reluctantly

Xi Ai looked at Chu Yiqi with a smile.

Perhaps because of the glass door, Xi Ai felt that Chu Yiqi was also shrouded in a halo, otherwise why would she feel that this moment was exceptionally peaceful and serene.

Chu Yiqi was mixing a cup of lemon tea and was about to add ice when he remembered that Xi Ai didn't like sweet things, so he asked, "Would you like some lemon tea?"

Xi Ai tilted her head to look at the ice and sugar that the hotel had just delivered, and deliberately asked, "Did you think of me before putting in the sugar?"

"What else?"

Chu Yiqi wouldn't answer "yes" properly, so her tone was fierce, like a cat waving its claws—a bit temperamental but rich and completely harmless.

Xi Ai watched Chu Yiqi's actions with a smile, finding the contrast particularly amusing.

One moment they're happily and leisurely brewing a cup of tea while listening to music, a truly delightful experience, and the next they suddenly start grabbing people—it's quite amusing.

"Okay, if my roommate prepares it, of course I'll drink it."

Chu Yiqi closed his eyes briefly, but since there was another camera set up to the side, he could only smile and reply, "You really know how to pick your time. I can give you half."

"It's alright."

Of course! If Chu Yiqi had given her the entire one-liter bottle, Xi Ai would really suspect that Chu Yiqi was so embarrassed by spending so much time with her ex that she plotted to poison her by putting something that they couldn't eat together in it.

Chu Yiqi seemed to have read Xi Ai's mind, and snorted softly, "I'll throw a bunch of jasmine flowers in there for you right away."

Although they probably don't clash, it's just that Xi Ai doesn't like to drink them.

Xi Ai was able to tolerate it: "It's not that I can't make do with it a little."

"You really keep lowering your standards."

"I'm doing this with great difficulty."

Chu Yiqi had already stood up and, with practiced ease, found the quilt that Xi Ai had already washed and gave half of it to Xi Ai.

The collision of ice cubes suddenly caused the temperature to drop slightly. Xi Ai stopped what she was doing, leaned back to look at Chu Yiqi, and was incredibly obedient.

When Chu Yiqi left, she moved the camera to a different spot, carefully bending over to make sure it wouldn't fall over.

"You're so serious. Are you really afraid it will fall?" Xi Ai happily typed Enter and replied to a work email.

Chu Yiqi shook his head solemnly: "You wouldn't understand, this is Lina's favorite."

"Okay, Lina's favorite is standing more steadily than you. Don't forget there's still a little step here."

Chu Yiqi immediately glared at Xi Ai.

"Come on, this cup is 800, pay first and then use, dear." Chu Yiqi resumed his smiling demeanor, and glanced at Xi Ai's microphone—Xi Ai had turned on her microphone clipped to her collar when she turned to Chu Yiqi to say her first words.

Xi Ai replied without hesitation, "Let's round it up to one thousand."

“That won’t do. Tipping isn’t common in China.”

“We’re all students who studied at the Royal College of Art, so I can pretend we’re all abroad,” Xi Ai continued. “Thank you for the lemon tea, Professor Chu. It’s really, really good.”

"Hmm, if I said I'd praise you, can you write an 800-word essay?"

"Don't make things difficult for us arts and physical education students, okay?" Xi Ai glanced at the camera, which was just enough to capture this side, so she didn't bother with it. She just turned off her microphone and whispered, "Besides, you've seen it before. Only the couples in Exam would actually do something like this."

After saying that, Xi Ai adjusted the microphone again and handed everything over to the post-production team. They really worked hard.

Chu Yiqi sat to the side, pretending to be ignorant: "I don't know who studied arts and sports. I only know that He Ban, the former vice president of the student council, went to study in France."

"Oh my, which class is so amazing? Of course it's Xi Ai."

"How did you manage to get on board like that?" Chu Yiqi bit her straw, feeling that the lemon tea was both sour and sweet, and then cloyingly sweet, so she quickly stirred it again with a bitter face.

