Chapter 18. Li Zhoudu looked at the kitten...

Seeing the kitten obediently eating vegetables, Li Zhoudu's eyes were filled with admiration. He forgot all about his minor disagreement with Tan Su and told her to save her food for later.

Tan Su watched coldly as the brother and sister got along harmoniously.

That day, in order to find Tan Yi, Li Li argued forcefully, speaking each word with great fearlessness in the face of power.

Now, facing Li Zhoudu, he's like a hopeless case, proving that everyone has their match.

He lost interest.

——

As spring transitions into summer, the outdoor swimming pool's 24-hour water pump was turned off. Professionals were called in for a deep cleaning, including replacing the filter and inspecting the valves and drainage pipes.

Li Zhizi took a taxi over in the afternoon. It was a little after 2 p.m., the hottest time of the day. She saw Li Li sitting on the edge of the pool, dangling her legs and wading in the water. The pool had been drained of about half of its water level, and now it was just high enough to cover her feet.

Although Li Zhizi visited often, she didn't have many opportunities to talk to Li Li. Feeling like an older sister to her, she squatted down and asked, "Is the water cold now?"

Li Li felt quite comfortable in the sun. She said, "It's warm, not bad."

Li Zhizi asked, "When did you learn to swim?"

Li Li turned to look at her, thought for a moment, and said, "Six... or seven years old, I guess. Can you do it?"

Li Zhizi replied that she learned to swim with her friends in the Jixi River when she was a child, but many years have passed and she doesn't know if she can still swim now.

Li Li said enthusiastically, "If you have a foundation, it's easy to learn. Buy a swimsuit later, and I can teach you. It should only take about two weeks."

Just as Li Zhizi was about to agree, a window upstairs suddenly opened, and a fierce voice came from upstairs: "What kind of weather is this? Get your stinky feet out here!"

Li Li felt a little embarrassed and tilted her head back to scold Li Zhoudu: "You're so long-winded!"

Li Zhizi was invited to dinner by Wenxi. She never expected that the Li family would specially celebrate her birthday.

Wenxi pulled her to the center of the table, and she looked up at the five-tiered cake tower in front of her, as if she were sleeping in a pink princess's dream.

She stood there blankly like a fool until Wenxi asked her to make a wish and then told her to cut the cake.

Li Zhizi kept saying, "This is really too precious, Auntie."

“This is how we usually eat when it’s a family birthday celebration,” she said, urging Li Zhizi not to be shy. “Try it.”

The light cream has a pleasantly sweet flavor that isn't cloying, perhaps due to the addition of a touch of lemon juice, making it refreshingly delightful.

She looked up and saw Li Li eating small pieces. Li Zhoudu simply didn't take any, and tried to cut more so as not to be extravagant for his own sake.

Wenxi understood her feelings and comforted her, saying, "It's okay if you can't finish it. You can bring some back for your roommate when you go back later."

After dinner, Li Zhizi watched TV with Wenxi and her grandmother for a while.

Li Li grabbed Li Zhoudu and snuggled up on the sofa to play games together. Suddenly, her ears twitched, and she looked out the window and said, "It looks like it's raining."

The sudden downpour began unexpectedly and showed no sign of stopping in the dead of night.

The billboards, streetlights, and traffic lights along the way were reflected in the constantly flowing water on the glass, creating undulating and blurry patches of color.

A seven-seater van entered the campus and dropped Li Zhizi off at her dormitory. She bowed to the driver to express her gratitude, carrying a heavy cake in her hand.

Watching the car drive away, she turned around and looked again at the slightly dim and damp stairwell under the incandescent light.

Rainwater was brought in by umbrellas and trampled into dark marks by people coming and going. She felt as if she had returned to the human world.

The dormitory was on the third floor. Li Zhizi returned to her room, put the cake on the table, and unwrapped it for her roommates to take.

She took her toiletries to the shower, and when she came back, she sat at her desk drying her long hair. She vaguely heard the girl behind her eating cake and asking indistinctly, "Zhizi, did you go to your uncle and aunt's house again?"

She said softly, "Mmm."

Li Zhizi shifted her gaze from the desktop mirror.

Before I knew it, my desk was covered with a full set of brand-name skincare products, and the narrow wardrobe under the bed barely held the spring and summer clothes that I had bought while shopping with Wenxi.

When the seasons change again, it will probably be sent back to Jixi again.

She remembered and took a rectangular box out of her bag.

In the evening, Grandma and Wenxi each gave a birthday red envelope. This was a gift that Li Li picked out in Hong Kong, and Li Zhoudu paid with his card, so it was considered a joint gift from them.

Inside the box was a padlock necklace; its simple design with rhinestone trim suggested it was quite valuable.

Li Zhizi held it in her hand, feeling a strange, disjointed sensation.

Like a part of myself, I have been completely accepted and integrated into that family;

But when the time comes, like Cinderella at midnight, she has to leave in her pumpkin carriage and return to her most ordinary self.

She reminded herself not to indulge in greed, yet every time she left, she felt a sense of loss, as if she couldn't find her footing.

She turned off the hairdryer and thought about what that house looked like. She thought that probably no one could resist the temptation of pure money, no wonder her parents kept urging her to "visit the Li family more often".

——

While Li Li was waiting for You Chang to have lunch together in the cafeteria on the ninth floor, she was chatting with Fang Xuan on WeChat.

