Are You Allergic To Romance? - Chapter 27
Chapter 27: She Is My Person
Xie Mianzhi gripped her teacup, sinking into a brief silence.
Why did she think of Jing Yuan, that woman with the dark circles? Why was this happening?
She must have just returned from that person’s house for the association to be made.
Otherwise, why would her mind be uncontrollably wandering to the other woman, thinking of those hazy, fleeting moments of physical contact?
That night, when that person helped her unfasten the button at the back of her neck—
The touch that swept over her skin—
Cautious, cold, slightly damp…
Even though they were both women, it made her shiver all over.
It was the first time she had ever exposed her back so defenselessly to anyone.
“Little Zhi, what’s wrong?” Old Madam Xie looked at her granddaughter, who was rarely so distracted during a conversation, and felt utterly puzzled. She just asked what kind of person she liked; why did it stun the child?
Xie Mianzhi snapped back to attention. She immediately feigned composure, taking a sip of black tea to mask the momentary flutter in her heart.
“Grandmother, I don’t have anyone I like. Please stop worrying,” she spoke, her tone as normal as ever.
Old Madam Xie listened to Xie Mianzhi’s indifferent tone, but the sudden blush on her face was highly suspicious.
The Old Madam picked up her pipe, continuing to ask indirectly about the matter she was most curious about.
“I heard you went to Misu Town for the past few days, and you weren’t staying in a hotel.”
No sooner had she spoken than Xie Mianzhi smiled and looked at her.
“Your father ordered the card freeze, not me, Grandmother. I’m just curious where you stayed. Rong Cheng wouldn’t tell me,” the Old Madam clicked her tongue. Xie Mianzhi’s attentive assistant was indeed very tight-lipped.
“Since you’re so curious, shouldn’t you have secretly transferred money so your precious granddaughter could stay in a hotel? But, as is obvious, you’re only pretending to care,” Xie Mianzhi wasn’t falling for her ploy.
“This is all your father’s—”
The Old Madam was about to retort when a phone call came in. She looked down. Ah, it was Mianzhi’s father. Sure enough, one shouldn’t talk ill of people behind their back.
You get caught easily.
The Old Madam immediately handed the phone to Xie Mianzhi.
Xie Mianzhi saw it was her father calling and quickly mouthed to her grandmother: Don’t tell him I came here. You chat with him, and I’m going back to my place.
Old Madam Xie understood and answered the call.
Seeing her grandmother on the phone, Xie Mianzhi rose from her seat. She looked at the lychee peels on the coffee table, paused for a few seconds, then bid her grandmother farewell and left the manor.
Why did her mind drift to Jing Yuan? This was the puzzling question.
However, just as Xie Mianzhi got into her car, the Old Madam called her again.
“Little Zhi, I’m sticking to what I said. If you can’t think of anyone you like or any specific dating standards for now, then just meet the young master of the Lu family. At least give them some face, since there are business dealings involved.”
Xie Mianzhi listened to the elder’s instruction over the phone, pouted, and after a few perfunctory responses, decisively hung up.
“Tch…” Xie Mianzhi sighed in the car.
Rong Cheng, sitting in the front, saw his boss’s helpless expression through the rearview mirror. He didn’t need to guess to know that the Old Madam was still trying to arrange Xie Mianzhi’s marriage, and the boss was clearly reluctant.
If he hadn’t followed Xie Mianzhi for so long, Rong Cheng would suspect she was secretly dating someone to be so resistant.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The boss truly had no interest in romance.
She looked like a socialite who could play the field, but in reality, she had zero dating experience.
Therefore, Rong Cheng labeled his boss, Xie Mianzhi, as “emotionally cold.”
“Are you slandering me in your head again?” Xie Mianzhi raised an eyebrow, catching the gossiping Rong Cheng looking back at her. She greeted him with a sharp, forced smile.
“Boss, I am not. I will always be obedient to you. I’m just a little worried,” Rong Cheng intentionally left his sentence unfinished.
Xie Mianzhi chuckled softly. She knew what Rong Cheng wanted to say. “Just worried that you won’t be able to satisfy your gossip cravings if you can’t see your boss in a dating scenario?”
“How could that be? I just hope someone can accompany Miss,” although that hope was slim, as Xie Mianzhi was always harsh and picky with others.
“I transferred you from the security department not so you could listen to the Old Madam and give me lectures, Rong Cheng. Are you taking on multiple roles now?” Xie Mianzhi smiled faintly, tugging at her collar in annoyance. She touched her neck, feeling like something was missing.
