“He’s so handsome!”
“……?”
A familiar meme flashed through Cang Xuehe’s mind: Nick Young’s “Confused Nick” face.
Xiao Youyi’s exaggerated actions, paired with such sincere lines, made Cang Xuehe momentarily unsure if the other woman was just being polite or was a genuine fangirl.
“……Is he handsome?” Cang Xuehe asked hesitantly.
“Mhm.” Xiao Youyi nodded, her face once again full of admiration. “He’s handsomer than anyone I’ve ever seen. Your family has such great genes~” Her tone was bordering on a monotone reading.
“Heh.” A cold sneer twitched at the corner of Cang Xuehe’s mouth, and she unintentionally blurted out her true thoughts: “How come I never see you complimenting me like that?”
“Give up on him, no matter how handsome he is.” Cang Xuehe took a sip of tea and said matter-of-factly, “My third brother is a total gay.”
Xiao Youyi: “???” Her expression returned to normal.
“Did you see the person who came to pick him up just now?” Cang Xuehe started telling lies without blushing or a racing heart. “Let me tell you a secret, that’s my brother-in-law! Their love is as strong as gold and as firm as a rock; outsiders can’t budge them!”
Even though saying this was a bit unfair to the very straight Cang Jie, who told him to be so “handsome”!
Xiao Youyi gave a dry laugh. “……I wasn’t planning on budging anything……”
“Good!” Cang Xuehe huffed. “Instead of spending time looking at handsome guys, you should be posting recruitment ads on job sites and getting people hired quickly.”
Xiao Youyi: “……” Wasn’t it you who asked?
When the two of them came out of the restaurant, the night was thick. The autumn wind of the late evening swept over them, feeling quite chilly.
Xiao Youyi was only wearing a single layer and couldn’t help but shiver. Seeing this, Cang Xuehe draped the thin jacket she was wearing over her shoulders.
She also cautioned, “The temperature has dropped lately; you need to wear more at night.”
Si Yao was somewhat surprised by Cang Xuehe’s attentiveness and glanced sideways at her, but the other woman was just looking at the road across from them, her face devoid of much expression.
“I’ll go get the car.” Just as she took a step, Cang Xuehe grabbed her wrist to stop her. She turned to look at her with a face full of confusion.
“I’m a bit stuffed. Let’s take a walk to digest our food?” Cang Xuehe suggested. “We can call a taxi back when we’re ready.”
“Alright.” As a personal assistant, Si Yao couldn’t just leave on her own, so she had to go along with it.
“Are you still cold?” After walking for a while, Cang Xuehe’s body could already feel the warmth.
Xiao Youyi replied, “I’m not cold.”
“Oh.”
“……”
The two were silent.
Cang Xuehe felt she should find a topic of conversation, but she really couldn’t think of anything. Since the other person wasn’t speaking either, she decided to be direct and asked, “Is being with me very boring?”
Xiao Youyi asked back, “Why do you ask that?”
“Because you’re not talking.”
“Did it make you feel awkward?”
“Eh? Not really.” Cang Xuehe thought about it carefully; it wasn’t exactly awkward, she just felt it was a bit dull with neither of them speaking, and she didn’t know what the other person was thinking.
“Don’t you think the most comfortable state is not having to force a topic just to relieve awkwardness?”
“That makes sense.” Cang Xuehe paused. “But it’s a bit boring if we both don’t talk. Chat with me.”
“You start.”
Cang Xuehe’s eyes darted around, and a mischievous smile played on her lips. “Then let’s talk about something interesting. For example, your love life.”
Xiao Youyi stated frankly, “That topic will be even more boring than us walking on the street right now.”
“No way?!” Cang Xuehe’s instinctive reaction. “Clearly, when you were at the bar, so many playboys were chasing you!”
At the mention of those playboys, a look of unconscious contempt appeared on Xiao Youyi’s face. “Do you think I would actually be interested in them?” Realizing she had misspoken, she quickly added a patch: “Though I suppose I’m not in a position to say that myself.”
“Why aren’t you in a position to say that?” Cang Xuehe said dismissively. “Earning your own money to support yourself is much better than those playboys who live off their parents, right? Besides—”
Cang Xuehe stopped walking and looked Xiao Youyi up and down. “You aren’t any worse than anyone else.”
