Chu Li had originally wanted to tell him to get lost.
But he’d transferred her several more sums of money in a row. For a generous fool like that, of course she wasn’t going to be rude.
“Ah Zhe, what did you want to talk about?”
Chu Li’s tone was gentle, like moonlight flowing through the night, like flowers in early-spring mist, no different from usual.
As if she were alone, quietly staying in that suite.
Shen Zhe’s earlier irritation gradually faded.
On the other end of the line, he said, “After that little car accident, I keep feeling like something’s floating and drifting in front of my eyes.”
“Dr. Lin’s checked me over and over, and keeps telling me there’s nothing wrong.”
That idiot Shen Zhe, still stuck on this.
Chu Li comforted him gently for a while, telling him to believe in materialism and to keep faith that good deeds bring good returns.
“If you’re really bored, have your older brother or your cousin keep you company.”
Get Pei Mo out of here, quick.
If she lost control and actually cheated on him right there on Shen family territory, that wouldn’t look good either.
【Li Li: It’s not that I have that much confidence in Pei Mo, I just don’t have much confidence in myself.】
【Huh, this part happens to line up with the original storyline by pure coincidence, in the original, it’s a phone-call scene where she cheats on Shen Zhe without a sound.】
【Fight, fight, I want to see them tear each other’s hair out!】
Chu Li held her phone, still stalling as she listened to Shen Zhe talk, giving half-hearted responses now and then.
Well, he had given her money.
Every minute and second of the call reeked of money, even though everything he said was nonsense.
“Pei Mo originally said he’d play games with me tonight, but he vanished without a trace.”
“Before he left, I saw he’d gotten a tongue piercing…”
Shen Zhe scoffed lightly.
He sounded like he looked down on this kind of behavior. “Kids these days really are something else.”
Chu Li played along: “Mm, so shameless.”
The moment she responded, Pei Mo beside her blinked innocently. He leaned down, and past the piercing, kissed a trail along the curve of her ear.
His eyes shimmered like peach blossoms.
As if to say: Sister Li Li, isn’t this shameless behavior exactly why he came here to seduce you?
The ear is a sensitive spot, and with his warm breath drawing close, an itch rose along the bone at its edge.
She sucked in a light breath, and in the quiet room, the sound was rather noticeable.
Shen Zhe heard it too.
He paused for a moment, not thinking much of it at first. “Chu Li, what’s wrong? Are you not feeling well tonight?”
She snapped back to herself. “I’m fine.”
“I just dropped my pen on the floor.”
Shen Zhe didn’t grow suspicious, after all, in the vast Shen estate, aside from himself, the only people around were close family.
Who would think in that direction?
He lay on his bed holding his phone, lazily letting his eyelids droop, continuing to complain to her about his cousin, continuing the previous topic.
“Pei Mo wasn’t like this before. Looks like he’s got a girlfriend now. Going out so recklessly and loosely like this, who knows where he’s fooling around. If Uncle finds out, he’s in for it.”
【Yep, he’s about to have a girlfriend. Looks exactly like yours. Surprise, right?】
【Where’s he fooling around?】
【Can’t guess? He’s fooling around in your girlfriend’s room.】
The moment Shen Zhe’s words fell, that strange symptom of something drifting past his eyes appeared again.
He thought to himself that Dr. Lin couldn’t be trusted, and that he’d get another CT scan done tomorrow.
Mm.
Chu Li listened to him finish venting about Pei Mo.
She said “mm” again, to signal she was listening, though she wasn’t really paying attention.
Pei Mo had sat up a little, and having finished kissing her ear, was in the middle of a lingering trail of kisses meant to continue further down.
Hearing what Shen Zhe said, he didn’t feel any of the awkwardness of brotherly betrayal, and instead curved his lips up with a hint of pride.
But he also knew.
Right now Chu Li wasn’t particularly interested in him, just a little curious, so he didn’t make a sound.
Shen Zhe: “I used to think Pei Mo wasn’t interested in girls.”
“The Pei family’s relationships are complicated. My uncle prefers his other kids. Back when my mom was still around, she used to look out for Pei Mo, he…”
Chu Li had already seen the danmu earlier.
She’d been spoiled on Pei Mo’s background and the real reason he’d approached her.
Shen Zhe never thought about other people’s feelings when he talked.
Toward his own younger brother, he’d held back somewhat, only complaining about him behind his back to her.
Now, without meaning to, the person himself had heard it.
The corners of Pei Mo’s eyes curved, a flicker of darkness passing beneath them.
He’d been kissing her earlobe, he tilted his head, then spoke by her ear in a voice too faint to notice.
“Sister Li Li, look how nasty he is.”
“Digging up my old wounds.”
His breath carried an itch, and Chu Li’s breathing hitched again.
Although it was faint enough to be masked by his voice, on the other end, Shen Zhe caught something all the same.
“Chu Li, what are you doing?”
“Is someone else there?”
Pei Mo, the instigator, blinked innocently at her again, raising a hand to point at the projector.
Chu Li: “…I was just watching a show.”
The excuse was flimsy, but an arrogant young master like Shen Zhe actually believed it.
That night, Chu Li tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep.
After thinking it over for a while, she decided to ask Qin Mian for advice: “Mianmian, I need to tell you something. You’re not doing a face mask right now, are you?”
If Qin Mian’s face mask fell off from the shock, that wouldn’t be good at all.
Qin Mian: “Nope, working overtime just like you.”
On the other end, she was holding her cat, sipping coffee to stay awake, listening closely to Chu Li’s words.
