On Saturday, Li Yifei handed Qian Fei a black shirt, saying, “It’s urgent. I need to wear this to a friend’s wedding tomorrow.”
Qian Fei immediately put her hands on her hips, fuming, “Li Yifei, do you think I’m your maid?”
Li Yifei patted her shoulder, smiling sanctimoniously, “Don’t make our relationship sound so transactional! We have genuine feelings between us!”
Qian Fei swatted his hand away, “Don’t get handsy with me. We’re not that close!”
Seeing her stubbornly resisting his request, Li Yifei’s eyes flickered, and he suddenly said, “Then give me back my tea leaves!”
Qian Fei choked, “What tea leaves? Wait, what kind of person are you? How come you’re only asking for them back now?”
Li Yifei eyed her, “You gave them away as a gift, didn’t you? And now you can’t return them, right?” He shoved the shirt into her arms, “Sister, I’m not even asking you to repay the debt with your body. Just hurry up and wash the shirt for me!”
Qian Fei gritted her teeth and asked, “How did you know I gave them away as a gift?”
She saw Li Yifei trying to hold back his laughter, with obvious contempt in his smile, “What kind of drinking etiquette is this? You can just irresponsibly forget everything you said after drinking?”
Qian Fei angrily retorted, “Brother, that’s called having a low alcohol tolerance, not poor drinking etiquette. Thank you very much!”
She looked at the shirt with disgust, then turned to Li Yifei and said fiercely, “If you want me to wash your clothes, fine, but you go downstairs and buy groceries!”
Li Yifei refused matter-of-factly, “You can go buy them yourself after you finish washing the clothes.”
Qian Fei threw the shirt back at him, “Washing clothes or buying groceries, you must choose one!” She paused, then continued angrily, “Li Yifei, you can’t be such a young master all the time, can you?”
Li Yifei pushed the shirt back into her arms and said with an affected tone, “Fine, I’ll go! Qian Fei, let me tell you, you’re so lucky today. This young master has never bought groceries before! If that old man in our family knew that I gave my first time to you instead of him, who knows how many heart attacks he’d have!”
Qian Fei almost vomited.
It was just running an errand to buy groceries, was it necessary to elevate it to such a high level? Even bringing up the family member he had cut ties with.
“Stop talking nonsense!” Qian Fei shooed him out the door, “You eat my food, wear the clothes I wash, and enjoy my maid service. You keep bossing me around like I’m a donkey. If my mom were watching this from heaven, she’d be so heartbroken! She might come to have a chat with you in the middle of the night!”
Li Yifei scoffed and shrugged as he left.
Qian Fei looked at the shirt in her hands. It was a black shirt with gold buttons, and the label on it was another international luxury brand. She grimaced, tossed the shirt with its fake label into the washing machine, and started the cycle without hesitation.
By the time the clothes were washed, Li Yifei still hadn’t returned. Qian Fei suspected this fool might be out there planting vegetables.
When she took the shirt out of the washing machine, she noticed that the buttons’ color wasn’t as bright as before.
As she was examining it, Li Yifei finally returned, carrying Carrefour supermarket bags full of groceries.
Qian Fei didn’t even want to criticize him for buying expensive groceries at Carrefour instead of cheap ones at the market. She felt that with his extremely low intelligence in daily life matters, he couldn’t handle this issue.
“There were so many people queuing to check out! My heels hurt from waiting!” Li Yifei complained as he brought the groceries to the kitchen. After washing his hands, he came out and asked Qian Fei, “Why are you staring at it like you’re reading someone’s fortune?”
He then turned to look at his shirt.
One glance, and he let out a loud cry.
“Sister Qian! You’ve got to be kidding me! Did you just throw the shirt into the washing machine like that?” He exclaimed, pointing at the dulled buttons.
Qian Fei rolled her eyes at him, “What? Should I have licked it clean with my tongue instead of putting it in the washing machine?”
Li Yifei raised his hand to his forehead, “I need to calm down!” Then he bent slightly, grasped Qian Fei’s shoulders, looked into her eyes, and said word by word, “Sister, when washing this shirt, you should first cut off all these gold buttons, and sew them back on after the shirt is washed and dried! This way, the chemicals in the detergent won’t damage the buttons, and the buttons won’t tear the fabric! I thought this was common knowledge that everyone knew!”
Qian Fei twisted left and right, breaking free from his hands, “Get lost! It’s just a counterfeit, why are you being so fussy?”
Li Yifei snatched the shirt from her hands and showed it to her earnestly, “Look carefully, these are pure gold buttons! This is a genuine label!”
Qian Fei waved his hand away, “Stop joking! I don’t believe it’s real! If it were real, the buttons wouldn’t have lost their shine after just one wash! If this were real, how much would this shirt cost? If you had eight or ten shirts like this, you could move your loft from the Fifth Ring Road to the Fourth Ring Road. Why would you need to rent a place from me? You’re just trying to save face! Isn’t it tiring to live so ostentatiously?” Seeing Li Yifei’s darkening face, she thought for a moment and said, “Don’t look so gloomy. I’ll buy you an identical one from Taobao later as compensation, okay?”
Li Yifei looked at her, his expression changing from distorted to helpless, from helpless to a gradual bitter smile.
He stuffed the shirt back to Qian Fei, “In this life, you’re the only person besides me who can make me laugh out of anger!”
Qian Fei rolled her eyes at him, “Thank you, but I don’t feel honored at all!” She turned to hang up the clothes.
In the evening, when the shirt was dry, Qian Fei ironed it and brought it to Li Yifei.
She then went to prepare dinner.
When dinner was ready, she went to call Li Yifei.
