Chapter 84
They were separated by more than half a dining table.
Sitting comfortably in his chair, Jiang Li, dressed in bright and colorful clothes, held a wine glass in one hand, a casual smile playing on his lips, and nodded absentmindedly as he listened to people speak.
He was sitting to one side, with the light from the incandescent bulb shining on his head, highlighting the contours of his face.
“I’m quite curious, why did you decide to start a band?” Xiao Shuwei asked, as if he had specifically looked into him, accurately stating his major in college. “Weren’t you an English major?”
Jiang Li said casually, "I just picked it randomly."
Upon hearing this, Guan Nan turned her head and looked over, her eyes wide with surprise.
"You just picked it randomly?!" Xiao Shuwei's eyes widened in surprise.
“Hmm,” Jiang Li smirked, glancing at them slowly, and teased them with a joke, “I’m not a sentimental person. My elders thought that having a skill to rely on would prevent me from starving, so they enrolled me in an interest class. But I found that I only studied sporadically and it didn’t work. When I filled out my college application, they put this in, saying that I could become an English teacher and make a living.”
Xie Qiao: "It can't be that bad, you're so popular."
“Hey,” Yu Shu said with a smile, raising his hand after serving his fiancée Ye Na, “I can vouch for this, it’s really true, what he said is true.”
I originally thought that Jiang Li couldn't give up music while balancing his studies, and that it was only natural for him to start a band and perform. But I never expected that he just stumbled into it by accident so that he wouldn't starve.
Others might have believed it, but Guan Nan didn't think so, staring straight at him.
But the man's nonchalant expression made it difficult to discern his true intentions.
"Really?" Zhang Min asked suspiciously.
Jiang Li's lips curved into a smile, the light shining on the corners of his eyes, overflowing with tenderness that made one unconsciously fall into its depths. He smiled, then asked with utmost seriousness, "Do I look like I have a face that's good at deceiving people?"
Subconsciously, Guan Nan nodded along with everyone else, then realized what was happening.
The air was quiet for a moment.
“To be honest,” Jiang Li said meaningfully, each word carrying a deeper meaning, “many people have said this.”
Guan Nan felt that his words were directed at her, but then she remembered that she didn't seem to have said anything like that, so she relaxed. Emboldened by having had a couple of drinks, she couldn't help but ask, "Then could it be your problem?"
"What's my question?" Upon hearing this, Jiang Li immediately sat up straight, adopting an attitude of listening attentively.
Guan Nan didn't avoid eye contact, and even had a hint of self-righteousness: "Be reserved."
"You mean I'm not reserved enough?" Jiang Li nodded, his attitude unusually calm, and asked humbly, "Then how should I be reserved? You set the rules for me."
"Of course, of course..." Guan Nan stammered, realizing the subtle reaction, and immediately tried to save face by pretending to be confused, muttering, "Why should I set rules for you?"
Having been hungry for most of the day, Chen Fei, who had come along to freeload, also felt something was amiss. She pretended to tug at her, saying, "It's not your place to set the rules. If it were someone else's girlfriend, what would it look like if we said these things? Don't go out of our way to make people misunderstand."
Guan Nan looked at Chen Fei, and for a fleeting moment wanted to say, "Actually, no, that's not his girlfriend, that's his little niece. There's no misunderstanding, him and I..."
The food looked delicious, but he didn't say anything, swallowing the bite of food as he went.
To this day, she is still not ready to say it.
The moment Chen Fei finished speaking, Jiang Li's expression remained indifferent, as if he hadn't noticed the sarcastic tone in her words.
"What girlfriend?" Lin Rui asked knowingly.
Chen Fei: "A pink little chili pepper."
"·····"
Immediately, everyone in the group turned to look at her. Lin Rui picked at his ear and asked, "What little chili pepper?"
“That one,” Chen Fei copied and pasted, hands on hips and frowning with a righteous air, classic mischievous and defiant, “What’s it to you! What does it have to do with you! Who do you think you are!”
