石器盒子

Chapter 556 From Now On, I Will Take Care of You (2)

Back in America, Su Yunjin had shed tears for Jiang Ye.

Jiang Ye who had never seen her crying at first thought her brother might be seriously ill. But then, he felt something was off since it would be unlikely that Su Yunjin was to go back to America if Su Hongyuan was gravely ill.

“Yunjin.” Jiang Ye wiped the tears from her canthi and laid his hands on her shoulders as if giving her some strength, “Tell me. What happened?”

Su Yunjin finally controlled her tears and told the facts from beginning to end, how Su Hongyuan had forced her to marry an old man.

Jiang Ye was not mad, but his tender love showed deep inside his eyes.

He hugged Su Yunjin harder and harder as if he wanted to integrate her into his blood, merging into one being.

After a long time, he just said, “I’ll protect you.”

He did not pledge in seriousness but in firmness, as though this was a promise without any sense of ritual required, which he would only make once in his life. He was far more sincere than any others.

Su Yunjin nodded, burying her head in his arms and held him tightly, allowing herself to act as an ostrich.

It was the safest moment in her entire life.

Su Yunjin’s escape to the United States was soon known by Su Hongyuan who lost his temper and then gave her a call.

“Su Yunjin!” he yelled, “I’ve raised you all this time, and you ran off with a stone-broke orphan? I’ll give you three days to sort things out there and come back, or you won’t get a penny from me!”

Su Yunjin held her tears and closed her eyes to stop looking at her phone.

Jiang Ye next to her took the phone and said drily to the other side, “I will take care of Yunjin from now on, so she won’t need your money anymore. And don’t try to blackmail her with your so-called past devotion. I will pay back all the money you’ve spent on her over the years.”

Su Hongyuan completely revealed his true face as he dug back at him, “You? An orphan who has just graduated and is earning less than a thousand dollars a month is telling me that he’ll pay me back? You are way out of your league!”

“Mr. Su,” Jiang Ye still said in a soft voice, “You’re too assertive. Given your status as a chairman of a company, it is not a good thing to be so arbitrary.”

“Oh, I’m not that assertive. I have a deal for you,” Su Hongyuan said with disdain, “Jiang Ye, I will give you two million dollars to leave my sister.”

“Yunjin is priceless in my mind and I won’t leave her,” Jiang Ye directly rejected without a half-second hesitation. “And, Mr. Su, what you said not only insults me, but also Yunjin.”

“...” For a moment, Su Hongyuan had nothing to say.

Jiang Ye maintained a calm and gentle tone, “Yunjin doesn’t need the care from a person such as you. Please do not disturb our lives after this.”

Once he said that, Jiang Ye hung up the phone. He had yet to put it down when Yunjin rushed into his arms to hug him with all her strength; it seemed as if she would never let go.

He touched Su Yunjin’s hair, “You may not be able to go shopping on 5th Avenue these days. Will you feel bored?”

“No!” She raised her head and smiled, “I want to work to support myself just like how you did before!”

Despite not having financial worries, she didn’t find it easy to get good grades in the previous year.

Having her living funds cut off by Su Hongyuan was just one more challenge for her.

She was not afraid.

Su Hongyuan did not give up and made an appearance in person to take Su Yunjin back.

Fortunately, Jiang Ye had made preparations; he had called the police to solve the problem.

At that time, Su Yunjin broke off the brother-sister relationship with Su Hongyuan and vowed to never contact him again.

After Su Hongyuan left, she found a part-time job at a restaurant. The combination of her earnings and the money provided by Su Yicheng’s mother at the time when she was back in America was just enough to stay afloat some time.

Two months later, Jiang Ye became a formal employee of his company and earned a much higher salary than before. On his first payday, Su Yunjin dragged him to eat a meal of authentic Chinese cuisine in the name of celebration.

It was not the best Chinese food she had ever tasted, nor the best restaurant she had ever been to.

However, that was the happiest meal she had ever had.

At the end of the semester when she started her vacation, Jiang Ye got his first raise and also helped Su Yunjin to find a nine-to-five part-time job in a company.

Su Yunjin, who had once been able to buy several brand bags on the same day but not necessarily happy, was excited by her work prospects and could not help jumping, holding Jiang Ye and screaming crazily.

The happiness at that time was genuine. So was her satisfaction. That was because everything had been achieved by her and Jiang Ye.

There was a heavy snow in New York at Christmas that year. Jiang Ye was writing his next-year work plan on his computer when Su Yunjin was preparing dinner with her apron in their small kitchen.

