Before hanging up, Da Jun informed Li Yifei of one more thing.
“While I was talking to Qian Fei, she kept checking her phone. Some creep was bombarding her with WeChat messages. It was so annoying! I protested that she wasn’t respecting me and told her to block the troublemaker first. She tossed me her phone to do it myself. When I looked, damn, that message sender was truly shameless! He called himself ‘Interstellar Handsome’! For heaven’s sake, is the entire Earth not enough for him? He had to go and be vain across the whole galaxy! Just seeing that name, I knew he was no good – one of those ‘shake’ addicts. Without hesitation, I blocked him! I took the chance to educate your tomboy about not randomly using the ‘shake’ feature in the future! I know after hearing this, you’ll want to thank me for repaying evil with kindness and blocking a sleazy guy for you, but I want to tell you, I did this for our brotherhood, so no need to thank me!”
As Li Yifei listened, the veins on his forehead began to throb.
“Thank your grandpa! The one you blocked was me, you idiot!”
That was the contact name he had shamelessly changed on Qian Fei’s phone when he snatched it from her.
Li Yifei felt that ancient saying was right: Don’t fear a godlike opponent, fear a pig-like teammate.
Even if he racked his brains, he would never have imagined that the WeChat message he had sent with all his might, depleting his energy and discarding his dignity, was blocked by this good-for-nothing Da Jun.
He gritted his teeth, thinking that next time, he wouldn’t just send that unfortunate child’s equipment; he’d have to give away the high-level account he had spent money building up to truly vent his anger.
When Qian Fei called Yao Jingjing, she was in a somewhat manic state.
“I think I might never be able to face stir-fried eggplant strips again.”
Yao Jingjing asked her, “Does it remind you of him?”
Qian Fei said, “I’m trying hard to overcome this phenomenon.”
Yao Jingjing said, “Now I’m wondering if I taught you wrong. Was that three-day theory too absolute? Or should we relax the time limit, and make it a three-to-five-day theory? That way, Li Yifei’s message would have been within the appropriate time frame!”
Qian Fei said, “It has nothing to do with how many days. I just purely feel we’re not compatible. Even now when he contacts me, he only talks about getting back together. He doesn’t realize that what I consider a problem is a problem. If he doesn’t think what I consider a problem is a problem, even if we get back together this time, various issues will keep arising from this in the future. So, it’s better to endure short-term pain than long-term suffering. We might as well make things clear now and end it cleanly.”
Yao Jingjing asked, “Can you let go?”
Qian Fei was silent for a moment, then said softly, “But I really can’t afford to be hurt again.”
She no longer dared to slowly adjust to a tumultuous love. She wasn’t young anymore. After experiencing so much, she just wanted stability, to find someone who, even if he didn’t have much money, even if she didn’t feel particularly excited when she saw him, could live a steady life with her.
After weathering so many storms, what did love amount to? Everyone still had to live a life of daily necessities.
In the end, the happiness Li Yifei brought her, though brilliant, was ungrounded. Their happiness floated in the air, suspended, not touching the earth. Suspended for too long, that happiness was bound to dissipate sooner or later.
Sister Jin told Qian Fei that there was a three-minute dating event in a certain park over the weekend.
“Fei Fei, go take a look. What if you meet someone suitable!”
Qian Fei thought about it and agreed.
It was better than staying at home alone on the weekend, lost in thought.
What Qian Fei didn’t expect was to encounter a guy called Jun Cheng at the dating event.
That phone bill prince saw her and exclaimed, pointing at her, “You’re here for a blind date? Does Li Yifei know about this?”
Qian Fei swatted his pointing hand away, telling him, “I’m neither related to him by blood nor do I owe him money. Why should he know?”
But Da Jun persisted, raising his hand again to point at her, shouting, “Sister, this isn’t right! Li Yifei can’t even eat stir-fried eggplant strips because of you!”