"Because I'm good at it."

I've read it. Feel free to reply; don't worry about any awkwardness.

Xi Ai would never let a single word fall to the ground.

Chu Yiqi brought over the laptop as well, secretly glancing at the screen for a while and then at Xi Ai for a while.

She was actually a little curious. When Chu Yiqi's smear posts were flying everywhere, Xi Ai was busy for several days. What was Xi Ai's state of mind at that time?

She only remembered that Xi Ai attended several meetings, and even had a dispute with the company's board of directors, but Xi Ai wouldn't bring it up with Chu Yiqi. However, she still knew that many of them were about business suppression caused by the people behind those smear posts.

Chu Yiqi glanced at the camera, hesitated for a long time before getting up, first turning off the recording, and finally leaning forward to take Xi Ai's microphone.

They were standing too close, so Xi Ai's breath brushed against Chu Yiqi's neck. With a little distance between them, her breath felt cool.

Given that the old man is not actually fully retired—in fact, he has taken on a bit more work since he returned over a year ago—Xi Ai is not as busy as before. She just hopes that she will be busier so that the old man can have more free time.

Chu Yiqi put the microphone on the table, sat down opposite Xi Ai, and asked her, "Can we talk?"

Xi Ai looked at her, seemingly a little surprised, then composed herself and smiled, "What would you like to talk about, Chu Yiqi?"

"I'm curious, what exactly were you doing behind the scenes when those rumors about me started?"

Xi Ai was stunned. She forwarded several documents to the vice president, and after a moment of confusion, she looked at Chu Yiqi again.

“Teacher Chu, it would be better to be clearer,” she said. “Asking me now would be very ambiguous. You might be a little concerned because of the scene, or you might just want to know how those who fueled the flames ended up.”

What's the difference?

In fact, she knew that one side was like a lingering affection, a heartache that concerned Xi Ai might be tired; the other side was like a hidden version of herself, vengeful and determined to know the fate of the person she hated.

But how can anyone tell the difference?

Chu Yiqi couldn't answer what Xi Ai wanted right now.

Xi Ai stopped worrying about it, lowered her head, slowly straightened her cuffs, and said, "Want to know? You can check which entertainment company Xingyan swallowed back then, or you can check who got the cross-sea bridge project."

"It must be very troublesome."

Even after all this time, this is still one of the things Chu Yiqi cares about most.

With her own things to do, Xi Ai must be very tired, right?

Xi Ai stared at her, then looked at the distant lake, feeling somewhat dazzled.

She replied, "How could that be? If I asked you now, 'That time I fell while filming, the person who caught me and stayed with me for so many days must have been very tired,' what would you say?"

Of course I won't feel tired.

“But it’s different, Xi’ai.”

Xi Ai blinked, and for no apparent reason, she remembered a meeting that wasn't actually very important.

She met Li Heng that day—the person who organized the event at the castle on the very first day.

At that time, Xi Ai did not know that Chu Yiqi was going because of her mother's request, so she did not pay attention to this matter and just used Li Heng as a warning to others.

"You can read it all before you make a decision." Xi Ai looked at the person opposite her with a calm and composed tone.

Li Heng glanced at the documents in front of him, his face turning a little pale, but he still said, "Do you think your Xi Yun is so clean?"

"Do you think I'm some kind of good person, or do you think I'm just a fool who got to where I am because of my family?" Xi Ai originally wanted to say to stop using your brain and treat everyone equally, but she felt that her words were too impolite, so she forcibly held back. "If it involves Xi Yun's fundamental interests, can I write Xi backwards?"

"Xi Ai, do you think Bai Yu is so easy to suppress? You think you can just start a fight like that? Do you think Old Master Xi will agree to that?"

"You can take a look at this first. After fighting for this cross-sea bridge for so long, who will win in the end? Instead of using this brain, why not guess where this firsthand information went?" Xi Ai turned her phone around, and there was a news video, which was incredibly clear.

