Li Yifei told Qian Fei that something came up unexpectedly on the night she returned, so he couldn't get away. He would ask his buddy to pick her up instead.
Qian Fei said it wasn't necessary to go through all that trouble. "Why be so sentimental? For the first eighteen years of my life when I didn't know you, I managed to drag my suitcase out of the airport just fine without ever getting lost!"
Li Yifei scoffed, "Wow, you really went for the number eighteen, huh? This isn't being sentimental, this is me expressing my affection for you. Try to appreciate it!"
He also told Qian Fei, "By the way, the buddy picking you up is that so-called 'Idiot Phone Credit Prince' I mentioned. He's a bit dumb, has a sharp tongue, and a wandering eye. Just treat him like a breathing taxi driver—no matter what he says, don't engage with him."
Qian Fei asked, "Why shouldn't I engage with him?"
Li Yifei replied, "Because the kid gets carried away. If you respond, he'll get excited and might end up spouting ten thousand words at you, maybe even propose or something."
Qian Fei said, "That sounds perfect! A fool with money to spare—just the kind of male friend I need!"
Li Yifei paused before saying, "Never mind, just take a cab back yourself."
But that night, when Qian Fei got off the plane, it was Dajun who came to pick her up.
This was Qian Fei's first close encounter with the legendary Phone Credit Prince. Up close, his features gave off a charming, boy-next-door vibe—the kind that grew on you the more you looked.
At least, that was her impression before he opened his mouth. The moment he started talking, Qian Fei was immediately convinced.
In her entire life, she had genuinely never met anyone as talkative as this guy...
Dajun introduced himself: "Hi Qian Fei, I'm Jun Cheng—'Jun' as in army, 'Cheng' as in grand chancellor. I was Li Yifei's classmate in kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, and high school. You must be wondering why I'm listing all this out instead of just saying we were classmates throughout. Well, I think this way better shows how long I've known Li Yifei, which should make you feel less awkward around me, so our interaction won't be too uncomfortable!"
Qian Fei wasn't feeling awkward anymore—she was getting a headache.
●︶3︶●
On the road, Qian Fei remarked, "I thought your name was something like 'Da Jun,' but it turns out you're 'Jun something.' That's a pretty rare surname!"
Dajun turned the steering wheel and said, "Right? Honestly, my nickname should've been 'Da Cheng' or even 'Grand Chancellor,' but they insisted on calling me 'Dajun.' Such a majestic name got reduced to something so basic—can you feel my pain? Also, Qian Fei, I should correct you—I'm not 'Jun something something,' I'm 'Jun something.' My given name is just one character."
Qian Fei felt her brain throbbing. Why was someone who loved hoarding phone credit so incredibly talkative...
She decided not to engage him about himself—she was afraid he'd launch into ten-thousand-word monologues. Instead, she steered the conversation toward Li Yifei.
"Since you and Li Yifei were classmates all through school, you must be really close, right?" she asked casually. She figured guys loved bragging about their brotherly bonds."Not good!" The Grand Chancellor concluded, "He's just a scumbag blackmailer! If it weren't for the dirt he has on me, I wouldn't give him the time of day! He never includes me in the good stuff, just dumps all the dirty work on me! Take you for example—back then, your tea, your tickets to the Da Peng show, your Spring Festival plane tickets home, your iPhone 5, and those two bottles of Wuliangye liquor—who do you think handled all that? Sure, he paved the way, but wasn't I the one running around getting it done? So how come in the end, he's the one you're close to? I even think I noticed you before he did! And now today, same old story. Pfft! Scumbag, beast, absolute animal!"
Qian Fei was practically sweating bullets. What had Li Yifei said? When this "Phone Bill Prince" got worked up, did he always end up confessing his feelings too...?
But from his rant, she'd picked up on a few things.
"What was that about the iPhone just now?" she asked Dajun.
Dajun spared her a glance—more accurately, a glance at the phone in her hand—amid his tirade. "That! The one you're holding! I was the one who ran around to get it!"
Qian Fei blinked. "Bought it? For how much?"
Dajun said, "Market price was over five thousand!" He paused, then yelped, "Oh no! That wasn't the story we agreed on—I was supposed to say it was confiscated by customs!"