After her incredibly lifelike imitation, the others were speechless, as if remembering there was another person at the table who was spouting nonsense. So, several gazes turned to Lin Rui.
Lin Rui: "..."
Hei Zi, however, chuckled twice and stood up with a sly smile: "You're missing one line. Cough cough, Jiang Li, beat him up!"
"Beat him up? Sure, how much compensation are you planning to pay?" Jiang Li wasn't annoyed, and instead cooperated with their wild and unruly behavior, asking slowly and deliberately.
"Hehe," Hei Zi chuckled sheepishly, "I can't afford to pay for it."
Lin Rui laughed and scolded him, then brought the conversation back to the main topic and gave the correct answer as expected: "Girlfriend my foot, that's his unlucky little niece, a primary school student who can cause trouble and break the sky."
"Elementary school student?!" Chen Fei's expression froze, and she turned her head blankly to look at Guan Nan. To her surprise, Guan Nan smiled at her, clearly knowing what was going on, which left her feeling bewildered and unsure of what had happened.
Hei Zi scratched his head, unable to recall: "Are you kidding? A high school student, about to take the college entrance exam and then dropping out of school, what was she saying again?"
"I'm tired of studying, I need to rest," Jiang Li stated expressionlessly.
Startled again, Chen Fei was stunned: "Holy crap!"
Not only her, Xie Qiao was envious, and Zhang Min was also surprised: "At such a critical time, your family isn't doing anything?"
Guan Nan nodded in agreement.
"Why should I care?" Jiang Li put down his cup and said indifferently, "He's just not cut out for studying. His scores in all subjects have never been above 250. What's there to care about?"
"This isn't that they're not cut out for studying, it's that they haven't been studying seriously at all. If they had put in even a little effort, they would have earned more than this." Xiao Shuwei held back for a while, but couldn't help but complain.
Lin Rui blurted out, "Why does she keep asking you to pay for her candy?"
“Because he stole candy from many people,” Hei Zi said. “I was wondering about it last time, but when I asked, I found out that Jiang Li had taken her candy and never returned it.”
When did this happen?
"High school, I think. His mom had just gotten married back then."
High school, marriage, and sugar—these three words suddenly popped into Guan Nan's mind.
Guan Nan blinked, and a distant memory suddenly surfaced. He stood before her, cleaned himself of dust, raised his head, patted his chest, and shook his head, looking quite pleased with himself.
--"Give."
"Eat."
—"It was snatched from my little niece."
The pink strawberry lollipop still seems to be out of my sight.
Standing a short distance away, Guan Nan looked at Jiang Li, but found that she couldn't see him clearly at all; her vision was blurry and hot. She dared not speak again, nor did she have the courage to look at him again, afraid that something might get out of control at some point.
But over here, they started rambling on and on.
Jiang Li, annoyed by their chatter, leaned back and raised an eyebrow, saying, "It's not like I ate what you're eating, so what do I have to pay you back?"
"Why are you taking it if it's not yours?" Seeing his frivolous behavior, Chen Fei moved slightly to shield Guan Nan from some of his view, and said bluntly, "Are you sick in the head?"
Jiang Li didn't know what to say, so he looked over again.
Guan Nan stared blankly at the tableware in front of her, lost in thought.
I don't know what she was thinking, but there was a faint sadness about her, giving the impression that she was very sad and depressed.
Jiang Li withdrew his gaze and resumed his usual laziness: "Yeah, you have medicine."
Chen Fei: "If I have it, you can eat it, right?"
"If I'm not sick, what am I supposed to eat?" Jiang Li picked up his phone, his casualness infuriating.
Chen Fei was even more unconvinced: "Why are you asking if you're not going to eat?"
The phone on the table vibrated. Chen Fei craned her neck to look at it, saw that a message had come in, and shoved it into Guan Nan's hand. Guan Nan took the phone, swallowed hard, and without even looking at the message, told her she was going to the restroom.
She kept her head down the whole way, not talking to or making eye contact with anyone, and no one noticed anything unusual about her.
