Chapter 8 : The Tango

After she finished speaking, the person on the other end of the line was silent for a good three to five seconds.

Jiang Yanlin was patient, prepared to give him ample time to process, and wouldn’t have been surprised if he had hung up on the spot.

But soon, El’s voice came through the phone again:
– “So it was that simple.”

He was still laughing heartily as he told her:
– “You know, Jiang, it doesn’t matter what kind of girl she likes.”

Jiang Yanlin raised an eyebrow. Of course, she knew it didn’t matter—no matter the type, she would never change herself to fit it.
Not at any time, under any circumstances, for anyone.

However, what El said next was somewhat beyond her expectations.
– “What’s important is to let her get to know you better first.”

As El spoke, his enthusiasm returned, and an idea struck him:
– “How about this? The restaurant is closed for a break today anyway. I’ll ask Mavis out to a movie. Wait for my message. Leave it to me. I promise I’ll make it happen.”

Jiang Yanlin was speechless.
‘…Wait, what?’

Without giving her any chance to object, El had already hung up in a flurry of excitement to arrange his “plan.”

Jiang Yanlin looked at this baffling turn of events, for once feeling the absurd helplessness of a master being taken down by a wild, clumsy punch.

But her main goal had been achieved beyond expectations, so there was no point in interfering further.

Jiang Yanlin decided to give up on trying to understand El’s thought process and stopped caring about the matter, returning to her own schedule.

Because she knew Péi Wanyi might not accept the invitation.
—On many things, they had a tacit understanding.

Péi Wanyi had indeed already decided to extricate herself from this tangled mess.

When something of uncertain significance consumed too much of her time and attention, she would put a stop to it.

Her time for socializing was already squeezed out like toothpaste, an extra disposable resource in her busy life.

So, whenever she wanted, she could disappear from her friends’ sights. Everyone was already used to her ways.

On the way home last night, she had already cleared her thoughts and made a decision based on her usual principles.

Therefore, she never made that call, which was never a real promise to begin with.

Perhaps Péi Wanyi had noticed that spark of interest in herself, whether it was instinct or some other catalyst.

But she had never liked trouble.

This strange relationship was already trouble.

And that woman, Jiang Yanlin, was trouble through and through.

And so, the two women, having made the same decision, once again reached a silent, non-interactive understanding.

Like the steps of a tango.

Forward or back, entanglement and retreat, always in sync, never a misstep.

But before the music ends, the closely-pressed steps will only spin in circle after circle.

No matter how far they push apart, the connected fingertips can pull them back to their center of gravity in the next moment.

Two warm bodies, closer than they were before.

A skirt hooking a shoe, a breath that can be felt.

At ten o’clock at night, the rarely quiet restaurant was cast in an ambiguous light.

The “Closed for Business” sign hung on the door. The downstairs was silent, with only the flickering glow from the second floor casting shadows on the wall.

Jiang Yanlin sat on the sofa, hugging a puppy-shaped pillow, and spent two minutes pondering why she was sitting here watching a movie.

And why the person next to her was sitting here as well.

But for now, no one could answer that question.

El sat alone on the front row sofa. He had chosen the movie in advance and prepared some chips and soda, setting up a simple movie party.

But he had only invited the two of them.

“I’ve always wanted to see this movie. I finally have the time today.”
El was engrossed. At first, he would occasionally chat with them, but soon he was completely captivated by the plot.

He had chosen a Korean romance film with a BDSM theme, but the content and scale were at the level of a light comedy, so conservative it was a bit boring.

Jiang Yanlin really couldn’t muster any interest and nonchalantly took out her phone to check her messages.

She spent a few minutes replying to advertisers, marked a few messages from her “fish” as read without replying, and finally glanced at what her friends had sent. It wasn’t convenient to watch videos, but she could skim through pictures and jokes.

As she was scrolling, a message popped up at the top of her screen.

The profile picture and name were not unfamiliar, because the sender was currently sitting to her left.

[“I’ve already lost interest in this movie.”]
– From Mavis.

Jiang Yanlin paused and tapped into the chat window.

Scrolling up, they had barely exchanged a few words, just a greeting when they first added each other.

So, this message, strictly speaking, was the real beginning of their conversation.

The two of them, sitting on the same long sofa, separated by only a hand’s breadth, chose the most distant way to communicate.

Jiang Yanlin thought that Péi Wanyi was probably the most pretentious woman she had ever met.

Her words and actions were flawless, yet her boundaries were so blurry and ambiguous, as if she didn’t care about advancing or retreating, acting as she pleased.

Like a cloud, like water.

Too high, too far, impossible to grasp.

And Jiang Yanlin, as it happened, loved to pull down the highest and most arrogant one.

Looking at her phone screen, she curled her lip and typed a sentence.

[What can we do?]

On this unplanned night, in this unique setting.

In the dim room lit only by the glow of the screen.

Besides finishing this boring movie, what else could they do?

Jiang Yanlin smiled faintly and pressed send.

This wasn’t a question.

It was a provocation.
‘You came here. What do you want to do, what can you do, what do you dare to do?’

The proximity was so close that Jiang Yanlin could even hear her phone vibrate.

A few short seconds later, Péi Wanyi answered her in a different way.

An arm reached over, wrapping around Jiang Yanlin’s waist.

Her body heat was a bit high, more present than it was last night.

Firmly and without hesitation, it gifted her with a sense of restraint and pressure all at once.

Jiang Yanlin’s body was easily pulled over by her, the pillow in her arms accidentally falling to the floor.

Péi Wanyi turned her head, lowering her voice to whisper in her ear:
“I’ll hold you while we watch.”

And that is why Péi Wanyi was the most pretentious woman Jiang Yanlin had ever met.

A flawlessly beautiful face, an air of arrogant superiority, a perfect and popular image.

Beneath all these layers, where was the real her hidden?

Jiang Yanlin knew this wasn’t a simple puzzle that could be solved just by taking off her clothes.

But in that moment, Jiang Yanlin developed a true desire to explore both.

The story in the movie was getting to the point. The two protagonists, both inexperienced with BDSM, were in a hotel room, experimenting and exploring.

The male lead, who longed to be treated like a dog, was kneeling on the floor, letting the female lead put a collar around his neck.

But compared to the male lead’s expectant face, the female lead, who had just opened this door, seemed hesitant and unsure of what to do.

Péi Wanyi, her arm around her waist, commented in a low voice that only the two of them could hear:
“These two have zero chemistry.”

Jiang Yanlin, who had been distracted by her phone, glanced at the screen and gave an equally blunt assessment:
“One can’t act like a Dom, the other can’t act like a Sub. They’re both as bad as each other.”

Dominant and submissive roles were not something one would find in a typical romantic relationship.

This movie was just using the BDSM label to tell a light romantic comedy, which was utterly uninteresting.

After hearing her comment, Péi Wanyi turned her head and asked:
“Are you a Dom?”

Jiang Yanlin looked up, meeting her gaze.

Quickly, she flashed a smile at the person who had asked such a foolish question.
“Then do you like being a dog?”