Chapter 13: Junior Sister Puts on Airs
Lian Li searched everywhere in her bag and around the house, but found nothing.
She frowned and scratched her hair.
How could it be missing?
Where could it have possibly fallen?
The bracelet was the only gift her mother had left her, and the only proof that her mother had truly existed.
Not only was her mother gone, but now even the traces she left behind had disappeared.
A sharp pain struck her, and a sourness in her throat surged like a tide.
Lian Li slumped onto the sofa, feeling an indescribable sadness. After a long while, she slowly took out her mobile phone to message Xue Shufan.
Lian Li: 「Good thing you’re smart, otherwise it would have been 87+87=174」
Xue Shufan replied almost instantly: 「Two idiots together will die, 87+87=174, hahahaha.jpg」
Xue Shufan: 「As expected of a top student from the mathematics department, playing with memes using math is as easy as drinking water, proud.jpg」
Lian Li rested her chin on a soft embroidered tiger pillow. The tassels on the edge of the pillow tickled her arm, but she didn’t pay attention.
Xue Shufan asked how her day was, and Lian Li replied dejectedly: 「I lost my bracelet」
She exaggeratedly sent a frustrated sticker pack.
Xue Shufan: 「What! How could you lose it? Did you forget it at the orchestra?」
Lian Li: 「No, I was still wearing it when I left.」
Xue Shufan: 「Don’t worry too much, I’ll help you look for it tomorrow, we’ll definitely find it!」
Lian Li rolled over: 「No need, I might have dropped it in the car. I’ll ask Assistant He.」
She had worn that bracelet since she was little. If Assistant He had seen it, he would have contacted her long ago.
Lian Li only said this to avoid Xue Shufan making a wasted trip.
The probability of finding a lost item again was almost zero.
No matter how sensible she was, she still felt sad. Lian Li didn’t sleep well that night and woke up early the next morning with visibly dark circles under her eyes.
She covered them up with some makeup and sent a message to Assistant He during breakfast, asking if he had seen her bracelet. His answer was as expected: no.
Lian Li asked Assistant He to keep an eye out and not to tell President Jin. She didn’t want to cause him any trouble.
In the morning, while Lian Li was using her computer at home to search for journals, she received a call from an unknown number. The female voice on the other end said, “President Jin instructed me to deliver a car. Miss Lian, are you available to come down now?”
Lian Li said she was available. She took the elevator directly to the underground parking lot. The person who arrived was a young woman in a sharp, professional outfit. All the paperwork and procedures had been completed; Lian Li just needed to look at the new car and could exchange it if she wasn’t satisfied.
Lian Li inspected it thoroughly and informed the young woman that there were no issues.
Lian Li knew her own driving skills; she wouldn’t be driving for a while.
On the first day of owning a car, the car gathered dust in the parking lot.
The rehearsal for the Wen Gang Orchestra began in the afternoon and lasted until six in the evening.
After the training, Lian Li adjusted the strings of her cello to ensure the pitch was accurate, then put it away, ready to leave.
While waiting for the elevator in the elevator hall, Lian Li was idly scrolling through messages on various chat apps. Someone walked up to her and asked, “How’s your hand?”
Lian Li turned her head to look. It was Chen Siyang, wearing glasses and dressed in the typical attire of a campus heartthrob: a white shirt and black pants.
She replied, “It’s fine.”
The elevator arrived at their floor. There were other people inside, so Lian Li put away her phone and walked in.
Upon reaching the first floor, Lian Li walked straight out. Chen Siyang lagged a couple of steps behind but quickly caught up.
“Did you have a falling out with Ruan Ning and the others?”
Lian Li glanced at him and said, “It would be better if you asked them that question.”
Chen Siyang: “I heard the leader increased next month’s budget. Winter is coming, and we plan to give everyone more benefits.”
The Wen Gang Orchestra was founded by Lian Li’s benefactor, and the orchestra’s funding relied entirely on that Big Shot from the Beijing Circle. She was certainly aware of the funding allocation.
Lian Li’s tone remained impeccably friendly: “Who told you that?”
Chen Siyang couldn’t tell her he overheard it, so he brushed it off, saying, “I can’t tell you that.”
He expected Lian Li to press him, but she merely gave a casual “Mm.”
Chen Siyang: “??”
He participated in a variety show and was put on a pedestal by netizens, yet he repeatedly suffered setbacks in front of Lian Li.
She wasn’t a cellist; she was a Waterloo!
The two parted ways at an intersection. Lian Li walked forward, but just as she took two steps, a car parked by the roadside suddenly honked, startling her.
Lian Li looked over. It was a completely black Koenigsegg.
The Koenigsegg’s emblem, like that of the Swedish Air Force, was a ghost. She wasn’t interested in cars, but she recognized it.
The car window rolled down, and the pale orange streetlights illuminated the man’s sharp, sculpted face.
Lian Li looked at him with confusion.
In the dark, what was Jin Shi Yue doing here?
Was he trying to scare her like a ghost?
Seeing her standing still, Jin Shi Yue tapped the edge of the car window with his pale, slender fingers. “Come here.”
Lian Li looked around and calmly walked forward, stopping just out of his reach.
Lian Li bent down slightly, looking at the man inside the car with a cold, lazy expression, and asked, “Why are you here?”
She didn’t call him Mr. Jin or brother.
Jin Shi Yue turned his head to look at her, his clear voice faint: “Waiting for someone.”
Lian Li’s lips curved slightly, her voice as gentle as ever: “What a coincidence, then I won’t disturb…”
“It’s not a coincidence,” Jin Shi Yue said. “I’m looking for you. Get in the car.”
His words landed in her ears exactly as spoken, and Lian Li was stunned.
Looking for her?
Jin Shi Yue watched Lian Li for a while. She seemed to be ignoring him, making no move.
“Did you leave your ears in bed when you woke up this morning?”
Each syllable he spoke was casual, but the implication was clear: he was mocking her for being deaf.
With such a venomous tongue, he probably wouldn’t even need to fight in the Military Region competition; he could poison people to death with just a few words.
Lian Li mentally replayed her interactions with Jin Shi Yue like a movie. She believed she hadn’t offended him.
Since he said her ears weren’t working well, she would just be a deaf person obediently.
Lian Li: “Sorry, I didn’t hear clearly. Could you say that again?”
Hearing this, Jin Shi Yue couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow and beckoned her closer with a hook of his finger.
Lian Li didn’t move.
Going any further would be unsafe.
Although Lian Li had learned a little self-defense, she knew her limits. If it came to a fight, she would absolutely lose to him.
She was the one who said she couldn’t hear, and she was the one who wasn’t moving.
“Junior Sister puts on quite an act.”
Jin Shi Yue’s eyelids flickered slightly as he said lazily, “Do you want me to personally invite you?”
Lian Li’s mind raced, and just as she was about to reply, she suddenly heard him say, “Did you lose something?”
A flicker of surprise crossed Lian Li’s clear pupils, and her tone held a hint of joy: “Yes.”
After a few seconds of thought, she opened the front passenger door and got in.
The front passenger seat was the exclusive spot for a girlfriend. Such notions were irrelevant at this moment. If she dared to treat him like a driver and sit in the back, she wouldn’t know how she died.
She wasn’t tired of living yet.
As soon as Lian Li sat down, a clean, sharp, faint scent enveloped her.
It was a strange scent… not like perfume, nor like expensive woody scents such as sandalwood.
Jin Shi Yue sat in the driver’s seat, one hand resting loosely on the steering wheel. His wrist bones were strong, and the bulging veins snaked like mountain ranges, exuding a wild beauty.
He glanced at her and asked lazily, “What did you lose?”
