Go With The Flow Of Love Chapter 9.1

Chapter Nine (Part 1)

Li Wei Ran drove Qin Sang and a tipsy An Xiao Li back to Qin Sang’s house.

A tipsy An Xiao Li behaved well after she stopped pestering Qin Sang to sit in the backseat with her instead of on the passenger seat next to the nine tailed fox prince. Even in her tipsy state she wasn’t blind to the lovey dovey couple in front of her. It made her more determined to see through her heart’s decision.

An Xiao Li comforted her heart – ‘I’m going to see it as I’m unlucky. I didn’t look carefully what was under the ice glacier prince’s white shirt. Under his white shirt is an incomparable dark black heart… so my heart, pretend you never fell for him.’

An Xiao Li moped in the backseat. She looked out at the bright streetlights and felt her heart didn’t listen to her, it still ached. It didn’t matter that all the streetlights were bright in the district, she felt there wasn’t a single light that sincerely wanted with all its heart to shine because of her.

Li Wei Ran saw his third brother parked in front of Qin Sang’s house.

‘Oh, Xiao Li, your little Bai has come to find you,’ Li Wei Ran teased and parked his car.

Li Wei Ran grinned remembering how Qin Sang gave him a good ammunition to tease his third brother when she told him about An Xiao Li’s endearing nickname for his third brother – ‘little Bai.’

Li Wei Ran’s grin turned into a soft chuckle remembering that morning he took his third brother down a notch…

That morning Chen Yu Bai led a meeting to report new financial profit and loss statements. He smugly singled out Li Wei Ran. ‘I’ve got to hand it to you fifth brother, you have an uncanny ability to cause the profit and loss to rise and fall sporadically for any project under your care.’

‘You praise me too much… little Bai,’ Li Wei Ran teased and laughed.

Rong Yan who was seriously looking over the financial statements whilst drinking coffee, splattered the coffee in his mouth onto the financial statements and coughed nonstop after he heard Li Wei Ran dared to call their scary third brother ‘little Bai.’

Liang Fei Fang was reading a newspaper but lifted his head in disbelief when he heard his fifth brother dared to call his third brother using an endearing nickname. He gave Chen Yu Bai a kiddo-it’s-about-time-you’ve-fallen look.

Ji Nan who was sleepy, yawned but became alert to join her fifth brother to tease their third brother too. ‘Hehe… little Bai.’

Li Wei Ran didn’t want to stay behind and receive his third brother’s scruntiy and quietly bolted out of the meeting room.

Ji Nan took the fall for her fifth brother. ‘Little Bai’ gave her a dagger that made her weary all morning and didn’t dare to make a sound.

Since that morning Chen Yu Bai’s sworn brothers stopped calling him ‘third wise old man’ or ‘third brother.’ They purposely called him ‘Chen Yu – Bai’ with the emphasis on the pause before Bai to show him that they wholeheartedly supported his endearing nickname – ‘little Bai.’

Poor tipsy An Xiao Li didn’t know that her former pet name ‘little Bai’ for Chen Yu Bai made him a little less scary in front of his sworn brothers.

An Xiao Li got out of Li Wei Ran’s car and she saw Chen Yu Bai in front of Qin Sang’s house. She could see his unhappy look from a distance. She bit her soft lips hard. He saw her from the distance too and his eyes behind his glasses were ablaze with anger.

The moment An Xiao Li was within hearing distance, Chen Yu Bai put out his hand. ‘Phone.’

An Xiao Li held back the intimidated feeling that his icy aura evoked. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t have my phone on me.’

Chen Yu Bai helplessly pulled back his hand. ‘Do you know how many times I called you?’

‘I don’t know. I told you I didn’t bring my phone, how would I know? You know I wouldn’t know. So can you not purposely ask me questions you already know the answers to?’ An Xiao Li said in a serious tone.

‘An-Xiao-Li!’ Chen Yu Bai said.

An Xiao Li lifted her chin and smiled triumphantly. There wasn’t a speck of fear left of that ice glacier who stood furious in front of her. ‘Um. What?’

In that moment An Xiao Li believed since there was no love between her and the ice glacier then she believed there was no fear left to be scared of offending him.

Chen Yu Bai wasn’t intimidated by An Xiao Li’s coldness. He was just angry. He was angry from morning to the afternoon. At dinner time he waited for a long time and didn’t see her come to his place, it made him angry and he called her. But she didn’t answer her phone! He ordered one of his assistants to go find her. His assistant reported back to him that she was eating dinner with Li Wei Ran in the eastern side of the district. The moment he heard she chose to eat dinner with someone else rather than eat dinner with him made the anger in his stomach burn intensely.

