Before hanging up, Dajun told Li Yifei one more thing.
“When I was talking to Qian Fei, she kept looking at her phone. Some creep was sending her WeChat messages, beeping nonstop—so annoying! I complained she wasn’t respecting me and told her to block the troublemaker first. She just tossed the phone to me and told me to do it myself. When I took the phone and looked—holy shit, that guy sending messages had no shame at all! He’d set his name as ‘Galaxy’s Hottest Hunk’! Like, was the whole damn Earth not enough for him? He had to flaunt himself across the entire galaxy?! Just from that name, I knew this guy was definitely no good—probably some serial ‘shake-to-chat’ user. So without hesitation, I dragged him straight to the blacklist! I also took the chance to lecture your tomboy for you, telling her not to just randomly shake her phone for strangers. I know after hearing this, you’ll want to thank me for being the bigger person and shielding your girl from some sleazeball. But what I want to tell you is—I did it all for brotherhood, so no need to thank me!”
As Li Yifei listened, veins bulged on his forehead.
“Thank you my ass! That was ME you blocked!”
That was the shameless nickname he’d forcibly changed on Qian Fei’s phone after snatching it from her.
Li Yifei felt that old saying was absolutely right: Fear not the godlike opponent, but the pig-brained teammate.
Even if he racked his brains, he’d never have guessed that the WeChat message he’d sent—after exhausting his energy, sacrificing his dignity—had been intercepted by that damn kid Dajun.
Gritting his teeth, he decided: Next time, just giving away that unlucky brat’s gaming gear wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to gift away his entire pay-to-win gaming account to feel satisfied.
●︶3︶●
When Qian Fei called Yao Jingjing, she sounded agitated.
“I think I might never be able to face stir-fried eggplant strips again.”
Yao Jingjing asked, “Does the sight remind you of someone?”
Qian Fei said, “I’m trying hard to overcome that reaction.”
Yao Jingjing said, “Now I’m wondering if I taught you wrong. Was that ‘three-day rule’ too rigid? Maybe we should relax it to a ‘three-to-five-day rule’? That way, Li Yifei’s text would’ve fallen within the acceptable timeframe!”
Qian Fei said, “The number of days doesn’t matter. I just genuinely think we’re not compatible. Even now when he reaches out, all he says is ‘let’s make up’—he doesn’t see the issues I see as problems at all. If he doesn’t acknowledge what I consider problems, even if we reconcile this time, those same issues will keep causing new ones later. So rather than prolong the pain, it’s better to make a clean break now.”
Yao Jingjing asked, “But can you really bear to?”
Qian Fei fell silent for a long moment before murmuring, “But I really can’t afford to get hurt again.”
She no longer had the courage to slowly nurture another earth-shattering love. She wasn’t young anymore. After everything she’d been through, all she wanted was stability—to find someone who, even if he wasn’t wealthy, even if he didn’t make her heart race, could still build a steady life with her.
After sailing through countless storms, what did love even amount to? Everyone still had to return to the mundane realities of daily life.
When it came down to it, the happiness Li Yifei brought her was dazzling but ungrounded. Their joy floated midair, never touching earth—and anything suspended too long would eventually scatter.●︶3︶●
Sister Jin told Qian Fei there was a three-minute speed dating event at a park over the weekend.
"Feifei, go check it out. What if you meet someone suitable?"
After some thought, Qian Fei agreed.
It was better than staying home alone overthinking things.
What Qian Fei didn’t expect was running into that guy named Jun Cheng at the event.
The so-called "Phone Bill Prince" let out a startled cry the moment he saw her, pointing at her and asking, "You’re out here speed dating—does Li Yifei know about this?!"
Qian Fei smacked his pointing hand away and retorted, "We’re not related by blood, and I don’t owe him money. Why should he know?"
But Jun Cheng stubbornly raised his hand again, pointing at her and exclaiming, "Girl, this isn’t cool! Li Yifei’s so messed up over you he can’t even eat his stir-fried eggplant anymore!"
Qian Fei smacked his hand down once more and asked, "Are you here to date or to talk about Li Yifei?"
