After Breaking Up, I Shared an Apartment With My Best Friend and Her Boyfriend (H) - 66
Chapter 66: Cheating is Choosing Betrayal
Li Zhen said it was cold outside.
But Chen Qiao had a coat draped over her shoulders. Following his gaze slightly downward, she then noticed the large wet stain near her thigh.
Chen Qiao quickly explained, “Oh, I just accidentally got some water on me.”
Li Zhen glanced at her once, then directly stuffed his suit jacket into her hands before turning to leave.
Every time he turned around, a faint scent of fresh mint cigarettes lingered on him. Xu Yanqi used to have that scent too. They both seemed to smoke the same foreign brand. Whenever Chen Qiao passed by either of them and caught that smell, she didn’t find it off-putting. On the contrary, she quite liked it.
Chen Qiao looked at the jacket forced into her hands. She wanted to thank Li Zhen, but the man had already walked far away. So she just sent him a message, thanking him and telling him that she would take the jacket to the dry cleaners to get it washed clean before returning it to him.
Chen Qiao took off the coat draped over her shoulders and changed it for Li Zhen’s oversized one. His clothes were both big and long, so the wet stain was directly hidden under the suit jacket.
As she took the elevator up, Chen Qiao went back to the backstage to change into a new dress, then continued working. She didn’t take a single break, fully focused on her job.
And after Li Zhen saw Xu Yanqi, he didn’t ask him what he had just been doing. It was as if they had a silent understanding, never prying into each other’s affairs.
Like when Xu Yanqi called Li Zhen as usual—if he was focused on watching the stocks, he would also set his phone aside without a word. And while Xu Yanqi spoke, if he didn’t respond, Xu Yanqi wouldn’t hang up the call either; he would just wait quietly for him.
As if he knew he had something going on, or perhaps knew he didn’t want to answer.
This kind of understanding between them was the kind that only close friends could develop. And Xu Yanqi and Li Zhen were indeed close friends; they had known each other for many years.
But they rarely intruded into each other’s lives. The person Li Zhen loved but couldn’t have, he had never brought to meet Xu Yanqi. And Xu Yanqi’s girlfriend of two years, he hadn’t brought to meet Li Zhen either.
But the two would talk about their worries and knew there was such a person in each other’s lives.
They kept an appropriate distance between them, yet understood each other.
After Li Zhen got in the car, Xu Yanqi sat in the passenger seat. He watched Li Zhen start the vehicle, then asked him in his usual cold voice, “Sure you want to go to the old place?”
The old place in Li Zhen’s mouth was the gym they frequented. Normally, after Xu Yanqi got home, finished cooking, and wrapped up work, he would make plans with Li Zhen to work out.
But the two didn’t always manage to meet up; it depended on their free times aligning just right.
So generally, within a week, the number of times Xu Yanqi and Li Zhen could successfully meet was only one or two.
If Li Zhen couldn’t go, Xu Yanqi would go alone. After Xu Yanqi finished working out, there was also a chance he would run into Li Zhen who had just arrived in the parking lot after finishing up. In any case, the two were very disciplined and treated working out like work with great understanding.
Li Zhen drove the car out of the parking lot. Seeing Xu Yanqi nod slightly at him, he reminded him in an indifferent voice, “You’ve been drinking.”
His meaning was that drinking would affect the workout.
After he said that, Xu Yanqi didn’t speak. He rested his hand on the lowered car window, looking at the scenery flashing by outside, and recalled how that afternoon, when he went out to buy vinegar, he had called Li Zhen on the road.
“I just cheated.”
When those words came out of his mouth, Li Zhen was watching the stock fluctuations. He lowered his eyes slightly and didn’t speak for a long time, just kept calculating the volatility data.
By the time Xu Yanqi had bought the vinegar at the convenience store, Li Zhen still hadn’t spoken. Xu Yanqi didn’t say anything more either, not until he carried that bottle of vinegar to the entrance of his apartment building.
Li Zhen had calculated that the data was bearish. He was about to instruct someone to place a short order when he said to Xu Yanqi, “I’ll call you tonight.”
“Mm.”
Xu Yanqi hung up the phone.
By evening—that is, just now at the little tavern—when Li Zhen called, the first thing he asked was, “How did you choose to cheat?”
Xu Yanqi frowned imperceptibly and said, “Some things are hard to explain clearly.”
That made Li Zhen think of that one time when he had called Xu Yanqi and said, “Zhou Xian cheated.”
He had emphasized to Xu Yanqi, “She was the fiancée my family chose for me, but she cheated.”
Xu Yanqi had told him then, “Don’t look for her anymore.”
He had warned him resolutely, “Cheating is choosing betrayal.”
Li Zhen had added, “It was me who found out.”
Upon hearing that, Xu Yanqi had said to him directly, “She was betting on a fluke, a fluke that you wouldn’t find out.”.