Xiao Youyi also stopped and looked at her, saying in a rare joking tone, “You’re talking about appearance, right.”
“Mm-hmm.” Cang Xuehe tilted her head and said with a grin, “If you want me to get to know your ‘inner self,’ I wouldn’t mind either.”
She looked quite cheeky saying this.
Xiao Youyi slowly chewed over the meaning of those words. “If the genders were swapped, that would be sexual harassment.”
Cang Xuehe scoffed and said somewhat unhappily, “I haven’t even settled the score with you for harassing me before.”
These words instantly made Si Yao recall that night when, in order to complete a task, she had hugged Cang Xuehe and kissed her. The little girl’s face had turned red with anger over that first kiss.
Thinking about it now, it really was a bit unfair to her.
“Uh…… sorry.” She showed a rare expression of embarrassment. “I was……”
Si Yao wanted to say she had her reasons, but before she could finish, the system popped up.
[System]: Warning! Warning! The host must not reveal your identity as a transmigrator, otherwise you will never be able to return to your original world!
“……” Si Yao immediately shut her mouth. Cang Xuehe asked with a look of confusion, “You were what?”
“Nothing.” Si Yao swallowed her words. “Last time was just a joke. I didn’t know it was your first kiss. If you need, I’ll compensate you.”
Cang Xuehe was surprised by the other person’s mysterious logic and couldn’t help but laugh. “How do you want to compensate? Are you going to let me kiss you back?”
Si Yao actually seriously considered this question. Cang Xuehe’s favorability toward her was already at fifteen points, which indicated a very high evaluation close to the level of a good friend. Anyway, this body wasn’t hers; a kiss wouldn’t hurt. A kiss for a kiss, and they would be even.
“That’s not impossible.” As she spoke, she stood up straight and looked steadily at Cang Xuehe. “Then I’ll just give it back to you.”
“……” Cang Xuehe was speechless, her expression frozen. She looked at Xiao Youyi, her gaze unconsciously falling on those two cherry-red lips.
The kiss that night had been brief, one could even say fleeting, but Cang Xuehe had still tasted the other woman’s softness, and there was a bit of a lingering feeling.
She stood in place for a long time without stepping forward. Xiao Youyi, perhaps losing patience, urged, “Are you coming or not?”
Cang Xuehe unconsciously took a small half-step back and said with a dry laugh while waving her hand, “I, I think I need to prepare myself a bit……”
“……What is there to prepare.” Seeing her like this, Xiao Youyi knew she had agreed. She didn’t like dragging things out, so she took a step forward, decisively grabbed Cang Xuehe’s hand, and with a slight pull, brought her toward herself.
Cang Xuehe fell into Xiao Youyi’s fragrant embrace without warning. In the next second, the other’s lips approached, and just before they touched—
Ding-ling ding-ling—
The piercing sound of a bicycle bell interrupted them.
A passerby behind them began ringing the bell from a distance. The two instinctively dodged to the side. Cang Xuehe took the opportunity to pull away from her embrace and stand a bit further away.
Phew, that was close! She almost got bewitched again!
“Not going to kiss?” Xiao Youyi had to ask.
“Kiss my ass!” Cang Xuehe grabbed her hand and headed off without looking back. “Hurry up and let’s go home!”
They had only walked a few meters when they saw a row of shared bicycles. Cang Xuehe suddenly stopped, looked at the row of bikes, and said, “Shall we ride back? It doesn’t seem that far.”
Xiao Youyi replied helplessly, “I don’t know how to ride a bike.”
“I’ll carry you.” Cang Xuehe was full of excitement and immediately took out her phone to scan a shared bike.
As she got on the bike, Cang Xuehe suddenly remembered the days when she used to ride to school. She hadn’t ridden since then, and she never expected the next time would be in this situation.
“Turn right at the next intersection.” In the back seat, Xiao Youyi was holding her phone for navigation. It hadn’t felt far while driving, but the navigation showed it was about three or four kilometers.
“Okay.” Cang Xuehe skillfully turned the handlebars and headed in, moving from the main road into a small path.
The path had flower beds and greenery on both sides, with streetlights every few meters. Further off, residential buildings could be seen; it wasn’t too desolate.
“There’s a slope ahead. Do we go straight or turn left?”
