SM Chapter 59

Chapter 59: Eyes Meet, Hearts Entwine “Miss Zhu, this is from Mr. Tan…”

Time flies, and it’s already the end of November. The chill of winter is definitely here; the wind is so cold it cuts like a knife.

Tan Zhi Xu patted her bottom, his waking voice slightly hoarse, the lazy tone even more pronounced than usual, “Shihao, wake up.”

The person in his arms didn’t make a sound, instead, she snuggled closer to him, burying her whole face in his chest, only revealing the top of her dark head. Her hair was a little messy, making her look fluffy.

He paused, kissed the top of her head, and called her again, “Get up and eat, or you’ll be late for work again.”

Still, no movement. Tan Zhi Xu didn’t urge her again, just kept kissing her, until she stirred. Then, he patted her gently, his tone soft.

“Awake?”

Zhu Shihao drawled, “Mmm,” and slowly raised her head from his arms. She gave him a peck on the lips before saying.

“I’ve told you many times, if you want me to wake up, don’t pat me like you’re trying to lull me to sleep.”

The hand on her back stilled, he paused for two seconds, “It’s a habit.”

When Zhu Shihao was little and insisted on sleeping with him, she’d pull his hand behind her and tell him to pat her, saying it made it easier to fall asleep.

She’d grown up since then. Naturally, they couldn’t sleep together anymore. Honestly, he didn’t remember much from those days, but this past year had been enough for him to retrieve those habitual actions buried in his memory, and become even more accustomed to them.

He hooked her chin and covered her lips, probing deeper once she responded.

“Awake now?” Tan Zhi Xu pinched her cheek, a smile tugging at his lips, “Get up quickly.”

With that, he released her and got up first.

Hearing the faint sound of water, Zhu Shihao rolled over and rubbed her face where he had been.

By the time Tan Zhi Xu finished washing up and came out, she had only just sat up. The comforter was piled around her waist, and the strap of her camisole had slipped down, exposing a large expanse of white skin at her chest, adorned with deep and shallow kiss marks.

He approached the still somewhat sleepy woman, kneeling on one knee by the bed, looking down to admire the view.

From this angle, even if it wasn’t the whole picture, the mountains and valleys were clearly defined, and the flowers blooming fiercely through the thin silk were even more vibrant than the kiss marks.

His fingertips picked up the slender strap on her arm and placed it back on her shoulder. Tan Zhi Xu touched her face, “Get up, didn’t you say you wanted to eat porridge yesterday? It should be arriving soon.”

Zhu Shihao hummed in agreement and looked up.

Tan Zhi Xu chuckled, leaned down to kiss her, a mere touch, then heard his phone ring just as he was about to say something: “It’s here, quickly go wash up and come out to eat.”

After taking the call, he changed his clothes, and when he came out, the bedroom was empty, the comforter neatly spread on the bed.

Zhu Shihao wasn’t a slow mover. By the time the food was arranged, Tan Zhi Xu took out the spoons and chopsticks and saw her come out with a bare face and her hair unbound.

“Hair down?”

“Mmm, let it down, it’s like a shawl, keeps me warm.”

Following the line of her hair, he remembered she had gotten a trim during summer vacation, keeping it at waist length. Now, several months later, it had grown longer and was indeed long enough to be a shawl.

“Just going to stay at the studio?” he asked.

Zhu Shihao held a spoon in her left hand and chopsticks in her right, too busy to look up, “Where else would I go in this cold weather?”

Tan Zhi Xu lazily replied and said nothing more.

Sitting in the passenger seat, she skillfully pulled on the seat belt and suddenly asked, “Where’s my car?”

Glancing at her, Tan Zhi Xu chuckled, “How long have you been bumming rides? It should have a thick layer of dust in the Ruili parking lot by now.”

It’s easy to be lazy, but hard to be diligent.

“With a chauffeur service, who wants to drive themselves?” She sighed and patted his shoulder, “Let’s go, driver.”

Tan, the driver, as usual, dropped her off at Jinxi A Entrance, and the rest of the way she had to walk. This trip back and forth was almost her daily exercise.