After calming down, Guan Nan left the restroom intending to pay the bill, only to find Jiang Li standing at the cashier, talking to the receptionist on his phone before showing his QR code to pay.
He put away his phone and turned to the side, and their eyes met.
Guan Nan came over, glanced at the front desk, and asked in a low voice, "Have you paid the bill?"
"Hmm." Jiang Li said lazily, "I came out to answer the phone and paid the bill on the way."
After listening, Guan Nan muttered, "You've had it too easy."
"What?" The lobby was large, and her voice was very soft, so Jiang Li didn't hear her clearly.
Guan Nan shook her head: "It's nothing."
He said "Oh".
As they walked back to the private room, the two felt somewhat awkward. Guan Nan tried several times to say that it was her idea to treat everyone today, and she should pay the bill. However, it was clear that Jiang Li didn't care about this "small amount of money" at all.
She suddenly began to doubt what Yena had said.
The band is on the verge of collapse. Jiang Li is running out of money and has no one to support him, so he's facing financial difficulties.
But the way he spent over two thousand yuan without batting an eye didn't seem like someone facing financial difficulties at all.
Guan Nan hesitated for a moment, then called out his name: "Jiang Li".
Jiang Li: "Hmm?"
"Don't be stubborn," Guan Nan said.
"Me?" Jiang Li turned his head to look at her. "Why are you being so stubborn?"
"Anyway, don't try to be a hero." Guan Nan couldn't bring herself to tell him about his difficulties, afraid of embarrassing him, so she randomly pulled out her phone and said, "How much is the bill? I'll pay you."
Seeing this, Jiang Li's Adam's apple bobbed, and he smiled in a rather unserious manner.
"What," he said, "you really want to give me money to spend?"
Guan Nan looked at him and mimicked his slightly flippant tone, "What, is it not allowed?"
"Sure, why not?" Jiang Li said casually. "How much are you planning to give?"
After thinking for a moment, Guan Nan lowered her head, about to transfer the money, when she heard the message she had received a few minutes earlier.
I don't know what to say, so I'll just laugh it off: 【Can't you control your people?】
It looks like this was posted while he was arguing with Chen Fei.
Guan Nan paused, her hand still: "If I can't even control you, who can I control?"
After replying, he quickly moved his fingertips, making several transfers as if to conceal the fact that the above sentence had disappeared from the easily visible page.
Jiang Li swiped the screen, "Wow, that's a big spender, ten thousand right off the bat. You make money so easily."
Guan Nan blinked, but before she could speak, she had already said something.
He shook his head again, seemingly regretful, and said, "Unfortunately, it's still not enough."
Ten thousand wasn't enough. Guan Nan frowned, hesitated, and then transferred another five thousand to him. "This time, is it okay?"
Jiang Li raised an eyebrow slightly but remained silent.
"Not enough?" Guan Nan simply handed him the amount input page, letting him enter the number he wanted himself. "How much do you want? Do it yourself."
"How much do I want?" Jiang Li chuckled and countered, "How many do you have?"
Guan Nan did a rough calculation: "Less than three hundred."
"A block?" Jiang Li asked.
“Ten thousand,” Guan Nan corrected him, “but if we can’t come up with it in one day, we’ll have to divide it up—”
Seeing her so frank, Jiang Li pushed the phone back in front of her, saying, "Keep this money for yourself to buy candy."
"Don't worry," Jiang Li patted her head and said, "Even if we're short of money, we still have this much. We won't be reduced to having to take your money."
Hearing him say that, Guan Nan didn't insist.
However, just as she was about to reach the door of the private room, she suddenly took a few steps forward, creating some distance between herself and Jiang Li. To anyone who looked at it, this action seemed to be an attempt to avoid suspicion.
Jiang Li was not surprised and even slowed down his pace, keeping one in front of the other.
But Guan Nan turned around and walked towards him from the other end, and the two met from different directions.
Within arm's reach.
He heard Guan Nan say:
"Jiang Li".
"This time."
Am I brave enough?
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