Chapter 13: Qin Yuan, You’re Not Doing Well

The new car had been parked downstairs for three days, and Jiang Beibei hadn’t dared to touch it.

Early Saturday morning, Song Lang called Jiang Beibei down and said she needed to practice driving.

“You can’t be afraid to drive, get in the car! It’s fifty thousand each, don’t waste it. If you don’t drive, I’ll feel bad.”

Jiang Beibei tied up her bangs in a small knot and yawned as she came downstairs, clearly just crawling out of bed.

She said, “It’s been five years since I got my license, and I haven’t touched a car since. I really don’t dare.”

“That won’t do! Get in the car! I’ll send you to the milk tea shop and that’ll be your graduation!” Song Lang said with narrowed eyes. “Fewer cars early in the morning, hurry up and practice.”

The more he urged, the weaker her legs felt. “Fourth brother, don’t rush me. When you glare at me like that, I get so scared I want to cry.”

“Song Lang.” A low, clear voice sounded.

Jiang Beibei’s ears flushed red, and she looked up to see Chu Yao leaning over the second-floor railing, looking down at them.

Song Lang waved, “Yao’er, up early, huh!”

“Mm, taking out the trash.” Chu Yao was holding a flat trash bag. If you didn’t look closely, it really did seem like he was just out taking out the trash.

Jiang Beibei quickly untied her bangs and furtively tidied them.

“I’ll take over.” Chu Yao went downstairs, threw away the trash, opened the car door, and sat in the driver’s seat. “Beibei, get in the car.”

Jiang Beibei instinctively kept her distance and moved to the back seat.

Chu Yao said, “Sit up front, I’m going to teach you how to drive.”

Jiang Beibei moved to the passenger seat and sat upright.

Song Lang said, “Yao’er, you let her drive!”

“I’ll first take her to a road with fewer cars to get familiar,” Chu Yao said. “You go to the shop, you still need to walk the big cat.”

The car drove off.

Song Lang shouted after them, “Beizi, practice well! Fourth brother will make you a cake tonight!”

Tang Xizhou came out, smoking a cigarette, his hair messy like he just woke up and hadn’t washed his face yet.

He stretched and asked Song Lang, “Fourth brother, Beibei went to practice driving? With who?”

“Yao’er.”

Tang Xizhou laughed and blew smoke, then took the chance to lecture Song Lang, “See, sleeping in means missing opportunities.”

He pointed upstairs and shrugged.

Qin Yuan was the kind of person who never got out of bed before lunchtime on his day off.

“That’s their business,” Song Lang said, “I’ve been thinking about it for days. I don’t see what Qin Yuan is up to, but Yao’er, I’m not surprised. Back when Beibei was at university out of province, Yao’er was restless. Thinking back, there was a sign. But Qin Yuan? Too sudden...”

Tang Xizhou smiled, “Ask him yourself, I don’t know.”

Song Lang rubbed his chin and squinted at Tang Xizhou. “Second brother, with that smile, I feel like you know everything.”

Tang Xizhou: “Bullshit, Song Big Cat, just guessing wildly.”

Maybe calling him Song Big Cat hit Song Lang’s funny bone; he laughed loudly and asked Tang Xizhou, “On duty? Shall we go?”

“Two stops, two legs are enough.”

“I’ll give you a ride.”

“No need.” Tang Xizhou pointed at his head, “I’m thinking about a case, I’ll walk and mull it over, don’t bother.”

He stretched like an old man and walked off unsteadily.

Song Lang thought for a moment, took a photo of an empty parking spot, posted it on his social media, and tagged Qin Yuan with: “Diligence leads to mastery; laziness to ruin.”

Upstairs, Chu Mom woke up and threw something into the trash bin from afar. The trash hit the bin with a loud clang.

The sound was so odd that Chu Mom slammed the table and said, “Who is it? The trash bin has no liner again! Chu Yang, is that you?”

Chu Dad answered faintly from the bedroom, “Nonsense, I just changed the bag before bed last night.”

With years of case experience, Chu Mom immediately suspected Chu Yao: “It must be Chu Wuchang! Hey, you brat, borrowing trash duty to go chat again!”

Chu Dad lazily turned over and commented, “Poor tactics.”

Chu Yao, with his “poor tactics,” drove to a newly built road and stopped. He swapped seats with Jiang Beibei.

Once seated properly, Jiang Beibei looked straight ahead and said, “Yao-ge, you only came out wearing a sweater?”

“...” Chu Yao suddenly realized he hadn’t put on a jacket.

He had heard Beibei open the door in the morning and was in such a hurry to take out the trash that he forgot his jacket.