Qian Fei swatted his hand away again, asking, “Are you here for a blind date, or to discuss Li Yifei?”
Da Jun said, “I originally came for a blind date, but after seeing you, I can’t face it as a blind date anymore! I’m afraid Li Yifei will beat me to death if he finds out!” He paused, his expression instantly switching to a pleading mode, “Sister, can I ask you something? Please stop torturing Li Yifei. When you torture that jerk, that jerk messes with my equipment. He’s making me want to die!”
While he was earnestly pleading and complaining, Qian Fei’s phone started buzzing incessantly. The frequency was quite arrogant, with a small interval every five sounds.
Qian Fei lowered her head to look.
Da Jun felt this sense of being ignored was too unpleasant.
He tapped the table dissatisfied, “Look, sister, even if we can’t make a deal, we should still maintain some civility, right? We might not be a match for this blind date, but at least give me some dignity. You lower your head to play with your phone like this, if other girls see it, they’ll think I’m so annoying that you can’t even stand me for three minutes! How am I supposed to continue with the rest of the process? Hey, hey, hey, Comrade Qian Fei, can you listen to me for a bit? Can you check your WeChat messages later? Hey, hey, hey, who’s this person sending messages like this, buzzing non-stop? Qian Fei, do you dare to block him? If you dare to block him, I dare to stop mentioning Li Yifei to you!”
Qian Fei looked up and tossed her phone to him, “Here, block him!”
Da Jun fumbled to catch the phone.
The outdoor sunlight was very strong, making it hard to see the chat content on the phone screen. He could only see that the person messaging Qian Fei had a default avatar with no photo, and an instantly irritating name, called “Interstellar Handsome”.
Da Jun cursed, thinking to himself, how narcissistic must this guy be? Is the Earth not big enough for him? This is not a good person! The type who uses a flirtatious name to pick up girls on shaking or drift bottle apps.
His finger moved swiftly, directly blocking the sleazeball. After completing this action, he felt his whole being had become more sacred and grand.
He felt he had done an extraordinary thing for his buddy, blocking a sleazeball from harassing his woman!
When he looked up at Qian Fei after blocking the contact, he found her mouth half-open, her expression a bit dazed.
He asked, “Hey, what’s wrong, sister?”
Qian Fei, her mouth still half-open, shook her head and said, “Nothing, just thinking that if you were born into a poor family, you probably would have died young and wouldn’t have grown to this age!” This kid must have spent a lot of money treating his brain since childhood.
She sighed silently to herself.
Was this fate? He had deleted that guy for her!
As Da Jun handed the phone back to Qian Fei, he said, “Qian Fei, in the future, don’t add people with such flirtatious names as friends! Honestly, although Li Yifei is quite unreasonable, sending away all my equipment, he’s still better than those scammers on WeChat! I think Li Yifei cares about you quite a bit. Why don’t you find an opportunity to make him some stir-fried eggplant strips again…”
As he spoke incoherently with a complex inner turmoil (thinking about that equipment), wanting to kick a man when he’s down (but Li Yifei was still a brother after all), Qian Fei listened for a while and then silently stood up.
He hurriedly stopped talking and asked, “Hey, where are you going? I haven’t finished!”
Qian Fei said, “Brother, the three minutes are long over. We should switch partners.” With that, she turned and left.
Left behind, Comrade Jun Cheng stretched out his hand like Erkang, calling out, “Hey, listen to me for one more thing! Don’t play with the ‘shake’ feature anymore, it’s not reliable! The people you find there are no better than Li Yifei!”
He saw many people looking at Qian Fei following his words, especially men. He felt he had truly accumulated great merit, blocking who knows how many potential suitors for Li Yifei.
Ahead, Qian Fei’s foot suddenly twisted. She limped for a step, then steadied herself, turned around forcefully, and shot Da Jun a fiercely vicious glare.