Xiao Youyi glanced at the map and replied, “Go straight.” After she finished speaking, she tilted her head to look ahead. There was a slope about ten meters away, not very high. “I should probably get off.”
“It’s fine!” Cang Xuehe said grandly. “There’s still a bit of a distance. Wait for me to get a running start and charge up! Hold on tight!”
“Don’t, let’s get off and walk, you……”
Before Xiao Youyi could finish, Cang Xuehe had already mustered all her strength, pedaling hard and charging straight toward the slope.
“Hey? Slow down……” The sudden acceleration caught Xiao Youyi off guard. She instinctively grabbed the hem of Cang Xuehe’s jacket.
Screech—
The harsh sound of brakes echoed through the path.
With the sudden braking, Xiao Youyi’s body lunged forward by inertia, hugging Cang Xuehe’s waist and pressing against her.
Before the bicycle even started climbing the slope, Cang Xuehe had stopped pedaling. She planted one foot on the concrete ground for support and said with a grimacing face, “My leg has a cramp!”
Xiao Youyi: “???”
Ignoring her bumped forehead, she quickly got off the back seat to help the other woman off the bike and onto a small flower bed nearby to sit.
Cang Xuehe’s hopping around on one leg looked somewhat comical.
“Is it here?” Xiao Youyi held her foot with one hand and tried to massage her calf.
“There, no…… hahaha oh hahahahaha……” Cang Xuehe’s calf was extremely sensitive. When Xiao Youyi massaged it and hit a nerve, for a moment she didn’t know if it hurt more or tickled more, and she struggled to pull her leg back.
“Don’t move around. It’ll be better once it’s massaged.” Xiao Youyi frowned, simply pressing her down with one hand to keep her from moving, while using the other hand to massage the tight calf more firmly.
“No, it won’t work, it hurts! It tickles! Ah hahahaha!” Cang Xuehe’s state of being caught between laughter and tears looked absolutely hilarious.
It just so happened that the streetlight above the flower bed where they were was broken. They could only rely on nearby streetlights to see a vague outline. While the two were “playing around” on this side, a passerby on a small electric scooter came from the other side.
Cang Xuehe, who still had some sense of shame, shut her mouth instinctively as the scooter’s bright headlights approached from a distance.
The electric scooter didn’t stop at all and zoomed past, leaving behind the passerby’s slightly disgusted comment: “Willing to spend a hundred bucks to get a room, how shameful, ptooie.”
Cang Xuehe: “????”
Xiao Youyi was trying hard to suppress her laughter. “See if you’re going to keep screaming.”
“!” Cang Xuehe gave her an angry glare, feeling that her calf was much better. “Help me up.”
“I told you to push it up, but you insisted on riding. Now look what happened.” Xiao Youyi helped Cang Xuehe up, unable to resist lecturing her.
“You’re so annoying.” Cang Xuehe said unhappily. She walked over slowly to lock and return the shared bike. Feeling a bit indignant, she gave the tire a light kick.
Xiao Youyi took in this action and laughed, “How can you still be like a child.”
“Still laughing! Come over and help me! Let’s take a taxi back.”
On the way, Cang Xuehe still tried to save face for herself.
“Let me tell you, this is called having a young heart. Unlike you, twenty-something years old and acting like an old cadre.”
“Fine, tomorrow I’ll download a few cartoons for you.”
“We’ll watch them together, hehe.”
Cang Xuehe was a woman of action. After saying she wanted to change cars a couple of days ago, she asked the eldest Cang brother for a car. The eldest brother was very generous and told her she could pick any car from the family garage.
During this period, the Cang parents were away on vacation. Only the eldest brother was at home; the second brother lived alone outside and didn’t come home. Given the precedent of the third brother, Cang Xuehe decided to take Xiao Youyi home to pick out a car on this sunny workday, so as to avoid meeting the eldest brother.
After all, compared to the third brother, the eldest brother was the 100% certified “diamond bachelor”!
“Haven’t you finished changing your clothes yet?”
Cang Xuehe had told Xiao Youyi the night before that they would go home to get the car after breakfast. Who would have thought that after eating, Xiao Youyi would go straight back to her room? Cang Xuehe thought she was going to change, but when she knocked and entered, the woman was sitting upright in front of her computer, not looking like she was about to go out at all.
Reminded by her, Xiao Youyi remembered. “I forgot. Let’s go now.”
