Chapter 16 – Don’t Expect Anything That’s Not Yours

The next day when Chu Ling came to pick up her “future daughter-in-law,” she was surprised to find that Yan Xiuzhi was still at home.

And he was having breakfast at the dining table!

Chu Ling, rarely showing astonishment, looked at her phone and then at her son. “It’s 9:05 already, and you’re still at home? Aren’t you going to work today?”

“My bad,” Zhou Ziyi quickly replied before the CEO, “I miscalculated the time, and the coffee was too hot, delaying his departure.”

Yan Xiuzhi, on the other hand, remained calm. “I just moved the time I have breakfast at the office to home.”

Chu Ling leaned over to look at her son’s breakfast and made a disgusted expression. “Noodles with coffee? What kind of combination is this?”

“…I made a mistake, didn’t think it through while preparing. I’ll get a soy milk machine another day, that would be better,” Zhou Ziyi admitted his fault.

Chu Ling didn’t say anything further, she just sat down across from her son. “Alright then, Xiao Zhou, have you finished breakfast? Wait until you’re done before leaving.”

“Auntie said to come at 9:30, and I haven’t eaten yet. Sorry for making you wait,” Zhou Ziyi smiled. “Would Auntie like to have something to eat or maybe some coffee?”

“Hand-ground?” Chu Ling asked.

“Hand-ground,” Zhou Ziyi confirmed.

Chu Ling: “Drink.”

Zhou Ziyi went into the kitchen, and Chu Ling kept her eyes on her son as he ate breakfast. Sensing her gaze, Yan Xiuzhi swallowed the noodles in his mouth and asked, “Is there something on your mind?”

“No, I just think you’re lucky,” Chu Ling sneered. “I’m not in the mood to get up early and make hand-ground coffee for your father.”

Yan Xiuzhi: You didn’t receive a dowry of 30 million either.

But he couldn’t say that, so CEO Yan quietly continued eating his noodles. Tomato and minced meat topping, sugar beets. Yan Xiuzhi rarely had this kind of breakfast, but it felt pretty good.

Zhou Ziyi came out with a cup of coffee, observing the harmonious scene between mother and son sitting face to face. He placed a cup of coffee and a dish of sugar cubes in front of Chu Ling.

Then, he also put a dish of sugar cubes in front of Yan Xiuzhi and casually took away another small dish from beside him.

That dish originally had three sugar cubes in it, but now it was empty.

Yan Xiuzhi: “…”

Chu Ling didn’t notice this small detail as she poured the entire dish of sugar cubes into her coffee cup.

Zhou Ziyi asked her, “Auntie, would you like to add some sugar cubes?”

Chu Ling took a sip and said, “Yes.”

Zhou Ziyi looked at her, then at Yan Xiuzhi, and with a smile, turned back into the kitchen.

Mother and son are close, interesting.

Ten minutes later, Yan Xiuzhi left for work.

Another ten minutes later, Zhou Ziyi followed Chu Ling and left too.

When Yan Xiuzhi arrived at the company today, Li Fei greeted him calmly, but her mind was buzzing with gossip.

She was very clever and noticed that the boss was not punctual today, so she sent a message to the driver. It wasn’t about asking what the boss was doing, but rather asking if the boss had breakfast. The driver just replied, “The boss had breakfast at home,” and Li Fei was shocked.

Yesterday, he brought coffee, and today he had breakfast at home!
This is not part of the contract, so was it Mr. Yan’s request or Zhou Ziyi’s initiative?
Regardless of which side it is, it’s astonishing!

Li Fei even took the opportunity to inquire about what was going on while reporting work to Yan Xiuzhi.

She first shifted the conversation from work matters to personal matters regarding marriage: “Mr. Yan Xiuzhi, I just sent you the guest list for the wedding invitations. Could you please take a look? If there are no issues, I will have someone handwrite them and send them out.”

Yan Xiuzhi responded with a grunt of acknowledgement.

Li Fei then asked, “Did you review the invitation style finalized by Zhou Ziyi, Mr. Yan? Is there anything that needs to be changed?”

Yan Xiuzhi replied, “I have reviewed it, no changes are necessary.”

The groundwork was laid, and Li Fei changed the topic: “By the way, Mr. Yan, do you still want me to arrange breakfast for you in the mornings?”

