We Barely Know Each Other, but I'm Living with a Stone-Faced Mechanic! - Chapter 41

Tao Ying followed Qin Zheng out of the parking lot. The streetlights on both sides stretched their shadows far along the pavement.

A playful impulse took her. She deliberately dropped one step behind Qin Zheng and hid directly at his back. Their shadows overlapped and became a single figure.

Qin Zheng raised his phone high and laughed. “Don’t move. Let me take a picture.”

Tao Ying looked up at the camera and made a V sign.

“I think it would be more charming if you smiled,” he suggested.

She pulled the corners of her mouth apart, producing something that looked very much like a fake smile.

Qin Zheng immediately pressed the shutter.

“Don’t! I wasn’t ready.” Tao Ying reached for the phone. Their shadows separated, and the two figures began chasing each other across the ground.

“I think it’s adorable.” He dodged, keeping the phone out of reach.

“Qin Zheng, delete it.” Tao Ying decided she must have lost her mind to cooperate with him. The picture did not suit her image at all.

She was only a centimeter short of one meter seventy, but Qin Zheng still stood a full twenty centimeters taller.

Even on tiptoe, she could not reach. He deliberately leaned backward as well, provoking her into slapping his chest.

“Ow.” Qin Zheng straightened and rubbed the spot. “That was hard.”

Tao Ying thought she had actually hurt him, only for him to add with infuriating satisfaction, “Look. You believed me again.”

She stared at him.

Then she turned and walked away in fury. The commotion had burned off most of her buzz.

Qin Zheng caught up. “I’ll send you the photo. Look at it yourself. It’s genuinely good, and the angle is interesting.”

Tao Ying huffed. “Where are we going?”

“There.” He pointed across the road to a twenty-four-hour convenience store.

After crossing, Tao Ying asked, “Why did you bring me here?”

“Don’t places like this make you feel safe?”

She did not answer immediately. Inside, she bought some hot food at the counter, then turned and asked whether he wanted anything.

Qin Zheng nodded and took two bottles of yogurt from a shelf.

Once they had paid, they sat beside the window.

Tao Ying bit into a fish ball. “Do you feel safe here because the lights stay on no matter how late it gets?”

“It may have something to do with an experience I had.” Qin Zheng said, “When I was eighteen, I found out that the woman I called Mom wasn’t my biological mother. I couldn’t accept it, so I ran away from home and spent the night in a convenience store.”

Tao Ying was shocked and curious. “What happened to your biological mother?”

“She died in childbirth. The first time I saw her, I was eighteen and looking at the photo on her headstone.”

Pain and sympathy appeared in Tao Ying’s eyes.

“My father married my current stepmother when I was two. She’s always treated me well, but later she had a son of her own.”

Tao Ying’s imagination had already supplied the rest. People always said that when a stepmother entered the family, the father became a stepfather too.

The fact that Qin Zheng never spoke about his family suggested that they must have treated him badly.

Afraid of reopening his wounds, she held out her yogurt to change the subject. “Sorry. I can’t twist the cap open.”

Qin Zheng took it and opened it for her.

“Thank you.” Tao Ying tried to comfort him. “No life can be perfect. Look at me. My relationship with my mother is poor too. She’s always believed I caused my father’s death.”

“Why would she think that?” Qin Zheng frowned. It sounded completely unreasonable.

“My sister and I argued that day. My father took a detour to buy me something to eat so he could cheer me up…” The memory seemed to strike Tao Ying. Her eyes darkened.

“By your mother’s logic, why doesn’t she blame your sister?”

“Because she favors her.” Tao Ying answered with complete frankness. “My sister obeys her and follows the path she laid out. I don’t. We have a small fight after three sentences and a major one after five.”

After a long silence, Qin Zheng said, “She’s your mother, so it isn’t my place to judge. But I don’t think there’s anything in this world we can truly count on forever. Ms. Tao, every one of us should learn to take good care of ourselves.”

Had Qin Zheng’s father heard that speech, he would have rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

At home, Qin Zheng not only loved himself, he demanded that everyone else love him too.

Somehow, he had become sentimental here.

“Mm.” Tao Ying nodded. “I know.”

In the stillness of a late night, in an unfamiliar city, they opened their hearts to each other for the first time.

It was already three in the morning when they returned to the hotel. Tao Ying washed up and slept until noon the next day.

She woke only because Qin Zheng called her.

Tao Ying emerged from her room looking wilted.

Qin Zheng smiled when he saw her. “Still want to sleep?”

“Mm.” The sound barely made it out of her throat.

“Let’s eat first. We’ll go to the industrial design exhibition this afternoon.”

“Okay.”

They had both gone to bed late and neither wanted to travel far, so they ate a leisurely meal at the hotel.

When they finished, Tao Ying said, “The sun is so strong outside. Why don’t we go later in the afternoon?”

Qin Zheng knew she wanted more sleep. He nodded. “Fine. We’ll leave at three.”

Tao Ying pressed her lips together happily, returned to her room, and slept for another two hours.

She was visibly more alert when she woke again.

Unlike other art exhibitions, the industrial design exhibition was not filled with abstractions. Every display united rational thought, structure, aesthetics, and engineering.

At the center of the hall stood a full-scale design model of a concept sports car.

Qin Zheng stopped before it for a long time. Tao Ying was equally struck.

The minimalist curved surfaces, fluid body lines, and translucent aerodynamic package created extraordinary visual impact.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Tao Ying asked.

Qin Zheng smiled. “Beauty is only the shallowest layer of its visual presentation. Its real strength lies in the aerodynamics…”

Starting at the front and moving toward the rear, he explained every aspect of the design in fluent, precise detail.

Tao Ying’s impression was simple: Qin Zheng knew cars deeply, and he loved them.

He understood obscure specialist concepts that even she could not explain.

Surprise churned inside her. Industrial structures, design logic, engineering principles—he discussed all of them with effortless professionalism.

Inside this exhibition hall, he seemed to become a different person.

There was no attempt to show off, only an ease embedded in his blood and bones. His pace was unhurried, his vocabulary exact and assured.

There was nothing more compelling than a man speaking about what he knew best.

Tao Ying stared, briefly lost in the sight.

An emotion she could neither name nor explain surged inside her. After standing still for a moment, she took two steps forward.

Qin Zheng’s gaze followed. Once he had finished looking, he caught up. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

Tao Ying shifted away. Did he always have to speak from so close? The tingling sensation it caused was unbearable.

“Nothing.” Her voice came with some difficulty. “Are you done? Should we go farther in?”

“Of course.” Qin Zheng laughed. “We only just came inside.”

To Tao Ying, it felt as though a great deal of time had passed.

They were returning to Lincheng the next day, so they could not stay up late again that evening.

The following morning, the sky was heavy and overcast, as if rain might fall at any moment. Tao Ying checked the forecast. Rain was expected.

Qin Zheng saw her concern. “It’s fine. Rain or no rain, we have to leave. There will be plenty of traffic on the expressway.”

It was only a three-hour drive, Tao Ying thought. Surely they would not be unlucky enough to encounter a downpour.