The coffee spoon in her hand clinked crisply.
Once, twice, seven or eight times.
Chu Li quickly rattled off her story.
Qin Mian stared at her computer screen, for the first time in her life feeling like Chinese was somewhat complicated, having some trouble digesting that long stream of words.
After hearing it all, she dug lightly at her ear, not quite believing what she’d heard: “What did you say?”
“You said Shen Zhe’s been flirting around outside, so you returned the favor and accidentally cheated on him?”
Chu Li: “It was just a kiss.”
“I was dazed at the time, I didn’t react in time. Afterward… I told him to leave.”
That night’s phone call with Shen Zhe had gone on quite a while.
He’d talked at her the entire time, one-sided, going from Pei Mo to other people.
After the call ended, Pei Mo had heard her polite hint that it was time to go. He raised his eyebrows slightly, then said he understood.
He put his loosened bathrobe back on properly, the piercing still resting between his lips, and smiled at her. “Alright, Sister Li Li, good night.”
“Next time Shen Zhe upsets you.”
“You can come find me again.”
Aside from Shen Zhe, thinking of the possible rival he’d faintly noticed today too, Shen Jichu.
Pei Mo, thoroughly satisfied.
Pitched himself to her: “I’m available any time you call, and unlike some older guys, I don’t put on any of that annoying superiority.”
Chu Li: “…”
【Unbelievable, such a good thing actually exists in this world. Whatever grudge those two brothers have, what does it have to do with you kissing them, and what’s the harm anyway.】
She told Qin Mian she’d made progress tonight. She was no longer the person Qin Mian worried about, the one with eyes only for Shen Zhe, a love-brained fool.
Qin Mian: “?”
Was that even true? She didn’t believe it.
“My dear best friend, you must be hallucinating from overwork.”
As expected, Qin Mian thought she was losing it: “Send me the draft. It must be that your workload’s too heavy.”
“It’s all Shen Zhe’s fault.”
“If you’re going crazy, it’s definitely his fault.”
【Hahaha, the original male lead rarely gets blamed for once, but he looks up and finds the pot on his back is dyed pure green. [1]carrying the pot dyed green (bèi hēi guō, 背黑鍋 + dài lǜ mào zi, 戴綠帽子) – Idiom, a mashup of two sayings: “carrying the black pot” means taking blame for something … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3115108_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3115108_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });】
【Does Qin Mian know the truth today? Nope, still doesn’t believe her best friend is the heroine of a restricted-content novel.】
Seeing her friend didn’t believe her, Chu Li could only sigh softly.
Nothing to be done, she’d been broke for too long in the past.
The love-brained persona she’d put on was too deeply ingrained.
Chu Li felt a little troubled.
Troubled as she was, she still enjoyed the Shen estate’s facilities, soaking in a rose bath.
Bubbles floated on the water’s surface, she blew on them lightly, then went back to her room, turned off the main lights, lit some sleep-aid aromatherapy, and turned on the sound system playing white noise of gentle rain.
She lay on her side, watching the night view outside for a while.
Then thought a bit more about her complicated relationships with Shen Zhe, Pei Mo, and the others, decided it was all a bit much, and put it off for another day.
After all, right now she was slipping into a dream—
And there was a new person waiting to trouble her.
【It’s Jiang Qinian.】
【The gloomy ghost-like ex-boyfriend, who finally moved in next door to the heroine’s apartment and spent a few hard days there, waited all night and never got to see Li Li.】
【Hahaha, according to the original storyline he’d go mad and lock her up again. But now, he can only go mad in the dream instead.】
Chu Li: “…”
So tonight’s dream visitor was Jiang Qinian.
When the dream scenery came into focus, she found herself back where she’d been before, that little dark room in the basement.
Jiang Qinian had lit a wall lamp, his aesthetic sense had a sickly, languid tilt to it, the lamp embedded in the wall glowing faintly, flickering on and off.
Finally seeing her.
He sat in the darkness, like someone who’d kept a lonely vigil in an empty house, finally seeing the heartless man return.
Like the day they’d reunited, he said, “So it’s Chu Li.”
“You’re clearly living in another man’s house, how can you dream of me? You really are fickle.”
Chu Li: “I’m not, I didn’t.”
She protested righteously: “This is just the storyline’s influence, I’m not the type to go back to old flames.”
She should’ve soaked in the rose bath longer.
Worst case, she’d just stay awake until dawn.
【Don’t be fooled by him accusing you of being fickle, he just popped several sleeping pills and melatonin next door at the apartment to stake you out in this dream.】
Jiang Qinian was, out of all these men, the sharpest and most uncannily perceptive one. He didn’t ask what “the storyline” meant, easily accepting having appeared in her dreams several times now, and turned his eyes sideways to study her.
At this look.
Under his deep, probing gaze, he noticed something off.
“Why are your lips swollen?”
Jiang Qinian tilted her chin up, two pale, thin fingers brushing over her lips. “Shen Zhe kissed you?”
“No, it’s not him.”
The kiss mark was fairly obvious, and Shen Zhe, her official boyfriend, wouldn’t need to go this far.
Besides, if he’d been getting close with Chu Li, she wouldn’t have come to see him in this dream so soon.
Chu Li knew that ever since he was young, Jiang Qinian’s mind hadn’t worked quite normally. But it seemed he was even less normal than she’d realized.
Once he figured it out, his breath trembled with laughter. His pitch-black eyes stared at her, as if excited: “You cheated on him?”
Chu Li: “…Mm.”
Just a little bit of cheating.
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