Love is Sweet – Chapter 17

Chapter 17 Peach Scandal 桃色绯闻 (Part 1)

Author: Qi Zi

Translated by: lovexsweet

Translator’s Note: The chapter title is more precisely “illicit love sex scandal” where the first two characters “peach color” means illicit love, but I went with something that’s shorter and less awkward sounding.

~ ~ ~

Yuan Shuai whispered to the sleeping Jiang Jun, “Good thing I got rid of both of them, otherwise could you honestly lie here and sleep?”

To lovers, their sweet time together always passes too quickly. It didn’t seem long before the phone rang loudly, then the doorbell followed suit, and both kept ringing.  

Jiang Jun forced opened her eyes, and Yuan Shuai was also drowsy-eyed, both of them looking chaotic.

“Where is this?” Jiang Jun rubbed her eyes and looked around, instantly remembering the madness of last night. They were done for!

Without waiting for her to make a move, Yuan Shuai took the lead and jumped out of bed, not bothering to cover up before running to the door to check through the peephole.

Jiang Jun hopped over as she pulled on her pants. “Who is it?” she asked Yuan Shuai with the shape of her lips.

“The secretary.” Yuan Shuai also mouthed back the answer.

Jiang Jun unscrupulously ran into the bathroom and threw Yuan Shuai a bathrobe. “I’m not here!” She then locked the door and thought to herself, “I’m so unlucky.”

She pressed herself against the door to hear what was going on outside, but the door panel in the room was thick enough that she couldn’t hear anything.

After a while, Yuan Shuai knocked on the door. “Come out, they’re all gone.”

Jiang Jun opened the door a crack and poked her head out. “What’s the situation?”

Yuan Shuai, in a bad mood, put the white bra around Jiang Jun’s neck like a khata.* “The party, government, and military dignitaries are all waiting to meet us at your house. Let’s go, hero!” [T/N Tibetan ceremonial scarf]

Along the way, Jiang Jun sat on pins and needles, gnawing on her fingernails until they were raw. “They will definitely force us to get married.”

Yuan Shuai gave her a sidelong glance. “Then we’ll get married, you’re not happy about it?”

Actually, Jiang Jun wasn’t unhappy about anything, it was just that she didn’t want to change the current state of her life.

She asked Yuan Shuai, “Then what about the branch of the bank that’s being established in Beijing?”

“Who cares?” Yuan Shuai said nonchalantly.

Jiang Jun couldn’t be sure whether or not Yuan Shuai really didn’t care about it. Since she had no intention of leaving MH and it was impossible for Yuan Shuai to come to MH from GT, then why bother affecting each other’s careers just for the sake of personal status?

After a quick analysis of the pros and cons, Jiang Jun tentatively said, “Let’s put it off then and wait until you’ve put down roots in Beijing first.”

Yuan Shuai did not say anything, clenching the steering wheel in both hands, and driving expressionlessly.

He wanted to ask Jiang Jun: Do you love me? But he didn’t have the courage, and he was terribly afraid. Even if Jiang Jun only had a trace of hesitation, he couldn’t take that loss, he really couldn’t.

When the car arrived at the door of the Zhong family house, Yuan Shuai kissed Jiang Jun. “Don’t be afraid, I’m here!”

Jiang Jun forced a smile, held Yuan Shuai’s hand tightly, and walked through the front door.

The process was very violent, but the verdict was simple: ruin her innocence, promise your life.* [T/N same phrase as the previous chapter title, the promise of one’s body for marriage]

Without even a chance to appeal, their marriage was decided carelessly and violently.

Back to Yuan Shuai’s apartment, Jiang Jun carefully helped him dress his eyes. “Your dad was too cruel, look at how your eyes are swollen to this extent.”

Yuan Shuai laughed lightly and touched his face. “He was helping your grandfather get one in, did you see how the old man looked? He couldn’t wait to draw a gun to shoot me.” He hissed in pain. “Be gentler.”

“I think they were pretending, they even had the marriage application form already prepared. But why do you think they made us sign the blank form? We’re not registering right now.”

“That’s in case you have a baby, so you can put in a date about a year earlier. Once stamped, it’ll be official and you won’t be embarrassed.”

“What’s the matter?” Yuan Shuai aimed a look at Jiang Jun with his half-closed eyes.

Jiang Jun shook her head. “Nothing, I just feel like, had we known this day would happen, why did the two of us stay pure and platonic friends for so long?”

“I regret that too.”

“What?” Jiang Jun was startled, and pressed too hard with her hands. Yuan Shuai jumped up in pain, covering his eyes and groaning.

“This counts as domestic violence from you,” Yuan Shuai said, raising his eyes and giving her a look. This kind of flirtatious expression, paired with the tragic sight of his miserably beaten face, created a really shocking visual effect.

Jiang Jun held back her laughter and repeatedly apologized. “Sorry, sorry, my lord husband please sit down and your humble servant will start over again.”

“My lady, from now on we will be husband and wife.” Yuan Shuai looked at Jiang Jun with deep affection.