Yan Xiuzhi glanced up at her.

Li Fei’s heart skipped a beat, but she maintained her composure on the surface, pretending that it was just a casual question.

Yan Xiuzhi seemed to evaluate something and after two seconds, he responded, “Let’s discuss it later.”

“Alright, then I’ll go out now.” Li Fei slipped away as if granted amnesty. Just before leaving the office, she heard Yan Xiuzhi say, “After writing the first invitation, show it to me.”

Li Fei turned back and asked, “Didn’t the sample invitation we looked at earlier have a draft written on it? Did Zhou Ziyi show Mr. Yan a version without any text?”

Yan Xiuzhi clarified, “I meant, show me the first invitation that I will personally write.”

Li Fei was a bit confused but still agreed.

On that day, Yan Xiuzhi’s X received a lot of messages.

Most of them were photos sent by Zhou Ziyi.

All kinds of home furnishings, sofas, coffee tables, chairs in the living room, beds, wardrobes, bedside tables in the bedroom, everything was there in various styles. Yan Xiuzhi would usually just glance at them and close the messages without replying. But Zhou Ziyi suddenly started sending photos of mahogany carved furniture, and Yan Xiuzhi couldn’t help himself: “This won’t do.”

Zhou Ziyi replied, “I know, Auntie said your dad likes it and complained about it several times.”

Yan Xiuzhi didn’t reply.

Zhou Ziyi continued to send him messages, but he didn’t receive any replies. However, he persistently kept sending messages. Chu Ling saw this and thought that her son was really engaged in a back-and-forth conversation with someone, and she felt quite moved.

So, in the absence of cooperation from Yan Xiuzhi, Zhou Ziyi completed the task of “showing affection” in front of the elders.

And the results of their visit to the furniture store that day were summarized by Zhou Ziyi in a few sentences: “I successfully convinced Auntie not to touch your bedroom! But she said your bed is too dark and wants to change the bedding. We chose light blue and light green! Auntie said white looks like a hotel, hahaha.”

Attached are pictures of two sets of four-piece bedding. They are actually vibrant colors, but the colors are relatively light and the material is not reflective, so they barely fall within Yan Xiuzhi’s acceptable range.

Anyway, he can only endure for a month.

Zhou Ziyi also posted: “I also successfully salvaged the genuine leather sofa in the living room! But the coffee table, TV cabinet, and dining table covers all need to be replaced. The first two need to match the color of the sofa, and they can’t be made of wood!”

There are also accompanying pictures. The TV cabinet is made of painted material, with a fashionable and asymmetrical minimalist hollow design. This thing is probably going to be criticized by ordinary families for its “low storage capacity” and “dust-prone areas,” but it does look really good. Especially the pure black and white color scheme makes Yan Xiuzhi quite satisfied, and he wonders why his own mother didn’t veto this color scheme.

The coffee table is even more fashionable, with a pure glass design and extremely clever geometric splicing. In summary, it is beautiful, high-end, and expensive. Similarly, this thing can only hold a few fashion or financial magazines, at most accompanied by fruits and flowers, but nothing more. Not because it can’t bear the weight, but because using it in any other way would be too careless.

Because the glass coffee table is too transparent, a carpet is added underneath to balance the visual effect.

The dining table and chairs are made of wood, but the design is slightly lighter than before. They were personally shot by Chu Ling.

Other changes include new curtains and the addition of throw pillows, but he won’t go into further detail.

After Zhou Ziyi posted all this, she finally asked a separate question: “So, we’ve decided on this, right? Ge, do you have any other opinions?”

Yan Xiuzhi replied, “No.”

It’s not that President Yan is impatient to look, but Zhou Ziyi indeed made some decent choices. Some are reluctantly acceptable, while others Yan Xiuzhi also thinks are pretty good. When Yan Xiuzhi chose the furniture for this house, he only personally selected a few important pieces and left the rest to the designer. The final products were all passable, but they didn’t impress Yan Xiuzhi.

The TV cabinet and coffee table that Zhou Ziyi picked this time have greatly satisfied Yan Xiuzhi, who has a high aesthetic sense.

Since Yan Xiuzhi is satisfied, he casually replied to Zhou Ziyi’s next question.

