Chapter Thirty-Eight: Who Is Qianqian?

Zhao Chen’s fingers, which had been dancing across the keyboard, stopped abruptly.

He froze, as if a pause button had been pressed. The focused, relaxed expression he had worn only moments before vanished with visible speed, replaced by an aura of extreme coldness and guardedness.

He stared at the frantically vibrating screen of his phone. Deep within his amber eyes, a dark, impenetrable gloom churned—something Yu Ling had never seen before—along with a trace of icy, lethal hostility. His gaze was as sharp as a blade unsheathed, radiating a chilling sense of distance that pushed everyone away.

The warm, sweet air of the living room seemed to freeze and solidify in an instant.

Startled by this sudden transformation—as if he had become a completely different person—Yu Ling felt her heart skip a beat. She instinctively held her breath. She had never seen Zhao Chen look like this; he emanated the dangerous air of a wild beast whose reverse scale had been touched, ready to tear someone apart.

The gentle husband in the apron, the man who smiled at her under the sunlight, had vanished without a trace.

The vibration continued, the buzzing sound feeling piercingly harsh in the deathly silent room.

Zhao Chen’s thin lips pressed into a cold, straight line, his jawline taut. He stared at the number for a full three seconds before, as if with extreme reluctance and repressed rage, he reached out and jabbed the answer button with fierce, heavy force.

He did not put it on speaker. He simply pressed the phone to his ear, his voice dropping to a low, icy tone devoid of any warmth. He did not even say "hello," choosing instead to listen in silence.

On the other end, a man’s voice came through immediately, speaking rapidly with evident anxiety and a hint of… persuasion? Yu Ling was not far away and could vaguely catch a few blurred English words:

"...Zhao… long time… need talk… serious…"

At the sound of a certain word, Zhao Chen’s face darkened instantly, like the sky before a violent storm. His fingers, gripping the phone, turned white at the knuckles, and the veins on the back of his hand bulged slightly. He kept his lips tightly pressed together, refusing to utter a word. The low pressure radiating from him seemed to drop the temperature of the entire room by several degrees.

The voice on the other end continued, seemingly mentioning a name. Yu Ling’s ears caught a clear Chinese name with a specific inflection—

"Qian Qian…"

That name was like a key that instantly ignited the repressed fury in Zhao Chen’s eyes. The last glimmer of warmth in them vanished completely, leaving only icy disgust and a sense of extreme, impatient hostility.

The caller seemed to want to say more, but Zhao Chen had lost all patience. Without even a closing word, he pulled the phone from his ear with a brutal, sharp movement and jabbed his fingertip heavily onto the red end-call button.

The action was crisp and decisive, carrying an unquestionable finality and a faint, hidden agitation.

*Beep.*

The dial tone sounded. The world plunged back into deathly silence.

Zhao Chen remained standing exactly where he was, gripping the phone like a cold statue. He lowered his head slightly, his bangs obscuring his eyes, revealing only his taut jaw and tightly pressed lips.

Curled up on the sofa, Yu Ling dared not even breathe. She watched his isolated back and the tension in his shoulders, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. That name—"Qian Qian"—was like a stone thrown into the lake of her heart, instantly shattering the surface and stirring up massive ripples and countless questions.

Qian Qian? Who was she?

Why did that name turn Zhao Chen into a different person in a heartbeat?

Who was that international caller? They sounded like an old acquaintance. What had happened between them?

Countless questions swirled in Yu Ling’s mind, filling her with an inexplicable panic and a sharp, stinging pain. The peaceful, grounded happiness from moments ago had vanished, replaced by a cold, uneasy feeling of being shut out.

Watching his silent, frozen back, she realized with striking clarity for the first time that beneath the seemingly unreserved tenderness and pampering this man showed her, there existed a world she knew nothing about—a world filled with complex history and dangerous undertones.

Zhao Chen finally seemed to shake himself free from that cold, violent state. He took a deep breath, his shoulders relaxing slightly, though the gloomy air around him remained heavy. He did not turn around immediately; instead, he raised a hand and rubbed his brow firmly, his movements heavy with deep exhaustion and irritability.

After a moment, he finally turned around slowly.

When his gaze fell upon Yu Ling on the sofa again, the terrifying coldness and hostility had receded like the tide—so quickly that Yu Ling almost thought it had been a hallucination.

His amber eyes were once again filled with the tenderness she knew so well, though deep within that warmth, there seemed to be a layer of lingering gloom and a trace of subtle, hidden tension.

He pulled at the corners of his mouth, attempting a reassuring smile, but it looked forced and stiff.

"It’s nothing. Just... a friend I haven't spoken to in a long time." His voice was deliberately softened, carrying a forced lightness as he tried to paint over the cracks. "They had the wrong number. A bit annoying."

He dismissed the storm-bringing call as a "wrong number" with a wave of his hand, then tossed the phone—which felt like a hot potato—face down onto the coffee table with a sharp *clack*.

That sound, to Yu Ling, was like a heavy hammer striking the defenses she had only just begun to lower.

A friend? Wrong number? Annoying?

Yu Ling looked at the carefully maintained, gentle smile on his face, the lingering shadow and tension deep in his eyes, and recalled the heart-stopping, cold hostility that had erupted when he answered the phone... A sense of vast absurdity and icy suspicion swept over her.

She opened her mouth, her throat feeling dry. The words "Who is Qian Qian?" were almost on the tip of her tongue.

However, just as she was about to speak—

Zhao Chen seemed to anticipate her question. The smile on his face deepened, filled with a near-desperate tenderness as if he were trying to drive away the clouds. He strode to the sofa and, before Yu Ling’s stunned eyes, leaned down, bracing one hand against the back of the sofa beside her and lifting her chin with the other.

His movements were assertive, leaving no room for refusal, and carried a trace of hidden panic.

Without giving her a chance to ask anything, his warm lips, carrying the faint scent of coffee, pressed down upon hers with a near-predatory urgency and intense emotion.