Seeing that Fang Yize remained silent, Fang Xize spoke with a teasing smile, “What, you don’t dare to admit it now?”
“It’s not that I don’t dare to admit it. I’m just worried that they won’t agree.”
“Don’t include me when you say ‘they,'” Fang Xize said. “Besides, you aren’t required to carry on the family line, nor do you have to inherit the family business. Whether you like men or women, Mom and Dad won’t have any objections.”
Fang Yize’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Well… probably.” Fang Xize wasn’t entirely certain what their parents thought, but they weren’t exactly old fossils. Having weathered many great storms in life, their thinking was bound to be more open than that of ordinary parents.
It didn’t matter. As long as Fang Xize supported her, Fang Yize didn’t worry about her parents’ opposition. At the very least, she knew she wasn’t fighting this battle alone. When she encountered problems, she would have her sister standing by her side, speaking up for her.
She happily finished every last bit of her breakfast before tidying up to head home.
Sitting in the passenger seat of the Rolls-Royce, Fang Yize held her phone and stared at the notification of Jiang Xule’s recalled message for a long time, hesitating over whether to send a reply to ask about it.
After opening the keyboard ninety-nine times, she finally decided to send a single “question mark.”
As it turned out, before the other party could reply, Fang Yize caught sight of Jiang Xule through the car window.
She was handing out flyers in front of a certain milk tea shop.
As the car moved forward at a steady speed, Fang Yize wished she could stick her head out of the window. It wasn’t until the figure grew smaller and smaller, fading into the distance, that she sat back in her seat, feeling perplexed.
“Based on that reaction, did you see your precious baby?” Fang Xize gripped the steering wheel, checking her mirrors for trailing vehicles as she made a turn.
“I saw her handing out flyers at a milk tea shop. I might not be able to find an excuse to meet her after this,” Fang Yize said, leaning back against the seat dejectedly.
Fang Xize glanced at her and asked, “What do you mean? Are the two of you not close?”
“It’s a one-sided crush on my part. Because she lost her job a while ago, I paid her to help me out just so I could see her. But now it seems she’s found a new job.”
“Oh~ so you’ve fallen for a poor girl. She must be quite good-looking then, otherwise I can’t imagine what you’d see in a milk tea girl.”
Fang Xize had always been proud and aloof regarding her background. The partners she had dated were all from prominent families that matched the Fangs in status; naturally, she looked down on a milk tea girl handing out flyers on the street.
Moreover, who would want to spend their life with someone who struggled just to survive in this world?
Fang Yize scoffed at her sister’s words. “She isn’t some ‘poor girl’! Back in high school, she was the top student in our entire grade. It’s just that for some unknown reason she didn’t take the college entrance exams. Otherwise, she’d definitely have a very good job right now!”
“Right, so?” Fang Xize said dismissively. “Does that change the fact that she currently has trouble even supporting herself?”
Hearing this, Fang Yize lost her confidence. She lowered her eyes and began picking at her fingers thoughtfully. To be honest, she didn’t understand Jiang Xule at all. Back in school, she had known her only from a distance, and Jiang Xule’s impression of her hadn’t been very good.
Aside from knowing her name was Jiang Xule, Fang Yize knew nothing.
The car continued toward the suburbs, and the speed increased accordingly. Fang Yize stared at the scenery outside while pondering the issues her sister had raised. Soon, at a familiar corner, she saw the recognizable villa.
The family’s nanny was already waiting at the door. Upon seeing the familiar license plate, two young girls in maid uniforms worked together to open the courtyard gates. They bowed slightly with their hands crossed in front of them, only standing up to close the gates again once the vehicle had entered.
The butler, dressed in a tailcoat, welcomed them inside with a smile.
As soon as they entered, the heavy scent of seafood filled the air. It looked like another seafood feast today. They had just had crawfish yesterday, which had left her feeling a bit “heated,” and now they were having another big feast—how was she supposed to handle it?
Her mother, Guo Jingxian, was in the kitchen watching the head chef stir-fry. As soon as she heard the commotion of Fang Yize’s return, she immediately trotted downstairs with a smile and gave Fang Yize a big hug.
“Look at this child, how did you get so thin?” This was the first thing Mrs. Guo Jingxian said every time she saw her after a period of time.
Fang Yize actually had lost weight this time. To keep them from worrying, she made up an excuse: “Really? That’s great, I’ve been dieting lately.”
“How much meat do you even have on your bones? Dieting? If you don’t gain some weight over these next two days, you can just resign immediately.”
“Mom!” Fang Yize said indignantly. “Can you stop bringing up resignation all the time?”
“What’s wrong with that? You work yourself to death every day for a job that pays a few thousand yuan. Just listen to your voice—you clearly don’t know how to take care of yourself.”
Fang Yize argued, “This is from eating crawfish. I use a megaphone during class, so I don’t have to use a loud voice. Besides, do you think I became a teacher for the salary?”
“Four classes in the morning and three in the afternoon—even if you don’t speak loudly, your throat will still hurt!”
