Online Romance with an Iceberg Professor Backfired - Chapter 11
Chapter 11: Taking Advantage
Ji Pei had nothing to do these two days over the weekend, so she spent half a day walking her dog outside.
Ji Pei’s dog was a yellow Golden Retriever, rescued by Ji Fan from a trash heap on a rainy day six months ago. At the time, it had a broken leg and was whimpering weakly, lying amidst a pile of foul-smelling garbage.
Thanks to Ji Fan, it was given a second chance at life. Its fur was a lovely golden color, and it looked innocent and adorable, but it was incredibly intelligent and full of tricks. One time, it self-taught how to open the snack cabinet, stole and ate a whole box of custard tarts, and was so bloated it couldn’t move, just lying on the floor. When Ji Pei came home and saw the mess, she thought the dog had eaten itself to death.
After that incident, it was given a new name: Custard Tart.
Ji Pei recently joined her community’s dog-owner group chat. Whenever she took Custard Tart out, he was always the most enthusiastic and friendly, trying to jump on anyone he saw.
A video was shared in the WeChat group, and Ji Pei was the first person to be tagged.
She clicked on it and saw a Golden Retriever wearing a pink-and-yellow duck bib, holding its leash in its mouth, walking itself without a human owner.
After Ji Pei was tagged, many group members responded immediately.
“That’s Ji Pei’s Custard Tart, right? How did he get out by himself?”
“I saw him buying groceries and picking up packages last time. He’s more capable than my husband.”
“What school does the child go to? I need to send my son for advanced studies. I can’t control him lately.”
“This Golden Retriever is becoming a spirit. He walks himself. He’s as smart as my Border Collie.”
The group member who posted the last comment specifically tagged Ji Pei: [Bring him out for a playdate sometime.”
Ji Pei scrolled through the group messages, pulling the dog rope and yanking Custard Tart away from where he was digging in the soil. She tapped him twice on the head.
“Getting gutsy, are we? Sneaking out when I’m not home.”
Custard Tart avoided looking at Ji Pei, his dog face full of guilt. If the administrator hadn’t tagged her, Ji Pei wouldn’t have known that this cunning dog had run away.
Ji Pei took out her phone, pointed a finger at Custard Tart’s head, and captured a photo of his dodging face. She drafted a post for her Moments, included the photo, and added a picture of a slipper that Custard Tart had chewed into a new species a few days ago.
“Boiling water, washing the pot, cooking dog meat.”
A few minutes after Ji Pei posted it, she received unanimous approval. She held her phone up to Custard Tart’s face, gripping his head. “See that? If there’s a next time, I’m shaving all this fur off you.”
Custard Tart whined twice and slumped to the ground, his face drooping.
Her university WeChat class group had become active these past few days, likely because of the class reunion organized by Xie Zhen next month. Ji Pei had zero interest in the group chat. She didn’t even know how many people were in her class, let alone remember their names. Besides Xie Zhen, two or three other people were posting daily, either showing off bags or jewelry.
Ji Pei had briefly done product design for Bvlgari, and she could immediately tell that the pictures they were showing were high-quality fakes, and heavily Photoshopped at that.
There were still many people in the world who couldn’t recognize fakes, like Ji Pei’s former roommate, Ran Feifei.
Ran Feifei: “That’s a Chanel bag, wow.”
Ran Feifei: “Bvlgari necklace, please send it to me, an unemployed bum.”
No one responded after she sent the messages.
Ji Pei frowned. She felt something was off about this person since the first day of freshman year. Ran Feifei was too enthusiastic, overly so. Ji Pei couldn’t handle it and decided to keep her distance. As time went on, she realized this person was truly too familiar and would inexplicably try to connect with her, especially after Xie Zhen was elected class president.
Ran Feifei had previously anonymously reported that Ji Pei’s scholarship was undeserved. Ji Pei and Ye Wenzhu had tricked her into admitting it, and in a fit of pique, she cut ties with them and eventually moved to another dorm. Later, apparently due to sticky fingers—stealing things—she received a warning from the school and almost faced expulsion.
After that, Ji Pei stopped paying attention to her, but she didn’t expect her to surface in the WeChat group now, trying to seek attention.
Ji Pei had OCD and couldn’t stand the red dots in WeChat Moments. She clicked in and saw that, besides likes and comments from other friends, the most activity was on the post she had just made.
And…
Ji Pei narrowed her eyes, noticing that Jiang Xianhan had actually liked her post.
That’s unscientific.
Ji Pei spent the entire morning on the phone with Winter Sun.
She was sitting on a park bench by the lake, enjoying the breeze, and only realized she had forgotten to prepare lunch for Custard Tart when the dog’s head nudged her hard.
“I need to go home now and prepare lunch for my dog.”
“You have a dog?”
“Yeah, I told you before. I have a stupid dog at home who’s a thief and whose schemes are more elaborate than a college student’s.”
Winter Sun chuckled. “I have a Doberman. He’s staying with my mom right now.”
“A Doberman, wow!”
Every time Ji Pei watched videos, she thought Dobermans were cool and handsome and wanted one, but dealing with Custard Tart, her gluttonous dog, was already headache enough. She didn’t dare get a second one.
“Do you like Dobermans a lot?”
“Yes, they’re super cool, like a boss.”
