Chapter 44: Apology or Punishment
Kong Nanzhu picked up a sweater and put it on, then went downstairs wrapped in a coat that she didn't know whether it was hers or Xu Qingqing's.
Qin Qi sent a message saying that he had found the address of Xu Qingqing's residential area and that he would be downstairs in ten minutes.
Kong Nanzhu's mind was in a mess, and he had no intention of going back with Qin Qi at all.
Just meet him once and send him away. She even planned to go back upstairs to take a shower. After she came back last night, Xu Qingqing just took off her clothes. Now she still smelled of smoke and alcohol from the bar.
Qin Qi was standing at the foot of the stairs in the unit building wearing a hat and a mask. Residents would pass by from time to time in apartment complexes like this, many of them young people, so the risk of him being recognized was extremely high. Seeing Kong Nanzhu walking out in slippers with nothing in his hands, he frowned and said, "If you don't have time to pack your things, you can come back and get them. I've asked Auntie to prepare dinner, let's go back to Lihua Garden to eat first."
Qin Qi had his hands behind his back, and his thick cotton coat could not hide the eye-catching orange shopping bag behind him.
It must be another expensive bag.
Qin Qi's way of apology was still so simple and unpretentious.
Kong Nanzhu stood on the steps without moving. She didn't know why Qin Qi could say such an ordinary sentence as if nothing had happened.
It was like they had never had an argument.
Like she didn't run away from home after the Cold War.
Just like Qin Qi didn't ask her on the phone who she was with last night, and didn't doubt her character and loyalty.
Qin Qi took a step forward, walked up the stairs and reached out to pull Kong Nanzhu down. Kong Nanzhu moved sideways and dodged Qin Qi's hand. Qin Qi froze, a trace of panic flashed across his deep eyes. He stubbornly grabbed Kong Nanzhu's arm and said, "Let's go home. If you have anything to say, let's talk about it when we get back."
Qin Qi was very strong. Kong Nanzhu felt that the hand that was pulling her was not the hand of a full-year-old man, but a pair of soldering pliers. She didn't know where the hand came from. Kong Nanzhu shook her hand and freed her arm. "I don't have anything to say to you now. I won't go back..."
Before she could finish her words, Kong Nanzhu's body tilted forward from the three steps and fell straight down. Qin Qi dropped the bag in his hand and held her in his arms, his expression obviously panicked.
When Kong Nanzhu regained consciousness, her first reaction was to push away Qin Qi's hand, and she staggered back and fell onto the steps.
The old problem of hypoglycemia always strikes at inappropriate times. She vomited everything she ate last night in the green belt. After waking up, she hadn't drunk a drop of water. It would be strange if she didn't feel dizzy.
Qin Qi looked at her pale face, silently took out a piece of candy from his pocket , tore open the candy wrapper, and handed it to Kong Nanzhu's mouth.
This action seemed to have triggered Kong Nanzhu's tear glands. Her mind was originally a mess and she didn't have much to complain about. The grievances and sadness accumulated over the past few days were instantly ignited by this small piece of candy.
Kong Nanzhu waved Qin Qi's hand away, "Is it true that in your heart, I only need a piece of candy to be coaxed?"
Qin Qi looked at the candy that had fallen to the ground and was covered in dirt, and the shopping bag that had fallen to the ground. He clenched his fist and then unclenched it, "I'm sorry."
Kong Nanzhu's tears fell like beads from a broken string, her crying was heartbreaking. She knew she must look ugly like this, and the eyeliner and mascara that she hadn't removed might have made her eyes look like panda eyes, but she didn't want to care about that. "What are you saying sorry for?"
Qin Qi took off his mask, squatted down and looked at Kong Nanzhu who was sitting on the steps. He looked at Kong Nanzhu's tears, his heart seemed to be grabbed by an invisible hand, and he couldn't tell what he was apologizing for.
The moment he saw the photos posted by Song Linyuan on Weibo, his reason fled, and he felt a mixture of anxiety, uneasiness and anger. He said things he shouldn't have said and asked questions he shouldn't have asked.