Before leaving the house, Xi Ai checked her appearance several times until she was sure that her dark circles were completely invisible. Finally, she went out. Coupled with her attitude, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that she was handling things with ease or "acquiring projects with ease".

Xi Ai slowly took her phone back and replied to the message.

[I want to go home... about ten minutes left.]

"Is it really worth spending so much money on her?"

Xi Ai remained noncommittal: "Then I still won."

Xi Ai didn't quite remember the rest of the conversation, so she only told Chu Yiqi, "It wasn't anything major. It was suppressed for about half a year, so we were busy acquiring some smaller companies and doing some minor, unspeakable things."

That's just how Xi Ai is. If she's kind to someone, she'll say it even if it's only a fraction of what she's good for. If you ask her about it, she won't take it seriously and will always downplay the issue. Once you miss the chance to witness something firsthand, you'll never have the chance to hear about it again.

Chu Yiqi suddenly couldn't empathize with herself from just a few minutes ago; why would she be so foolish as to ask such a question?

If it were at a different time, she might have heard Xi Ai whining and acting coquettishly, but... at that moment, she was very concerned, very concerned about what this person had done.

In that instant, Chu Yiqi suddenly realized that perhaps Xi Ai really didn't care, didn't care about staying up all night or the confrontations at the negotiating table.

What Xi Ai cared about most was that in the end, Chu Yiqi still felt he should leave and couldn't let her waste any more time with him.

"Would you think... I'm being ungrateful?"

Xi Ai looked at Chu Yiqi, as if she found his words strange. After waiting for a long time, Xi Ai finally laughed and said, "Yes, I'm so wronged. I've been busy for so long, and in the end, the person involved wants to cut ties with me and have nothing to do with me."

In the end, he did everything he could, and amidst the uproar about the sugar daddy and the rumors of his chaotic private life, Chu Yiqi didn't even receive any news about the breach of contract penalty.

"sorry."

"I thought you were going to talk about reconciliation when you brought this up." Xi Ai smiled slightly, but Chu Yiqi could tell that the smile wasn't genuine.

Chu Yiqi couldn't even tell if those words were a joke or true.

After all, ever since I came back, the way the two of them interacted has been extremely strange. Sometimes they acted like good friends, and other times they were awkwardly stiff and unnatural.

“Xi’ai, you actually know the answer, but it won’t be now.”

Xi Ai looked at her, and suddenly said, "Actually, I've always wanted to know the answer to a question."

"Um."

"Since our relationship started with exploitation from the very beginning, why can't we convince ourselves to continue exploiting each other until the end?"

Instead, they stubbornly insisted on leaving.

Silly Ai silently asked herself, "Do I really not know?"

Of course not.

She was simply determined to hear Chu Yiqi's answer.

It's meaningless, but she'll feel wronged for no reason and try to make herself feel better this way.

“Because…” Chu Yiqi rarely spoke the truth, “because I like you, so I can’t accept it.”

Even if you bring it up yourself, it's not allowed.

After a moment of silence, Xi Ai curled her fingertips, feeling a stinging pain as if she couldn't exert any strength.

She hastily lowered her eyes, trying to hide her uncontrollable emotions.

"Move away from the screen. I've put an eye patch here for you. I'm going to rest for a bit."

Chu Yiqi did not turn the camera back on and went upstairs.

Xi Ai watched her leave, feeling that today's conversation had been terrible.

Fortunately, both of them were very good at adjusting, and when they appeared together in the afternoon to go to the wetlands, they were completely at ease with each other.

"Could I have some sunscreen spray?"

"You should say thank you, Chu Yiqi." Chu Yiqi looked smug.

Xi Ai replied without hesitation, "Thank you, Teacher Chu. Chu Yiqi is the best! I like Chu Yiqi the most!"

Stop, stop, stop! No mixing the truth into jokes.

"No more praising."