Chapter 357: Guidance
On a May evening in Seoul, the air still lingered with the rich aroma of grilled meat and pickled side dishes. Outside the restaurant's enormous glass windows, dusk was deepening, and a layer of ambiguous purple-red permeated the sky.
Liu Zhimin set down her half-finished Iced Americano, the plastic cup bottom tapping crisply on the table.
She frowned, as if displeased with the half-empty cup before her, or perhaps because Jiang Shu's words had just struck a nerve, causing her restless irritation to directly affect her mood.
Her gaze unfocused, she scanned the private room, finally settling on Jiang Shu, who was leisurely sipping his after-meal drink across from her.
His elegant and composed ease somehow infuriated her.
He had just been making outrageous remarks about her relationship with Zhang Yuanying, and now he was eating and drinking here as if nothing had happened?
"Are you full?" Liu Zhimin suddenly spoke, her voice carrying an irritability she herself didn't detect.
Jiang Shu lifted his eyelids, his gaze lightly sweeping over Liu Zhimin's visibly agitated face, and the corner of his mouth curved subtly.
"Yes, I'm full," Jiang Shu gently set down his cup, its bottom making a crisp sound against the table.
"From your tone, it sounds like something's on your mind?" His tone was gentle and steady, yet every word was clear, landing heavily in Liu Zhimin's ears.
A flame instantly ignited in Liu Zhimin's heart.
This guy in front of her was clearly the cause of all this, yet now he was asking her what was wrong as if nothing had happened?
She really was something, why was she feeling guilty just now!
"I'm fine!" Liu Zhimin said through gritted teeth.
The faint smile on Jiang Shu's face deepened instead, completely unaffected by Liu Zhimin's sharp tone.
He leaned back into the soft chair, his posture appearing even more relaxed, his gaze sweeping over Liu Zhimin's puffed-up cheeks, like looking at a ruffled kitten.
"It seems your worries are troubling you greatly," Jiang Shu said slowly.
"Hmph," Liu Zhimin snorted, "If you're full, let's go!"
With that, Liu Zhimin didn't even look at Jiang Shu, rising and walking away.
Jiang Shu was completely unfazed by her behavior. He leisurely wiped his lips, then stood up and followed Liu Zhimin's pace.
The glass revolving door slowly turned before them. Liu Zhimin strode out of the restaurant, but the moment she stepped outside, a unique scent, a mixture of earthy dampness and the slightly metallic smell characteristic of a city night, rushed into her nostrils.
Liu Zhimin instinctively narrowed her eyes and looked up at the sky.
The rain poured down, large, dense raindrops exploding on the ground outside the restaurant like the most violent drumbeats.
Her vision was distorted by the chaotic downpour; distant neon signs swayed in the rain.
"Tsk," Liu Zhimin's tone carried obvious annoyance, "What kind of awful weather, such heavy rain late at night, it's really..."
"Don't rush," a calm voice suddenly sounded beside Liu Zhimin.
Liu Zhimin knew who was speaking without turning her head.
She turned her head to see a very large, obviously high-quality, pure black long-handled umbrella appear in Jiang Shu's hand.
"Where did you get an umbrella?" In that instant, confusion overshadowed Liu Zhimin's annoyance.
"From the restaurant," Jiang Shu said with a smile, pointing to the restaurant behind him.
"Tsk, the evils of capitalism," Liu Zhimin pouted.
"I know what's bothering you," Jiang Shu suddenly moved closer, the distance between them instantly becoming extremely short, so close that she could clearly smell his clean and fresh men's cologne, with a subtle hint of cedar, the same scent as his car air freshener – very unique.
At this moment, Liu Zhimin could even feel her heart accelerating in her chest.
"The outside world is pitting you and Xiao Yuan against each other, and both you and Xiao Yuan have naturally accepted this setup and integrated it into your personas."
"Even though you both care about each other."
"Even though you both value each other."
"This care and concern, under the sway of public opinion, have gradually become hidden."
"And today, these hidden emotions were brought to light by me face-to-face. This created a completely opposing conflict with your persona; your persona cannot accept such a conflict, so you are very irritable and instinctively want to escape."
Jiang Shu spoke word by word. With each sentence, Liu Zhimin's highly raised head lowered a bit, until it was completely bowed.
Looking at the bowed Liu Zhimin, the corner of Jiang Shu's mouth curved slightly.
He had brought this up on a whim today, but he believed he had done nothing wrong.
The opposition between Liu Zhimin and Zhang Yuanying was for the company's traffic needs, but they themselves didn't need to abide by such opposition.
As he said, twin stars like them might never appear again in the future.
As the patriarch of DM Entertainment, Jiang Shu was willing to act as a leader in their relationship, to let them face their true selves and become real people, rather than artist dolls forever confined by rules and personas.
Looking up at the heavy rain outside the eaves, Jiang Shu, in a wonderful mood, suddenly had a lyric surface in his mind.
"The most beautiful is not a rainy day~~~"
The melodious singing forcibly paused Liu Zhimin's agitated thoughts. She looked up at Jiang Shu, who was humming a melody she had never heard.
Suddenly, she, who was usually slow to catch on, realized Jiang Shu's intention.
Don't look at what a person says, look at what he does.
While Jiang Shu was dating her, he did do things that betrayed her, but ever since they met, he had always helped her in his own way.
On her acting path, Jiang Shu was her guide.
In dealing with others, Jiang Shu was her problem-solver.
In terms of interpersonal relationships, Jiang Shu was her former teacher.
No matter how she looked at it, she was already inseparable from him.
Perhaps she had been inseparable from him for a long time, she just hadn't realized it.
As Jiang Shu said, she and Zhang Yuanying were actually the friends who cared about each other the most, but on the surface, they seemed like mortal enemies who would never interact. But what kind of mortal enemies would understand everything about each other and still care about each other's recent situation?
Her irritability was perhaps truly as Jiang Shu said: her superficial disguise had been stripped away, exposing her true emotions to the sunlight, leading to a momentary, uncontrollable emotional outburst.
Liu Zhimin looked up at Jiang Shu's profile, listening to him hum a Chinese song she had never heard, then turned to look at the increasingly fierce downpour outside.
Her originally irritable mood, strangely, calmed down as the rain intensified.
The two stood at the entrance of the restaurant, one humming a song, the other quietly watching the rain, not interfering with each other, yet so harmonious.