Zhou Ziyi asked: “Auntie wants to invite me for a meal, asking if you’ll come.”

Yan Xiuzhi replied: “Not going.”

Zhou Ziyi: “Working overtime again? Auntie said you went to work as usual on the day after your engagement, unlike someone about to get married. She also asked me where we plan to go for our honeymoon, and I just made something up.”

Zhou Ziyi: “Auntie also asked me if you’ve been working overtime a lot recently.”

Zhou Ziyi: “Brother, I said it’s fine, sometimes you work late, but Auntie said I’m making up lies for you…”

Yan Xiuzhi was at a loss with this “live” conversation through text. He couldn’t understand what Zhou Ziyi’s real talent was, that he could get Chu Ling’s approval for the black and white TV cabinet and now chat so casually. But he knew that if he didn’t go along, Zhou Ziyi would probably be exposed.

The CEO could only say, “Send me the address, I’ll come later.”

Zhou Ziyi: “Okay, great!”

After replying, Zhou Ziyi smiled at Chu Ling and said, “He said he’ll come, just a bit later.”

Chu Ling sighed in amazement.
“What a skill, confusing my son completely.”

*
In the evening, when Yan Xiuzhi was about to go upstairs, he heard Zhou Ziyi sending a voice message to the housekeeper.

Asking her to buy some soybeans tomorrow.

Yan Xiuzhi stopped in his tracks, turned around, and asked after she finished sending the voice message, “What are you doing?”

“I’m buying soybeans to make soy milk,” Zhou Ziyi said, “I’ve already ordered a soy milk machine, it will arrive tomorrow, but we’ll only have soy milk for breakfast the day after tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Yan Xiuzhi said.

Zhou Ziyi was stunned, “Huh?”

“The contract doesn’t require you to take care of my personal life,” Yan Xiuzhi said, “You did well in front of my mother today, but not everything you say needs to be taken seriously.”

Zhou Ziyi took a few seconds to react, “Are you talking about the sentence where I said I’ll make soy milk for you?”

Yan Xiuzhi didn’t respond, but he looked at Zhou Ziyi with a fixed gaze, implying that he understood.

“Hey, Mr. Yan, there’s no need to make such a big deal out of it,” Zhou Ziyi smiled, “It’s not just you who eats, I eat too. I live in your house, without paying for food or rent, so I don’t have many opportunities to cook for myself. Just consider it me wanting to drink soy milk and taking the chance to do it. That’s all.”

Yan Xiuzhi: “…”

Zhou Ziyi: “Or, do you think it’s not okay for me to buy a soy milk machine and not report it as part of this month’s living expenses?”

How much is a soy milk machine worth? It’s just a small amount for Mr. Yan.

“I’m just reminding you not to expect anything else,” Yan Xiuzhi looked at him and said calmly, “I don’t expect anything from you beyond the contract, and you shouldn’t have any expectations beyond the contract either.”

Zhou Ziyi blinked, “Expectations beyond the contract? Are you referring to having breakfast at home?”

Yan Xiuzhi: “I’m talking about something serious with you.”

“Okay, okay,” Zhou Ziyi raised his hands, “Mr. Yan, I promise I didn’t mean anything. Who would have thought that you would think so much just because I wanted to have breakfast? It was just a favor between roommates.”

Yan Xiuzhi: “There’s no need for any extra trouble.”

“I know it’s not necessary, but it’s okay, right?” Zhou Ziyi helplessly said, “It’s just a small thing. I just wanted to be friendly and have a glass of soy milk. Do we really need to make a big deal out of it? Fine, then I won’t drink it. Is that okay?”

Yan Xiuzhi responded, “It’s not just about the soy milk.”

“Okay, breakfast is canceled too. No more noodles, sandwiches, or coffee. President Yan always leaves the house and goes to work without being late,” Zhou Ziyi said. “Thank you for your kindness this morning, President Yan. If there’s anything else, please tell me all at once.”

Yan Xiuzhi remained silent.

Zhou Ziyi was surprised and asked, “You’re not telling me I can’t have breakfast at home, too, are you?”

“Suit yourself,” Yan Xiuzhi replied before going upstairs.

Zhou Ziyi watched him and silently complained as he disappeared from sight.

——A man of virtue.