My Idol Turns Out To Be My Ex-Girlfriend - Chapter 11

“Why not try dating a woman?”

Lin Sanyuan nodded and said matter-of-factly, “Exactly. My first requirement for a boyfriend is that he has to hand over his salary and his secret stash of savings. You can learn from my standards when you look for a partner.”

Qiao Lian looked at her deeply and let out a bright laugh, the curve of her lips suggesting she was genuinely amused.

She said, “I won’t learn from you. If I fall in love in the future, I’ll give all the money I earn to my partner and let them keep it safe for me.”

Lin Sanyuan sized her up, “What? From the sound of it, you’re actually afraid you’ll cheat on someone?”

This logic…

The smile on Qiao Lian’s lips flattened.

She fell silent for a moment, her gaze turning faint as she gave Lin Sanyuan a long, deep look, then shook her head.

“Wait, what is that head shake supposed to mean?”

Qiao Lian pinched the bridge of her nose as if troubled, “It’s nothing, I just think you’re… a bit of a total ‘steel straight’ girl.”

Lin Sanyuan didn’t deny it. Several of her blind dates had told her she was a “steel straight” girl, impossible to flirt with or move.

“Sigh…” She exhaled, “Dating men just doesn’t suit me. When I see other people dating, it seems sweet, but as soon as I go on a blind date myself, it feels toxic.”

“Since dating men doesn’t suit you…”

Qiao Lian lowered her head to take a sip of water. Her lips were wet, and the bead of her lip looked plump and pink.

Her damp breath mingled with the night air as she chuckled, “Then why not try dating a woman?”

It was a truly earth-shattering sentence.

It made Lin Sanyuan gasp. Remembering something, she asked worriedly, “Qiao Lian, was that bar you went to the other day a ‘proper’ bar?”

The kid was so young and already picking up bad habits, how could her thoughts be so dangerous?

Qiao Lian saw the panic in her eyes, and her heart felt a bit sour.

She let out a long, helpless sigh, “I’ve never been to a lesbian bar.”

Lin Sanyuan looked distressed, “I know you young people like to chase after things that are exciting or ‘special.’ I’m not saying those things are bad, but they aren’t exactly accepted by mainstream society yet. When you grow up and enter the real world, you’ll find that actual adults rarely get involved in that stuff.”

The smile in Qiao Lian’s eyes was faint. Her fingers, tucked under her cheek, curled unnaturally.

“I was just joking with you, why did you have to get so serious and start lecturing me on social knowledge? I was just giving a suggestion, not saying I’m looking for a woman to date. After all, I’m still young, like you said.”

Lin Sanyuan breathed a sigh of relief, “I don’t have those intentions either. I can’t even figure out dating men, let alone women. There’s nothing wrong with my sexual orientation.”

Qiao Lian gave an “oh,” leaning her face on her arm to look at her. Her fingers were loosely curled into a ball as she asked a seemingly casual question.

“Then do you think there’s any possibility you could be turned gay?”

Lin Sanyuan felt this question was practically a challenge to her integrity. She puffed out her cheeks and sneered, “Absolutely impossible.”

She might be a “salted fish,” but she was straight as an arrow, never messing with those alternative paths.

Qiao Lian let out a soft sigh.

Lin Sanyuan thought she looked quite cute leaning on the coffee table, almost pitiably so, and couldn’t help but pinch the girl’s cheek, which still had a hint of baby fat.

“Why are you sighing so much tonight?”

Qiao Lian sat up straight and said, “I just feel like you, with your ‘steel straight’ lethality that discriminates against neither men nor women, are likely to be single for the rest of your life. I’m sighing for you.”

“Get out of here.”

Lin Sanyuan went to take a shower, not bothering to argue.

Just as she turned to leave, her phone on the coffee table buzzed.

Lin Sanyuan picked it up and saw a WeChat transfer for 50,000 yuan.

The number of zeros made her eyes dazzle, and she snapped her head up to look at Qiao Lian.

Qiao Lian was also holding her phone. The light from the screen illuminated her fair, beautiful face, and her long eyelashes were distinct, dark, and curved.

She waved her phone with a mischievous smile, “All my money is for you.”

No matter how “heartless” Lin Sanyuan was, she wouldn’t take a student’s money.

“What are you giving me money for? And why all of it? It’s fifty thousand yuan!”

How could this kid have no concept of money?

“It’s for you. Keep it safe for me.”

“I don’t want it, keep it yourself.” Lin Sanyuan’s survival instinct was strong. Fifty thousand yuan… if she were accused of extorting a minor, she’d end up in prison “stepping on a sewing machine.”

Qiao Lian looked a bit unhappy, her face turning serious, “I don’t want to live in your house for free.”

This little temper came out of nowhere, and Lin Sanyuan didn’t understand it.

She still rejected the 50,000 yuan transfer, sending it back, and then picked up the 300 yuan tucked under the coffee table.

“I don’t want the fifty thousand, but I’ll take this three hundred you earned.”

Heaven knows which word pleased the temperamental, “troubled” girl.

