As Chen Jia was packing up to leave work, Lili, a girl around her age at the neighboring desk, teased her, “Xu An’an is waiting for you outside. Hurry up.”
Chen Jia could only smile helplessly at her colleagues’ teasing.
Xu An’an really did come to wait for her every day after work now. Sometimes he’d show up at noon and wait the whole afternoon. It wasn’t just the coworkers who knew—even HR had come over to gossip about it, all praising Chen Jia for her impressive skills in keeping such a handsome guy completely wrapped around her finger.
“Pfft, isn’t he just a pretty boy?” A jarring voice cut through the crowd. It was Zhao Wen, a male colleague who had once tried to offload his work onto Chen Jia and been rejected.
Zhao Wen’s face was full of disdain. “So what if he has a nice face? What’s the point of waiting for someone to get off work? He still has to squeeze onto the bus with everyone else. He can’t even show any real initiative. Girls these days are too easily fooled by smooth-talking bad men.”
The office fell silent for a few seconds. HR held her water cup and chuckled. “So when are you going to treat us ladies to afternoon tea then?”
Lili sidled over and whispered to Chen Jia, “Don’t mind him. Zhao Wen likes Wang Xiaoqing, but he couldn’t win her over. He’s just sour grapes.”
Chen Jia remembered Wang Xiaoqing—a pretty girl who was usually quite easygoing, except she gave Zhao Wen the cold shoulder. Wang Xiaoqing’s explanation was that if she so much as smiled at her pursuers, they’d start fantasizing about marrying her.
Wang Xiaoqing had been among those praising Xu An’an just now, so Zhao Wen was probably triggered.
Zhao Wen was still talking loudly. “…My monthly mortgage and car payments alone come to over four thousand. Where would I find spare money to treat you all? And housing prices are going up again. You should all start saving to buy a place now, before it hits twenty thousand per square meter and you miss out.”
“He’s just showing off his car and house. It’s so annoying. He goes on about it every single day—I’ve memorized that his mortgage payment is 3,566.5 a month. I can’t stand him,” Lili continued complaining, clearly full of resentment toward Zhao Wen, probably because he sat right to her left.
The crowd gradually dispersed, and Chen Jia finished packing up, ready to head home.
She saw Xu An’an sitting on a bench in the lobby waiting for her—well-proportioned features, long legs, and an air of elegance. Zhao Wen’s claim that he was “just a pretty face” was probably because Xu An’an hadn’t been wearing his own clothes lately; he’d been wearing the street-stall outfits Chen Jia had bought him.
But luckily, Xu An’an had a handsome face—he’d look good even in a burlap sack. Lately, Chen Jia had been feeling a bit giddy from all the envious looks her female colleagues gave her, and she’d completely forgotten that just a few days ago she’d been thinking about breaking up with him.
Chen Jia walked over, planning to startle Xu An’an, but he suddenly looked up—and it was Chen Jia who got startled instead.
Chen Jia pouted. “I was trying to scare you, but you nearly scared me to death.”
Xu An’an stood up and took her work bag. “I was keeping an eye on the time, figuring you’d be coming down around now. I just watched a video and learned a new dish. How about I cook it for you tonight?”
These past few days, Xu An’an had been coming over for dinner every evening. Chen Jia had gotten used to asking Chen Yue to cook an extra bowl of rice, and Chen Yue had gotten used to Xu An’an playing racing games with her every day.
Xu An’an always left at ten-thirty, never once showing any intention of staying the night.
Xu An’an wanted to cook. After his repeated assurances that he absolutely would not blow up the kitchen, Chen Jia finally let him in. She followed behind him, still uneasy, but when she saw how deftly he cut the potatoes—not at all like someone who had never held a knife—she turned and went to sit on the living room sofa.
Through the bonding of the past two days, Chen Yue had already started calling him “brother-in-law.” Seeing Chen Jia sit down beside her, she handed her sister a controller. “Sis, brother-in-law’s cooking. Come play racing with me.”
“No way.” Chen Jia didn’t like that kind of game. When Chen Yue was little, Chen Jia had played with her a few times, but as Chen Yue grew older, Chen Jia lost the patience and never played along again.
“Just one round, okay? I’ll give you a five-second head start?”
Chen Yue really loved this game, but no one at school played it, and even her sister wouldn’t play with her. Now that Xu An’an had finally come over, he’d gone off to cook.
Chen Yue kept begging her sister. “Sis~ How about I give you ten seconds?”
Chen Jia remained unmoved.
“Twenty seconds! I’m not a superhero—with twenty seconds you’d crush me for sure.”
Chen Yue suspected that the real reason her sister wouldn’t play was because Chen Jia could never beat her.
Chen Yue guessed right. Chen Jia indeed didn’t like the game, and she also couldn’t beat Chen Yue. She scrolled through her phone, letting Chen Yue shake her desperately, but she remained completely unmoved.
Chen Jia looked at her phone. These past few days at work, she hadn’t been taking many companion-play orders—only two from more familiar clients. Playing for a bit after work didn’t take up too much time.
Remembering she hadn’t been on the online game in a long while, she logged in.
She hadn’t looked in half a month, and the game had updated something or other again. It took her five minutes to finish downloading before she could get online.
Her character stood in Chang’an City, with the majestic city walls and palace behind her. Her avatar stood beneath a lantern, the night scene dim and beautiful, her figure shimmering with white light, utterly extravagant.
She first checked her mail—nothing to claim. Then she looked at her friend list—a pile of friend requests. She chose to clear them all in one click.