No, it should be said that it was just a proper amount of exercise.

Around ten o’clock, the last employee to arrive, the young shop assistant, ran up from the southwest side, shouting, “Sister Shihao, you’ve got roses!”

Being relatively young and fresh out of college, she was energetic and loud. With her shout, Zhu Shihao, whose room was located at the innermost part of the studio, was the last to hear her clearly.

So, when she went downstairs, a group of people followed her. Turning her head, she saw everyone smiling at her, not afraid at all.

Lizi chuckled and said, plausibly, “Sister Shihao, we fear not scarcity, but inequality. The first floor and the customers have seen it, how can we on the second floor not be onlookers!”

Is that how “we fear not scarcity, but inequality” is used?

Going downstairs, she found that there were more people downstairs than she had imagined.

Lin Yun, seeing her approaching, lowered her voice, “Sister Shihao, I just heard two young ladies say that this bouquet of roses is really expensive, at least five digits.”

Seeing the huge bouquet of roses, Zhu Shihao suddenly knew who had sent it.

Tan Zhi Xu wasn’t the type to pay attention to flowers, but she had once mentioned it in passing, and he probably remembered.

Looking at the thick petals, bigger than her fist, and the beautiful spiral of the flower’s heart, this quality was worth at least five figures, maybe even starting with a two.

Even with the crowd coming downstairs, the three delivery guys accurately found the owner of this bouquet.

“Miss Zhu, this is a bouquet of Freud roses ordered by Mr. Tan for you, air-shipped from Ecuador. There are 520 roses in total. We also wish you and Mr. Tan a long and happy relationship, with unchanging love.”

Zhu Shihao thanked them politely, her eyes lingering fondly on the roses.

Sasha, Lizi and the others exchanged incredulous glances.

“Did you say who? Which Tan? Tan or Tan?”

“How many roses?”

“520?”

It wasn’t surprising that Tan Zhi Xu sent the flowers, and it was fine that they were roses, but the combination of the two, plus 520, just didn’t seem right!

Regardless of their chatter, Zhu Shihao reached out and plucked the card from the bouquet.

“Shihao, I love you very much. Your existence is my tranquil garden.”

She didn’t bother hiding it. Lizi, standing next to her, was completely focused on the signature, craning her neck to catch the name. She was so shocked she slapped Sasha’s shoulder, each hit making a loud thud.

“Brother Tan! It’s Brother Tan!”

Everyone felt deceived.

“Sister Shihao, how could you do this!”

“When did you and Brother Tan get together? You didn’t even tell us.”

“That’s right, Brother Tan is becoming our boss’s wife. We’ll have to be more serious in the future, what if you whisper sweet nothings into his ear? Where else could I find such a good boss!”

Everyone chimed in, the scene lively and chaotic. Joking around, they knew that Tan Zhi Xu wouldn’t even bother to give them the time of day. Whispering sweet nothings was out of the question.

Finally, Sasha said with emotion, “I knew it, Brother Tan set the bar so high, who else could Sister Shihao possibly like.”

Every day he concerned himself with her sleeping habits and three meals, the next second food was already on the way.

She also remembered that once the old studio had a power outage, the weather was so hot. Tan Zhi Xu had asked her to find another place to work or move to his place, but Zhu Shihao, experiencing a burst of inspiration, didn’t want to stop for even a second. In the end, Tan Zhi Xu had rushed over from the company, wearing a white shirt, and untied his tie, personally fanning her for an hour or two and bought milk tea and desserts for everyone at the studio.

Lizi nodded repeatedly, solemnly summarizing, “So, with such a childhood sweetheart, there’s no way someone else would fall from the sky.”

It would be like carelessly picking the wrong person, even if you’re blind.

Someone around them had already raised their phones, Zhu Shihao looked at them helplessly: “What, so righteously indignant? Should I have him treat you all to a meal?”

Lizi and Sasha were her oldest employees, and the boldest.

“Yes, yes, anything is fine.”

Zhu Shihao poked Lizi’s forehead and said politely to the deliverymen, “Could you help me put it over there?”