Ji Pei turned to look at Custard Tart, who was pulling hard on the leash, eager to rush home. She gritted her teeth at the sight of his ungraceful eagerness.
Winter Sun’s soft laughter came through the receiver. “Your Golden Retriever is very cute too.”
Ji Pei was being dragged home by Custard Tart and subconsciously asked, “How did you know I have a Golden Retriever?”
“You told me before, did you forget?”
“Oh, I must have forgotten. My furry child is impatient, rushing home to eat. I need to hang up the phone now.”
“Mhm.”
The two cats and one dog raced toward their food bowls. Ji Pei collapsed onto the sofa with a sigh.
“Finally, you get to eat. Look how hungry you all are. Haven’t eaten in two minutes, have you?”
Snow Mochi took a break to meow. The other two gluttons clanged their bowls, licking them as if they wanted to swallow them whole.
It was almost the end of the month, and Ji Pei’s tenants in the large group chat were starting to pay their rent sporadically.
Ji Pei was a third-generation wealthy individual. Her grandparents started buying land and building houses in the city center when they were young. Later, the houses were demolished, and the couple received a massive compensation payout. They started investing and became business owners. Now retired, they weren’t idle and had moved to Belgium to make chocolate.
Ji Pei didn’t actually need to work. She could buy a new apartment within the Second Ring Road every month just from collecting rent.
However, the prerequisite for being Ji Pei’s tenant was that they had to be female. Previously, a male tenant who couldn’t pay rent at the end of the month had sent Ji Pei explicit photos, offering to use his body to cover the rent. Ji Pei immediately called the police, evicted the man, and swore never to take on male tenants again. After that tenant left, the apartment was dirty and smelly. Ji Pei had it renovated and bought new furniture.
Rent was transferred intermittently through Ji Pei’s large group chat, and she accepted each payment one by one. Looking at the current housing prices, Ji Pei felt the rent was indeed a bit expensive, so she sent a message to the group, reducing the rent by one thousand yuan for everyone.
A few sweet-talking, proactive female tenants suggested treating Ji Pei to dinner. Ji Pei politely declined, saying maybe next time. She felt there needed to be some boundaries between the landlord and tenants.
Jiang Xianhan sent a message.
Ji Pei clicked it open. The professor wanted to come over and deliver her clothes.
Demon Jiang: “The clothes are clean. Where do you live? I’ll bring them to you.”
Ji Pei felt something strange about the idea of her delivering the clothes. She couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was.
Bored, Ji Pei opened a search engine and entered Jiang Xianhan’s name. The first result was four large words:
Richest Person in S City.
She attended MIT at the age of fifteen. The title Associate Professor of Philosophy at A University was the least noteworthy of her achievements. It seemed that being a professor at A University and teaching students was just her side job.
Ji Pei rubbed her eyes, feeling as though this was the resume of a protagonist in a novel. She switched to Google Chrome, searched again, and the summary was the same.
How could one person’s life be so spectacular? Ji Pei was marveling when she nearly forgot to reply to the professor.
How should she reply?
Ji Pei rested her cheeks in her hands, looking troubled, but quickly cheered up. What is there to be afraid of? Jiang Xianhan was the one who stained my clothes. She should clean them and deliver them herself. Why do I feel guilty?
Putting herself in the correct position relative to Jiang Xianhan, Ji Pei copied her address from a shopping app, pasted it into WeChat, and sent it to Jiang Xianhan.
Demon Jiang: “I’ll be there at 5 PM.”
5 PM…
Ji Pei rubbed her chin, wondering if she should go out and avoid her, letting Ji Fan handle the reception. But if she did that, Jiang Xianhan would definitely think she was a coward and afraid to see her.
Thinking this, Ji Pei suddenly felt confident. She changed out of the rabbit pajamas into a comfortable and decent set of loungewear. The rabbit pajamas had already caused her enough embarrassment. She was an adult, running around in them outside, and Jiang Xianhan had seen her. The professor must be secretly laughing at her for being childish.
After a quick lunch, Ji Pei sat on the sofa playing games, frequently checking her watch, looking every half hour. Before she knew it, it was almost 5 PM. Ji Pei reduced her watch-checking frequency from every half hour to every five minutes.
Ji Fan sat next to her with a fruit salad. She noticed Ji Pei was distracted from her game and kept staring at her watch.
“Sister, what are you doing? That’s so weird. Are you possessed by something unclean?”
“Jiang Xianhan is coming at 5 PM to deliver my clothes. I’m checking if she’ll be on time.”
Ji Fan’s pupils constricted. “What did you say? Jiang Xianhan is coming! Why didn’t you say so earlier!”
Ji Pei looked puzzled. “You didn’t ask me.”
Ji Fan ran toward the door, not even taking the time to change her slippers, shouting as she went, “Sister, whose side are you on?!”
With her back to the open door, she yelled to Ji Pei on the sofa, “Before Jiang Xianhan arrives, I’m going out to lie low. If she asks about me, you say…”
“Say what?”
Ji Fan’s words were cut off.
A slender, pale hand rested on the door. Half of Jiang Xianhan’s face was obscured by Ji Fan’s messy hair. She held a bag and was smiling, gazing at the abruptly silenced Ji Fan. And at Ji Pei, who was clutching the dog’s ears on the sofa.
The corners of Jiang Xianhan’s lips held a slight smile.
“May I hear it?”