Honestly, even the bar owner was somewhat shocked at this moment—
He knew that Jiang Ran was actually quite capable of holding her liquor. It was common for her to silently down a whole bottle of alcohol, then get up and leave for home. But he hadn’t expected her to be this good.
His bar had been open for five years already, and not a single person had ever managed to finish “Monet’s Twelve Seasonal Gardens” alone and still walk out on their feet…
Until now.
The bar owner’s head nearly went bald. It felt as though the archway of the Southern Heaven Gate had been overturned right before Erlang Shen’s eyes. His unbeaten legend had been shattered. The upgraded version of “Monet’s Twelve Seasonal Gardens,” “Liu Bowen’s Twenty-Four Solar Terms,” suddenly needed to be put on the agenda.
As he spiraled into wild thoughts, Jiang Ran had already floated over to the bar counter—
Under the cold gaze of the young man behind the bar, the owner gave Jiang Ran a thumbs-up, saying, “Ran Jie, you’ve shattered the stereotype that southerners can’t hold their liquor tonight.”
Jiang Ran leaned her elbows on the counter, leaning her head forward slightly, “My mom’s from Qingdao.”
Common knowledge: People from Shandong Province are at the top of the national drinking food chain.
Well then, that explained it.
The bar owner noticed that although she was standing, her eyes lacked their usual sharpness and seemed somewhat dull. He leaned closer to her side and asked if she was okay.
Jiang Ran’s breath carried the scent of alcohol—
Those drinks were all cocktails; each one alone wouldn’t get anyone drunk… but the brilliance lay in the combination of various ingredients. Mixed together and consumed, even immortals would fall.
The alcohol had indeed slowed her reactions a bit. Upon hearing the question, she turned her face sideways and smiled at the owner.
As the owner was momentarily dazed by her smile, he saw her slender, pale arm, white like a lotus root, stretch from outside the counter, reaching over to pick up an apple carved into the shape of a rabbit on the table.
The rabbit was brought to her lips, and with a “crunch,” its head was bitten off. The sound clearly indicated the apple was indeed crisp, possibly also sweet…
Under the spotlight of the bar counter, the apple juice coated her pale lips with a glossy sheen.
Her lipstick had long worn off.
But she was too lazy to reapply.
Half-reclining against the counter, Jiang Ran slowly ate the small apple rabbit. The barstool was very high, and her legs lazily swung back and forth, causing her sandal, which had been precariously dangling from her toes, to fall to the floor.
The “thud” of it landing silenced the bar music.
The woman exclaimed, “Oops,” and lowered her head. Instinctively, she placed one hand on the counter and leaned forward to retrieve her fallen shoe—
Given the height of the barstool, leaning forward like that caused her to lose her balance.
She swayed violently, her hand slipped from the counter, and she was about to fall headfirst off the chair when a hand reached out from the side, firmly and accurately grabbing her arm.
The warm, dry palm was rough yet strong, its heat contrasting sharply with her icy skin, causing her to shiver involuntarily—
Perhaps with some emotion, the fingers gripping her arm pressed hard, almost digging into her soft skin.
She swayed a few times, intensifying the dizziness, and when she lifted her head, she bumped straight into a firm chest. The scent of clean yet cheap laundry detergent filled her nose.
Jiang Ran blinked slowly, then raised her gaze.
That’s when she unintentionally locked eyes with a pair of pitch-black, bottomless eyes.
The owner showed no emotion.
Jiang Ran hesitated, then offered the coldest, most beautiful face she’d ever seen an unprecedentedly sweet and radiant smile.
…
“Although she can still walk, she must be drunk.”
The bar owner reached this conclusion.
As if to confirm his guess, the woman sitting on the high stool buried her head into the young man’s chest in front of her and didn’t lift it again.
He held her upright, “Don’t sway.”
Of course, it was a useless remark; nobody in their right mind would listen to him.
Bei Jiao had no choice. With one hand supporting her to prevent her from sliding down, he bent slightly, stretched out his long arm, and picked up her shoe from the floor.
Standing upright again, he said, “Sit still.”
His tone was far from pleasant, and his actions were far from gentle.
Her face was pressed against the thin cotton fabric of his summer T-shirt, resting on his firm, hard abdominal muscles. Her other arm was still mischievously draped over his shoulder—
Squeezing the shoulder that was as hard as stone and completely unyielding.
As the young man bent down and somewhat roughly grabbed her ankle to slip the sandal back onto her foot, Jiang Ran, now properly wearing her shoe again, let out a small yawn.
Under his watchful eyes, her round, pale pink toes peeked out from beneath the thin fabric like a cat stretching its claws, slightly spreading and stretching as she yawned.
She mumbled softly, “I’m sleepy. I want to go home.”
Knowing how to go home even when drunk.
Bei Jiao snorted coldly. His hand hesitated midair for a moment, probably choosing where to grab her—finally, he opted to pinch the back of her neck like one would grab a cat, lifting her up to prevent her from touching him again…
Behind the bar counter, the bar owner sighed, “Why don’t you take her back?”
Bei Jiao still had his hand on her neck. He momentarily forgot to let go when he heard the suggestion, turning his head to ask blankly, “Me?”
Jiang Ran, however, quickly responded, lifting her head to sway playfully toward him, “Sure! Take me home! I have a car! I have a car! Can you drive? Can you drive?”
Bei Jiao nearly bit his tongue as the overly energetic drunk woman shook him. He slapped her hand away and replied coldly, “No.”
At eighteen, one could get a driver’s license, but applying required money—money he didn’t have to waste on driving school.
After saying that, he removed his hand from her neck and tried to walk away, but she immediately cried out and started falling forward again without support. He had no choice but to return to her side, letting her cling to his arm like a pillar.