Then, she said to Xinan, Lin Yun, and the others, “Squeeze those mannequins near the display window to make some space.”

The deliverymen pushed the cart and held the flowers, delivering the roses to the display window. They carefully lifted them down, confirming several times that they were stable, afraid that the extremely expensive bouquet would fall.

After signing the slip, the deliverymen left.

The number of people watching the flowers increased instead of decreasing. Zhu Shihao and the others weren’t in a hurry to go upstairs, but admired them up close.

She probably wouldn’t have such a large bouquet of flowers in this lifetime. Everyone was very considerate, only using their eyes and not their hands, and reminding the customers who were looking closer not to touch them.

A momentary trance hit Zhu Shihao. Inappropriately, she thought that this bouquet of roses was much more beautiful than any bouquet she had seen in the past twenty years. Most importantly, he put a hundred times more heart into it.

Holding the stiff card, no bigger than the palm of her hand, was just as beautiful as the bouquet.

Remembering the story behind this bouquet, she suddenly truly understood what Tan Zhi Xu had said.

He said that loving her wasn’t just a matter of a single moment, but so many, many moments.

The mention of roses happened over three years ago.

At that time, she had just started transitioning the online store to original designs, and she was working on a dress with a short front and a long back. She was never satisfied with the pattern and colors, so she started looking at all kinds of flowers, and roses were one of them.

She saw those various flowers, some that she wouldn’t have even thought were roses, and she was deeply moved.

“So, there are so many kinds of roses. It’s not just the colors that are different, but the flowers look different too.”

There were so many kinds of red roses, and the shades of red were different, not to mention red bean paste, Roselle orange, Barbie, and Juliet roses. She had never even heard of them before.

Tan Zhi Xu, sitting on the sofa behind her, had just finished replying to an email. His eyes jumped to her, and he asked, as if casually, “So, which one do you think is pretty?”

Hearing him speak, Zhu Shihao turned her head. Seeing him put his laptop aside, she climbed onto the sofa with interest, curled her legs up, sat next to him, and showed him.

“I still prefer the more saturated colors, but not these dark colors.”

Tan Zhi Xu slowly looked at her sparkling eyes, not surprised.

Just as he had thought, Zhu Shihao would be more inclined to those rich and delicate colors, the kind of flowers that, in his opinion, were also more like her.

“Next, no dyed ones. I want natural colors. Red is nice, but it has too strong a sense of intensity.”

Even though it was just casual conversation, she still thought carefully.

“I think this one, though it’s become a bit of an ‘internet sensation’ in the last couple of years, the Floyd’s magenta is deep and mellow, not too intense and flamboyant, and this magenta must look great with black.”

She casually patted his arm.

“Wow, I have an idea, let’s make the rose the theme of this dress, pick three kinds of flowers, single-stemmed and multi-stemmed.”

She rejoiced at finding a direction for her work, but she didn’t see the look of focus and intensity in the eyes of the person beside her.

“Sister Shihao, Sister Shihao.” Sasha called her several times, but she didn’t respond.

Lizi glanced at her and said softly, jokingly, “Let’s go, Sister Shihao is lost in thoughts, why call her.”

The group went back upstairs cheerfully, not forgetting to tell Xinan and the others to keep an eye on the flowers, so no long-handed people would take them.

While heading upstairs they also didn’t forget to find an angle to look at Zhu Shihao, seeing her still standing there, dazedly smiling, pushing each other and disappearing around the corner.

Zhu Shihao was indeed spacing out. After remembering the past, those emotions were like a warm stream, the warmth flowing all the way where it passes.

Her heart was filled with bright, sunny flowers.

At that time, just taking advantage of the east wind that Tan Meng slightly sent. He was also just beginning the company, busy all day long, and occasionally stressed out.

He himself often skipped meals, but he would still remind her in daily chats or calls to remember to eat three meals and go to bed early.

So, he still remembered that in an insignificant conversation, she had said she liked magenta Floyds.

Then, three years later, it collided with black and was delivered to her.

Suddenly, she missed him very much, super, super much.

She missed him so much that she wanted to run to him right away.