Chapter 499: Don't Get Too Tired

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"

Zhou Yi, a plum pit spitting from his mouth, pressed the cap of his pen against his chin and asked back.

"Don't mention it."

Sun Yanzi, having just gulped down her drink, impatiently tossed the small glass bottle into the trash can; her hand moved fast, grabbing a plum to wipe it off before shoving it into her mouth—

The moment her teeth broke the skin and flesh, that sour, refreshing flavor instantly saved her taste buds, which had been suffering under bitter torment, and led her straight to heaven.

"I've already forgotten when the last time was that a teacher pulled me into a small dark room for a private talk, but I can be absolutely certain that this time was the longest. Two whole hours! Two entire hours! I'm really going crazy."

Sun Yanzi lifted her bottom and perched on the corner of the desk; while complaining about the teacher's severity, her hands frantically scratched her head out of annoyance, the price being that her short hair gradually became messy—

A few strands of hair still blocked her view, so she instinctively puckered her lips and blew them away.

"How long were you scolded for?" Sun Yanzi asked.

She now desperately needed to find some sense of collective belonging, the feeling of never walking alone, in a fellow sufferer who should have had the same experience as her.

But who would have thought? What she received was Zhou Yi's gaze, as if looking at a fool...?

"Me? Did you catch a cold and fever that burned your brain into mush, Sun Yanzi? Is there anyone in this company who dares to scold me?"

A calm tone, a indifferent gaze;

Dangling crossed legs, a broken heart.

After Zhou Yi stated this iron-clad fact in an extremely casual tone, Sun Yanzi, who had seemingly forgotten to bring her trump cards during the teacher's class, finally gave up her last shred of hope and turned to furiously denounce his inhumanity—

"You've changed, Zhou Yi.

"We agreed to share weal and woe, to take the blame together, but now it seems we share the sweetness, while I alone bear the bitterness?

"Save me! Save me!"

Zhou Yi's eyes instantly became innocent: "Huh? Didn't I suffer? No, I actually found this plum quite bitter, the kind that's sour enough to be bitter."

"..."

Sun Yanzi, who had just bitten half of the plum, was now in a dilemma: neither throwing it away nor keeping it.

Wasn't this using an object to personify and sarcastically mock her?

Did he really think her Chinese comprehension was so poor that she couldn't tell?

After thinking it over, she could only angrily stuff the whole thing into her mouth, which still held the other half of the fruit flesh she hadn't chewed yet—

The sudden influx of foreign matter instantly stuffed her cheeks until they were bulging; the way she moved while chewing looked like a hamster desperately stealing cheese, while her eyes remained motionless, locked onto the face of the man with an exceptionally brilliant smile.

Commonly known as, staring~

Let's see who can't stand the gaze first!

"Eat more; this thing has the effects of clearing heat, strengthening the stomach, and dispelling liver fire. Look at how much fire you have; you must have been furious."

As if teasing a kitten, Zhou Yi pushed the fruit plate on the desk toward her seated position and said with a hypocritical air: "Strengthening the stomach can also make you eat more, so the meat grows where it should."

"... Ah!"

Sun Yanzi, turning her head to spit out the pit, formed her hands into claws, raised her elbows level with her ears, and as her body leaned forward, she straightened her head and made a lion's roar gesture at the man: "I'll bite you to death!"

The moment her words fell, as if saying "I've notified you," Sun Yanzi truly launched a hungry tiger pouncing on food style attack, biting toward Zhou Yi—

But the next second, Zhou Yi's large hand blocked her forehead, firmly holding her back at "a thousand li away."

Sun Yanzi, constantly butting her head against Zhou Yi's palm, sought breakthrough after breakthrough; she was just short of making a rumbling sound like a cat with its fur standing on end, but Zhou Yi, acting as if nothing was wrong, kept her at bay with one hand, sitting steadily like a fisherman on a fishing platform.

"Ah! I'm not playing anymore."

Sun Yanzi, her hair becoming even messier, flipped over and collapsed onto the desk; strands of hair spread out wildly, decorating her features; under the light, it reflected a certain messy beauty with a hint of self-abandonment—

A face of utter despair.

Her absolute suppression in strength made all her resistance seem so superfluous.

Zhou Yi was in a very pleasant mood.

It must be said that teasing Sun Yanzi now and then was quite fun. But play is play, and noise is noise; the reminders still couldn't be left out.

