CH 17

Yang Yali naturally did not stay for dinner. She had come to warn me not to steal her man from her, so it would have been a joke if she had stayed for dinner in such a situation.

However, what puzzled me was the fact that Xi Xichen knew Yang Yali? They seemed to be two completely unconnected people.

“You know her?” I asked anyway as we sat at the dinner table.

He looked at me and said, “Coincidence.”

Coincidence?

I stopped making a fool of myself, arranged the napkin in front of me on the table, and then accepted the glass of filtered water from the maid.

I had stayed to eat dinner because I could already anticipate Jian Yelin’s pestering about why I wasn’t eating with them, and the thought of this child made me want to both laugh and cry.

“What do you want to know?” Xichen continued the conversation a little abruptly.

“I don’t think you’re going to answer plainly.” I answered, putting down the glass in my hand. “Actually,” I continued, “you don’t have to say anything because it’s all none of my business.” How he and Yang Yali knew each other or how they met didn’t matter to me. I had only asked because I thought it might have something to do with Ye Lin.

“Yes?” The man across the table’s scrutinizing gaze deepened, but he didn’t speak again.

A moment later he stood up and righted Jian Yulin who had run down the stairs and into his arms.

“Next time, don’t run so fast.” The tone of his voice was slightly reproachful.

“Grandma said that my sister is down here.” The little boy looked at me with a smile.

“Come and sit down.”

Jian Yulin said, “Oh,” and the next moment pointed to my left hand and exclaimed in surprise, “Sister is using her left hand!”

A long moment passed before I heard my own calm voice, “I can only use my left hand because my right hand is broken.”

Although I was addressing a small child, my words were clearly meant for an adult.

“He’s still a child.” Xi Xichen’s tone was a little cold.

I looked at him absurdly.

“I didn’t say he wasn’t.”

“You are a really unpleasant girl.”

I hadn’t expected him to say that, and I felt like I had been punched in the chest.

Discreetly pushing down the unintentional objection that had come up, I snorted, “Xi Xichen, it’s not funny to judge someone you don’t even know!”

“Do you care what I think?” He looked at me, asking in a cold manner.

“Thank you for reminding me, I don’t need to care!”

“Your stubbornness won’t do you much good.” He said after a while.

“It’s not for you to worry about what happens to me.” I taunted back nonchalantly. “Do you think I should be softer so that you can be more completely condescending?”

He gave me a look and said, “Now deliberately misinterpreting people’s meanings has become your strength.”

I wondered if there was any sarcasm in his comment.

I laughed.

“Don’t talk as if you know me well. What strengths and weaknesses? Mr. Xi, you and I just have that ridiculous blanket of a legal relationship that is slightly more than being strangers.”

Instantly, a hazy coolness crept up on that handsome face, and I paused for a second, wondering what the hardness in his eyes was about at that moment. I couldn’t read him, sometimes. No, in fact, I couldn’t read him at all.

“What would have happened if that relationship hadn’t existed?”

I frowned.

“Don’t say things that don’t make sense.”

He looked at me with a complicated look in his eyes. He was silent for a while before finally saying quietly, “Jian Anjie, how could you not understand?”

I quickly answered, “I don’t think we need to waste time on such inexplicable issues.”

“You think this is a moot point?” His expression began to look dark and suspicious.

The maid came over to refill the food and the conversation stopped there. I looked down and took a sip of my overly sweet coffee, slowly regaining my calm and indifference.

I looked sideways and saw Jian Yulin staring at me.

What a beautiful child, I couldn’t help thinking.

What was hard to understand was why he liked me and for no reason at all. Not to mention the fact that I had never met him before, and then even the few moments I’d spent with him, I hadn’t pretended to try to know him.

“Young Master Jian, stop looking at me and be a good boy and eat, will you?” I coaxed him as calmly as I could.

Jian Yulin immediately dropped his head.

“Oh, sister.”

“He’s your brother.”

“Brother, it’s my fault.”

“I don’t have a brother.” I turned my eyes back to meet those calm, cold, dark eyes. Just because I didn’t hate Jian Yulin didn’t mean I could accept this younger brother without a hitch.

Neither of them said anything, and Jian Yulin, who was also aware of the unusual atmosphere, did not dare to interrupt again, hanging his head even lower.

I decided to get up, as the meal had become hard to swallow.

“What exactly are you afraid of?” Xichen followed suit and stood up.

“Afraid?” I stood still, “Forgive my ignorance, but I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

He walked around the table towards me and I shuddered inwardly, my voice stiffening.

“By the way, I’m afraid of you aren’t I?”

“You’re afraid of Yu Yan.” He stepped forward.

I closed my eyes tightly.

“Heh, very good point.”

“Jian Anjie.”

“Very good indeed!”

My tone sank, “Xi Xichen, you make me feel attacked every time we interact.”

“Do you really feel that?” It wasn’t the first time he had asked that.

I sneered, “You can keep targeting me all the time, it’s okay.”

“You think I’m targeting you all the time?”

“Don’t you? Is it possible that Mr. Xi is still being gracious to me?”

I met his inexplicably sad eyes with a mocking look, then suddenly laughed.

“Nothing to say? Oh yes, Xi Xichen, I have nothing to say to you in the first place!” I turned around and left the dining room.

My chest felt tight. It seemed like this person and I were destined to be at each other’s throats every time we met, but it didn’t matter, because I didn’t care.