At the dating event, besides the forgetful Da Jun who seemed to have left his medication at home, Qian Fei met four other men. After the fourth, she felt it was pointless and quietly slipped away.
Back home, she called Yao Jingjing to vent about the annoying people she’d encountered at the event.
The first was too taciturn, unable to converse, which was irritating.
The second talked too much, endlessly, which was irritating.
The third had such a good temper that he seemed bland, which was irritating.
The fourth was so smooth and adaptable that he lacked personality, which was irritating.
After her rant, Yao Jingjing remained silent for a while before finally asking, “Sister, do you know what kind of person you’re looking for?”
Qian Fei repeated, “What kind of person am I looking for?”
Yao Jingjing said, “It seems you’d only be content with someone like Li Yifei!”
Qian Fei fell silent.
She felt a bit sad inside. She realized she had unknowingly fallen into Li Yifei’s trap. She had thought that life would go on without him, but she kept inadvertently discovering that in a life without him, his shadow was lingering everywhere.
She asked Yao Jingjing sadly, “Darling, what should I do?”
Yao Jingjing sighed and said softly, “Why don’t you inquire if Li Yifei has any siblings? If he does, grab him immediately. You know, make do with a substitute, love the house for its crow, a stand-in lover or something. Maybe that’ll save you!”
Qian Fei promptly hung up on her unreliable best friend.
Due to the WeChat blocking incident, Li Yifei gave Da Jun a good thrashing. Then he asked, “How many people did she meet in total?”
Da Jun, rubbing his bottom and scratching his face, said, “I don’t know. After a while, I went off to meet my matches!”
Li Yifei, with a stern face, said, “Turn around!”
Da Jun wailed, “No more kicking! If you kick me again, my mother won’t have grandchildren!”
Li Yifei went to the bar, poured a glass of wine, downed it in one gulp, then pointed at Da Jun menacingly, “You, introduce me to another woman! She should be proper, beautiful, with a hot body, baby-faced with big breasts!”
Da Jun was stunned for a moment, then exclaimed, “You think I’m a pimp? I only know Jin Tian, and I can’t even remember how I met her!”
Li Yifei frowned irritably, “Don’t mention her! If it weren’t for her, none of this would have happened!”
Da Jun cautiously edged closer to him, “You want to meet other girls? You don’t want the tomboy anymore? Don’t want her? If you’re sure you don’t want her, I might make a move… The more I look at her, the more I like her… Ouch! Why did you hit me?”
Before he could finish, Li Yifei slapped the back of his head, “You dare!”
Da Jun, rubbing his head, asked, “Still planning to find another girl?”
Li Yifei pushed him away with one hand, “Find your sister!”
Li Yifei held his phone, pondering and rephrasing, writing, and rewriting in the text box. He wrote two or three hundred characters, edited them repeatedly, and finally deleted it down to about a dozen words before sending it to Qian Fei: “Can you add me back on WeChat?”
He was prepared for silence and no response.
But his phone buzzed, and surprisingly, there was a reply.
“Texting is just the same.”
That’s what Qian Fei said.
Li Yifei was excited. She was finally willing to respond to him!
“Can I say two more things?” He sent another text.
Two seconds later, Qian Fei replied: “First one.”
Li Yifei quickly typed: “I know where I went wrong.”
This time, after a full minute, Qian Fei replied: “Second one.”
Li Yifei sent: “I miss stir-fried eggplant strips, and I miss you more.”
This time, the interval was very long. Li Yifei waited with his heart trembling. He had never experienced “nervousness” before, but now he did.
After about ten minutes, his WeChat sounded a notification.
The woman who could stir-fry eggplant strips with a unique taste had finally added him back.
Qian Fei was curled up on the sofa, watching “Happy Camp” with her eyes but not her heart when she received Li Yifei’s text.
“Can you add me back on WeChat?”
She held her phone, struggling between replying and not replying.
