"What to do When the Pretty Woman I Kissed is My Best Friend's Professor" - Chapter 28

Section 1: The Shocking Revelation

Yan He’s brain automatically shut down Li Xiuxi’s words, but she still caught fragments of the news. Her first reaction to hearing it was—Who?

She had just left the elder sister’s apartment. She had just kissed the elder sister last night. But—when exactly did this happen? How did the elder sister suddenly have a partner? Didn’t she say she didn’t have a lover when I asked last time?

Yan He’s mind went blank. She was unable to react quickly. Her tongue felt numb, subconsciously pressing against the roof of her mouth. She opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say to ease the atmosphere. She felt cold all over, as if all her strength had been sucked out by that single sentence.

Her reaction was so stiff that Li Xiuxi thought she’d gone dumb and waved a hand in front of her eyes.

Yan He didn’t react to Li Xiuxi’s hand. Her ear gave a loud buzz, like a bee beating its wings once before dying. The world in front of her transformed from bright to dull; all the color seemed to be stripped away in an instant.

She suddenly hated sitting by the window. A cold wind invaded from an unknown source, pouring into her collar and triggering an icy shiver. Every action she made here was visible to passersby, as if she were a mannequin in a shop window.

She could feel the stinging pain of her heart rate suddenly accelerating. She could feel her movements, slow and rigid, and she could even hear the click sound from her neck when she turned her head.

“Girl, listen to me, if this one doesn’t work, we’ll move on to the next! Right?” Li Xiuxi sighed. “There are plenty of fish in the sea! We’re not going to hang ourselves on this one tree!”

“Moments?” Yan He vaguely remembered Li Xiuxi mentioning it and asking if she had seen Shen Jinrong’s social media post. She slowly looked up at Li Xiuxi, as if grasping for a final lifeline. She asked, enunciating every word: “What Moments post?”

“I don’t have Shen Jinrong added, but our class representative does. She just sent me a screenshot,” Li Xiuxi fumbled for her phone in her bag, found the screenshot, and handed it to Yan He. “Look, it’s this one.”

Yan He didn’t know whether she should look. It felt as if if she didn’t look, the matter could be considered non-existent. But she reached out and took the phone, her hand trembling slightly.

She first saw the image accompanying Shen Jinrong’s post—there were two pictures: one was a red coffee cup with heart-shaped latte art on the surface, and the other was a table full of breakfast items, with white plates set on a black lacquered table.

Yan He laughed out loud.

Li Xiuxi thought she was suffering from severe shock and quickly snatched the phone back, sitting down next to Yan He. She sighed, “Girl, look at the text she captioned it with: ‘A Saturday breakfast surprise~’ That person definitely spent the night at her place. Who runs over to someone else’s house early on a weekend morning just to cook? You—” Li Xiuxi felt deeply that Yan He had been wronged. Her best friend is such a great person. Even if she’s single, she’s beautiful, kind, and gentle. How could she run into a terrible woman right at the start of her quest?

Although Shen Jinrong was her professor, Li Xiuxi was still outraged by her behavior—It’s too much! How can you deceive someone’s feelings? She arranged to eat with Yan He last night, and then has a partner the next morning? That’s utterly ridiculous!

Yan He was still giggling foolishly.

Li Xiuxi thought she was forcing a smile and felt even sadder: “Yan He, how about I introduce you to another elder sister? A really pretty one—” “It was me.”

Li Xiuxi: “???. What are you saying? What was you? The pitiful failure of a secret admirer was you?”

Yan He rolled her eyes at her, dropping the silly smile, and said unhurriedly: “The person who cooked the food… was me.”

Li Xiuxi: ???

Li Xiuxi swore that for a moment, she thought Yan He had been possessed, but looking at Yan He, she didn’t seem out of it. Li Xiuxi was dumbfounded. A crazy thought suddenly popped into her head, and she slowly and tentatively asked Yan He: “…So, last night, you went home with Shen Jinrong? Or did she take you home?”

Yan He didn’t notice the two questions had the same result but different processes. She nodded very honestly: “Yes. I didn’t take my keys yesterday.”

Li Xiuxi was speechless.

This matter, well, it wasn’t that ridiculous. But the fact that it happened to Yan He made it seem illogical. Li Xiuxi had always believed the Yan He she knew to be rational and reserved, but she never imagined her to be so “cunning”!

Li Xiuxi’s expression was complicated: “Big girl, who did you learn this from? Getting ‘picked up’ by the elder sister because you forgot your keys?” The scheme is too deep! Her good friend must have been corrupted by someone else!

Yan He rolled her eyes again: “I really didn’t take my keys. My parents were away on a business trip. I originally planned to call you last night, but then I remembered you were probably going to your partner’s place.”

Taking advantage of the moment Li Xiuxi was processing the news and couldn’t speak, Yan He took out her phone, opened the elder sister’s Moments, solemnly took a screenshot, and then contentedly tapped the ‘Like’ button.

She wasn’t happy at all. Just a little bit proud.

Just a little bit.

