First Marriage Then Love Chapter 104

The business bureaucracy was like a battle field, there were no eternal friends. To put it frankly, everyone is out for their own interest, for power. To be an official is like an art, your weapon was your intelligence, your strategy.

On this battlefield without smoke, no one is your comrade, no one will eternally stand on your side. Perhaps they will support you at first, but the support is merely to exploit you, to create more beneficial conditions for themselves, so there is no eternal support in officialdom. When you have no more use for them, even your status is becoming a threat to them, when that time comes, perhaps it is time for them to dispose you.

When Su Yi Cheng was called into the office by Ling Chuan Jiang, Su Yi Cheng had a bad premonition. Although he wasn’t certain, but the feeling was very strong.

“Knock knock knock…” Su Yi Cheng taps on the door, only to hear a strict voice call out from inside, “Come in.”

Su Yi Cheng then opens the door and enters. He closes the door, and walks over to the man behind the large desk. He speaks in a low voice, “Mayor Ling, you were looking for me.”

Ling Chuan Jiang then lifts up his head. He glances at him, and nods, “Take a seat.” He points at the chair in front of the desk.

Su Yi Cheng doesn’t say much more, nods, and pulls the chair out to sit.

Ling Chuan Jiang puts down the doc.u.ment in his hands, then takes off the thick spectacles resting on his nose bridge. He leans back against the chair, and faintly starts to ask, “Yi Cheng ah, how long have you been working for me?”

“3 years and 5 months.” Su Yi Cheng faintly replies, his tone stable.

Ling Chuan Jiang nods, and sighs ruefully, “Time really flies by. When I think back to when you first took part in the work on behalf of the county and made a report to the munic.i.p.al committee, back then you were still green and did not understand anything, and now you can already independently represent yourself. You already have some political achievements, I reckon there is no need to wait for me to retire.. Your accomplishments have already surpa.s.sed mine.” Looking at him, Ling Chuan Jiang seemed to have a deeper meaning in his eyes.

“Mayor Ling is flattering me. Everything is because of your promotion of me.” Su Yi Cheng faintly replies. He looked straight into his eyes, his expression magnanimous.

Ling Chuan Jiang smiles and shakes his head, and with regret he says, “Back then I thought that you and Ling Ran would get married, and you have always been the son-in-law that I’ve yearned for. Even when Ling Ran left, this thought has never left my mind.” Saying so, he smiles helplessly, “Only, only I didn’t expect that things would end up this way.”

“The world is difficult to antic.i.p.ate.” Su Yi Cheng faintly replies, his expression neither sad nor happy, his att.i.tude neither servile nor overbearing.

Ling Chuan Jiang nods, and sighs regretfully, “The world indeed is difficult to antic.i.p.ate!” Then he shakes his head, and says, “No matter, no need to talk about those stuff.” He sits up, grabs the gla.s.ses from the desk and puts it back on, as he says, “The files from the Inspection Department has come, regarding your appointment, I already received it yesterday. It’s confirmed that you will take up post as Ke Ji City’s ‘Urban Construction Mayor’. The day after tomorrow the munic.i.p.al committee will formally convene a conference for your post and the Ke Ji City program initiation ceremony.” As he spoke, he picks up the doc.u.ment on his desk and hands it to him, “Take a look at it.”

Su Yi Cheng accepts it, it was his office doc.u.ments, later he will be promoted from the mayor’s a.s.sistant to Ke Ji City’s ‘Urban Construction Mayor’. The position was equal to Jiang City’s Deputy Mayor, the second-in-command!

Ling Chuan Jiang looks at him, smiling yet not as he says, “In the future it will be the youngster’s world. We elderly people, it is time to retire.”

Su Yi Cheng stares at him for a while, but doesn’t say anything.

When Su Yi Cheng returned home, he sees An Ran sitting in the living room, mumbling to herself, and in front of her, spread out on the coffee table was an A4 paper, evidently it was the ‘husband and wife agreement’ that she had specially printed out, only the content had been slightly modified by a certain somebody.