Just as she finished speaking, Fang Yize’s father, Fang Dayi, walked out of the inner room holding his phone. He had just finished an online meeting, and the stern expression had not yet faded from his face.
Without hesitation, he stood directly in Mrs. Guo’s camp, saying, “She’s right. Quit that teaching job. Either stay home as a young mistress or get married and be a wealthy wife. You’re just making yourself suffer for no reason every day.”
Fang Yize didn’t really like coming home. Every time she returned, they said these things; it annoyed her to no end. Especially her father—he was always trying to marry her off. Was this house so large that it couldn’t accommodate one Fang Yize?
Seeing that Fang Yize looked downcast, Fang Xize crossed her arms and bumped her shoulder, whispering, “You’ve always been sensitive about the topic of marriage. Dad just wants you to come home, so he says those things to provoke you. Don’t take it to heart and run away from home again.”
“I did not.”
Guo Jingxian didn’t like listening to Fang Dayi either. She gave him a sidelong glance and went back upstairs.
The kitchen and dining room were on the second floor. In the center of the dining room sat a large circular marble table, which was completely covered with various dishes today. Fang Yize simply kept her head down and ate, not participating in the adults’ conversation.
After the meal, Fang Yize went back to her room alone. She couldn’t look at her phone in front of her parents; no matter what they were talking about, she had to keep her eyes wide and listen attentively.
The phone charging in her room received a reply from Jiang Xule at noon.
Jiang Xule: [I just wanted to say that I found a job. You don’t need to hire me as a mover anymore.]
Jiang Xule: [But then I thought your pay is quite high. If I have time, I’d still like to earn that money, so I recalled the message.]
Fang Yize: [So that’s why! What’s the salary at the milk tea shop?]
Jiang Xule: [Lower than at the restaurant, only 2,600, but it’s better than nothing.]
Jiang Xule: [I never said I found a job at a milk tea shop.]
Fang Yize: [Because I saw you on the street today, so…]
Jiang Xule: [Oh, I thought if you ran into me on the street, you’d come up and ask for a cup of milk tea.]
Hardly. Besides, Fang Yize never drank milk tea from street shops. If she wanted tea, it was usually made by the family chef using fresh milk and high-quality tea leaves, along with handmade brown sugar pearls.
Having escaped her parents’ control to rent a house on her own for a year, the intestines in that intestine noodle dish recently had been her first taste of street food. After twenty-three years as a caged canary, it was difficult to break the habit of spending money lavishly.
Besides, she had enough money to be lavish, so why not?
The fact that she was working as a teacher at No. 1 Middle School was already “seeking hardship” enough in her family’s eyes. They wouldn’t let her suffer in her daily life; her daily pocket money was enough for an ordinary person to buy an apartment in a standard building.
Fang Yize didn’t follow up on Jiang Xule’s last comment. Furthermore, Jiang Xule was only talking to her during her lunch break, so her time was limited. This rare bit of small talk ended quickly.
Fang Yize had been raised with the habit of not being addicted to her phone. At most, she’d play a few rounds of “Anipop.” Now that there was no one to talk to, she tossed her phone aside and walked out to the balcony to water the flowers in the milk bottles hanging from the eaves.
The labels attached to them had yellowed over time, and the handwriting had faded, making the numbers written on them almost illegible.
Heaven knows how much effort she had put into convincing her parents back then to let her keep these things, which they viewed as trash.
The bottles swayed in the wind. Presumably, when the storm hit a few days ago, a servant had taken them down and brought them inside; otherwise, they couldn’t have survived until now and would have shattered on the ground long ago.
Fang Yize reached out and steadied one of the spinning bottles. Her sister’s words from the car were still echoing in her mind.
Jiang Xule was currently having trouble even supporting herself. If she were with a “rich miss” like her, wouldn’t she feel pressured?
A lightbulb suddenly went off in Fang Yize’s head. With a ding~, a bold idea surfaced.
Solving Jiang Xule’s current problem with a leaky rental house was actually quite simple—why not just keep her as a mistress?
Just then, there were three knocks on her bedroom door. Fang Yize peeked inside and saw Fang Xize turning the lock and walking in, sitting down on the sofa in front of the balcony.
Crossing her legs, Fang Xize looked at her phone and read aloud: “Jiang Xule, formerly a student at Yuegang No. 15 Middle School. Her grades were indeed impressive. Currently residing at Room 401, No. 328 Liu Street, Yuegang City. Both parents deceased… hmm, that’s questionable. Lived with her grandparents since childhood; in 2011, her grandparents also passed away one after another…”
Fang Yize was shocked. She immediately rushed in from the balcony, snatched the phone from Fang Xize’s hand, and after glancing at the screen, demanded, “Why did you investigate her?!”
“Didn’t you say you aren’t familiar with the person you like? I’m helping you get to know her,” Fang Xize said. “There’s information here even you didn’t know, right?”
Indeed, she didn’t know. She hadn’t realized Jiang Xule had been living alone for so many years.