The Ceo Of The Company Next Door Seems To Have A Crush On Me Chapter 34

The Trio and the One Who Knows a Few Moves

Tinglan Winery.

This was a private winery located in the suburbs of Jingji. Under the sunlight, the white main building looked like a sugar cube. The copper weather vane on the roof was slightly verdigris due to oxidation. When Lu Zhijian saw it, he was reminded of the foreign streets he had walked with Yan Xucheng, and the cooing pigeons on the weather vane.

“Why the sudden urge to gather?” Yan Zhu leaned back in a wicker chair on the stone terrace. He looked quite well, no longer showing the dejection he had suffered in the first few days after his divorce.

Lu Zhijian rested his fingertips on a tulip glass. The condensation on the chilled Riesling made the glass look misty. He seemed distracted and didn’t answer Yan Zhu’s question, his gaze fixed on the vines twining around the pure white railing. “How have you been lately?”

At this, Yan Zhu sighed. He brought the wine glass to his lips. One button of his shirt was undone, revealing his shifting Adam’s apple. He smiled. “The usual. What else could be different?”

“Mm.” Lu Zhijian fell silent again. He might have, perhaps, occasionally heard that his mother was looking for a new wife for him.

He regretted it a little. Maybe he shouldn’t have come today.

Lu Zhijian didn’t speak, and Yan Zhu didn’t feel like talking either. He had been exhausted lately. The weather was lovely today, the sun warm, and it felt nice to simply enjoy the spring breeze and sunshine like this.

“Are you two drinking without waiting for me?” The voice arrived before the person.

Ming Qiuchi broke the silence. He was tall and carried an air of casual elegance in his every movement. Many people were actually confused: how could Ming Qiuchi, who looked like a charming scoundrel, hang out with Lu Zhijian, this quiet stick-in-the-mud, and Yan Zhu, this gloomy weirdo?

But the most fascinating thing about reality is that it never develops according to people’s expectations. These three had somehow formed a solid iron triangle.

Lu Zhijian didn’t like to talk, but that was fine—Ming Qiuchi could talk enough for all of them. He opened his mouth and asked, “Hey, Yan Zhu, why are we at this winery today? Weren’t we at Helan before?”

This question immediately hit a sore spot.

Yan Zhu grumbled, “I left Helan to her when we divorced.”

Who “she” was, was self-evident.

What to call Jiang Mingyi after the divorce had been a problem that plagued Yan Zhu for a long time. First, he definitely couldn’t call her “wife” anymore. Calling her “Mingyi” was too intimate, as they had no relationship now. Calling her “ex-wife” felt wrong to him, so he could only use “her” as a placeholder.

“Oh, right.” Ming Qiuchi sat in the empty chair. It looked like Yan Zhu hadn’t moved on yet, so it was best not to mention marriage or divorce.

He changed the subject. “What were you busy with last weekend? I called you, but you wouldn’t come out.”

Yan Zhu was even more sullen. “My mom took me on a blind date.”

“Ah, I see.” Ming Qiuchi hadn’t realized he had poked another of Yan Zhu’s pain points.

He felt this wasn’t his fault!

It was clearly because Yan Zhu’s life was so consumed by marriage and divorce that anything he said could somehow relate back to it!

Ming Qiuchi didn’t speak, but Yan Zhu couldn’t hold it in anymore and began to vent. “I really don’t know what my mom wants. I just got divorced, it hasn’t even been three months. What is she rushing for!

I actually pushed back several times at first, but this time was even worse. She said she wanted to take my sister out for a meal on Friday, and she did pick up my sister, but when we walked in, the woman’s entire family of three was sitting there!”

He complained helplessly, “The moment I said I wasn’t happy about it, she started talking about the year Dad died. What am I supposed to do? What can I do?”

Lu Zhijian was stunned by the torrent of complaints. He twirled his wine glass and remained silent.

Ming Qiuchi was also helpless. His relationship with his family was lukewarm, and no one was anxious about his marital status. Having never been pressured to marry, he was at a loss for this situation and could only pat Yan Zhu’s shoulder. “Ah, well, in that case, why don’t you try to look on the bright side?”

Yan Zhu knew he wouldn’t get any powerful comfort. Driven by the excitement of the alcohol, he sighed wistfully, finally uttering the name he had suppressed for three months: “I already divorced her because of her, so why isn’t she satisfied? I heard Jiang Mingyi went abroad. I wonder how she is now? Is she doing well?”

Ming Qiuchi thought, she should be doing very well without that annoying mother-in-law.

Lu Zhijian also recalled the series of incidents from a few days ago and quietly said from the side, “She probably isn’t doing very well.”

“Huh???” This was Ming Qiuchi, who suddenly spun his head around.

“Hmm?!!” This was Yan Zhu, who suddenly sat bolt upright.

Due to nervousness, Lu Zhijian involuntarily tightened his grip on the wine glass. “What are you doing?”

The wind was gentle, and several birds flew across the clear blue sky, chirping cheerfully toward the nearby vineyard. The sun cast its light, creating a shadow on the marble column’s grape relief.

Ming Qiuchi was quick to speak: “Where did you see her?”

Yan Zhu snapped out of his shock: “What happened to her?”