As she spoke, she closed her laptop, but before that, she quickly typed a few characters. Cang Xuehe muttered, “You’ve been holding onto that computer for the last few days; are you in an online relationship?”
“……” The word “speechless” was visible on Xiao Youyi’s face. She twitched the corner of her mouth. “There have been a lot of recruitment inquiries lately.”
“Oh!” Cang Xuehe’s eyes lit up. “Then bring the laptop along. Let me see the resumes.”
In the company where Cang Xuehe worked, only experienced seniors were qualified to interview newcomers and decide whether to keep them. She usually just had newcomers assigned to her by the leadership to lead for a short period. She hadn’t yet experienced the fun of interviewing newcomers.
At this moment, she was sitting in the passenger seat holding the laptop and checking the resumes received on the website. After looking for a while, she let out an “Eh?” of surprise.
“Why are the applicants for these positions all fresh graduates? Or people without much work experience? How come there aren’t any experienced masters?”
“……” Xiao Youyi was silent for a good while before asking succinctly: “Do you think a master would be willing to join a startup that’s just beginning?”
“……” Logical and convincing, Cang Xuehe couldn’t argue.
“Or, President Cang, you could consider offering three times the market price to poach people. I think some would be willing to come.”
Cang Xuehe immediately said, “Wealth cannot bend my will!”
It was noon when the two arrived at the Cang residence. This was the first time Cang Xuehe had returned home. From the scattered fragments of her memory, she knew the Cang estate would be very large, but when she saw the magnificent group of buildings inside from the outer perimeter of the estate, her mouth couldn’t help but form an ‘O’ shape.
“This is…… too big……” she murmured unconsciously.
“???” Xiao Youyi’s gaze came through the rearview mirror—a look of confusion and suspicion that made Cang Xuehe react immediately. She quickly said, “Look how big my house is! What do you think, surprised? Intrigued? Do you want to marry in???”
Seeing her proud little look, Si Yao couldn’t help but think ‘Heh’ in her heart. On the surface, she twitched her mouth and poked at her: “Marry in to be your sister-in-law?”
“Yi, being a ‘beard”s wife is not the way to go!”
Si Yao: “……” She silently rolled her eyes in her heart. Just because she had followed the other’s lead and complimented Cang Jie earlier, the girl was acting as if she were actually interested in him.
“Hello, please stop.”
The security guard at the gate stopped the car.
Si Yao pressed the window button down, and the security guard, seeing Cang Xuehe clearly in the passenger seat, immediately said, “Please come in, Eldest Miss.”
“Let’s walk in,” the Eldest Miss Cang started having another one of her whims.
Cang Xuehe had seen the magnificent mansion from the outside, along with the rockeries and pools. She had only seen such things on television before and felt a bit unrefined in her desire to see the world.
It looked close from the outside, but the two of them walked in the front courtyard for nearly five minutes before reaching the edge of the fish pond.
A fake waterfall was gushing water, and the pool was filled with all sorts of beautiful ornamental fish. Cang Xuehe leaned over the railing, stretching her body to look down, looking very much like Grandma Liu entering the Grand View Garden.
Xiao Youyi, worried she might accidentally tumble in, grabbed her arm and reminded her, “Be careful, don’t fall in.”
“I won’t; the railing is so high. Look at that white koi…”
As they spoke, a voice cut in: “Eldest Miss.”
Cang Xuehe turned to look; it was a tall, middle-aged man. In her memory, he was the butler of the Cang family, named Uncle Zhang.
Uncle Zhang’s gaze fell on Xiao Youyi. “This is…?”
“Oh,” Cang Xuehe straightened up. “This is my… friend, Xiao Youyi.”
“Understood.” The butler bowed slightly toward Xiao Youyi. “Welcome, Miss Xiao.” He then looked back at Cang Xuehe. “Eldest Miss, the Second Young Master is back today. Hearing that you returned, he is now waiting for you in the living room for lunch.”
“Ah?” Cang Xuehe was slightly stunned. Cang the Second usually didn’t live at the estate; how did she happen to run into him the one day she came over?
She had a decent opinion of her second brother, so she didn’t delay and led Xiao Youyi toward the dining room.
It had taken a lot of time to get there, and breakfast was mostly digested, so it was a good time to see what rich people ate for lunch.