Cheng Liu held the incense sticks in one hand and the flowers in the other, and dutifully followed behind Ji Chaozhou. The two walked around for another half an hour before returning to the car.
“Give me the flowers.” Ji Chaozhou approached Cheng Liu and reached out to take the flowers she was holding in her arms.
Cheng Liu released her hold slightly. As she watched the other party’s slender, white fingers pull out the flowers from the pile of incense sticks, she smelled a faint fragrance that was different from the flowers.
In fact, Cheng Liu had also smelled the vague fragrance in the confined space of the car a few times before, but she didn’t pay it much attention.
But her boyfriend’s hand was too close to her just now, his sense of presence crowded her, and Cheng Liu immediately noticed it.
It was a faint scent of sandalwood that was earthy, but also cold and somehow alienated. Cheng Liu couldn’t help but think of someone sitting by the green lantern in a snow-covered temple, holding a yellow scroll and looking at the landscape, quiet and lonely.1
At the same time, the base note made Cheng Liu smell a very faint, very light, moist kind of charm, with a slightly sweet, ambiguous fragrance, which washes away the coldness of the top and middle notes.
“You smell really good,” Cheng Liu looked up at her boyfriend and bluntly said.
When Ji Chaozhou heard the words, he didn’t feel offended by the bodyguard, and only explained, “Ranshan Midu.”
But what he wore was a special blend that he made himself, which was different from the Midu on the market. It lacked the almost creamy aroma of the original’s base note and was even colder.
Cheng Liu was stunned for a moment—she thought about it back to front but when the four characters were combined like this, she still didn’t understand any of it.
However, as someone with formidable business acumen, Cheng Liu knew that when one encounters problems in the process, the best thing to do was to first keep the doubts quietly in one’s heart so as to prevent other interested parties from grasping the situation for themselves, and then solve it when you next get the chance.
So Cheng Liu didn’t ask any more questions. She quickly put the incense sticks into the trunk, and just as quickly opened the car door for her boyfriend.
Flowers in his arms, Ji Chaozhou paused slightly as his eyes fell on her hand that opened the car door for him. For some reason, the bodyguard always let him sit in the passenger seat.
But he didn’t voice out any complaint. He lowered his head, sat down, and he didn’t care anymore where he sat.
“Go back directly or…” Cheng Liu asked her boyfriend once she was behind the wheel.
“Go to Ranshan R&D Institute,” Ji Chaozhou said directly.
“Okay.” Cheng Liu took out her phone and searched, successfully found this place, and began to follow the navigation.
……
Forty minutes later, they arrived at the Ranshan R&D Institute.
Cheng Liu looked out the car window and saw the advertisement signboard hanging on the outside of the building: there was a bottle of perfume on it and beside it was written in gigantic font, the four characters ‘Ranshan Midu’.
Only then did she realize that her boyfriend had been talking about the perfume brand he was wearing.
Cheng Liu got out of the car with Ji Chaozhou and wanted to bring the incense sticks up for him.
But Ji Chaozhou stretched out his hand first to take the bundle of incense sticks and turned to Cheng Liu, “Come pick me up at nine o’clock.”
“Are you going to work inside?” Cheng Liu asked him.
Ji Chaozhou arranged his hold on the incense sticks and looked at her, “You don’t have time to come?”
Cheng Liu immediately denied it. “If I have time, I will definitely pick you up at nine o’clock.”
A good girlfriend will go pick up her boyfriend when he gets off from work!
Ji Chaozhou remained silent, turned around and walked towards Ranshan R&D Institute.
Cheng Liu closed the trunk, looked at the back of her boyfriend gradually disappearing from view, and suddenly realized that her boyfriend was going to shoot an advertisement for this perfume brand called Ranshan.
But… brands now require models to bring their own props?
Cheng Liu got into the car still steeped in puzzlement, and before she could figure it out, her chief assistant called.
“President Cheng, it’s already late afternoon, haven’t you finished dating yet?” He Bai teased on the other end of the phone.
“Is there anything wrong with the company?” Cheng Liu asked him.
“The Spring and Summer Hotel came to renew the partnership contract with us just now, and the boss would like to make an appointment for dinner with you,” He Bai’s voice came from the other end of the line, along with the sound of pages turning. “If there is no time, I will decline for you.”
Cheng Liu put one hand on the steering wheel and nodded. She remembered that the wife of the business partner who owns Spring and Summer Hotel was from the entertainment industry, so she could just ask him for advice.
“I’m free; I’m going back to the company now.”
He Bai smiled and said, “Okay, then I’ll book a restaurant for you first.”
When Cheng Liu got to the company, their business partner from Spring and Summer Hotel just stepped out of the elevator. “Director Li, long time no see.”
Director Li was walking out of the elevator accompanied by He Bai, when he heard this greeting. He looked up, saw Cheng Liu, and asked with a smile, “Young President Cheng2, where did you come from rushing back like this?”
Cheng Liu stepped forward to shake hands with Director Li. “There were matters to be settled outside.”
He Bai followed them, walking one step behind, and finally drove them there.
When they got out of the car, He Bai walked up to Cheng Liu, bowed his head and said softly, “The restaurant is on the sixth floor, I’m going back to the company first.”
Cheng Liu nodded. “Okay, come and pick me up when it’s almost over.”
She walked to the mall with Director Li. They haven’t seen each other for almost a year now.
“Young President Cheng’s company has gotten bigger and bigger now,” Director Li smiled, “but you haven’t changed your appearance at all.”
Cheng Liu put her hands in the pockets of her sports coat; she left her sunglasses in the car. She was standing next to Director Li, who was in his forties.
“I like to dress comfortably,” Cheng Liu said indifferently; she was selling technology, not clothes.
“Yes,” Director Li nodded in agreement.
The two walked into the elevator, Cheng Liu just turned around to press the button, when her eyes fell on something outside and to the right. She suddenly paused, then turned her head to Director Li beside her and said, “Director Li, wait for me a moment.”
She walked out of the elevator quickly and walked diagonally to the right.
Li Dong was stunned at this sudden development and quickly followed out.
If It’s Wrong Then It’s Wrong translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com
FOOTNOTES:
1The phrases Cheng Liu thinks of here connotes a ‘lonely and poor life’ (please don’t ask me about Chinese poetry…). Also, I don’t know if 雪后 Xuehou is a name of an actual temple or merely descriptive, but it means ‘Snow Empress’ which, of course, is an imagery linked to Ji Chaozhou, our resident Ice Beauty. ↩︎
2Director Li calls Cheng Liu ‘Xiao Cheng Zong’. Xiao + Surname is fairly normal since Cheng Liu is at least 15 years younger than her cadre of ‘business partners’ but since she is also a big boss in her own right, we end up with ‘Young President Cheng.’
Side note, if you’re reading my other translation Seventh Year of My Secret Love for You (and you really should be!), like Cheng Liu, Jiang Shenghe is referred to there as Jiang ‘Zong’ 总, which I translated there as ‘Chief Jiang’. It’s only that ‘Little Chief Cheng’ sounds a bit condescending and even ‘Young Chief Cheng’ doesn’t quite roll off the tongue so I went with ‘president’. ↩︎
T/N: I adore sandalwood as a scent. Also, all these talk about fragrance will kill me—what the heck is ‘faintly moist’ scent??
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