Peninsula's Life Begins in 2016

Chapter 110 Are you worried about me, or something else?

The next morning.

When Jiang Yan opened his eyes, a sliver of hazy sunlight peeked through the gap in the curtains.

He lay motionless on the bed, staring at the ceiling for a long time, then raised his hand and gently touched his lips with his fingertips.

Last night's events felt like a dream to him, but the slight pain lingering on his lips told him it wasn't a dream.

Choi Sulli was driven home by him. All the way, she was as red as a boiled shrimp. Even the driver couldn't help but take a few more glances and asked him if his girlfriend had drunk too much. He also said that he was a terrible boyfriend for letting a girl drink so much.

Jiang Yan wanted to explain but didn't know how, so he could only smile and endure the scolding along the way. This really stifled Cui Xueli, who was someone who had a low threshold for laughter. The fact that she didn't make the older woman laugh was a way of saving face for Jiang Yan.

He didn't get home until after midnight.

He took a quick shower and tossed and turned in bed for almost an hour before finally falling asleep.

Even now, after waking up, that sense of unreality still lingers in my mind.

"Awake?" Lin Xiaolu's voice floated down from above.

Jiang Yan turned his head and saw that she was looking down at him with an extremely complicated expression.

"Hmm." Jiang Yan sat up, rubbing his stiff neck. "What time is it?"

"6:40." Lin Xiaolu's voice was very calm, almost unnaturally so. "You went to bed quite late last night; I thought you'd sleep until noon."

Jiang Yan got out of bed and went into the bathroom. He turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face. The tap water in April was still quite cold, which made him feel much more awake.

He looked at himself in the mirror, and there was a faint mark at the corner of his mouth.

He reached up and touched it, then pressed the towel to his face and let out a muffled sigh.

"Jiang Yan." Lin Xiaolu's voice drifted in from the bathroom doorway.

"Um?

"

"Do you think—is what you're doing right now appropriate?"

Jiang Yan hung the towel back on the rack, turned around and looked at her: "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you are now a time traveler, you have a portfolio of hundreds of billions of Korean won in the Bitcoin market, and you are about to join YG to participate in BLACKPINK's debut project."

At this point, Lin Xiaolu paused, lowered her eyes, and said, "Your whole life is different from that of ordinary people. Do you think—"

"Is it appropriate for you to be in a relationship now?"

Jiang Yan leaned against the sink, arms crossed, watching her.

"Lin Xiaolu".

"Um?"

Are you worried about me, or something else?

Lin Xiaolu's expression froze instantly.

She turned her head away, concealing the panic that flashed in her eyes. "I'm just stating an objective fact. Don't overthink it."

""

"Oh." Jiang Yan nodded, walked past her, and headed straight for the kitchen.

"Hey, what do you mean by 'oh'?" Lin Xiaolu caught up with him, hovering behind him. "And, when you kissed her in the hallway last night, you didn't consider my feelings at all, you know that?!"

Jiang Yan took two eggs out of the refrigerator, cracked them on the rim of a bowl, and said casually, "Why should I consider your feelings when I kiss her?"

"Because I'm right next to you!" Lin Xiaolu's voice immediately rose a pitch. "You think I can't feel anything just because I close my eyes and cover my ears? There's a connection between us. If your heart races, I'll react too. You—"

She suddenly stopped mid-sentence, and her entire face turned pink at a visible speed.

Jiang Yan paused for a moment while beating the eggs.

"What was the reaction?"

"N-nothing, never mind, forget I said anything." Lin Xiaolu drifted to the living room as if fleeing and leaned against the wall.

Jiang Yan glanced in the direction she fled, then looked away and poured the beaten egg mixture into the preheated frying pan.

He flipped the omelet with the spatula, muttering to himself, "She can feel it? This string can't be that weird, can it?"

Lin Xiaolu listened to his mutterings, gritted her teeth for a while, and then started frantically banging her forehead against the wall. Obviously, these efforts were useless to a soul.

Seeing that Lin Xiaolu didn't react to what Jiang Yan said, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief. It shouldn't be what he thought, otherwise Lin Xiaolu would have rushed in and told him to shut up.

He put his thoughts aside, put the fried egg pancake into a plate, took out kimchi from the refrigerator, cut it into sections, and stir-fried it with the pork belly. Soon, the kitchen was filled with the sour and spicy aroma of stir-fried kimchi and pork.

Lin Xiaolu composed herself and floated back to the kitchen doorway, but her doe-like eyes didn't look at Jiang Yan at all. Instead, she stared at the fragrant kimchi stir-fried meat on the stove.

What are your plans for today?

"I'm going to THE BLACKLABEL to sign the contract this afternoon," Jiang Yan replied. Then he poured the stir-fried kimchi and pork belly into a plate next to him and carried it out, saying, "Teddy sent me a message last night, telling me to sign the contract today, saying to strike while the iron is hot, lest something goes wrong."

"He seems to be in a hurry."

He said that BLACKPINK's debut project has been delayed for too long, and now that he has finally found someone who can help him share the burden, he doesn't want to waste any more time.

Jiang Yan brought the food to the table, took off his apron and draped it aside. "And last night he sent the changes I made to Yang Xianshuo, and Yang Xianshuo replied with four words this morning."

"What four words?"

"Bring the person here."

Lin Xiaolu finally turned to look at him, her initial awkwardness replaced by surprise: "Yang Xianshuo said it himself?"

"Hmm." Jiang Yan sat down, picked up his chopsticks, and put a piece of kimchi pork belly into his mouth. "So Teddy asked me to go to Itaewon to sign the contract first today, and then go to YG headquarters with him."

"Daiba————" Lin Xiaolu murmured, "You know Yang Hyun-suk rarely meets newcomers in person, right? He only meets newcomers in two situations: either for the monthly assessment of trainees or for the final decision on the debut group."

"For a producer like you who hasn't even signed a contract yet, the fact that he offered to bring you here means that Teddy has been praising you to the skies in front of him."

Jiang Yan chewed his food without saying a word, but he was thinking about something else.

I've researched a lot about Yang Xianshuo online.

Unlike Lee Soo-man's shrewd calculations, Yang Hyun-seok's style of doing things is more like that of a江湖 (jianghu, a term referring to a world of martial arts and chivalry), valuing both talent and first impressions.

But this person also has a quality that makes people in the industry both respect and fear him.

His intuition is extremely sharp, especially when it comes to judging people.

Rumor has it that he can tell if someone has star quality just by looking at them for three thousand seconds.

Jiang Yan had to be extremely vigilant when dealing with such a person.

After finishing his meal and cleaning up the dishes, Jiang Yan changed into a dark gray shirt and put on a black suit jacket.

As he stood in front of the mirror adjusting his collar, Lin Xiaolu floated up behind him and looked at him through the mirror.

"You're dressed so formally today?"

"When signing a contract, it should definitely be done formally."

"Isn't it because you want to see Yang Hsien-shuo?"

Jiang Yan paused for a moment as he adjusted his collar, then continued to button up the last button: "A little bit, I guess."

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