Section 2: The Trip Home and a Quiet Message

When Madam He  dragged her suitcase home, she was stunned to see her daughter standing at the door with a beaming face: “If you don’t have your keys, why are you smiling like a fool?” Then she noticed how formally Yan He was dressed: “Why are you so dressed up just to go out for lunch?”

“I’m happy because the holiday is coming,” Yan He scratched her head. “I just threw these clothes on.”

Madam He didn’t pay much attention; she had just asked casually. While using her key to open the door, she admonished, “You really need to be more careful in the future! You were lucky you forgot your keys at lunchtime today, and your mom came home this afternoon. If you hadn’t brought your keys yesterday, where would you have spent the night?”

Yan He nodded, smoothly picking up a hair tie from the cabinet next to the entryway. She gathered her hair into a high ponytail and shook her head, feeling quite cheerful—Well, the elder sister would take me in!

Back in her room, she happily scrolled through the elder sister’s Moments again but saw an unexpected person had liked the post: “Teacher Tan Ning.”

Yan He frowned, feeling a little odd. Her neck felt ticklish, so she lifted her hand to grab a strand of uncombed hair, untied the band, and tied it again. Teacher Tan Ning is the elder sister’s undergraduate professor, so having her on WeChat makes sense.

The strange feeling was quickly suppressed by her current happiness. She lay on the bed and sent a message to the elder sister: “I’m home!” She tapped the contact’s name, and typed out the characters “Elder Sister”  into the alias field, one by one, like a secret thought, concealing a joy that couldn’t be told to outsiders.

She flipped through Shen Jinrong’s Moments again, scrolling down. She discovered the elder sister rarely posted; after two scrolls, she hit the bottom. The vast majority were re-shares of research achievements. There were only two posts related to her personal life.

One was the breakfast post she had just seen; the other was from 2014, with no accompanying text, just a single picture of the pair of pearl earrings Yan He had seen.

A notification popped up at the top of her phone. The name displayed next to the green icon was “Elder Sister”: “Good~ Don’t forget to take your keys next time!”

Section 3: Home for the New Year

On the morning of New Year’s Eve, Yan He drove with her parents to her grandparents’ house. Her grandparents lived in the suburbs. The two elderly people also had an apartment in the city center, but they found the city center noisy and chaotic, so they moved to the suburbs.

Fortunately, there were many other retirees in the area. Grandmother Yan even established a Mahjong group where she reigned supreme. Grandfather Yan, meanwhile, had formed deep friendships with the neighborhood’s chess masters—constantly losing but refusing to give up, earning him the nickname “Stinky Chess Bag”.

When the Yan family arrived, only Grandmother Yan was home, cooking. When Yan He asked where her grandfather was, Grandmother Yan snorted: “That Stinky Chess Bag! He loses but won’t quit. He’s probably cheating in the pavilion right now! Go and bring him back!”

At that moment, Grandfather Yan was sitting in the community pavilion, frowning at the stalemate on the board. The old man across from him calmly raised his thermos cup, took a sip of tea, and said, “Old Yan, surrender, surrender. Hurry up and surrender so the next person can play!”

Grandfather Yan looked up and glared at him: “Old Wang! You keep quiet! I’m definitely going to break your formation today!”

Old Man Wang rolled his eyes: “Fine, fine. Why don’t you look at it for a while? I’m going home to eat.”

“Aren’t you insulting me?!” Grandfather Yan’s mustache bristled with anger. “I’m going to stick with you until the end today!”

“Grandpa!” A clear, crisp voice rang out nearby. Grandfather Yan’s eyes widened. After realizing the person was Yan He, he leaped up: “Old Wang, I’m not playing with you anymore! My granddaughter is here! Gotta go, gotta go!” With that, Grandfather Yan grabbed his thermos and seat cushion and slipped away.

Yan He: ? Did I arrive just in time to end the game?

Old Man Wang: Fine, fine, just get lost! So annoying!

Grandfather Yan walked up to Yan He and patted her shoulder: “You’re here? Come on, come on. After dinner, let’s play a game!”

Yan He recalled her grandmother’s instructions before she left the house and whispered, “Grandma said she’s playing Mahjong after dinner.”

Grandfather Yan: ?

Grandfather Yan ground his teeth, thinking, How could she have beaten me to it? He forced a smile: “Then, after the Mahjong, we’ll play two games.”

Yan He gave him a “Are you sure?” look, tilting her head, and whispered, “I think the Mahjong will last until the Spring Festival Gala viewing, right?”

Grandfather Yan choked, then ground his teeth and finally said, “You’re right!”

Section 4: A New Year’s Message

As dusk approached, large, fiery sunset clouds gathered outside the window, as if the sky was ablaze. When night had fully settled, Yan He was finally allowed to leave the Mahjong table, with Mr. Yan  taking her place.

She walked to the balcony, leaning on the railing to look at the sky. Not far away was the Clock Museum, with a giant clock towering over the highest building of the structure. She was on the fifth floor, and outside lay the lights of thousands of homes; almost every household had its lights on.

Her phone chimed. She took it out. It was a message from the elder sister: “Happy New Year.”

Somehow, Yan He suddenly remembered that morning at the elder sister’s house, seeing the thin fog enveloping the world, and then watching the mist gradually dissipate under the sunlight.