Volume 1, Chapter 59: I Was Merely in Deep Meditation

Lin Feifei's voice suddenly came from behind me, making my heart skip a few beats and my face burn slightly. There was truly nothing quite like getting caught red-handed while talking about someone behind their back.

Turning around to meet those slightly deeper pupils, I offered an awkward, forced smile and said, "Ah... yeah, we were just casually chatting."

Lin Feifei gave me a faint glance, her eyes seemingly mixed with a few hard-to-read emotions.

"Hmph! I heard everything you said just now. So boring."

With that, she pounced her lips and turned away.

Great!

I had officially managed to offend her.

Zhou Shutong and I exchanged glances. Her small mouth formed words without sound, signaling to me:

"You're done for!"

A bitter taste lingered in my mouth. I smiled sheepishly and said nothing more. From then on, Lin Feifei never stepped foot in the kitchen again. Originally, her absence from the kitchen was exactly what I wanted, but for some reason, I found myself feeling uneasy about it.

As the saying goes, once the hot pot is bubbling, happiness is soaring. Yet, hot pot seemed unable to capture Lin Feifei's mood. Although she didn't show any obvious unhappiness, I could clearly sense that she was somehow different from her usual self.

She chatted and laughed with Zhou Shutong, but I received no such treatment. A sense of melancholy washed over me. A woman's heart is as deep as the sea; I had no idea how I had offended her.

After everyone dispersed, a lingering sense of loss weighed on me. Such a fine meal had somehow ended up offending Lin Feifei. Though she said nothing, I wasn't a fool; I could still feel the shift in her emotions.

And it seemed I had caught her mood as well. After they left, my spirits plummeted to rock bottom. I collapsed onto the sofa, staring blankly at the ceiling, while every memory of how I met Lin Feifei rushed at me like a runaway train.

Did I perhaps have a bit of a crush on her? But did she like me?

Asking myself honestly, I couldn't come up with a definite answer.

Lin Feifei probably held some favorable impression of me, but whether it was actual affection, I had no way of knowing—nor was it something I should be dwelling on right now.

I drifted into a hazy sleep. When I woke up, the remaining twilight on the horizon was no longer so dazzling. The first thing I did upon waking was check my phone. Several WeChat group chats were active, but the one person I wanted to reach out to the most was missing.

Holding my phone, a sour feeling churned in my stomach. This was probably the first time neither Lin Feifei nor I had initiated contact with the other.

Though we didn't see each other often in person, our WeChat exchanges were continuous every day. Even when she flew to other cities, she would frequently message me. Never had she ignored me like this, not even once.

It seemed my careless remarks really had upset her.

Waiting was never my style, so I tentatively sent her a WeChat message.

"Did you see the evening glow outside? It's breathtaking!"

After sending the message, I waited to no avail, but I didn't mind and sent another one.

"Want to play PUBG? Get online, I'll carry you."

After the second message went unanswered, I had no choice but to deploy my ultimate move.

"I'm heading to Station Restaurant for pizza right now. You'll regret it if you don't come."

"Table number?"

"..."

Seeing her reply, I couldn't whether to laugh or cry. It seemed dealing with her required prescribing the right remedy for the ailment.

The pizza place I mentioned wasn't far from where Lin Feifei lived, but it was rather expensive. Still, to win a smile from a beauty, spending a bit of money was entirely worth it.

By the time I took a taxi to the pizza restaurant, Lin Feifei had already arrived. She sat by the window. The night was not yet very deep, and the orange lights cast upon her face made her look ethereal and mesmerizing.

The moment I saw her, it was as if I had taken some miraculous medicine—my mood instantly improved, and I strode inside quickly.

I appeared before her all smiles, only to be greeted by an eye-roll from Lin Feifei.

Choosing to turn a blind eye to her reaction and fully embracing my thick-skinned persona, I grinned and said, "What do you want to eat? My treat, order whatever you like!"

Lin Feifei rolled her eyes at me again, pouting, "I've already ordered everything, including yours. And I had already eaten dinner, to begin with."

I was momentarily stunned, seizing the chance to glance at her wonderfully proud figure, and laughed, "Your stomach capacity is impressive! Your figure and your appetite are seriously disproportionate."

Lin Feifei bared her teeth slightly, "I only ate seventy percent for dinner because I had to save thirty percent for a midnight snack."

I chuckled wryly, taking the beverage she poured me, and said, "I noticed you hardly ate anything at noon and was worried you'd go hungry, so I thought of inviting you out for pizza. Didn't you keep talking about wanting to try this place's pizza?"

Lin Feifei paused, a flash of astonishment crossing her eyes. "How did you know? I don't remember ever telling you!"

"You mentioned it in passing while playing games with Tang Qin and the others last time, saying you wanted to try this place's pizza."

On Lin Feifei's lovely cheeks, a trace of a smile finally broke through. "I was just mentioning it offhandedly. I didn't expect you to actually remember. I never took you for someone so attentive."

"I'm only attentive in this area; I'm pretty rough in every other way."

“Despicable! I think I actually understood that.”

The pizza was served. Lin Feifei picked up the roller cutter and skillfully sliced the pizza. If it were up to me to cut such a large pizza, I probably wouldn't have managed it well, but Lin Feifei cut it to perfection, making every slice look remarkably even.

Watching her place a sliced piece of pizza onto the plate in front of me, I smiled and said, "I never expected you to be so good at cutting this. I wouldn't have been able to make them this uniform. It seems you're not as hopeless at cooking as I imagined?"

"Nope, I'm completely hopeless at everything else. The only reason I'm good at cutting pizza is because I eat it often. Your initial judgment was quite accurate."

With that, she gave me a meaningful side-long glance.

I smiled awkwardly, not expecting my inner thoughts to slip out. Probably no woman would want to hear someone describe her like that, so I hurriedly tried to patch things up. "It's fine, you just haven't done much of it. Do it more and you'll get the hang of it."

Lin Feifei let out a soft sigh. "Too bad! Every time I try to cook at home, it's a total failure."

"Failure is the mother of success."

Lin Feifei curled her lips and smiled brightly. "Failure is the mother of success? Well, cooking for me is more like absolute infertility."

"..."

Sometimes, Lin Feifei said things that left me scrambling for a response. I truly adored her personality; being with her meant I didn't have to hold back or mind my words. In relationships between adults, comfort and ease are what matter most.

Lin Feifei gave me precisely that feeling, whereas when I was with Kuang Li in the past, it always felt like walking on thin ice, constantly terrified of saying the wrong thing and displeasing her.

Just as I was lost in thought, a remark from Lin Feifei pulled me sharply back to reality.

"What are you daydreaming about?"

I snapped out of it, smiling broadly as I looked at that lovely face. "Nothing at all."

Lin Feifei gave a little pout. "Hmph, trying to lie to me? Do you take me for a fool? As if I couldn't tell you were spacing out?"

I looked at her with an earnest expression. "I wasn't spacing out just now. I was meditating."