Chu Yao looked at Jiang Beibei, who was searching for an excuse. Suddenly he noticed Beibei was wearing pajamas under her down jacket.

This girl was in a rush too.

“Cold?” Chu Yao’s dark eyes looked at her.

Beibei answered with a mosquito-like hum, “Not cold in the car.”

Not only was she not cold, but because he was sitting next to her, she was so nervous she was sweating all over.

“Drive slowly, just try it out,” Chu Yao said. “There’s a breakfast place nearby, we’ll go there.”

The result of letting Beibei try was that she was so nervous she kept steering the wrong way, braking too hard, and steering the wheel back too quickly.

In short, Beibei’s driving skills... were terrible.

It definitely hadn’t been like this before.

Beibei whispered, “Yao-ge, um... if it takes me an hour before you get breakfast, do you mind?”

Chu Yao smiled, “I wouldn’t dare.”

Beibei continued, “Yao-ge, if I told you I was a top student at driving school, would you believe me?”

“I believe you,” Chu Yao said. “When you took the second part of the test, Xizhou posted a video, I saw it...”

Beibei had learned to drive the year she graduated high school, during the longest school holiday. Chu Yao was away on a practicum and hadn’t seen her glorious history of dominating driving school under Tang Xizhou’s chaotic encouragement.

“If you weren’t in the car... I’d be a little better than now,” Beibei said.

Chu Yao asked, “Why?”

“Because with you in the car, I get nervous.” Beibei searched for the right words and spoke slowly, “When you’re here, I keep thinking you’ve never seen me at my best driving, so I want to perform for you, but I don’t dare... I’m afraid you’ll think I’m reckless and get even more worried...”

After a long moment, Chu Yao said, “I’ll close my eyes and not look at you. Will you still be nervous?”

Beibei quickly glanced at him, and Chu Yao really closed his eyes.

Beibei said, “...Yao-ge, how about you take a nap?”

Chu Yao: “Then I’d be nervous.”

After a while, they reached a red light. Jiang Beibei carefully stopped the car. Chu Yao opened his eyes and asked her, “Beibei, who’s in the car that you’re not nervous around?”

Beibei answered quickly: “Big Cat.”

Chu Yao: “……”

Somehow, his heart suddenly felt at ease. He didn’t know why.

Jiang Beibei finally managed to slowly maneuver the car to the breakfast shop.

Chu Yao said, “You’re not dressed warmly enough. Don’t get out—tell me what you want to eat, I’ll go get it.”

Jiang Beibei: “Brother Yao, you’re the one not dressed warmly!”

“I’m not cold.”

“Just soy milk is fine. If there’s fried dough sticks, one of those too.”

Chu Yao closed the door and left.

Jiang Beibei slumped back in her seat and let out a long sigh of relief.

Just now, there were multiple moments when she nearly cursed out loud in front of Chu Yao. She’d held it in so hard it almost exhausted her.

Earlier, they even encountered a little electric scooter running a red light. She had almost blurted out, “You blind bastard!” but managed to choke it back and only let out a strained “hey.”

Thank goodness it didn’t come out as a bark—she was extremely proud of herself for that.

Jiang Beibei turned her head to look at Chu Yao, who was standing at the shop entrance lining up for food, and smiled.

In that moment, her mood was as sunny as the weather, and her heart was as warm as the inside of the car.

After eating, they got back on the road. Jiang Beibei had wanted to drive somewhere suitable for a date, or maybe go see a movie with Chu Yao.

But then she remembered she had messy hair, no makeup, a down jacket thrown over pajamas, and Chu Yao was only wearing a sweater—so that idea instantly vanished.

They obediently drove home, went upstairs looking disheveled, and parted ways at the door to their respective homes.

Looking at her phone, there were several missed calls—all from Qin Yuan.

Jiang Beibei called back.

Qin Yuan answered in a resentful tone, “Beibei, you abandoned me.”

“I wouldn’t dare!”

“I’m calling dibs on tomorrow.”

Jiang Beibei: “Hahahaha… Third Brother, can you even get up that early?”

“Are you underestimating your third brother?”

“No, no…” Jiang Beibei said. “But I can’t tomorrow. I’m on duty—we’re doing a weekend shopping behavior survey at the mall.”

“Then I’ll come downstairs now, let’s go out for a drive again.”

Jiang Beibei howled, “No, over my dead body!”

Especially not with Qin Yuan—being with him made her even more nervous!

As long as their distance was under three meters, all she could see in her head was Qin Yuan’s mom’s face, with six glowing words: “Jiang Beibei, you fox spirit.”

She wanted no part of that traumatic experience.

Qin Yuan pouted: “Say yes or I’ll cry.”

“Third Brother, guess what? I kinda want to see you cry.”