Lu Zhijian answered them one by one: “At Yan Xucheng’s house. She was hospitalized a few days ago.”

“No, no,” their minds were muddled, especially Yan Zhu’s. He intensely hated Lu Zhijian’s way of speaking right now. “Start from the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”

This finally led to the question he truly wanted to ask. Lu Zhijian tried his best to explain clearly: “Last weekend, Jiang Mingyi returned to the country and ran into me at Yan Xucheng’s house. Then Yan Xucheng went to comfort her. They ate ice cream together and went to the hospital together at midnight.”

Lu Zhijian thought for a moment and added, “She’s already been discharged, you don’t need to worry.” This last sentence was for Yan Zhu.

Yan Zhu and Ming Qiuchi surrounded him, adopting an interrogative posture.

Yan Zhu asked, “Are you okay?”

Ming Qiuchi pushed him aside. “Who is Yan Xucheng?”

He knew Jiang Mingyi had a best friend, but he didn’t know the name. Yan Zhu told him, “Jiang Mingyi’s best friend. The guy.”

“Oh, oh, wait!” Ming Qiuchi slapped the table. The water droplets on the three wine glasses on the table shook off. “Why were you at Yan Xucheng’s house?”

Yan Zhu asked again, “Are you okay?”

Lu Zhijian’s ears were slightly red, and his voice carried shyness, but his eyes were bright. “We are friends, and neighbors.”

Ming Qiuchi wasn’t finished. “Then how did you know they were both hospitalized?”

Lu Zhijian: “I went to take care of him.”

Yan Zhu asked, “Take care of who?” He stared intently at Lu Zhijian.

Lu Zhijian pursed his lips, his words flying out quickly: “Take care of Yan Xucheng.”

“Oh,” Yan Zhu breathed a sigh of relief, asking again, “Then are you okay?”

Ming Qiuchi found him annoying and directly pushed him away. “Then how did you know Jiang Mingyi was already discharged?”

Lu Zhijian smiled shyly, pursing his lips. “Yan Xucheng told me.”

Yan Zhu leaned in again. “So, are you hurt or not?”

Before Lu Zhijian could speak, Ming Qiuchi grew impatient. “Oh, why are you like Xianglin’s Wife, repeating the same thing over and over? He’s a grown man, what could possibly happen? It’s not like Jiang Mingyi would hit him, right?”

To everyone’s surprise, Yan Zhu nodded seriously. “She could!”

He pushed Ming Qiuchi aside. Ming Qiuchi didn’t know anything, so there was no point talking to him. “So, did Jiang Mingyi hit you?”

Lu Zhijian shook his head. “No.”

Yan Zhu was utterly baffled, finding it incredible. “That’s not right. She didn’t even make a move?”

Was this still the Jiang Mingyi he had dated for three years and shared a bed with for three years? She sounded so unfamiliar.

Lu Zhijian added the second half of the sentence: “Yan Xucheng took him away before she could react.”

Yan Zhu muttered to himself, “Unbelievable. That guy actually had a moment like that.”

Ming Qiuchi was slow on the uptake. “So she really hits people?”

“Of course, why would I lie to you? She might have hit him,” Yan Zhu began to reminisce. “The first time I saw her, she was acting as a Good Samaritan. With one punch, the pervert was knocked three meters away and hit a tree. Then Mingyi grabbed him and punched him in the stomach, five punches were all it took to make him vomit blood.”

Yan Zhu’s expression was nostalgic and dreamy. Ming Qiuchi shivered on the side, half because of the powerful image of Jiang Mingyi that Yan Zhu described, and half because Yan Zhu’s expression was truly unbearable to look at.

He had seen Jiang Mingyi several times. In his impression, she was a beautiful and passionate woman, with a cute and youthful appearance, and a normal female height. He honestly couldn’t imagine Jiang Mingyi gathering her inner energy and throwing a punch.

Ming Qiuchi didn’t want to continue listening to Yan Zhu reminisce about his ex-wife and directly interrupted the spell. “It doesn’t look like you’ve moved on from her, does it? How about it, want to try to win her back?”

Yan Zhu immediately looked dejected. “She won’t go back to an old flame.”

After six years together, he understood Jiang Mingyi well.

Ming Qiuchi, enjoying the drama, continued to offer bad advice. “Then use some other methods, like in novels—forced possession, imprisonment, abusive love, that kind of thing.”

Yan Zhu was horrified. “Are you kidding me? That’s illegal!”

“Besides,” Yan Zhu tried to make him understand the impracticality of the idea, “she would definitely smash my skull with one punch. She really can do it. Our family used to have a solid wood table, but one time she got into an argument with my mom and snapped off a table leg.”

Ming Qiuchi was amazed. “Impressive. Even after that, your mother still dared to provoke her again and again?”

Yan Zhu also found it baffling.

Perhaps she was counting on Jiang Mingyi not wanting to face a lawsuit.

Yan Zhu didn’t want to discuss this topic. He turned and nodded toward Lu Zhijian. “So, what did you call us out for today? You can tell us now, right?”

Lu Zhijian smiled shyly. “I, I’ve fallen for someone.”

His face was bashful, but his eyes were full of light.