Qian Fei turned to stare at him blankly, concluding that this "Phone Bill Prince" truly lived up to his name—dumb as a post and loaded.
"And what about the Wuliangye?" she pressed.
Dajun asked, "What did Li Yifei tell you?"
Qian Fei said, "I forgot!"
Dajun said, "Then I forgot too!"
Qian Fei said, "When we get home, I'll tell Li Yifei you already spilled the beans about the iPhone."
Dajun wailed, "Come on, sis, don't do this! Okay, those two bottles of Wuliangye... Li Yifei made me go back to his place under the pretense of paying his dad an early New Year's visit, and then I swiped them from under the old man's bed..."
Qian Fei felt herself cracking apart... This guy must have spent his childhood in the pediatric ward of a mental hospital. Absolutely.
●︶3︶●
After a moment, Qian Fei asked, "Earlier, you said Li Yifei never includes you in the good stuff and just dumps the dirty work on you, and that today was the same. What did you mean by that?"
Dajun glanced at her and said, "Oh, nothing much. He went to a business cocktail party today and wouldn't let me tag along. Said he was taking a female companion, and since my gender's 'unclear,' I got vetoed."
Qian Fei also said, "Oh," and fell silent.
For the rest of the ride, no matter how much Dajun tried to keep the conversation going, she couldn't muster the interest to engage.
Back home, as if possessed, she booted up her computer and immediately searched Baidu for "business cocktail party."
Unfortunately, the results were all useless stuff like "Objectives and Procedures for Business Cocktail Parties" or "Etiquette Tips for Business Cocktail Parties"—none of the news-style announcements she was hoping for, like "Business Cocktail Party to Be Held at [Venue] on [Date]."
Grudgingly, she shut her laptop and went to shower. Afterward, she lay in bed. Picking up her phone, she thought about its price and sighed inwardly. She resolved to make it up to Li Yifei with a proper birthday gift soon.She turned on the screen—it was already half past eleven.
At this time on previous days, Li Yifei would have already started pestering her. But today, her WeChat remained eerily silent.
Bored, she tapped her phone screen and sent a message to Li Yifei.
"I'm home."
A long while later, Li Yifei finally replied: "I know. Da Jun already reported in. I still have some things to finish up here. Go to bed early, and I’ll pamper you tomorrow."
Qian Fei looked at the screen and let out a soft laugh.
She turned off her phone, switched off the light, and prepared to sleep.
But just as drowsiness began to set in, her phone suddenly dinged.
She fumbled for her phone in the dark, expecting a message from Li Yifei, but instead, it was from Xiao Yuan, who had sent her a voice message.
Still half-asleep, she hesitated over whether to listen. After a brief struggle, considering that Xiao Yuan never disturbed her this late unless it was urgent, she tapped on the message.
Xiao Yuan’s voice, brimming with excitement and thrill, echoed through the dark room.
And after hearing it, all traces of sleepiness vanished instantly.
Xiao Yuan said: "Fei Fei, get on Weibo right now! Search for a female celebrity I like—Jin Tian! Look at the photos she just posted! Tell me the guy in the picture isn’t Li Yifei from the partner company! The more I look, the more it looks like him!"
Qian Fei’s mind flashed back to what Da Jun had said when picking her up—the words that had left her slightly distracted all evening, no matter what she did.
"Nothing much, really. He went to a business banquet alone today. I wanted to go too, but he wouldn’t let me. Said he was bringing a female companion, and since my gender is ‘undetermined,’ I got straight-up rejected."
Qian Fei bolted upright, turned on the light, grabbed her phone, logged into Weibo as fast as she could, and searched for "Jin Tian," clicking into her profile.
There, she saw a post with a photo and a caption. The pretentiously poetic tone of the text made her want to shudder.
"Midnight stirs the heart, restless with longing. Fondness unspoken, so I call him ‘brother.’ Brother, after tonight, I hope you’ll still stay by my side as you are now..."
Below the text was a selfie. On the left side of the photo was Jin Tian’s beautiful, delicate, doll-like face, adorned with elegant evening makeup. On the right, captured from a sneaky angle, was the side profile of a man standing behind her.
