Offense - Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Seventy thousand.

Lian Wan's eyelids drooped. She didn't say whether that was okay or not.

Seeing that she wasn't speaking, Wang Zhiqiang's tone grew a little anxious. "Xiao Lian, Brother has always treated you well, right? This isn't a huge sum for you. How about this, you help Brother out, and when I renovate the house later, I'll save a room for you. You'll be like my own sister."

Lian Wan gripped the steering wheel, her face expressionless. "How could I accept?"

Wang Zhiqiang mistakenly thought she had agreed and probed, "So…"

"The cash I have on hand," Lian Wan said, pausing for a moment, "isn't seventy thousand."

Wang Zhiqiang's smile collapsed. "How could that be? You're so young, how can you be so extravagant with your money?"

From her high vantage point, Lian Wan gave him a slight nod. "It's all in a fixed-term deposit at the bank. I can't withdraw it."

"This fucking…"

Wang Zhiqiang muttered under his breath. His expression changed in an instant; he retracted his smile, let his hands fall to his sides, and said resentfully, "Alright then, we'll discuss this again later. You should get going, don't keep them waiting."

"Mm," Lian Wan nodded. Her face was still full of the weariness from staying up all night, making her seem much colder than usual.

She closed the window and backed the truck out. In the rearview mirror, she saw Wang Zhiqiang still standing there. He seemed to kick at the sand on the ground and curse something.

It dawned on Lian Wan, and she slowly curved her lips into a smile.

So that's how he saw me too, she thought.

The good person, the big brother she thought he was, turned out to be no different from all the others who wanted to take advantage of her.

But thankfully, the truck's air conditioner seemed to have finally kicked in. The cool air washed over her skin, making the back of her neck tingle, and Lian Wan's mood was strangely calmed a little.

What does it matter? she thought. Thankfully, I'm still on my own.

It's so freeing to be alone. No need to consider too many hopes and expectations. She only needed to satisfy herself, and that was enough.

A car next to her blared its horn. Lian Wan snapped back to reality and focused her full attention on the road. The view from the windshield was excellent; she liked this angle.

She was officially on the road. The traffic was decent, but the driver's cab seemed unusually quiet. She didn't usually have the habit of listening to music, but now she turned on the truck's radio.

She skipped a few channels that were just running ads. The rest were all financial advice and music stations, which, aside from the content, didn't sound substantively different from the shopping commercials.

Lian Wan let it play and drove straight to the factory where she had taken Gu Yan last time.

Because the job was different, this time she entered the factory grounds through a side gate. The guard at the gate was a new face. A red rope was stretched across the entrance. She was a bit distracted and didn't notice, and the front of her truck knocked the rope askew.

The new guard was a young man. He didn't yell at her, just waved his hand for her to stop.

"Sorry."

He hadn't expected that when the window rolled down, it would be a female driver with long hair. Her skin seemed to glow white under the sun, and her eyes looked a little tired as she nodded at him.

The young man was stunned for a moment, then hurriedly waved his hands. "It's fine, it's fine."

Soon after, she got out with snacks and water and brought them into the guardhouse.

"Really, it's fine." Seeing her being so formal, the guards were quite amused. By the time she had finished loading her cargo and was leaving, they were already waving at her familiarly. "Be careful on the road!"

Lian Wan had driven quite a distance before she responded softly, "Mm."

This was a long haul. By noon, she still hadn't been able to unload her cargo, so she naturally couldn't make it back for lunch. Lian Wan found a small eatery at a national highway intersection that catered to drivers. She bought four buns and a container of hot and sour soup.

There were no seats in the eatery, so she took her food back to the truck.

Halfway through her meal, she found the soup had been thickened with starch and got her hand all sticky when she opened the container. She had just run out of tissues in the truck. Lian Wan couldn't bring herself to lick her fingers. Biting into a bun, she hesitated helplessly for a good while before deciding to go back to the eatery to borrow some.

Who would have known that she hadn't taken more than two steps when her phone started vibrating in her pocket.

She didn't have time to answer the call. Lian Wan first rinsed her hands clean at a faucet by the wall. By the time she had dried them, the call had already stopped. She took out her phone as she walked back, and the caller ID for the missed call read "Sister."

Zhou Yanqian had changed it on her phone that afternoon when they had napped together.

She had changed the WeChat contact name at the same time. Perhaps Lian Wan's stunned expression had been too obvious, because Zhou Yanqian, lying on the bed, had hooked her with her gaze and said, "What's with that look? You don't like it?"

As she spoke, she gave Lian Wan a light kick and turned her back to her. The woman's body arched into an alluring curve between her waist and hips, distinctly displaying her form before Lian Wan, yet her tone was airy. "If you don't like it, then forget it."

"I do." Lian Wan hugged her from behind. At the time, she had rested her hand on that curve and greedily buried her face, worried that saying any more would expose her rapacious desires. "I'm willing."

That afternoon, she had called her "Sister" many times in a clingy, sweet voice, as if whining affectionately. The woman had indulgently wrapped her arms around her neck, responding gently to everything she said, and finally patted her head and said, "Go to sleep."

Go to sleep.

As Lian Wan thought of this, that wave of sleepiness washed over her again. She returned to the truck and dialed the number back.

Who knew, the ringtone sounded again and again. Just as Lian Wan was losing patience and the call was about to disconnect automatically, it connected with a beep.

As if to build up her courage, or perhaps out of impatience, Lian Wan spoke first. "Hello?"

On the other end, the woman's voice was soft and clear. "Hello? What's wrong?"

"My phone was on silent," she said. "I just saw."

Lian Wan felt slightly awkward and asked in a low voice, "…Is something wrong?"

"Oh." She seemed to remember something and laughed softly. "It's nothing, I just wanted to see if you'd eaten."

In the background on her end, there was the sound of a range hood, as if she were cooking in the kitchen.

"…I'm still out," Lian Wan said.

The scorching sun beat down. On the road, rumbling dump trucks passed by from time to time. The entire chaotic scene felt like a different world from the one on the other end of the line. The complex disappointment Lian Wan had accumulated all morning seemed to find an outlet at this moment. "Have you eaten?"

"Almost," the voice on the other end said. Her tone was as if they were close friends, not two women who had shared an ambiguous intimacy. "You sound really tired. Are you busy?"

"Not tired…" Lian Wan faltered for a moment, then lowered the bun she had just raised to her mouth.

"Hm?"

"If…" The sunlight streamed in unabated through the windshield, making Lian Wan's head feel dizzy. A weariness that suddenly bloomed from within her made her voice sound lighter and fainter, like a gust of aimless wind.

"If…" she said, "if you were really my sister, that would be nice."

As she said this, she immediately heard a distinct laugh from the other end. The woman's voice softened and dropped lower. "What's wrong… you sound so wronged. Should Sister give you a hug?"

Lian Wan lowered her head, silently staring at the markings on the dashboard.

Zhou Yanqian sighed. "You've gone quiet again. When are you going to change this habit of yours?"

Lian Wan replied in a very small voice, "I'm sorry."

"Mm." Zhou Yanqian hummed. There was a click as she seemed to turn off the stove. The sound of the range hood also faded, eventually disappearing completely, until only her voice remained, ringing clearly in Lian Wan's ear. "So, do you want to come over for dinner tonight?"

A cloud shifted in the sky, and the sunlight in the driver's seat dimmed.

Lian Wan's gaze went blank for a moment.

Her eyelashes trembled slightly. "Okay."

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