She nodded in deep agreement, her smile becoming exceptionally bright, “Yes, three hundred. I earned it. You can take all of it, but you must keep it safe.”

Lin Sanyuan wordlessly shook the three red bills, “It’s just three hundred, what’s there to keep safe? I’ll use it to buy groceries tomorrow.”

Qiao Lian’s eyebrows twitched. For some reason, she started acting spoiled, “Then I want to eat sweet and sour spare ribs tomorrow.”

Look at that, acting like an ancestor, already ordering dishes, and she specifically wanted the small ribs.

Small ribs… regular ribs wouldn’t do. What a picky mouth.

Despite Lin Sanyuan’s disapproval of Qiao Lian’s pushy familiarity, she still got up early the next day and went to the market downstairs to buy very fresh small ribs.

When Qiao Lian first visited unexpectedly, Lin Sanyuan thought it would take a long time to get used to having another person in her old home.

Ever since her parents bought a house in Huacheng and her brother went to university, she rarely lived with them.

She was used to living alone, a habit she had formed a long time ago.

Her family background wasn’t great. They were poor, the kind of poor where food was a struggle.

Lin Sanyuan was a “left-behind child.” In her early memories, as the end of the year approached, her mother would take her to an old-fashioned train station to watch the green-skinned trains emerge from the fog, welcoming her father back from working away.

Later, when she was older, her mother also left home, carrying a heavy bag to a distant city. Her busy figure became a memory, and the days of her return were too many to count on her fingers.

She rotated through various relatives’ homes. Classmates mocked her for being raised on “a hundred families’ food.”

In cramped houses full of children, she felt like she never had a bed of her own during her childhood.

She was always the one sleeping quietly in the corner, silently and submissively listening to her older brothers and sisters talk about things she didn’t understand and couldn’t join in on.

She always spoke with her shoulders hunched, never daring to speak loudly.

From a young age, she was good at drawing a small circle around herself, living a life of suppressing her own will and ambition.

She carved out a tiny space that belonged only to her within a territory that wasn’t hers.

It was as if only then could she steal a breath in a place where others couldn’t see.

It wasn’t until many years later that she learned a term for it, the comfort zone.

She liked this unchanging life, and she knew her personality had flaws.

Sometimes she would fall into deep internal conflict.

The reason she was willing to pay for most things during blind dates was because of a sense of guilt.

Even though she would complain about those eccentric blind date men to her family over and over, she knew in her heart that she was the one rejecting the entry of new things and new people into her monotonous, ordinary life.

She didn’t have the patience to tolerate these “new” things.

But Qiao Lian seemed different.

Qiao Lian’s nature wasn’t naturally friendly, and her gaze toward strangers was cold.

Normally, Lin Sanyuan would keep a respectful distance from such cold and detached people.

So, after agreeing to take in this sharp, troubled girl, Lin Sanyuan thought for a long time that she wouldn’t be able to last.

However, as they spent time together, she found it strange that her “magnetic field” was unexpectedly compatible with Qiao Lian’s.

She had thought about this.

Maybe it was because Qiao Lian was young, and their relationship was one of being accommodated.

Lin Sanyuan wasn’t good at accepting gifts or causing trouble for others, but she was used to accommodating small troubles caused by people she didn’t dislike.

Or perhaps, Qiao Lian’s arrival wasn’t entirely a “trouble.”

At least, when she cooked every day, she could make an extra dish so it wouldn’t go to waste, and she could enjoy another flavor.

When she stayed up late working on drawing drafts, Qiao Lian would help her with coloring or proofread her novel updates for typos.

When Lin Sanyuan wasn’t drawing or writing, she would lie in bed scrolling through Weibo to watch Qiu Feng’s livestreams.

Since the last face-reveal incident, Qiu Feng hadn’t deliberately hidden her face. In every teaching livestream, she appeared on camera, which was essentially a personal confirmation that Qiu Feng was indeed Tang Hengzhi.

Although she felt it was unlikely Tang Hengzhi would pinpoint her comment among thousands, Lin Sanyuan felt a strange sense of guilt. After that day, she never spoke in the livestream chat again.

In the livestream, Tang Hengzhi looked truly beautiful amidst the sea tides and morning breeze.

Lin Sanyuan was very fond of her looks. Her face and her hands were a perfect match.

Lin Sanyuan, who had seen plenty of handsome men and beautiful women online, rarely spent money on streamers. She felt it was a meaningless behavior.

But after watching several teaching livestreams, she admitted she still retained the habits of a commoner.

At certain angles, she found Tang Hengzhi stunningly beautiful, especially when the morning wind blew through her black hair.

At times like these, Lin Sanyuan couldn’t suppress the urge to spend money and would send her gifts.

She had been caught by Qiao Lian several times while sending gifts. Qiao Lian would look at her with an “I finally know why you’re so poor” expression.

Would someone like Tang Hengzhi be short of money?

It was exactly like that mocking phrase online, someone earning 2,500 a month worrying if someone earning over 10,000 a day is eating well.