandits, always needing to keep the door locked.

Luo Xing was curled up under the covers.

Gu Shiyan stood by the bed. “Are you crying?” His voice was cool, without a hint of mockery.

Perhaps to show he was being sincere, he even called her name softly.

But the person inside paid him no mind.

He sat down on the empty spot beside her. “Weren’t you the one who said I could do as I pleased for two months?”

At once, the lump under the covers threw the blanket aside and flung a pillow at him. “Who said you could kiss me!”

Her hand gripped another pillow and slammed it down. “Who said you could use your tongue!”

Another hard thump. “Who said you could kiss me three times!”

Furious and aggrieved, Luo Xing hit him again and again.

Gu Shiyan didn’t move, letting her take her anger out on him.

When the pillow finally flew aside, Luo Xing pulled the covers up over herself again. “I don’t want to see you right now,” she muttered.

Gu Shiyan stood up. “Then when do you want to see me?”

“Get out.”

He had never tried to comfort anyone and didn’t know how. People had tried to comfort him before, but he’d never cared enough to remember.

Hearing her tell him to leave, he felt stifled, so he turned and walked out.

Luo Xing waited until the silence outside was complete before she threw back the covers. She reached for her phone.

She’d broken it on the day of finals and hadn’t bothered to pick it up. The screen was shattered anyway; there was no point. She’d bought a new one, but hadn’t finished setting it up. The wallpaper and themes were all different, leaving her uneasy.

She didn’t know who to talk to about what had happened. It seemed wrong to confide in anyone.

Turning off her phone, she retreated under the blanket, her mind a tangled mess.

She truly didn’t want to see Gu Shiyan right now. She was angry—angry that he had kissed her.

When they’d been dating, he never kissed her. She’d felt it was too soon, that there was no need to rush. Besides, wasn’t it supposed to be the boy who took the initiative? So she’d just waited.

But Gu Shiyan had never shown any intention of kissing her.

Now, after they’d already broken up, he used some bet as an excuse to kiss her.

Did he really think she would go along with whatever he wanted?

Did he imagine that a kiss from him was some kind of rare reward?

Luo Xing wiped her mouth.