33.cause

Poof——"

Hearing this, Ye Chen couldn't help but spit out a mouthful of wine, turning to ask Nathan beside him, "Cough, cough, cough… Did she really say that?"

Nathan wore a nostalgic yet sorrowful smile, gently nodding, "Yes. She's just that unexpected kind of girl."

Ye Chen scoffed, muttering, "Come to think of it, that damn woman could really say something like that."

"Huh? Gu, what did you say?" Nathan didn't hear clearly.

Ye Chen quickly cleared his throat and shook his head, "Nothing, continue with the story."

And so the memories continued—

When Nathan heard Xiao Wan's question, he was momentarily embarrassed, but then came to his senses and said, "Uh, no… What I mean is, nothing happened between us last night."

Xiao Wan had already climbed up from his arms, putting on her shoes while speaking to him in the tone of someone with experience: "Don't worry, Mr. Rich Second Generation, I won't take advantage of this opportunity to get pregnant with your child and then marry into a wealthy family. I just want to make sure whether or not you used protection, so I can decide whether or not to take the pill."

The service worker, still stunned, was standing by the door, watching. Nathan couldn't help but turn bright red, signaling the worker to leave while explaining to Xiao Wan, "Miss Lin, I swear on my character, nothing happened last night."

"Can you trust the character of a playboy like you?" Xiao Wan immediately shot him a look, "You men are all the same. When asked to wear a condom, you all come up with a million excuses—'It doesn't feel right,' 'If you love me, you should let me finish inside,' 'We'll just get married if you get pregnant,' blah, blah, blah. But when push comes to shove, if I really got pregnant, you'd run faster than Bolt! In the end, it's always us women who get the short end of the stick. You men don't care at all."

Nathan's face turned beet red. He was from high society, and although he had often been with women, he had never heard such blunt and biting remarks from them.

But he had to admit that Xiao Wan was speaking the truth—sometimes men could be selfish for the sake of their own pleasure, not caring about the women they were with. So, he seriously explained, "I'm not lying to you, Miss Lin. Last night you fell asleep in my arms while drunk and wouldn't let go, so I just held you because I didn't want to wake you up. Besides, look, we're both fully clothed!"

Xiao Wan stared at their clothes for a while, and Nathan thought she was starting to believe him. But then Xiao Wan suddenly had an epiphany and looked at him, "I know now! Oh my god, you're impotent!"

"Cough, cough, cough…" Nathan almost choked on his own saliva, "Excuse me, what did you say?"

"I said you're impotent." Xiao Wan said seriously, "No man has ever spent an entire night with me without something happening, so you must have a problem in that area. Poor thing, do you need me to call a doctor for you?"

Nathan was about to throw her out of the office! He had been kind enough to act as her human pillow for the whole night, and now this was the feedback he got—"Impotent"? This damn woman could at least say thank you! But looking at her bright, lively eyes, his anger couldn't seem to emerge.

Finally, Nathan helplessly shook his head, wearing an expression of "fine, believe whatever you want," and said, "If your foot is fine, I'll take you out. The place is closed during the day, I'm about to close up."

Xiao Wan moved her ankle and realized it no longer hurt. She then rummaged through her bag, took out a watch, and handed it to Nathan. "Here."

Nathan stared at the Jaeger-LeCoultre women's watch, confused, "What do you want me to do with this?"

Xiao Wan winked at him, seriously saying, "Paying for your services. Although you're impotent, you still kept me company all night, and your body doesn't look bad either, so I'll reluctantly give you a passing grade for last night's service."

Nathan couldn't take it anymore and finally snapped, shouting, "Pay you for what? If anyone is paying, it's me paying you, okay! What kind of woman are you—"

"Hahaha." But Xiao Wan suddenly clutched her stomach and laughed, pointing at him, "You… you are just too easy to mess with. Want to look in the mirror and see yourself? You're really hilarious!"

What? So all that serious talk was just messing with him? Nathan glared at her in frustration, looking disgusted. "Just go, go already. My family has a history of high blood pressure, I'm afraid you're going to make me explode."

"Poof…" Xiao Wan held back her laughter and waved at him, "Then I'll leave, thanks for comforting me last night, Mr. Brown."

Nathan watched her smile at him, and his heart couldn't help but warm up. He shook his head, "No big deal, it was nothing."

Xiao Wan smiled beautifully again and then turned to leave.

