Chapter 13 Jean’s Expressionless Taunt

By the time they returned to A City, it was already morning. Naturally, Tom drove the company Bentley back to the company. Sue alighted from the car. On the other side, Jean brought Bianca’s luggage down from the trunk as he said, “I’ll send you back home first so you can rest. Sleep well, and I’ll come find you at night.” Bianca nodded. They pushed their luggage along as they said goodbye to Sue and Tom. After that, they walked to the roadside and hailed a cab. Jean was thinking he should go buy a car tomorrow. It was too inconvenient without a car. Bianca was both tired and sleepy. She had slept for slightly over two hours in the car last night, but sleeping in the car was by no means comfortable. Before they could find a cab, Jean’s phone rang. “Let me pick this up.” Jean looked at his phone and gave Bianca’s a heads-up before accepting the call. Bianca looked at him and saw that he was frowning. He said “okay” into the phone a few times before adding, “Alright, I’ll be there.” “Is something the matter?” Bianca asked after he hung up. “Yeah. Our team leader said all of us have to be there before lunch for a meeting. They want to strike while the iron is hot and discuss the next steps,” Jean said, looking like he had a headache coming on. That was when a cab drove around the corner. Bianca looked at the cab and took his luggage from him. “Go on, then. I can go back myself.” Jean felt really guilty. As her boyfriend, it was only natural for him to send his girlfriend home after she returned from an exhausting business trip. Yet now he had to eschew that responsibility because of his work. Bianca got into the cab. It began to drive slowly away. Bianca drifted in and out of sleep. After some time, the cabbie turned around and told Bianca in the backseat, “We’re here.” Bianca opened her eyes and saw she was outside her neighborhood. Clearing her mind, she got out of the car. The cold was making her feel very uncomfortable. In the five years since she left A City, she had lived independently and gotten used to toughing it out alone whenever anything went wrong. A cold or fever was nothing to her anymore. Still, no matter how strong she was, she was still just a girl. She still wanted care and concern. However, Jean did not seem to notice that she was sick at all, and that left her a little disappointed. It had been two days and one night since she left home, and now she was back. She was so exhausted that Her brain was heavy. She might have fallen asleep for a while, but when she next woke up, she felt as though she was breathing fire. She propped herself up and went in search of medicine for her cold and fever. Her hand was halfway through taking a glass of water when her bell rang. Bianca hit the intercom and asked weakly, “Who is it?” She was renting this room. Aside from Jean and Nina, no one else knew about it. “Good day, Miss Rayne. I’m from the neighborhood hospital, someone ordered a home call for you. Something about giving you a shot?” The visitor was a girl dressed in a white lab coat and carrying her medicine kit. Bianca thought it over. Who called them? Was it Jean? So Jean did notice that she was sick. Perhaps it was because she was ill and weak, but Bianca’s heart was fragile and sensitive right now. Forget a house call, even a simple prescription cold medicine would have been enough to touch her heart and move her. After she had that drip, someone delivered some food to her too. Bianca’s whole body was aching when she went to open the door, but then she realized it was no ordinary delivery. There was a veritable feast there, the kind that she only saw in idol dramas. “Please sign here.” The man and woman who had brought the food looked at Bianca, their gazes complicated. Bianca felt rather awkward. She lived in a very average neighborhood, and no matter how you looked at it, she was just a regular salary worker. There was no way she was used to luxurious spreads like this. She signed the bill and the two delivery people left. Faced with such a fancy meal, Bianca was actually a bit lost. Jean came from a middle-class family, and he was not all that wealthy. She could accept it when he spent a bit of money on movies or restaurant meals usually, but something this crazy gave her a bit of a headache. Still, he already ordered it. Although she did not have much of an appetite because she was sick, she still tried her best to eat a few more bites. The meal was mostly mild in taste and easy to eat, as though it was meant specifically for sick patients. After lunch, she cleaned up her house and sent Jean a message on WeChat. She just wrote two words. “Thank you.” “For what?” Jean replied. Bianca blinked for a second before she thought it through. Maybe he thought that it was too formal to thank him, since he was her boyfriend after all. That was why she responded with, “I still think I should thank you.” Jean’s response came after a long pause. “Why are you acting all sappy all of a sudden?” Bianca knew that she was not being sappy, she was just moved. She lost her father’s love to another mother and daughter, and she had not been in contact with her aunts and uncles for a long time now. They barely counted as her family anymore. In other words, she was probably the loneliest of them all. Now, the only ones who could give her any warmth were the siblings, Jean and Nina. Jean had said in the morning that he would come visit her at night. However, he called again in the afternoon and said that something had come up, so he could not make it. Bianca looked at the three dishes and one soup that she had made for Jean. She said nothing. After she covered all the food with cling wrap, she put it all into the fridge. The next day. In the morning, Jean drove over to pick Bianca up. Bianca got into the car, her cold making her voice sound thick and nasally. Jean looked at her. “Oh, do you have a cold?” Bianca paused in the middle of putting on her seatbelt, turning to look at Jean in the driver’s seat. “Was it cold?” Jean reached out his arm in concern and touched her forehead. It was really hot to the touch, so she immediately took off her seatbelt. “Wait for me. There’s a pharmacy fifty meters away.” Bianca watched him as he left the car to get some medicine. That made it plenty obvious. What he was saying told her without a doubt that he had known about her cold before this. So that house call and fancy feast for patients yesterday afternoon… There was no way it could be Nina! Nina was busy with work. She barely had time for herself, and Bianca did not even dare to chat Nina up since she returned to A City, lest she disturbed Nina in the middle of her drafting process. Just then, the phone in her bag vibrated, buzzing. Dazed, Bianca took out her phone and looked at the caller ID. It was an unknown number. “Hello? Who is this?” Bianca was confused now. “There’s a present for you, Miss Rayne, but I rang your doorbell and you don’t seem to be at home,” the delivery man said loudly. “A present?” Bianca looked out the car window. “I’m at the entrance to the neighborhood.” When she accepted the call, she undid her belt and opened the door, getting out of the car. Two minutes later, a delivery man with a green vest approached her with a smile, immediately giving her a bouquet of flowers. “Flowers for you, Miss Rayne. They were flown in here this morning itself. Please sign here!” “Who gave me these flowers?” Bianca asked solemnly. That was all she cared about. They were flown in here! How much money must that cost? The delivery man shook his head, laughing. “Sorry, the client paid, and all we have to do is deliver it.” The huge bouquet of flowers fell into her hands. The delivery man drove away. Bianca was left frozen on the spot, moving not even an inch. The flowers were beautiful and their fragrance faint yet pleasant, but she was in no mood to savor the moment. “Bianca.” Jean’s voice came from behind her. He sounded a little less than pleased. Bianca turned around. The beautiful flowers formed a stark contrast against the dark expression on Jean’s face. “I… I don’t know who gave me these flowers.” Bianca was worried Jean would misunderstand. “You don’t know?” Jean looked directly at her, the panic in his eyes slowly turning to an accusation. Expressionlessly, he said with sarcasm dripping from his voice, “Flowers flown in specially for you. How romantic, how extravagant!”