When Chen Jia stepped out to take her sister’s call, she noticed that her most generous client was asking if she had time right now and whether she could log into the game.
While she was still typing: “I’m out eating right now…” the other side sent another transfer of 200.
Chen Jia didn’t accept it and continued typing: “I’m out eating right now, I’ll be out of town for the next few days, sorry, no time to get on the game.”
Then she tapped the transfer and refunded it.
The client on the other side was typing, and then another transfer of 200 came through, along with a message: “Where did you go to play?”
This client had been giving Chen Jia orders for at least over a year, almost every two days, always asking her to play games. As a client who paid generously and was also skilled at gaming, he was practically Chen Jia’s dream client.
At first, Chen Jia went out of her way to maintain the relationship, sucking up to him excessively. Even when he didn’t ask, she would turn on her mic and praise him every time he got a kill. After a while, she realized that no matter what attitude Chen Jia had, he always loved placing orders with her, so Chen Jia just gave up trying and stopped being so sycophantic, occasionally chatting with him casually.
Chen Jia replied: “City C.”
Client: “Oh, I’m in City B, that’s pretty close.”
Chen Jia replied with a sticker, then went back to scrolling through other messages and noticed that the person labeled “Brain Dead” had sent her a ton of messages.
Broke. Lend me some.
Platycodon (Chen Jia’s screen name), say something.
Platycodon, want to see abs? One hundred bucks a photo.
Then came a photo of abs taken at a flattering angle, the surroundings dim, but the abs glistening—possibly oiled up. A tattoo above the navel wound its way down, hidden by the waistband of his pants. Chen Jia stared at it for a good while, her finger unconsciously tapping save, then continued scrolling.
Alright, pay up.
Trying to freeload off me?
…
A bunch of nonsense. Chen Jia skillfully replied: “Scram.”
The other side, with their nocturnal schedule, didn’t reply.
This person was someone Chen Jia had met while surfing the internet one time. She occasionally left absurd comments on videos of attractive men and women, like: “Let me see the chicken? I DMed you and you told me to scram, I was planning to look like that anyway.”
But she never expected that one day, when she left a comment under a handsome guy’s video, he actually replied to her.
That handsome guy’s homepage was full of videos of him cooking while filming his face. Since he was tall and well-built, and very handsome, his sharp gaze at the camera gave him a somewhat sinister aura. Even though he always posted food videos, very few people in the comments were seriously studying the recipes—there were plenty of brothers and sisters doing absurd comments just like Chen Jia.
Chen Jia posted: “Red is destruction, blue is indifference, green is disguise, white is nothingness, pink is hypocrisy, purple is mystery, orange is anger, black is belonging, yellow send it to me.”
The other side: “Sent.”
Chen Jia laughed inexplicably and went to check her DMs—nothing there. She knew the other side had probably just replied to her by chance and definitely wouldn’t actually DM her, so she took the initiative to message him: “Where’s my pic?”
The other side had read it, and she never expected a reply. But a minute later, he actually sent a topless photo, startling Chen Jia. Later, after the two got familiar, Chen Jia figured on her own that this person probably thought of her as a rich woman to string along.
But at the time, she was surfing on her alt account, whose homepage was only filled with various game screenshots. Maybe the other side, through the games, sensed that her financial situation was actually decent?
Neither of them had ever exchanged names. Aside from discussing abstract topics, they basically hadn’t talked about anything else.
She scrolled back up through the chat history, glanced at that photo again. The person on the other end was indeed abstract to an extreme degree, but that physique—damn—looked like he trained really well.
That was also the reason Chen Jia still hadn’t deleted him to this day.
“Not going in yet?” A voice suddenly came from above her head.
Chen Jia turned around and found Yan Qinggong standing behind her, very close, looking down at her from above.
Startled, Chen Jia shuddered and frantically turned off her phone screen.
When had this guy gotten here? Had he seen her looking at a man’s abs photo?
Chen Jia plastered on a smile to cover things up. “I was just about to go in.”
“Oh, let’s go in together then.” The two walked side by side for a stretch before Yan Qinggong suddenly said, “When did Anzi get that tattoo? Did he go with you this morning?”
Chen Jia stopped in her tracks, stiff.
No way, he actually saw it! How unlucky could she be? Besides, she’d only taken a couple of glances… it wasn’t illegal, was it…
Yan Qinggong even wore the exact same smile he’d had in the private room just now. Chen Jia felt that her earlier impression had been right—Yan Qinggong really was like a smiling tiger.
Chen Jia’s brain spun at full speed, and she chose to lie. She stammered, “A relative. He’s been working out recently and loves showing off to me.”
She couldn’t exactly say she’d been scrolling through handsome guy videos, could she? Watching handsome guys’ abs videos was totally normal—but having exchanged contact info with a handsome guy and receiving private messages from him was not.
“Oh, so you two must be pretty close.” Yan Qinggong’s peach-blossom eyes looked harmless behind his glasses. A relative? What kind of relative sends their relative abs photos? And deliberately posed ones at that. As a man himself, he knew exactly what kind of filthy thoughts a guy had when sending something like that to a woman. But watching Chen Jia, who was about to break into a cold sweat, he suddenly felt a mischievous urge.
