Ji Chaozhou stood in front of the gate, silently watching the car drive away. The lights of the courtyard behind him made him cast a single, long shadow on the ground, making him look cold and lonely.

But the next moment, another shadow appeared on the ground beside his. As this shadow approached, the quiet night suddenly became lively.

“Neighbor, have those two pomelo seedlings been watered?” Cheng Liu only parked the car in the garage, then immediately turned around and walked out of the villa gates back to Ji Chaozhou.

Young President Cheng had no other intention; she just wanted to take the opportunity to talk to her future boyfriend. As for whether the pomelo seedlings would drown, she didn’t know.

Ji Chaozhou turned his head only to be confronted with Cheng Liu’s smiling eyes. His fingertips, hanging by his side, moved slightly. He paused and said, “I watered it this morning.” 

The young man’s voice was clear and pleasant, like jade falling on a plate under the silvery light of the moon.

Cheng Liu’s heart skipped a beat. She hesitated for a while and said, “Then I’ll wait to water it again tomorrow morning.” 

” …Yeah.” Ji Chaozhou didn’t refuse.

Those were her fruit tree seedlings. She only borrowed some space from his garden to plant them, so there was nothing wrong with her wanting to come over.

Cheng Liu cleared her throat and asked, “Can ‘next time’ be tomorrow night?”

This sentence came out of nowhere, but Ji Chaozhou understood it instantly. She was asking about his reply to her text message: the two of them can have dinner together ‘next time’.

Ji Chaozhou lowered his eyelashes, and its shadow fell on both sides of his high-bridged nose. His tone was as indifferent as usual, “It’s up to you.”

“Then at eight o’clock tomorrow night, let’s go to Guyu Restaurant together?” Cheng Liu said immediately.

Ji Chaozhou raised his eyes to look at Cheng Liu, said nothing, then turned around and went inside.

Cheng Liu, who was left standing outside, felt that she seemed to have gotten an answer and called out confidently, “See you tomorrow, neighbor!”

She has figured out some patterns based on prior interactions: it seemed that as long as Ji Chaozhou didn’t deny or refuse it outright, she could take one step closer to him.

… … translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

Who knew if it was because he was getting closer to the light, but when Ji Chaozhou walked into the front courtyard, the coldness in his eyes and brows somehow dissipated for no apparent reason.

 …

In the car, Yun Se kept silent with her eyes closed. Yun Fei, who was sitting next to her, thought she was tired, so she didn’t disturb her.

When they got home, the nurse came out and helped carry Yun Se down.

Yun Fei bent down and said to Yun Se in the wheelchair, “Aunt Yun, I have filming tomorrow, so I’ll leave first. I’ll come see you in two days.”

“Go on,” Yun Se answered a little tiredly.

After her adopted daughter left, Yun Se asked the nurse to push her back to the room. She sat alone in the room for a long time. 

She suddenly pushed her wheelchair to the bookcase, opened the top drawer, and stared at the photos inside.

There was a six-inch photo in the drawer, mounted in a wooden frame. Inside were two young women standing on the lawn of the villa. They looked like they were in their early twenties, the best years of their lives.

Yun Se looked at the taller girl on the left. She had long, silky, black hair reaching her waist. She had a beautiful face, slightly curved peach blossom eyes, and she was wearing a white dress, holding a flower in her hand.

Her presence was such that anyone’s eyes would be drawn to her, completely ignoring the brightly colored flowers around her.

Yun Se reached into the drawer and gently touched the face of the young girl on the left. She gradually fell into memories and a smile bloomed on her sickly-thin face, but soon her eyes turned red again. “Sister…”

Chaozhou looked so much like his mother. .

Whether it’s appearance or personality, even the talent for perfumery has been inherited.

If possible, she hoped that Chaozhou could live an ordinary and quiet life.

She thought of the atmosphere between Chaozhou and the neighbor named Cheng Liu tonight. Yun Se raised her illness-withered fingers to wipe the tears from her face, closed the drawer, picked up her cell phone, and dialed a number.

… …

“Yun Se?” Ji Mushan was still at work. When he saw the call, he answered it immediately, worried that something migh have happened to his son.

“Who is that Cheng Liu?” Yun Se has returned to her usual calm demeanor. “You said before that she was not a bodyguard and there was a misunderstanding. What’s going on?”

Yun Se and Ji Mushan didn’t have any good feelings for each, especially after Yun Ran’s death. But because of Ji Chaozhou, they occasionally had to contact each other.

She was asking about this matter?

Ji Mushan put down the pen in his hand and roughly explained. “Cheng Liu is the founder of Shenyin Technology. She recognized the wrong person. Coincidentally, we chatted last month and when Chaozhou saw her WeChat, he saw my name and thought it was me who hired her as his bodyguard. Both of them had misunderstandings, but they were all solved later.”

Despite the explanation, Yun Se didn’t at all understand, and she had other questions. “Why did Cheng Liu become Chaozhou’s neighbor again?”

“She and Director Li are more familiar with each other. It just so happened that Cheng Liu also wanted to buy a villa in the city, so he offered her one of the villas first.” Ji Mushan stood up and his stern look had relaxed considerably; from Yun Se’s questions, it seemed that nothing untoward had happened to Chaozhou.

“I happened to see Cheng Liu coming back tonight,” Yun Se said nothing else about her suspicions. “Didn’t Director Li say that the neighbor next door doesn’t come back often?”

“Cheng Liu does go on a lot of business trips.” Although Ji Mushan and Cheng Liu were not really familiar with each other, he’s still heard that she was a certified workaholic. “Why do you ask?”

“Tonight, I saw her greeting Chaozhou.” Yun Se tugged on her shawl, “I just thought it was a little strange. Chaozhou rarely interacts with people.”

Ji Mushan was not surprised. “Cheng Liu is the kind of person who can chat with anyone. With her kind of personality, she can talk to anyone about seven or eight topics.”

Ji Mushan recalled that day when they met at the gates of the villa: he clearly didn’t want to talk to Cheng Liu, but later on, he actually felt like they had been friends for years and almost started talking to Cheng Liu about his son.

Fortunately, he remembered himself in time.

But because of this experience, Ji Mushan knew that Cheng Liu was a consummate social actor¹ and had first-class speaking skills.

“So it’s this way…” Yun Se whispered, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

It turned out that she was just an over- friendly acquaintance.

Looking back now, Chaozhou hadn’t responded to Cheng Liu at all.

But at that moment, the atmosphere between the two reminded Yun Se of the subtle current between Ji Mushan and her sister when they first met.

Yun Se would rather Chaozhou be loved by someone forever than have someone he loved deeply.

What was engraved in the bones of the Yun family would inevitably corrode and destroy the very person they hold most dear.

If It’s Wrong, Then It’s Wrong translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

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1. The word he uses here directly translates to ‘pretender’. But the context is not negative, more that she can ‘fake’ interest in a person or topic until they feel comfortable talking to her. So it’s a social skill she consciously wields rather than she goes around fooling people. ↩︎