Seeing the words on the banner, both of them froze in place.
Zhou Jinghuai closed his eyes, feeling his headache worsen, his temples throbbing. "You just said... who sent this?"
Li Sui stared at the "eight male models" printed on the banner, her eyes practically gleaming as she blurted out,
"My sister from another mother and father."
Zhou Jinghuai: "..."
Late that night, Li Sui carefully tucked the banner into a storage box on her bedroom bookshelf.
She thought to herself, When Zhou Jinghuai and I finally get divorced, I’ll have to invite He Xiaoyu out to celebrate. This banner will make the perfect backdrop for the party room.
Unexpectedly, the very next day, the manager handed her another large red banner.
"Did someone else in the neighborhood get divorced?" Li Sui asked curiously.
"Divorced?" The manager unfurled the banner, and Li Sui finally saw the words clearly:
[Wishing all high school seniors success in their second mock exams! May your studies flourish!]
Only then did Li Sui remember—today was the city-wide second mock exam day for high schoolers.
The manager checked the duty roster and assigned, "Li Sui, you and Little Wu go hang this banner along the main entrance path. Make sure it looks neat."
"Got it," they replied in unison.
Little Wu was a recent addition to the neighborhood security team—a fresh-faced young man with dark skin, a thick regional accent, and an easygoing demeanor.
As they carried the banner toward the entrance, he sighed softly. "Kids here are so lucky."
"Huh?"
"Every day when I’m on gate duty, I see students in uniforms being dropped off and picked up by car." He tapped the banner in his arms, his eyes brimming with unmistakable envy. "Look at this—not just the actual college entrance exams, but even mock exams get celebratory banners. Ah, if only I’d studied harder back then, I could’ve made it into Tsinghua or Peking University."
Li Sui stopped walking, her eyes widening in shock. "You’re that good?!"
The world really is full of hidden masters, she thought. Geniuses are everywhere.
"Yeah. Missed it by four points," Little Wu said. "The cutoff was 654. I scored 65."
Li Sui: "..."
"But that wasn’t my usual performance. I only took one exam—overslept during my midday nap and missed the second one." He scratched his head. "My dad said with a brain like mine, I shouldn’t waste money on cabs for the remaining two days, so I skipped them and went straight to working in a factory."
"He said, ‘Some people are born with a silver spoon. You? Born with a factory pass.’"
Li Sui stifled a laugh, only for Little Wu to ask, "The manager said you graduated from a top university and are just here ‘experiencing life.’ So you must’ve aced your exams, right?"
"Not bad," Li Sui said, half-joking. "But like you, I almost missed one too."
"You overslept?"
"No. Before the last exam, someone locked me in the bathroom."
"Who’d do something that awful?!" Little Wu’s eyes bulged, indignant. "How’d you get out?"
"A hero descended from the heavens and saved me," Li Sui said airily, her tone making it hard to tell if she was serious or not.
"You’re messing with me, aren’t you?" Little Wu handed her one end of the banner.
Li Sui smiled without answering.
They stepped back, tying the banner’s ropes around tree trunks, and soon moved on to other topics.
At 8 p.m., her shift ended.
Li Sui rubbed her sore back as she pushed open the door, only to find it odd—Dasheng wasn’t waiting to greet her at the entrance.
A quiet child is always up to no good.
Her instincts screamed trouble.
Sure enough, when she found Dasheng in the bedroom, the dog was enthusiastically tearing the place apart.
The bottom shelf’s contents were strewn everywhere—books, photo albums, plush toys scattered across the floor. Dasheng, triumphant, had a paw pressed firmly on a fox plushie, like a conqueror surveying his spoils.
Compared to other dogs that wrecked homes daily, Dasheng was relatively well-behaved—this year, he’d only destroyed things, say, three, four, five… or six times.
"Don’t get mad, don’t get mad," Li Sui soothed herself, rubbing her chest. "I’ve been too busy to walk him lately. A dog with pent-up energy needs an outlet. Understandable. Don’t get mad."
But then she saw it—the shredded banner.
Her "eight male models" had been chewed into "eight field models."
"..." Suddenly it’s got a rustic charm.
Enough was enough.
"LI DASHENG!!!" Li Sui grabbed her hair and roared, charging forward. "You’re DEAD MEAT!"
Dasheng, ever perceptive, immediately ducked under the bed, peeking out with pitiful eyes.
