Living With a Temperamental Adonis: 99 Proclamations of Love

Cheng Qingchong stood at the door and bowed to Qin Yinan, who got into his car, saying, “Do come again, Sir.”

As she finished the sentence, the car door was slammed heavily in her face. Cheng Qingchong’s body shook, and the smile on her face became rather awkward. However, as the ignition started and before the car left, Cheng Qingchong still tried her best to maintain a smile at Qin Yinan inside the car.

Qin Yinan acted as if he didn’t even see Cheng Qingchong; he moved his gaze away coldly from her to land on the rear-view mirror.

As the car drove away, through the rear-view mirror, Qin Yinan could see Cheng Qingchong standing at the fountain in front of the hotel blankly for quite some time before turning to head back into the hotel.

She didn’t use the front door but a side door. Qin Yinan noticed a plaster bandage on her hand that held the door open.

The perfectly professional smile was still plastered on her face. Perhaps Qin Yinan had imagined it, but he swore he saw a flash of sadness that flitted across her polite smile.

She must have had it hard. She has always been thin, but now she’s stick-thin; her face has lost so much weight that it looks rather skeletal.

Qin Yinan looked at the rows of neon lights that flashed across his car window, and for some reason, the scene of Cheng Qingchong squatting on the floor to help Mr. Smith with his slippers and her on the floor to pick up the shattered pieces appeared in his mind.

Her post, the hotel manager, was merely a better title for the general maid, but the pay was slightly higher.

As the thoughts filtered through Qin Yinan’s mind, the annoyance he felt in Mr. Smith’s room appeared once more.

…

Perhaps due to Qin Yinan’s sudden reappearance, Cheng Qingchong found her night shift extraordinarily long that night. When the morning finally came and her shift was over, she received a call from her mother saying that she had just returned from a trip with her friends to Europe. Their plane was going to land at Beijing Airport. She said that she wanted to see her daughter and her son-in-law. She wished to stay for a few days before returning home.

She had already been divorced to Qin Yinan for two months already. Cheng Qingchong knew that the secret couldn’t be kept for long, but since she didn’t know how to tell her parents. She had been postponing it, but now, her mother suddenly wanted to visit Beijing.

Cheng Qingchong sat on the bus with a mounting headache. After she got off, she gave her mother a call, wanting to come clean on the phone.

However, before she could say anything, her mother exclaimed excitedly that she had mailed some local treats to her address. She ordered her to keep them in the freezer, and when she arrived at Beijing, she would cook them for her and Qin Yinan. She even added that it was all Qin Yinan’s favorite food.

Cheng Qingchong found herself unable to get to the real purpose of her making that phone call.

Eventually, she could only bid her mother goodbye with a heavy sigh.

…

Mr. Smith stayed at Four Seasons for a full week. In that week, Qin Yinan visited Four Seasons many times, and Cheng Qingchong ran into him many times.

Similar to how she had acted when she first saw him at Four Seasons, she maintained a professional and rather subservient attitude around him.

On the day of Mr. Smith’s check-out, Qin Yinan came to Four Seasons to send him to the airport.

Just as Mr. Smith was leaving his room, his phone rang.

Mr. Smith apologized to Qin Yinan before walking back into his room to take the call.