Song Qiuyu started feeling envious again.
Why did the relationship between Xia Qi and Lin An progress so smoothly?
Clutching her phone, she glanced at Jiang Xiao beside her.
Even though she had been trying her best to learn how to be a good girlfriend lately and Jiang Xiao seemed satisfied, she still felt it wasn’t enough.
It felt like something was missing.
Maybe…
‘Am I not cute or girly enough?’
She watched a young woman get up from the mirror after finishing her hair. Spotting the woman’s beautiful, delicate manicure, Song Qiuyu’s eyes lit up.
Suddenly, she wanted to try applying nail polish and getting a manicure too.
Something pink.
She looked at her own neatly trimmed nails and tried to imagine it.
‘It looks pretty good.’
At that moment, a beep sounded.
Her phone, Jiang Xiao’s, and Xie Zhuran’s all rang simultaneously.
Everyone had received a new QQ message.
The message was from Lin An.
Its content was roughly similar to what Xia Qi had sent.
“…”
Shock briefly flickered across Xie Zhuran’s face in the mirror’s reflection, but it vanished in an instant, returning to his previously weathered expression.
“Old Song, Old Jiang, you saw the message too, right?”
The bit of silliness that had recently returned to Xie Zhuran vanished once more, as if he had matured within a few breaths.
He seemed to have aged another ten years on top of his already 50-year-old appearance.
Some people might only be 18 according to their identity cards, but in reality, their mental and physical age was pushing 70.
“Yeah, I saw it,” Song Qiuyu said. She nodded and, after thinking for a moment, clenched her fist. “Don’t worry, Old Xie. You’ll have that too!”
“Yeah.”
Xie Zhuran’s brow furrowed.
Once he finished this haircut, he would be a brand-new Xie Zhuran.
A bright future was waiting for him.
The barber silently worked the scissors and comb behind him.
Following that, Song Qiuyu indirectly asked Lin An a few questions, wanting to know their plans for after the engagement.
Lin An didn’t keep it from her and candidly told her about their plan to get married during the summer vacation.
Seeing this reply, Song Qiuyu’s lips twitched slightly.
‘Getting married this summer?’
‘Why are you two moving so fast? Is this right? Did you two really do… that… on New Year’s Eve? Did an “accident” happen, which is why the engagement and wedding are being rushed?’
Jiang Xiao and Jiang Li had been watching her phone from the side and saw Lin An’s reply. The expressions on both their faces were a bit subtle.
Jiang Xiao’s subtle expression contained both blessings and a longing for his good brother to finally be with his beloved, but it also contained a hint of dissatisfaction with his own current situation.
He wasn’t the kind of boring, uninteresting man whose head was only filled with rushing into marriage or driven by lust.
His dissatisfaction stemmed from a feeling that, as a man or a boyfriend, he might not have given Xi’er enough of a sense of security and trust.
Right now, he probably didn’t have the ability to become a husband, let alone a father.
He still needed to do more homework.
In his best state, he would earn a Diamond Ring Candy. If possible, he hoped to earn those Two Billion Dollars, and then he would officially propose to Xi’er this summer vacation.
Jiang Li looked toward Xie Zhuran wistfully, thinking about how his mother was so desperate for him to find a girlfriend. Many thoughts crossed her mind.
Perhaps if the girlfriend Xie Zhuran brought back was real, he would enter the halls of marriage very soon as well.
After all, they were all adults now.
Time passed second by second.
Soon, Xie Zhuran walked out of the barber shop.
“Pfft!”
Song Qiuyu tried very hard to hold back her laughter, but she failed.
Looking at Xie Zhuran beside her, who was now sporting a massive orange afro, she felt like she was going to die from laughing.
She laughed until tears came out of her eyes.
“Congratulations, Old Xie! You really did achieve your goal of breaking yourself down from the inside out and becoming someone whose original appearance no one can even remember!”
“Do you think I should find something to cover my face with to look even cooler like this?” Xie Zhuran asked.
Surprisingly, Xie Zhuran’s ability to accept it was very strong. He didn’t cry at all; instead, he felt the barber had done a pretty good job.
He was so optimistic it didn’t seem like an act.
This made Song Qiuyu doubt herself for a moment.
‘Was I just out of touch with fashion?’
Fortunately, the disgusted attitudes of Jiang Li and Jiang Xiao confirmed that she wasn’t the problem.
“Brother Zhuran, I’ve suddenly changed my mind. How about you just go rent a girlfriend yourself?”
Jiang Li had a look of disgust and wouldn’t even look Xie Zhuran in the eye.
Xie Zhuran was stunned by this.
Song Qiuyu and Jiang Xiao didn’t say a word. They already knew about Jiang Li agreeing to pretend to be Xie Zhuran’s girlfriend, and now, they were slightly moved.
Even if their brother had been kind to them, they could never “sell out” their sister like this.
Not to mention, this brother clearly had romantic feelings for Jiang Li that he shouldn’t have.
To put it bluntly, he wanted to snatch the prized cabbage of the Jiang family.
But the problem was that Jiang Li’s attitude was very firm.
“I placed a video call to Old Lin. He’s very curious about how you look now. Do you want to show him?” Jiang Xiao asked, simply raising an eyebrow.
Xie Zhuran’s attention shifted.
However, he seemed somewhat resistant to showing his new hairstyle to Lin An.
“Old Xie, don’t be shy in this situation,” Lin An’s voice already drifted out from Jiang Xiao’s phone.
“Old Jiang, give me the phone for a second.”
Xie Zhuran frowned and reached out a hand toward Jiang Xiao, his gaze firm.
“Here,” Jiang Xiao said with a smile.
Taking the phone, Xie Zhuran, with his weathered face and orange afro, took a deep breath and pointed the front camera at himself.
On the video call, Lin An adjusted his glasses, his lips twitching.
“…”
“Wait, Old Xie, this is just…”
Lin An suddenly felt a bit guilty.
He vaguely picked up on an unusual vibe from him.
Something must have definitely happened during Old Xie’s trip to the Jiang family house.
“It’s high-class, isn’t it?” Xie Zhuran said with a smug face.
“Yeah, in a sense, it’s very high-class. No matter where you go, you’ll be the most eye-catching, unique existence.”
Lin An’s smile was a bit forced. Seeing how his friend’s mental state seemed broken, he said exactly what the other man wanted to hear.
“See? Even Old Lin said so!” Xie Zhuran said, turning to look at the three people beside him.
“Right, right, right,” the three of them spoke in unison.
Xie Zhuran hung up the video call.
Afterward, they chatted all the way, passing through several alleys, a bustling market, and a large main road before finally arriving at the village where Xie Zhuran lived.
As soon as they entered the village, an old man at the entrance stared at them and looked them over several times. Finally, he adjusted his reading glasses and slapped his thigh.