Bai Zhou: "..."
He exclaimed incredulously, "You're asking me for money when you're so generously treating others? You didn't even leave anything behind for me when you left yesterday! I was so hungry in the middle of the night that I had to call for delivery!"
"You were the one who asked me to take everything away with me when I left." Ji Fanyin paused for a moment before asking doubtfully, "If you wanted me to buy you something, why did you reject my offer to treat you to an ice cream cone earlier?"
"When did I ever say that I want you to buy me anything?" Bai Zhou immediately refuted with a disgusted look on his face. "Ji Fanyin, don't be so narcissistic."
"Young master Bai, I know that this bit of money is no more than pocket change to you, so I am certain that you have only forgotten to reimburse me. There is no chance that you'd be intentionally delaying the reimbursement, right?" said Ji Fanyin.
Feeling like his integrity was being questioned, Bai Zhou clenched his jaws. He angrily whipped out his phone and transferred the money to Ji Fanyin on the spot to prove his innocence.
He only remembered that the amount was five digits and the first digit was '1', so he decided to round up the figure.
In less than a minute's time, 20,000 dollars was transferred from one bank account to another.
"I assume that the extra amount you sent over is a tip for my service?" asked Ji Fanyin as she looked at the message she received from the bank. Not intending to return the extra amount, she quickly added, "Thanks, young master Bai."
She bit down on her waffle cone and headed into the ice cream store, not sparing a glance at Bai Zhou at all.
Compared to an entire set of high-class French cuisine ingredients, buying a couple of university students some ice cream cones wasn't expensive at all.
By the time everyone had a uniquely colored ice cream cone in their hands, Bai Zhou muttered with a glum face that he was going to head back.
Bai Zhou's buddies glanced at one another with conflicted looks on their faces. While they were determined to get to the bottom of this peculiar relationship between a senior and an alumnus of their school, they weren't so vicious as to actually ruin their date.
After a brief moment of hesitation, they decided to leave with Bai Zhou.
Ji Fanyin didn't stay for too long either. Her mind was still fixated on the movie review that she wasn't done with yet.
So, she politely exchanged contact numbers with the young man before heading home.
By the time she finally finished crafting the entire movie review—she was so serious that one would have thought that she was writing a thesis—it was already nightfall.
Ji Fanyin took off her blue light glasses and headed to the fridge to look through the ingredients she had left from yesterday. While pondering about what to make for dinner, her phone suddenly rang.
She cast a glance over, and her eyebrows shot up.
She had already deleted most of her contact numbers ever since she moved out of the Ji Family a week ago, and the only ones who had called and messaged her during this period of time were her two clients.
As for Ji Xinxin, they communicated via a video call application since she was overseas.
The caller this time around was another number that was already stored in her contact, but it wasn't either of her two clients. Looking at the word 'Father' on the phone screen, she couldn't help but feel the irony of this situation.
It had been little more than a week since she had moved out from the Ji Family. No matter how blind Father Ji and Mother Ji were, they should have noticed that someone was missing from their house, not to mention that Ji Fanyin even dropped them a message on WeChat to inform them of the matter in view of their blood ties.
But ever since that day, neither Father Ji nor Mother Ji had dropped a call or asked how she was faring. It looked like they couldn't care less if she was alive or dead.
Ji Fanyin casually accepted the call and put it on speakerphone before turning her attention back to the fridge. She greeted Father Ji with a casual "Hey".
Her perfunctory greeting immediately brought about an outburst from Father Ji.
"Hey what hey? You aren't going to call me father? You're really getting out of hand now! Go and learn a thing or two from your younger sister on how you should speak to your elders!"
Ji Fanyin didn't have much respect for Father Ji since she wasn't 'Ji Fanyin'.
Her attention remained focused on picking out two of the most beautiful bell peppers while asking nonchalantly, "What do you want?"
Father Ji lashed out angrily, "Watch your tone! Do you still take me as your father?!"
Ji Fanyin decided to clear away two of the nicer bell peppers today. So, she grabbed her ingredients, closed the fridge door, and swiped her finger across her phone screen, hanging up the call from Father Ji.
She remained unfazed as if the call she had just received had come from a telemarketer asking her to buy insurance.
Perhaps feeling insulted by her hanging up, Father Ji didn't call back. But around ten minutes later, while Ji Fanyin was busy working in the kitchen, Mother Ji dropped a call.
Her tone was much more amicable compared to Father Ji's. She started off by calling Ji Fanyin by her nickname, saying, "Yinyin, are you doing well outside? If you don't have enough money on hand, feel free to ask us for more."
Ji Fanyin continued chopping her asparagus. She disregarded Mother Ji's hypocritical load of useless padding and repeated what she had told Father Ji earlier, "What do you want?"
Mother Ji coughed awkwardly at Ji Fanyin's candidness, but she managed to keep her calm as if she was mentally prepared for this. Instead, she asked, "Where are you living at the moment?"
"Are you planning to visit me?" asked Ji Fanyin.
Mother Ji hesitated for a long while before finally coming out clean, "Your father and I... we're worried about you. Someone told your father that he saw you at a place where women with proper upbringing shouldn't be. Yinyin, be honest with me. Did you make any bad friends and visit inappropriate places with them?"
Ji Fanyin thought about the places she had been to thus far and deduced that the place they were talking about was the bar she met Song Shiyu at the other night.
"Is there a problem with an adult visiting a bar?" asked Ji Fanyin nonchalantly.
Mother Ji immediately got agitated and exclaimed, "Of course there is! How can a demure lady visit that kind of place? Think about how our family's friends would think of us if they were to find out about it!"
Ji Fanyin turned on the tap and washed the knife as she asked calmly, "You called me for this?"
"How can you say that? Don't you know how serious this matter is? We're nagging you for your own good, or else..."
This means that there's nothing else.
Ji Fanyin wiped her hands using a soft cloth before hanging up the phone once more. After that, she switched her phone to 'Do Not Disturb' mode. With this, the only ones who could contact her were her clients.
