Perfect Fiancé Chapter 30

h.e.l.lO~ It's Sunday, everyone, I apologise for the late chapter today. I just came back from a staff retreat so I'm posting this after a quick rest, edit and dinner~ Enjoy this fluffy chapter. There's a third wheel this time~ Poor guy~ XD

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Alrighty, without further ado, it's… Chapter 30!

Chapter 30: Eyes The meaning of sunflowers in the novel represents silent love. However, in the j.a.panese flower language, they represent respect, pa.s.sionate love, radiance. In the Victorian flower language (the most common one around), they represent adoration, loyalty and longevity. Also, with this flower being present in the novel, that is why it is a rather apt symbolism for the novel and the fan name: ‘sunflowers'!

Call her Jiejie?

Lu Xi slightly raised his eyebrow, but at that moment, the elevator doors open. At the same time, the two people looked towards the doors, it was on the eighth floor?

A mother and daughter pair entered the elevator. The little girl looked about four to five years old and wore a broad-brimmed sun hat. She held a big, light pink colored, rabbit shaped cotton candy in her hand and she looked fair, adorable and delicate. As the elevator began to move, her body swayed due to her unstable footing. In the nick of time, Su Jin reached out to support her. Once the young girl was standing firm, she shot Su Jin a sweet smile as she loudly spoke, "thank you, pretty aunt!"

Aunt? Su Jin was shocked and unconsciously looked towards Lu Xi who stood beside her. Noticing the man's palm curled into a fist as it was stealthily placed at the curl of his lips, the sound of a light cough covered the laughter that was on the verge of bursting. However, that pair of alluring eyes betrayed him as the clear laughter in his eyes was itching to overflow.

It was rare for Su Jin to be mocked like so, therefore, she glared firmly at the man who was laughing joyously. Lowering her head, as she observed the little girl who was staring at her anxiously, the depression and frustration in her heart immediately vanishing. Bending down, she lifted the girl's hat and lightly patted her crown with a light smile, "good girl- next time, be careful okay."

Obediently, the girl nodded and the lady, who was holding onto her, also smiled towards Su Jin to express her grat.i.tude.

As the elevator reached the first floor, the mother and daughter were standing in front, while Su Jin and Lu Xi were at the back of the car.

Observing the girl that stood beside him watch the pair leave with a somewhat distracted expression, Lu Xi questioned, "do you like children?"

"Eh?" Su Jin was surprised when she heard this. But, she shook her head and spoke in a low voice, "it was just that I was thinking that a child having someone to love them was great…"

This was spoken in a low and soft murmur.

Lu Xi seemed to not have clearly heard her and was puzzled, "huh?"

"It's nothing really. That little girl was really cute, of course, I like her." Her expression smoothed out and Su Jin replied with a light smile, "let's go, it's almost time for the meeting." After she said this, she took the lead and walked forward.

As a cool breeze blew by, a faint fragrance from her waist-long tresses left a thin trail behind her as she walked.

Lu Xi's eye darkened and then, with a curl of his lips, he followed behind.

The Red Dragonfly Cafe.

When the two people arrived, it was just twenty minutes past twelve. With a sweep of her gaze, Su Jin looked around the cafe. It was lunchtime and naturally, there were not many people in the cafe; thus taking everything into account, there were only three tables of people.

A pair were sitting together side by side in an intimate manner, therefore, it was clear they were sweethearts. At another table, there were three girls and at the last table, sitting opposite each other were a man and a woman who had both brought along laptops; they were clearly working.

Apparently, that Mr Qin had not arrived yet. Su Jin thought for a moment and then brought Lu Xi to the seats by the window where she had sat before.

As there was still one more person coming, Lu Xi gentlemanly helped Su Jin bring over a seat from an adjacent table and placed the shopping bags on it. Softly, he said, "I'll go to the washroom for a bit."

"Okay." Su Jin nodded and waved the menu in her hand as she asked, "what would you like?"

"Drinking coffee on an empty stomach isn't good." Lu Xi reached out and flipped the menu in her hands to the last page, "order from here instead."

