You Look Like You’re Made of Money

Because Jiang Jingchuan had made such a fuss, Su Yan was not in the mood to continue watching the drama. She had comfortably reclined on the sofa and was practising Pinyin. She felt that Pinyin was quite simple and had already learnt many of them. She believed that after a period of time, she would easily be able to send  messages.

Jiang Jingchuan’s lust was temporarily relieved. He focused and began to earnestly work. When he started the videoconference he didn’t ignore Su Yan. Each and every technical term spoken by him made Su Yan stupified.

While working, Jiang Jingchuan became different from his usual self. In fact, Jiang Jingchuan was not at all an expert at mincing his words. In the video conference which was currently being held, his manner of speaking was neither too slow nor too fast. It invoked a sense of complete trust in the speaker. Which woman would not like this serious side of a man? Su Yan included. She rested her chin on her hand and sighed with emotion while looking at him, such a superb man.

She began to believe that the original body and Shen Peiran were absolutely in true love, or else a woman with even a little bit of a brain, will choose Jiang Jingchuan. Not saying that Shen Peiran was not good, Shen Peiran was also a man of striking appearance. Looking at it this way, he also was equally good, but compared to Jiang Jingchuan, he fell more than a little short.

In the half year since her marriage with Jiang Jingchuan, the original body could ignore him, and devote her heart and soul to Shen Peiran. If this was not true love then Su Yan refused to believe anything.

From a bystander’s point of view, she felt pity for Shen Peiran, because it was not that his lover did not love him, but she could not love him. Su Yan did not know where the original body had gone, but had a strong premonition that the original body would not return. As for whether or not the original body had occupied another person, she did not know.

After Jiang Jingchuan quickly finished his work, he looked down at his wristwatch. It was already approaching 10 o’clock. He tidied things up, picked up his car keys, and took Su Yan with him as he got off work.

At this time of the night, there weren’t many people left in the Jiang Corporation. Except for certain male programmers who were still working hard, it was extremely quiet inside the large building. As Su Yan traversed the smooth reflective marble flooring, each step she took in her high heels resounded throughout the hallway.

“Do you want to go out for late night snacks?”Jiang Jingchuan suddenly had the mood. He turned to ask Su Yan while sitting in the car, “Near my maternal grandmother’s house there is a long snack street and it is also in the vicinity of a university. The food there is very delicious. Do you want to try it?”

Since Su Yan had already taken a rest on the sofa for a while, now she wasn’t sleepy at all, and considering Jiang Jingchuan was inviting her to go with him to recall the past, she had no option but to throw in her lot with this gentleman, at the risk of her life.

“Sure.”

“You can sleep for a while, when we reach there I will tell you.”Jiang Jingchuan carefully adjusted the car’s air conditioner to a cozy temperature. He took his western style overcoat from the backseat and placed it on Su Yan’s lap, “It is rather far, I estimate that it will take more than half an hour.”

“If I sleep, who will talk with you?” Su Yan softly smiled at Jiang Jingchuan while leaning back on the seat.

“No need.” Jiang Jingchuan concentrated on the traffic ahead, and said with a smile: “Just sit next to me like this.”

If a person returned to his apartment after working overtime countless times, with no one in the car, no one in the condominium, he would assume he has gotten used to it. But when an individual with such a bearing entered into his life in such a short time, now, he believed he wouldn’t be able to endure loneliness anymore.

Su Yan shrugged her shoulder, “Okay, I will sleep for a while, if you get bored you can wake me up.”

Jiang Jingchuan laughed while shaking his head: “It’s okay, I don’t dare provoke your wrath after you wake up.”

Su Yan who was good at everything, not to mention gentle to the extreme, and the majority of the time she reasoned things out very sensibly. It was only when she woke up, that she would always be difficult on purpose.

Just a few days before, Jiang Jingchuan had slipped out of his sleep. It was the wee hours of the morning when he had woken up and got up to go to the restroom. As a result, he wasn’t careful and bumped against a chair, making a loud noise which woke Su Yan up, immediately Su Yan had sat up on bed and was glaring at him tenaciously with her big eyes while bulging her cheeks in anger.  

On hearing Jiang Jingchuan say such, Su Yan glared at him. She pulled up his overcoat and closed her eyes to sleep.  

Meanwhile, Shen Peiran had already sobered up from his grief and indignation. He was lying down on the rug in his apartment with all the lights in his room switched off, and the only source of illumination was the gentle moonlight. He scratched his residual beard, his expression hollow and dispirited as if done with life. After a while, he stood up and went to his study like a walking corpse. He sat in front of his writing desk, and took out a photo album from a drawer.

Wasn’t this what people do? They don’t know how to cherish the people they hold in their arms, and only realise how big of a mistake they’ve made after losing them.

In the beginning, his intention behind liking Su Yan wasn’t pure, he was attracted  because she was beautiful. She was the Goddess of in the eyes of every boy in their school. During the time they were together, she was always accommodating him.

What qualification did he have to accuse Su Yan of marrying someone else? Obviously, she had wanted to marry him, so they did have an opportunity to be together. It was he who surrendered her to others, it was he who declined to get married so why did he turn around and retaliate against her?

The reason why Su Yan had cut ties with him like this, actually had traces to follow, she hadn’t changed this much in one day.

Jiayu’s matter was a small fuse that lit off a big one. He still remembered, the day after Jiayu left, Su Yan gave him a call, naturally it was in the early hours of the morning. He originally was asleep but then woke up to answer the phone very impatiently.

