Li Rong watched as princess bid him and Yu Yan good night and left with Zixi. He didn't want to listen or speak to anybody right now so didn't reply to any of Yu Yan's words and just kept himself to drinking from the bottle and try to forget everything else.
Yu Yan hadn't thought that Li Rong would drink to such an extent as to almost pass out before even leaving the restaurant.
She helped him into the shotgun seat and drove the car to his apartment that was a few blocks away from the Li residence. Looking at his side profile Yu Yan had the sudden desire to get hold of this person and make him hers.
"Stop the car, stop the car." Even though Li Rong was slurring his words, she understood them from his action of having dry heaves.
She immediately stopped the car and watched him as he emptied everything he had drank on to the side road.
"I am drunk. Huh! "
Then Li Rong again closed his eyes and rested with his head thrown at an angle. He looked so different from his usual razor - sharp, keen-edged personality. She watched him for a few moments as if in a trance and touched the side of his face.
"Li Rong, I started liking you a long time ago."
She gave him a little peck on the lips.
Yu Yan had thought that he was sleeping or more on the side of semi-conscious but as soon as she touched his lips, it was as if he was awake.
He suddenly pulled her towards him, his fingers touched her hair and then her neck. He removed her hair away from her neck and started kissing her skin from there and went up to her ears but it didn't make it that far when he softly whispered "princess".
It is as if a current had passed through Yu Yan and left her shocked. She couldn't move for the next few moments but Li Rong was far too gone in his drunk state and didn't stop. He tilted his head at an angle and gently bit on the side of her neck, close to her ear.
It didn't hurt at the place where he took a bite out of her but her heart was in so much pain that she didn't know what to do. She tried to push him away which somehow brought him back to his senses.
The way Li Rong suddenly darted away from her after taking a look at her face was quite telling in itself if the earlier misspoken weren't clear enough.
His face turned pale in a matter of seconds and he violently flung his head to the other side while clenching and unclenching his fists. A few minutes later, he turned towards her but his eyes don't look at her but were darting around the confined space of the car.
He cleared his throat before he spoke, "Sorry. I am sorry."
Yu Yan felt angry, hurt and disappointed.
"Why? What exactly is the reason?" She questioned him.
"Miss Yu, I am sorry. What just happened should never have transpired in the first place. Just treat it as if it never occurred." He replied in a usual reticent way.
Yu Yan was even more infuriated with his words.
"Make it seem as if it never happened? If it was your 'precious princess' would you have reacted the same way? Will you be able to act as if nothing happened?" She questioned him sharply.
Li Rong looked at her for a second after her words and calmly replied, "You are overthinking it, Miss Yu."
"While we were in the restaurant you called me Yanyan, now it's Miss Yu." She tried to remind him.
"It was just a way of addressing you, I was calling you that's all. It doesn't mean anything." He deflected her words with ease.
"No, don't brush off my words like that. You were purposely being intimate with me at that time. Why? To show Yueyue? Right?" She wanted to hear his answer.
Li Rong doesn't answer her but his silence is the best answer to her question and they both know it.
"I already know that she is in your heart. I already know that in front of her, you were putting on an act. I know the reason you are going out with me and letting people see us is not because you like me or even want to accompany me. But even then, it gave me a shred of happiness. Just because you were with me. Just because you were smiling at me and calling me by my name." Yu Yan said in her dulcet tone.
"Do you know I love you a lot? She will never love you the way I do. Remember the first time we met each other. You were so apathetic towards me when you called me a child born on the wrong side of the blanket. But I still fell in love with you. When you were jealous of Zixi today, do you know how sad I felt? He is her subordinate who has to follow her around like a dog but you were jealous of a person whose status is as different from you as the distance between earth and sky. Why were you jealous?" Yu Yan whispered her words.
"Just because he spends his days following her. Ha! She doesn't even know that you and Zixi would give up your entire world for her. She is so clueless." Her last words insinuated a lot of unsavoury things but Yu Yan was past the point of caring so she didn't censure her words in any way.
Li Rong had been silently listening to the other girl's words. It wasn't that he couldn't refute her words or stop her blathering. It was just that he had already taken advantage of her so be let her vent her feelings.
At least this way she wouldn't take out her frustrations on her sister and impede her in some way.
But when she started talking about Yueyue, he couldn't help himself and cut off her words.
"Don't talk about her like that."
"Why? Riddle me this Li Rong, everyone knows that you are childhood friends with her, that you can coax her no matter what. Even Zixi has been with her for so long. Even if he didn't love her, his entire existence is meant to help her." Yu Yan ran off her mouth without thinking about the consequences of her words.
"Both of you men have spent more than enough time with her. So, how could she not notice your emotions, your feelings when they are blatantly clear and visible in both of your eyes and actions? If either of you hasn't been able to win her over until now, what chances do you really have with her?" She tried to talk some sense into Li Rong.
When the only response to her words was a cold silence, Yu Yan changed her tracks, "She doesn't like you in a romantic sense, Li Rong. Why won't you still accept me after knowing all that? It isn't as if you are unaware of whatever I have said right now. Tell me why? How am I not as good as her?"
Yu Yan hadn't thought she would say so much of her inner - thoughts on the spur of the moment but Li Rong's actions had hurt her and she hadn't been able to keep her brain to mouth filter on.
Li Rong looked at the girl sitting opposite him and heard her words.
"You are always comparing yourself to her which shows your lack of confidence in yourself. You and Yueyue have completely different lives. If you keep getting bothered by it, you'll just end up as someone else's background one day." He said amicably.
Yu Yan could see that all the words she had spoken hadn't meant a thing to him.
"I don't want to hear your words. You are always on Yueyue's side so why would I or my feelings matter to you. I seriously like you. Why are you being so unfair to me?" She wouldn't let this man slip her by at any cost.
"You keep saying that you like me. Is it true? Is it really? How come I don't feel it? In your eyes, I am just the best candidate to be your husband and a trophy to parade around in front of Yueyue. I am just a tool to add to your glory. You just want to snatch away Yueyue's best friend and make him your husband so that you can have a bigger claim on me for the rest of all our lives. It was someone else in my place and position, you would have been content and happy to 'like' him."
Now Li Rong was really pissed off at this presumptuous girl and his words had turned into merciless blades that could cut off a person within seconds and leave them without any mask or dignity to hide behind.
What gave this presumptuous girl the right to question him??
"How do you expect others to care for you truthfully when you yourself are full of lies?" Li Rong gave her a dismissive look.
Yu Yan's eyes watered at his words, she tried to blink away her resentment and hastily left the car. "I am leaving. Call your chauffeur to drive you back."
Zixi and Su Li had already reached the Yu residence. Before she went inside she turned towards Zixi.
"Okay. You can leave now. Also, thank you for today. I was really happy to have dinner with you."
"Dream a good dream tonight, Miss" Zixi said those words and left for his own quarters.
He sighed to himself thinking that making her happy was the most important responsibility of his life she didn't need to express any thanks.