They shared a fancy dinner. After eating, Jiang Ye said seriously, “Yunjin, give me another year and a half. You won’t have a rough time again.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She shrugged her shoulders with an easy grin. “Don’t press yourself too much. Rough-times for me are fine. Anyway, this is my first time to experience hardships. I even want more challenges!”

He gradually looked at her with tenderness.

He knew she intentionally understated her hardships, and as such, he was more eager to succeed.

Su Yunjin who did not want him to bear too much of a burden smiled at his handsome face. “Acting so serious with me. Haven’t you found that you pretty much like me?”

Jiang Ye smiled and kissed her lips.

One romantic night.

Next morning, Su Yunjin who woke up earlier than Jiang Ye got up and prepared breakfast. Even after she mopped the floors, Jiang Ye had yet to wake up.

As the breakfast seemed to cool, she walked into the room to give him a wakeup call. After several calls, he successfully woke up from his dream.

As he opened his eyes, his mind was a blank, seemingly having forgotten what had happened before sleep.

Later, Su Yunjin knew that Jiang Ye had a strange feeling when he woke up, a feeling that he was completely unconscious after falling asleep the night before.

In other words, it seemed that he had experienced a temporary death, without any sensations. Once he opened his eyes, he felt as if he had toured around the gates of the hell rather than sleep.

While at that time, Su Yunjin who had not noticed his anomaly stretched out her hand in front of him. “What’s wrong? Don’t tell me... You haven’t recovered yet?”

Once he came to, he leered at her, suddenly holding her waist and pulling her to bed. “Do you want to have a personal test?”

As morning went by, Jiang Ye set aside that abnormality.

With the advent of the New Year after Christmas, Jiang Ye, in addition to accompanying Su Yunjin, devoted all his remaining energy to his work, whose performance soon drew the attention of the boss; thanks to his work and capabilities, his salary doubled in less than half a year. Furthermore, he was promoted to group leader.

He presented Su Yunjin a bottle of perfume she had consistently adored and moved to an apartment with better location and facilities.

Su Yunjin was full of happiness.

It was a kind of down-to-earth happiness, wholly different from the pleasure earned by material gains previously.

Jiang Ye kept his arms around her waist and whispered, “Yunjin, I will make possible that you move back to the villa, just like how you moved out of it.”

After that, Jiang Ye was more like an eager beaver, so Su Yunjin had to give up her part-time job while juggling her studies and attending to Jiang Ye.

Even though Su Yunjin had paid more attention to his diet and supervised his exercise, something happened.

One day Jiang Ye fainted in the meeting room after helping his company get a very important client.

His colleagues called an ambulance which sent Jiang Ye to the hospital. When Su Yunjin received the news, she directly gathered up her textbooks and rushed out of the classroom. As soon as she arrived, she headed straight toward Jiang Ye’s physician.

She could still remember what the physician said with clarity, after all those years.

“Mr. Jiang went through a general checkup and we didn’t find anything unusual. The reason why he fainted could be attributed to his intense work which left him exhausted. He just needs to rest well for two days. If you’re still concerned, you can stay in the hospital until tomorrow morning. If no problems arise, he could be discharged from the hospital.”

Su Yunjin firmly believed what the physician had told her, so she cheerfully went to the ward. “Jiang Ye, you’re fine. The doctor just said you were too exhausted. You’re fine... ”

She kept repeating the last word.

Jiang Ye held her hand in a resigned tone, “Yunjin, I’m fine. I’m just too tired. A little bit of rest will make things all right. Don’t worry too much, eh?”

He already knew her well, since he had fallen in love with her long ago. His reaction was just to comfort her.

Feeling the temperature of his palm, Su Yunjin pursed her lips and nodded, but she burst into tears all of a sudden.

Although she still maintained contact with Su Yicheng’s mother, she had broken off relations with Su Hongyuan. Therefore, she could not go back to their home in A city, which meant that Jiang Ye was the person she could rely on in this world.

If something happened to him, she had no idea about how to live.

Jiang Ye was certainly aware of her fears, so he gently took her into his arms and stroked her hair to comfort her. “My dumdum, I still want to take care of you. How could anything happen? Don’t cry. Help me with the discharge so we can go and get something tasty.”

Su Yunjin held him down and refused in a severe tone, “No. The doctor suggested for you to stay in observation till tomorrow. We can eat something good by then!”

Jiang Ye repeatedly assured that he felt better after some sleep, but he was still unable to change her mind. Hence, he was forced to stay another night for observation.

At the time they both considered the observation as a mere psychological comfort; Jiang Ye would surely be okay in the next day.

What Su Yunjin had never expected was that destiny had just started to tease her. What waited for her the next day was a bolt from the blue which she could hardly bear.