Upon seeing the situation, he naturally understood. He faintly smiles and lays down his briefcase, sits down beside her, and reaches out to hug An Ran, but she had slapped his hand away. She turns around and looks at him coldly, pointing to the ‘husband and wife agreement’, and says, “Would you care to explain what on earth happened!”

Su Yi Cheng subconsciously smiles and rubs his nose, softly calling, “Wife.” He advances and gives her a hug, letting her flap around but not letting go. At the same time he grieves, “Wife, if I had agreed to your agreement, I will implode.”

An Ran glares at him. He still has excuses! She pushes him, puts a hand on her waist, and says, “You’re quibbling!” Then she reaches out and picks up the agreement on the table, pointing out the word ‘Rest’ on the paper, and says, “You tell me, how did you add this word, your conduct was deceitful, maliciously deceitful!”

Su Yi Cheng looks at the word that he had added in. Naturally he wasn’t going to tell her that when he was looking over each word and when she was not paying attention he had added that word. He smiles apologetically and says, “Wife, what do you want to eat tonight, I will make it for you.”

“Don’t you dare change the topic!” An Ran looks at him coldly. She was determined and would not back down at all. Today she must get an outcome, otherwise wouldn’t she fall for his schemes every day!

Su Yi Cheng sighs. He’s afraid that he wouldn’t be able to dodge this today, looking at An Ran, with hidden bitterness he says, “Wife, if I really were to agree, if we really do it once a week, aren’t you afraid I will implode!”

He said it so frankly, hearing it, An Ran’s face heated up. Due to the temperature on her face rising, her little white face also immediately turned bright red. She mutters a scold under her breath, “You rascal.”

In response, Su Yi Cheng took advantage and approaches, and hugs her from behind. His chin rests on her shoulder, he mumbles, “Wife, you are really that heartless that you would implode me, you will miss out on a lot of fortune.”

An Ran felt more embarra.s.sed because of him. Her skin was originally thin, especially in this aspect, she found it hard to speak about. She uses her strength to push him away, blus.h.i.+ng ferociously as if she would drip blood. She springs up, and looks at him hatefully, “Sleep on the couch tonight, don’t come on my bed, see if you will implode!” After she was done, she gets up with a red face, and doesn’t turn her head back as she goes into the room with a ‘thump—’ of the door.

Su Yi Cheng blankly stares at the bedroom door. A while later, he finally reacts, and chuckles. He thought that she was just peeved, only needs a little coaxing and it’ll be fine. He gets up to rap on the door, “An Ran, open the door. I admit that I was wrong, isn’t that alright.”

Even after a while no one opened the door. When he raised his hand to knock on the door again, his hand was still in mid-air, when the door opens, but it was at the time when Su Yi Cheng hadn’t yet reacted, so his hand was suddenly stuffed with things, only to hear her rapidly speak, “For you!” Then, not waiting for him to ask what and his hands full of stuff, the door was shut once again, blocking him out.

Su Yi Cheng stares blankly at the door for a while, then finally notices that the things placed in his hands were his bathroom stuff and pyjamas. Looking at them the situation seemed clear, Su Yi Cheng then realized, that An Ran was serious, and he was driven away by his own wife!

The next day, An Ran twists her neck around as she appears from the bedroom. In the kitchen, Su Yi Cheng was busy making breakfast. Seeing her appear from the bedroom, he smiles and says, “Come take a seat, breakfast will be ready right away.”

He turns around once again and puts the vegetables in his hands into the pot to boil.

Not one minute later, he cracks an egg and fries it in the pan, then puts both of it on their plates. He turns around again and pours her a cup of milk, “Here, eat it while it’s hot.” He sits down on the stool, and An Ran mumbles, frowning. She rubs her sore neck. Habits were truly a fearful thing, it hasn’t been that long, but she isn’t used to having him not by her side, and can’t even sleep. And not having his arm as a pillow, when she got up this morning she tragically discovered that she had a stiff neck!