It turned out that she had recently taken a liking to a young male celebrity who got secondhand bags through a friend.

Although she is currently a relatively unknown actress, Fang Xuan confidently stated that the other party has an exceptionally high level of looks and figure, and is simply a hidden gem waiting to be discovered.

Once he becomes a top star, I might just become one of the wives of celebrities in the Chinese entertainment industry, hahaha.

Li Li found Fang Xuan's conversation genuinely interesting, but also felt that she wasn't truly interested in a relationship. She was purely attracted to good-looking men, and currently preferred a "money boy" in a relationship where the transaction was purely financial.

So, in that instant, he rejected the idea of ​​introducing Li Zhoudu to Fang Xuan in Hong Kong, as the two had no common ground in their values.

It seems that until Li Zhoudu finds something more energy-consuming, I will still have to painstakingly maintain this secret relationship.

Li Li propped her head up, somewhat troubled, thinking about how she could deceive Li Zhoudu next time she met Tan Yi. Her eyes swept over and she saw Lang Jie heading towards the private room.

Remembering that You Chang's matter was still unresolved, she got up and chased after him, calling out in the corridor, "Director Lang."

Lang Jie was not familiar with her voice. He pushed the door open to go in, but subconsciously turned around and saw Li Li. His face immediately froze.

Li Li wasn't there specifically to cause trouble for him. She walked up to Lang Jie and asked politely, "Director Lang, if any outsourced colleagues want to apply for a transfer to the head office, is there a process?"

When Lang Jie saw Tan Su looking up at him from inside the door, he felt very unlucky. Why did he have to ask at this time?

But having finally gotten some peace and quiet, Lang Jie didn't want to offend her any further, so he said, "These special cases require special review and approval, and I may not be able to give you an answer right now."

Li Li continued, "How do I get special permission?"

Lang Jie hurriedly dismissed her, saying, "I'm really not available right now. Why don't you talk to a colleague in our department first, fill out a form, and submit it to me so I can review it?"

Li Li was displeased when he made excuses: "You filled out the form without saying anything, giving people hope only to say it won't work. Isn't that a waste of time? Are you just trying to brush me off?"

Tan Su finally lost his patience and said, "Li Li."

A young face quickly peeked out from under the door. She saw that the room was full of people, including Xie Zongfang, the smiling Lü Dai, and an old acquaintance of hers, Mr. Ming from Huisheng.

Li Li's eyes widened.

Xie Zongfang stepped in to smooth things over for her: "Li Li, go have lunch first. If you have any other questions, I'll talk to Director Lang about it later."

Li Li responded with an "Oh".

At this moment, President Ming stood up and greeted her warmly: "Miss Li is no stranger here, why don't you join us for another seat?"

Standing at the door, Li Li looked at the expressionless Tan Su and thought that this person was truly fickle and unusually scheming.

She said, "I have an appointment, leaders, please make yourselves at home."

After saying that, he went out.

Li Li couldn't quite understand what Tan Su was doing. He had people stay at the venue and then had them removed, ignoring them in Hong Kong but treating them like honored guests back in S City.

She felt like this was a test of obedience by Tan Su, a test so extreme it was practically manipulative.

That's absolutely despicable.

She scoffed at Tan Su's behavior, so much so that when You Chang finally shared some gossip about Ou Ning with her, she was still a little out of sorts.

"What do you think happened to him?" Li Li asked, snapping out of her daze.

"She must have become a mistress!"

Li Li immediately made a face that looked like the character "囧" (a Chinese character meaning bewildered or embarrassed): "Him?"

Could that programmer, who always wore a blue and white checkered shirt and was taciturn, really become a mistress?

You Chang nodded frantically.

She said that the person who recruited Ou Ning was a female leader in the communications services business line, who was in her thirties, had been living apart from her husband for a long time, and was married but had no children.

According to Shi Han's reliable sources, someone spotted them holding hands and having dinner together in a shopping mall, behaving very intimately.

Li Li thought to herself, "The amount of information I've been getting every day is really huge. No wonder I had to go through so much trouble to help You Chang stay, while Ou Ning was able to stay calm and collected all along."

So it turns out they had already latched onto a powerful figure.

——

Not long after starting work in the afternoon, Li Li was called to Xie Zongfang's office.

Xie Zongfang said to her, "Regarding your meeting with Director Lang this morning, President Tan Su has already spoken privately, saying that he won't make an exception for you. Don't mention it again, and don't make things difficult for Director Lang anymore."

When Xie Zongfang said that, Li Li knew it was hopeless, so she could only say "I know" awkwardly.

She thought Tan Su was just bullying honest people.

People like Ou Ning, who get preferential treatment in the workplace through improper relationships, are repeatedly thwarted by Tan Su when they try to genuinely fight for the treatment You Chang deserves.

What kind of lousy leader is he?

Li Li grew angrier the more she thought about it. She found Tan Su's email address on the intranet, secretly registered a new account, and sent him a picture of a silly bird in the middle of the night.

With the text "The Dumbest Bird in the World".

She figured that posting it would be insulting, and anyway, Chen Ya would delete it when she went to work the next day.

She went to sleep contentedly after sending it.

Tan Su was working overtime when an unread email popped up. He opened it and saw a giant shoebill stork with intelligent eyes.

-----------------------

Author's Note: [Sprinkling flowers]