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Xu Zhiqiao realized that the strange clouds drifting in the sky weren’t earthquake clouds, as she had suspected—
They were a bolt from the blue.
And it struck her right between the eyes.
The Young Master of the Zhou Family had, without shame or hesitation, just asked to date her.
Once again, the people around Ji Huailuo completely overturned her understanding of human behavior.
Expressionless, Xu Zhiqiao turned her head to the side. “No.”
“Eh?” Zhou Cong braced his hands on his hips, hunched over to meet her eyes. “Do you think you’d get the short end of the stick with me?”
She was surrounded by his sharp and commanding presence—nowhere to run.
Xu Zhiqiao said softly, “My mom always says, ‘Every radish has its own hole.’ Though I’m a good radish, you’re definitely not my hole.”
“…”
Xu Zhiqiao added, “You’re chasing after your friend’s little sister, aren’t your old face embarrassed?”
Zhou Cong twitched at his temple. “Old… face?”
He was only 22.
“Goodbye, Big Brother!” Xu Zhiqiao quickly shrank her neck and bolted out the door. “Goodbye, Big Brother!”
Zhou Cong reached out to grab her, but the girl was too quick, slipping through his fingers.
The warm summer breeze slipped through his beautifully sculpted knuckles.
At some point, two men had appeared beside him. One of them licked his lips and muttered, “Hey, the girl who just ran off, is she Ji Huailuo’s stepsister?”
Zhou Cong seemed to grind his teeth.
“Qingyang,” the other man laughed, “this is the first time our Ah Cong has met his match, huh?”
Hua Qingyang rested his finger on his chin, thinking, “It really is.”
The sole heir to the Zhou family, Zhou Cong was the apple of Old Master Zhou’s eye. No matter where he went, he was always victorious.
Countless young ladies tried to get his contact information but failed to find a way.
“You’re chasing after Ji Huailuo’s little sister,” another friend, Zhen Chuang, called out, “Does he know?”
Zhou Cong lowered his gaze, snorting coldly through his nose in a way that was hard to decipher.
Zhen Chuang glanced at him. “That girl hasn’t even grown up yet. Don’t be too much of a beast.”
“…” Zhou Cong forced a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Am I a grown up? Didn’t I just graduate from university?”
Zhen Chuang pointed out, “She just started university. When you were in university, she was still in middle school.”
“…”
When you put it that way.
It really does seem…
Beastly.
Zhen Chuang concluded, “So, you like younger girls.”
Zhou Cong scoffed, ignoring his teasing as he walked toward the parking spot.
“Hey, how come you’re driving the Cullinan today?” Hua Qingyang asked curiously. “What happened to your Black Warrior?”
Zhou Cong lazily replied, “Old Master said it’s too flashy, told me to keep a lower profile.”
Hua Qingyang raised an eyebrow. “Cullinan… low profile?”
Zhen Chuang was puzzled. “So what are you doing? Not going to Ji Huailuo’s birthday anymore?”
“Not going,” Zhou Cong opened the car door and bent down to get in. “She’s just a kid, With no elders around, how can that be allowed?”
The car sped off in a flash.
Hua Qingyang clicked his tongue. “Is he playing around, or is he serious?”
“Who cares if he’s playing or serious,” Zhen Chuang pulled him toward the clubhouse. “Just don’t spend your whole life playing with eagles and end up getting your eyes pecked out.”
Xu Zhiqiao scrolled through her phone’s contacts list from top to bottom.
She had only been brought to Shen City after finishing the college entrance exams this year, and before that, she had never set foot here.
Naturally, she had no friends.
Xu Zhiqiao slumped her shoulders and walked along the greenway by the city moat for several hundred meters, pondering whether she should just go to the nearest Starbucks to kill time.
A black car slowly approached, its window rolled down to reveal a man’s emotionless face.
“Get in.” Zhou Cong said flatly.
Had he not said those words, Xu Zhiqiao might have treated him as Ji Huailuo’s friend.
But after he spoke, Xu Zhiqiao only wanted to distance herself by eight hundred miles.