For the next few days, they took turns spending time with their relatives from both sides of their families, like all newlyweds do. When Yuan Shuai returned to the city to do business, Jiang Jun stayed in the city apartment, helping him organize his materials and doing some light reading before cooking dinner and waiting for him to return. After the meal, they would go for a stroll or a movie, and then make love all night until they were exhausted, embracing each other before falling into deep sleep.

Jiang Jun had never lived so leisurely in her entire life. She had always been busy: busy studying, busy working, busy socializing. Now that she had free time, Jiang Jun suddenly found that her private life was unbearably desolate. She had no brothers or sisters and her only good friend Xu Na had gone to Paris to design behind closed doors and to concentrate on preparing for the spring fashion shows. Now when she picked up the phone, she had a long list of contacts, but no one to chat with. When she walked on the street, the other people were in pairs or groups, but Jiang Jun only has Yuan Shuai—an older brother, a close friend, and a lover. In Jiang Jun’s world, there was only one person, Yuan Shuai. She felt an inexplicable panic.

When Du called Jiang Jun to wish her New Year’s blessings, Jiang Jun had been sitting in a daze with her cell phone for most of the day.

“Why do you sound so tired and out of sorts, have you been out being crazy with your friends?”

Jiang Jun leaned against the table and stabbed a cherry with her fork, giving a casual “mhm.”

“Sally asked to be transferred over to your side to be your assistant, what do you think?”

“Sure.”

“Are you OK?”

“Du, I realized that it’s really suitable for me to be a workaholic.”

Du laughed. “Okay, then you should immediately cancel your vacation and come back to work. It’s best to do a full 24 hours.”

“Capitalist!”

“Shame on me! We are bankers, capitalists are nothing!”

“…”

“If you’re not happy then just come back, let’s go skiing?”

Jiang Jun started laughing. “Yeah right, as soon as I go back, you’d for sure put me to hard labor!”

“Check your inbox and look at our photos from Beijing, you took beautiful pictures.”

After talking nonsense with Du for a while, she was in a surprisingly good mood. Jiang Jun opened her laptop and looked at the photos on the Internet.

When Yuan Shuai came home, he saw Jiang Jun lying soundly asleep next to the computer with a smile on her lips. He walked over and wanted to carry her back to the room, but his arm pressed on the keyboard, and he saw a picture of Jiang Jun and Du laughing happily together.

Yuan Shuai’s heart skipped a beat. He coaxed her into bed and returned to the study by himself, looking at the photos one by one. Du with his arms around her, she and Du leaning close together, Du and her looking at each other and smiling, all the pictures were of them. 

Where am I? Yuan Shuai asked himself. What am I in her heart?

He remembered that winter seven years ago when Jiang Jun lay in the snow, the wound on her head gurgling with blood, bright red, dripping into the snow. She pushed the man away and turned her head to look at him, saying, “Yuanyuan-gege, take me away.”

She said: “So this is love, I don’t want it anymore.”

He had ruined Jiang Jun’s first love.

Jiang Jun never wanted love again.

Yuan Shuai thought: Is this God’s punishment for him?

~

Early the next morning, he took Jiang Jun to a historical house in Nancheng. Under the centuries-old Chinese scholar tree, Yuan Shuai knelt on the blue-green stone slab and worshipped devoutly. Jiang Jun didn’t know what he was asking for, but she looked up at the red silk threads hanging all over the tree, and slowly knelt down next to him as well. She begged for happiness, begged that they must be happy.

At the end of the vacation, Jiang Jun and Yuan Shuai, carrying all kinds of small and large bags, returned to Hong Kong.  Life continued, but Yuan Shuai unprecedentedly started to check in on Jiang Jun. He called her several times a day and if Jiang Jun didn’t answer or missed it, she would immediately receive a follow up text: Where are you? Are you tired?

At night, he would make love with her crazily, asking insatiably for more.

Jiang Jun felt that it was a bit too much, so she looked it up on the Internet. It was said that people who are passionately in love are like this.  It was passionate love, burning deep into the bones.

Jiang Jun also changed in obvious ways. She always wanted to go home early, especially when Yuan Shuai was already home and would send her a message or call her to let her know: “I’m home, waiting for you.” Whenever she heard or saw such words, she felt like her heart melted into a puddle of sweet water.

She went with Yuan Shuai to do everything he wanted to do, following him every step of the way, just like she did when she was a child. She utterly loved the way Yuan Shuai looked when he was inside her body, like a little beast suckling milk, so greedy and cute.

Jiang Jun began to learn about the business in the mainland in a systematic way, hoping to familiarize herself with the situation in the shortest possible time. With Du’s support, Jiang Jun’s focus began to shift to projects in the mainland that she had never touched before. Du once asked her why there was such a big change after she had returned from a simple trip to Beijing. Jiang Jun’s official explanation was that the relevant mainland policies had been relaxed, so this was the best time to start. Du had hoped that Jiang Jun could take on a share of this work for him, so he immediately expressed his support.