Li Yifei’s room door wasn’t closed. She stood at the doorway and saw him bending over in a very clumsy posture, looking stupid and twisted as he… seemed to be sewing on buttons!!!
Qian Fei was surprised. She hadn’t expected this guy to have moments of self-reliance.
She walked over and called out to him, “What are you doing? Come eat dinner first!” She looked down and her mouth fell open in shock.
It turned out he was cutting buttons off another shirt and moving them to the newly washed one.
She looked at the button he was currently sewing, the mess of tangled thread that looked like excrement, and it almost brought her to tears.
“Brother, can you be a bit more rational? The way you’re sewing it looks even worse than the dulled buttons!” She thought for a moment, then suddenly changed her tone, “Wait, that’s not right. Why aren’t you forcing me to help you sew? Are you afraid I’ll keep harping on about the counterfeit and hurt your pride?”
Li Yifei stopped sewing and looked up at her, “No, I was afraid you’d make me wash the dishes in exchange after dinner!”
Qian Fei was stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing, “Kid, congratulations, you can even anticipate now! Since you’ve already thought of it, why don’t we just do that? Alright, alright, put it down. I’ll help you sew after dinner! If you keep fumbling with it, it’ll be like I washed and ironed the shirt for nothing!”
After dinner, Qian Fei pushed the dishes toward Li Yifei, “Go wash the dishes!”
Li Yifei said, “I’d rather go back to sewing buttons!”
Qian Fei retorted, “If you don’t wash the dishes today, I’ll cut all the buttons off your clothes and sew them onto that counterfeit of yours!”
Li Yifei gritted his teeth, “Qian Fei, you’re too cruel! How does that saying go? A woman’s heart is the most poisonous!”
Qian Fei stacked the dishes directly into his hands, “Stop talking nonsense! You’ve been freeloading for so long, it’s time you contributed some labor!”
Li Yifei made a last-ditch effort, “I’m telling you, I’ve never washed dishes before. If you get poisoned and die because I couldn’t rinse off the soap properly, don’t blame me!”
Qian Fei pushed him into the kitchen, “It’s just death, what’s the big deal? Ever since that time in college when the calculus professor suddenly changed his mind before the final exam and didn’t give us the review topics, making us feel worse than dead when we took the exam, I’ve taken a very light view of life and death! Don’t be afraid, go on! I promise I’ll face death fearlessly even if I’m licking soap!”
She watched Li Yifei reluctantly turn on the faucet, grumbling all the while. She gave him a mischievous grin and went to the room to sew on the buttons.
Li Yifei was attending the wedding of Da Jun’s cousin.
At the wedding, as soon as Da Jun saw him, his eyes twitched.
“Handsome, what’s going on? I remember this shirt didn’t look like this when we bought it. Where did those flashy, badass gold buttons go? You can bear to wear this shirt without those gold buttons? Where did your delicate nature go, my young master? Damn, am I witnessing a miracle?”
Li Yifei snorted, “That’s nothing. If I told you I even bought groceries and washed dishes, would you scream and jump off a building?”
Da Jun punched him in the chest, “You bastard! Stop joking! Your young master hands have never done any manual labor except for touching girls! I was shocked when you said you boiled water for your old man back then!”
Li Yifei looked at him seriously and said, “I did buy groceries and wash dishes.”
Da Jun stared at him in disbelief, “For whom? Your little true love? No, you told me you broke up with her. Then for your old man? No, you two fell out even earlier. Then who?”
Li Yifei gave him a blank look without responding.
Da Jun chattered on, unable to stop, “You say if your old man finds out later that you gave your first time to someone else, how heartbroken would he be!”
Li Yifei still ignored him.
Da Jun thought for a moment and changed the subject.
“You’re still renting a place outside and not going home? Didn’t you break up with your little true love? How long are you going to keep fighting with your old man?”
Li Yifei looked at him, pretending to be profound, “Child, you don’t understand! My fight with the old man isn’t mainly because he’s stopping me from having a girlfriend, but because he looks down on me. He thinks I can’t do anything without him. I just want to prove him wrong. We’re both surnamed Li, I can’t let him belittle me!”
Da Jun snorted, “I don’t know who you’re trying to prove yourself to! Fine, if you don’t want to go home, you could rent a single room. Our brothers could still go over for all-night drinking sessions and have some fun. Now with a female landlord living there, it’s too inconvenient. Besides, bro, don’t you find it awkward to be cohabiting with a single woman?”
Li Yifei smiled somewhat lecherously, “It’s convenient! I’m living quite comfortably!” He raised an eyebrow at Da Jun, “You don’t know how useful my landlord is! Cooking, tidying up, washing clothes, cleaning the bathroom – she’s even more compliant than an old man!”
Da Jun laughed shakily, “Damn, after all these years, you’re still such a scumbag!”
After watching the newlyweds’ ceremony, Da Jun dragged Li Yifei to the wedding banquet for a feast.
At the table, Da Jun nudged Li Yifei, “Tell me what’s going on with your shirt? Did you cut off the buttons to sell them because you couldn’t make ends meet? If you’re struggling, just say the word to your bro. I can easily top up your phone with 800,000 or a million!”
Li Yifei snapped at him, “Get lost!” Then he recounted how Qian Fei had ruined the buttons while washing the shirt.
Da Jun gaped at him, “Would it kill you to get the shirt dry-cleaned? If you’re this poor, why don’t you just stop fighting with your old man?” He paused, then continued, “But this isn’t like you. You’ve never been this tolerant of women. She ruined your gold buttons, and you didn’t even scold her?” He paused again, then slapped his thigh and exclaimed, “Don’t tell me you bought groceries and washed dishes because of her too!”
Li Yifei looked at him, grinned wickedly, and nodded.
Da Jun was shocked, “Damn it! Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for a tomboy!”