Xia Li raised her eyes and looked at Xie Yin.
The man's tone sounded like a gentleman's, with a discussion in mind.
But there was no hint of negotiation in those deep eyes that looked at him.
Xia Li pursed her lips, not knowing how to refuse.
Xie Yin lowered his eyes and looked at the silent girl in front of him, assuming that she had already tacitly agreed to stay for dinner, so he asked Aunt Zhou at home to add an extra dessert to the dinner.
Aunt Zhou has always worked in Tingyuan, and this was the first time she saw Xie Yin bringing someone of the opposite sex back to Tingyuan. Naturally, she would not neglect Xia Li at all, and quickly turned around and went into the kitchen to cook a few more dishes.
Before eating, Xie Yin took Xia Li to play with Ye Ye for a while in the yard.
It wasn't until Aunt Zhou had prepared the food and put it on the table that Xia Li washed her hands and sat down at the dining table.
During the meal, Xia Li sat awkwardly at the dining table, minding his own business by picking at the rice in the bowl in front of him, trying to reduce his sense of presence.
The man sitting across from him picked up the teacup at hand with great interest and slowly brought it to his lips.
He lowered his eyes and blew the tea leaves in the cup, knowingly asking:
"Why don't you eat vegetables? Is it not to your liking?"
A "little hamster" who was immersed in pulling white rice made a move and raised his head with frightened eyes.
Xia Li swallowed the rice in his mouth, picked up the teacup on the side and took a sip of water to calm his breath.
She shook her head: "It's not to your liking."
The man in front of me raised his eyebrows slightly: "Then why haven't I seen you picking up food?"
Xia Li's face heated up. She couldn't tell Xie Yin directly and openly that the reason why she didn't pick up the food was because she felt shy!
Even Xia Li found it strange.
Logically speaking, there would be no intersection between the two of them, but since he came to the capital, he has met him again and again.
But I don’t know why.
These two encounters always gave Xia Li an indescribable strange feeling.
She didn't know if such a strange feeling was normal, or where it came from...
But she knew clearly that it was because of this strange feeling that she became particularly embarrassed in front of men.
Xie Yin seemed to have seen through her little thoughts, and tapped the table twice with his hand that was resting idle on the dining table.
"nervous?"
Xia Li looked away guiltily: "No, no."
"It's fine if you don't."
Xie Yin did not expose her, he reached for the teapot placed aside and added tea to the cup in front of her:
"Since you said we are friends, then I guess there is no need to be so tight between friends."
His throat lowered a little, and his low magnetic voice was a little heavy.
Xia Li looked at the cold white slender hands stretched out in front of him, holding the handle of the pot. The sexy veins on the arms were slightly bulging, invisibly showing a kind of sexual tension.
The girl's eyelashes trembled slightly and she looked away from his hand in panic.
The hand holding the chopsticks poked the white rice in the bowl and nodded.
During the meal, Xie Yin's cell phone suddenly rang.
Xia Li took a sip of the tea at hand, and the man's rich and mellow voice sounded in her ears unhurriedly, as if he was playing cello music.
It's not boring, but rather...
Pleasant.
Xia Li was a little distracted when she heard it, and didn't even notice the dessert that her aunt brought to the table.
Xie Yin held the phone with one hand and leaned lazily on the dining chair.
He reached out and pushed the dessert on the table in front of Xia Li, and said softly to bring Xia Li back from his thoughts:
"Try it."
Xia Li looked at the strawberry Napoleon that the man pushed in front of her, picked up the spoon on the side and ate it in small bites.
Qizhou on the other end of the phone was confused by Xie Yin's sudden words.
"Brother Yin, who are you talking to?"
"No one."
(No one.)
The environment in Qizhou is a little noisy, and a mechanical female voice can be heard vaguely in the airport lobby.
Qizhou: "I just arrived at the airport, let's have a drink together tonight?"
Xie Yin looked at Xia Li, who was concentrating on eating desserts, with a heavy gaze, and the corners of his mouth curled up:
"Don't be afraid."
(I'm afraid not.)
"Come on?" Qizhou pushed his suitcase out of the airport and teased, "You have an appointment tonight?"
Xie Yin calmly took a sip of tea and said, "Yeah."
"Who are you dating?"
Based on his understanding of Xie Yin, he wouldn't be dating a woman anyway.
According to Xie Yin's past life, he spent his evenings either discussing business or having meetings.
But through the conversation with the man just now, Qizhou could confirm that Xie Yin was having a meal now, but it was not a serious meal like in the business world.
Qizhou thought for a few seconds and said with some uncertainty:
"Don't tell me it's the sister who gave you the watch?"
As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Qizhou immediately denied the idea in his mind.
How could such a coincidence happen...
"Tie him."
(is her.)
Xia Li raised her eyes and met his gaze.
She had no idea who was on the other end of the phone or what was being said.
But vaguely, Xia Li felt that it was related to herself.
The person on the other end of the phone said a few more words, and Xie Yin simply said "I'll ask her" and hung up the phone.
"Qizhou has come to the capital."
Xie Yin put the phone aside, and a sapphire-like voice slowly entered his ears: "He asked you if you would like to have a dinner together?"
Xia Li put down the spoon in his hand: "Is he the boss of Yajian?"
Xie Yin nodded lightly, and his fingertips carelessly fiddled with the beads on his wrist.