That scent—the same one he had washed off a few days ago during a shower—surrounded him again.
Sweet and spicy, he even knew the base notes would change later, shifting from sweetness to a cool musk woodiness.
His heart skipped a beat, like a drumroll so silent only its owner could feel it.
He instinctively slowed his breathing to avoid the tension of being overwhelmed by the scent. Bei Jiao turned his head toward the bar owner, his expression still cold, his voice carefully controlled, calm and steady, “Call her a designated driver.”
Get this ancestral troublemaker out of here.
The bar owner exclaimed, “What if she gets kidnapped?”
Bei Jiao didn’t have time to answer.
“I won’t get kidnapped,” the hand clutching his arm mischievously pinched him again. Her soft voice came from below and to the side, “I’m not drunk. I just can’t drive after drinking.”
She looked up at him, her face tilted so far upward that her chin nearly poked into his chest. Her eyes looked hazy, like frosted glass with a misty sheen.
Bei Jiao hadn’t thought she was especially drunk before, but now he was convinced she definitely was.
As he hesitated, she suddenly reached out and pushed him away on her own.
Leaning lazily against the bar counter, she said, “It’s okay. No need to send me.”
Bei Jiao didn’t speak, knowing she definitely had more to say.
Sure enough, he saw her flail her arms around again, grabbing another apple rabbit, bringing it to her mouth, and taking small nibbles with a “crunch,” mumbling with a smile, “I’m not stupid. Before the drinking started, I sent a text to Zhao Keyan telling him to come pick me up at 11 if he hadn’t heard from me.”
Who was Zhao Keyan?
Back at Linjiang No.1 High School, Bei Jiao was a freshman while Zhao was a senior—
Bei Jiao had just entered school, sitting behind a girl who started dating Zhao Keyan.
A week later, she switched to another girl sitting diagonally in front of him.
Bei Jiao had seen Zhao Keyan sneak out of school by climbing over the wall instead of using the main gate. Ten times out, eight times he was chased by women from outside the school. The other two times he used the main gate because the people chasing him were students from the same school.
Calling Zhao Keyan for help and claiming she wasn’t stupid—
Bei Jiao almost laughed at how foolish she was.
With one hand, he grabbed her arm still holding the apple rabbit, effortlessly lifting her off the chair—
She stumbled and stepped on his foot, not having time to steady herself before the half-eaten apple rabbit in her hand was taken and thrown into the trash by him.
Bei Jiao half-dragged, half-carried her toward the exit, pulling out his phone from his pocket with an impatient tone, “Where’s your car?”
Her finger flicked upward, pointing to a black, boxy Mercedes parked at the bar entrance.
Bei Jiao didn’t recognize the car model. He frowned slightly and tapped his phone, using an app to call a designated driver.
He pulled the car key from her handbag, unlocked the car door, and shoved her into the back seat.
Jiang Ran leaned against the car door, drowsily watching him, “It’s past ten already. The designated driver might charge overtime… I’ll reimburse you for the cost tomorrow, okay?”
Bei Jiao expressionlessly pressed her forehead and shoved her back into the car. The designated driver arrived, and he slammed the back door shut before getting into the front passenger seat.
…
The car pulled away from the bar entrance.
Jiang Ran sat in the back seat, her temple resting against the window, gently swaying with the motion of the car, like a freshly pounded rice cake.
Soft, white, and sticky.
The car’s interior was dimly lit. The designated driver assumed she was asleep and dared not chat with the young man in the front passenger seat who wore a sour expression. Even pressing the accelerator, he did so quietly, as if fearing the noise might disturb the woman in the back.
Jiang Ran half-closed her eyes but was wide awake.
Her breathing was steady, and she quietly looked ahead—exactly the right angle to see the young man sitting in the front passenger seat. He was expressionlessly staring out the window at the passing night scenery.
Neon lights illuminated his face like a colorful carousel.
His profile was beautiful, reminding her of an ancient plaster statue in the Louvre Museum in Paris. She couldn’t remember its name, only that she had once stood beneath it admiring it for a long time…
The clear lines and precisely balanced facial proportions had fascinated her.
Just like now.
Jiang Ran’s phone vibrated. She immediately noticed but deliberately waited a few seconds. From the corner of her eye, she saw the young man in the front passenger seat glance back at her. Only then did she slowly reach for her phone and unlock the screen.
Sure enough, the front passenger seat’s gaze impatiently shifted away from her again.
Jiang Ran opened WeChat.
【CK、Smoke: Did you get her out?】
She paused for a moment, her lips subtly curving into a genuine smile, her fingers lazily tapping away.
Then she concisely replied with a simple “Hmm.”
Immediately, the other side sent back a thumbs-up emoji.
She silently chuckled, and behind the cover of her phone, she sat up a bit straighter.
In the dim car light,
her dark eyes were clear and alert, not showing the slightest sign of being drunk.
…
How did that saying go again?
A woman fakes three parts drunk, and she’ll make you cry with her performance.
Author’s Note:
V chapter tomorrow. Of course, there will be a 10,000-word update tomorrow. Everyone who clicks the paw print will get red envelopes.
This is the first time I’ve entered V within ten days of starting a story. I must be crazy, but I hope you all can support me since I’ve been doubling my updates daily for the past few days. Please read and subscribe, and help me fatten the story up. Muah muah muah muah muah!
P.S.: The actions in this chapter are possible only if the female lead knows her limits. Please don’t try this lightly in real life unless you clearly know your own limits.
How do you find your limits? Choose a safe environment, like a hotel room after a trip when you have nothing else to do at night. Only in gatherings with trustworthy female friends, drink until you’re tipsy—that’s your limit.
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