Jun Cheng said, "I was here to date, but seeing you, I can’t act like a normal dater anymore! I’m afraid Li Yifei will kill me if he finds out!" He paused, his expression instantly switching to pleading mode. "Girl, can I talk to you about something? Please stop tormenting Li Yifei. When you torment that bastard, he takes it out on my gaming gear, and it’s driving me insane!"
While he was earnestly pleading and ranting with his life on the line, Qian Fei’s phone suddenly started buzzing nonstop. The frequency was obnoxiously rapid—five beeps with a tiny pause in between.
Qian Fei lowered her head to check.
Jun Cheng found this feeling of being ignored extremely unpleasant.
He knocked on the table in dissatisfaction. "Hey, girl, even if we don’t hit it off, basic courtesy still applies. Even though we’re not a match, can you at least leave me with some dignity? If other girls see you ignoring me to play on your phone, they’ll think I’m so unbearable people can’t even stand me for three minutes! How am I supposed to keep going with the event after this? Hey, hey—Comrade Qian Fei, can you listen to me for a second? Can you check WeChat later? Ugh, who the hell is this person spamming you like this? Beep beep beep beep! Qian Fei, I dare you to block them right now! If you block them, I swear I won’t mention Li Yifei again!"
Qian Fei suddenly lifted her head and tossed her phone at him. "Here, block them yourself!"
Jun Cheng fumbled to catch the phone.
The outdoor sunlight was so bright it made the screen hard to read. The only thing he could clearly see was that the person messaging Qian Fei had a default profile picture with no photo, and their username was infuriating at first glance—"Galaxy’s Hottest Hunk."
Jun Cheng cursed under his breath. Just how narcissistic was this guy? Was Earth not enough for him? This dude was definitely not a good person—100% the type of sleazy player who used flashy usernames to pick up girls on random chat apps.
With a swift flick of his finger, he directly blocked the sleazebag. After completing this righteous act, he felt his entire being ascend to a higher plane of purity and greatness.
He had done something incredible for his bro—he had shielded his woman from harassment by a creep!
When he looked up after blocking the guy, he saw Qian Fei staring with her mouth slightly open, looking a little dazed.
He asked, "Hey, what’s wrong, girl?"Qian Fei shook her head with her mouth half-open and said, "Nothing, just thinking that if you were born into a poor family, you probably wouldn't have survived past infancy—definitely wouldn't have grown this big!" That kid must have cost a fortune to treat his brain since childhood.
She sighed silently to herself.
Was this fate? He actually went ahead and deleted that person for her!
When Da Jun handed the phone back to Qian Fei, he said, "Qian Fei, from now on, don't add people with such flirty names as friends! Honestly, even though Li Yifei is a bit of a jerk for giving away all my gear, he's still better than those scammers on WeChat! Really, I think Li Yifei actually cares about you. Maybe you should find another chance to cook him some eggplant strips..."
His words were a jumbled mess—complex (thinking about his lost gear), incoherent (just wanting to kick someone when they're down), and chaotic (but after all, Li Yifei was still his bro). As Qian Fei listened, she silently stood up.
He quickly stopped mid-sentence and asked, "Hey, where are you going? I wasn't finished yet!"
Qian Fei replied, "Big bro, three minutes are long over. It's time to switch." With that, she turned and walked away.
Left behind, Comrade Jun Cheng stretched his hand out dramatically like Er Kang, calling after her, "Hey, listen to me one more thing! Stop using 'Shake' from now on—it's unreliable! The people you find there are even worse than Li Yifei!"
He noticed many people, especially men, turning to look at Qian Fei because of his words. He felt like he'd done a great deed, unknowingly blocking countless potential suitors for Li Yifei.
Up ahead, Qian Fei suddenly stumbled. After steadying herself, she turned back sharply and shot Da Jun a murderous glare.
●︶3︶●
At the speed-dating event, aside that nutcase Jun Cheng who clearly forgot to take his meds, Qian Fei met four other people. After the fourth, she found the whole thing utterly pointless and quietly slipped away.
Back home, she called Yao Jingjing to vent about the frustrating encounters she'd had at the event.