Rong Cheng wisely shut his mouth. He had indeed been called by the Old Madam to urge Miss to meet the Lu family’s young master, but he genuinely wished for someone to accompany Miss.
But the prerequisite was that the person must sincerely care for her.
He was actually curious why his boss seemed so reluctant to leave that single woman in Misu Town.
Although Xie Mianzhi hadn’t explicitly admitted it, it was clear that Miss hadn’t spoken at all after leaving that place until they arrived at Old Madam Xie’s house.
“Miss,” Rong Cheng risked speaking again, not minding if she snapped at him one more time.
Xie Mianzhi was rummaging through her handbag for her necklace. She couldn’t remember where she had lost it. “Go on.”
“Does the subordinate need to investigate that—” Rong Cheng was about to continue but saw Xie Mianzhi searching for something, so he swallowed the rest of his sentence and asked, “What are you looking for?”
“My necklace,” Xie Mianzhi realized the necklace she was wearing was gone. It was a one-of-a-kind piece she had bought at an auction last year as a birthday gift to herself.
Rong Cheng noticed Xie Mianzhi’s neck was bare. He remembered she had been wearing the emerald necklace before going to Misu Town.
“I recall you were wearing it before you went to Misu Town,” Rong Cheng remembered seeing it when he was reporting the project progress to her that day. After all, it was a rare, pure Paraíba tourmaline.
Xie Mianzhi, of course, knew she was wearing it when she went to Misu Town. She also remembered that person helping her untangle her hair from the clasp at the back of her neck.
Jing Yuan had handed it back to her after undoing it. Where could she have put it?
Xie Mianzhi had a headache. She couldn’t recall which corner she might have dropped it in. It wasn’t in her handbag.
Rong Cheng saw that his boss hadn’t found the necklace. To avoid being implicated, he didn’t dare say a word, but he knew the boss would still take her frustration out on him.
“You search the car thoroughly later. If you can’t find it, it will be deducted from your salary,” Xie Mianzhi swept back the hair from her forehead, coldly dropping the harsh threat.
Rong Cheng sighed softly. Why does the boss always blame him when she can’t find something?
“Boss, you can just tell me you won’t be paying my commission anymore.” That emerald necklace would cost more than his entire life savings.
“So you have to help me find it. Do you know how much that necklace is worth?” Xie Mianzhi couldn’t be bothered to look and immediately handed the chore over to him.
“Of course, I know. I was with you at that auction. However, if I remember correctly, you weren’t wearing any jewelry around your neck when you left the house of that young lady in Misu Town. Perhaps you lost it at her place.”
Rong Cheng analyzed carefully. He was quite certain Xie Mianzhi wasn’t wearing it when she got into the car in Misu Town.
Xie Mianzhi listened to Rong Cheng’s account without a word, taking out a slim cigarette and lighting it.
Normally, her silence meant assent.
“Does the subordinate need to send people to the Misu Town young lady’s house to look for it? Maybe it really is there,” Rong Cheng suggested, seeing Xie Mianzhi remain silent. He would eventually delegate this errand to another courageous and sharp driver, like Min Shu.
And human hearts are greedy. If such an expensive piece of jewelry were indeed left at that person’s house, the other party might attempt to keep it.
They would then have to use some reasonable coercion, enticement, and intimidation. The person shouldn’t dare to pocket it.
“Boss, what do you think?” Rong Cheng asked again, seeing Xie Mianzhi still not speaking.
Xie Mianzhi took a deep puff of the slim cigarette. When she heard Rong Cheng analyze that the necklace might have been left at that person’s house, an unusual feeling stirred within her.
It was like a peaceful lake surface being suddenly stirred by a pebble into layers of ripples.
She couldn’t explain this strange feeling, as if there was a new connection between her and that person, and it made her feel inexplicably joyful.
Xie Mianzhi felt something must be wrong with her, perhaps just mental fatigue from the long car ride.
And the most astonishing thing was that when she heard Rong Cheng’s suggestion about where the necklace might be, she didn’t feel any negative emotions at all.
“Wait for now. You search the car again thoroughly. Don’t miss any corner. Search carefully,” Xie Mianzhi lowered the car window and instructed.
Rong Cheng could only nod and say, “Understood.”
“One more thing,” Xie Mianzhi extinguished the cigarette butt and looked at Rong Cheng in the front seat.
“Yes, your command.” Rong Cheng responded.
“She is not called the ‘Misu Town young lady’. She has a name. She is called Jing Yuan. And she is my benefactor. Do you understand?” Xie Mianzhi solemnly informed her assistant.
