The Devoted Female Supporting Lead and the White Moonlight’s Sister Got a Happy Ending (GL) - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Just Teasing You

The two of them looked at each other in silence for a moment. The shadows of people moving around and the cacophony of voices nearby all seemed to recede at this instant.

After a long while, Shao Peiran spoke first, but what she said was entirely unrelated to the previous topic. “Your eyes… they seem to be blue.” It was a very deep blue, like a thousand-foot-deep cold pool in a mountain forest, or a waveless sea surface under the night sky. Clearly, her gaze was clean and clear, yet it inexplicably made one feel she was impossible to see through.

He Baizhou was slightly startled and instinctively wanted to reach out and touch her own eyes, but she restrained herself.

“They are very beautiful,” Shao Peiran added.

She took a step back, widening the distance between herself and He Baizhou. Suddenly, the two of them were back in the brightly lit hotel lobby.

He Baizhou breathed a sigh of relief, yet at the same time, an unspeakable sense of loss welled up in her heart. She knew Shao Peiran didn’t intend to get serious, but confirming this still left her inevitably… disappointed.

Before she could sort out these emotions, Shao Peiran had already turned toward the elevator.

Was she actually going up for tea? He Baizhou felt as if the rhythm was completely controlled by the other woman; she couldn’t even keep up and felt muddled, as if walking through a fog.

But she still instinctively started walking and followed.

Inside the elevator, Shao Peiran asked with a smile, “Which floor are you on?”

“The top floor,” He Baizhou said softly.

Even though it was only her and Shao Peiran in the elevator, she still felt a strange sense of unease—or rather, it was because there were only two of them that she felt uneasy.

Shao Peiran’s brow twitched slightly as she smiled and pressed the button for the floor.

The elevator ascended slowly, the sound of the transmission mechanism clearly audible. The four walls were smooth stainless steel, reflecting their shadows clearly. He Baizhou turned her face slightly to look at Shao Peiran’s reflection in the mirror surface.

In this season, it was early summer in the Northern Hemisphere, where one could go out in a single layer of clothing, but in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia had already entered winter. Shao Peiran was wearing a thick suit; even after having dinner and traveling all the way back, her clothes remained neat and orderly. However, her high-pinned hair had loosened slightly, with some short wisps falling down, looking slightly fluffy and making her whole person appear much more relaxed.

When she wasn’t looking at anyone, her face was expressionless, radiating an obvious sense of detachment.

He Baizhou found it strange—how could someone combine detachment and sweetness, these two temperaments, so seamlessly?

At times like this, she couldn’t help but wonder if that sweet smile was merely a mask Shao Peiran wore for herself—one of the indispensable tools of the social scene rather than something from the heart.

Shao Peiran: what kind of person was she, really?

He Baizhou felt that with every meeting, she seemed to see the other woman more clearly, yet simultaneously fell into a deeper maze.

With a ding, the elevator stopped at the top floor, and the doors slid open to both sides. As the host, He Baizhou stepped out first and looked back at Shao Peiran with some hesitation.

Inviting her for a cup of tea was certainly no problem; what she feared was her own inability to manage the boundaries.

“You really can’t hide your thoughts.” Shao Peiran exited the elevator, walked up to her, and reached out to touch her eye. “Did you know? Your thoughts are all written right here.”

Her fingertips were icy cold, lightly brushing over the eyelid and leaving a distinct sensation that made He Baizhou blink involuntarily.

“I was just teasing you.” Only then did Shao Peiran laugh, turning to walk toward the other side of the elevator bank. “I live over here.”

The top floor consisted of presidential suites, with only two rooms in total—one on the left and one on the right, independent of each other. It wasn’t until Shao Peiran walked to the other side and swiped her card to enter that He Baizhou finally realized what had happened.

Her face turned red and white by turns; it was difficult to describe her current mood.

The ups and downs of this evening, with her mood shifting every moment according to Shao Peiran’s words, boiled down to three words: Just teasing you.

If it were anyone else who dared to treat He Baizhou like this, they would never have the chance to jump around in front of her again. But this was Shao Peiran. It wasn’t that she wanted to stay under He Baizhou’s nose, but that He Baizhou wanted her to appear where she could see her.

Well, at least she knew one more thing now. On the surface, Shao Peiran looked as clear as the moon and the wind, but privately, she was this “wicked.”

Opening her door to enter the room, He Baizhou couldn’t even help but wonder: if she was this kind of person, were the ambiguous hints she’d given several times real or fake?

But she soon suppressed the thought and stopped overthinking.

After showering, He Baizhou lay in bed, clutching her phone to scroll through Shao Peiran’s Moments. Unfortunately, the other woman posted nothing but food, and she had set her profile to “visible for the last six months,” so He Baizhou finished reading it quickly. Setting her phone down, He Baizhou began to ponder whether it was necessary for her to invest in the catering industry.

The He family was a large clan; once the children reached adulthood, they could receive a significant amount of startup capital from the family fund. As long as they could present a decent business plan, they could also receive a lot of help from within the family. That was how He Baizhou had established Xinglin Hospital. After several years of development, it had basically detached from the He family and begun independent operations.

In addition, she had many private assets given to her by family elders after she came of age. These included industries, shares, and cash, all handled by professional managers. He Baizhou only needed to attend a few meetings a year to look at various reports.

