"Hehe..." I chuckled wryly, "Sorry, sorry... I didn't mean to."
"Hmph!" Yang Wei snorted and ignored me.
Both of them looked a little embarrassed. I was silent for a moment, then said, "We can't just wait here like this, can we? We need to find a way to ask for help."
“Yeah, I have a GPS tracker in my car. If my men don’t come back soon, they’ll come looking for me.” Yang Wei sighed. “We can’t go out now. Who knows if those guys are still looking for us around here.”
I'm speechless.
My phone wasn't on me at all, and even if it were, it would have been broken long ago. In this desolate wilderness, even if we shouted for help, no one would hear us.
After a moment of silence, Yang Wei suddenly asked me, "Chen Yang... have you ever killed anyone?"
"Huh? What?" I was a little surprised. "Why did you suddenly ask that?"
Yang Wei didn't speak, so I could only sigh and say, "No."
"So how did you learn your kung fu?"
I smiled wryly and said, "Please... Miss... learning kung fu isn't for killing..." As I said this, a thought suddenly struck me, and I asked in return, "Have you killed anyone?"
Yang Wei remained silent.
After a moment of silence, I suddenly heard two strange "cooing" sounds. Just as I was wondering what was going on, I heard two more "cooing" sounds, like the sound of some gas rolling around...
"Huh? What's that sound?" I couldn't help but ask.
"..." Yang Wei seemed unable to hold back and said irritably, "My stomach... I'm hungry."
I almost laughed, but I was too embarrassed to ask, "Are you hungry?"
"Hmph! Otherwise, why do you think I drove out in the middle of the night? I was hungry, and I heard you have a really good snack here, so I'm going to try it."
"Extravagant..." I sighed. "What kind of food doesn't the hotel have? And you still want to drive to the city?"
“How could a hotel possibly have real street food?” Yang Wei said casually. “I like wontons, and they have to be the kind made at roadside stalls, cooked over charcoal. I’ve loved them since I was a kid in Chinatown in America… The ones in hotels just don’t taste like anything!”
I'm speechless.
That's utterly corrupt!
Driving a luxury sports car out in the middle of the night just to eat a bowl of wontons from a roadside stall?!
It seems that the tastes of the wealthy are really hard to judge...
After a moment of silence, Yang Wei asked again, "Why were you downstairs at the hotel tonight? Sitting alone by the fountain looking at the stars?"
I thought for a moment and said, "To be honest, you should really be grateful that I ran into you downstairs at the hotel tonight. Otherwise, you'd be falling down the hillside with no one to go with you now."
Yang smiled and said, "I've already said thank you once."
"Hey...you're so rich, I think you should just give me a blank check, that would better show your sincerity."
"You want money?" Yang Wei suddenly sat up straight, looking at me with surprise, as if I were an alien. "You're Ye Huan's confidant, how could you be short of money? Ye Huan has always treated his subordinates very well. You run such a big business under him, how could you be short of money?"
"Sigh..." I shook my head and said again what I had said countless times all night: "I'm not rich, really not."
"So what do you do?"
“I am…” I thought for a moment and said, “Anyway, you can find this information yourself, so why ask me?”
Yang smiled and said, "It wouldn't hurt to talk about it."
Suddenly, a thought struck me: "Why do I feel like you're deliberately teasing me, making me talk, making me say things..."
Yang Wei's expression was a little strange. After thinking for a moment, she smiled and said, "That's because you lost too much blood from your injury. I was afraid that you would never wake up after you fell asleep."
"Nonsense." I snorted and said, "It's not like I suffered any fatal injury."
Yang Wei opened her mouth...
Good heavens! I actually saw her blush! This proud and aloof woman actually seemed to be blushing!
Then I think I heard her whisper something...
"It's too dark here. I'll be scared if no one talks to me."
I was stunned!
A hint of shyness flashed across Yang Wei's face. Although this shyness quickly disappeared and her expression instantly returned to its usual indifference, her eyes softened involuntarily. She was already an extremely beautiful girl, and now that her eyes had softened, she was incredibly captivating!
