On the other side of the screen, Zhang Qian saw the reply and broke into a smug smile.
She knew she had successfully stoked the fire in this man.
That was exactly the effect she wanted.
Things handed over too easily were never treasured — so it was time to pull back while she was ahead.
She rolled over, set her phone aside, and typed out one last message.
[Pretty Qian with the Great Figure~]: Aiyah, big bro, I'm so sleepy~ Gonna sleep now, good night~
With that sent, she switched her phone off entirely, leaving Bai Li alone on the other end to let out a long, slow sigh in the dark.
She had lit the fire and then vanished before it could be put out.
He felt as though ten thousand ants were crawling under his skin, leaving him too restless to sit or stand.
He glanced at the girls sleeping soundly beside him and ultimately abandoned any thought of offending his patron.
That night, Bai Li slept terribly.
The next morning, Bai Li woke to a strange, suffocating sensation.
He opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was Lin Xiaoshuang's face, magnified and slack with sleep, just inches from his own.
The girl was draped over him like a koala — one leg pinning his waist, her head resting on his arm, drool nearly trickling from the corner of her mouth.
His other side had been claimed as well.
Li Jiaxin lay on her side, one arm thrown across his chest and resting on Lin Xiaoshuang's back, completing the encirclement.
Her long, deep-purple hair fanned across the pillow, a few loose strands brushing against his face with a faint tickle.
As for Chen Tingting — Bai Li felt a sudden weight on his legs.
He craned his neck with great effort and found Chen Tingting sprawled sideways at the foot of the bed, her two long, shapely legs propped shamelessly across his shins.
He was completely pinned to the bed by three warm, soft bodies in the most bizarre arrangement imaginable.
Bai Li didn't know whether to laugh or cry as he carefully tried to shift them off.
The moment he moved, Lin Xiaoshuang in his arms let out a soft whine and burrowed deeper into his chest like a little cat, mumbling drowsily:
"Big bro… don't go…"
That was enough to wake the other two.
Li Jiaxin opened her eyes, took in the scene before her, blinked in a daze, then felt a flush creep across her cheeks as she quietly withdrew her arm.
Chen Tingting, on the other hand, sat up with her usual lack of inhibition, stretched with a wide yawn, her full curves on full display beneath her coral fleece pajamas.
She yawned again, looked at Bai Li trapped in the middle, then glanced at Lin Xiaoshuang still refusing to budge from his arms, and broke into a mischievous grin.
"Oh my, Xiao Shuang, look at you — throwing yourself at him already?"
Only then did Lin Xiaoshuang groggily open her eyes. The moment she realized she was clinging to Bai Li in an extremely intimate pose, her face went whoosh — scarlet in an instant. Like a startled rabbit, she scrambled off him in a flurry of limbs and retreated to the far side of the bed, pulling the covers over her head.
"I… I didn't do it on purpose…" came her muffled voice from beneath the blanket.
Bai Li was finally free. He sat up, worked some feeling back into his numb arm, then dialed his mother's number.
"Hello, Mom."
"Xiao Li, you didn't come home last night?" Wang Xiulian's voice carried a note of concern.
"Yeah, I was out with some friends working on a deal. It got too late, so I stayed out." Bai Li said it without so much as a flicker of expression.
He wasn't exactly lying either — investing in these three wild girls was, after all, his most important project.
"Oh, alright. Take care of yourself, don't wear yourself out." Wang Xiulian offered a few more words of concern, then hung up.
Bai Li pocketed his phone, only to find Chen Tingting and Li Jiaxin staring at him with deeply meaningful looks.
"Working on a deal?" Chen Tingting repeated in a drawn-out, sarcastic tone, her gaze sweeping back and forth between him and the lump under the covers that was Lin Xiaoshuang. "Sure, quite the deal — three people involved."
Li Jiaxin crossed her arms, a faint, unreadable smile playing at the corner of her lips.
Bai Li, unamused, reached out and gave each of them a light flick on the forehead.
"What are you two imagining? Go wash up."
"Ow!" Chen Tingting clutched her forehead and grumbled in protest, but obediently dragged Li Jiaxin off to the bathroom.
Only then did Lin Xiaoshuang poke her little head out from under the covers, face still red, peeking at Bai Li with cautious eyes.
Bai Li looked at her — that mix of embarrassment and apprehension — and felt his heart soften. He walked over and ruffled her hair.
"Alright, I'm done teasing you. Go wash up."
The gesture was easy and natural; the warmth of his palm seeped through her hair to her scalp, and Lin Xiaoshuang's heart skipped a beat.
She gave a meek little nod and slipped into the bathroom after the others.
Of yesterday's thousand-yuan allowance, five hundred had gone on a membership card at the billiards hall, leaving five hundred still unspent.
He'd need to find somewhere to spend it today.
Once the three girls had tidied themselves up and reapplied their signature heavy makeup, all four of them headed out of the room together.
They had barely reached the lobby on the ground floor when they nearly walked straight into the landlady, who was carrying a basin of water and about to mop the floor.
The landlady saw all four of them emerging from the same room and froze for a moment, then her face cycled through an extraordinarily complicated expression.
There was shock in it, and disbelief — but more than anything, a kind of reverent admiration that said, "Brother, you absolute legend."
The way she looked at Bai Li was exactly how one might look at a general returning triumphant from the battlefield.
Her stare made Bai Li deeply uncomfortable. His mouth twitched as he was about to offer an explanation — but Chen Tingting wasn't having it.
She planted both hands on her hips and fired directly at the landlady: "What are you staring at? Never seen a man before?"
The landlady flinched at the outburst.
Chen Tingting lifted her chin and doubled down with full confidence:
"A man this good — so what if the three of us sisters shared him for a night? Jealous, are you?"
At that, the basin in the landlady's hands went clang and dropped straight to the floor.
Bai Li felt his temples throbbing.
Come on — don't make people think I'm some creep who went at it with three sisters at once!
We're perfectly innocent, okay?!