Dessert? Su Jin raised an eyebrow at him and then, complied with a nod.

As Lu Xi left for the washroom, the doorbell that hung on the cafe door melodiously rang as it was pushed open.

A man dressed in a light coloured suit and holding a black briefcase entered. He looked around and straight away, he walked towards Su Jin.

"h.e.l.lo, are you Miss Su Jin?"

Su Jin raised her head and noticed that the man standing before had mostly common facial features. However, he had a pair of long, narrow eyes, so even though he smiled, he exuded a shrewd aura.

"Mr Qin?" She queried.

"I am Qin An." He shot out a hand to her for a handshake.

With a curl of her lip, Su Jin stood and shook his hand, "h.e.l.lo, I am Su Jin."

The smile at Qin An's lips was unchanged yet his eyes darkened lightly. He then sat in front of Su Jin and jested, "I feel like Miss Su Jin's name seems rather familiar, but I'm not sure where I have met you before. That said, I didn't think that you would be this unwilling to even tell me your real name?"

Su Jin was shocked and then recomposed herself, the p.r.o.nunciation of Su Jin and Su Jin weren't that different, so was this person misunderstanding something here?

"Mr Qin, this excuse of being familiar is certainly an old, cliche conversation starter." Su Jin shook her head and smiled, "also, my name is Su Jin, Su from 'the city', Suzhou and Jin from the word, 'beautiful'."(1)

(1) There is a slight difference between the two words here. As explained in a previous chapter, Su Jin (苏锦) is her own name. It's read as sū jǐn while her pen name is Su Jin (素锦) which means plain, unadorned and brocade. Or in this case, with Su Jin's official explanation of her name, her pen name means unadorned/natural/plain beauty.

Therefore, in English, this nuance isn't so p.r.o.nounced and obvious as it is in Chinese due to the difference in characters which is the equivalent to a change in spelling. Hence, this translation here uses the italics in this manner when her penname is referred to like this: Miss Su Jin and with her own name, it won't be, like this: Miss Su Jin.

Su Jin……

Qin An's eyes widened and he was stunned. As his mouth gaped slightly, his expression became rather strange.

"Mr Qin?" Su Jin looked at the rapid change in expression of the person before her and called out his name with a probing question.

Before, he looked rather astute, yet now why did he look so foolish? Could it be that he had some unmentionable illness?

"Su… Jin?" Qin An repeated once more haltingly.

Su Jin's phoenix eyes blinked and nodded.

"The eldest young miss of the Su family?"

Su Jin continued to nod, her ident.i.ty in Shenhai was not some particular sort of secret, so guessing that was not strange.

With a bob of his Adam's apple, Qin An then sat upright like a schoolchild and with a light smile, he called out, "lady boss, h.e.l.lo!"

At this, it was Su Jin's turn to be stunned.

"I'm Qin An, Director Lu Xi's a.s.sistant." Qin An sighed and explained to the surprised Su Jin, "in a previous conversation, Director Lu said that he had taken a fancy to a novel so he wanted me to discuss adaptation rights…"

"That's strange." Su Jin could not help but interrupt Qin An and asked with a frown, "the editor said that you were Sheng Ming Production's…"

As she said this, she stopped. Sheng Ming Productions…… Sheng Ming…… Su Jin abruptly sighed, it was no wonder that she felt it was familiar to her, didn't the Sheng Ming corporation belong to the Lu family?

Seeing that she understood, Qin An smiled and nodded.

Only… Su Jin lowered her head slightly as a shred of puzzlement flashed through her phoenix eyes, wasn't this too much of a coincidence?

However, this matter about her writing novels was something even her family did not know about.

"Boss!" Qin An's eyes lit up as he called out while standing up once more.

Reflexively, Su Jin turned around to look.

"Qin An?" Lu Xi raised an eyebrow but it seemed that he was not too surprised. With a slight nod to signal to Qin An to be seated, he too sat beside Su Jin and asked, "are you Su Jin?"

"You already knew?" Su Jin's eyes turned cold, if this was a method of his to pursue her, then she really had misjudged this person.

