08 - Did she really just...speak the future into life?
The office was so quiet you could hear a needle drop. The coffee machine made a soft ‘click’, and then fell silent, the indicator light indicating that it was ready flashed.
“……”
Que Qingyan's deep and heavy gaze fell on Lin Mian's reddish face, and his smile faded.
He didn't speak for a long time. Lin Mian estimated that he was temporarily shocked by her daring and ambiguous behaviour. She didn't dare to look at him, and bowed her head and tried to recover, "I think..."
Halfway through her sentence, she was interrupted by the sudden vibration of a phone.
Que Qingyan's eyes stilled slightly, and he answered the phone. While talking, he tapped on the table in front of Lin Mian with his fingers, his expression as usual, indicating that she should sit down first.
Lin Mian read a meaning from his handsome and indifferent face.
…'Sit here and wait for me to settle the account with you’.
He took the call and didn’t avoid her, just got up, walked to the coffee machine, took a clean porcelain cup, and pressed the button with his fingers.
The person on the other side of the phone sounded flustered, speaking quickly, but Que Qingyan’s expression remained unchanged as he calmly listened, "I’ve read the case file over the past two days. The trial is next month. While they’re on bail, I need you to provide all of the evidence, including documents, materials, and related contracts."
Lin Mian was also sitting obediently waiting for her trial, with a cup of coffee on the table in front of her.
Que Qingyan poured her a cup of coffee while making the call. He put down the white porcelain cup, hooked the handle of the cup with his slender fingers and turned it half a circle, adjusting the handle to a position facing her right hand.
Lin Mian looked up at him, falling into those falling eyes.
The call continued, and Que Qingyan spoke calmly, his voice was cold, "As your legal representative, I hope you can be honest with me."
Candid enough...
Lin Mian's eyes flickered when she heard this, and she took a sip of coffee in silence.
Suddenly, suddenly so guilty...
After Que Qingyan and the party arranged a meeting time. Lin Mian had already drained the whole cup of coffee and said in a soft voice, "Professor Que."
He hung up the phone, wrote a line on the case file, and asked her, "Do you want more coffee?"
"No thanks."
Que Qingyan put aside the pen, and stared at her with dark eyes across the large and tidy desk, "What did you want to tell me just now?"
A popular mànhuà artist once said, Whether it is in comics or real life, you have to face it bravely and boldly when you encounter anything. Those who dare not to admit the established facts are terrifying.
That popular mànhuà artist, "No, nothing."
.
"..." Bai Jiayi’s hand shook and drew a red line of lipstick at the corner of her lips, her mouth opened in shock, "Then what?"
"Then he let me out."
"Do you really call him beautiful to his face?! That's Que Qingyan, Mianbao." Bai Jiayi walked into the bedroom and knocked on the closet, "Open the closet, can you stop hiding in there every time you screw up? I'm afraid you’ll die in there."
Lin Mian's muffled voice came through the shutter door of the closet, "No."
"It was only the two of you in the office, right? Is it even possible he couldn’t hear you?" Bai Jiayi leaned on the closet and analyzed for her, "Since he asked you what you said again, he must be pretending he didn’t hear it."
"……I know."
Although Que Qingyan didn’t reject her outright, he had actually made his attitude clear.
He regarded her as a little girl who hadn't seen the world. He didn't bluntly reject her to her face, but led her back down the stairs very gently.
But this wouldn’t make her give up...
In the dim closet, Lin Mian hugged her knees in melancholy, and said in her heart, she liked him even more.
"Brilliant play, he rejected you in one line." Bai Jiayi couldn't help but praise him.
She said before that Que Qingyan and Lin Mian’s mental age were too far apart. He had been in the law industry for so many years and was used to the winds and the waves. In his eyes, cute little flirts like Lin Mian were childsplay, she didn't even count as an opponent.
However……
"Maybe your simple and rude way of chasing people will be effective one day?" Bai Jiayi comforted her, and put on her lipstick again in the mirror, "Mianbao, I’ll go back to my parent’s house later, I might not return tonight."
A slight rustling sound finally came from the closet, and then the shutter door of the cabinet was pulled open a small gap, revealing her puppy dog eyes of Lin Mian glowing with water.
"What happened?"
Miss Bai rolled her eyes and explained, "Hongmen Banquet."
The fact that Bai Jiayi was angry and returned to China during her honeymoon couldn’t be kept from the two families. The marriage was to help forge a cooperative relationship and the Shen family had to give the Bai family face. She heard that Young Master Shen was picked up by the family elders the next day. Tonight, the two families arranged a dinner at the old house of the Bai family, and brought Young Master Shen to the door to make amends with Bai Jiayi.
After Bai Jiayi left, Lin Mian thought about her tortuous life in the closet, looking forward to the hopeless future, and decided to cook a bowl of noodles first.