When Li Wei Ran walked arm in arm with Qin Sang toward the silent and unmoving duelling pair having a staring contest, his curiosity was stirred.

‘Oh, how many wooden dummies have we got here? One or two?’ Li Wei Ran teased.

In Li Wei Ran’s life one of the sights he loved to see most was when his third brother’s cold mask was taken off. His third sister-in-law had the rare gift of being able to take off third brother’s cold mask easily – his third brother’s usual indifferent face was red with anger.

Chen Yu Bai glared at Li Wei Ran. ‘None of your business. Scram upstairs now.’

Li Wei Ran took a step back. ‘Sang Sang, I’m really scared!’

Qin Sang defended Li Wei Ran at the expense of An Xiao Li. ‘Chen Yu Bai, you really don’t understand the situation. If you want to be loved by my big sister Xiao Li then you need to take care of her little sister and her little sister’s boyfriend too. Oh, one more thing, my big sister Xiao Li before dinner purposely left her phone on the coffee table at home.’

It was obvious to Li Wei Ran and Qin Sang the moment Chen Yu Bai stopped breathing and when Chen Yu Bai’s long fingers curled into two fists. Li Wei Ran and Qin Sang held each other’s shaky hand and wisely escaped the menacing battle that was about to be unleashed.

It was almost the end of Autumn, the night wind was cool.

When Chen Yu Bai’s cold hand gripped An Xiao Li’s chin, her whole body broke out in goose bumps. She turned away from him because she didn’t dare to look straight into his eyes.

‘Why are you angry with me?’ Chen Yu Bai asked.

An Xiao Li shivered at the sound of Chen Yu Bai’s sudden gentle tone. They stood outside in the cool night, under amber lighting and beside his Audi R8 – she finally realised she was faced with the situation ‘dead within a minute’ like what was described in a romance novel.

An Xiao Li commanded her shivering body to snap out of it – ‘Wake up! If you get past this minute then up ahead there’ll be a prince charming on his horse ready to pick you up. If you can’t get past this minute then you can only cry miserably that you’re nothing more than a toy in the ice glacier’s heart. If he beckons then you have to appear in front of him and if he dismisses you then you need to disappear straight away. A toy has a short shelf life, wait until the ice glacier is bored of playing with a toy – you’ll lose all your money and your whole body too!’

‘It’s nothing,’ An Xiao Li said. Her body stopped shivering. ‘I’ve graduated, I’m an adult and I can’t be deluded forever. I want to start a new life.’ She looked straight into Chen Yu Bai’s eyes. ‘Chen Yu Bai, whatever ambiguous connection that we have between us, from this minute, I hope that our only connection will be that of a simple boss and employee connection.’

Chen Yu Bai listened to each word Xiao Li said. He couldn’t hold back and laughed coldly. ‘Hope? An Xiao Li, I’m letting you know, another person’s hope is to be carried out and your hope is to be destroyed.’

An Xiao Li felt guilty before for saying those heartless words to Chen Yu Bai. But after she heard him throw back heartless words to her, all the guilt she felt was gone. She followed his lead, she laughed even colder. ‘Is that so? Then I wholeheartedly hope that as each day passes you’ll get to live a better life.’

An Xiao Li saw the veins on Chen Yu Bai’s hands and face popped up, his eyes were narrowed and he didn’t say anything and it made her more frustrated. ‘Do you have anything else to say? If not then I’m going inside.’

Chen Yu Bai didn’t have any reaction. An Xiao Li pouted her lips and turned around to leave. Suddenly his hand pulled her right arm back and she used her strength to shake off his hand on her right arm.

Unexpectedly An Xiao Li’s shake worked. Chen Yu Bai let go of her right arm, lost his balance and rammed into the side of his car.

An Xiao Li was shocked. She saw Chen Yu Bai wrinkled his forehead and thought the collision must have really hurt. Her heart pounded rapidly again.

‘Hey…’ An Xiao Li said. She stepped toward Chen Yu Bai and checked if he was injured anywhere. His complexion wasn’t good and it made her panicked. ‘Do you have a stomach ache? Didn’t you eat dinner?’

Chen Yu Bai snorted and opened his eyes wide.

An Xiao Li’s suspicion that colliding into a car would hurt. She experienced it first hand – her body was pushed against the car and indeed it did… really hurt.

Chen Yu Bai pulled An Xiao Li to him. He gripped her waist and turned her back to face the car then he pushed her against the car. He felt her soft body against his body. The wind swept her long hair into his face and he closed his eyes.

Chen Yu Bai opened his eyes and lifted An Xiao Li’s chin for her to face him. Indeed the cold drops he felt on his shoulder were her tears.

