In the end, the girl still gave Tang Xin’s current phone number to Sister Ou, and she could only silently hope that the two of them would reconcile as they once were.
After all, her mother seemed to have moved on…
“Sister Ou, we’re leaving…”
“Goodbye, Sister Ou!”
“Take care, come again soon.”
“Wu!”
After bidding farewell to Sister Ou, Lin Xinyuan and the other two left the store, preparing to head back.
Riding the escalator down, the three of them began to descend.
During the ride, Li Tang and Liu Qingyan exchanged silent glances and occasionally peeked at Lin Xinyuan beside them, their expressions somewhat inscrutable.
Even though the girl had tried her best to hide it when she came out, the excessive amount of time she took, combined with her slightly reddened eyes, allowed them to immediately notice that something was wrong.
“A-Yuan, what were you picking up for so long?”
Li Tang tilted her head to look at the girl, seemingly asking casually, but she was actually watching for any changes in her expression.
Hearing this, Lin Xinyuan remained silent for a moment before shaking her head. “I just chatted with Sister Ou for a while…”
“I see…”
Seeing that the girl did not seem to want to linger on the subject, Li Tang and Liu Qingyan suspected she preferred not to talk about it, so they did not press further.
‘She probably talked about something sad with Sister Ou,’ they thought.
As a result, while they waited for a car after exiting the mall, Li Tang began trying to tell jokes in an attempt to improve the girl’s mood.
‘To be honest… the jokes are pretty dry,’ Lin Xinyuan couldn’t help but complain in her heart, but she was still moved.
She naturally understood their intentions.
At first, she remained somewhat silent, but later, she would occasionally chime in, which prevented the atmosphere from becoming awkward.
Seeing this, Li Tang and the other girl finally felt at ease.
Since the girl was still in the mood to respond to them, it meant there wasn’t a huge problem.
After waiting for quite a while, by the time they got into a Didi, it was already past 6:00 PM.
At dusk, the dim yellow afterglow reflected on the city roads.
Vehicles sped along the streets, but they did not head toward Tianbei University; instead, they went toward the nearby Gongtang Avenue.
When the car stopped steadily in front of an ancient and elegant building, the three girls finally got out.
Li Tang looked up and sighed in admiration at the plaque above the carved gate, which had the three ancient characters for “Fujilou” written on it, as well as the decoration that was full of ancient charm.
“Wow, this restaurant looks great! It must not be cheap, right?” Li Tang gently nudged the girl beside her with her elbow, smiling mischievously.
“Sister Weiwei’s boyfriend is really generous! He even invited so many of us. Tsk, tsk…”
She naturally knew that Yu Xiaowei’s boyfriend was Lin Xinyuan’s former roommate from before she had reverted to being a girl, so her tone was inevitably a bit subtle.
Upon hearing this, Lin Xinyuan’s forehead was covered in black lines, and she felt speechless.
‘Generous my foot!’
She hadn’t forgotten the time he treated her to a small, domestic BBQ set meal…
However, she hadn’t expected this guy to make such a big deal out of his birthday this time.
Not only did he book a private room at Fujilou, but looking at the situation, he had also invited many people.
He had even invited Li Tang and the others?
It had to be said, love really changes people…
“He is indeed generous.”
Lin Xinyuan nodded; at least this time, she agreed with Li Tang’s words.
Anyway, if it were her birthday, she wouldn’t be able to bear spending money in a place like this.
As for the Yellow-Haired Brat’s…
‘Hm… that… well, we’ll see… hmph…’
‘Uh… wait, that guy doesn’t seem to be short on money; he’s much richer than me! So why am I worrying about these things?’
‘Honestly…’
Thinking of this, Lin Xinyuan instinctively thought of Qin Nanfeng’s birthday.
Speaking of which, someone’s birthday was coming up soon, wasn’t it?
Lin Xinyuan remembered that the Yellow-Haired Brat’s birthday seemed to be on the first day of the sixth lunar month, which coincidentally was the opposite of her own birthday, which was on the sixth day of the first lunar month.
‘Doesn’t this mean… the two of us actually have a strong fate?’
She thought foolishly about random things, an unconscious curve appearing at the corner of her mouth.
Anyway, it wasn’t long until Qin Nanfeng’s birthday. As for the Jade Pendant he had given her, she had rarely worn it since she wore it once.
After all, that thing looked very precious. She was afraid of accidentally scratching it, so she basically kept it hidden and took good care of it.
So when the time came… what should she give him?
