The words "French restaurant" and "French food" made Su Zhiyi shiver.
Her face was full of resistance.
"No, I'm tired of French food. Don't feel like eating it lately. You can cook, right? Just make some simple home-style dishes. I love everything you make."
Her two disastrous encounters in French restaurants had completely turned her off French food.
Not even if it was the most expensive.
"You like my cooking? That's good."
A gentle smile appeared on Song Lian's calm face.
He placed the noodles and milk on the small table in the room: "Get some good rest today and don't think about those annoying things."
Su Zhiyi tugged at her skirt and lowered her head appropriately, showing Song Lian her most vulnerable side.
Her voice was just right—low, soft, like cotton that would dent at a touch.
"I know. I'll try to forget those troubles."
Song Lian gave a helpless little smile, his eyes brimming with pity that threatened to overflow.
He instinctively wanted to reach out and stroke Su Zhiyi's head, like before, to comfort her properly.
But his hand hovered over her head and stopped, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face.
The hand suspended above Su Zhiyi suddenly clenched into a fist. In the end, he didn't touch her, maintaining proper distance.
His hand hung limply at his side, and a faint, wistful sigh reached Su Zhiyi's ears: "Ah... get some rest."
"See you tomorrow. Sleep early. Good night."
Su Zhiyi was surprised by Song Lian's unusual behavior and hummed softly in acknowledgment.
Song Lian left without doing anything out of line.
He really had just come to bring her a late-night snack and then left.
Su Zhiyi sat on the small sofa, looking at the steaming noodles and milk before her. After a moment's hesitation, she picked up the chopsticks beside her and began to eat.
As she ate, she took out her phone, which had run out of battery and turned off earlier.
The phone had just been charged and could power on. She pressed the power button.
The moment it booted up and reached the unlock screen, a barrage of message notifications rang out, startling her into biting the noodles in her mouth in half.
Unsurprisingly, the messages were from Si Yanjing.
"Over a hundred messages. He really doesn't get tired, huh?" Su Zhiyi muttered softly, her fingers swiping quickly across the screen. She skimmed through Si Yanjing's messages in about ten seconds. "And not a single one repeats itself."
Every message from Si Yanjing was unique, but none of them had any substance.
They were all things like "Baby, I was wrong," "I really know I messed up," "It's all my fault—your brother said you and Song Lian had rekindled your old flame, and I shouldn't have listened to his slander," "I shouldn't have doubted you. From now on, I'll never have anything to do with him again," and so on.
In summary, he was claiming Su Qinghuai had put him up to it, he knew he was wrong, he shouldn't have listened to Su Qinghuai, and he had already fallen out with Su Qinghuai, hoping she would forgive him.
Then, worried that she might be struggling outside, he sent a dozen transfer messages, each with an alarmingly large amount.
Forgive him? As if!
But those transfers made her hand itch... she really wanted to collect them.
Su Zhiyi shook her head to clear away distractions, and her eyes suddenly turned resolute.
She certainly wasn't going to forgive Si Yanjing that easily.
Without even finishing reading his messages, Su Zhiyi blocked Si Yanjing outright.
She'd let him stew. She'd unblock him in a couple of days.
After dealing with Si Yanjing, she returned to the chat interface and found that Su Qinghuai, who had been giving her the cold shoulder recently, had actually sent her a message out of the blue.
[Su Qinghuai: You'd rather trust Song Lian than trust me?]
[Su Qinghuai: You really can't see through that old fox Song Lian?]
[Su Qinghuai: ...]
[Su Qinghuai: Fine. Su Zhiyi, you're something else.]
"Is he crazy? Why is he taking it out on me?" Su Zhiyi frowned in displeasure.
Faced with Su Qinghuai's barrage of accusations, she knew Song Lian was the most troublesome of the three men, and what Su Qinghuai said wasn't entirely wrong.
But her rebellious streak was acting up, and she wasn't about to indulge Su Qinghuai. So she immediately cursed him back with a dark expression.
[Su Zhiyi: Psychopath.]
After that, she blocked Su Qinghuai as well.
Su Qinghuai was even more annoying than Si Yanjing. He had used her full name—who did he think he was?
If she planned to unblock Si Yanjing after letting him cool off for a few days, then she would never unblock Su Qinghuai for the rest of her life.
The more Su Zhiyi looked at Su Qinghuai's name, the more irritated she became. But System 030 was offline, and she had no one in this world to vent to.
Bottling up her anger, she swiped away Su Qinghuai's chat, placed her phone facedown on the side, took a few more bites of the noodles until she was somewhat full, then set the chopsticks aside.