The first guy was too dull and awkward—frustrating.
The second guy talked way too much—frustrating.
The third guy was too nice and bland—frustrating.
The fourth guy was so smooth he had no personality—frustrating.
After her rant, Yao Jingjing stayed silent for a long while before finally asking, "Girl, do you even know what kind of person you're looking for?"
Qian Fei repeated, "What kind of person am I looking for?"
Yao Jingjing said, "You're basically looking for someone like Li Yifei—that's the only way you won't be frustrated!"
Qian Fei fell silent.
She felt a pang of sadness. Unconsciously, it seemed she'd fallen under Li Yifei's spell. She had thought life would go on just fine without him, but now she kept realizing that his shadow lingered everywhere in her life without him.
Miserably, she asked Yao Jingjing, "Jingjing, what should I do?"
Yao Jingjing sighed and murmured, "Go find out if Li Yifei has any identical twin brothers or something. If he does, snatch one up immediately—living on illusions, loving the crow for the sake of its nest, or settling for a substitute lover might just save you!"
Qian Fei decisively hung up on her unreliable best friend.
●︶3︶●
Because of the WeChat blacklist incident, Li Yifei gave Da Jun a thorough beating. Then he asked, "How many people did she meet in total?"Dajun rubbed his sore bottom and scratched his face. "I don't know! After that, I just went about my own business!"
Li Yifei's face darkened. "Turn around!"
Dajun yelped, "No more kicking! If you kick me again, my mom won't get any grandchildren!"
Li Yifei went to the bar, poured himself a drink, downed it in one gulp, then pointed at Dajun fiercely. "You! Find me another girl! She has to have a perfect figure, stunning looks, a hot body, a youthful face, and big boobs!"
Dajun froze for a moment before exclaiming, "What, you think I'm a pimp or something? The only girl I know is Jin Tian, and I can't even remember how I met her!"
Li Yifei frowned irritably. "Don't mention her to me! None of this would've happened if not for her!"
Dajun cautiously sidled up to him. "You really want to meet other girls now? No more tomboys? Really? You're sure? If you're really giving up, then I'm gonna make my move! The more I look at her, the more I like her... Ow! Why'd you hit me?"
Before he could finish, Li Yifei smacked him on the back of the head. "You dare!"
Rubbing his head, Dajun asked, "So you still planning to find some other girl?"
Li Yifei shoved him away. "Find your sister!"
●︶3︶●
Li Yifei held his phone, deliberating over and over, phrasing and rephrasing. He typed out two to three hundred characters in the message box, editing repeatedly before finally deleting it down to just over a dozen words and sending it to Qian Fei: "Can you add me back on WeChat?"
He was prepared for the message to sink like a stone with no response.
But then his phone dinged—she had actually replied.
"Texting works just as well."
That was what Qian Fei said.
Li Yifei was thrilled. She was finally willing to acknowledge him again!
"Can I say two more things?" he sent another text.
Two seconds later, Qian Fei replied: "First one."
Li Yifei quickly typed: "I know what I did wrong."
This time, there was a full minute's pause before Qian Fei replied: "Second one."
Li Yifei sent: "I miss cooking eggplant strips. I miss you even more."
The wait this time was excruciatingly long. Li Yifei's heart trembled with anticipation. He had never experienced "nervousness" before—but now he did.
Nearly ten minutes later, his WeChat pinged with a notification.
The woman who could cook eggplant strips like no one else had finally added him back.
●︶3︶●
Qian Fei was curled up on the sofa, half-heartedly watching Happy Camp when she received Li Yifei's text.
"Can you add me back on WeChat?"
She clutched her phone, torn between replying and ignoring him.
In the end, her fingers moved before her brain could decide, her body responding faster than her thoughts. She tapped out a few words on the screen and hit send: "Texting works just as well."
Almost immediately, another message came through.
"Can I say two more things?"
Two seconds later, her fingers moved again before her brain could catch up.
"First one."
The reply came almost instantly: "I know what I did wrong."
Her grip on the phone nearly faltered. Staring at those words on the screen, she wondered if she was being overly sentimental—but it felt like a lifetime had passed between them.
