At seven o'clock, Yan Yan followed Chen Pingjiang into the restaurant.
At this moment, Yan Yan had reverted to her cool and even aloof expression, stunningly beautiful, with skin so delicate it seemed to break at a touch.
Even after a night with little sleep, her skin showed no oiliness or fatigue.
As soon as Yan Yan entered the restaurant, countless gazes immediately shot towards her from all directions, followed by a woman's roar:
"What are you looking at? Come on, show me one."
"Go find a table, I'll get you breakfast."
Chen Pingjiang turned his head and gestured to Yan Yan.
Yan Yan nodded obediently:
"Oh!"
The tenderness and docility of this moment were completely different from the cool and aloof demeanor she had just moments ago.
Before long, Chen Pingjiang returned to the table with two full plates.
Yan Yan looked at the various breakfast items, piled up like a small mountain, and felt a bit embarrassed:
"It's too much, I can't finish it."
Chen Pingjiang had already peeled a tea egg and stuffed it into his mouth, saying indistinctly:
"Eat first, give me what you can't finish."
He had only drunk alcohol last night and didn't eat much, so he was starving and immediately started devouring his food.
Yan Yan's face reddened, feeling that two people sharing a meal was somewhat ambiguous.
Yan Yan ate slowly and methodically, while Chen Pingjiang ate like a hurricane, similar to a husky eating, as if fearing he would starve to death if he ate a second slower.
The two formed a stark contrast.
For the same egg, Yan Yan would slowly eat it in several bites, taking about a minute to finish, while Chen Pingjiang gulped it down in one go, nearly dumbfounding Yan Yan.
"Why do you keep looking at me instead of eating?"
Chen Pingjiang, choked, took two sips of milk and turned to see Yan Yan observing him with curious eyes.
"If you didn't look at me, how would you know I was looking at you?"
"Pfft!"
Chen Pingjiang immediately spat out milk.
Yan Yan could actually play along with jokes now.
Wiping his mouth, he said with a smile:
"When I looked at you, I saw you looking at me, so you looked at me before I looked at you. And when I saw you looking at me, I wondered why you were looking at me, so I looked at you to see if you would stop looking at me because I saw you looking at me."
Yan Yan was utterly stunned, never expecting Chen Pingjiang to be so verbose.
After a long while, Yan Yan sighed, as if tired from eating:
"I can't eat anymore."
"Oh, then give it to me."
With that, Chen Pingjiang leaned over and picked up Yan Yan's plate.
"Are you really going to eat it?"
"Nonsense, what a waste if I don't eat it. Waste is shameful, haven't you heard 'Who knows that on the plate, every grain is hard-earned'?"
"Then why did you take so much?"
Chen Pingjiang smiled:
"I figured you wouldn't finish it, so I just put it all together to save myself another trip later."
Yan Yan: "..."
Chen Pingjiang continued to eat with gusto, while Yan Yan, having nothing else to do, rested her chin on her hands and watched the food on Chen Pingjiang's plate rapidly decrease.
Chen Pingjiang really wanted to laugh.
This school beauty, usually so aloof on campus, unexpectedly had such a sweet and silly side.
"I'm full."
After a while, Chen Pingjiang dropped his chopsticks, wiped his mouth, and let out a satisfying burp, completely unconcerned about Yan Yan sitting next to him.
"Let's go back to school," Chen Pingjiang said.
"Oh!"
While checking out and waiting for housekeeping to inspect the room, the young front desk girl was stunned by Yan Yan's beauty, then looked at Chen Pingjiang, her eyes darting between the two, making Yan Yan lower her head.
Chen Pingjiang, on the other hand, casually looked around.
After leaving the hotel, the two walked side by side.
The hotel was only about seven or eight minutes' walk from the sports institute.
"Senior, thank you for last night, I'm sorry. To show my gratitude, I'll treat you to a meal when you're free later."
Yan Yan had helped a lot, and Chen Pingjiang felt he still needed to say thank you.
Thanked so formally by Chen Pingjiang, Yan Yan seemed a bit flustered:
"You're welcome."
Next, there was silence for a long time.
Chen Pingjiang wanted to figure out if he had done anything embarrassing or out of line last night.
Yan Yan was also restless and felt sleepy.
...
After seeing Yan Yan enter the school gate, Chen Pingjiang turned around and called Zhou Guanghan:
"What happened last night? Why did Yan Yan come over?"
On the other end of the phone, Zhou Guanghan said unhurriedly:
"Huh? Great-uncle, have you forgotten? You drank too much last night and called Senior Yan Yan over."
"Really?"
Chen Pingjiang tilted his head, thinking for a long time but having no recollection.
However, he vaguely felt something was off, as if he shouldn't have done such a thing.
"Absolutely true,"
Zhou Guanghan emphasized.
"After you made the call, Senior Yan Yan arrived shortly."
Not dwelling on the issue, Chen Pingjiang continued to ask:
"What happened after that?"
"Then you fell asleep on the curb, and the dorm door was locked, so we had to open a room nearby. You held onto Senior Yan Yan and wouldn't let her leave. I saw she was taking care of you, so I came back."
Hmm, very reasonable, no problems.
Chen Pingjiang broke into a cold sweat.
Was he really that shameless?
To actually cling to Yan Yan and not let her return to her dorm, even with his thick skin, he couldn't help but feel his face burn.