Nathan stood still, stunned for a moment, and then slapped his head—what was he thinking?! Why did he just let her go like that? At least he should have asked for her number and invited her to dinner!

Sigh, all this frustration had muddled his mind!

Nathan hurriedly caught up, fearing that Xiao Wan had already driven off, but when he reached the door, he saw Xiao Wan standing by the road, looking furious. Seeing Nathan catch up, she immediately walked over and kicked him, angrily saying, "What kind of bar owner are you! My car got towed!"

Nathan winced in pain but explained, "It's probably because business was so good last night, there wasn't enough space to park, so they towed your car. Don't worry, I'll call the tow company."

"That's too late, I was originally going to go to school." Xiao Wan impatiently took out her phone to check the time. "Forget it, forget it, I'll just take a taxi."

If he foolishly missed this opportunity, Nathan would definitely regret it. So he quickly grabbed her wrist and said, "How about I drive you? Where's your school?"

Xiao Wan thought for a moment and then agreed. Nathan told the waiter to bring his car to the entrance and then, like a gentleman, opened the door for her.

However, Xiao Wan didn't rush to get in. Instead, she walked around his car and said, "Tsk tsk, an Aston Martin, not bad. But I still don't understand, why do men like cars so much?"

Nathan laughed and said, "I can't really explain it, maybe it's because deep down we yearn to drive the best car and explore the widest world."

"Yeah, yeah, and you all want to sleep with the most beautiful women too," Xiao Wan rolled her eyes, then lowered her head and got into the car. "Hurry up, or I'll be late."

Nathan quickly got into the sports car. Xiao Wan told him the name of her school, and Nathan was surprised because it was the best art university in the country. He wanted to ask her what major she studied, but Xiao Wan wasn't interested in talking and instead took out her phone to take a selfie.

She leaned against Nathan's shoulder, included his shoulder and the steering wheel in the shot, and asked, "Hey, I'm posting a photo of your car on Instagram, you don't mind, do you?"

"Uh, no, it's fine," Nathan said.

Xiao Wan smiled and ruffled his hair, "Good boy."

Nathan silently complained in his mind, thinking: "Am I your pet? You call me a good boy?"

But somehow, after she touched his hair, a warm, tingling sensation spread through him. Nathan, who was experienced with women, felt like he had reverted to his younger days, and the touch from this delicate woman made him react so strongly. Even after driving her to her school gate, the heat still hadn't subsided.

He opened the door for Xiao Wan, and she immediately waved at him, saying, "I'm going now, thanks for the ride."

What? That's it? Nathan quickly rushed up to her and said, "Wait, Miss Lin, can I get your contact information?"

Xiao Wan stopped, looked at him with a flirtatious gaze, and said sweetly, "What do you need my contact for, Mr. Brown?"

Nathan, who was usually direct with women, turned red and stammered, "I… uh, I just… want to… maybe take you out for a meal sometime."

"Is it just a meal?" Xiao Wan asked, looking at him innocently. "If that's the case, I'm not interested."

Nathan had to muster up some courage and said seriously, "Okay, not just a meal. I… I kind of like you. If possible, would you consider dating me?"

"I'll think about it," Xiao Wan winked at him, then turned and skipped up the stairs like a butterfly.

Nathan shouted behind her, "Wait, you still haven't given me your contact info!"

Xiao Wan answered from afar, "I'll contact you when I'm free!"

Nathan helplessly watched her walk away, wondering if she would really contact him or if she was just saying that to brush him off. With unease, he got back into the car. Suddenly, he noticed a message notification on his phone.

It turned out that he had gained a new follower on Instagram. Nathan, who had just casually opened the app, froze when he saw that the new follower was none other than Xiao Wan.

Then, he received a comment from her: "Pick me up at 6 PM at school, I'm going to your restaurant for dinner. You're treating me!"

Nathan couldn't help but smile, quickly replying, "Okay."

Then, he couldn't resist opening Xiao Wan's Instagram. Just two minutes ago, she had uploaded a photo—the one she had taken earlier in his car. The caption read in English: "New sugar daddy, and his supercar. Well, he seems a little dumb, but surprisingly, I kind of like him."

Nathan couldn't help but laugh. It was the first time anyone had called him dumb! And she even called him a "sugar daddy!" He should be angry, but for some reason, he just couldn't stop smiling.

