Fang Yize leaned against the staircase entrance with her arms crossed, stifling a laugh as she watched Jiang Xule walk toward her, taking the stairs two at a time.
Finally unable to hold it back, she clutched her stomach and burst into laughter.
Jiang Xule looked at her helplessly, but perhaps caught by the infection of Fang Yize’s laughter, she couldn’t help but let out a snort of laughter herself.
After the laughter died down, Jiang Xule felt it was a bit silly for the two of them to stand at the top of the stairs laughing without saying a word, so she grabbed Fang Yize’s wrist and started pulling her toward the office.
“Where is your office?” Jiang Xule asked.
Fang Yize teased, “You’re pulling me along without even knowing where it is?”
As soon as she spoke, Jiang Xule said, “Found it.”
Jiang Xule stopped in front of an office with an open door. On the door frame was a plaque that read “Grade 18 Homeroom Teacher’s Office.”
“Your office conditions are actually quite nice, clean and tidy.”
Fang Yize pulled over a chair and placed it in front of her desk, saying, “If it’s not tidy, they dock my pay. What delicious food did you bring today?”
Jiang Xule opened the bag, revealing the fried chicken boxes inside, and said, “It’s from that fried chicken shop you love, plus an order of wontons in chili oil.”
“You took a taxi there?” Fang Yize looked pleasantly surprised. “Why didn’t you wait for me so we could drive there together?”
“If you finish your work at school, you can go home and shower and sleep immediately. I see that you’re either busy with a full schedule or covering classes for others, so I just went by myself.”
A radiant smile spread across Fang Yize’s face. She leaned her beautiful face closer to Jiang Xule and said, “Are you worried about me?”
“A girlfriend worrying about her girlfriend—isn’t that only natural?”
“Well then, thank you, girlfriend~” Fang Yize said, about to lean in for a kiss on Jiang Xule’s cheek, when she suddenly remembered the surveillance cameras in the office and refrained after all.
Since it wasn’t very late after school on Friday, teachers and students would pass by the hallway from time to time, and even teachers who forgot things would suddenly return to the office to retrieve them.
Fang Yize ate a wonton to whet her appetite. She didn’t know which shop Jiang Xule had bought them from, but they were so delicious she kept nodding and gave a thumbs up.
“By the way, how do you have time to come today? Did your friend leave Yuegang?”
Jiang Xule raised her hand to rub the back of her neck, her lips curling into a smile as she said, “No, she said she plans to stay in Yuegang for a long time. I just felt like I’ve been neglecting you these past few days, so I hurried over to curry favor.”
“You finally realized!” Thinking about this, Fang Yize took a large, indignant bite of fried chicken, her mouth so full she could hardly chew.
“If she asks me out again today, I’m definitely not going. I’m staying with you,” Jiang Xule said with a face full of sincerity.
In reality, she had worked the early shift today and was already off the clock, and tomorrow was her once-a-week day off, so she had plenty of time.
After Fang Yize finally swallowed her food, she said, “For the sake of this feeding you brought me, I won’t hold it against you.”
“Besides, even if you wanted to go out with your friend tonight, you couldn’t! We’re moving your luggage to the new house in a bit.”
The move had been delayed for a week, and now Fang Yize’s rental apartment was empty of everything except for some furniture that would be a hassle to take.
“Did you contact a moving company?”
“No,” Fang Yize said. “I have a friend who can drive a truck. Once they found out I was finally moving to the villa district, they insisted on coming to help.”
Jiang Xule arched an eyebrow. “Then it seems I’m not needed. I should probably go find my friend instead.”
“I need you, I need you, of course I need you!” Fang Yize said. “They all really want to meet you too. Jiang Xule, are you willing to meet my friends?”
Although Fang Yize liked Jiang Xule very much, she also knew the initial reason Jiang Xule was with her. So while she was clingy, she also maintained a strong sense of boundaries.
For instance, Jiang Xule often mentioned going out with friends and wouldn’t return until the middle of the night, but Fang Yize never questioned who those friends were—male or female—nor did she ever ask to tag along to eat, drink, or have fun.
Sometimes she suspected if there was someone else… but every time she saw Jiang Xule return looking exhausted, she dismissed the thought.
She figured this friend of hers must be someone very difficult to get rid of, or perhaps someone who liked Jiang Xule and constantly pestered her, and that Jiang Xule was making herself so tired just to get away from them.
Though this thought was a bit strange, since nothing could be proven either way, she just let things develop. She firmly believed that Jiang Xule was slowly accepting their relationship and slowly beginning to like her; eventually, she would confess everything and take the initiative to let her understand a different side of Jiang Xule.
So when her own friends were about to enter Jiang Xule’s life, she instinctively asked if Jiang Xule was willing. If not, she would have declined her friends’ kindness.
“I’m willing, why wouldn’t I be? You’re usually so busy and rarely get to see your friends, right? Why not take this chance to throw a party? You should have some fun with your friends and get some rest.”
Faced with Jiang Xule’s reaction, Fang Yize was quite surprised. “Really?! Then why don’t you bring your friends along to play as well?”
As a result, Jiang Xule went silent again—she had practically dug a hole for herself.
“My friends… you know my situation, so my friends and I are all the same kind of people. They probably wouldn’t be able to fit into the world of you multi-generational wealthy elites.”
