Under the Dusk - Chapter 18

Sang Wanling was still there, so Ruan Shu couldn’t go back at this time.

But she was reluctant to hang up the phone like this, so Ji Yan coaxed her a couple more times.

Although he said, “Next time, I’ll be nicer to you.”

Nicer… which means just a bit gentler. But that was enough.

Ruan Shu felt her underwear was still wet, so she decided to take another shower and blow-dry her clothes before going to bed.

Rarely, she had a dream that night. She dreamt that Ji Yan really took her, his thick and hard c*ck thrusting into her again and again. Ruan Shu was very excited, wrapping her legs around his waist and calling him “Brother Yan.” Then he pen*trated her, breaking through her small h*le, using his c*ck to grip her waist and f*ck her continuously. No matter how much she screamed for help, it was useless. When she woke up in the morning, Ruan Shu wondered if she had wet the bed despite being so grown up. The area down there was still damp and hadn’t dried.
After that, she went to have breakfast.

Sang Wanning always slept until eleven before getting up, which was completely different from Ruan Shu’s routine.

Perhaps because she had slept for too long, she felt a bit sluggish. When she opened her eyes, she saw the plain white ceiling and then turned her head to look towards the window.

Ruan Shu was sitting at the desk, drawing. Sang Wanning felt momentarily disoriented and asked in a hoarse voice, “Where is this…?”

“Fuchun Residence,” Ruan Shu replied without turning around, the sound of her pen scratching against the paper. “The hotel you booked last night, don’t you remember?”

Oh, it seemed she had forgotten.

“Did I come to Kanyang?”

Hearing her ask this, Ruan Shu finally turned around. Looking at the person sitting on the bed with disheveled hair and a dazed expression, she said, “You haven’t forgotten that you just had a fight with Qi Sizheng, have you?”

The suitcase was still by the door, after all.

Mentioning this, Sang Wanning instantly became fully awake. With a stern face, she said she hadn’t forgotten and that she hated him the most.

Then, she got up, put on her shoes, and went to wash up. While brushing her teeth, she came over to ask what Ruan Shu was drawing. Ruan Shu, still pondering what kind of elements would suit their club, answered in a muffled voice, “Hmm, I’m working on a design draft.”

“Is it done? What are we having for breakfast?”

What she called ‘breakfast’ was actually lunch. Lacking inspiration for the moment, Ruan Shu put away her pen and said she’d take her out for Thai fried rice.

“Eating fried rice in summer is too hot,” Sang Wanning remarked. In the end, the two changed their plans and decided to go to a Cantonese teahouse instead.

Qi Sizheng’s calls to her hadn’t stopped, and Sang Wanning was so annoyed that she simply turned off her phone. In the afternoon, she suggested going to sing karaoke.

She had extended her hotel stay for three days and wouldn’t go back until she had cooled off. Ruan Shu had no choice but to secretly reply to his message on her phone, saying, ‘She’s doing fine here with me.’

Qi Sizheng only replied with a single word: ‘Okay.’

Then he added, ‘Thanks for your trouble.’

‘Thanks for your trouble, my foot,’ Ruan Shu thought. ‘She’s my best friend, not your wife. Has he still not figured out the boundaries?’

But she couldn’t blame him entirely. Men could be clueless sometimes, which was probably why Sang Wanning kept getting mad at him.

It was an unsolvable dilemma.

Ruan Shu noticed that Sang Wanning’s bag was still on the table, but she herself was nowhere to be seen. She picked up the bag and was about to go look for her when Sang Wanning returned.

She had just gone to the restroom.

“I thought you’d disappeared again,” Ruan Shu said, sounding a little worried.

Sang Wanning found it amusing. “How could I disappear? I’m only playing hide-and-seek with Qi Sizheng, not with you.”

Besides, Ruan Shu had seen her clingy nature before. Since they were kids, when had Sang Wanning ever left her side?

Ruan Shu thought to herself that it was true. However, it had been a while since she last saw Sang Wanning, and she noticed that she had lost even more weight. She hadn’t eaten much during their meal earlier either. “When I was grabbing your bag earlier, I saw a bottle of medicine inside. What’s that about?”

The label had been torn off, so she didn’t know what it was.

Sang Wanning explained that she had been having stomach issues recently and that the medicine was for stomach pain. She also had two bottles of vitamin C. Ruan Shu had always been somewhat frail since childhood, prone to colds and fevers, so Sang Wanning asked if she wanted to try some supplements to strengthen her health.

Ruan Shu wasn’t interested and wrinkled her nose, saying, “Forget it. I don’t like taking medicine.”

“Over the past two days, to keep Sang Wanning company, Ruan Shu had specifically asked her store manager for time off. Although the manager was heartbroken that their ‘lucky charm’ wouldn’t be around—knowing the customer flow would drop significantly—he also considered that the store’s reputation was already established. Worried that Ruan Shu might quit on the spot like Xia Chunchun had, he reluctantly agreed to give her three days off.

But she had to be back to clock in after three days.

Ruan Shu thought to herself that this was probably just the fate of being a working person.

They had agreed to go singing in the afternoon, but the summer heat in Kanyang was unbearable. Ruan Shu and Sang Wanning stayed in the hotel with the air conditioning on until five before finally heading out. Later in the evening, Sang Wanning accompanied Ruan Shu back to the urban village to pick up some clean clothes and her tablet.

This was Sang Wanning’s first time visiting the urban village.

The streets were relatively clean, but they were old and chaotic.

In the afternoon, the area turned into a bustling market. Sang Wanning, wearing high heels, wasn’t too keen on going in, but thinking about how Ruan Shu walked through this every day, she followed along.

“Are you really not planning to move somewhere else?” The vendors’ shouts were too noisy, and electric scooters zipped back and forth. Sang Wanning tightly clutched Ruan Shu’s sleeve, hiding behind her as they walked.

The people around them couldn’t help but glance at the two girls.

Both were delicate and beautiful, standing out starkly against the surroundings.

Ruan Shu took out her keys to unlock the door, saying, “I’ll stay here for now and figure things out when school starts.” But then she remembered that He Yunfei still owed her three months’ rent and thought she might end up staying a bit longer.

Besides, it wasn’t far from school, and moving around was such a hassle.

She told herself that this reason absolutely, definitely had nothing to do with Ji Yan.

However, when the topic of school came up, Sang Wanning thought of Ruan Shu’s seven bizarre and annoying roommates and said irritably, “Forget it then. If you go back, you might as well just stay in the urban village.”

So what if the environment wasn’t great? It was still better than that suffocating dorm room.

Sang Wanning had lived in the dorm for a year and couldn’t take it anymore either. It wasn’t that her roommates were bad, but sharing a room with seven others was just too cramped. She wanted to live somewhere more spacious.

Rent in Lanyang was generally high, especially for students. So her family had been considering just buying her a place there.

Ruan Shu said buying a place seemed unnecessary since Sang Wanning didn’t plan to settle down there. As she helped Ruan Shu pack, Sang Wanning replied, “You never know. My parents actually really like Lanyang. It’s developed, the environment is nice, and aside from the summer heat, it’s quite suitable for retirement. Remember how we used to travel south during the holidays?”

Ruan Shu thought to herself, “But that’s different.”

“If you stay in Lanyang, what about Qi Sizheng?”