Su Yi Cheng can see that she was unwell. He puts down his knife and fork, and attentively ma.s.sages her incredibly sore neck, at the same time he asks, “How is it, does this feel a little more comfortable?”

An Ran doesn’t say anything, only the corner of her mouth faintly curves up, betraying her mood.

Su Yi Cheng naturally saw her smile, doesn’t ask much, and continues his hand movements ma.s.saging her neck.

Looking at the time, she was afraid that he wouldn’t make it to work on time, so she evades him, and purposely speaks rigidly, “Eat breakfast! Later on you will blame me for wasting your time.”

Su Yi Cheng smiles. Hearing that, he returns to his seat, looks at her, and takes a big mouthful.

An Ran really got angry this time. Until right before Su Yi Cheng had to go to work, he wanted to hug her and give her a kiss goodbye, but was evaded by her. She looks him in the eye, and directly turns around and goes into the room.

Su Yi Cheng rubs his nose helplessly, this time it seemed he fell flat, An Ran’s temperament was bigger than he had thought, there was apparently no use in coaxing her.

This particular day Su Yi Cheng was actually quite busy. Tomorrow he has a conference on his new post, as well as Ke Ji City’s official launch day, so today he has quite a few things to prepare, and write a speech for tomorrow. Besides, tomorrow was the official project launch of Ke Ji City, so they have to start the bidding. For the next few weeks, he reckons that he will be very busy, that is the necessary price of taking a new position.

“Knock knock knock.” Secretary Zheng knocks. He was holding the materials that Su Yi Cheng told him to prepare, and respectfully hands it over, “Special a.s.sistant Su, this the material that you wanted.”

Su Yi Cheng reaches out and accepts it. When Secretary Zheng was about to leave he suddenly calls out to him, “Secretary Zheng, wait a moment.”

Secretary Zheng turns, look at him, and asks, “Is there anything else you would like?”

Appearing as if he were expecting for instructions, Su Yi Cheng recalled the awkward appearance of the little girl at home. He does not want to sleep in the guest room again. The guest room seemed cold, he still feels that he will have to hug her in order fall asleep soundly.

“Cough cough…” He coughs lightly. Su Yi Cheng was a bit embarra.s.sed, after all he did not have experience in this matter, but for his own benefit, nevertheless he stiffly starts to ask, “Secretary Zheng, you have a girlfriend right!” He recalls the three years that Secretary Zheng has been with him, since his transfer as a Mayor’s Special a.s.sistant, he has always been his secretary. He remembers that he has mentioned before, that he had a girlfriend.

“Uh.” Secretary Zheng was expecting instructions for more work, and did not expect this personal question. He was stunned for a few minutes, then nods, replying, “Yes, I do. Is there an issue?” Don’t tell him there’s a new rule that doesn’t allow staff to have girlfriends!

“Then, have you guys had an argument?” Su Yi Cheng asks. He was ready to learn from Secretary Zheng’s experience.

“Uh, we’ve been together for a long time. There have been times when there was conflict.” Although he doesn’t really understand why he was asking, Secretary Zheng nevertheless answers honestly.

“Then, how did you make up?” Su Yi Cheng looks eagerly at him as he asks. How to make up was the key question he had been waiting to ask!

Secretary Zheng was no fool, so he cautiously asks, “Special a.s.sistant Su, did you and the lady have a falling out?” Otherwise why would he ask these! However he was actually curious, Special a.s.sistant Su is so kindly and refined, he always wore a smile, and his character always gentle and considerate above all. What kind of conflict could this sort of person have with his wife?

Su Yi Cheng chokes thanks to his reply, “Cough cough.” He coughs softly for a few times, then says, “P-perhaps. First tell me what you would normally do in this situation.”

Pulling in his lips, he tried his best to suppress a smile. Secretary Zheng says in deadpan, “That depends on who was wrong. If it was you, then first you need to apologize.”

“Apologize?” But it had no use! Su Yi Cheng pondered.