“True. Sometimes they say mean things and have no filters. It’s better not to let your friends come and feel slighted.”
Jiang Xule nodded with a smile and promised, “If there’s a chance, I’ll take you to meet them privately.”
“Okay!”
After finishing dinner, the two of them quickly tidied up. Fang Yize also finished her work tasks quickly. When they drove back to the rental apartment, they could see several luxury cars that Jiang Xule had only ever seen in movies, lined up in a long row on the side of the road.
Led by the truck Fang Yize had mentioned, one could guess with their toes that these young masters and ladies in luxury cars were Fang Yize’s friends.
There were just so many of them that it felt a bit surreal.
“Fang Yize, what took you so long? We’ve been waiting for fifteen minutes,” Sun Lin shouted toward the approaching car.
“Sorry, sorry! Uncle guard, these are all my friends. Please let them in, they’re here to help me move.”
“Moving requires this many people?” The guard had no choice but to open the gate.
Only Sun Lin recognized the Volkswagen that Fang Yize was driving. Upon hearing her, the others followed Sun Lin’s gaze, and their faces were filled with shock.
“This girl is truly the number one self-inflicted sufferer. How did her father agree to let his precious daughter out to suffer like this?” Her friend Xu Xin said, shaking her head.
Sun Lin crossed her arms and snorted, “You wouldn’t know. This Fang Yize is a stubborn one. Unless she realizes her mistake herself, no one can dream of persuading her otherwise.”
The group marched grandly into the residential area, following slowly behind that Volkswagen. Some people had even come to help move while wearing high heels.
“Who’s that in the passenger seat?” Xu Xin asked again.
“Her girlfriend, Jiang Xule,” Sun Lin said, fiddling with her car keys.
“Girlfriend?! Jiang Xule? The one from high school… I didn’t hear that wrong, did I? So she even rejected the university’s most handsome guy because she’s a lesbian?”
Another girl leaned in and asked, “What handsome guy? What lesbian?”
“You were studying abroad back then so you don’t know. Yize had so many pursuers back in university. There was even one time downstairs at the girls’ dormitory where two guys were going to confess to Yize. They both set up purple-themed confession scenes and got into a fight right there because they couldn’t stand the sight of each other!”
“Holy crap! Why did they have to pick the same day for a confession? Was that some kind of auspicious day?”
Xu Xin thought for a moment, “I don’t remember… it might have been April Fool’s Day. But I heard they checked their horoscopes, and it said they were a 98% match with Goddess Fang Yize, and that their lucky color was purple. With the time, place, and people aligned, it was the perfect day to confess.”
“My god, were their brains kicked by a donkey? They must have used the same horoscope app! Should I believe I’m the Heavenly Emperor or believe in horoscope matching?”
Xu Xin and Sun Lin looked at each other and said in unison, “Then your Heavenly Emperor is a bit more believable!”
“Don’t go blabbing and asking things you shouldn’t later, especially regarding her little girlfriend—specifically about that,” Sun Lin made a gesture of rubbing her thumb and index finger together (money).
The girl exclaimed, “She’s a poor girl? What was Yize thinking?”
On one hand, she gives up being a wealthy heiress to be a high school teacher, gives up a massive villa to live in a rental, and ignores the socially compatible young masters and ladies all around her to find a working-class girl. Truly crazy.
But upon seeing Fang Yize’s massive amount of luggage, they felt a bit relieved—at least Fang Yize hadn’t mistreated herself financially.
In this group, Fang Yize had the deepest background. Whether they were older or younger than her, they all had to call her “Sister.” After all, it wasn’t just their generation that were friends; the elders in their families relied on the Fang family for business.
If anyone made someone from the Fang family unhappy, they could make that family’s business vanish from the market in minutes, with no hope of a comeback.
The house Fang Dayi had given Fang Yize was styled in modern minimalism. The exterior was entirely black and white, with many glass floor-to-ceiling windows. Young people love creating an atmosphere, so wherever a floor-to-ceiling window could be put, it was put.
The villa came with its own private yard and swimming pool. The yard had no flowers or trees since it hadn’t been lived in for a long time, but because she was moving back, Fang Yize had already hired people to clean the house in advance. The outdoor pool and the indoor pool had both been cleaned and filled with fresh water.
She took Jiang Xule’s advice to throw a party on the weekend the next day—a “pool party” in the courtyard.
The interior had lighting from all four sides and an incredible view. Including the two basement levels, there were five floors in total, with a private elevator designed in glass.
For a house with so much glass where you’d feel like someone was peeping if the curtains weren’t drawn, living alone would be quite terrifying unless you were very brave.
That night, the friends all went home without having any time to interact with Jiang Xule. Fang Yize and Jiang Xule also left the luggage unpacked, showered, and went to bed. The next day, they called for domestic help to tidy up and also used a delivery service to buy a ton of decorations for the party venue.
“Baby, look at the swimsuit I bought for you. Isn’t it pretty?” Fang Yize held up a black one-piece swimsuit that was completely backless and displayed it in front of Jiang Xule.
Jiang Xule’s hands, which were busy pumping up balloons, paused. She gave a stiff smile and said, “Isn’t this… a bit too revealing?”