Qin Yuan laughed softly and finally gave in: “Fine then, come hang out with me at Fourth Brother’s milk tea shop. Just have a cup with me. I need to talk. You left me out all by myself—I feel awful.”

Jiang Beibei gave in.

At least hanging out at Fourth Brother’s shop wasn’t a date. Just chatting a bit sounded fine.

That’s what she thought—but when she arrived, the first thing Qin Yuan said shocked her.

“Beibei, I want to pursue you.”

Jiang Beibei was sipping her milk tea when Qin Yuan’s words dropped like a bomb.

The tea froze halfway through the straw—she felt like a bird, with a pointy beak and sunken cheeks. All in all, she must’ve looked super awkward.

She let go of the straw and looked up.

Qin Yuan looked more serious than usual—his expression solemn, his gaze intense.

“Third Brother… why me?” she asked.

“You’re great,” Qin Yuan said. “Third Brother’s tired. After searching all around, I realized the most suitable person was right by my side all along.”

Song Lang stood behind Jiang Beibei, arms crossed, frowning as he listened.

Qin Yuan continued to look at Jiang Beibei and said,

“Beibei, do you know what it feels like to feel wronged? The car—that was meant to be a gift from me to you. In the end, it became a ‘gift from brother to little sister.’ I didn’t want that. I wanted it to be a gift from a man to a woman. Do you understand the difference?”

Song Lang looked at Jiang Beibei too.

Jiang Beibei gently said, “Third Brother, I’ve felt uneasy ever since the day our college entrance exams ended. That day, your mom congratulated me, said now I was a grown girl—ready for college, work, and finding a boyfriend. It should’ve been a happy thing, right? But I just felt… uncomfortable. Do you know what that meant? From that day on, I knew I had to keep my distance from you all. I couldn’t play around with you guys like before. Actually, I should’ve drawn the line even earlier. When you started working, I already knew—there was a distance between us.”

“I don’t know if you get what I’m saying, Third Brother. In an ideal world, we’d always be siblings. But reality isn’t like that. We’re not real siblings. And we can never truly be like real siblings. We’re all just maintaining a façade, and the older we get, the harder it becomes. You’re all kind to me, and I treat that as kindness—but I have a line in my heart that can’t be crossed.”

She took a deep breath and said, “Third Brother, I’ll be honest.”

“Among all my brothers, there’s one person I’ve always wanted to cross that line with. But it’s not you.”

Qin Yuan removed his glasses and tiredly rubbed the corners of his eyes.

He leaned his head into his hand, frowning, saying nothing.

Jiang Beibei suddenly stood up, pushed Song Lang aside, and ran out of the shop.

Song Lang said, “Qin Yuan, that was pathetic. You confessed without even knowing what she’s thinking.”

“What else could I do?” Qin Yuan replied. “Every time I want to confess, you guys stop me. Should I just keep bottling it up forever?”

After a long silence, Song Lang said,

“Qin Yuan, you’re a selfish guy—even your confession was selfish.”

Qin Yuan glanced at him coldly.

“I’m serious,” Song Lang said. “You say it’s a confession, but it was all about you. Even the reason you confessed was about you—because you felt uncomfortable if you didn’t. Did you think about whether Beibei would feel uncomfortable hearing it? You knew she wouldn’t accept it, but you did it anyway. Ask yourself—do you really care how she feels?”

Qin Yuan murmured, “...Did I?”

“Want me to sum up what she just said?” Song Lang offered.

“No need.”

“I don’t know what Yao’er thinks, but…” Song Lang continued,

“I think you two should combine traits. He’s too restrained, you’re too impulsive. He cares about Beibei so much he loses himself, and you care so much about yourself that you want Beibei to accommodate your feelings. Honestly, it’s not gonna work—neither of you is ready.”

Qin Yuan was stunned.

Song Lang asked, “When did you start liking Beibei?”

“How should I know?”

“How can you not know?” Song Lang said. “If you can’t even explain it, then it’s not real. Qin Yuan, think it over. Right now—you’re just not it. Seriously.”

Meanwhile, Jiang Beibei was walking quickly, her mind in chaos. She didn’t even notice when she bumped into Tang Xizhou on the street.

Tang Xizhou was surprised. “Hey, kiddo, what’s wrong? You’re scowling like a storm cloud and didn’t even say hi.”

Jiang Beibei bumped right into his chest and got jabbed painfully by a button on his shirt. The pain triggered an instant wave of tears.

“Second Brother! I want to cry my heart out!”

Tang Xizhou smiled: “Need some brotherly talk therapy? Come on, let’s go to the rooftop and get some air. Let Second Brother hear who made you cry.”