At this point, Nathan took out his phone and showed the photo to the nearby Ye Chen. "I still have that photo she posted."

Ye Chen took the phone, looked at the picture where Xiao Wan was leaning against Nathan, blowing a kiss to the camera, and a surge of anger rose inside him. He wanted to grab her from the photo and maybe put a bow on her lips, to teach this woman a lesson so she wouldn't post such seductive pictures in the future!

"It sounds like a good start," Ye Chen said after calming down. "But why did you break up? Didn't you two get engaged?"

"The problem started with the engagement." Nathan's smile slowly faded as he furrowed his brow. "When I proposed to Xiao Wan, we had only known each other for a little over three months. I knew it seemed rushed, but I just didn't want other men to have the chance to covet her. I wanted to tie her down with marriage. I begged her for a long time before she finally agreed, and we decided to get engaged first, and then get married after she graduated. But then…"

"What happened?" Ye Chen slightly tightened his grip on the cigarette.

Nathan sighed deeply, his voice tinged with sadness, "I wanted to take her to meet my parents and sister. She didn't want to, saying she didn't like that kind of family atmosphere and just wanted to live with me. But I couldn't distance myself from my family. After all, my parents had been so good to me over the years, and I had to take on responsibilities for the family business in the future. So I did everything I could to convince her, and finally, she agreed to meet my parents. But what I didn't expect was that my parents were very displeased with her. They said a lot of harsh and critical things, and she's a sharp-tongued person, so she immediately started arguing with my parents at the dinner table."

Nathan paused and then continued, "I worked hard to calm my parents down, but I couldn't help but feel resentful towards her. I selfishly thought, if she loved me, she should be more tolerant of my parents, at least not contradicting elders like that. But I didn't consider that my parents didn't respect her at all. When I told her my views, Xiao Wan naturally didn't accept them. She felt that I valued my parents' wealth over her, that I looked down on her. We kept arguing, and things got more heated until Xiao Wan slammed the door and left, and I…"

"What's wrong with you?" Ye Chen had a vague feeling that something was wrong.

Nathan painfully covered his eyes. "After I got together with her, I never looked for other girls outside. But after we had that argument, I was so angry that I went to a bar and called a few girls to accompany me. I was just trying to annoy Xiaowan, I didn't really want to do anything with those girls. But one of them was Asian, dressed a bit like her, and I got drunk. Before I knew it, I was with her…"

"You slept with her?" Ye Chen asked directly. "Is she the one Xiaowan was talking about, the one you were just friends with?"

Nathan nodded heavily, his eyes full of guilt. "I really didn't want to. The next morning, when I woke up in the office, I found that the person lying next to me wasn't Xiaowan. I almost went crazy. I gave the girl a large sum of money, told her not to speak of it, but before she could leave, Xiaowan opened the door and came in."

Ye Chen couldn't help but sigh, taking a large sip of his drink. "This is fate, Nathan. In our Chinese view, this is fate."

"Yeah, now I kind of believe it," Nathan's eyes were red. "What makes it worse is that, that morning, Xiaowan was planning to reconcile with me. She sent me a message saying she was willing to try to accept my parents for my sake and wanted to talk to me properly. But what she saw was me lying naked with another woman. You don't know how desperate her eyes were when she looked at me. Before me, her ex-boyfriend had made another woman pregnant, and that's why she broke up with him. And I did exactly the same thing as her ex. How could she possibly forgive me?"

Ye Chen didn't know what to say and could only sigh, patting his good friend's shoulder.

Nathan choked for a moment, then said, "The guy she left with today, he's her boyfriend now, right?"

"Yeah, he's also a good friend of mine. Actually, I had been planning to introduce you two," Ye Chen said.

Nathan gave a bitter smile. "He seems like a decent guy. Help me tell him to take good care of Xiaowan. If he dares to make her sad, no matter the cost, I will take her back."

"… I will." Ye Chen said with mixed feelings. "It's getting late. I should head back. You shouldn't be too upset, bro. Get some rest."

"I will." Nathan forced a smile. "Thanks for listening to me. I've been holding this in for so long, there's no one I could talk to. It's really hard."

"It's nothing." Ye Chen walked to the door, suddenly remembering something, and turned to ask him, "Do you know who Xiaowan's ex-boyfriend was?"

Nathan said, "You should know him. He's that NBA star, Hayden Sean, who's really popular right now."

