Li Shuru gave a suggestive, imagination-provoking reply and walked toward the dining room.

Jiang Chen couldn’t help laughing.

By the time Xu Siyi changed and came downstairs, the food was already served.

"Hey, don’t start eating yet, I still have one more dish to make." she said hurriedly.

"It’s enough. There’s just the three of us, we can just eat whatever." Jiang Chen didn’t put on any airs.

But she didn’t agree.

"It’s fine for me and Shu Rui to just eat whatever, but you’re back now, President Jiang. If I just throw something together, wouldn’t that make it look like I’m being rude?"

Jiang Chen waved his hand. "I’m telling you to eat, so eat. What are you dithering for?"

Dominant, huh.

Even Li Shuru couldn’t help giving him a couple extra looks.

Women, after all, always respond better to toughness than softness. Xu Siyi instantly settled down, obediently walked over and sat by the table. As for "changing clothes", she’d just thrown on a T-shirt, plus a pair of light, airy shorts that showed off her beautifully shaped legs as much as she wanted.

Well, yeah.

It’s not like there were outsiders around.

And she wasn’t letting anyone else take advantage anyway.

"What were you doing home alone all this time?"

Jiang Chen picked up his chopsticks, opening the conversation.

"Eat and sleep, sleep and eat."

Xu Siyi said breezily, even letting out a lazy yawn as she spoke. Seeing that, Jiang Chen found it funny. "You’re sleepy already this early?"

"No. I only got up at five."

Jiang Chen was stunned. "You slept till five in the afternoon?"

"I just took a nap."

Can the words "five o’clock" and "nap" even appear in the same sentence?

"Shu Rui isn’t home, I don’t even have anyone to talk to. What else can I do but sleep?"

She even found herself a perfectly good excuse.

"If you’re really that bored, then come to Tianci. I guarantee you’ll have more work than you can finish." Boss Jiang really was a good senior and a good friend.

What’s that saying again?

When poor, keep your own virtue; when prosperous, help the world.

Since he had the ability, giving his friends and family a leg up was nothing.

Tianci Capital was his wholly-owned company. Even if he dragged Martial Saint’s Tibetan mastiffs over to Tianci to be guard dogs, no one had any standing to criticize.

"Not going."

Xu Siyi refused without hesitation.

"Why?"

"It’s all people I know. I’d be embarrassed."

Well, well.

Personality upgrade, huh.

"If you really pity me, then just let me be a live-in maid here." Xu Siyi added.

"Don’t need to pay me, just give me a place to stay."

Jiang Chen couldn’t stop smiling. "And your big house?"

Xu Siyi looked at Li Shuru. "Shu Rui, look at him, he’s awful, poking right at my sore spot on purpose."

"You barely know how to cook a few dishes and you’re talking about being a maid."

Jiang Chen teased, "Leaving your own mansion empty so you can go be someone’s maid—who wouldn’t find that suspicious?"

"President Jiang, don’t roast me like that. Compared to this place of yours, how is mine a mansion?"

Xu Siyi said, "I’m planning to sell that place anyway."

"Sell it? Why sell?"

Xu Siyi rolled her eyes in a sweet, flirty way. "I don’t want the surroundings to trigger old feelings, okay."

Chewing her rice as she spoke, she went on, "And that place is too big, I get scared living there alone. Unless you let Shu Rui come keep me company."

"If you’re really going to sell, do it sooner rather than later. Real estate is getting worse and worse now." Li Shuru cut in.

Jiang Chen couldn’t help laughing.

He could completely relax now.

What a solid business mindset.

"Yeah. Honestly, keeping that place is just a burden. Even the property management fees are a strain. I might as well sell it and cash out."

Xu Siyi was still just as clear-headed.

The gap between classes is like a chasm. Forget a house worth tens of millions—even if you give an ordinary person a supercar, they can’t really enjoy it, because the yearly maintenance, insurance, and gas alone are an unbearable expense.

"Why’d you go quiet? Relax, I’m kidding. I’m not about to come here and be a third wheel. Once I sell the place, I’ll just buy a smaller one. Start over."

Jiang Chen nodded. "You’ve grown."

"So I wasn’t mature before?"

Xu Siyi grumbled in dissatisfaction.

"I mean you’re more mature than before."

Girls like them—whether her or Li Shuru—really were way more advanced in their thinking than most people their age.

"Of course. You learn from every fall. Can’t let those stumbles be for nothing, right."

Whether it really counted as a fall was debatable—plenty of women would probably envy her.

Whether Xu Siyi ever felt regret, only she herself knew.

"Once something’s over, it’s over. How can anyone go a whole lifetime without running into a few scumbags. Focus on the present and look to the future."

That finally counted as her giving herself some comfort.

Now that fits a senior’s status.

"Then how come Shu Rui’s never run into a scumbag?"

