The lighting in the rental apartment was somewhat dim, but Song Jinhe’s joyful smile was captured perfectly.
He stared at the photo on his phone screen—Song Jinhe beaming brightly, like a little sun.
Xi Leyao gazed at the picture for a long time before saying, “Send me the photo later.”
“I want to see how well you took it. If it’s too ugly, you’re dead,” Song Jinhe said, snatching her phone back. She examined the photo—her smile wasn’t crooked, and the background was slightly blurred.
Overall, it was pretty good.
“Not bad photography skills,” Song Jinhe praised him for once, reaching out her hand. “Come on, let’s take one together.”
Hearing that she wanted to take a photo with him, Xi Leyao’s expression changed.
“You… want to take a photo with me?” Xi Leyao asked.
Song Jinhe didn’t understand why he was asking like that and replied impatiently, “If you don’t want to, forget it. You really don’t know how to cooperate.”
After saying this, she couldn’t help muttering quietly, “If Song Shengsheng were here, you’d be dying to take a photo with her.”
Hearing her mention Song Shengsheng, Xi Leyao felt compelled to explain. “I delivered food to her place today and happened to run into a burst pipe at her house.”
“Fixing the pipe earned me two thousand yuan, so I stayed to help.”
After listening to his explanation, only one thought remained in Song Jinhe’s mind: “Earned two thousand yuan.”
Damn!
That’s way too rich—just handing out two thousand yuan like that.
While Song Jinhe was still in shock, Xi Leyao had already positioned himself behind her.
“Still taking the photo?” Xi Leyao asked.
“Yes,” Song Jinhe nodded, adjusting the camera and setting the timer. She struck a pose, bending one hand near her cheek, a smile on her face.
But seeing Xi Leyao standing stiffly beside her like a block of wood, she pulled him closer. “Have you never taken a photo before? Press your cheek against mine and copy my pose.”
Xi Leyao nodded, pressing his cheek against hers and placing his hand on his own cheek.
One radiant with smiles, the other cold and detached—the two were frozen in the frame of the phone.
After taking the photo, Song Jinhe checked it. A beautiful woman and a handsome man—both very photogenic.
“Let’s eat, let’s eat!” Song Jinhe propped her phone on a stand, started a video, and called out to him.
Silence fell over the dining table. Xi Leyao wasn’t one to talk while eating, and despite Song Jinhe chattering away, all she got in response was a single “Mm.”
In that instant, Song Jinhe immediately lost all desire to share.
The steak was cooked perfectly—neither too rare nor too well-done.
[Ding-dong—]
WeChat chimed again. Having learned from the earlier incident, Song Jinhe wisely opened the message and used voice-to-text.
[Blue Sky: Sister, why aren’t you replying? Are you not satisfied with the guys here?]
[Blue Sky: Sister, if you’re not satisfied, you can come to our shop and take a look.]
Who is this person?
What on earth was the original host up to?
“System, who exactly is this Blue Sky?” Song Jinhe stared at the screen, unable to resist asking the System.
[He’s the manager of a high-end bar. The men and women who frequent this bar are all wealthy and influential. After going bankrupt, the original host wanted to enter this bar to find a sugar daddy but was kicked out before she could even get in.]
[Later, the original host asked for this manager’s WeChat but was rejected multiple times.]
After being rejected so many times, and now suddenly agreeing to her friend request—something’s fishy.
[Song Jinhe: Oh my, what brings you here?]
[Song Jinhe: Weren’t you the one who kicked me out of the bar before? I added you on WeChat over ten times, and you rejected me every time.]
Song Jinhe typed out a flurry of sarcastic messages and sent them, then turned off her phone to focus on eating.
At that moment, Xi Leyao looked at her and asked, “Who are you chatting with?”
“Is he better-looking than me?”
“Is he more considerate than me?”
“Will he take care of all the household chores like I do?”
Xi Leyao’s dark gaze fixed on her as he fired off three questions in a row.
Hearing these questions, Song Jinhe widened her eyes and looked up at him, her expression filled with confusion.
Seeing her remain silent, Xi Leyao grew unusually anxious.
“Say something.”
“Why are you asking like this?” Song Jinhe put down her chopsticks and looked at him seriously.
“You don’t trust me. Do you think I’d cheat on you at any moment?” Song Jinhe said with utmost seriousness.
Xi Leyao shook his head and retorted, “I don’t.”
Seeing him like this, Song Jinhe pressed her advantage and continued, “If you don’t, then don’t ask such questions in the future.”
“Also, I recently saw a dress I like. It costs four thousand yuan. If you can’t buy it for me, I’ll ask Lu Xing to buy it for me.” Song Jinhe mentioned the price of the dress she had seen online at noon.
If she sold it secondhand, she could get back three thousand yuan.
“Okay.” Xi Leyao agreed without hesitation. Four thousand was nothing. If she wanted it, he would work his hardest to earn it for her.
Most importantly, if he didn’t buy it for her, there were plenty of other men who would.
His wife using another man’s money—what kind of behavior was that?
He agreed too quickly, leaving Song Jinhe, who had been ready to scold him, with all her words stuck in her throat.
Song Jinhe glared at him. “Eat.”
After the meal, Song Jinhe took a knife and cut the cake, giving each of them a piece.
“How does it taste?” Song Jinhe leaned close to him and asked with a smile.
“Delicious.” Xi Leyao nodded in response.
Of course it was delicious—it cost a thousand yuan! If it weren’t for Xi Leyao, as a regular working person, she would never have tasted something like this.
Thinking about how such a small cake cost a thousand yuan made her heart ache.
The two lay in bed. At this hour, the family of four next door started arguing again.
Song Jinhe focused on browsing posts, while Xi Leyao leaned against the bed, holding a laptop and looking at something.
She peeked at it briefly before looking away.
It was filled with colorful charts and various data that made her dizzy.
This stuff wasn’t something a regular working person like her could understand.
At midnight, Song Jinhe put down her phone on time and went to sleep.
Meanwhile, the couple next door were still arguing fiercely about money.
“The kids start school in a month. Tuition for both of them is thirty thousand yuan. How are we going to come up with that?”
“I’m trying my best to earn money!”
“Earn money, earn money—you keep saying that, but I don’t see much coming in. You can’t even afford the kids’ tuition.”
Listening to their conversation, Song Jinhe imagined two little figures arguing in her head.
The more imaginative Song Jinhe even pictured the couple as herself and Xi Leyao.
Except, in her imagination, she was the one doing the blaming, and Xi Leyao was the one going out to earn money.
She drifted off to sleep in her fantasies, while beside her, Xi Leyao’s gaze remained fixed on the computer screen. It was unclear what he was doing, but soon after, he directly invested six thousand yuan.
This six thousand yuan was what he had secretly saved over the past three months. After buying Song Jinhe the things she needed, he had kept the remaining money for himself.
Song Jinhe never asked him for money—only for the things she liked.