Chapter 450: The Reply from Jeon Boram (Please Subscribe and Vote for Monthly Tickets)

Just as Lin Xiuyuan and Park Jiyeon were chatting about this and that on the sofa, Tian Enjing and Li Juli over in the kitchen finally finished their work.

They simply reheated the food they had packed and brought back from outside, and arranged the remaining ingredients and snacks onto plates.

Then, Li Juli carried the items out of the kitchen and called out toward the living room.

"Xiuyuan, Jiyeon, come over to eat."

The two over there were in the middle of a conversation on the sofa; hearing the summons, they both lifted their heads from the sofa at the same time and replied, "Oh, coming."

Afterward, Lin Xiuyuan and Dalongzai came to the dining room one after the other.

The dining room lights were already on, and a portable induction cooker was placed in the center of the dining table, with a fairly large stainless steel hot pot set on top. The soup base in the pot was bubbling and steaming, and a circle of plates and dishes was arranged around it.

Lin Xiuyuan stood still beside the dining table, resting his hands on the edge of the table as he looked over this dinner that could truly be called delicious. The corners of his mouth curled up, and then he looked at Li Juli, who had just walked out of the kitchen, and teased her with a smile.

"Juli, I said I wanted to eat something good, but isn't it a bit perfunctory of you to just make a hot pot?"

"How is it perfunctory?" Li Juli walked over and stood beside him, pointing at the plates next to the hot pot and counting them for him one by one. "Aren't there some snacks here, and I even steamed some seafood according to your taste. Look at this abalone, this scallop, and this plate of shrimp; if you say it's perfunctory again, I won't let you eat."

As she spoke, she placed the dish of dipping sauce she had just brought out onto the tabletop in front of Lin Xiuyuan, then gave this guy a playful slap on the arm.

Next, Tian Enjing also came out of the kitchen. She was holding two more dishes of freshly prepared dipping sauce, which she placed in front of Dalongzai and herself, then explained in a soft voice.

"It was my suggestion to have hot pot. The weather is cold now, and takeout stir-fry gets cold easily; it doesn't taste right if you reheat it. It's quite nice to eat a piping hot pot; you can scoop whatever you want to eat, and it keeps people warm."

"Mm, actually, I really like eating it too." Lin Xiuyuan nodded, then pulled out a chair and sat down.

The very next second, he received another eye-roll from Li Juli. "Oh, I see. Whatever Enjing says is good, but if it were me, it would be perfunctory, right? Xiuyuan, you have to hide it when you like someone, otherwise I'll be very jealous, just like Xiaomin."

"Unnie, stop it." Tian Enjing laughed, and as she sat down in the seat next to Li Juli, she didn't forget to wave her hand lightly.

And after the topic shifted to Park Hyomin, Li Juli, like Dalongzai on the sofa earlier, began to press Lin Xiuyuan for the specific details of what happened in the café private room this afternoon.

Regarding this, Lin Xiuyuan, who had already started scalding meat in the hot pot, didn't even lift his head; he nudged his chin toward Dalongzai opposite him, signaling her to ask Dalongzai.

Seeing this, Dalongzai also softly recounted the content of what the two had chatted about on the sofa just a moment ago.

The whole scene was very harmonious.

A handsome man and beautiful women sat around the dining table; some were eating meat in large mouthfuls, some were telling stories vividly, some were listening quietly, and some were occasionally adding a few pieces of vegetables or a few meatballs to the pot.

Outside was the cold winter night of December in Seoul, but inside the house, it felt exceptionally warm and fulfilling because of this pot of hot soup and the few people sitting around it.

After listening to Dalongzai's retelling, Li Juli turned her gaze to Lin Xiuyuan, who was throwing a few pieces of beef into the hot pot, her tone carrying a bit of genuine emotion.

"Xiuyuan, you didn't major in philosophy in college, did you? You can even connect a simple chemistry experiment to life and emotional topics? Normal people doing experiments with Vitamin C and potassium permanganate would at most just look at the color changes, yet you actually managed to use it as a life lesson."

Lin Xiuyuan looked at the boiling beef in the pot and explained casually, "It's just bluffing; whoever believes it is a fool. To put it bluntly, this kind of topic is idealistic. In the end, the one who convinces you is yourself; it has nothing to do with the outside world, it just acts as a fuse at most."

After saying this, he picked up a piece of beef, dipped it in the sauce dish, and stuffed it into his mouth.

The beef, fresh out of the pot, was so hot that he had to let out two breaths in his mouth before he could slowly start chewing. The meat juices and the salty fragrance of the dipping sauce exploded in his mouth simultaneously.