Almost involuntarily, I blurted out, "What a pity...what a pity..."
"What?"
"Yang Wei, you are very beautiful... but if you could be a little more vulnerable sometimes, your charm would be even greater."
A flash of embarrassment and anger crossed Yang Wei's face, then her expression darkened, and she gritted her teeth, saying, "Shut up! My affairs are none of your business!"
After a pause, just as I was getting bored, I suddenly heard her say in an even lower voice, "What...what did you just say? Am I...pretty?"
"Sigh..." I sighed, "Who said you're not pretty... unless he's blind."
A blush crept across Yang Wei's face, and her eyes seemed to soften a little, but then her expression turned cold, and she said angrily, "Whether I'm pretty or not is none of your business!"
After saying that, she pushed me hard, and I cried out in pain as she pushed me to the ground. The movement aggravated the pain in my arm, and I couldn't help but groan a few times.
This time, however, Yang Wei ignored me completely, not even glancing at me, leaving me lying on the ground. I struggled for a moment, then used one hand to prop myself up and leaned back against the hillside. After catching my breath, I said with a wry smile, "These days, praising a girl's beauty will get you scolded... Does anyone actually enjoy being called ugly?"
Yang Wei remained unmoved and coldly snorted, "Enough."
The two fell silent again. I just felt that this woman was a bit strange, and her temper was even more unpredictable.
After a while, I suddenly heard her call my name softly: "Chen Yang".
I didn't say anything, and she whispered it again.
"Um?"
"You're not asleep?" Yang Wei seemed relaxed. "Say something."
I was a little annoyed: "What did you say?"
Damn, this woman's mood changes faster than turning the pages of a book!
They just told me to shut up, and now they're asking me to speak!
"Tell me how you learned kung fu? Or tell me something else." Yang Wei sighed. Although her tone was calm, it had a hint of pleading in it. "I don't like being alone in dark places. I always feel uncomfortable."
"What's the point of talking about learning kung fu?" I sighed. "In this day and age, no matter how good your kung fu is, it's not as useful as a gun."
But as I said this, I suddenly laughed. At first, I laughed quietly, then I couldn't help but laugh louder, and then the pain from my wound made me laugh and groan at the same time.
"why are you laughing?"
"I..." I took a deep breath. "Speaking of martial arts, I suddenly remembered a joke. About the two of us falling down the hillside... if this were a story... hehe... if we found a martial arts manual below when we fell, our story could be made into a martial arts film. If we encountered a venerable immortal below, it could be a cultivation novel... if we accidentally traveled back in time to ancient times or to a magical alternate dimension, it could be a time-travel story. If there happened to be alien ruins below when we fell, it would become a science fiction story... if we found a pile of rocks below when we fell..."
Yang Wei took the bait. "So what will happen?"
I sighed, deliberately suppressing a laugh: "...Then we'll hang up."
Yang Wei was taken aback for a moment, then smiled broadly.
(P.S., thanks to my friend Dongxie Xuantian for providing the inspiration for this joke.)
She paused for a moment, glanced at me, and said with a faint smile, "Chen Yang, I didn't expect you to be able to tell jokes."
I chuckled and said, "Of course I'll tell jokes... but you're too aloof. When we were chatting upstairs just now, you seemed very arrogant and unapproachable."
Yang Wei nodded, seemingly thinking for a moment, then said in a very serious tone in a low voice, "Tell me another one, I really want to hear another one now."
Tell me another one?
To be honest, telling jokes isn't my forte, and I'm not very good at using jokes to charm girls. I'm not the type of man who uses sweet talk.
After thinking for a while, I finally remembered a joke about prostitutes... This is not surprising, considering my work environment, many of the jokes I hear are about the prostitute industry.
I coughed and chuckled softly, "The story goes like this... Once, the police arrested a prostitute... um, by 'prostitute,' I mean a woman who works as a prostitute, you know? That's what they call her in China... After the police arrested her, she defended herself, saying, 'I'm not a prostitute! I just sell condoms worth ten yuan to customers for two hundred yuan... at most, it's just price gouging!' The police asked her: 'Then what about sleeping with him?' The prostitute confidently replied, 'That's me teaching him how to use it! It's after-sales service!'"