In the end, her fingers’ impulse overcame her brain’s hesitation, and her body responded before her mind could process it. She typed a few words on the screen and hit send: “Texting is just the same.”
The phone quickly received another message.
“Can I say two more things?”
Two seconds later, her body once again acted before her mind.
“First one.”
The other side replied almost instantly: “I know where I went wrong.”
Her hand holding the phone almost trembled. Looking at those few words on the screen, she didn’t know if she was being too sensitive, but she felt a sense of déjà vu.
Mutual understanding is something that some people might not achieve even in a lifetime. She thought that the mutual understanding between her and Li Yifei was about to fall into such a situation, but at this moment, he said he knew where he went wrong.
She touched the screen: “Second one.”
A few seconds later, his message came: “I miss stir-fried eggplant strips, and I miss you more.”
She looked at her phone and burst into laughter.
As she laughed, somehow her vision became a bit blurry.
She thought that maybe stir-fried eggplant strips had become her emotional trigger.
She looked up to continue watching “Happy Camp”, but she couldn’t seem to remember what the five hosts were saying at all.
Her vision went from blurry to clear, and then from clear to blurry again, over and over.
Finally, she calmed down, lowered her head, picked up her phone, and opened WeChat.
She added that person back.
Qian Fei felt that after Li Yifei behaved for two days, he started pulling tricks again.
He told her boss that, given some new issues with the hotel project, they should send a few project team members to the hotel site for a few days.
Normally, with his position as both insurance representative and department manager, he wouldn’t need to be on-site personally anymore. However, he humbly stated that he would personally go to the site to supervise the work.
So her boss also enthusiastically expressed that he would find someone to actively and unconditionally cooperate with the insurance representative’s work. And that person responsible for cooperation was her.
The old trio of landlord game players gathered again at the hotel site. At noon, they played landlord as before. Everything looked no different from last year, except that Li Yifei had become a leader, while she and Zhao De were still ordinary employees.
But the actual changes, in Zhao De’s words, were like heaven and earth.
“Bro, is this what you call the tables have turned? Li Yifei, can you be any more subservient as a leader? Little Fei Fei just swallowed, she hadn’t even said she was thirsty, and you scurried off to pour water! Fei Fei just brushed her hair, not wiping sweat, and you eagerly went to turn on the air conditioning! Fei Fei just casually mentioned that lunch was bland, and you bounced off like a monkey to buy fruit! Damn, I can’t stand watching you suddenly become so servile, you know? Where did your young master’s pride go? Tell me! And you know what’s the most shameless thing? For heaven’s sake, can you stop using me as cannon fodder just to let Little Fei Fei win at cards? I’m losing so much I’m about to lose my underwear!!!”
Li Yifei calmly responded to this: “Now I’m the leader, and you’re the subordinate. Subordinates should be aware of their position and not question the leader’s decisions and choices.” Then he turned his head, his expression changing in an instant, becoming all smiles, “Manager Qian, are you free tonight? How about I treat you all to some stinky salmon?”
Qian Fei glanced at him, threw down a bomb card, and said nonchalantly, “I’ll think about it.”
On the other side, Zhao De looked at the four 2s and almost fainted: “Damn it! Li Yifei, you’re too despicable! To please Little Fei Fei, do you dare to add more 2s to the deck? I’ve thrown out my two 2s,” he tossed out the two 2s in his hand, “This is the first time I’ve played landlord with six 2s!”
Li Yifei looked at him, expressionless, “Since there are so many 2s, let’s say whoever plays them first gets to count them as real cards.”
Zhao De’s face turned ashen. He looked towards Qian Fei, pinning his last hope on her, expecting her to say something fair.
Qian Fei gracefully tucked her hair behind her ear, looked at him, and said gently, “Zhao De, it’s time for you to hang out your underwear!”
Zhao De felt like he was about to spit out a mouthful of blood.
“Weren’t you two having a falling out? How come you’re in cahoots again? You’re simply a pair of adulterers!”