She said: “Wouldn’t it be better if we let go of each other? Let’s end this. So many matters were not as simple as I thought. Peiran, do you know? I am suddenly feeling very scared. I am afraid that I am going against all my morals and ignoring everyone’s opposition. Do you understand? I am afraid that once I am finished with all this, I won’t love you anymore.”

There had never been any lack of brave warriors through time, but then again, how many individuals, despite being condemned by the public, used up all their strength, and ultimately found out that when they attained wasn’t what they desired to have.

He didn’t understand her meaning at that time, and had impatiently cut her off. But now that he thought back, a lot of things didn’t happen overnight. While being with her, he had gotten tired, but she was even more fatigued than him. He asked her to understand him, but he forgot to understand the even more worn-out her.

A city’s snack street was lively and bustling, after Jiang Jingchuan parked properly, he took Su Yan in left and right turns till they finally arrived at the entrance of a family barbecue restaurant. The inside of the store was already filled, so the owner had temporarily placed chairs and tables outside. They sat down on the seats outside, and he ordered some glasses of iced drinks first. The owner’s wife enthusiastically handed over the menu and asked in mandarin with a dialect: “Handsome man, beautiful lady, what would ya have?”

“What do you want to eat?” Jiang Jingchuan tilted his head and asked.

Su Yan carefully scanned the menu. She had never eaten this type of barbeque outside, and also did not know what was delicious, so after looking for a long time she shook her head, “You order, I will have the same.”

Jiang Jingchuan found out that each time he went with Su Yan went outside to eat, she didn’t order anything, but he also won’t force her. He replied to the owner’s wife: “2 plates of roasted cold noodles, 15 skewers of crispy bone chicken, 10 skewers of roasted squid, 5 skewers of chicken wings, 10 skewers of streaky pork…...hm, and one portion of mashed garlic eggplant, that’s all.”

Seeing Jiang Jingchuan ordering food with familiarity, she knew that it must not be his first time here. After the shopkeeper’s wife left, Su Yan curiously asked: “Did you used to come here often?”

Although this area looked very lively, it completely did not mesh with Jiang Jingchuan’s status. She would think that Jiang Jingchuan was unlikely to come to this sort of place to eat.

“After I returned here, I once came to look at my maternal grandmother’s home nearby, and came to this area by accident. I don’t come here regularly, but when I am free, I sometimes come here.”Jiang Jingchuan took out two pairs of chopsticks from a cylindrical chopstick holder, then seeing that the owner’s attention wasn’t on their side, he winked at Su Yan and whispered: “In a vendor’s stall like this, you can’t expect hygienic condition here, therefore you can only eat here once in a while.”

In between the lines, Su Yan could feel that Jiang Jingchuan really cherished the memories of his maternal grandmother, and that sort of adoration a child would have for their parents can be fully felt.

“Is grandma’s home still here?” Su Yan asked with a smile.

A person who fondly cherished the memories of their deceased family member, was unlikely to turn rotten.

Jiang Jingchuan nodded and sighed: “Both of my maternal uncles are very filial. They refuse to part with and sell off the house. In fact, the housing price per block isn’t low. My ma didn’t think that that house was essential. But my uncles straightforwardly said that they would keep it, so they could come back again and again whenever they wanted to or whenever they missed it.”

Actually Jiang Jingchuan really liked his mother’s side of the family. Although they might not have great abilities, every one of them were hard workers, and moreover they were very good and honest.

“Well, when you have free time, can you take me with you to visit?” Su Yan knew that Jiang Jingchuan’s most fondest memories were of his maternal grandmother. She could understand that, because it was the same for her. Her most warm memories were of her parents and her wet nurse. Needless to say, no matter how much hardened your heart becomes, or how wordly a person becomes, once they recall those memories, they instantly soften.

After hearing Su Yan's words, Jiang Jingchuan couldn’t come up with a reply for a moment, and could only stare at her in a trance. Then in these busy streets, he couldn’t help but stretch out his hand to stroke her face, and with a smile he said: “Of course, I will.”

There was one song, though he forgot the name, and only remembered one sentence of the lyrics, which had especially made an impression.

——I want to take you with me to my grandmother’s home, 一watching the sunset together, 一till we fall asleep.

The most regretful thing was that he couldn’t let his grandma see him marry his wife, but it doesn’t matter, he will take Su Yan to go see his maternal grandmother, and also to his childhood room he felt so nostalgic about. He would tell her about all the memories associated with that place.

“Oh by the way, you need to pack up in two days, we will get ready to go out after a few days.” This was what Jiang Jingchuan had planned for a long time, he finally decided to go to an island. As it happens, a friend he met while staying abroad had a private mansion on that island. His work schedule had finally been arranged. He could basically take a week’s holiday, enough for them to breathe freely.

Su Yan was still very interested in that single matter. After hearing that Jiang Jingchuan had really arranged it, her face immediately lit up with pleasure and if she could, she would have hugged Jiang Jingchuan right now.

She really wanted to go out!

Wanted to go out and have fun!

During childhood while staying at home, as a well-bred lady from a good family, she held on for 10 years, and then in the Imperial Harem, she suppressed her desire for another 10 years. Now, she finally could go wherever she wanted to!

Barb Notes:

The song Jiang Jingchuan remembers is Simple Love by Jay Chou.