Chapter 38: Fate Has Always Been Shallow, Why Is Affection Even Shallower?

Upon hearing this heavy nasal tone, Gu Liyan's brows furrowed involuntarily.

His tone softened as well, "I just don't want you to resign."

Zhou Xiaoru wiped the corner of her eye and retorted irritably.

"Does me resigning or not bother you!" She wasn't some corporate executive or company elite; if she were gone, would Tengyuan just kick the bucket!

It was truly damn frustrating!

"Yesterday, Xiao Lan and the others and I pulled an all-nighter just to piece together that two-hundred-million contract of yours, and in the end, you lied to me again! Wuu... I stuck that piece of junk together for you, my eyes are going blind, and my fingers are about to break! Is messing with me fun! Ah! Are you surnamed Ximen! Are you trying to team up with Su Xiaolian to mess me to death! I'm not Wu Dalang!"

She, this sucker, was too wronged!

The man's gaze was heavy as he received the roar-like bombardment from someone.

Listening to these words, he felt both heartache and amusement.

He freed one hand and brushed his fingertips across the tear-stained corner of her eye.

Then, he supported the back of her small head and pulled her directly into his embrace.

At this, Zhou Xiaoru couldn't care about crying anymore; her eyes were about to pop out.

She was just like this... her entire upper body pressed against this person!! She wasn't wearing a bra underneath!!!

Zhou Xiaoru felt that her brain had, at this moment, flooded again!

In this situation, was this the problem she should be thinking about!

At this time, a man's gentle voice sounded in her ear, "Using that document to scare you was because I wanted you to come to the President's Office to find me alone..."

He hadn't expected this girl to be so silly as to actually piece the shredded document back together.

He stroked the shoulders of the person in his arms with heartache and asked.

"Does your hand still hurt?" She had fallen again just now while trying to avoid him; every time he appeared, he really did keep bringing her harm.

He added apologetically, "I'm sorry..." This apology held both his remorse for how he had treated her in the past and for the harm he had unintentionally caused her now.

Regardless of which it was, Gu Liyan had completely taken Zhou to heart.

Then he slowly began to explain,

"I don't want you to resign... Su Poyang and I are not in that kind of relationship; he is my cousin. If we really must say we have a relationship, we are actually cousins."

As soon as these words were out, Zhou Xiaoru abruptly pushed away the person holding her.

"What did you say? Su Poyang is your cousin?!" Brother-complex?!!

The man looked helplessly at her face, which was still full of shock and stained with tears, and sighed.

"Exactly how many times do I have to explain and how many times do I have to kiss you before you will believe that we are not in that kind of relationship?"

He didn't know how Su Poyang had instilled such deep-rooted ideas of homosexuality in her.

No one in the company knew about his relationship with Su Poyang; if it weren't for the sake of making this girl stop misunderstanding,

he wouldn't have bothered to explain so many times.

At this moment, he explained again.

"Su Poyang's grandfather is my maternal grandfather. Do you understand now that I've said it this way?"

At this, Zhou Xiaoru was thinking, so what if they are cousins? In this society, there are many birds, and they will drill into any forest.

Just then, a string of words suddenly flashed into someone's head!

'Forbidden love'! Brotherly love!

Oh my god! Just thinking about it felt exciting; her blood vessels were about to burst!

While she was lost in her wild imagination, her forehead suddenly hurt, and she let out a cry of pain, looking at the person who had flicked her forehead.

Gu Liyan was looking at her with somewhat doting eyes.

He asked, "What kind of little drama are you acting out in your head again?"

He had discovered now that this girl's imagination was truly not just ordinarily rich.

If he wasn't careful, she could come up with many different little dramas for him.

Zhou Xiaoru covered the spot that had just been flicked and stared at the man, completely unable to figure it out.

After thinking for a long time, she really couldn't figure out the purpose of this guy doing these things.

At this time, the man in front of her leaned down slightly, moved close to Zhou Xiaoru, looked her in the eye, and said.

"You are not allowed to resign, do you hear me!"

These words were spoken with some force, domineering!

Someone stared with a suspicious gaze for a long time, then suddenly blurted out something that made people's jaws drop.

She said hesitantly, "You... you wouldn't be trying to... sexually harass me, would you?"

Otherwise, how could this series of strange behaviors be explained?

Jiang Bufan was right before! This person and Su Poyang wanted to sexually harass her at the same time!!

It was just like seeing a cooked duck about to fly away; they definitely had to find a way to eat the duck's wings first so she couldn't fly.

Hearing this, Gu Liyan laughed helplessly again and said on purpose.

"You finally figured it out."

At this, the expression on Zhou Xiaoru's face changed from confused to even more confused!

What was this guy laughing at again! Which of his words were true?

But no matter what the truth was, she couldn't care about thinking about it now, because at this moment, her nose was a bit itchy, followed by several sneezes in a row.

Seeing her sneeze, the man reached out his hand again, took her arm, and went into the gymnasium.

Once again, they arrived at their ultimate location.

And the handsome Gu didn't let go of his devilish claws, naturally sliding down her arm to touch her somewhat cold little hand.

As soon as Gu Liyan touched that cold sensation, his brows furrowed again.

"Why are your hands so cold?"

The man's warm, large palm directly enveloped someone's small hand...

And as for Zhou Xiaoru, she had been watching this the whole time, and at this moment, she felt a sense of hopelessness!

She did not resist, nor did she reject this man's actions, simply because this gesture of holding her hand reminded her of someone.

Her father...