It was time for Xu An’an to go get his eyes checked, to see what the hell was wrong with his vision that he could fall for such a plain, unremarkable woman who was also flirting around with everyone.
He saw the necklace—a gift Xu An’an had spent ages picking out—worn around Chen Jia’s neck, looking like a counterfeit. He smiled again.
Chen Jia was already mentally digging her toes into the ground, her thoughts in chaos. She’d only just met Xu An’an and knew they didn’t have a solid emotional foundation. And Yan Qinggong was Xu An’an’s roommate. It looked like by the time she got home, she’d be receiving a breakup notice from Xu An’an.
If she thought about it, she also hated her own partner, and she also had a female acquaintance’s contact info who loved sending leg photos.
If she hadn’t deleted her, wasn’t that just fishing?
She finally understood how awful she was, and her guilt was mixed with panic. After all, she was still on Xu An’an’s turf right now. What if Yan Qinggong immediately told Xu An’an, and if Xu An’an had a bad temper, what if he resorted to violence?
Thinking about her personal safety, Chen Jia looked up at Yan Qinggong, noticed there was no one else in the hallway—just the two of them—and plucked up the courage to ask, “Can you not tell Xu An’an?”
Yan Qinggong raised an eyebrow, looking at the mix of embarrassment, guilt, resentment, and pleading on Chen Jia’s face.
When one is under someone else’s roof, one must speak sweetly. Chen Jia’s words were honeyed: “Besides my day job, I also do freelance gaming work online, because my sister depends on me for money. This person is one of my clients who keeps harassing me, and I’ve ignored him all along. I couldn’t just delete him, because every time I did, he’d spread rumors about me on the platform where I take orders… To keep him from going crazy, I’ve left him on my list. He’s been totally unhinged, talking to himself—I never reply, but he still sends messages.”
Sorry, buddy, but you shouldn’t have sent me those indecent photos at the wrong time…
Chen Jia didn’t even blink as she lied. Seeing that Yan Qinggong remained unmoved, she secretly pinched herself with her left hand, nearly wincing in pain, then continued, “If you think I’ve wronged Xu An’an, then I don’t know what to say. I just didn’t want to worry him. After all, we’ve only just met. If Xu An’an doesn’t trust me and wants to break up, I’m willing to accept that. I’ll return everything he gave me, and I’ll pay him back for the plane tickets and the hotel too…”
She’d return the gifts, but the plane tickets and hotel—those she’d skip.
Indeed, online romance carries risks; meeting in person requires caution.
To prove her credibility, she took out her phone, unlocked it with her fingerprint, and swiped through it casually. “See? It’s always him sending me messages. I only glanced at them just now…”
Fortunately, the other side had been sending one-sided messages in droves lately, and Chen Jia hadn’t replied to any. She swiped down a couple of times but didn’t dare scroll further up—beyond that would be her own chat history with him, which wouldn’t look like the attitude of someone being harassed.
Yan Qinggong lowered his eyes, watching the woman across from him hold up her phone with a pitiful expression.
He hadn’t had any particular opinion about Xu An’an’s online romance; he just wanted to see what kind of person she was. Upon meeting her, he found Chen Jia truly ordinary and dull in personality, but he never expected to stumble upon this woman’s true colors. Whether Chen Jia’s words were true or false didn’t matter to him, but as a friend, he didn’t want to see Xu An’an being played for a fool.
Suddenly, he took the phone from her, tapped open the voice message box, and said, “Stop sending messages to my girlfriend. She’s not someone who’ll swallow just anything.”
Chen Jia was stunned, forgetting to keep up her act.
Yan Qinggong handed the phone back to her and said with a smile, “I’m not Anzi’s parents, so I don’t need to meddle in his affairs. I heard you’re from Anzhou?”
Chen Jia put her phone away, still looking at him with lingering unease, and nodded.
“I’ve heard Anzhou has good feng shui—mountains and rivers, and even the people there are better looking. Seeing you today, it truly lives up to its reputation.”
Chen Jia’s face stiffened. She knew exactly what she looked like. Was this guy really going to attack her appearance? And he said he wasn’t Xu An’an’s father—he had a nosy streak wider than the Yellow River.
But she could only force a smile and pretend not to understand.
Yan Qinggong shifted the topic. “Anzhou’s specialties are also great. There’s a local flower cake made with fresh flowers—fragrant, colorful, and delicious. As someone from Anzhou, you should know how to make it, right?”
Chen Jia naturally didn’t, so she smiled stiffly and waited for Yan Qinggong to continue.
Seeing Chen Jia on edge like she was facing a great enemy, Yan Qinggong let out a hearty laugh, as if nothing had happened. “You’re Anzi’s girlfriend. I’m just making small talk.”
This left Chen Jia completely baffled. It would have been better to just come out and tell her directly what she was supposed to do.
If he was really going to tattle, then this relationship wasn’t worth pursuing anyway. Chen Jia could look through her friends list and develop something with someone else—though finding another guy as handsome and naturally good-looking as Xu An’an might prove difficult.