My Idol Turns Out To Be My Ex-Girlfriend - Chapter 60

Lunch’s sweet and sour shredded potatoes were truly appetizing, and the sliced meat that had been marinating in the fridge went into the wok along with some green peppers.

Tang Hengzhi slowly finished another bowl of porridge, feeling her body grow lighter compared to the heaviness of the morning.

Under Lin Sanyuan’s persistent urging, she eventually compromised and went upstairs. However, as she lay in bed, she couldn’t resist making a phone call to He Wenyu.

“Oh? Is this a case of waking up at noon, or are you getting ready for a ‘nutritional nap’ after stuffing yourself fat and full? I’m betting on the latter. The stomach is an emotional organ, after all, I bet yours doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Tang Hengzhi let out a soft chuckle. “Stop teasing. Tell me, how did you convince her to come to my house?”

“Holy crap, that laugh! Heng’er, I think you’re back in the game. It seems Lin Sanyuan’s ‘healing’ worked wonders. You sound like a completely different person compared to that half-dead state you were in at dawn.”

“Hmm?”

“No, look, I didn’t even ask her to go. As soon as she heard you were vomiting and unconscious, plus coming back from abroad with a heavy flu, she immediately asked for the address. She wanted to come herself. I’m thinking something must have happened between you two. It was four in the morning, and she was in such a rush to see you.”

“And there’s more! You probably noticed, right? She changed her clothes. I told her to pick something from your closet. This morning, before the sun was even up, there was a terrifying thunderstorm. The rain was so heavy I could barely see the road markings while driving. Honestly, when I sent the address, I didn’t expect the girl to actually show up.”

He Wenyu clicked her tongue over the phone for a long time. “I really didn’t expect it. She actually came. You know where your villa is, right? It’s a high-end gated community. Taxis can’t even drive in, so you have to walk. Her umbrella was useless, she was soaked to the bone. When I drove past, I didn’t even recognize her. It’s strange, though, you were half-dead from vomiting, yet you insisted that person was Lin Sanyuan? God knows how you recognized her from just a silhouette in that kind of rain.”

“What can I say? I really feel like my useless younger brother doesn’t deserve her. He really doesn’t. You better step up and win her back. The two of you belong together, locked in forever. Seeing you two this morning was the highlight of my day. I’m telling you, hello? Hello… damn, she hung up.”

The phone was noisy, and Tang Hengzhi’s heart felt just as restless.

She dropped her hand onto the bed, her breathing rising and falling with her turbulent emotions.

Suddenly, she really wanted to see Lin Sanyuan.

More than ever.

Even though they had just seen each other.

Lin Sanyuan stayed on the first floor to clean up the kitchen. Once Tang Hengzhi went upstairs, the entire villa became incredibly quiet.

Feeling a bit bored, she sat on the sofa to play on her phone for a while.

Zhuangsi (Play Dead) came running over, carrying a dog bowl in his mouth.

Lin Sanyuan looked at the ash-gray Husky and blinked, feeling a bit awkward.

Zhuangsi tilted his head and wagged his tail, bowl still firmly in his mouth.

The human and the dog stared at each other for a moment before Lin Sanyuan realized that while she and Tang Hengzhi had eaten, the dog hadn’t.

Ah… this is awkward.

Even if her muscle memory felt familiar, she honestly had no idea where the dog food was kept in Tang Hengzhi’s house.

Then again, it was just like a dog raised by Tang Hengzhi to be this quiet and well-behaved, even for a Husky.

He hadn’t made a peep all morning. He either slept in his spot or stayed at her feet chewing on a dental stick when he was awake.

People on the internet always said that cats and dogs who acted against their hyperactive nature were usually just a bit dim-witted.

Lin Sanyuan took out her phone and messaged He Wenyu, asking if she knew where the dog food was.

After all, Tang Hengzhi had been upstairs for a while. If she had fallen asleep, barging in would definitely disturb her.

As it turned out, He Wenyu didn’t know either.

Left with no choice, she had to go upstairs.

Lin Sanyuan tiptoed quietly up the stairs.

Zhuangsi followed right behind her, his four legs moving in sync as he carried his bowl.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, she pushed the door open, only to hear Tang Hengzhi’s voice immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re not asleep?” Lin Sanyuan asked. Why was she just sitting on the bed without even looking at her phone?

“No, I’m awake.”

Only a small nightlight was on. The curtains were drawn, making the room dim. Only a sliver of light from the early summer sun filtered through a gap, casting a soft, hazy glow on Tang Hengzhi’s profile. The atmosphere was quiet and subtly intimate.

Standing at the door, Lin Sanyuan felt awkward again, unsure whether to step in or retreat.

“Um… Zhuangsi seems hungry. I couldn’t find the dog food.”

Tang Hengzhi tilted her head slightly. “It’s in the backyard, but I bought him an automatic feeder. He usually eats on schedule by himself.”

“Huh?” Lin Sanyuan was stunned. “Then why is he carrying a bowl around?”

Tang Hengzhi looked thoughtful. “Maybe… he thinks he looks cute like this.”

“Uh…”

Tang Hengzhi laughed. “I’m joking. It’s probably because he hasn’t seen you in so long. He’s happy and wants you to play with him.”

Just as Lin Sanyuan suspected, her intuition was right.

Not only did she have a past with Tang Hengzhi, but her relationship with the dog was also “complicated.”

Tang Hengzhi patted the edge of the bed and called out softly, “Bingbing, come here.”

The dog behind Lin Sanyuan was indeed not hungry. He dropped the bowl, bit onto Lin Sanyuan’s slipper, and began dragging and nudging her into the room toward the bed.

Lin Sanyuan pointed at herself in disbelief. “My name is Bingbing?”

