"Chen Shi:..."
Innocently blinking his eyes, he wondered if he had done something wrong. Why was Li Man glaring at him?
But he couldn't help but curl up the corners of his lips; Li Man was still the same as before, unchanged.
Like a little chili pepper, she would get angry with him if she was unhappy.
After throwing a tantrum, she would come to him to play.
Her temper came and went inexplicably, and it would improve without anyone coaxing her.
Chen Shi found this aspect of her to be quite magical.
Li Man couldn't be bothered with them and turned back into her room.
Chen Shi followed behind her, standing at the doorway of her room without going in. "After we finish eating, shall we go out for a walk?"
"Where do you want to go?" Li Man sat in front of her desk and asked absentmindedly.
"How about going to the movies? My colleague gave me two movie tickets." Chen Shi said nervously.
Upon hearing Chen Shi's words, Li Man wanted to laugh, and indeed, she burst into laughter. She turned her head to look at him and said, "If you want to invite me to the movies, just invite me straightforwardly. Why do you have to make excuses and say your colleague gave you the tickets?"
Chen Shi scratched his head and smiled foolishly, "So, will you come or not?"
Come to think of it, Li Man hadn't been to the cinema to watch a movie for a long time. Since getting married, she hadn't set foot into a cinema, and she could no longer remember what a cinema looked like.
Anyway, there was nothing to do at home. She just stayed at home every day, eating and eating. She had gained several pounds.
Li Man had not only gained weight but also had a good complexion, and she looked beautiful.
Actually, Li Man wasn't ugly to begin with, but she hadn't been taking care of herself properly before, which made her look a bit haggard and aged.
Now that she had rested well, her complexion had become rosy, and her beauty had naturally returned. After all, she had a good foundation.
"Well then, let's go. It's been a long time since I went to the movies."
After saying that, Li Man seemed to remember something and asked with a smile, "When was the last time we watched a movie?"
"It was the summer vacation when you got into college." Chen Shi replied without thinking.
"Right, right." Li Man looked at Chen Shi and teased, "You have such a good memory. You remember something from so long ago so clearly. Being a top student is really something!"
A bitter smile formed at the corner of Chen Shi's mouth. It wasn't that his memory was good; it was because he couldn't forget the little moments they had together.
The first time he saw Li Man when they were kids, he thought she was beautiful and adorable. She was wearing a snow-white princess dress and looked as pretty as a princess.
He had always liked Li Man. From the moment he first laid eyes on her, he liked her. But he had always kept his feelings hidden deep inside, never mentioning them to Li Man. He was afraid that if he said it, she would reject him or ignore him.
But he never expected that because of his cowardice, Li Man would drift further and further away from him.
How many nights had he stayed awake because he missed her? How many nights had he gotten drunk because he missed her?
On the day he found out that Li Man had registered her marriage behind her parents' and boyfriend's back, he went to the bar alone and got drunk.
Since that day, he felt that life had lost its meaning.
He had intended to grow old in solitude, but his parents pressured him to get married, even resorting to threats of death. In the end, he reluctantly accepted their arrangement and married a woman he didn't like.
Being married to someone he didn't love was torture, to say the least. He couldn't even bring himself to be interested in intimacy with her.
Three years into their marriage, he had only been intimate with her once.
Afterwards, he lost all interest, no matter how much his wife tried to seduce him. He even moved to the spare bedroom, sleeping alone.
(Note: The translation aims to capture the essence and style of the original content while ensuring a high-quality translation that is grammatically correct and appealing to English-speaking readers.)