Chen Jia zoomed in on her outfit. It was gorgeous, with bright light effects, and the wings on her back were dazzling. Her character even did idle animations in standby mode, tossing an umbrella and catching it, the umbrella-sword shimmering with flowing colors. It must have been Xu An’an who recharged and gacha’d for her.
She opened the dungeon list to see if there were any weekly runs left. Everything was done, or still on cooldown.
Just as she was feeling bored and about to log off, a private message red dot lit up:
Wang Xiaobao: Is this the real you?
Chen Jia: Mm-hmm.
Wang Xiaobao: Quick, accept my invite! I want to put you on my homepage so I can leech off your 300k.
A new game feature allowed friends, with permission, to place a friend’s avatar on their own homepage and pose it however they liked.
Chen Jia: What 300k?
Wang Xiaobao: The outfit you’re wearing! I thought you only spent money on combat power, but you went and bought that flashy 300k outfit without even blinking. Rich lady, let me worship you.
Chen Jia: …I’ve been busy with work lately. Only my in-game spouse and my account proxy know the password. It was probably my spouse who paid. Let me go ask him.
Wang Xiaobao: Wait, accept my invite first before you go!
Chen Jia had already put down her phone and walked toward the kitchen.
Xu An’an was facing away from her, deftly deveining shrimp.
Chen Jia asked him, “Did you pay for that outfit in my game?”
Xu An’an was busy and didn’t even lift her head. “Yeah, I think it looks pretty good. It should match your aesthetic.”
“Three hundred thousand yuan? Really? Isn’t that way too expensive…”
Although Chen Jia knew that Xu An’an’s family was wealthy, she herself was too poor. If she had three hundred thousand, she would choose to buy a house rather than spend it in a game. She had only spent about a thousand yuan on this game so far. It was the first time she truly felt how wealthy Xu An’an was.
What kind of family background did someone have to be able to drop three hundred thousand into a game without even blinking?
Chen Jia looked at Xu An’an like she was looking at a fat sheep—with both covetousness and timidity.
She was a bit resentful of the rich, especially as she grew older and realized how hard it was to make money. Occasionally, when she scrolled through videos of the ultra-wealthy showing off their sports cars and villas, and realized their pocket money alone could let her live comfortably for a lifetime, she would lament why there were so many rich people in the world but not one more of them being her.
Her social circle never brought her into contact with rich people. She never expected that an online romance would lead to a rich guy wearing the thirty-yuan shorts and T-shirt she’d bought from a street stall, cooking for her in the kitchen.
Maybe she was still dreaming.
Xu An’an was about to say something more when he noticed Chen Jia wandering out like a sleepwalker. He was worried about the pot, thinking she was probably just asking casually. He should hurry up and finish the dishes so she wouldn’t go hungry.
Xu An’an was making dry-pot seafood. He’d bought plenty of ingredients—crabs, shrimp, and scallops coated in chili flakes, sizzling with fragrance after being hit with hot oil. Underneath were potato slices and cucumber chunks, perfect for filling up when you got tired of the seafood.
Once the food was set out on the table, Xu An’an said, “Jiajia, try it and see if it’s good?”
He also served food to Chen Yue, not even taking off the apron around his neck, looking especially dutiful.
Chen Jia picked up a shrimp, took a bite, and her eyes lit up. “So delicious! Sit down and try some too.”
Chen Yue was already cracking crab shells with her bare hands, saying, “Brother-in-law cooks so well—way better than my sister!”
Xu An’an beamed, eagerly piling food onto Chen Yue’s plate, and asked considerately, “Yueyue, want some cola? Brother-in-law will go downstairs and buy it for you.”
Chen Yue’s mouth was full and she couldn’t speak in time, but Chen Jia cut in, “Kids shouldn’t drink soda. Drink more plain water.”
Since Chen Jia had spoken, neither of them dared say anything more.
Seeing this scene, Xu An’an suddenly thought—wasn’t this exactly what married life with Chen Jia would be like?
He cooks, Chen Jia praises, and the kid makes trouble.
After Chen Jia finished washing the dishes and cuddled up with Xu An’an in the room to watch a movie, she realized it was already eleven o’clock.
Xu An’an had no other intentions, but he didn’t really want to leave. He wanted to cling to Chen Jia a little longer.
In front of others, Chen Jia always acted cold toward him—her biggest show of initiative was just holding his hand. Only when they were alone together did Xu An’an feel that Chen Jia also liked him. Chen Jia loved cuddling up and linking arms with him, and she would even secretly feel his abs.
He’d had nothing to do during the day lately, so he’d been going to the gym, and his abs were back to eight packs. He wanted to say, why not let me take off my shirt so you can feel them directly?
But he was afraid of scaring Chen Jia.
Chen Jia’s gaze was still on the rolling credits, but her mind had drifted far away.
In the dead of night, beneath her hand was the warmth of his breathing abdomen, and at her ear was the steady thrum of his heartbeat. She was curled up entirely in Xu An’an’s embrace, pressing her full weight against him. With any of her previous partners, she might have worried about crushing them, but lying in Xu An’an’s arms, she only wanted to burrow herself even deeper.
She looked up at Xu An’an, who felt her gaze and looked back at her, waiting for her to speak.
All around them was silence, broken only by the low hum of the air conditioner outside the window. Though the main road lay just beyond this residential block, the night in a small town was still remarkably quiet.
In the profound stillness, their gazes grew increasingly intense. It was impossible to tell who made the first move—their lips pressed tightly together, inseparable.
Lights out.