However, on occasion, she would act on a whim and make small investments herself.

For example, so far, she had invested in several small-scale independent game studios—all introduced by Gao Yiwen. This assistant of hers dedicated almost all her free time outside of work to games, claiming to have played all sorts of games, large and small, domestic and foreign. She had even gone to play those “one-hit level 999” web games out of curiosity. Truth be told, those games were particularly suitable for idling during work hours; as long as the computer was on, it was fine.

He Baizhou herself didn’t really play games. She invested only because she was optimistic about the industry’s prospects and the studios’ self-sustaining capabilities.

To put it nicely, she was someone without desires; to put it bluntly, she was listless and gloomy, unable to muster interest in anything, so she didn’t particularly care about likes or dislikes.

Though she held many assets, few of them served her personally. Few would believe that despite living in S City for several years, she had never bought a house to settle down; she usually stayed in hotels or directly at the hospital and didn’t see any issue with it. She only had two cars, convenient for rotating when one was being serviced.

Regarding food, clothing, housing, and transportation, she was almost never picky. She could sit comfortably in a Michelin restaurant, but she was also quite happy eating street stalls costing a few yuan with Gao Yiwen.

This was the first time she wanted to be fastidious about food.

But on second thought, Shao Peiran might not return to China, and it was impossible for her to run to Australia to open a restaurant, so she had to drop the idea for the moment.

After thinking a bunch of random thoughts, He Baizhou finally didn’t even know when she fell asleep.

The next day, she was woken up by a phone call from Gao Yiwen. They were here on a business trip and hadn’t arranged any sightseeing time; since the conference was over, they were packing up to return. Gao Yiwen called mainly to confirm if she would be leaving with the main group.

After all, the flight was this morning, and the timing was indeed a bit tight.

He Baizhou had just woken up and was still a bit dazed, but hearing this, she cleared her head instantly. Without much hesitation, she said, “You guys go first; no need to wait for me.”

After hanging up, she couldn’t sleep anymore. She simply got out of bed to wash up and change her clothes, then picked up her phone to carefully draft a message to Shao Peiran, inviting her to go downstairs for breakfast.

She waited a full hour—until the hotel’s buffet breakfast time was almost over—before she finally received a reply from Shao Peiran.

Upon going downstairs, Shao Peiran couldn’t help but lament, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had breakfast.”

He Baizhou thought to herself: No wonder your stomach has problems. With this kind of schedule and eating habits, the fact that she only had stomach pain was already a stroke of luck. But she restrained herself and didn’t criticize the other woman’s lifestyle to her face—they weren’t that close yet.

The breakfast was buffet style. He Baizhou took a plate and asked Shao Peiran, “What do you want to eat?”

“Oh… I’ll have white porridge (Bai Zhou),” Shao Peiran said.

He Baizhou felt she was doing it on purpose, but what could she do? She could only serve her a bowl of white porridge, hoping it would help nurse her stomach.

After getting their food, the two found a place to sit. Seeing that Shao Peiran’s plate held only a bowl of porridge, two small shaomai, and an egg, He Baizhou couldn’t help but say, “Breakfast isn’t charged separately; you’re losing out by eating so little.”

“I don’t have much of an appetite in the morning,” Shao Peiran said. “Besides, I had seafood yesterday, so let’s keep it light to nourish the stomach today.”

She really wasn’t exaggerating; with so little food, she still ended up with half an egg left. Shao Peiran clearly didn’t have the habit of wasting food, so she could only frown as she took tiny bites. He Baizhou felt bad just watching her and couldn’t help but reach out. “If you don’t mind, give the rest to me.”

Shao Peiran had been tearing off the egg white with her hands to eat, and the yolk was still whole, so there was naturally no inconvenience. Hearing this, she handed it over decisively. “Thanks for the hard work.”

This was the first time since they met that He Baizhou heard her say something nice. Sure enough, when asking for a favor, the attitude is different.

Shao Peiran even took the unprecedented step of showing interest in her affairs: “Where are your colleagues? Aren’t they coming for breakfast?”

“They’ve already left,” He Baizhou said. “Their flight is this morning.”

Shao Peiran glanced at her. She didn’t ask why she hadn’t left with them, but merely smiled. “It seems Director He is a bit derelict in her duty.”

“Didn’t I say it before? I’m the mascot.” He Baizhou shrugged. “Also, can you change the way you address me? When you call me that, I always feel… very strange.” Even a bit embarrassed.

“What’s strange about it?” Shao Peiran asked back, but she didn’t probe further, adding, “Then what should I call you? Bai Zhou (White Porridge)? That’s even stranger.”

He Baizhou, who had been called Baizhou since childhood: “…”

Shao Peiran crossed her hands, rested them on the table, looked her over, and said, “I’ve got it. I’ll call you Zhouzhou. It’s very cute.”

He Baizhou knew exactly which “zhou” she meant and couldn’t help but show a complicated expression. But clearly, she didn’t have a more suitable nickname to recommend to Shao Peiran; she couldn’t exactly suggest “Baibai,” could she?

“Zhouzhou is fine.” She took a deep breath, put on her most serious expression, and looked straight at Shao Peiran. “Then I’m going to call you Peipei.”

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