Then he gave a comment that was completely on a different channel from the philosophical discussion just now, "Delicious, you guys hurry up and eat."

"Then tomorrow, if Xiaomin Unnie asks you out, are you really not going?" Dalongzai didn't forget to care about this issue.

"Not going." Lin Xiuyuan shook his head, his tone very crisp.

Hearing this, the other three exchanged a look at the same time, like a three-second silent meeting.

If he doesn't go, what should we do about Xiaomin?

At worst, we'll go and persuade her.

Fine, let's do that then.

The three of them reached a certain sisterly agreement in an instant.

Blood is thicker than water, and this man is better anyway; there's no need to force Lin Xiuyuan to do things he doesn't want to do.

If they absolutely had to choose between Park Hyomin's request and Lin Xiuyuan's wishes to prioritize, the stance of the three of them was actually very clear.

This wasn't because their relationship with Park Hyomin was bad, but because Lin Xiuyuan's position in their hearts was indeed different.

This couldn't be compared.

Afterward, having ended the interlude about that married woman, the group's topic began to wander freely, like horses released from their reins, galloping freely across the dinner table.

They chatted about everything, said everything, including lewd, yellow, and suggestive things.

The meal continued like this until about ten o'clock in the evening; the soup base in the pot had reached the bottom, and most of the plates and dishes on the table were empty.

Only a few pieces of baby bok choy that hadn't been eaten and a few meatballs that had escaped the net were floating on the surface of the soup.

Everyone's stomachs were also round and full; they each sprawled against the backs of their chairs, drinking the last bit of their drinks in their cups.

After a while, the three of them stood up and left one after another; no one wanted to stay overnight here.

So, with no other choice, after playing games for a while, Lin Xiuyuan took a shower and then flashed over to Tian Enjing's place through the Anywhere Door, crawling into her bed, intending to warm the bed for her.

And Tian Enjing, who had only just laid down, was also startled by this sudden intruder, but she reacted after only a fraction of a second.

So, after a light exclamation, she laughed and scolded, "Xiuyuan, you scared me to death."

The next second, she was entangled by the man's cold hands and feet, and he buried his face in the crook of her neck, which was radiating heat, and muttered vaguely, "It's too cold, I can't sleep."

This answer made Tian Enjing feel both angry and amused.

Who are you lying to? The heating in the Villa is even more comfortable than here.

But she still reached out to stroke his hair, then pulled up the quilt to wrap him up, her arm gently hugging his back.

Soothing him gently, "I know, go to sleep."

……

The next day.

Lin Xiuyuan, who woke up on that not-so-large but very warm bed of Tian Enjing's, had a leisurely breakfast with her after a simple wash.

Only then did he open the Time Gate from this 2025 side, preparing to go over to the Apartment on the 2013 side.

But just as he stepped across the Time Gate, Lin Xiuyuan, with his feet on the floor, saw the snowflakes falling outside the window not far away.

This made him turn around somewhat unexpectedly, poke his head out from the Time Gate, and call out to Tian Enjing, who was tidying up the breakfast bowls and chopsticks in the dining room on the other side, "Wow, Enjing, it's snowing over there."

Tian Enjing, who was wiping the table, wasn't too surprised and responded softly, "That's normal; it's December now. It's already snowed here, so the weather in 2013 should be even heavier, right?"

Hearing this, Lin Xiuyuan turned his gaze back to the side of 2013, looked at the dense snowflakes falling outside the glass window, and nodded gently.

"It really is quite heavy."

"Then if you go out later, remember to wear a few more layers of clothes." Tian Enjing's voice came through again, though this time it carried a bit more careful concern.

"Mm, then I'll head over now, let's talk later."

After saying this, Lin Xiuyuan raised his hand and closed the Time Gate in front of him.

Then he walked toward the window of the Living Room and stared at the snowy scenery outside for a good while.

The roofs of the Apartment buildings opposite were already covered in a thick layer of white, and the streets below and the cars by the roadside were also blanketed in snow; the snow on the road surface had even turned into a grayish-black slush due to the crushing of traffic, leaving only the snow on the sidewalks and garden lawns as clean, pure white.

Looking at this silver-clad snowy scene of Seoul outside the window, Lin Xiuyuan couldn't help but mutter softly, "Wow, this is coming down pretty hard; it wouldn't have been snowing since yesterday, would it?"

After saying this, he breathed onto the window glass and drew a circle with his finger, then immediately felt that this behavior was too silly, so he shook his head and smiled to himself.

Only then did he turn and leave the window, walk to the sofa in the center of the Living Room to sit down, pick up the phone there, and habitually swipe his thumb across the screen to pull down the notification bar.