Xu Siyi immediately asked.

"Who says I’ve never run into a scumbag."

Li Shuru’s response made Xu Siyi pause for a second, then she quickly looked at Jiang Chen. "Wasn’t Senior Jiang your first love?"

As soon as she said it, she reacted and a teasing smile tugged at her lips. "Oh, I get it now."

Someone clearly didn’t feel his girlfriend was shading him, and instantly dragged someone else out as a shield. "I’m not her first love. Back in middle school she admired a boy."

Not just Xu Siyi, even Li Shuru couldn’t help pressing her lips together and laughing, casting a reproachful glance at this quick-reacting guy.

Xu Siyi didn’t notice the eye contact between them, fully drawn in by this bit of gossip. "For real? Shu Rui, how come you never told me?"

"Ignore his nonsense."

That was hardly "admiration", just the muddled emotions of puberty, a perfectly normal fondness for an outstanding boy.

The first time the two of them ever lay in the same bed, she’d only mentioned it once. Who knew he’d remember it for so long.

Seriously... so petty.

"Senior Jiang, that’s on you. We all know what Shu Rui’s like. If she says no, it means no. You owe her an apology."

"Sisters really are on the same side, huh."

Jiang Chen laughed. "Alright, my bad, I misspoke. I apologize, I repent."

"That’s more like it."

Xu Siyi huffed. "Do you have any idea how self-disciplined Shu Rui is now? I ask her to hit the bar and drink with me and she won’t go. You just got back and you’re already picking on her..."

She didn’t dare say the rest out loud, but her eyes were looking at him like he was Chen Shimei.

He couldn’t let her keep going, or he’d really be drowning in guilt.

"Bars are full of smoke and sleaze. What’s so great about going. If you want to drink, I’ll drink with you."

Jiang Chen cut in.

"Deal."

Xu Siyi immediately stood up and went to the fridge to grab a few cans of beer.

"Senior Jiang, you’re the best."

Ha.

Instantly she’d switched sides.

Women.

"Say it first, we stop before it gets out of hand."

Xu Siyi made an OK gesture. "I wouldn’t dare get you drunk. Shu Rui would kill me. I know you two have big plans tonight."

"..."

"..."

The couple tacitly pretended they hadn’t heard that.

Xu Siyi handed a can of beer to Li Shuru too, muttering something inexplicable: "It can help set the mood."

Whether it sets the mood, who knows.

And what mood, exactly, also unknown.

But both Li Shuru and Jiang Chen could tell she was forcing a smile.

A university senior and junior, roommates—being able to sit and drink and chat together after graduation was something incredibly rare. For a lot of people, the day they wheeled their suitcase out and shut the dorm door, they’d already had their last meeting in this lifetime.

"Senior, if back then I hadn’t tricked you out of those few thousand yuan, do you think we would’ve had a chance to be together?"

Once people drink, it’s easy to start looking back.

Especially when you think about where you are today; it’s even easier for emotions to collide.

Jiang Chen was quiet for a moment, fingers on the beer can, then he asked very seriously, "Do you know why, when you’re clearly very pretty too, you never quite measure up to Shu Rui?"

Xu Siyi didn’t mind at all, just like Li Shuru didn’t mind the scenario she’d proposed.

"Why?"

"Because your taste in men is worse."

"..."

"..."

Jiang Chen ignored the awkward silence, speaking by the book. "Back then everyone thought I was a toad at the bottom of a deep well, including you. Only Shu Rui, with her Fiery Eyes and discerning gaze, saw through my disguise and knew I was a prince turned into a frog."

"Pff—pff—"

Xu Siyi tried hard to keep her mouth shut, but she really couldn’t hold it in. She turned her head. "Is that so?"

In the eyes of the current East University juniors, what makes Li Shuru shine the most is no longer the title of some-year’s campus belle of the arts college.

It’s that as an arts student, she became the most successful Angel Investor in East University’s history—arguably, with no second place.

"You, your cultivation’s still too shallow. She won’t teach you this stuff."

Xu Siyi pulled her gaze back and looked at Jiang Chen again. "What about now? Do I still have a chance?"

"I’m not greedy. I’d be fine being the second wife. If that’s really too much, being a concubine is acceptable too."

"What are you talking about."

Li Shuru spoke up.

Jiang Chen stayed out of it, calm as ever. He took a sip of beer, the corners of his mouth quirking up. "See, Shu Rui doesn’t agree."

"Shu Rui, are you even my friend? Can’t you show a little sympathy?"

Xu Siyi’s emotions slipped out of control. "Just because I’m rough and twiggy, I don’t even qualify to be a concubine?"

Jiang Chen paused, then politely corrected her. "The phrase you’re looking for is ’wilted flower and fallen willow’, right?"

Xu Siyi froze, staring straight at him, then raised both hands to cover her face.

"Waaah—"