As Lin Xu was about to leave with Ji Tingyang, a man hurriedly spoke up, "Hey, hey, hey, don't go just yet."
Lin Xu turned back, "Is there something else?"
The man, also slightly drunk, stood up and staggered over, his eyes fixed intently on Lin Xu, "Don't rush off, you're already here. Why don't we all have a few drinks together?"
"Ji Tingyang is intoxicated; I need to take him home first," Lin Xu gently declined.
As for whether she would come back after taking him home, that was another matter altogether.
The man, under the influence of alcohol, evidently couldn't understand the subtext in her words and pointed to a sofa nearby, "Just throw him on the couch to sleep it off. Come on, let's have a few drinks."
As he spoke, he reached out to pull Lin Xu.
Many men in the club, once drunk, seemed to reveal their true nature, liking to make unwanted advances on young women.
Lin Xu's brows furrowed, and as she was about to dodge to the side, someone preempted her by stopping the man's actions.
His hand was restrained, and the person held him with considerable strength. He tried to retract his hand but couldn't break free.
"Who is it!"
The man looked up, annoyed, and glared over, but the next second his eyes met Ji Tingyang's dark gaze.
Ji Tingyang's previously hazy demeanor was gone, replaced by a terrifying coldness in his eyes, and a faint menace emanated from his person, "Don't touch her."
The pressure from Ji Tingyang's hand grew heavier, and his grasp made bones creak ominously as if they were about to break.
The man suddenly felt sober from the pain, with cold sweat beading on his forehead, and he pleaded, "Yes, yes, President Ji, I was wrong, please let me go..."
Lin Xu placed her hand on Ji Tingyang's arm, signaling something, and in an instant, Ji Tingyang released his grip, tossing the man's hand aside.
It wasn't until Lin Xu and Ji Tingyang had left that the frozen atmosphere seemed to thaw, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
"Old Lan, you even dare to mess with Ji Tingyang's people? Are you tired of living?" someone chided nearby.
The man rubbed his wrist, which was still sore, and was filled with fear, "I was just drunk, why didn't any of you stop me?"
They all knew that the last person who had verbally harassed Wen Li from afar was run into the ground financially by Ji's company; that person hadn't even met Wen Li and ended up in such a plight.
If he had actually made a move just now, heaven knows what terrifying consequences would have followed.
However, after this incident, they all reached a consensus in their minds.
Ji Tingyang had finally cast aside the canary from his home and had found a new love.
And the new love that everyone speculated about was at that moment sitting in the car with a cold face, silently looking down at her phone.
Since leaving the club, Ji Tingyang had sobered up quite a bit. He glanced at Lin Xu next to him, and seeing that she was silent, he became increasingly anxious.
It seemed like just a few days ago, Lin Xu had said that if he went to nightclubs to learn bad habits, she wouldn't allow him to come home.
Though that wasn't quite right—he had just been to a private club.
With this thought, Ji Tingyang straightened his back slightly.
"Were those people your friends?" Lin Xu was the first to break the silence in the car.
Ji Tingyang couldn't quite gauge the meaning of her question, "Not... really."
"Those few people looked unreliable at a glance, talking and acting so slick and without manners. They start pawing at a girl the moment they see one." In just a few minutes and a brief encounter, Lin Xu had accumulated a heap of dissatisfaction with those men, "Stay away from them in the future if you can, just to be careful you don't get led astray. If you ever..."
It's as if becoming a mother imbues a love for nagging at their children, admonishing them not to do this or that.
In the past, Ji Tingyang always heard his classmates complain about how annoying their mothers were, even interfering with whom they befriended.
At that time, he couldn't help but envy and wonder, what would that feel like?
So it turned out to be really that nagging, huh.
Ji Tingyang's body relaxed, leaning against the back seat, a faint, almost imperceptible smile curling on his lips. Listening to the unending chatter beside his ear, he felt an inexplicable warmth in his chest.
Suddenly, the nagging voice came to an automatic halt.
"...Am I being too meddlesome?" Lin Xu's eyes flashed with a hint of annoyance.
She remembered that many rebellious kids began their defiance because of too much parental control, eventually leading to discord within the family.
As a child, she hated her parents' constant nagging in her ear and had secretly vowed never to become such a person, aspiring to be a new era mother.
Before heading to the club, she had braced herself, but upon arriving and seeing Ji Tingyang being dragged around, drunk to the point of oblivion, anger still flared up inside her.
She had held back her frustration all the way, yet in the end, she couldn't help but give him a dressing-down.
Thinking about how she had inevitably become the very person she despised when she grew up, Lin Xu's emotions suddenly plummeted.
Anyone unaware of the situation might have assumed Lin Xu was the one who just received a lecture.
Ji Tingyang immediately took a stance, "No, you can manage however you want."
However, his words failed to lift her sagging spirits.
Ji Tingyang opened his mouth to speak, but unfortunately, he too was a president who loved to lecture on ordinary days, and now he couldn't muster any words of comfort.
His mind raced, and catching a glimpse of a barbecue stall outside the car, he quickly said, "Let's go have some barbecue?"
"Hm?"
At a roadside stall, Lin Xu's table was covered with plate after plate of grilled meat skewers, emitting a tantalizing aroma after being roasted over charcoal.
Taking a beef skewer to her mouth, the tender juices burst in her mouth as she happily swung her legs back and forth, as if the previous heaviness in the car was just an illusion.
Ji Tingyang secretly heaved a sigh of relief.
Thankfully, he remembered his mother loved barbecues, and whenever she felt down, his father would sneak her out. When they returned home, his mother's mood would always be exceptionally joyful and buoyant.
The two of them thought they were hiding it well, yet they overlooked the scent of barbecue on their clothes.
Every time he saw them acting secretively, he would sneer with disdain.
He didn't like the roadside stalls at all, not sanitary in the slightest, and even if they took him there, he wouldn't go.
Yet he hadn't expected that one day, he would take the initiative to bring Lin Xu to a roadside barbecue stall.
"This lamb skewer is delicious, try a bite," Lin Xu offered the skewer in her hand to him.
Ji Tingyang took it from her, looking at the meat skewer before him, and after hesitating for a moment under Lin Xu's expectant gaze, he bit into it.
"Not bad."
It was actually pretty delicious.
Lin Xu's eyes crinkled with joy, "Your dad used to sneak me out for barbecues all the time, I had always wanted to invite you and your siblings too, but your dad said it was our own little world just for the two of us... "
Ji Tingyang fell silent.
That was entirely like something that man, who used to monopolize his mother's time, would say.
Lin Xu said, "I always regretted not being able to go out for barbecue together, but now that wish has come true. If next time we could also invite Zeqiu and your sister, that would be even better."
Ji Tingyang's thumb rubbed the water glass on the table, and after a long while, he finally said, "We will."