In the evening, her editor called her.
When she received the call, Lin Mian was immersed in drawing in her studio. Her assistant Fang Xuxu had allergies and a high fever so she went to the hospital and asked Lin Mian for a week of leave.
The collected novel would be published soon and Lin Mian was dragging herself to finish the colour-page theatre. The result of the old debts and new debts being repaid together was that she would have to stay up all night to draw again.
"Mu Mian, we’re expecting the manuscript to be reviewed and proofread tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be taking it to printing in two days." Her editor's voice was sweet enough to drip honey, "Will I see lǎoshī’s manuscript in the mailbox when I go to work tomorrow morning?"
Lin Mian turn on hands-free, and kept drawing, her voice was very confident and calm——
"No."
"..." The editor smiled and then smiled again and asked humbly, "Why?"
"Actually, I wanted to tell you," Lin Mian sighed helplessly, her tone distressed, her voice soft, and she paused before saying, "There’s power outage where I live."
"You know," She sounded really helpless and pitiful, "The apartment I just rented has nothing, no backup power supply. The drafts are all on my desktop. I may not be able to get them to you tomorrow morning."
She had a great ability when it came to pretending to be poor. Her editor however, had long been immune, her response was chilling, "You used this reason last month."
Lin Mian put down the pen and lied seriously, "Really, this time—"
Snap.
Before she could finish, the ceiling light in the room went out, and the room plunged into darkness in an instant.
Lin Mian looked at the black screen of the desktop computer in the dark, "..."
There was an old saying that went like this:
Everything must be paid for in kind.
The power outage was real, that lack of a backup generator was also real. Fortunately, the manuscript was backed up on a portable harddrive and only the part that was just drawn tonight was lost.
Power supply circuit breaker failure, Lin Mian tried a few of the other power outlets, then looked at the time, the property manager had already clocked off.
After a while, she moved a small table out into the hallway, then took her laptop and tablet, and then...under the sound controlled emergency light sensor of the elevator, continued her draft.
The well-known mànhuà artist Mu Mian was wearing her pajamas outside the door of her room, drawing a sweet little theatre play, her heart was bleak.
She was adding in some colour, when her neighbour’s door opened.
Lin Mian’s apartment was directly across from the elevators, a woman in a purple dress holding a little boy walked to the elevators, and jumped when she saw her.
"Miss Lin, what are you doing?"
The woman in the purple dress lived next door and was a single mother. Lin Mian stood up to make room, and shuffled over all her equipment, looking apologetic, "The power is out in my place, but I have a bit of work to do, sorry to block the elevator door...... "
She was very polite and her appearance when apologising was easy to forgive. The woman in purple smiled, "Why don’t you go to my home for a bit, we’re neighbours after all."
Lin Mian bent her eyes, "Don’t worry about it, thank you."
The woman didn’t insist, and the mother and child entered the elevator. Lin Mian just wanted to continue painting, but suddenly thought that something wasn’t right ...
She looked back to the door of her room.
When she moved her computer out of the way, she’d accidentally knocked the door closed behind her.
Locked, out.
Lin Mian, "................"
She really had to leave the house tonight...
.
She had no key, no mobile phone, no wallet. Fifteen minutes later, Lin Mian hugged her pile of things up to the tenth floor.
She stared at the doorbell for 30 seconds of the big God’s Gate, she carefully pressed the button.
After waiting for a while, there was a slight sound on the other side of the door and it opened.
Que Qingyan saw Lin Mian standing outside the door, and a look of surprise crossed his eyes. He looked at her, "What is it?"
"Professor Que," Lin Mian looked at him, her eyes and nose were red. "My apartment lost power, and I’m locked out, and now I can't go home, and my roommates aren’t coming back tonight. I have to write an article for a local newspaper that’s due tomorrow, can I ask you if I can borrow your place for a little..."
"I’ll leave immediately afterwards, I won't trouble you." She looked down, she was afraid that he wouldn’t agree, so her voice was soft and ignorant, "I beg you."
Que Qingyan looked at Lin Mian, he was on the phone. He briefly said a few sentences then hung up the call.
She only wore thin pajamas, showing her pale calves and ankles, and her feet were stuffed into yellow woolen socks. The heavy tablet was held by fingertips that were slightly red, she looked soft and aggrieved.
Like a small hamster, pitifully holding onto its last kernel of corn and coming to knock on your door.
Que Qingyan took the things out of Lin Mian’s hands, looked to one side and said, "Come in."
Lin Mian entered the door behind him.
Her eyelashes hung low as she thought about the conversation she’d had with Bai Jiayi,
- "Just go upstairs and give it to him."
- "Wear skimpy pajamas and knock on his door."
Did she really just...speak the future into life?
Sorry late today, I uhhhh slept until midday~ #adultlife