While the girl was still deep in thought, she suddenly heard someone shouting.
She looked toward the source of the sound and immediately saw two men walking toward them from not far away, waving their hands. They were Sun Ce and Zeng Yan.
“Brother Yu! You guys arrived so early!”
As soon as they saw them, Li Tang and Liu Qingyan’s eyes lit up. They turned and walked straight over, their speed astonishing.
The shopping bags they were holding were also taken over by their respective boyfriends.
“It’s not early. The others are already in the private room waiting for us.”
Zeng Yan shrugged and then asked casually, “How was your shopping this afternoon? You haven’t gone for so long, so you must be happy, right?”
“Pfft, it was alright!”
Li Tang had a smile on her face and looked very happy, but she soon seemed to think of something and felt the urge to share.
“By the way, Brother Yan! we even ran into a friend of A-Yuan’s at the mall this time… ah… or was it an elder?”
“Anyway, no matter what, she’s actually our fellow townsman! She has a huge chain store in Dingsheng and even told us we could go back to her place to play next time!”
Zeng Yan’s eyes were gentle as he smiled and nodded.
“Is that so? That’s great! Being able to bump into a fellow townsman twice while out shows that A-Li’s luck is very good.”
“Hehe, really?”
On the other side, Sun Ce and Liu Qingyan did not say much.
It was mostly Sun Ce speaking, as the girl could not talk and mostly used sign language to communicate with him.
Even so, the atmosphere was still very sweet. Their eyes seemed to be glued to each other…
Since a certain someone wasn’t there, Lin Xinyuan couldn’t help but miss the Yellow-Haired Brat a little as she witnessed all of this.
At that moment, her phone vibrated. She managed to free a hand to take it out of her pocket and checked her old Dormitory Group chat, finding that Chen Ze was @-ing her and Qin Nanfeng, urging them to hurry up.
Thus, she had to walk over and awkwardly interrupt the intimacy of the two couples.
“Uh, how about we head inside first…”
Hearing this, the four of them snapped back to their senses and quickly nodded.
As the group entered the restaurant, a waitress in a qipao greeted them.
After they gave the room number, they were led to the private room Chen Ze had booked.
Just as they reached the door, they could already hear the noise coming from inside.
It seemed the people inside had heard the movement outside, and they became even more excited!
“Finally, someone is here!”
When Sun Ce was the first to lead Liu Qingyan through the door, the people in the room immediately stood up to welcome them.
“Cezi is finally here!”
“Hello, Brother Ce! Hello, Sister-in-law!”
Everyone chimed in one after another. Chen Ze even walked straight up, intending to give Sun Ce a big hug. “Hahaha, Brother Ce! I’ve finally been waiting for you!”
But before he could hug him, he was blocked by Sun Ce’s hand. “Get lost! I’m not into that! Can’t you see I have my girlfriend with me?”
As soon as these words came out, both Lin Xinyuan and Li Tang, who had just followed them in, and the people already present, couldn’t help but laugh lightly.
Suddenly, the atmosphere in the private room became very lively.
After some commotion, everyone took their seats under Chen Ze’s arrangement.
“Who else hasn’t arrived? It seems like we’re still missing one?”
Chen Ze scanned the room and counted, only then realizing the number of people was wrong.
While he was wondering, Xiong Wei was the first to remind him, “Old Third hasn’t come yet, right?”
“Oh, right. I’ll ask Boss Qin now!” Chen Ze immediately reacted, taking out his phone to start calling the other party.
“Geez, Qin the Great Romantic really is a busy man. Even his girlfriend is here, but he hasn’t shown up himself?”
Since reconciling with Liu Qingyan, the sunny Sun Ce of the past had returned, and he couldn’t help but start joking.
As he spoke, he looked at the girl and raised his chin. “How ungentlemanly! Right, Sister-in-law?”
Hearing this, Lin Xinyuan was inevitably a bit flustered, but she still nodded slightly. “Uh… I guess so…”
“When Old Qin gets here, he must be punished with ten shots, and it must be the white spirits!”
Zeng Yan had some bad intentions and spoke up to stir the pot, clearly not yet having recovered from the shadow of being frantically blocked on the basketball court earlier.
Even Xu Wentao, who had previously vowed to find a girlfriend but still hadn’t made any progress, joined in the heckling.
“Exactly! Exactly! He must be punished severely!”
But just as the boys began to criticize someone again, and the girls were either chatting or watching the show with smiles, the girl sitting next to Xiong Wei was looking at the girl in confusion, her gaze strange…