Ye Chen's heart sank. He said, "I see," and turned to walk out.

After leaving the bar, the cold wind in the late night blew away the last bit of alcohol in Ye Chen's body. He leaned against his sports car, remembering the time he saw Xiaowan meeting Hayden in the restaurant. Without thinking, he ran over and scolded her for trying to climb back into Hayden's bed. He couldn't help but punch the hood of the car in frustration.

"Ye Chen, you're such an idiot."

Chen Xin didn't get home until around 2 a.m.

He used the ten dollars Xiaowan had given him to have the clerk at the gas station call an Uber, but the driver was far away, so he had to wait for a long time. Actually, he didn't have to go through all this trouble. He could have just borrowed the gas station's phone to call the company driver, or called his friend, and they would have come to pick him up right away.

But he was a man and didn't want to be seen in such a sorry state by anyone he knew, so he had to wait for more than 40 minutes at the convenience store in the gas station.

By the time Chen Xin got home, the servants had already gone to bed. He quietly went upstairs, opened Xiaowan's bedroom door, and saw her lying on the bed with her back to him, the room only lit by a small nightlight at the bed's head. It seemed like she was already asleep.

Chen Xin felt a little resentful. This woman not only abandoned him on the deserted road but then fell asleep without any sense of guilt. Didn't she care at all that something could happen to her outside?

But no matter what, he knew he had done something wrong today.

With this thought in mind, Chen Xin sighed helplessly, quickly washed up in the bathroom, changed clothes, and then went to lie beside Xiaowan, wanting to hold her as he slept. But when he got closer, he noticed that the girl in the bed was trembling slightly.

"Xiaowan?" Chen Xin couldn't help but call out, squeezing her shoulder to turn her around, and froze when he saw her.

Because Xiaowan wasn't asleep. She was crying softly with red eyes.

She had definitely been crying for a long time, as her beautiful eyes were now swollen like fish eyes.

Chen Xin's heart softened completely. He hurriedly held her and gently said, "It's my fault, it's my fault. Take your anger out on me, okay? Don't cry anymore, it hurts me when you cry."

But unexpectedly, Xiaowan suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck and said in a hoarse voice, "I'm sorry."

"Huh? What are you sorry for? I should be the one saying sorry. Tonight was my fault, I should have come back earlier. As for that girl, I should have been more ruthless with her. I'll never let another girl touch me again, okay?" Chen Xin said, rubbing her soft cheek.

"Sorry, it's my fault," Xiao Wan said, crying as she spoke. "I'm sorry I left you on the roadside. I was really angry at that time, but after I calmed down, I wanted to go back and find you, but I was afraid you'd be mad and not want to talk to me. I didn't mean it, Ah Yang, are you hurt at all?"

As she spoke, she nervously checked his body, her red, swollen eyes scanning him from head to toe.

This was the first time Xiao Wan had addressed him so intimately, and considering her usual proud character, it was unthinkable for her to lower her guard and apologize to anyone. At this moment, Chen Xin felt as though he would gladly die for her. He couldn't bear to stay angry, so he quickly kissed her cheek and said, "It's fine. I'm a big man, and I know martial arts. What could possibly happen to me? Tonight was just a walk to get some exercise. Don't cry, silly girl, I'm not mad at you."

Xiao Wan sobbed, then kissed him back. The salty taste of her tears quickly spread across their lips, and Chen Xin sighed, stroking her face as he gently urged, "Don't cry anymore, okay? I love seeing you happy. Can you smile for me?"

Xiao Wan wanted to smile, but after crying for so long, it was hard for her to stop. Chen Xin thought for a moment and came up with a solution. He quickly poked his finger at his nose and said, "Look, I turned into a little pig."

"Ha—" Xiao Wan finally broke into a smile, snuggling into his chest, rubbing her head against him. "Thank you for not being mad at me. I promise, I'll never leave you like that again."

"Mm." Chen Xin kissed her forehead. "Even if you do leave me, it's okay. I'll always come back to you, no matter how hard it is."

Xiao Wan looked up at him, her eyes glistening, and with a trembling voice, asked, "Really? No matter what, you'll always come back to me?"

Chen Xin nodded seriously. "I promise, I will."

Xiao Wan couldn't hold back her tears again, tightly hugging his chest. Finally, under Chen Xin's gentle comforting, she slowly fell into a peaceful sleep.