‘What’s there to cry about?’ Chen Yu Bai scolded.

Chen Yu Bai’s threatening tone made more of An Xiao Li’s tears stream down her cheeks. Her pitiful state made his anger disappear.

‘Don’t cry anymore,’ Chen Yu Bai pleaded. He sighed and gently wiped her tears. His hands were wetter by the second and his tone was gentler by the second, which was hard for him to understand why. ‘Can you not cry anymore? Ok?’

‘Ok… Xiao Li, don’t cry anymore,’ Chen Yu Bai said gently.

Chen Yu Bai used one arm to hug An Xiao Li and used his other arm to reach through the open car window. He took out some tissues and patiently wiped her tears.

‘You…’ An Xiao Li said in a choked voice. Her nose was red from crying. ‘You’re always like this. Always ice cold like a dead person. Then occasionally you’ll be resurrected once in a while… But, I can’t continue to relive those fleeting moments that you’re resurrected and accept the long periods when you’re an ice cold dead person.’

An Xiao Li’s tears blurred her vision, her voice sounded helpless and she pushed his hand away from her face. Then she used both her hands to carelessly wipe her face and by habit she wiped her hands on Chen Yu Bai’s shirt.

Chen Yu Bai didn’t understand everything An Xiao Li said but he understood the general meaning of her words. She… was blaming his flaws to reject him.

‘In the past I thought a prince was someone like you, who’s handsome and personality isn’t one hundred percent good that’s why no matter how you bully me I could put up with it. But the reality is you’re not a prince… the way Li Wei Ran treats Sang Sang is really good. I admire Sang Sang, I also want to find someone who will treat me really good.’

An Xiao Li’s tears gradually stopped. Her dark eyes cleared after crying and became bright. Under the night sky, she seriously said out loud her deepest desire, she wanted a love that wasn’t tiring and to live a beautiful life.

Chen Yu Bai didn’t remember what age he started to understand that emotions weren’t something that could easily be expressed as taking money out. For many years he believed in the saying ‘still waters run deep.’ So in that moment that he faced an An Xiao Li that seemed like she sprouted a pair of brave wings behind her back, he suddenly realised one strange concern relating to her – he was envious of her.

Chen Yu Bai felt it was a raw envy enough for him to want to possess her and slowly torture…

An Xiao Li thought that she cried too much and was hallucinating, because it seemed like Chen Yu Bai became gentler and his tone sounded a lot warmer.

‘I haven’t bullied you,’ Chen Yu Bai said.

An Xiao Li suddenly snapped. ‘As if you haven’t. I don’t like cooking but every day you deliberately choose complicated dishes. You’re always cold and sarcastic toward me, you’re very aggressive… you don’t allow me to do this and that… you never smile gently with me like Li Wei Ran smiles with Sang Sang. You don’t respect me, you force me… anyway… I don’t want you anymore.’

An Xiao Li was both angry and tongue-tied. Usually she felt Chen Yu Bai treated her badly in a thousand different ways. Why was it when she was given the chance to say the truth, she could only remember the trivial ways he treated her badly?

As An Xiao Li expected, Chen Yu Bai dismissed her trivial complaints. ‘If what you call treating someone good is like fifth brother then there’s no solution – how can you be smart as Qin Sang?’

Chen Yu Bai pushed An Xiao Li’s most forbidden button – since she was a kid to adulthood, she hated to hear the most when someone compared her to Qin Sang and said she wasn’t smart and beautiful as Qin Sang.

‘What about you? How can you compare with Li Wei Ran who is gentle, warm and an outstanding jade amongst a forest?’ An Xiao Li asked.

‘What about you? How can you compare to Qin Sang who has insight and can understand another person’s intentions?’ Chen Yu Bai asked.

‘You!’ An Xiao Li cried out.

‘What?’ Chen Yu Bai asked.

Chen Yu Bai laughed coldly and leaned one of his arms on An Xiao Li’s head. His eyes looked like a triumphant kid.

An Xiao Li was angry like a provoked green frog croaking. ‘Is that so? Then there’s nothing left that can be solved. Let’s break up!’

‘What are you thinking? You still owe money, do you want to default?’ Chen Yu Bai asked.

‘I’m defaulting! What can you do to me?’ An Xiao Li said.

An Xiao Li was angry enough to elbow Chen Yu Bai’s stomach. He groaned and put an arm on the car to steady himself.

Chen Yu Bai’s complexion was gloomy. He gritted his teeth and stared at An Xiao Li’s retreating back. He silently vowed – ‘An-Xiao-Li, wait for it!’

***

End of Chapter Nine (Part 1)