Understanding each other—sometimes, some people could spend their whole lives and still never achieve it. She had thought that she and Li Yifei were doomed to that fate. But now, at this moment, he was telling her he knew what he had done wrong.
Her fingers brushed the screen: "Second one."
A few seconds later, his reply came: "I miss cooking eggplant strips. I miss you even more."She looked at her phone and suddenly burst out laughing.
Laughing and laughing, somehow her vision started to blur.
She thought stir-fried eggplant strips might have become her emotional trigger.
She lifted her head and continued watching the variety show, but she couldn’t seem to remember a single thing the five hosts were saying.
Her vision shifted from blurry to clear, then back to blurry, over and over.
Finally, she calmed down, lowered her head, picked up her phone, and opened WeChat.
She added that person back.
●︶3︶●
Qian Fei felt that after behaving himself for two days, Li Yifei had started pulling strange moves again.
He told her boss that, given some new issues cropping up in the hotel project, a few team members should be sent to the hotel site to oversee things for a few days.
Logically, as a sponsor representative and department head, he didn’t need to be on-site anymore, but he humbly insisted he would personally go to supervise the work.
So her boss, equally enthusiastic, declared that he would definitely assign someone to actively and unconditionally cooperate with the sponsor representative. And that someone turned out to be her.
The old "Landlord" trio reunited at the hotel site, and at noon, just like before, they played Landlord. Everything seemed no different from last year—except Li Yifei was now the boss, while she and Zhao De were still the underlings.
But the actual changes, as Zhao De put it, were like night and day.
"Bro, is this what they call 'the wheel of fortune turns'? Li Yifei, can you act any more shameless as a boss? Little Fei just swallowed some saliva—she didn’t even say she was thirsty—and you were already scrambling to get her water! Fei just brushed her hair—not even wiping sweat—and you were already rushing to turn on the AC! Fei just casually mentioned lunch was bland, and you were hopping around like a monkey to buy her fruit! Damn, I can’t even stand watching you act this shameless, you know? Where’s that proud young master attitude of yours? And the most shameless part—do you even realize? You bastard, can you stop dragging me down as cannon fodder just so Little Fei can win at cards? I’m about to lose my pants here!!!"
Li Yifei responded calmly, "Now I’m the boss, and you’re the subordinate. A subordinate should know their place and not question the boss’s decisions." Then he turned, his expression shifting seamlessly into one of warmth, "Manager Qian, free tonight? How about I treat you guys to stinky mandarin fish?"
Qian Fei glanced at him, played a bomb card, and said breezily, "I’ll think about it."
Meanwhile, Zhao De nearly fainted at the sight of the four twos: "Dammit! Li Yifei, you’re shameless! Just to please Little Fei, you’d stuff even more twos into the deck!" He threw down his own two twos. "This is the first time I’ve ever seen six twos in a game of Landlord!"
Li Yifei looked at him, deadpan. "Since there are so many twos, whoever plays theirs first gets to keep them as the real ones."
Zhao De, face dark with fury, turned to Qian Fei, pinning his last hope on her to say something fair.
Qian Fei tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with practiced grace, smiled sweetly at him, and said, "Zhao De, it’s time to air out your underwear!"
Zhao De felt like he was about to cough up blood."Weren't you two at odds before? How did you end up colluding together again! What a pair of shameless adulterers!"
Author's Note:
Everyone's been clamoring for more scenes with the Grand Chancellor, so I've added a little bit. My protagonist-loving beauties, don't be disappointed—the spotlight will still be on our main characters going forward ^_^
This little tiff is now resolved, and next chapter we'll move on to something else to advance the plot
How much longer until it's finished? Honestly, I have no idea—my control over word count isn't exactly stellar...
This afternoon my boss assigned a task due before the weekend. If I don't update tomorrow, please don't be impatient. Whether there's an update or not, please check the notice on the [synopsis] page.
I'll try my best to find time to write, clenches fist !
Thank you to all you generous patrons for your thunder, bombs, and cannon gifts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll love you even more than tea eggs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bows in gratitude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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