BDB Chapter 45

His voice was a bit hoarse. After speaking, he sneezed a few times, clearly having caught a cold.

When Jiang Rao looked down again, searching for him, she still couldn’t see his figure. “Where are you?”

“I’m taking shelter from the rain in the corridor in front of your building.”

“But you’re not getting rained on. Why do you need an umbrella?”

Li Jueyan smirked, resting his chin on his palm. “I want to see you.”

Jiang Rao ended the call abruptly, but she clearly forgot that the person on the other end was incredibly stubborn.

Not getting the answer he wanted, how could he give up so easily?

As expected, the clear chord ringtone rang in her ear again the next second.

Jiang Rao couldn’t remove the battery to turn off her phone since she needed to stay in touch for her job. After hanging up three times and seeing that the persistent number wouldn’t give up, she took a deep breath and answered the call again.

As soon as the call connected, before she could say anything, she heard from the other end, “Jiang Rao, it’s you. Just go out and ask around; is there anyone who dared to treat me like this and is still alive?”

Her drowsiness was completely gone from his relentless calls. She replied grumpily, “Li Jueyan, not only do you like to break people’s legs, but you can also kill people? How come are you so powerful~”

The voice on the other end was sweet, but the words carried a clear hint of sarcasm.

Li Jueyan didn’t know whether to laugh or get angry. “Jiang Rao, is that how low you think of me?”

Jiang Rao didn’t respond.

It wasn’t that she thought the male lead was lowly, but the male lead described in the original novel was indeed quite lawless.

Her dreams that had entangled her for three months had once told her that the male lead had used a gun to break the female lead’s legs.

Real-life examples also showed her that he had indeed wanted to break the second male lead’s legs.

As the saying goes, silence is consent. Seeing that the person on the other end was silent for a while, Li Jueyan was also quiet.

After a moment, he said, “Jiang Rao, do you have any misconceptions about me? I haven’t really done anything to you, why do you think so badly of me?”

“You once wanted to break my big brother’s legs.”

“Don’t mention your wild big brother. I’d like to break his legs now too. In your high school graduation photo, there’s a picture of you with him alone. The way he looked at you was simply infuriating. You’re naive and don’t understand what such a look from a man means. He wanted to take advantage of his ‘big brother’ status, so of course I was angry.”

Jiang Rao had never met such a blunt man, whether in reality or after transmigrating into a book.

She wasn’t particularly naive herself; she knew everyone had possessiveness.

But the male lead’s possessiveness was indeed quite frightening. She said helplessly, “Li Jueyan, can’t you just leave me alone?”

“No.”

Jiang Rao found herself at a loss for words again.

At this moment, she heard him say, “Aren’t you going to ask why I can’t?”

She pressed her lips together.

Then he continued, “Forget it, I know you wouldn’t cooperate. Jiang Rao, I like you.”

“… What do you like about me?”

He laughed. “I like how you look. Jiang Rao, don’t you know how good-looking you are when you’re bare-faced? So good that if you said, ‘Young Master Li, I really, really, really want to become rich! Could you give me the Li Group?’ I might actually consider it seriously.”

In the quiet night, the cicadas, which had just started their summer performance, had stopped due to the thunderstorm.

His exaggerated, self-directed performance was quite affected, but her question had been casual, and she hadn’t expected such a definite answer from him.

After all, the origins of most relationships are based on looks. While his obsession with her face to the point of being pathological was somewhat astonishing, it wasn’t entirely surprising.

Unfortunately, the soul behind that face didn’t originally belong here.

She felt a bit uncomfortable. “I’m hanging up. Don’t call me again. I have a shoot tomorrow.”

As soon as she finished speaking, she heard a sudden increase in the noise on the other end of the line.

Immediately, the person on the other end of the phone said, “So heartless? I’m drenched like a drowned rat right now. Can’t you send me an umbrella down?”

Jiang Rao was stunned and looked down.

She saw him standing again in that patch of flowers and plants in the rainy night.

Seeing her gaze, he looked at her quietly, and then suddenly sneezed. “I’m very weak. Can you bring an umbrella down…”

Before he could finish speaking, a puddle of water, accumulated from the rain, suddenly splashed mud all over him. Rainwater dripped down his eyelids, and he blinked, unsure if he had seen the cylindrical object falling from above correctly.

Then he heard a voice from the phone, “The umbrella has been thrown down, Li Jueyan, … good night.”

His once stern gaze softened upon hearing that sweet good night.

But he was really weak.

The call had already been ended by the little one with no conscience on the other end. Before he could even lower the phone from his ear, another call came through. “President Li, it’s time to go to the hospital. If you stay out in the rain any longer, there’s an 80% chance that your cold will turn into a fever.”

So what’s the point of saying good night? With her good night, he would end up in the hospital getting an IV, doomed to have an unsettled night.

…

After the rainy night came the rare sunny day.

When Jiang Rao drew the curtains in the morning, what greeted her eyes were endless dark blues and cotton-like clouds.

With the greenhouse effect and environmental pollution being severe this year, such a view was not easy to see in Hangcheng.

During the lunch break of the noon shoot, after discussing the rare weather, someone from the five-person group who had left the shooting location with her the day before said, “By the way, Qiao Yan, you left early with Jiang Rao yesterday. You definitely didn’t know that the Maserati we rushed to take a photo with actually had people inside! I really don’t know what the rich car owner was thinking; he must have seen all our embarrassing moments.”

Qiao Yan’s focus was clearly off. “Rich car… man? Did you see his face? Was he handsome? Was he old?”

“Handsome my ass!”

The male model, who was from the northwest, used “handsome my ass” as a way of saying he wasn’t impressed.

Men rarely admit when someone is better looking than themselves, and if that person also has the advantage of wealth, it can make them feel utterly insignificant.

So after the male model spoke, the other two also echoed, “Yeah, handsome my ass!”

Qiao Yan lamented, “Not handsome? That’s too sleazy.”

“Even if he was handsome, he’d still be sleazy.”

“How could being handsome make him sleazy? If he was handsome, he might have seen something interesting about my car-savvy soul when I took photos in front of the luxury car and wanted to start a real-life idol drama scene with me. That would be romantic, not sleazy.”

Jiang Rao remained silent.

Not handsome = sleazy.

Handsome = romantic.

Sure, that logic makes sense!

However, it turned out that the rich car owner did want to start a real-life idol drama, but the target was not Qiao Yan, but—

The sunset turned the half sky into an orange hue.

When their five-person group emerged from the studio, they saw that unavoidable Maserati again in the same spot as yesterday.

For some reason, Jiang Rao’s eyebrows twitched.

Then she saw the sleek, flashy blue car door slowly rising, revealing the indifferent face of the car’s owner.

Qiao Yan beside her said, “Damn, this is the guy you said wasn’t handsome? Did I go blind or something? Jiangjiang—” She shook Jiang Rao’s arm. “Is he handsome or not? He’s extremely handsome! Especially those golden-rimmed glasses; he looks so refined and restrained! My inner teenage girl is screaming! He’s been here two days in a row. Who is he trying to chase?”

Jiang Rao looked up at Li Jueyan.

She wasn’t sure why he had come in such a flashy car.

When she heard Qin Han and the others say that the car owner was not handsome, she had given up the idea that it was the male lead, but she didn’t expect that it was actually him.

Their eyes met, and she saw him smile, his eyes full of warmth.

Then she saw him wave and say, “Sweetheart, come here.”

——