As Jingwei drove them back to his house, Xue Ning noticed how the buildings lining the street got increasingly luxurious. Gone were the ramshackle shophouses and the dirty, faded paint jobs on shoddily cobbled apartments, gone were the traffic jams with incessant honking and the ever-present smell of polluted air.
Instead, she was greeted with clusters of fancy condominiums with even fancier foreign names, and the hustle and bustle of the streets eventually faded into quiet, peaceful greenery.
Here, the people spoke in soft tones, and green trees lined a pathway free of litter. Children played in a playground that featured a goddamn dinosaur structure. They screamed like ordinary children, but even that wasn't enough to disrupt the calm of this place.
"Wow, so do you live around her? It seems peaceful," Xue Ning said as she continued to look out the window.
"I live a bit further up!" Jingwei said as he drove his car up a relatively steep slope. "This area is mostly full of young rich families, because they want to get their kids into the good schools nearby. The security in this area is also pretty good, because the parents are paranoid about their kids."
"That's good - so you'll actually be safer here," Xue Ning said. She turned around, just to check if they were being followed by suspicious vehicles. Thankfully, she found none.
Soon they arrived at Sun Jingwei's apartment complex. There was a security guard on duty who bowed when he saw Jingwei, letting his car through the complex, but he did a double-take at Xue Ning's presence in the car next to him, and the suitcase of her belongings in the back seat.
"Good afternoon, Mr Sun. Is your guest staying here permanently?" The security guard asked cautiously.
"Hi Lao Wen, yes she is! This is my wife, Xue Ning," Jingwei said easily, gesturing to Xue Ning. Xue Ning bowed politely to him and wanted to offer her hand to shake, only to realise he couldn't reach her from there. She settled for a polite wave.
"Nice to meet you," she said demurely. The security guard was flummoxed - sure, he had the rumours and promptly dismissed them because Mr Sun never brought anyone to his private apartment.
Until now!
He would love to tell everyone that he met the elusive Mrs Sun, but he was locked under an NDA that threatened him with jail time if he were to do so. Gossiping online wasn't worth this cushy job.
"I see, nice to meet you too, Mrs Sun Xue Ning," the security guard, Lao Wen, said. Xue Ning could only nod, the back of her ears turning red at the thought of being addressed as Mrs Sun.
"You can just call me Xue Ning, it's fine," she hastily corrected him. Xue Ning doesn't think she'll be able to get used to being called Mrs Sun for a long, long while.
"Very well then, Madame Xue Ning." The guard replied politely with a smile. "I wish the both of you a pleasant stay and a loving marriage."
"Thanks," Xue Ning croaked out in surprise. "Thanks!" Jingwei echoed with a lot more enthusiasm.
They drove in, and Jingwei parked his car in an empty lot. Strangely enough, the surrounding lots were all empty too.
Did no one live here?
"So which level do you live on?" She asked wonderingly, when they made their way to the lift lobby. Of course, it was paved with shining marble and smelled like a refreshing floral perfume, a complete 180 from Xue Ning's shabby lift lobby. Jingwei had to use a pass card to even access the lift. It was like living in a hotel!
"Currently it's the 20th, but I might move to a new floor. It really depends." Jingwei replied. "Do you have any preference on floor numbers? I can move if you prefer a higher or lower level."
"...What do you mean? Don't they already have people living there?" Xue Ning asked, confused. "They can't all be empty."
"There are tenants, but I own this entire building. I can kick them out if I want to," Jingwei said nonchalantly.
"Please don't." Xue Ning warned, her brain breaking at the thought of someone owning an entire building and having the ability to move into a different apartment at whim, changing residences like clothes.
If she were a tenant and her landlord kicked her out just so he could live in her apartment, she'd scratch his car, no questions asked.
"We are not here to cause trouble!" Xue Ning insisted, giving him a warning look. Jingwei did not need to make unnecessary enemies.
The lift doors opened easily with a smooth 'ding', and Xue Ning was once again struck by the differences in their living station. The lift was decked in soothing yellow lights and lined with full-length mirrors on two of its sides. In the top right hand corner, she spotted a working security camera.
But what caught her attention was the fact that there was a small cushion sofa for one to sit on. Inside the lift.
Were Jingwei's tenants all so elderly that they couldn't stand when taking the lift? Surely no one would need to sit on this for no reason, right?
Xue Ning's exasperated confusion did not end when they arrived in front of Jingwei's house. He unlocked his electronic lock with his birthday passcode and hurriedly ushered her into his house.
"Welcome to my humble abode," he said, echoing Xue Ning's words from earlier. She laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, slowly making her way into his house. Humble was not the descriptor she would use. The moment she took off her shoes, Jingwei had handed her a pair of house slippers, matching with his own.
"Here! Wear these - the floor can get chilly." Jingwei said, and he was right, because the floor was made out of some strange stone-marble hybrid that whisked away heat from her feet the moment she stood on it.
While doing so, she noticed that rather than painting the walls a different colour, Jingwei had elected to decorate them with art pieces more suitable for museums.
"Is all this real?" She pointed to the variety of paintings on the wall. There were some fancy landscapes, some fruit, and a few cats. The focal point of the decor was a huge painting of a beautiful woman hanging in the living room, a benevolent smile on her face.
"Seeing that I had them commissioned, I hope so," he replied as he took the suitcase from her. "I wanted something for my empty walls, but I couldn't paint for shit, so I got people to do it for me."
"More importantly Xue Ning, do you want to sleep in my bed?"
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