Book 1, Part 1: A Man in the Martial World, Forced by His Own Will, Chapter 27: Is it her? Or not her?
I've lost count of how many jokes I told. I wasn't originally a great joke teller, especially since I grew up in nightclubs, and most of the jokes I heard were related to sex. Some were subtle, while others were utterly vulgar.
I told her all of my jokes one by one, and Yang Wei listened quietly, occasionally smiling. But her smiles weren't strong; it was as if she had heard every joke and was amused by me, yet she still maintained a certain indifference... How to put it? Very restrained, very rational.
After talking for a while, I felt a bit tired. I was seriously injured and hadn't slept all night, so I was inevitably a little out of sorts. We moved a little closer together, and Yang Wei suddenly sighed and whispered, "Thank you. I haven't laughed so easily in a long time."
"Huh?" I didn't understand what she meant.
Yang Wei smiled calmly: "You don't understand. No one has ever told me these jokes to make me happy."
"Why?" I asked, puzzled. "A girl as pretty as her, shouldn't she have lots of men vying to pursue her, flatter her, and make her happy?"
Yang Wei shook her head: "You don't understand. When the people around me talk to me, they are all very... very afraid of me. They never dare to say these things." She suddenly chuckled: "As for these dirty jokes, I have seen them, but no one has ever dared to tell them or perform them in front of me."
Afraid of her?
I was jolted awake, and suddenly realized a fact!
Yang Wei's identity! She comes from a family in Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the United States... A family that runs a gambling business must have intricate connections with the underworld! Judging from her appearance, she should be a cold, serious, and proud woman on a normal day. I'm afraid no one has ever dared to be so "insolent" in front of her.
Thinking of this, I noticed that Yang Wei's gaze towards me had softened considerably. She suddenly smiled and whispered, "Chen Yang, you're a very cute guy... and the jokes you told were really funny."
She paused, a hint of hesitation in her eyes, but then, as if making a decision, she said to me, "Chen Yang, you..."
"What about me?"
"You shouldn't work with Ye Huan anymore," Yang Wei sighed. "You're not suited for this industry."
My expression changed slightly, and my tone turned cold: "I'm Huan Ge's man. I'll do whatever he tells me to do!"
Yang Wei's gaze lingered on my face for a moment, then something complex seemed to appear in her eyes. She turned her head and whispered, "You're a smart person, I can tell. Ye Huan probably values you a lot too. But... I also see that you're not ruthless enough. There's a kind thing in your eyes... There are many things you don't understand right now. In our circle, it's either you eat others or they eat you... You may be smart, but someone like you will suffer sooner or later."
"You're saying I'm a soft-hearted person?" I couldn't help but sneer twice.
Yang smiled and didn't argue with me, but the way she looked at me made me feel a little uncomfortable, as if it carried a strange feeling.
Finally, I gradually lost my strength. At first, my eyelids were drooping, but I could still barely keep them open. Later, I felt as if my eyelids weighed a ton, and they slowly closed. A moment later, I fell into a deep sleep...
I felt like I was having a dream… In the dream, Yang Wei and I were huddled together, both shivering from the cold. Suddenly, I felt dizzy, and Yang Wei disappeared. I tried to scream but couldn't make a sound. The person in front of me turned into the guy who ambushed us on the hillside that night. I had a broken arm and was no match for him. In the end, I watched as he pointed a gun at my temple and grinned maliciously… The laughter started off shrilly, but then it suddenly turned into Yang Wei's voice. The laughter sounded just like the one I used to tell her jokes that night…
Finally, I woke up.
When I opened my eyes, my first feeling was dizziness. My head felt as heavy as if it were filled with lead, as if everything under my skull had solidified into a lump. My eyes hurt a little, and the light was so bright that I couldn't open them. After my eyes finally adjusted to the light, I realized that someone was shining a medical flashlight into my eyes.