Especially since this fool, Sun Yanzi, liked to go barefoot at home without socks, stepping directly on the floor; who knows if it's a Singaporean habit.

"Pay attention to keeping warm these days; don't let your cold get worse, and then when your resistance drops, encountering some trouble would be bad."

Hearing this added word of concern from him, Sun Yanzi, lying on the desk, immediately grinned happily at the corners of her mouth; then, perhaps feeling that doing so was too spineless, she immediately reined in her smile, and when she turned her head toward Zhou Yi, she tried hard to hold her expression.

The serious kind.

"You're resuming the concert?"

Glancing at the content of the proposal, Sun Yanzi took the initiative to start a topic, asking curiously: "Who do you plan to invite as the guest this time? Zhang Shaohan? Or Zhou Jielun?"

Concert guests cannot appear repeatedly in an extremely short time; after herself for the Capital City venue and Xiao Yaxuan for the Shanghai venue, the guest choice for the Guangzhou venue naturally fell on other candidates who had a good relationship with Zhou Yi.

"Zhang Shaohan has joined a group to shoot an idol drama, and Zhou Jielun is still abroad filming an MV; neither has time."

Zhou Yi leaned comfortably against the back of his chair, looking up at the ceiling of the lounge, and for a moment fell into thought about who to invite as the guest this time.

Fan Xiaopang?

Or Cai Zuoyan?

Or maybe Twins, bundled together?

What about Lu Yi? He's not too good either.

Because Lu Yi's girlfriend also played investment and wealth management, after Cheng Hao got to know him through Zhou Yi, she subsequently got to know his girlfriend, Bao Lei; the two exchanged quite a bit of experience in investment and wealth management privately, and through back-and-forth interaction, they gradually became familiar.

Should we just drag Warner in to make up the numbers, treating it as mentoring a junior brother?

Zhou Yi fell into deep thought.

"If you ask me to find someone right now, I really don't have a good candidate."

He was not someone who liked to owe favors; or rather, he simply didn't like to owe favors.

Because favors are hard to repay.

Let alone after the SARS outbreak, all his familiar friends were surely busy flying around; the schedules they had been holding back for so long were surely flying everywhere; even Wang Feng had to go everywhere to make money after the lockdown was lifted.

"Or should we just skip the guest and sing it ourselves?"

After thinking for a moment, Zhou Yi turned his head to look at Sun Yanzi, who blinked rapidly: "It's not like we can't. We can just hire a DJ to spin some tracks as a transition during the interlude."

"That's exactly what I did. If you need it, I can recommend someone to you."

"Alright, I'll think about it when the time comes."

Sun Yanzi, who felt she'd been helpful, immediately grinned from ear to ear, and before leaving couldn't resist getting in one last jab: "Well then, you keep working. I'm taking sick leave and heading home~"

Sent off by Zhou Yi's raised middle finger, Sun Yanzi, with her hands clasped behind her back, hummed a pleased little tune and skipped away.

It wasn't not until past ten in the evening that Zhou Yi, having finally finished writing all the additional points of attention needed for every aspect of the concert, drove home through a heavy downpour.

Zhou Yi, who had planned to just make do with a packet of instant noodles to solve his hunger problem, was surprised to find upon arriving home that the light in his living room was actually still on—

Cheng Hao, wearing a white inner layer and a grey nightgown over it, came out from the direction of the study in slippers, just happening to meet the gaze Zhou Yi cast from behind the living room screen.

"I've arranged everything you mentioned. You can take a look—"

Seeing the man return, Cheng Hao pointed back toward the study with her right hand, and as she paced over to stand before him, she happened to hear the rumbling growl from his stomach, which was just then hungry enough to protest.

"You didn't eat tonight?"

"Got a bit busy. The concert prep is starting."

"... Go sit down for a bit. I'll cook you a bowl of noodles. Don't eat instant noodles, they're not good for your health."

Having said that, without waiting for Zhou Yi to refuse, Cheng Hao had already, after a slight smile, headed toward the kitchen.

Cheng Hao, who had simply fried two poached eggs and boiled up a pinch of thin noodles, finally garnished it with some chopped scallions and a few drops of sesame oil—a bowl of steaming-hot late-night snack was carried over and set before Zhou Yi.

"Sss—smells great, tastes great."

Under the woman's gaze, brimming with a smile, the man, after taking a slurp of noodles, offered the highest praise a diner could give.

"Zhou Yi."

"Mm? What is it?"

"Don't overwork yourself."

(End of chapter)