Chapter 70: Calling Back
Chapter 70: Chapter 70: Calling Back
Jiang Xia slept through the night and didn’t wake up until 10 a.m.
He’d thrown up everything in his stomach while showering last night, so he felt a sharp pang of hunger the moment he woke up.
He pushed the door open and stepped out. The living room was empty. On the dining table, there was a note from Xia Shanshan along with a day’s worth of spending money.
Son,
I’ve gone to class. Don’t worry about your dad for lunch. I left you some money here. Figure out lunch on your own.
Love,
Your loving mom
7:30
After reading the brief note, Jiang Xia decisively picked up the 20 yuan from the table and tucked it into his bag.
His stomach was growling loudly. While he washed up, he boiled some water and made himself a simple bowl of noodles. As he did, he tried to piece together his fragmented memories.
He must have had a little too much to drink yesterday. He vaguely remembered blacking out in the shower, crawling into bed, and passing out the moment he closed his eyes.
’Looks like I really need to cut back on the drinking. It just gets in the way of things.’
With the college entrance exams over, he had a lot to do. He absolutely couldn’t afford to waste time on pointless things.
After a moment’s thought, he started eating his noodles and called Lin Yanwan, intending to ask about her progress on dubbing the tenth episode of *Cat and Mouse*.
As soon as he opened his call history, a casual glance made him freeze.
’I called my wife around 11 last night? And the call lasted for over half an hour?’
’Did that really happen?’
He had no memory of it whatsoever.
’Could I have accidentally dialed her in my sleep?’
After all, the feature phones from this era didn’t have lock screens, so butt-dialing was a common occurrence.
’But the real question is, if my wife noticed something was wrong with the call, why didn’t she just hang up?’
Puzzled, Jiang Xia dialed his wife’s number.
Lin Yanwan was sitting at her piano, dubbing the audio for the tenth episode, when her phone suddenly started ringing.
"Master, your husband is calling. Master, your husband is calling..."
She couldn’t help but feel a flash of irritation. Her fingers landed petulantly on the keys, creating a jumble of comical noise that ruined the take. She’d have to scrap the recording.
’If that Jiang Gouzi doesn’t give me a good explanation for this, I’ll make him pay!’
"Hello? What is it?" she asked, her tone sharp.
Jiang Xia didn’t pick up on her mood. He just chuckled and said, "Oh, nothing much. I just wanted to ask my baby how the dubbing is going."
"You have the nerve to ask?" Lin Yanwan retorted. "I was just about to nail the dub for the scene where Tom is chasing the canary, but then some jerk just had to call at the worst possible moment, and now I have to do it all over again."
Jiang Xia’s expression froze. He quickly tried to smooth things over. "He really is a jerk. How about this: next time I see him, I’ll punch him a couple of times for you. That’ll let you vent a little, right?"
"Hmph, shameless," Lin Yanwan scoffed. ’Like he’d actually hurt himself. The nerve of this guy to even suggest it,’ she thought.
"Then let’s punish him! Next time he sees his darling, he has to give her a passionate, three-minute-long French kiss until he suffocates to death!"
"In your dreams! Is that supposed to be a punishment? Sounds more like a reward to me," Lin Yanwan huffed softly. ’All he does is daydream. A three-minute kiss... I’d be the one suffocating.’
"Alright, is there anything else? If not, I’m hanging up. I have too much to do. No goofing off during work hours!"
"Wait, wait, yes there is."
Jiang Xia pursed his lips and asked tentatively, "Baby, did I... call you last night?"
"Uh-huh. You did," Lin Yanwan didn’t deny it. The call log was right there, after all. Denying it would just make her seem guilty.
’Besides, what did she have to feel guilty about?’
"So... I-I didn’t say anything weird, did I?" He scratched the back of his neck, his tone laced with uncertainty.
A small smile tugged at the corner of Lin Yanwan’s lips, and a glimmer of amusement appeared in her eyes.
"Someone was out like a light, dead to the world and snoring. No matter how many times I called out to you, you didn’t respond. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore and just hung up in a huff."
Jiang Xia breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been terrified he might have blurted out things like "I miss you, I love you" in a drunken stupor. That would have been mortifying.
"If you can’t handle your liquor, you should go sit at the kids’ table next time," she said. "And I still haven’t gotten you back for the nonsense you were spouting in front of my mom last night."
Hearing his wife’s complaint, Jiang Xia felt a wave of embarrassment.
"Is our mom home? I’ll head over in a bit."
"She left for work ages ago. And another thing, Comrade Jiang Xia, how many times do I have to tell you? She’s not your mom right now. You’re supposed to call her Aunt Ji."
Lin Yanwan was calling him out specifically because Jiang Xia had a habit of using overly familiar terms, which made it easy for him to slip up in certain situations.
’The moment she recalled her mom asking her last night if the two of them had secretly... you know... she couldn’t help but blush.’
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know."
Hearing his completely dismissive reply, Lin Yanwan could only feel a sense of resignation.
’He knows he’s wrong, but he’ll never change, and he’ll do it again next time. That was Jiang Xia in a nutshell.’
They had been together for twelve years; she knew his patterns inside and out.
After hanging up, Lin Yanwan looked at the contact name on her screen—Husband. Her gaze gradually softened. ’Since he poured his heart out to me last night,’ she thought, ’I’ll let him off the hook today.’
She opened her phone’s settings. To prevent that guy from calling again and ruining all her work, she decisively switched her phone to silent mode.
Then, after a moment’s thought, she also changed that bizarre ringtone. ’What if he heard it? That would be mortifying.’
She switched back to the video. As Tom gave chase and the canary fled, her fingers flew across the piano keys, creating a rapid, cheerful score.
◇
After finishing his noodles, Jiang Xia called Wang Ming.
"Hey, Old Jiang, what’s up?" Wang Ming cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder, his head tilted. The brush in his hand never stopped, smoothly sketching another complete line.
Jiang Xia asked, "Nothing major. I was just calling to see if there was anything in the storyboards for episode eleven that you didn’t understand."
"Not so far. If I run into anything I don’t get, I’ll definitely give you a call."
"By the way, how about when you took Shen Ying home yesterday? Did you two make any progress?"
"Nope." Wang Ming sighed. "I just saw her off in the car and went home. I really wanted to use the liquid courage to confess, but... Old Jiang, I just couldn’t bring myself to say it."
"No rush, no rush," Jiang Xia chuckled. "Good things come to those who wait. Just take it slow. You’re both working for me now. It’s not like Shen Ying can run away, can she?"
"That’s true. Still, you didn’t call just to gossip, did you?" Wang Ming asked, his tone quizzical.
"Time for business. Did you talk to Teacher Li when you got back yesterday?"
"I did. My mom’s home right now. Why don’t you come over?"
...
(Yanwan and Jiang Xia’s character cards were created at the same time, so how can their ’heart’ counts be so different after just one day? Do you all just prefer the female lead? [smirking face])