"I deduced." Lu Xi smiled and replied comfortably, "last night, Xiao An'zi told me that the author of 'Sunflower' had reached out to him and made an appointment to meet with him at noon today. Then, when you asked me earlier about how familiar I am with law clauses concerning adapting screenplays, naturally, I inferred the connection."

His expression was too natural. Su Jin bit her lip and asked, "why did you think about adapting 'Sunflower?'"

Although Sheng Ming was a big corporation, she had a.s.sumed that the person who had wanted to have adaptation rights to her novel would probably be an unknown rookie director. After all, she did have much of a reputation attached to her name. Moreover, if this novel was filmed, no matter if it was a television series or a movie, it could only be an artistic film.

"Because this book had ideas/themes that were sufficient enough to move me." Lu Xi did not seem to mind her question, "in the flower language, the sunflower represents 'silent love'; wherein Cheng Yuan, even though he had always silently and selflessly persevered to protect, he never attained what he wanted. And, Tong Yao hid her sensitivity and kind-heartedness under a veneer of indifference. Even with the supporting characters- Mu Cheng's ruthlessness, Lin Qianqian's arrogance, Xu Zhuo's cowardice… Every character had one moment when they moved me, and thus made them completely unforgettable."

His tone was gentle, yet certain, and swept away by his words, Su Jin had little by little recalled her heart's labour and the care that she had poured into her work; a book that she had even brought forth some influences of her past self into. And, as she reflected, the suspicions in her heart gradually weakened.

Of course, I'll admit that when I first saw the name Su Jin, I had thought of you." Lu Xi shrugged, "only, the more alike it is, the harder it is to connect the dots together. This is the natural train of thought for humans."

"Only I had never thought that you would actually use this sort of pen name. Also, I had no ide"

With a light curl of his lips, he continued, "that my young fiancee would actually have this sort of creative talent."

The volume, as that final sentence was spoken, was extremely low and the scorching heat of his breath fell on her ears. As she looked at him, Su Jin glared at him weakly. Interrupted in this manner by him, any suspicions in her heart had long vanished without a chance of resurfacing.

"So, are you prepared to shoot a television drama or a movie film?" She curiously asked him.

"A television drama." With a straight face, Lu Xi answered, "the things that you have said in this novel are immense, and how much I want to keep of the novel is also too much, so a film would be too short."

In agreement, Su Jin nodded. In the show business world, there was a tacit agreement that films were of a higher calibre than dramas. But for her, she felt that in comparison, she would prefer her novel to be adapted into a drama. For no other reason than for a movie, there was too much background information and characters that she would have liked the film to focus on.

Since the two people had now reached a consensus, then what followed afterwards was rather straightforward. Su Jin had only looked over the contract a few times before she had eventually signed it.

Sitting opposite the two people and trying his best to become part of the air, Qin An finally found a reason to take his leave and hugging the signed contract, he hastily left.

"Do you want to revise the script with me?" Watching Qin An leave in satisfaction, Lu Xi leaned his arm onto the back of Su Jin's chair and asked with a smile.

"Revise it?" Su Jin's eyes lit up, "can I?"

The young woman's phoenix eyes were bright and clear, and her bright gaze was upon him. The depths of her eyes were filled with some hope and expectation but also, some worry.

"Of course." Lu Xi reached out to caress the crown of her head, "you don't wish for all of your hard work to become a total mess because of me right?"

A total mess?

Su Jin could not help but laugh; Lu Xi was originally the most top-notch screenwriter, so how could he make it into a total mess?

However… …

"I'll say this first, I will only provide suggestions and modifications for the plot direction. I won't take responsibility for the overall adaption, okay. I can't write a screenplay!"

Raising her chin as Su Jin skewed her head to look at him, her phoenix eyes were slightly arched and her words were spoken overbearingly. Yet, her eyes were filled with laughter and dependence, and those clear pupils of hers were filled with gleaming waves of ripples that suffused with light.

His Adam's apple throbbed, and Lu Xi could finally no longer help but to lower his head.

Softly, he kissed that pair of eyes.

Translated by Irisu

Edited by Ely