Endless Summer: The Champion's Vengeful Kiss - Chapter 14

The rain outside was a torrent. Inside He Linchuan’s bedroom, a humid heat rose with the light. He pressed his hand against the most sensitive part of my lower back, his touch alternating between light and heavy, his voice a low, husky growl.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

“Don’t pull away, Zhong Ni.”

In the dim light, his gaze was like a web of silken threads, ensnaring me. “Bite down… harder…”

Outside the window, the rain crashed down, a deluge that seemed to span a century.

…

At four in the morning, my hair finally dry, I remembered something important.

“Even for a top player, your real boss won’t be happy about you pulling a stunt like that, right? Maybe I should meet with him, talk about a real investment.”

He Linchuan raised an eyebrow and suddenly smiled. “It seems you still don’t get it.”

“There is no other boss. The owner of the club… is me.”

I stared at him, stunned.

He explained that he had used a proxy to establish the team in the country from the very beginning.

“The forty-million-yuan salary… I just made that up. I can pay myself whatever I want.”

“I’m telling you this to prove that I’m not the same naive, lovesick fool from seven years ago. I can protect you now-from your parents’ coercion, and from the storm of public opinion.”

A sour ache spread through my chest. Those were the very words I had used when I broke up with him.

It was pouring rain outside. He still smelled of the damp sea breeze from the day before. He had stood before me, his eyes fixed on mine. “Zhong Ni, I don’t agree to this breakup.”

I had laughed. “You don’t get a say in this, He Linchuan. I’m informing you, unilaterally.”

“You skip school for a relationship, willing to throw away your future. Why would I ever genuinely like a naive fool like you, with your head full of nothing but lovey-dovey nonsense? I was just playing with you from the start.”

I said so many cruel things that day. In the end, He Linchuan’s eyes were red, his tears mixing with the rain, but he still refused to leave. I turned my back on him, and he waited downstairs all night.

…

I came back from the memory and whispered, “I thought you would hate me.”

“Of course I hated you,” he said, a corner of his mouth twitching. “Actually, before I left, on the day I went to the airport, I couldn’t stop myself from going to see you one last time.”

I froze.

“Unfortunately, I saw a man dropping you off. You were wearing a formal dress, looking beautiful. He kissed you before he left.”

I tried to remember, but I couldn’t recall who it might have been. During the years my father was desperately trying to marry me off, incidents like that were common. I lowered my eyes in shame, but then I heard He Linchuan continue.

“When I was studying abroad, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. About the things you said when you broke up with me, and how you were on a date with someone else just a month later. The more I thought, the more I realized you were right.” He laughed, a self-deprecating sound. “I was too young. My own future was uncertain. How could I ask you for a promise?”

“So later, when someone invited me to play professionally, I agreed. Zhong Ni, I wanted to stand somewhere brilliant, somewhere you could see me.”

Much later, I met one of He Linchuan’s teammates from his time abroad. He told me that back then, He Linchuan was obsessed with winning the championship. He pushed his hands to their limits so many times that he risked permanent injury.

“When he lifted that championship trophy,” his teammate said, “he just stared out at the dark audience. I asked him who he was looking for, but he wouldn’t say a word.”

But on this night, I didn’t know any of that. I just covered my eyes and said in a low voice, “I thought you came back for revenge.”

“I came back to be with you,” He Linchuan said, his gaze fixed on mine. “Zhong Ni, I know what you’re thinking. These past few years have been hard on you. You’ve changed. You even try to act like the eighteen-year-old you were when you’re with me. But you don’t have to.”

He leaned in and kissed me. “Because I love you. All of you.”