The man had taken off the watch and placed it on the bedside of the master bedroom before eating.
A gentle, low-magnetic voice sounded softly:
"Want to go?"
-
"Brother Yin!"
Pushing open the door of the private room, Qizhou, who was sitting on the sofa wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and talking on the phone, raised his head and looked at the person walking in from the outside.
Qizhou held his mobile phone in one hand and raised his other hand above his head to say hello to Xie Yin.
He said simply and clearly to the person on the other end of the phone: "I have something to do. Let's talk later."
The person on the other end of the phone asked cautiously: "Uncle, do you need to come back to stay tonight?"
"No."
After hanging up the phone, when Qizhou saw Xia Li behind the man, Qizhou looked at Xie Yin with a bit of gossip in his eyes.
"Mei, long time no see."
After sitting down, Qizhou thoughtfully asked the waiter to serve Xia Li a glass of orange juice.
Qizhou looked at Xia Li, who was sitting next to Xie Yin, and asked with a smile: "By the way, I don't know what your name is yet?"
Xia Li held the orange juice in both hands and took a sip:
"My name is Xia Li."
It was said to be a dinner party, but the two men at the table were talking about something that Xia Li couldn't understand at all.
Xia Li, who was sitting aside, silently drank a glass of juice. Feeling a little bored, he opened the Jump app in the mini program.
When I finally jumped to the 100th position, a mistake caused the game to end.
The man next to her caught a glimpse of the girl's screen from the corner of his eye, and the corners of his mouth twitched imperceptibly.
Even Xie Yin himself may not have noticed that the tone of his speech to Qizhou had also slowed down a bit.
After the game ended, Xia Li was too lazy to continue playing.
Halfway through, Xia Li went to the bathroom.
Through the door of the toilet cubicle, the originally quiet sound of conversations slowly came from far and near.
"Cheng Cheng, I heard a while ago that Qi Du is going to marry the daughter of the Xia family. Is this true?"
Another girl sneered:
"What is the daughter of the Xia family? She is just a woman who married Qi Du for money. Now the Xia family is about to go bankrupt. Why does she think she is the poor heroine in the novel?"
Xia Li was about to reach out and open the door.
I never thought that I was just going to the toilet. How could I overhear something about myself in the toilet?
Xia Li hesitated for a moment, then silently took back the hand hanging in the air.
The girl took out the lipstick from her bag, applied it on in front of the mirror and said:
"That's right. No one in the Xia family thinks highly of them now, and they still want to get close to the Qi family? That's simply a fool's errand."
"That's right. The resources in this circle are more wolves than meat. It's unreasonable for the Xia family to rely on the Qi family to turn around."
Xia Li, who was hiding in the cubicle, was stunned.
Obviously only the two families knew about the marriage contract between the Xia family and the Qi family.
But why... was it suddenly spread in the circle?
Xia Li frowned slightly, and the two people outside the door were still talking.
"You are right, but after all, we have a marriage contract. If you really want to marry Qidu, then... have you asked Qidu what he plans to do?"
"I asked him that day in bed and he said he would figure it out."
The sound of water outside the door stopped suddenly.
The sounds of conversation are also fading away.
It wasn't until the two people's voices could no longer be heard that Xia Li opened the door of the compartment and walked out.
She walked to the sink in front of her and washed her hands, looked at herself in the mirror and lowered her head.
She pulled two pieces of paper from the side, wiped the water stains on her hands, and threw them into the trash can.
When Xia Li came out of the bathroom, she saw a man lazily leaning against the corridor wall and smoking.
The man not far from her raised his eyebrows slightly when he saw her, and the smoke that filled the air made him squint.
Immediately afterwards, Xia Li saw Xie Yin turning sideways and throwing the half-burned cigarette in his hand into the smoke extinguisher beside him.
"Mr. Xie, are you here to use the toilet too?"
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Xia Li always felt that it was very similar to the popular joke on the Internet: "You are here to poop too, right?", which actually made her regret asking this question.
The man looked at her with a serious look, his Adam's apple rolling slightly: "Come out and breathe."
His voice was so dull that no emotion could be heard, except for a bit of hoarseness from having just smoked.
In the private room just now, Qizhou quietly brought the topic to Xia Li after she left.
Qizhou took a sip of the red wine in his glass, then slumped down on the sofa in the private room and looked up at the chandelier on the ceiling:
"I didn't expect it, I didn't expect it. It turns out that this sister is actually the daughter of the Xia family."
"But Brother Yin, don't you know that she is engaged?"
Xie Yin stopped drinking.
The man frowned and looked at Qizhou who was slumped on the sofa in confusion:
"engagement?"
Qizhou turned his head and met Xie Yin's eyes: "Yes, don't you know?"
Qizhou looked at the man's expression that changed from sunny to gloomy, and hesitated for a moment, but in the end he still did not tell Xie Yin who Xia Li's marriage partner was.
It's not that he doesn't want to say it, or that he's not loyal enough.
But...
Who made Xia Li's marriage partner be his nephew?
Now it's better, one side is a brother and the other side is a relative.
Squeezed in the middle, he could only pitifully try to balance the scales as much as possible.
Xie Yin frowned tightly and placed the goblet in his hand on the table, his expression gloomy.
He hesitated for a moment and said word by word:
"Should I know?"
