After Xiao Su hung up, she noticed the voice on the other end had sounded oddly familiar. At first, she’d casually asked who it was, but only asked what he wanted once she heard he was the assistant.
She answered according to Jiang Li’s preferences: “One cheese sandwich, a bowl of matcha pudding, and a glass of nut milk, but without any actual nut bits in it, and the sandwich should only have Thousand Island dressing.”
The voice on the other end said okay.
She couldn’t quite place whose voice it was, only that it sounded unusually pleasant, like the soft, breathy tone of a shakuhachi flute.
Was food delivery this competitive these days?
Xiao Su decided to treasure this opportunity as an assistant. While waiting for the delivery, she picked up a broom and started tidying the house.
She noticed a worn-out little stool in front of the TV and looked at Jiang Li. “Should this be thrown out?”
The paint on the stool had almost completely worn off, if you threw it in the trash, no one would even pick it up.
“Why would we throw it out?”
The boy looked utterly bewildered.
Xiao Su thought, that’s a bit too frugal. If she had a salary that high, she’d buy ten new stools a day, no, fifty.
She wiped the little worn stool down thoroughly with a cloth, even applying pine resin oil to polish it.
But the delivery was taking far too long. By the time Xiao Su finished cleaning the living room, still no one had shown up, and she couldn’t help but ask, “Should I call and check?”
“Never mind waiting.”
Jiang Li headed downstairs without much patience.
Xiao Su had no choice but to set down the cloth in her hand, wash up in the bathroom, and follow Jiang Li out to the press conference.
The two of them walked out of the elevator one after another, and stepping out led straight to the residential parking lot, which was unusually quiet due to the small number of residents.
But unlike its usual quiet, the parking lot was now surrounded by a noisy crowd of reporters, who swarmed toward the elevator the moment they spotted the two of them.
Camera flashes went off rapid-fire, and the reporters crowding around the elevator fired off questions one after another.
“What was the reason you and Teacher Duan got married? It must have been really sweet at first.”
“There’s a very popular fanfic online, hailed as the love letter Duan Zhihan wrote for you, have you read it?”
“The whole internet is invested in your relationship. I stayed up reading that fanfic until midnight yesterday, are you really not planning to remarry? There’s a realistic-style edit too that made me cry.”
Xiao Su had never dealt with reporters alone before and had no idea how to hold back the flood of questions, spinning in circles anxiously.
Having grown accustomed to living under camera flashes, Jiang Li calmly made his way out of the crowd. “No reason, haven’t read it, not planning to.”
This answer clearly wasn’t satisfying to the reporters who genuinely wanted details, but Jiang Li was already growing irritated and didn’t notice a car pulling up just outside the crowd.
One reporter blocked Jiang Li’s path directly. “Teacher Duan’s reputation has always been excellent, why did you divorce him?”
Did that mean it was his fault? The little robot said, irritated, “I found him annoying, so we divorced.”
“So you’re the one who initiated the divorce? There has to be a reason for finding him annoying, have you considered that it might be your own fault?” The reporter practically shoved the grimy lens right into Jiang Li’s face.
Not wanting to discuss this topic any further, Jiang Li said coldly, “I think he’s disgusting, is that enough for you?”
The moment those words left his mouth, the previously noisy air went dead silent, you could have heard a pin drop.
Xiao Su covered her face, this was exactly why she was afraid of reporters. It wasn’t that she feared reporters giving Jiang Li a hard time, but that she feared Jiang Li himself, too unrestrained with his words.
The reporters were even more terrified, no one in the entire entertainment industry dared talk about Duan Zhihan that way except Jiang Li. If Jiang Li dared say it, none of them dared broadcast it.
Jiang Li didn’t take it to heart at all. Taking advantage of the reporters’ stunned silence, he squeezed out of the crowd, and just as he was about to get into his own beat-up little car—
A voice came from behind him, its emotion unreadable, and for some reason his heart skipped when he heard it.
“Disgusting?”
Jiang Li’s body froze. He turned around slowly, who else could that man leaning against the car be but Duan Zhihan?
Before he could react, the man reached out and pulled him into the silver-white car. In a flash, all he heard was the sound of the car door slamming shut.
The partition blocked off the front, and the interior of the car was completely enclosed. The man’s deep woody scent pressed against his face, like something being held right up against his nose, giving off an inescapable sense of dominance.
Pressed against the seat, the little robot began to feel guilty, but refused to admit it: “I wasn’t wrong.”
