379 Shui's birthday banquet arc (9)
A few minutes before.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t what Jin had planned. He arrived at the banquet with Jian’s gift in his hand. But the moment he entered, he noticed people rushing here and there from one place to another. It seemed to him like everybody was finding somebody.
He didn’t care. He just wanted to hand over the gift and end Jian’s whining once and for all. But he couldn’t find him anywhere. So instead he thought to give it to anybody he would meet from his family first and leave.
From a distance, he did catch Nuo’s sight and was walking towards her when a man bumped into him in a hurry.
The man widened his eyes as he recognized Jin. “Oh Liu Jin. I am so sorry!”
Jin also knew him as an heir of one of the rich families. “No problem.”
He shrugged and began to walk away when he saw a chit flutter by his foot’s side which he realized probably fell from the man’s hand who he had bumped into just now.
He picked the chit and saw the number 50 on it. He raised his brow and saw such similar chits on everybody’s hand.
Is this some game going on?
Ugh. I am not interested in being a part of this.
Jin quickly found Nuo and said, “Here.”
“Jin? What are you doing here? Weren’t you resting at home?” She asked, surprised.
He gritted his teeth. “I have an incredibly selfish and idiot elder brother. If not for him, I would have been at home.”
“…”
What did the twins do now?
“Sis, this is Bro Jian’s gift. Just give it to him, okay? I cannot find him in this crowd. I am leaving now.”
But as soon as he turned, a hand grabbed him and pulled him back. “Hey, hey, hey! Where are you going? You are holding the number 50 chit!”
His brow twitched, watching Zhenya puff her cheeks.
Jin replied. “It was an accident. I just picked it from the floor.”
“Yeah but now you have it anyway. It will be too troublesome to find the person who had this chit before. Look around you, everybody is moving from one place to another! We will just give another chit to that person.”
Nuo nodded. “I agree.”
Jin grimaced. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Since you are here anyway, why not complete this game?” Zhenya chirped.
“No, thanks,” he coldly said.
“Hey! It’s a game which Yijun and I thought of so painfully. At least finish this game and then go. Please don’t be so heartless,” she sobbed.
Nuo patted his head. “It’s okay, Jin. You should go. You are not feeling well. It wouldn’t be good to stay here forcibly.”
Jin pursed his lips. “Fine, I will stay till this game is over.”
Zhenya beamed. “Yay! The more the merrier. It will be fun. You will forget all your sickness~ Soooo…who is number 50…?”
“Here is number 50!”
Yijun dragged Shui in front of the group, who was resisting with full force. “Yi-Yijun I…”
Jin froze, and the chit slowly crumpled in his fist.
Yijun narrowed his eyes. “The birthday girl herself is breaking the rules! I saw her sneakily taking another chit from the bowl and replacing her 50 one. Sis Shui, this is your party.”
Shui’s smile faltered. She could feel the chilly winds blowing from Jin’s side, who was clearly not thrilled to see the 50 number chit with Shui.
Zhenya’s mouth twitched. “Sis Shui, were you really cheating?”
“I…” her heart thudded in her chest. “I just thought…”
“Anyway! Now that Jin has the number 50 chit too, it means that he is your dance partner! Hohoho, head over to the dance floor.”
By that point, everybody had pretty much found their partners and had already started dancing. The music turned on and the DJ played song tracks in the background.
Since it was Shui’s birthday banquet, everybody also focused on her from time to time, curious to know as to who was her partner. Being the focus of this attention made things even more difficult for her.
Jin stood in complete silence, watching her unblinkingly with his narrowed eyes.
Shui heard the sound of her heart pounding even harder. The main question bugging her mind was why Jin came to the banquet when he had no interest in the first place?
Just for a moment, she hoped that he might have had a change of heart but soon, she realized that he only came to hand over Jian’s gift.
She wasn’t the reason.
Even if she didn’t want to, her hopes still got deflated. Clearly, Jin was also pulled into this game by accident.
She really wondered if it was a stroke of luck that Jin got the 50 number chit. But what was the use of getting happy? She knew for a fact that Jin would die rather than dance with the woman he hated.
A woman to whom he didn’t even give his birthday wish.
Shui took a deep breath and whispered. “You can leave. You don’t have to force yourself to stay and go through with this.”
Jin didn’t answer.
There was a deep stretch of silence until people started to wonder what was going wrong.
Shui felt increasingly nervous for some reason.
Why isn’t he saying anything?
Then it clicked with her that it would look really bad if Jin simply turned and left. Though she herself would be more humiliated, it would have an effect on Jin as well.
“Just play along with me, okay? That way, it wouldn’t look so awkward for you once you leave,” Shui quickly explained.
Jin still said nothing.
Shui bit her lower lip. She had no clue what he was thinking at all. In the end, she just turned to go ahead when she caught something from the corner of her eye.
Jin’s hand was ever so slowly rising in the air until it halted at a point with his palm open and out in front of her.