Love is Sweet – Chapter 12

Chapter 12 Beauty In His Arms 美人入怀 (Part 2)

Translated by: lovexsweet

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Translator’s Notes: The chengyu (idioms) were killing me in this chapter, I’ve always been trash at remembering them. Who knew that 细水长流, which I always thought was meant for savings/frugality, could also used in the context of romance? I read that it became common to use it to describe taking it slow in a relationship since the phrase appeared in pop songs like Faye Wong’s Red Bean, which is kind of funny considering her part in this novel.  

I also had to look up the Tang Dynasty poem Gold Threaded Dress and then went down a rabbit hole reading the literary analysis of the poem. I ended up thinking about how literature worldwide and throughout history all end up exploring the same themes anyway, like how the concept of time being precious and how youth should be cherished (which is really the backbone of carpe diem too) is used to persuade lovers to have sex. Gold Threaded Dress reminded me of Robert Herrick’s To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time. Anyway, this is probably only interesting to English majors so thank you for indulging me on this little sidetracked note! =)

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Jiang Jun slept for ten hours before waking up. She felt limp all over and wanted to crawl to the kitchen to get water. Then, remembering that she was now also someone who had a boyfriend, she immediately perked up and called out at the top of her lungs, “I want water.”

“There’s some on the bedside table.” Yuan Shuai shouted to her from outside the bedroom.

“It’s cold.”

“That’s impossible, I just changed the boiled water.”

“It’s too hot.”

“It’s been sitting there for ten minutes.”

Jiang Jun got up and drank a sip of water to moisten her throat before continuing to yell, “What are you doing?”  

“Running.”

It seemed like everything was still the same and their lives hadn’t changed.

After taking a shower and hearing Yuan Shuai talking on the phone in the study, Jiang Jun remembered that her phone hadn’t rung all day, which was really a story for the ages. She rummaged through the purse but couldn’t find the cell phone, so she sat on the sofa and carefully thought it over, feeling sure that she must have dropped it in Du’s car.

There was no landline at home and she couldn’t use Yuan Shuai’s phone. Jiang Jun hesitated, then wrote a note and posted it on the door of the study, took the key and went downstairs to borrow a phone.

When she got out of the elevator, she saw Du sitting downstairs drinking coffee. Next to his laptop were two cell phones that were the same model and same color.

Jiang Jun walked over slowly and sat down across from him.

Du smiled at Jiang Jun and pushed the phone in front of her. “I nearly lost the business and you still haven’t asked me to dinner?”

“Some other day.” Jiang Jun rubbed her eyes and took her phone to look through the caller log.

“You’ve been sleeping for so long?”

“Mhm.”

“That’s good, rest a bit. The security guards here at your place are pretty good, they won’t tell me your room number no matter how I ask.”

Jiang Jun didn’t know how to answer Du, why did he want her room number?

“Yesterday, you…” Du paused, his gaze lingering on something behind Jiang Jun.

Yuan Shuai walked over with a lady’s wallet, wearing the same white turtleneck sweater and jeans as Jiang Jun. Any fool could see that it was a couple’s outfit. What’s more, the wallet in Yuan Shuai’s hand was a limited edition, hand-embroidered wallet that Jiang Jun had won in a lottery during MH’s anniversary celebration for the company. Jiang Jun had been extremely nervous as she waited for the drawing, and Du had teased her quite a bit back then in good fun. 

Yuan Shuai was calm and collected as he walked over to shake hands with Du. “Here to see Juno?”

Du smiled. “Yes, I have something to tell Juno, what a coincidence.”

“I still have something to do, I’ll leave first. Jun’er, remember to bring some cake when you come back later.” Yuan Shuai patted Du on the shoulder, took the coffee from the waiter, handed one cup to Jiang Jun, paid, and left.

“Zeus lives here too?”

Jiang Jun watched Yuan Shuai enter the elevator before turning her head to look at Du. “Yes, he was the one who recommended this place to me.”