Rong Cheng was taken aback. The serious intensity of his boss’s manner instantly made him nervous. He immediately agreed: “I’ve memorized it.”
**
The next morning,
A woman stood alone at the entrance of the post office for a long time.
She wore a long black trench coat with a gray turtleneck underneath, wrapped tightly from head to toe. Although it was already late spring, she looked completely out of place next to the young people wearing short sleeves.
However, Lientan City was always cold and damp, including Misu Town below, so her warm attire suggested she was simply “afraid of the cold” to the older generation.
Of course, she was not afraid of the cold.
“Drip-drop—Drip-drop—”
The phone rang. Jing Yuan immediately picked it up and saw the caller was Hong Que, the close friend of the Abyss Mother. He was just as ancient as she was, but his human form was that of an elegant old man, and he was her nominal great-grandfather in the human world.
The Hong Group was his creation.
He loved gemstones, all kinds of them, and often swindled her mother out of the Abyss’s gems. Now, he would try to swindle her too.
“Little Jing, Lu Ze has sent you the information you asked me to check,” an energetic old man’s voice came from the other end of the line.
Jing Yuan prepared to view the email, politely saying, “Thank you, Great-Grandpa.”
Hong Que, thinking that his Little Jing Yuan, whom he had watched grow up, had finally contacted him, quickly added a few crucial sentences. Most importantly, he wanted to know how long Little Jing Yuan needed to recover her physical condition so she could return and help him manage the group’s business; he was planning to retire.
Also, he was curious why the child had asked him about that necklace.
“Little Jing, when can you come back? Your mother said you’re suffering in Misu Town, and Great-Grandpa is heartbroken.”
Hong Que took a puff of his cigar, pretending to wipe away a few drops of crocodile tears with a handkerchief.
Jing Yuan was scanning the internal information about that jewelry item from the auction house that Uncle Lu had sent—the green Paraíba tourmaline necklace that Xie Mianzhi had left at her house. The origin was Mozambique, and the final bid price was 29.88 million.
It’s genuinely quite valuable.
This was Jing Yuan’s first thought.
She looked up at the post office in front of her. Was it safe to mail such a precious item to Miss Xie Mianzhi?
This was her second thought.
It had been three days since Xie Mianzhi left her seaside residence. She had initially waited, hoping Xie Mianzhi would realize and contact her.
However, it seemed Xie Mianzhi hadn’t noticed the necklace was missing, or she hadn’t considered that it was lost here.
Jing Yuan frowned. At that moment, Great-Grandpa Hong Que’s timely concern came through the phone again.
“Little Jing has grown up and doesn’t like to talk anymore. Our concern is less important than a stranger’s belongings.”
Jing Yuan understood the hidden meaning and was a little helpless, so she replied, “Great-Grandpa, I was just thinking. My current state is still unstable, as you know. You have people assisting you, so you don’t need me for now.”
“Even with people helping, one always prefers family to help out, right? Oh, your mother told me you need to stay in the deep sea for a long time. That’s a headache.”
Hong Que sighed. For a half-bl00d born from a human and the Lord of the Abyss, it was indeed difficult to suppress the wildness that emerged during the transformation. Jing Yuan’s transformation was quite severe. If she were to harm a human, it would be a disaster and expose her identity, which was why the child lived alone by the sea.
Of course, Hong Que always looked on the bright side. Even if Jing Yuan stayed alone in the abyss for hundreds of years, it was fine; her life span was long enough.
“Regarding that auction item you asked me to investigate, your mother was actually present at the time. We were sitting at the back, and she also wanted to bid on that Paraíba, but the Xie family’s Miss seemed determined to have that necklace, so we let them have it. So, how did you two meet?”
Grandpa Hong was very curious about why Jing Yuan, the “invisible person” who never asked about any group business, would proactively ask him this time.
Although he could use various means to investigate how Jing Yuan acquired the necklace, that would be too boring.
He wanted to hear the fun stories between these young people firsthand.
He figured even Jing Yuan’s own mother probably didn’t know everything that happened in Misu Town.
After all, Jing Yuan often kept things bottled up inside.
Jing Yuan lowered her head, gently stroking the gem necklace that shimmered with a warm glow. Her eyes softened immensely. She paused for a few seconds before replying, “We?”
“Yes, you and that Xie family heiress. What was her name… um, Xie—” Hong Que couldn’t immediately recall the name of Xie Minsheng’s granddaughter.
“Xie Mianzhi. Her name is Xie Mianzhi.”
On the other end of the line, Jing Yuan introduced the name of the necklace’s owner to Hong Que with great solemnity.