“It is said that, apologies between lovers is also a skill, there is a method.” As he said that, Secretary Zheng seemed to be experienced. He pulls out a chair, and sits his b.u.t.t on it. “Women are petty animals, she doesn’t care who is right or wrong, in their dictionary, the other person is always wrong, and she is always right. So don’t delve into who is right or wrong, taking the initiative and admitting your mistake is the most important thing. Besides, women love romance and romantic men, if when you apologize you give them a bouquet of pretty roses, all their attention goes to the bouquet in your hands, thereby making it easier for them to accept your apology. Of course after giving the bouquet you must take her to a nice restaurant, go to those romantic Western restaurants, then you guys have a candle-lit dinner, pair it up with red wine and that would be perfection. The night would end with the woman forgetting all unhappy thoughts.” Secretary Zheng said in seriousness.

“Then, according to what you just said I should go buy some flowers?” Su Yi Cheng asks.

“Correct, choose her favourite. If you bought one that she doesn’t like, then it will all fail.” Secretary Zheng said.

Su Yi Cheng nods, and mutters to himself, “So apologizing has this kind of method.” He suddenly thought of another question, and raises his head to stare at Secretary Zheng and asks, “Secretary Zheng, do you always make mistakes?” Otherwise how would he know it so well.

Secretary Zheng stiffens up, and shyly says, “This, it doesn’t matter who was wrong, the man is always wrong. As it is men should be generous, should not be fussy.”

Su Yi Cheng looks at him, a faint smile emerges from the corner of his mouth.

After giving the lecture on the technique of apologizing, Secretary Zheng looked at him curiously, and asks, “Say, Special a.s.sistant, what fight did you guys have?” He always felt that although the beginning of Su Yi Cheng’s marriage was a bit careless, but seeing his att.i.tude towards his wife, it seemed like they were quite harmonious. Not only that it seemed that he really loved and was quite fond of his wife, before he had always came to pick up and drop off his wife for work.

Su Yi Cheng was still pondering on Secretary Zheng’s apologizing procedure. Hearing what was said he raised his head to look at him, and faintly laughs, “Are you very idle? If you are free then don’t mind me if I give you some more work.”

Secretary Zheng felt chills down his back. Su Yi Cheng was clearly smiling as he was talking to him, but he felt like the him right now is a more grave than before and even scarier. He quickly waves his hand and says, “Um, um I still have a few things that I haven’t done, I, I will get busy.” Saying that, he doesn’t wait for him to reply, and hastens to flee from his office.

Su Yi Cheng, left alone in his office, has an unsmiling-smile on his lips, finely polis.h.i.+ng through Secretary Zheng’s so-called method of apologizing. Tonight, after work, Su Yi Cheng decided to listen to Secretary Zheng’s instructions. He drove his car down to the flower shop, and asked the staff to bundle up their prettiest roses. While he was wandering around in the flower shop, he happened to see an interesting card on the counter. As a result he had the person pull the card out, asked for a pen, and earnestly wrote a message on the card.

This is the second time that he has walked down the street with a bouquet of flowers. The last time was 7 years ago when he was about to propose to Ling Ran, at Ye Zi Wen’s suggestion he had a diamond ring ready, and had specially bought a bouquet. However even though it was like that, walking down the street while holding a large bouquet, he felt it was incredibly awkward. He had an urge to stuff the bouquet onto Ye Zi Wen’s chest, but unsure of why, this time he surprisingly was excited, looking forward to An Ran’s appearance upon seeing him holding up a bouquet of flowers, would she cry? Would she laugh?

As Su Yi Cheng had almost reached his car, suddenly from behind a figure scuttled away, nearly knocking the flowers from his hands. Luckily he had reacted quickly, and dodged, directly avoiding. However, avoiding was simply avoiding, the person still wasn’t careful and b.u.mped into the bouquet, causing the card resting in the flowers to fall.

Su Yi Cheng caught sight of the person, and couldn’t help but frown, “Yi Jiao!”

Su Yi jiao raised her head. She had some tears left on her face. Meeting Su Yi Cheng was really unexpected. “Brother!”