“Your family must have been very concerned for you, I remember you were just a young girl in your early twenties when you joined the company.”

Jiang Jun couldn’t help laughing. “That’s right, so they let him monitor me.”

Du stared at Jiang Jun’s eyes and also laughed. “It’s a good thing I haven’t offended Zeus before.”

Jiang Jun shrugged and continued to smile noncommittally. These days, everyone was acting, so how could she have kept up until now if she hadn’t already achieved the level of an actress?

“Do you have any other way to contact you? If something like this happens again, I can’t keep waiting like this foolishly, right?”

Jiang Jun shook her head. “No, but I’ll apply for a new phone as soon as possible, to use as backup.”

Du smiled with the corner of his mouth and reached out to touch Jiang Jun’s shoulder. Jiang Jun quickly avoided it, her defense obvious. The smile in Du’s eyes disappeared instantly. He looked at her quietly, with a smile that wasn’t a smile, seemingly angry but not angry.

Jiang Jun avoided his gaze a little nervously, racking her brains to think of a response. “How about we go back to the same as before?”

“Why not?”

Jiang Jun let out a long breath, “It’s for the best.”

“OK, then do a few things for me before you go on vacation.” Du turned the laptop around to show her. “This is currently the biggest trump card in their hands. You can grab it or disrupt the game, just play whatever way you want.”

Du was a person grounded in reality, and while the world was too cruel, he nevertheless could still get a few benefits as a partner. If he couldn’t win her affection, at least he still had US dollars. With all that money, was he still afraid there’s no one to love him?

Du said goodbye but insisted on escorting Jiang Jun to the elevator. She couldn’t stop him, so she pressed a random floor and said goodbye to him with a smile.

As soon as she entered, Yuan Shuai pulled Jiang Jun over for a nibble. She covered her neck and dodged left and right. A single slip here and she would be in for endless misery.

“Young people should understand that small streams of water flow forever,”* Jiang Jun lectured, pointing at Yuan Shuai’s nose. [T/N* an idiom describing taking things slow; a thin stream is smaller than a river but is steady and persistent]

Yuan Shuai rubbed his hands together, picked her up, and rushed to the bedroom. “Well, we’re practically seventy if you add our ages together, so when the flowers are blooming, pluck them while they’re still worthy.”*  [T/N* This is a rough translation of a line from the Gold Threaded Dress by Tang Dynasty poet Du Qiuniang, which is about how time is precious and people should take advantage of their youth while they can]

“Stop making trouble, I’m so hungry.” Jiang Jun wrapped her arms around his neck and rubbed against his chest, “Cousin, let’s go eat.”

Yuan Shuai stopped walking, looked down at her, gritted his teeth and said, “You told Du that I’m your cousin?”

Jiang Jun nodded, “Aren’t you?”

“My dear cousin, you’re done for, and it’ll be in a really, really wretched way.”

Jiang Jun was thrown on the bed by Yuan Shuai and tormented for a long time, but Yuan Shuai still bickered with her, unwilling to spare her or overlook it. “You haven’t finished explaining it to me yet, what happened yesterday, exactly?”

“What’s ‘what happened’?” Jiang Jun tried hard to roll herself into a ball with the quilt.

“This here, how did it happen? I looked at it closely yesterday. When you came back, you had this red area on your neck.” Yuan Shuai unfastened her collar and bit her neck.

Jiang Jun didn’t know what to do, so she lied randomly. “A mosquito bite…uh, that’s not right, it’s an allergy…yeah, an allergy.”

“Bullshit!”

“I forgot.”

Yuan Shuai ground his teeth. “I’ll bite.”

“It was just a kiss, a little peck!” Jiang Jun covered her mouth before he jumped on her.

Yuan Shuai dragged Jiang Jun over and laid her over his lap, spanking her butt twice. “Just a kiss? What else did you want to do?”

