Living With a Temperamental Adonis: 99 Proclamations of Love

Cheng Qingchong gripped her fists tightly until her nails pierced into the balls of her palms, but she didn’t seem to have felt any pain. With her head lowered, she took a deep breath before raising her eyes to meet Qin Yinan’s eyes steadily.

She didn’t know she was such a good actress. In reality, she was missing him so dearly that it felt like she was sick with memory of the man, but looking at him, with the pain in her chest reaching an impossible crescendo, she managed to force a thin and disinterested smile at the man. “This is such a small world to have run into you at a place like this.”

Qin Yinan frowned slightly. Staring at her face, he hesitated for a moment before his eyes landed on her jeans, which had torn when she fell. A faded bloodstain was soaking part of it red. “Shall we go to the clinic?”

Cheng Qingchong was dumbfounded for a moment before she realized what he was talking about. Is he concerned about me? But does he know? I’m most afraid of his concern—that’s even harder to bear than his mocking words.

Cheng Qingchong thought she would have a mental breakdown, but to her surprise, she replied with a thin and steady smile. “It’s fine, just a small scratch. I’ll deal with it later myself.”

When she finished that sentence, she almost started clapping for herself for how impressive her acting was. However, she knew that her façade was only temporary. Afraid that she might lose control the next minute, she yanked her arm away from his grasp and took a step back to introduce some distance between them. Swallowing the bitterness in her heart, she smiled at him. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be leaving.”

The sudden emptiness in his palm made Qin Yinan frowned even harder. His silence unhinged Cheng Qingchong, making her wonder if she could just turn and leave like that.

Thankfully, the young girl who accompanied Qin Yinan chose to speak then. “Yinan?”

Qin Yinan was pulled out of his reverie. He studied Cheng Qingchong for a while before turning to walk back to the girl.

Is that his new girlfriend? They were quite a distance apart, and Qin Yinan was speaking so softly to the girl that she couldn’t hear them.

Cheng Qingchong looked at the happy couple for about two seconds before quickly moving her eyes away. She dragged her injured leg and rushed toward the street. However, before she could even raise her hand to call for a cab, Qin Yinan’s voice appeared behind her. “Where are you staying? I’ll drive you.”

As he finished, a car slowly stopped between him and her.

“Thank you, but that…” Cheng Qingchong began to reject, but before she could finish, Qin Yinan pulled the door open and half-shoved her into the car. Then he got in after her.

“Where are you staying?”

Cheng Qingchong could see how insistent he was. She bit on her lips before finally relenting and providing him with her address. Qin Yinan didn’t say a word but gave the driver a look through the rear-view mirror. The driver turned on the GPS and started the car.

The car was quiet except for the navigation voice of the GPS. When the satnav said they were one thousand meters away from their destination, Qin Yinan, who had been utterly silent, suddenly asked, “How… how have you been for the past year or two?”

Cheng Qingchong had been trying to maintain the smile on her so much so that her face was getting tired. When she heard Qin Yinan’s question, she mustered all of her energy before she answered, “Not bad, how about you?”