“What happened? Are you crying?” Su Yi Cheng did not miss the tears that had not yet dried.

“Uh.” Su Yi Jiao was speechless, and quickly uses her hands to wipe the tears on her face. She forces and smile and explains, “N-no, something just blew into my eyes.”

Su Yi Cheng naturally knew how lame her excuse was, but since she doesn’t want to say, he won’t interrogate her. He just faintly asks, “You alright?” His voice was not loud, but his tone was actually concerned.

Scared that he would worry about her, Su Yi Jiao puts on a big smile, and with a clear voice says, “Yup, I’ll be fine!”

Su Yi Cheng nods, and lovingly rubs her head.

Su Yi Jiao then noticed the large bouquet of flowers clasped in his hands, and asks curiously, “Brother, such a large bouquet of roses, is today an anniversary?”

Su Yi Cheng was uneasy, and purses his lips. He nods, and says, “Yeah, our anniversary.” Comparing to this, is much better than letting her know that he had offended her sister-in-law, and is making an effort to apologize!

Su Yi Jiao looks at him oddly, and jokes, “I don’t see it, brother since when did you know how to be romantic?”

He impolitely pats her forehead, Su Yi Cheng impatiently says, “Impolite.” He raises his arm and looks at the time, “Alright, I have to go, your sister-in-law is still waiting for me at home.”

Su Yi Jiao winks at him ambiguously, “Work hard ha, not only is mom waiting to hold a big fat grandchild, I am also waiting to be an aunt.”

Su Yi Cheng had a good laugh, doesn’t reply, and just turns around preparing to walk the few steps to his car.

“Ha ha ha.” Su Yi Jiao laughs out loud. When she was about turn around to walk she happened to see the card on the ground. She picks it up and opens it. She recognizes the writing, it belonged to her brother. However the content of the writing made her eyes pop out.

‘Wife—I’m sorry!’

When Su Yi Cheng reached home, he only saw that the living room was absolutely empty. He changed his shoes, calling out as he walked forward, “An Ran?”

Hearing noise, An Ran came out from the studio, dressed in her home clothes. Her hair trailed over her shoulders. Seeing him coming in with a bouquet of flowers, her expression wasn’t too excessively surprised nor pleasantly surprised, only smiling yet not while looking at him, apparently knowing that he would be coming home with flowers.

Su Yi Cheng held the flowers and walked over to her. He was about to open his mouth and start to apologize, but did not expect to be interrupted by her first.

“Are these flowers for me?” An Ran faintly asks. The corner of her mouth a faint smile, smiling yet not smiling.

Su Yi Cheng nods, and was about to start, “Um---”

Only to see An Ran reaching out and accepting the flowers from his hands, “Thanks, they’re beautiful.” After saying that, she deliberately searches through the bouquet, but did not find anything. She raises her head to look at him and asks, “Where’s the card?”

“Uh.” Su Yi Cheng was speechless. He advances and looks at the bouquet. The card that he had specifically put into the bouquet was gone. But he had suddenly thought of something, and raises his head to look at An Ran, and suspiciously says, “How did you know!”

She seemed to already know, so that was why she wasn’t surprised or pleasantly surprised.

An Ran looks at him. Carrying the bouquet she sits up straight on the sofa, and starts to say, “Just a moment ago Mom called, asking if we had fought, said that you bought a big bouquet and even wrote a card apologizing to me.”

“How did mom---” Suddenly he recalled b.u.mping into Yi Jiao a moment ago. Then everything became clear. He a.s.sumed the card had dropped then, and Yi Jiao that brat had picked it up, then blabbed to mother!

Looking at An Ran who was sniffing the flowers, Su Yi Cheng also sat himself beside her, and puts his hand on her shoulder, giggling like a hoodlum, “Wife, don’t be angry okay?”

An Ran glances at him, pats the hand on her shoulder, and craftily says, “No card--I won’t accept the apology.” Saying that, she held the bouquet and got up to leave.

---END OF CHAPTER---

Hahah Su Yi Jiao really ruined his plans. That's what sisters are for ?