Jiang Jun lost her smile and said sincerely, “I didn’t want to do anything, really.”

Yuan Shuai refused to lighten up, and asked with a dark expression, “What else?”

“That’s it, really.”

“You’re not being honest.” Yuan Shuai raised his hand and spanked her twice more.

Jiang Jun was anxious and blurted out, “If you hit me again, I’ll bite you there.”

Pa pa pa pa… No sooner had she said it then she was greeted with an endless flurry of swats.  Yuan Shuai gave her a raunchy look and said, “Hurry up then and do it.”

[T/N: There might be some innuendo here, because pa pa pa is slang in Chinese for sex (just think of the sound) but he was also literally spanking her, so…?? lol]

Jiang Jun was so angry. What kind of person was this, a total pervert! Seeing that she was ignoring him, Yuan Shuai went ahead and took off her clothes to inspect the goods.

Jiang Jun had been teased and excited by him so much that in her passion, she was simply shameless. She pointed wildly around, “Look here, and here, and here…it’s all yours, do as you please.”

It was getting dark after all the mischief. Jiang Jun lay in bed lazily and told Yuan Shuai to go cook.

Yuan Shuai went for a walk in the kitchen and found that there was nothing to eat except for drinks and some ready-to-eat food. Jiang Jun was probably extremely hungry, so she followed him out, dug up the instant oatmeal, and filled a small bowl with water. Yuan Shuai waited until she had almost finished eating, then reminded her, “That’s expired, you said that you wanted to throw it out last time.”

Jiang Jun still had half a mouthful of oatmeal in her mouth and she was stuck neither swallowing nor spitting it out. Her eyes widened and she glared indignantly at Yuan Shuai.

“Silly girl.” Yuan Shuai laughed and leaned in, kissing Jiang Jun’s mouth full of milk froth and oatmeal.

Jiang Jun suffered through swallowing down the last mouthful, and gently bit Yuan Shuai’s tongue. “You’re bad.”

“I’d already replaced it with a new one for you a while ago. Let’s go, we’ll eat and watch a movie.”

The movie chosen was Harry Potter. Jiang Jun had long since forgotten the plots of the first few movies, and Yuan Shuai had no interest in these kinds of films. After watching for a while, both of them felt bored, so they left early and found a foot massage parlor.

They idly chatted with each other while enjoying the massage. Jiang Jun asked casually, “I heard you’re trying to poach people from my company?”

“We’re preparing to build a branch on the mainland and we’re short of staff. I’m the general manager of the China region.” Yuan Shuai stretched out his hand to tap Jiang Jun’s chin, “Your cousin is awesome, right?”

“Yeah, awesome, but right now the mainland’s policies have not been fully liberalized. What kind of business are you going to do when you go over?”

“We’ll do everything we can, but for now, FID (Fixed Income Department) and IBD (Investment Banking Department) are the two best choices.”

Hearing what Yuan Shuai said, Jiang Jun was silent for a moment. “You’re familiar with FID business, but IBD is not your company’s strong point.”

At this point, Yuan Shuai didn’t want to beat around the bush anymore, and directly issued an invitation. “If we could add the queen of IBD to our team, we would certainly be invincible. Or you can come and help me, and we’ll open a mom-and-pop store.”

Jiang Jun shook her head. “Cousin and cousin, what a scandal!” [T/N: A mom-and-pop store in Chinese is actually called a “husband and wife” store, so Jiang Jun is joking about a female cousin with a male cousin, the title of cousin is gendered]

“Look at you, still so excited.” Yuan Shuai flicked her forehead, “You should consider it carefully. Right now your company is too much of a mess, the game on Wall Street is in chaos, and you’re trying to hold back the reshuffling of the cards. You have to be careful, don’t get kicked out as soon as you get promoted. It’s better to jump to my side while you’re currently worth a lot.” 