Tang Hengzhi’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. “No, his name is Bingbing. You picked it.”

Lin Sanyuan felt the dog was a bit odd. His owner had called him over, so why was he obsessed with pushing her?

She frowned, confused. “That’s a nice name. Why does He Wenyu call him Zhuangsi?”

Zhuangsi was such an unpleasant name.

Tang Hengzhi covered her mouth and coughed lightly. “Back when we first brought him home from the kennel, you named him Bingbing. One day, you suddenly decided dogs should be trained from a young age. You followed an online tutorial to teach him how to ‘play dead’ when you pretended to shoot him. Maybe the tutorial wasn’t very professional, but Bingbing eventually thought his name was Zhuangsi. Now, if someone calls him that, he responds.”

She put it very diplomatically.

But Lin Sanyuan understood perfectly.

She had been a bad teacher. She was so eager for the dog to learn the trick that she kept repeating “Play dead, play dead” (Zhuangsi) in front of him.

In the end, he really thought that was his name.

God, how embarrassing.

However, Tang Hengzhi was quite capable for managing to bring back the name Bingbing and giving the dog some basic self-identity.

A thought struck Lin Sanyuan, and she asked, “So, does he know how to play dead now?”

Tang Hengzhi stroked the dog’s head and smiled. “Why don’t you try?”

Lin Sanyuan felt a spark of anticipation. She tucked her fingers to form a “pistol” gesture and said, “Biu!”

Bingbing let out a “woof,” stuck out his tongue, and flopped down at her feet, his paws twitching.

“Oh my god, what kind of magical Husky is this?” Lin Sanyuan was amazed. He was so well-behaved; he definitely wasn’t a “dim-witted” dog.

She was terrible at training dogs. Even following online tutorials never worked for her, she couldn’t even manage a basic “shake.”

Looking at him now, there was no way she was the one who trained Bingbing to be this way.

Lin Sanyuan couldn’t help but look at Tang Hengzhi with admiration. “You’re amazing.”

Tang Hengzhi had never been praised so bluntly by her before, and she felt a bit shy.

Lin Sanyuan knelt down to rub Bingbing’s belly, a smile on her face. “Is he a boy or a girl?”

Tang Hengzhi propped herself up on her elbow on the bed, looking down at her with a smile. “You said male dogs have rounder faces and are cuter. You also said if we got a female dog, she might get picked on by street dogs if we weren’t careful. That’s why you chose a male dog back then.”

She could have just said he was a boy.

But she insisted on explaining the “why” and the “how.”

Her talkative nature was a far cry from the cold, distant persona she maintained online.

What Lin Sanyuan didn’t know was that Tang Hengzhi had so much more she wanted to say.

There was just too much.

For instance, the dog Lin Sanyuan originally wanted wasn’t even a Husky.

At the time, she was obsessed with a variety show called Back to Field and was a huge fan of the Shiba Inu on the show, H-chan.

Actually, Tang Hengzhi had never been very interested in pets. She was a bit of a neat freak, and both cats and dogs shed quite a lot. Cats were slightly better, but dogs were far too clingy.

If Lin Sanyuan hadn’t moved into this house, Tang Hengzhi likely would have gone her whole life without considering a dog.

Lin Sanyuan could tell Tang Hengzhi wasn’t a fan of animals, so even after living there for a long time, she never expressed a desire to have one.

For someone with a strong sense of personal boundaries like her, the last thing she wanted was to be a burden.

It wasn’t until their third year of living together, perhaps when she finally felt at home, that she finally asked if they could get a dog.

Lin Sanyuan rarely asked for anything. Tang Hengzhi asked her if she wanted to go to a local kennel to pick one out.

Lin Sanyuan, ever the thrifty one, didn’t want to waste money.

She felt that most dogs in kennels were only expensive because of their pedigree papers, which she found useless and purely for psychological comfort.

She didn’t care about bloodlines or “show quality.”

Besides, both of them were very busy with work at the time, and driving to a kennel in the city would have been time-consuming.

One way or another, Lin Sanyuan was sweet-talked by a friend into looking for a “home-raised” Shiba Inu on an online forum.

Tang Hengzhi thought it seemed unreliable.

But Lin Sanyuan argued convincingly, saying home-raised dogs were pure-bred and clean, with no risk of being a “mixed breed.”

Since they weren’t raised in a group of puppies, they were less likely to have distemper or other contagious diseases. She insisted there were no hidden traps.

She even claimed that a dog with “white gloves” on its paws had a very pure lineage, a real Japanese dog.

Tang Hengzhi found her chatter very persuasive at the time.

The two of them excitedly added the person from the forum on WeChat and picked out a plump Shiba Inu puppy over a video call. They sent the deposit, but when the dog was delivered, they were both speechless.

It was nothing like the picture.

It wasn’t a mix, and it had the potato-colored coat of a Shiba.

But even a novice like Tang Hengzhi could see at a glance that this was a Chinese Rural Dog, specifically a little yellow one with the classic “Third Eye” marking of a Xiao Tian Dog between its brows.

After spending thousands on the dog and shipping, they had ended up with… a little yellow dog.

That wouldn’t have been a problem. Lin Sanyuan was always easy-going and thought the dog was cute anyway. She happily bonded with the pup for three days, carrying him everywhere, which even made Tang Hengzhi a little jealous.

But not for long.

Because on the fourth day, the puppy started having a runny nose, watery eyes, a cough, and bloody stools. He stopped eating entirely.

Sensing something was wrong, they took him to the vet. It turned out he had distemper, parvo, and coronavirus.

The vet told them they had bought a “Week-Long Dog” from a shady dealer, and the survival rate was less than 3%.

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