Chapter 391 - Do You Have To Be So Secretive For A Proposal? (1/2)

Chapter 391: Do You Have To Be So Secretive For A Proposal?

“Wait a moment.” Ruan Danchen took Qi Chenglin’s member card from the shop employee and stuffed it back at Qi Chenglin, then passed her own member card to the shop employee instead.

Qi Chenglin frowned slightly, but Ruan Danchen responded with a smile: “Give me a chance to get you a gift too.”

Ruan Danchen’s thoughts were simple. Qi Chenglin had always purchased various things for her. She did not want to be the one that was always on the receiving end. She had always thought of getting something as a gift to Qi Chenglin, not as repayment, but purely to show her love by sending her gifts. Unfortunately, she had no idea on what to gift.

Now that there’s such a chance, she wanted to pay it out of her own pocket.

Her income was incomparable to Qi Chenglin as her basic salary added with commissions were approximately around twenty thousand a month. She had only joined Qilin recently, and barely closed the deal on the property in the northern district of the city but have yet to collect the commission, so she only had her basic salary. However, these two scarves were still within her budget.

Additionally, spending time together with Qi Chenglin, he had never let her spend any money, leaving her salary almost untouched.

Qi Chenglin pondered for a moment and his hands were being lightly shaken by Ruan Danchen. “I really want to get you something.”

Qi Chenglin gave it a thought and put on the scarf gifted by Ruan Danchen. It turned out to be a rather happy thing that he felt warmed up in an instant so he nodded in agreement, but added: “Yours is a gift from me, and mine will be a gift from you.”

Runa Danchen nodded gladly. Qi Chenglin then proceeded to have the shop employee split the bill.

The employee was exhausted by these two and wanted nothing more than to send them off, resulting in a surprisingly quick process.

Later, both of them put on the scarf gifted by each other and walked away happily hand-in-hand.

When Ruan Danchen thought about the earlier incident, she felt that they were both rather shameless, and so decided they would try to avoid this shop in the future. If they were to come again, it would have to be when this particular employee was not there.

…

…

After exiting the shop, Qi Chenglin’s sent Ruan Danchen back to Prestige Residences. However, he had Ruan Danchen wait in the car while he went upstairs to fetch Qi Youxuan, claiming that they were eating out that night.

Ruan Danchen wanted to ask why they were going out for dinner for no apparent reason as he had always preferred to eat at home. He did not like to eat out unless there were no other options.

However, Qi Chenglin had already walked into the unit before she could raise her question.

After a while, Qi Youxuan could be seen following Qi Chenglin out of the building excitedly.

Little Qi Youxuan had been losing weight recently, but his body shape was still slightly round. With the extra layers he had on him due to the cold weather, he looked like a little penguin as he jumped around behind Qi Chenglin.

He nimbly got into the backseat and got into the child safety seat and fastened the seatbelt. Surprisingly he did not request for Ruan Danchen to sit with him in the backseat.

It was obvious that Qi Chenglin was very satisfied by Qi Youxuan’s performance when he got into the car.

“Where are we going?” Ruan Danchen turned around and asked.

“To the Red Roof Club.” Qi Chenglin answered.

Ruan Danchen did not question further, and treated it as an appointment to meet with Yan Beicheng and co.

She had a meetup at Shengyue during noon time. It could be during that time that he made the appointment with Yan Beicheng and co.

When they got to the Red Roof Club and parked the car, Ruan Danchen found it weird. “Why are there so few cars today? The Red Roof Club don’t have many customers!”

Furthermore she knows all the cars that are parked here.

When she was here on the first day of the new year, there were very few cars as well, but that was understandable since it was the first day of the new year. Even so, that was still way more than this day.

“Yan Beicheng mentioned that everytime we had a gathering, there were too many random strangers being in the way, making him unable to standout as the boss compared to the normal customers. If he can’t have that elitist feel, there was no point being a boss. In the end he decided as long as we’re here for a gathering, they will not serve outsiders.” Qi Chenglin explained.

Ruan Danchen pouted. “It’s different being the boss huh.”

Qi Chenglin nodded seriously. “The rich tends to be capricious.”

“Achoo!” Yan Beicheng was in the middle of giving orders to his employees when he suddenly exploded with an extra loud sneeze, sniffled, and then continued on.

Ruan Danchen stopped asking and followed Qi Chenglin inside. Instead of the path to the usual room they used, Qi Chenglin led her to the second floor.

Red Roof Club’s courtyard originally belonged to the brother of an emperor in the Qing dynasty. When Yan Beicheng initially purchased this place, he did not change any of the design and left it to its original layout.

The central room on the second floor was larger. Even though it could not compare to the banquet room of Dynasty, it was still capable of accomodating 40-50 people as it was previously used for shows.