“Say it again, then?”
Duan Zhihan lifted his chin, one hand resting on his snow-white neck, fingertips circling at the most vulnerable spot. He sharply sensed danger.
The moment Duan Zhihan cupped his neck, Jiang Li decided to strike first, he bit down on the man’s hand as a warning, fiercely leaving teeth marks.
He firmly believed his own bite force was terrifying, worried he might accidentally kill this human, so he held back his strength, even instinctively licking at the man’s skin, leaving a trail of wet marks glistening from his tongue, looking especially seductive.
Sure enough, Duan Zhihan released him out of what seemed like fear, his prominent Adam’s apple rolling up and down, as if forcefully suppressing something.
“Never mind.”
The man suddenly sat up straight and handed him a wooden box.
Jiang Li didn’t want to take it, but Duan Zhihan forcibly pried his fingers open, making him hold onto the box.
He held the box and got out of the car, unable to figure out why the man had come. After Duan Zhihan’s car left, he opened the box.
Inside was breakfast, still at just the right temperature, a cheese sandwich with Thousand Island dressing, matcha pudding, and nut milk without any nut bits.
At this moment, a still-shaken Xiao Su caught up to him. “Are you okay? I had someone from building management come remove the reporters—”
She stopped mid-sentence, because Xiao Su recognized the contents of the box as their delivery order. Could that number on the fridge actually be Duan Zhihan’s personal number?
Xiao Su quickly dismissed the thought, someone of Duan Zhihan’s status wouldn’t answer calls on demand like that, let alone stick his own number on a fridge. She assumed she must have dialed the wrong number by mistake.
“I’m so sorry! I must have dialed Teacher Duan’s number instead of the delivery line,” she apologized awkwardly. “I never expected Teacher Duan would deliver it himself, he’s far too courteous.”
Hearing this, Jiang Li suddenly felt a wave of guilt. Duan Zhihan had gone out of his way to bring him breakfast, and yet he’d spoken to him that way.
For the first time, the noble little robot felt the urge to apologize. He took out his phone, ready to call, his fingers already on the screen, but then he remembered the man saying “never mind.”
Did that mean he didn’t want to have anything more to do with him?
Jiang Li lowered his eyelids and, in the end, never made the call, only feeling relieved that hopefully no fans would write any more fanfic now.
Even though no media outlet dared publish it openly, Jiang Li’s interview footage still spread within a small circle, but it couldn’t hold back the entire internet’s attention, and it shot straight to the top of the trending topics.
“Am I the only one who still hasn’t seen the video!”
“You’re better off not seeing it. I dreamed about them remarrying this morning, and after watching the video the dream shattered, them getting married in the first place already seemed unbelievable enough”
“If this had happened normally, both fanbases would already be at war, but right now nobody has the mood for that”
“Sigh, so many fanfic writers have retired their pens now. This ship’s bad ending was way too brutal”
“My whole stockpile is gone”
The fans who’d still held onto hope after seeing Jiang Li’s earlier Weibo post gave up entirely at this, until another video surfaced.
In the video, Duan Zhihan reached out and shoved the coldly composed boy straight into the car, and then the door slammed shut heavily.
The original poster’s intent had been to lament how badly things had deteriorated between the two, to the point of physical force, but the comments underneath were decidedly off.
“Aaaaaaaaah, this fully grown adult needs to see what’s happening inside that car!”
“Is there anything my noble Weibo membership can’t unlock?”
“I’m an old pervert and I’ll say it first, hugging that sharp-tongued rival into the car and doing whatever, suddenly I’m into this”
“Jiang Li’s so light, what strength does he even have? Biting someone while actually licking them—Teacher Duan must be loving this”
“I know it’s a bad ending but it smells so good”
The fans who’d been completely deflated were now all worked up again, and instead of the fandom shrinking, more and more people were joining.
Never mind the fan art, when they found out CCTV was planning a divorce-themed variety show, all the fans exploded with excitement.
They all rushed to comment under the official account.
“They just got divorced yesterday, wouldn’t it make sense to invite Jiang Li and Duan Zhihan?”
“That’s the ratings code cracked right there!”
“If they could get these two, the director would basically be my dad from now on”
“Person above, do you have no dignity? I have none, I’m already calling him dad, dad, please have mercy on your child”
“Daddaddaddaddaddad”
Director Xia, who was in charge of the show, twitched an eyelid reading the comments. Since when did he have so many children???