Chapter 176: Is It Convenient? (2/2)

Tian Rou rubbed her face and sighed lamentably.

As the two of them continued chatting, Cheng Xi eventually shifted the topic to Shen Wei. “Is she doing alright?” Out of their shared group of friends, Shen Wei was the only one who was pregnant, so Tian Rou often went over to see her.

“Pretty well. She’s able to eat and sleep now. Oh, right, she’s divorced now. Did you hear about that?” Tian Rou lowered her voice as she whispered, “She didn’t want me to tell you that, so just pretend that you don’t know.”

Cheng Xi made a soft “Oh” sound.

Tian Rou shot a sidelong glance at her as she remarked, “You don’t seem to be surprised at all!”

Cheng Xi pretended to be surprised. “Really? I just didn’t expect it at all!”

But her acting skills were so bad that Tian Rou brushed her excuses away with a shake of her head. “Did you hear something after all?”

“Hmm?”

“For example, something like ‘Fu Mingyi had an affair.’”

Cheng Xi looked at her seriously. Tian Rou clearly wasn’t aware that Fu Mingyi had contracted AIDS—it seemed like this had all been buried deeply. She nodded.

“When did you hear that?!” Tian Rou’s eyes went wide with excitement. “Gosh, you never mentioned that to me!”

Cheng Xi could sense that Tian Rou was about to pounce on her, so she evasively answered, “What’s there to say? It’s Shen Wei’s own business.”

Tian Rou mulled over Cheng Xi’s words for a moment, and found that she had no choice but to nod in agreement. “That’s true. Given Shen Wei’s personality, if she knew that we were talking behind her back, then she’d certainly get mad. However, you must have no idea just how surprised I was when I saw her! Even though Fu Mingyi was the one who cheated, the two of them don’t seem to be on horrible terms. When I last visited her, I saw Fu Mingyi bring her a gift, and the two of them even seemed to be talking calmly. If Shen Wei hadn’t personally said that they’d divorced, I wouldn’t have believed it!”

After saying all this, Tian Rou even went on to remark, “It seems like motherly love really can change a person. If even someone as proud as Tian Rou can actually bear to be with a bastard like Fu Mingyi, even friends, then motherly love must be incredible. If it were me……” She glared at Baldy, who was running around haphazardly on the court, as she fiercely said, “I’d castrate him without a doubt! After all, my motto is, ‘If I cannot bend the heavens above, I will move Hell!’”

Tian Rou had come up with this motto while flipping through Cheng Xi’s book; it was a classic statement from Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams. After Cheng Xi briefly mentioned it, Tian Rou had flipped through the book and saw the statement at the end. It struck a chord with her and from then on, she had started using it as her motto, telling others about it from time to time.

But Cheng Xi felt that Tian Rou was only tomboyish in appearance; her inner self was far softer and gentler than even Cheng Xi’s. She looked at Tian Rou, who was smiling at Baldy. When Baldy, that funny fellow, saw his girlfriend raise her fist at him, he even thought that she was cheering him on, and he became so happy that he raised his fist too.

The two of them smiled at each other in surprising harmony, and Cheng Xi couldn’t help herself from joining in. She was about to say something when her phone rang.

When Cheng Xi took her phone out, she hadn’t even looked at the called ID when Tian Rou cried out, “Lin Fan? What’s he doing calling you?”

Cheng Xi panickedly clutched her phone.

But Tian Rou continued to chatter away. “Do you talk to each other often? My goodness, this fellow’s really disloyal! He didn’t even send out a wedding notice, but he’s also ignoring all of us when we asked him to hang out, huh!? Why didn’t I notice that he was such a dedicated husband before? Pick up! Pick up and scold him well for us. Even though he’s your idol, you can’t be softhearted toward him.”

Cheng Xi really couldn’t bear to hear any more of Tian Rou’s words, and she quietly shushed her. Only when Tian Rou calmed down did Cheng Xi finally pick up.

“Jiaman wants to see you.” Lin Fan’s voice seemed faraway. To Cheng Xi’s ears, however, it just sounded somewhat fake.

She looked up. On the court, Lu Chenzhou was facing a tennis ball flying towards him. His expression was calm and his posture perfect, but his returning volley had a particularly vicious spin.

Then, he suddenly looked at her as he swung violently with his racket, sweeping away the ball that was just about to touch the court.

The yellow ball spun through in the air, landing by Xu Po’s side of the court with a heavy thud as if in slow motion. Cheng Xi’s mind filled in the heavy “Peng!” sound as it struck the court, as if it were also hitting her heart.

Over the phone, Lin Fan asked, “Are you free?”