Rumor has it that when it was too cold outside during winter for viewing, those dignitaries would stay here and watch the show from above, looking directly at the stage below, equivalent to a VIP theatre box.

At the door, Qi Youxuan spoke out all of a sudden. “Daddy, Mommy, I need to go pee.”

Upon hearing that, Ruan Danchen wanted to bring him over immediately, but was firmly rejected by Qi Youxuan. “The toilet is just by the side. I can go by myself.”

Ruan Danchen looked towards the direction that Qi Youxuan pointed at, noticed that it was just diagonally across not far away. At that moment, the waiter leading them at the front proactively went and led Qi Youxuan to the washroom. Ruan Danchen kept an eye on Qi Youxuan as he entered while the waiter waited outside. Only then she could relax.

After Qi Chenglin led Ruan Danchen into the room, Qi Youxuan quietly snuck out, apparently not showing any urge to pee at all.

The room was dark and the lights were not lit. Ruan Danchen was confused as she entered, with her hands held tightly by Qi Chenglin. The window was right across the room from her.

The window was fully open, but she did not feel cold since she had her scarf wrapped around her.

Qi Chenglin dragged Ruan Danchen up to the window. Right after that, Ruan Danchen saw the opposite window lit up all of a sudden. It was not because the lights in the opposite room was lit as the rooms were still all dark.

It was the light projected on the dark window opposite the. Those were her photos, photos that were taken when she was resting on his office sofa. On the next window was a photo of her cooking in the kitchen of the house in Prestige Residences. Beside that, was another photo of her playing with Youxuan, with both of them laughing especially happily.

Slowly, photos were scattered everywhere. All the windows across them were lit up with projected photos, all from the moments in her life, recorded by photographs.

In every single photo, she was not looking at the camera lens. She had no idea when did Qi Chenglin took these photos. She was sure that these photos were all taken by Qi Chenglin.

Even though she did not look at the lens, her photos were still taken beautifully with a natural look. Ruan Danchen had always failed to imagine how it felt to see the love of the photographer from a photo, or how to tell if the love was there.

However, she could really tell by looking at these photos. Every single photo was filled with emotions, touching one’s heart. It was as if their entire journey from when they met, got to know each other, then eventually got together was put on replay, giving a nostalgic feeling.

The originally dark night without a sign of light was now covered in a warm color by these photos.

Looking at the photos, feeling warm, yet strangely her eyes felt sore.

The windows across them were all filled with photos, leaving only the middle window in their direction still dark.

Finally, the dark patch that was the middle window was also projected with a photo, but it was no longer photos of Ruan Danchen alone. It was a photo of her, Qi Chenglin, and Qi Youxuan’s group photo. All three of them smiling warmly, emanating an aura of happiness. Anyone would agree that they are a family of three.

In a short moment, everything opposite of them were lit up. The lights from the photo shined through and the reflected light on this building gave off a faint halo.

Qi Chenglin cleared his throat with a slight awkwardness. When the moonlight from outside and the projector lights from across shined through, Ruan Danchen could faintly see Qi Chenglin’s face was blushing slightly.

“All these time we were together, I’ve always recorded them unknowingly. In the future, I still want to continue recording more of these plain but wonderful life full of warmth. Youxuan and I had you in our lives, and we want to continue having you in it. I want your children to be given my family name.”

“Ever since knowing you, my life felt like these photos. Filled with warmth, exceptionally warm. You said you have wanted to have a family from a young age. I hope that from now on, we three will all have a family.” Qi Chenglin felt his hand sweat, nervously took a deep breath, then continued. “Danchen, are you willing to give me a chance, to let me take more photos of you, have more group photos with Youxuan and I, continue to record the next 50, 60 years? Are you willing, for me to provide you with a family?”

Ruan Danchen already knew what he wanted to do, but she did not expect him to make such a big scene out of it.

She noticed an intricate box that had somehow appeared in Qi Chenglin’s hands. She was focused on Qi Chenglin’s face earlier and never noticed anything.

Now that she lowered her head, she could see Qi Chenglin nervously grasping around.

“In the past 20 years, all the things you didn’t have, all the things you envied, I will give them to you. I have always thought that in this life, I will be spending it with Youxuan, as father and son before I met you. I have given up on remarrying.” Qi Chenglin smiled nervously. Ruan Danchen saw that his lips was trembling. If not for her witnessing this, she could not imagine him looking like this.

“Thank you for your appearance, that gave us father and son a new family. Perhaps I should be asking instead, Danchen, are you willing to give us a family? Will you marry me?” Qi Chenglin opened the ring box and swallowed nervously.

“The past few times I mentioned this, I was not joking. Every time I asked you, I had wished that you would say yes. The reason I asked that way was because I did not know how to propose.” Qi Chenglin smiled stiffly. “I was hoping that if you had agreed to it, then I wouldn’t need to be this nervous.”