Just thinking about that situation made him feel like dying of embarrassment.
"Since the dorm door was locked, how did you get back?"
"Uh, I pulled an all-nighter at an internet cafe."
After hanging up, Chen Pingjiang's face showed a playful expression.
As an old hand in love, he naturally saw that Yan Yan probably had a soft spot for him.
Otherwise, why would she come downstairs the moment he called, and even sit on the sofa all night to accompany him?
...
Meanwhile, on the other side, Yan Yan was also being interrogated by the gossip expert Cao Jie.
"Where did you go last night, Yan Yan?"
Cao Jie leaned in close to Yan Yan, sniffing carefully like a puppy, not missing an inch, her eyes full of teasing.
Yan Yan felt a bit guilty, but outwardly, she said calmly:
"I went home."
Cao Jie knew that Yan Yan was a local from Dongjiang and occasionally went home to stay.
But today was different.
The sharp Cao Jie seemed to sense something and shook her head:
"Tell me honestly, you definitely didn't go back. Where did you go?"
"Why would I lie to you?"
Yan Yan dared not say.
If she did, she would face Cao Jie's endless pestering and questioning.
Most importantly, spending a night alone with a boy was simply too embarrassing to admit.
Suddenly, Cao Jie discovered the problem.
As if possessed by an actress, she stared intently at Yan Yan's expression, and soon let out a fake sob.
The level of her face-changing performance would make even a Sichuan opera master exclaim in surprise.
"Yan Yan, are we still good best friends? You've learned to lie! Oh my, is this still the Yan Yan I know?"
"Do you not love me anymore? Oh, no, love doesn't disappear, it just transfers, right?"
"Do you know I didn't sleep well all night last night? I can't get used to sleeping without you."
Yan Yan sighed, utterly unable to stand Cao Jie like this.
If it were anyone else, she might have just walked away, but she had few friends at school, and Cao Jie was the only one she could confide in.
"You definitely didn't go back. You're still wearing yesterday's clothes. Hehe, keep making things up, believe it or not, I'll call your auntie?"
Upon hearing that Cao Jie was going to call her parents, Yan Yan immediately panicked and sighed, shaking her head:
"If you used one-fifth of your gossip energy on studies, you probably wouldn't fail any courses."
Cao Jie laughed,
"Studying isn't my hobby, but gossip is!"
"Yesterday a friend drank too much, I took him to a hotel and rested there for the night."
No sooner had she finished speaking than Cao Jie's face showed an "I knew it" expression, her mouth rattling like a machine gun:
"What friend? Male or female? Which hotel?"
"Female!"
Yan Yan said definitively.
Cao Jie scoffed, putting her hands on her hips:
"Do you think I'd believe that?"
"Alright, male."
"Chen Pingjiang?"
Having been pressed to this point, Yan Yan resignedly nodded, saying in a mosquito-like voice:
"Mm."
Goodness, Cao Jie instantly looked as if she had taken stimulants, her eyes widened with surprise, her face began to flush, and her tone changed:
"Did you two... do that? Who was on top?"
Unconsciously, some unspeakable images flashed through her mind, truly a result of reading too many Xijuan romance novels recently.
Yan Yan was startled, rolled her eyes, and pinched Cao Jie's waist flesh,
"What nonsense are you talking about?"
Cao Jie, hopping from the pinch, continued talking non-stop:
"Otherwise, would you two, a lone man and a lone woman, be playing chess alone in a room all night?"
"He drank too much and fell asleep, and I fell asleep sitting on the sofa."
Cao Jie's face showed utter disbelief:
"Are you kidding a child?"
"I'm serious."
Yan Yan knew she shouldn't have let Cao Jie know where she went last night, otherwise, there would be all sorts of questions and guesses.
"Alright, I'll believe you. Alas, I'm like your old mother, watching you get married off, both relieved and happy, yet sad and reluctant."
"We're just friends!"
"Are you burying your head in the sand? Would a friend call you, a girl, to take care of him when he's drunk? Would you run off happily at just one call from a friend? Would a lone man and a lone woman stay in the same room as friends?"
This string of questions left Yan Yan bewildered.
She remained silent for a long time, deciding not to say anything more, as it would only make things worse.
But Cao Jie's gossip-expert energy was fully unleashed; she wouldn't let her go:
"If you don't speak, does that mean you admit it?"
Yan Yan, who had barely slept last night, felt sleepiness gradually creeping up.
She couldn't stand her best friend's probing questions any longer, so she finally hardened her heart:
"We really aren't together, it's just... it's just that I kind of like him."
This one sentence was more effective than any miracle cure, sending Cao Jie into a frenzy.
Her breathing quickened and deepened,
"I'll help you pursue him! I've read so many romance novels recently, I'm super experienced. Don't worry, Yan Yan, as long as he's a man, there's no way he won't like you, unless he's a eunuch!"
"We'll see,"
Yan Yan ultimately couldn't bear it anymore.
She dropped a sentence and headed towards her dorm.
Cao Jie, having gotten her answer, still stood rooted to the spot, her mind filled with fantasies.
She was quite curious.
Chen Pingjiang was indeed good-looking and tall, but there were many handsome guys at school.
Why did her goddess best friend specifically like him?
Did he have some special talent that she hadn't discovered?
(End of Chapter)
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