But Kong Nanzhu did drink with Song Linyuan last night and took such intimate photos. After he repeatedly asked her not to have any contact with that man again, they still kept in touch and even met secretly during the cold war between the couple. How could he not be angry?
Qin Qi could not accept any dangerous person of the opposite sex appearing around Kong Nanzhu. He knew clearly that Kong Nanzhu had too many attractive qualities, but these should only be seen by him.
She was already his wife, and everything about her should belong to him. He had the right to block the prying eyes of other envious people.
Kong Nanzhu hadn't been online for the past few days, so Qin Qi flipped through all the photos on her Weibo. Kong Nanzhu in all kinds of situations and postures was so eye-catching. He also saw that Song Linyuan had left comments on all of Kong Nanzhu's Weibo posts like a worm, and the number of likes was very high, which was very annoying.
Alarm bells rang in Qin Qi's mind. There was definitely something wrong with this Song Linyuan.
"I shouldn't have spoken to you in that tone just now. I was too anxious. I couldn't contact you. You have been ignoring me these past few days. You didn't answer my calls or reply to my messages. I was worried about your safety."
Qin Qi tried to take out a tissue to wipe the tears from Kong Nanzhu's face, but Kong Nanzhu dodged his hand as if she had been electrocuted, staring at him with her red eyes.
Qin Qi's questions on the phone were still echoing in Kong Nanzhu's ears. She found it ridiculous.
Qin Qi was stung by the sarcasm in her eyes. Kong Nanzhu had never shown such emotions to him, and had never looked at him with such strange eyes, so he anxiously wanted to defend his behavior, "You were with Song Linyuan last night, right? He posted your photo on Weibo. You promised me that you would no longer associate with him, but you didn't do it. You even went drinking with him, so I was angry. He is not a good person. It's normal for me to worry."
Qin Qi paused. He knew that now was not the best time to ask about what happened last night, but he couldn't control the urgency of needing Kong Nanzhu to explain. His voice was a little hoarse. "This is the first time you didn't do what you promised me. Why did you want to see him?"
Group photo?
Kong Nanzhu tried hard to recall and there were some vague fragments, but this was obviously not the main point of their conflict.
Qin Qi came here to raise an army and demand punishment.
The wind kept blowing into her neck and Kong Nanzhu's hands were shaking slightly. She didn't know if it was because of the cold or something else. She was very disappointed. Qin Qi didn't say a word about their unpleasant parting on the crew. Instead, he kept asking her about the meeting with Song Linyuan. Now it became her fault.
"Can't I choose my own friends?" Kong Nanzhu looked at Qin Qi stubbornly.
Qin Qi was irritated by the word "friend". His tone became stiff and obviously angry. "Why would you consider him a friend? A bastard, a guy with a terrible reputation. Even someone as unrelated as Shang Jie admits that Song Linyuan has a bad reputation. What other intentions could he have in approaching you? You shouldn't make friends with such a person. He..."
Kong Nanzhu's heart sank to the bottom little by little. It was the first time she heard Qin Qi's evaluation of a person so biased, even critical. But what he said was completely different from the Song Linyuan he knew. Qin Qi had never even had any contact with Song Linyuan, but he unilaterally denied everything about Song Linyuan and even used other people's background as a preconceived label.
This time, Kong Nanzhu realized that there might be some differences between his and Qin Qi's ideas, cognitions, and even world views.
"Do you know him?"
Kong Nanzhu interrupted Qin Qi.
"What?"
Qin Qi's face was frozen with an interruption. Suddenly, a middle-aged woman in pajamas came out from the corridor next door to throw away the garbage. She looked at them curiously. Qin Qi reacted quickly by putting on a mask and squatting at a different angle to make sure that the other person could not see his face.
After everyone had thrown away the garbage and returned to the building, Kong Nanzhu slowly spoke, "You don't even know him, how can you judge a person so conclusively? The Song Linyuan I know is not as bad as you say, he is very good!"
Qin Qi's anger overflowed from his eyes. Kong Nanzhu actually refuted his words for another man. Jealousy and jealousy overwhelmed his reason. He stood up and rudely picked up the person horizontally. Ignoring Kong Nanzhu's struggle, he walked straight towards the nanny car waiting not far away.
"Let me go! Let go!"