With her boss’s verbal blessing, Jiang Jun openly used her power for personal gain and kept going to Beijing on business trips.  The preparation of GT’s China branch had reached a critical point, so Yuan Shuai was often required to stay in Beijing. Yuan Shuai shamelessly asked her to accompany him, so she accompanied him, and even got a few big deals with a stroke of luck.

Of course, the Hong Kong side of the bank could not allow Jiang Jun to run too rampant. With the mixing of new and old staff, every arrangement had to be perfect. She used airplanes as her home and traveled back and forth between Beijing and Hong Kong.

Du has always trusted Jiang Jun, and now he relied on her even more, giving her both free reign and authority and leaving her to her own devices.

Jiang Jun felt a little guilty over Du’s trust. She couldn’t stand Yuan Shuai’s coaxing and pestering, so once MH’s Chinese branch got on track, she planned to find a job in a state-owned bank, where the work would be less demanding and she could take into consideration family life. Although she had a stellar reputation in MH, she would rather assume her identity as Jiang Jun, the young wife behind Yuan Shuai. She was even more motivated to help Du with his work, hoping to arrange everything as soon as possible, so that she could leave with some peace of mind.

Yuan Shuai suggested several times that she resign from her job and come over. Even if it took some time before she could work at GT, she could still be by his side.

Jiang Jun refused. She didn’t want to be idle, she hated emptiness and loneliness, and work could enrich and energize her. She wanted to be a hardworking and happy little bee.

Yuan Shuai couldn’t understand Jiang Jun’s way of thinking. Every day that Jiang Jun didn’t leave Du was another day that he spent afraid and on edge. Jiang Jun was so dedicated to her work and so attentive to Du that even the downstairs Starbucks waiter praised her for being so considerate. He even sometimes wondered, if he hadn’t gone downstairs that one day, would he still be the one next to Jiang Jun now?

For so many years, he had guarded and protected her without having any status or standing. Now, he had finally made some progress, only to find that the young lady hadn’t taken him into her heart at all. No, that wasn’t it, she had always been careless about herself, giving away her heart and soul to outsiders, and even when it came down to marriage she found all sorts of excuses. How could he not worry when Jiang Jun was like this?

Yuan Shuai wanted to have a big fight with Jiang Jun, to throw caution to the wind and to say what should be said clearly, but when the words came to his lips, they became: “Whatever you want.” With a heart full of unreconciled feelings, he rushed to Beijing alone.

A week and a half after Yuan Shuai’s business trip to Beijing, Du showed Jiang Jun a gossip magazine with an eye-catching headline: GT executive holding hands with and dating a high-level* beauty, the first foreign investment branch on the mainland has bright prospects. Accompanying the article was a photo of a certain Mr. Yuan and some woman entering and leaving the restaurant.  [T/N* the dictionary describes this as a “high cadre” or “top party member,” aka someone powerful and influential. In the Chinese business world, personal connections are extremely important.]

Jiang Jun read it word by word, thinking to herself: This world has really gone crazy, even financial magazines are going down the paparazzi route.

“Your cousin really knows how to do things.”

Jiang Jun pretended to urge Du on. “Then why are you still sitting here? Hurry up and book a plane ticket to Beijing. If you go late, there won’t even be high-level ugly girls left.

Du laughed. “Forcing your own boss to put his good looks to use?”

Jiang Jun said righteously, “Yes, go, I’ll thank you on behalf of my colleagues in the future China branch of MH. This is an honor, not everyone has the ability* to dedicate themselves like this.” [T/N* The author actually uses the word capital here as part of the banking theme. JJ is saying that not everyone is good looking enough to be able to use their looks to seduce others.]

“With all due respect, I’ll decline! Okay, let’s talk business. It looks like we’ll have to speed up the action too. The new hires will start next week and their information is here. Take a look at it when you have time, or if not, have Sally verify it for you.” 

Jiang Jun stopped smiling and nodded solemnly, “OK, I know.”

“Let’s eat together?”

“Sorry, I already have an appointment.” Who was she kidding, even if she didn’t have an appointment, she still had to say she did. After all, she could be considered a wife, and she had to behave like a proper woman. 

When she got home, Jiang Jun threw the magazine she had bought from the street corner onto the ground. On the cover, Yuan Shuai, who wasn’t behaving like a proper husband, smiled extremely disgustingly back up at her. She made a bowl of noodles for herself, thinking that she hadn’t spoken to Yuan Shuai for more than a week anyway, so she might as well take this opportunity to vent her feelings a little.

Jiang Jun smiled viciously and dialed Yuan Shuai’s private number. The call was only picked up after many rings, and there was a lot of background noise.

“What are you doing?” Jiang Jun was not happy. She was staying home bitterly guarding the cold hearth, eating noodles and chewing vegetables, while he was out singing and dancing, free and at leisure.

“Chatting with friends.” Yuan Shuai yelled.

“Still not coming back?”

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T/N: The next part is pretty fun… JJ is jealous and an old first love – guess who – appears in her life again! And in Part 3, the full story of the mess that went down back then between Jiang Jun, Yin Zhe, Yuan Shuai, and Qiao Na is is finally revealed.