That man’s chiseled side profile was so handsome it made Qian Fei’s eyes sting.
She opened the comments and saw countless fan messages:
"Is this Xiao Tian Tian’s crush? So handsome! Go get him!"
"Xiao Tian Tian, you can do it! No man could resist you! Oppa is so handsome! May you two be together forever!"
"Xiao Tian Tian, you’re the prettiest, cutest, most wonderful girl—he’s bound to fall for you!"
"Xiao Tian Tian, I can’t imagine any man not liking you! ‘Brother’ must adore you! Otherwise, why would he attend the banquet with you? After tonight, you’ll definitely be together! No—just spend the whole night together! giggles "
"Calling your lover ‘brother’—so adorable! I’m melting!!!!!"
...
Qian Fei couldn’t read any more. With each comment, she only felt herself growing smaller and smaller.She exited the comment section and scrolled down with her finger. There were a few more posts below, accompanied by photos, showing Jintian telling her fans about a cocktail party she had attended.
She tapped the refresh button to see if Jintian had posted anything new.
To her surprise, she found that Jintian had deleted the latest post.
She froze for a long moment before remembering to reply to Xiaoyuan.
"You weren't mistaken. That guy is indeed Li Yifei from the partner company."
●︶3︶●
Qian Fei told Xiaoyuan that Jintian had deleted the post and asked if she had saved the photo. Xiaoyuan said she had.
"Send it to me," Qian Fei said.
"What do you need it for?" Xiaoyuan asked.
Suppressing the indescribable dull ache in her chest, Qian Fei replied, "To blackmail the person involved into treating us to a meal during the next meeting."
Xiaoyuan sent the photo over, followed by a text: "To be honest, my sixth sense always thought he was interested in you..."
Qian Fei responded, "Your sixth sense has been drowned in too many social scenes over the years. It's long been worn out and unreliable."
Then she stared at the photo for a long time. As she looked, she noticed the image was starting to blur.
She quickly sniffed and scolded herself—don’t be so pathetic.
She tried to force herself to lie down and sleep, but her restless fingers betrayed her. In the end, she sent a message to Li Yifei.
"Where are you? Not home yet?"
After a while, Li Yifei replied, "Busy with something. I’ll head home after dropping off a friend. It’s late, you should sleep!"
Qian Fei put down her phone, thinking about the "friend" sitting in his passenger seat—her beautiful face smiling like a flower, her soft voice calling the driver "gege." That was his girlfriend after Gui Lili.
Somehow, the scene tonight overlapped in her mind with the time she had caught Wang Ruohai cheating at a hotel.
She had asked where they were, and they told her they were working overtime, busy with something; they both told her to go to sleep.
Suddenly, her eyes burned.
One after another, they were all the same.
He had said he’d cut ties with all those flings. Maybe his definition of "cutting ties" was different from hers.
In the end, it seemed they simply weren’t on the same path.
She closed her eyes and comforted herself.
At least she hadn’t fallen too deeply yet.
At least, at least, she had realized this incompatibility early enough.
At least, at least, at least, she hadn’t discovered it when she was already in too deep—that his ex-girlfriend was calling him "gege."
Author's Note:
Just to clarify, "Jintian" has nothing to do with Jing Tian... Personally, I think Jing Tian is quite pretty, though her acting is just so-so... The name "Jintian" actually came about like this: I was struggling to name this minor female character; then I thought, what’s today’s date? Oh, today, today... Might as well just call her Jintian. So that’s how she got the name, heh heh heh...
And as for "Dajun," his full name is "Jun Cheng"—doesn’t that sound domineering and lofty? Still think "Dajun" is a loser’s name?
Thanks to all the lovely readers who threw grenades and mines! My tea eggs are all thanks to you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Truly grateful for your generosity!!!
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← My favorite author just opened a new story pit! When you go check it out, please tell her for me: "Ninth Brother sent me to observe Mental Patient No. 622." Thank you everyone!!! (Hehe, I'm her wardmate and my number is 623, would I say that? Yijin isn't much better either and needs treatment—her patient gown is No. 624, hehehe!)
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