The girl didn’t slow down, in fact, she quickened her pace. Zhou Cong, irritated, laughed. “Xu Zhiqiao, are your ears deaf?”
Xu Zhiqiao’s legs moved even faster.
Zhou Cong slowed the car and drove parallel to her, patiently saying, “Your brother asked me to take you home.”
“…” Xu Zhiqiao stopped in her tracks. “Really?”
Guessing that she didn’t believe him, Zhou Cong turned his phone screen toward her. On it was an ongoing call.
It was Ji Huailuo on the other end of the call.
Zhou Cong switched to speakerphone.
“Did anyone hear that? If you heard, make some noise,” Ji Huailuo, in a fiery temper, shouted. “I’ve already spoken with Auntie at home. Tell that chatterbox to go straight home and stop messing around outside.”
Zhou Cong’s eyes were fixed on Xu Zhiqiao as he spoke to the person on the phone, “Mm.”
Ji Huailuo: “Where are you?”
“By the city moat.”
“…Why are you taking the route along the moat?” Ji Huailuo seemed to have thought of something, his voice raising in anger. “You haven’t managed to handle that girl yet, have you? Let her say something to me.”
Zhou Cong raised an eyebrow and held the phone out toward Xu Zhiqiao’s face.
Silence.
Xu Zhiqiao awkwardly spoke up: “Big Brother.”
“…Damn,” Ji Huailuo muttered a curse, then turned the volume up, “Are we still playing? If we are, come back.”
Xu Zhiqiao certainly didn’t want to go back.
When no one took the opportunity to lower the tension, Ji Huailuo started to get irritated again, “Then let Zhou Cong take you home. My dad and mom aren’t coming back tonight, I’m staying up all night. If you’re scared, sleep with Auntie.”
“…I’m not scared,” Xu Zhiqiao said.
Ji Huailuo: “Whether you’re scared or not, I’ve had enough of being your father.”
The tone was irritating, and Xu Zhiqiao couldn’t hold back anymore. “What kind of father are you? I’d rather have Zhou Cong as a father than you!”
After saying that, she even forgot it wasn’t her phone and swiftly pressed the hang-up button.
Ji Huailuo’s cursing was instantly muted.
The car’s hazard lights blinked as it parked on the side of the road, and the green path, now darkening with the setting sun, had joggers passing by.
Zhou Cong skillfully fiddled with his phone, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. “You don’t want a boyfriend, but you want a dad?”
“…” Xu Zhiqiao’s ears burned, and the heat spread to her cheeks. “I was just using an example.”
Zhou Cong chuckled. “You want to use your ‘big brother’ Zhou Cong as an example?”
Xu Zhiqiao, still seething from Ji Huailuo’s earlier outburst, felt the weight of her words sinking in. The frustration and regret over what she had just said only deepened with each passing second.
“Sorry,” she lowered her head, feeling dejected, “I just got so caught up, thinking I had to use one bad example to contrast with the other worse one.”
Zhou Cong didn’t respond immediately.
“Get in the car,” he said after a brief pause.
Xu Zhiqiao pinched the hem of her clothes, feeling that speaking any further would only make things worse. So, without another word, she opened the door to the backseat.
Zhou Cong squinted his eyes, pressing the lock button with a sharp click. “Front seat.”
It seemed like he was really treating her like a chauffeur now.
“…”
Finally settled in the seat, she heard a cold voice from her left. “Seatbelt.”
Xu Zhiqiao felt her mind growing muddled, as though everything she did now would only make things worse. The more she tried to get things right, the more she seemed to mess up.
She fastened her seatbelt and turned her face to look out the window.
As they passed through an intersection with a red light, Zhou Cong glanced at her. “When I try to talk to you nicely, you run away; when I get sharp with you, you turn your face. Is this the kind of thing you like from Ji Huailuo?”
“…” Xu Zhiqiao met his gaze, her mind a whirlwind of confusion. “He’s my brother…”
And also, Zhou Cong’s tone felt far too familiar, too presumptuous.
Before she could finish, Zhou Cong spoke again. “How old are you, and you’re still saying double words? Just say ‘brother’.”