Then he saw a long, dense string of unread messages and missed call notifications filling the entire notification bar; the screen was almost entirely covered from top to bottom with message icons of various colors.

Seeing this array, Lin Xiuyuan blinked subconsciously.

This quantity is a bit excessive.

However, most of the caller IDs and message senders were that "pseudo" married woman who had recently joined the group; although others had also called or sent messages, the quantity was nowhere near as much as Park Hyomin's.

Besides that, he noticed an "outsider's" message sandwiched in the middle of this pile of messages from acquaintances, so he couldn't help but feel a bit surprised.

Mainly because the appearance of that name in the message list was a rare thing in itself; although the two of them chatted privately from time to time, it was usually him who initiated it, and the other party rarely sent messages first.

So, thinking of this, Lin Xiuyuan tilted his head slightly, looking at the dialog box on the screen that used a small rabbit picture as its avatar.

"Baolan? Why is she looking for me?"

Thinking of this, he simply clicked on the few messages Quan Baolan had sent him, slid his finger down the screen a few times, and read through those messages.

After reading them, he smiled.

The reason was actually very simple: it was because once, when the members were gathered together, everyone discussed wanting to find a new base, one where they could see the sea or soak in a Hot Spring.

During the discussion, everyone chimed in with many candidates, but they were either too far, too expensive, or the facilities didn't meet the requirements.

At the time, Lin Xiuyuan, being bored, had just casually asked Quan Baolan about it on his phone.

After all, this little rich woman owned quite a few properties in Nihon, so this sort of thing should be within her area of expertise, so he asked her if she had any resources in this regard or knew of any reliable agents who could help keep an eye out.

At the time, although Quan Baolan had several properties in Nihon, most were Apartments and storefronts, and she really didn't have any directly relevant resources for a Hot Spring Villa with an ocean view, but she still said she would help keep an eye out.

Lin Xiuyuan didn't take it too seriously at the time, thanked her, and put the matter aside for the moment; later, when he got busy, he even almost forgot that he had entrusted her with such a task.

As it turned out, he didn't expect that Quan Baolan had truly kept this matter in her heart.

It wasn't until recently that the agent sent her a very detailed email, with several property documents and photos taken on-site attached, indicating that after careful selection, they had found a few pretty good houses.

They were distributed in Hakone, Izu, and Hokkaido, several different Hot Spring areas, with prices, sizes, facilities, and surrounding environments all listed in detail, asking her to take a look when she had time.

After receiving the email, Quan Baolan organized the situation at the first opportunity, then sent Lin Xiuyuan several messages, relayed the general situation, and attached a few photos sent by the agent.

Inside were Japanese-style townhouses covered in white snow, open-air Hot Spring pools emitting white mist, panoramic views of terraces facing the sea, and garden paths surrounded by bamboo forests.

It was clear that those properties were indeed high-quality selections.

So much so that after reading all the content, Lin Xiuyuan leaned back on the sofa and thought for a moment, then typed a line of text to reply to her.

【Sorry, my phone was water-damaged before and was just fixed. Thank you very much for your help. If you have time, please be sure to give me a chance to treat you to a meal as a token of my gratitude.】

On the other side.

Quan Baolan, who was waiting in the backstage lounge of a large shopping mall in Seoul, had just put down the phone she had been playing with for a while, preparing to lean over and have a good chat with the few members nearby.

Then a crisp message notification rang out, a "ding-dong," making her pick up the phone she had just put down once again.

Then she lowered her head and glanced at the screen.

As a result, the sender's name made her eyes, which had been a bit sleepy from the boredom of waiting, light up a little bit, and the corners of her mouth curled up slightly, a faint smile appearing; it was clear that her mood had instantly become quite good.

This little action was also taken in by Park Hyomin nearby, so she leaned over with a grin and teased, "What's wrong, Unnie, so happy? It wouldn't be a message from some male friend of yours, would it?"

"No, don't talk nonsense." Quan Baolan shook her head.

But although she denied it cleanly and neatly, she hadn't counted on a little bully still standing behind her.

I saw that two seconds later, Park Jiyeon had already silently poked her head out from behind Quan Baolan's shoulder, her gaze accurately focusing on her phone screen, and then she let out a short exclamation.

"Eh, it's oppa."

"Who? Xiuyuan?" Park Hyomin, who had just been smiling and teasing Quan Baolan, couldn't keep it up at all now, and she asked back with her little mouth agape.

In her mind, all sorts of dissatisfaction and frustration bubbled up.

No way, Lin Xiuyuan, I called you so many times, and you didn't call me back first, but replied to Baolan Unnie instead????