Chapter 155: Be a Little Kinder to Me

Mi Cai tucked her messy hair behind her ear, then nodded to Fang Yuan and Chen Jingming before deliberately avoiding their gaze, a shift that was precisely due to her embarrassment and discomfort.

Fang Yuan and Chen Jingming looked at me strangely, so I, imitating Mi Cai’s gesture, shifted my gaze to the other side as well.

Actually, I wasn’t embarrassed or awkward at all. Since I had already upset her, I might as well mimic her behavior to provoke her again.

Fang Yuan smiled at me and said to Chen Jingming, “Mr. Chen, it’s windy outside. Let’s go inside the bar and have a seat.”

Chen Jingming smiled too and followed Fang Yuan into the bar, leaving Mi Cai and me alone once again.

“Enjoying yourself, Zhaoyang?” Mi Cai asked with a stern expression.

I nodded, then quickly helped tidy her slightly disheveled clothes.

But unexpectedly, Mi Cai took a step back and said, “Don’t touch me! I really dislike you!”

“When you hugged me last time, did I say I disliked you? Tell me, why can’t we be equal in this relationship?”

“How dare you bring that up again! Wasn’t it you who first carried me out of the car!”

“Exactly, if you hadn’t been sick and insisted on going to Shanghai instead of staying in Suzhou, would I have carried you and kept you here? What about you? How did you treat me? Clinging to me like a piece of iron, making me climb five flights of stairs. Didn’t I endure it without complaining?”

I continued more forcefully, “Tell me yourself, why can’t we be equal?”

“Because I’m a woman… I can…”

Before Mi Cai could finish, I interrupted, “I’m an alien too, you know. Should you build me a spaceship to satisfy me?”

Mi Cai looked at me speechlessly for a while before saying, “What kind of messed-up logic is that?”

“The superior logic. As an alien, you, as a woman, must look up to me.”

Mi Cai looked at me, then laughed, saying helplessly, “I’m really getting mad at you and laughing at the same time…”

Seeing the perfect timing, I took the opportunity to put my arm around her shoulder and coaxed, “You just smiled, so don’t be angry with me anymore. At most, I won’t do it again in the future.”

Mi Cai didn’t pull away from me but asked seriously, “First, let’s clarify, what did you do?”

“After being verbally attacked by you, I couldn’t control myself and touched you inappropriately.”

“What inappropriate touching! You sound like a thug or a pervert.”

I asked puzzled, “Then how should I describe it?”

Mi Cai thought for a moment and replied, “You shouldn’t have hit me… How many times have you hit me now? Do you remember?”

This time, I looked at her speechlessly. She so cleanly pinned the accusation of hitting a woman on me, as if it were that simple. It would have been better if I had described it as inappropriate touching!

“Who hit you!”

“You almost threw me to the ground. Isn’t that hitting? You keep trying to choke me, scare me with cockroaches, and not to mention a long time ago, you roughly pushed me onto the bed…” Mi Cai suddenly stopped, blushing, realizing that in her emotional outburst, she had said something that could cause misunderstanding.

Smiling, I asked, “After pushing you onto the bed, what did I do next?”

Mi Cai glared at me, seemingly unable to find a retort. After a while, she said, “You didn’t do anything else. Later, I pulled your hair and pushed you off the bed!”

“You were the one hitting me…”

Mi Cai finally lost the verbal battle with me, and after a long pause, she muttered weakly, “That’s what you deserved!”

“Right, it’s all deserved if you kill me. Touching you is a heinous crime. I finally understand what hegemonism is today!”

Mi Cai lowered her head and remained silent…

The sight of her made me anxious, fearing I might have unintentionally said something to upset her, so I desperately tried to recall which sentence might have been inappropriate.

Mi Cai finally looked up at me and softly said, “Every time, whether you’re genuinely angry or deliberately teasing… I feel scared, and I have no sense of security at all!… Can you be a bit nicer to me?”

I stared at her, stunned. She was actually asking me for a sense of security. But wasn’t a sense of security something only lovers would ask for?

I felt dizzy and even more puzzled about what she was trying to express…

Distracted, I saw a red Cadillac CTS approaching from a distance, gradually coming closer until it parked in front of us. Then I saw Yan Yan and Jian Wei step out of the car one after another. They were the last batch of guests arriving today.

Jian Wei and Yan Yan walked side by side to where Mi Cai and I stood. Smiling, Yan Yan handed me a red envelope and said, “Fang Yuan and I didn’t prepare any gifts, so we’re giving you a big red envelope to wish your bar business thrives!”

“I’m already very happy that you came to celebrate with me. Why bother with a red envelope!” I didn’t reach out to take the red envelope from Yan Yan.

Yan Yan insisted and stuffed the red envelope into my pocket, saying, “I bet you don’t even have enough money to buy cigarettes anymore. Stop pretending and take it quickly…”

Exposed like this by Yan Yan, I felt my face flush, especially unwilling to appear destitute in front of Jian Wei.

To my surprise, Jian Wei also took out two red envelopes from her handbag and handed them to me, saying, “Xiang Chen is overseas and couldn’t come in person to congratulate you. Please understand, and I’ll deliver his part on his behalf…”

Instinctively, I replied, “One red envelope from both of you is enough…”

The atmosphere instantly turned awkward. Yan Yan quickly pulled the red envelopes from Jian Wei’s hand, laughed, and said to me, “Isn’t it better to have two? Quickly take them. We need to go inside now. It’s freezing out here!”

Yan Yan stuffed the red envelopes into my pocket again, smiled at Mi Cai, then pulled Jian Wei toward the bar.

Once again, only Mi Cai and I were left alone. It seemed no one else would come. In the sparse crowd, the wind blew even colder.

With some guilt, Mi Cai said to me, “Zhaoyang, I forgot to prepare a red envelope for you. I’m sorry!” She said this while pulling a thick stack of money from her wallet, intending to hand it to me.

“Are you crazy!… This bar is partly your investment. Is there any need to give me a red envelope?”

But Mi Cai mimicked Yan Yan’s earlier action, taking me by surprise as she stuffed the money into my pocket, then grabbing my arm to stop me from taking the money out.

Smiling, she said to me, “Aren’t you going to help me buy a guitar?”

Uncertainly, I asked, “With the red envelope you gave me?”

“The red envelope is already given to you. You can decide how to use it!”

Of course, I knew Mi Cai was trying to resolve my predicament of not being able to afford a guitar through this method, but was it really necessary?

So I asked her, “Don’t you think this is superfluous? You could just buy it yourself!”

My doubt seemed to touch Mi Cai’s sensitive nerve. Frowning, she said to me, “I just want you to give it to me, okay?… Okay, Zhaoyang?”

This response made my heart race. Suddenly, I blurted out in a rush of emotion, “Do you like me?”