Then, to everyone's astonishment, they saw Yao Yao, usually the most gentle and composed, down a bottle of beer without saying a word...

Her movements were so fast that everyone involuntarily held their breath, their eyes all falling on Ji Yao, who was tilting her head back and drinking half a bottle of wine.

This was truly a sudden and violent attack; before anyone could react, she had already drunk more than half of it.

Without saying a word, Mo Yanyu went up and snatched the wine from her hand. However, perhaps because she was too hasty in grabbing the wine, a lot of it spilled out and onto the ground.

When Ji Yao saw it was him, she gave a mocking, bitter smile, her heart filled with even more bitterness and torment. "Give it to me!"

She didn't even want to look at him when she said that.

Mo Yanyu's eyes darkened, and she turned her back completely to the bottle of wine in her hand, remaining silent.

Seeing this, Ji Yao frowned and insisted, "I said give me back my wine!"

The people next to them, seeing the interaction between the two, unconsciously shut their mouths and became mere background figures, only staring wide-eyed at the two of them.

Mo Yanyu stared at her stubbornly, the wine bottle he was tightly clutching in his right hand hidden behind his back.

He said with a complicated expression, "You're drunk!"

Ji Yao gave him a deep look, her eyes filled with a complexity and sadness that Mo Yanyu couldn't understand. She smiled sadly, a smile full of undisguised mockery, which she then quickly suppressed.

She said coldly and indifferently, "Even if I'm drunk, it's none of your business."

Mo Yanyu felt a sharp, dull pain in his heart, but the look of pain flashed across his eyes for only a second before he quickly concealed it.

With a firm gaze, he said, "I told you, you're drunk. Since you're already drunk, then don't keep drinking."

Ji Yao curled her lips into a smile, devoid of emotion. It was unclear whether that mocking smile was directed at herself or at someone else.

"What gives you the right?"

"What exactly makes you think you can do this?"

"Why do you keep rubbing salt into my wounds? Who gave you this right?"

"Mo Yanyu, what gives you the right to keep appearing in front of me and reopening my wounds? What gives you the right to control me like this?"

Ji Yaosi asked him hysterically, and the entire private room was shrouded in a suffocating sense of oppression. Even Jiang Wenjing, who was usually slow to realize things, could feel the bitterness and unfulfilled desire in her heart.

She kept her mouth tightly shut, not daring to say a word, for fear that if she said anything wrong, it would rub salt into Yao Yao's wounds.

"Mo Yanyu, you once told me not to hold your hand like this anymore, so I used all my strength to convince myself to let go of your hand."

As Ji Yao spoke, her throat felt dry and painful. The entire private room was filled with a deathly silence, and no one spoke.

It seemed that everyone was enduring the same bitter and painful feeling that Yao Yao felt, like the howling wind of Arctic ice and snow in her heart.

Mo Yanyu pursed his lips, a barely perceptible bitterness and complexity welling up in his eyes. He wanted to pull that frail figure, overwhelmed with grief, into his arms and comfort her, but he couldn't resist…

His hands twitched, then clenched tightly, determined to suppress the urge even as crescent-shaped bloody welts appeared in his palms…

"Mo Yanyu, now I'm returning these words to you verbatim. I've let you go, so... can you let me go?"

A moment of silence fell over the private room, so quiet it was almost oppressive. Mo Xiaoqing and the other two held their breath in unison, deliberately trying to minimize their presence, as if they wanted to become background figures and go unnoticed!

Mo Yanyu's eyes darkened, feeling as if the beast within her was about to burst forth, and for a moment, she felt suffocated.

He frowned, his heart aching, but he couldn't show it. He could only suppress his emotions repeatedly until they reached their limit, and even the words he spoke seemed to be weighed down by heavy shackles.

Even so, he had no choice, because he didn't want to answer Ji Yao's question directly...

He used to relentlessly pressure Ji Yao to let go, but now that he's finally gotten his wish, he feels like a huge piece of his heart is missing…

---Aside---

Recommended by my friend, Enchanting Qing'er, novel: Prosperous Fields: Farming with Taobao

Li Youyou, the head chef of a five-star hotel, unexpectedly travels back in time to an impoverished mountain village in ancient times with Taobao.

Her awful stepmother bullied her every day, her father was weak and incompetent, and her cruel grandmother suspected her background, so she conspired with her stepmother to kick her out of the house.

What to do if you have no place to live? Earn money through Taobao and fix it up!

What to do when there are no vegetables to eat? Just buy seedlings on Taobao and grow them yourself!

What if there's no meat to eat? Use the money you earn to buy it all yourself!

But... what to do when her unscrupulous parents start harassing her every few days after she becomes wealthy?

She picked up a broom, chased away her wicked stepmother, shunned her incompetent father, and went off to live her free and happy life on her own.

PS: The female protagonist of this story travels through time with Taobao, where she punishes scumbags and cooks delicious food.