When she was little and going to school in cold weather, her father would always use his large hands to wrap around her small ones to keep them warm.

But after she grew up and went away to school, it never happened again.

She hadn't expected that today, she would get to relive the feeling from that time.

It's just that, if this 'father' before her knew that he was currently being viewed as a father figure in someone's heart, she wondered if he would be so angry he'd smoke.

Gu Liyan gripped her hand, staring at her reaction, and seeing her keep her head slightly lowered without speaking, he asked.

"Still angry?"

This question made Zhou Xiaoru want to think in certain directions, even if she didn't want to.

The way they were right now, someone who didn't know better would think they were dating!

But it clearly wasn't like that!

Slowly raising her head, her eyes were filled with the words, 'fearless of power'!

She had to meet the challenge head-on!

"Gu Liyan! Are you interested in me!"

If she hadn't been pushed into a corner, she would never have asked this person this question in her entire life.

If it were in the past, would this even need asking? All of this person's behaviors had made it clear that he wasn't interested in her at all!

But there is a saying: today is not like the past!

And in this gentleman's dictionary, people are only divided into two types!

Not men and women, but people he cares about, and people he doesn't care about...

Clearly, the current Miss Zhou had successfully crossed into the category of those he cared about.

He was certainly not a person who would waste time on someone or something he didn't care about.

Therefore, faced with Zhou Xiaoru's direct question, he did not answer directly, but instead replied with these words.

Pulling her hand, he used a little force to draw her slightly closer to him.

He said gently.

"Give me a chance to get to know you again."

He couldn't answer that he was interested; having learned from the previous lesson, this time, he could not hurt her like he did before.

This time, he was very serious, and he was also very clear about his own feelings.

If he were to just do nothing and let Zhou Xiaoru leave...

He couldn't do it!

Clearly, these words stunned Zhou Xiaoru somewhat.

She stared blankly at that tall man!

In the past, she had always fantasized about this man speaking to her gently and taking care of her considerately.

But these things, even during the year they were dating, had never been realized.

Yet, two years after the two of them broke up...

What was impossible before had now become possible!

Even so, the scars left in her heart from the past injuries remained; how could what she, Zhou Xiaoru, had paid and endured be summarized in just a few words!

After watching for a while, she withdrew her gaze and lowered her head, no longer looking at him.

Her mood was not lifted by the previous words; on the contrary, it was somewhat low.

There was something she hadn't asked this person for two years, even when they broke up, she had tried hard to force herself not to ask.

At that time, she was afraid of being hurt a second time.

But today, things were different...

"I have a question I've always wanted to ask you... I should have asked two years ago, but I kept holding it back and never asked..."

The man listened quietly, waiting for what she had to say next.

At this moment, Zhou Xiaoru stared at their joined hands and continued.

"Is sushi the food you like to eat?"

This was a knot from two years ago, and until today, it had become a thorn stuck in the bottom of Zhou Xiaoru's heart.

The man's eyes narrowed slightly, and he answered truthfully.

"No."

Zhou Xiaoru's devotion to him had indeed been too much, which was why it had hurt her so deeply in the end.

Gu Liyan, who hadn't understood it before, finally felt a faint ache in his heart today, aching for this girl's devotion.

A person like Gu Liyan would only care about the feelings of someone who had been hurt if he truly cared about them.

At this time, Zhou Xiaoru continued, "When you were dating me, was the person you liked in your heart always Fang Qingkong!"

She had finally asked it—the girl who really liked to eat sushi! Fang Qingkong!

".........."

Hearing this name, Gu Liyan fell into a brief silence.

Fang Qingkong, Gu Liyan's first love; in high school, they had agreed to get into the same university.

But later, in that year's college entrance exam, Fang Qingkong got in, and Gu Liyan failed.

He repeated a year of school, and Fang Qingkong also promised that she would wait for him at university; later, in the second year, Gu Liyan got accepted...

At this moment, a clichéd television drama plot unfolded.

Fang Qingkong had a new boyfriend at university.

The handsome Gu Liyan was devastated from then on; although he attended the same university as Fang Qingkong, he could only watch the girl he liked going out as a couple with another man.

Just like that, Gu Liyan remained single throughout university until he was a graduate student, right up until the arrival of Zhou Xiaoru.

Regardless of his motives, after Zhou Xiaoru confessed her feelings, he chose what he called "let's give it a try."

As if trying to mold a second Fang Qingkong, while they were dating, he told Zhou Xiaoru directly that he liked gentle and quiet girls.

From then on, Zhou Xiaoru acted as a well-behaved girl for a year, just to cater to Gu Liyan.

It wasn't until a year later that Zhou Xiaoru heard the name Fang Qingkong from Zhou Ding.

Fang Qingkong was the campus belle of the Media Department, while she, Zhou Xiaoru, was nothing but a joke, having been a complete fool for a year!

Memories were like plants growing wildly, impossible to keep under control.

Gu Liyan clearly felt the small hand he was holding gradually turn cold again.

All he could do now was stop lying to her.

He spat out the answer to this question with difficulty: "Yes."

When he was dating her, he indeed had not yet forgotten Fang Qingkong.

Even though she had long known the answer, Zhou Xiaoru still wanted to hear this person say it herself.

Raising her head again, there was a hint of stubbornness on her face, which made the gentleman feel more and more pain in his heart.

Zhou Xiaoru said earnestly.

"Gu Liyan! Before, I overestimated my own abilities, but later I saw myself clearly; I also ask you to see yourself clearly. We... are impossible!"

Fate has always been shallow, yet, feelings are even shallower...