“When I can’t hang on in MH anymore, I’ll go look for you to take me in. You know that I don’t like changing places. Besides, do you think you can be my boss?”

Yuan Shuai smiled and dropped the subject. The GT executives had long wanted him to go to Beijing to develop business, but Yuan Shuai had not expressed his consent to this. Before his relationship with Jiang Jun was settled, he had to keep a close eye on this little girl. Yuan Shuai had even considered it before: if need be, he would let others chew on the prime piece of meat that was the mainland market first, and once he got his girl Zhong Jiang Jun, he would just have to think of a way to fight his way to the top again. He hadn’t wanted to continue wasting time with inaction, so he had taken advantage of that night of drunkenness to make a dangerous move.

In fact, he had really had no choice but to take that step. He was getting older and older, and his family was pressuring him to marry and have children. Both his old man and grandfather are totally stubborn and inflexible, loyally following Jiang Jun’s grandfather. If they knew of his idea of ​​hitting on Jiang Jun, they would definitely destroy and dispose of him. If he and Jiang Jun were to succeed, they could only do it from Jiang Jun’s side. Her family had basically settled it already; they all knew that he liked Jiang Jun and they didn’t consider him an outsider. It was just that Jiang Jun was stubborn and oblivious and could not listen to other people’s words.

It wasn’t that Yuan Shuai had never thought of directly putting all his cards on the table, but Jiang Jun had always regarded the relationship between them as brother and sister. It was to the point that he didn’t know how to even say anything, and was afraid that if he did, he would scare her away. So he decided that before it was too late, before he was stuck not even being able to flirt, he had to act and provoke her little, making it so that she couldn’t escape. This would definitely force Jiang Jun’s mind to re-examine the relationship between them. Although there were some twists and turns in the process, the results were good after all.

Jiang Jun had no idea what Yuan Shuai was thinking, and it took her a long time to respond, “Then don’t you have to be based in Beijing?”

Yuan Shuai glanced at her. “Not for the time being, we’ll see after a while.”

Jiang Jun felt a little relieved when she heard him say this. In the past, Du had also brought up the matter of opening branches in the mainland. Back then, as soon as she heard that it was in Beijing, she shook her head over and over and had Du choose another good general. But since Yuan Shuai is going to Beijing, she might as well follow along. After all, her home is there, and sooner or later she had to return to face her family.

When they returned from their night out, while Yuan Shuai was preoccupied with parking, Jiang Jun detoured to the coffee bar downstairs to find out the news.

The little waitress greeted her, “The usual?”

Jiang Jun nodded, and leaned against the bar to chat with her. “That handsome young guy at the door is probably waiting for you, right? He’s very patient.”

“That gentleman from yesterday is the one who’s very patient. He waited for several hours and asked me about you, but I didn’t tell him anything,” said the waitress. “Although he looked very stylish, who knows if he’s some kind of pervert. I still think you and Mr. Yuan are the best match. Mr. Yuan loves to laugh, he’s handsome, and he has a fine body.”

Jiang Jun smiled and added two cakes and two cups of hot drinks to her order.

The waitress brought the cakes to her, but Jiang Jun actually took one and handed it back to her. “This is for you, my treat. Thank you for remembering my preferences.” She pointed to the outside and winked at the young miss, “Call the handsome young fellow outside to come in for a drink, there’s a cold wave today.”

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Translator’s Note: Sorry for all the interruptions in this chapter. In almost every chapter, I really wonder whether I should be putting in so many notes or whether I should just translate so that you guys get the gist of it rather than go so deep into references, which I do realize interrupt the flow of reading. But I almost always end up choosing to be more faithful to the source and the author’s actual choices, even if means there are more notes. At the end of the day, you are reading a novel in translation and I think the cultural aspects must be part of the charm, otherwise there have been thousands of books written in English that have similar romantic plots anyway and you guys might as well be reading those instead. I hope you’re enjoying it and I’m always open to feedback and suggestions!