That look always melted Li Sui’s anger. With a sigh, she knelt to gather the fallen books, slotting them back one by one.
Dasheng trailed her movements until she paused, then obediently sat nearby.
Among the mess was a photo album—a birthday gift from He Xiaoyu during their senior year. But Li Sui wasn’t fond of photos, so even now, the album held only a handful.
She flipped it open. The first image was of her and her grandfather, taken in front of his sugar-painting stall. A customer had snapped it—her grandfather held a freshly crafted dragon, his smile warm, eyes kind.
The next photo was from their last semester of high school: Tan Xiao playing basketball on the school court.
Like her, Tan Xiao had grown up with a single guardian—his grandmother. After her passing, he’d worked to pay his own tuition.
But unlike Li Sui, who got along with most, Tan Xiao was withdrawn and brooding, someone others avoided.
Even her grandfather, for reasons unknown, disapproved of their friendship.
Worried rumors might reach teachers—and thus her grandfather—they never interacted publicly. Only a handful knew they were acquainted.
Even watching him play basketball, Li Sui had to be discreet. She’d borrowed his phone and blended into the crowd of cheering girls.
With so many snapping photos, she went unnoticed, successfully capturing this shot.
In it, Tan Xiao stood among teammates, his expression cold, gaze sharp. Less like he was playing a game, more like he was venting fury through it.
That version of Tan Xiao had once stirred her heart—maybe even love. But now, looking back, her feelings were too tangled to name.
Just as she debated tossing the photo, her eyes caught a figure in the corner.
Wait—was that?
Li Sui squinted at the person emerging from the school building behind Tan Xiao.
Zhou Jinghuai?!
Why was he in her photo?
Oh, right. That day was parent-teacher conferences. Her grandfather had been unwell, so Zhou Jinghuai—under Zhou Zhiyu’s orders—had come as her stand-in guardian.
When she saw him, she immediately slipped her phone back into the school jacket pocket Tan Xiao had left nearby, then ran up to him and asked curiously if the teacher had said anything to him.
Zhou Jinghuai replied that the teacher hadn’t said a word.
Li Sui secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but then he casually slid one hand into his pocket, glanced at the basketball court in the distance, and added with an indifferent tone:
"If you're going to start dating early, at least hide it better."
Looking back now, Zhou Jinghuai’s mouth wasn’t just sharp—it was downright cursed.
Li Sui pouted and changed her mind, tucking the photo back where it belonged.
Just then, Dasheng suddenly barked twice from beside her.
Dasheng was usually gentle and rarely barked—what was going on? Noticing his gaze fixed on the open page of the photo album, Li Sui understood.
"You miss Grandpa too, huh?" She patted his head and closed the album, then playfully pressed his snout and warned, "Don’t think Grandpa can save you. Next time you tear up the house, I’ll… I’ll make Zhou Jinghuai kiss you and poison you with his bad luck."
Li Sui snorted and stood up to change out of her security guard uniform. Before she could tidy up the pitiful-looking banner, Zhou Jinghuai’s voice suddenly came from the doorway: "Did a thief break in?"
Li Sui glared at him and pointed at the banner. "Was this your doing? Did you put Dasheng up to this?"
Only then did Zhou Jinghuai notice the "eight male models" scrawled messily on it.
"You know what this means?" He raised an eyebrow, his tone deliberately provoking.
"It means even a dog wouldn’t want your eight male models."
Li Sui’s stint as a security guard lasted only three days. Once the employees who had taken sick leave for the flu returned, her services were no longer needed.
Though she had insisted she didn’t need payment, the manager still generously settled her wages.
Two hundred a day—six hundred in total.
With such an unexpected windfall, Li Sui felt it would be a waste not to spend it after those three days of toiling under the sun.
So the next day, she dragged He Xiaoyu out for a feast.
The restaurant was a trendy Chinese place He Xiaoyu had been wanting to try. It was peak lunch hour, and the dining hall buzzed with lively chatter and clinking glasses.
He Xiaoyu twirled a bite of noodles but set it down before eating, grabbing Li Sui’s right hand to inspect the nearly healed wound. "Will this leave a scar?"
"Doesn’t matter." Li Sui shrugged, unconcerned. "My grandpa had all kinds of scars on his hands and never bothered with them."
"How can you be so careless with your looks? There’s a pharmacy right across from your market stall, isn’t there? Go buy some scar cream." After lecturing her, He Xiaoyu finally let go of her hand and asked, "Are you opening the shop tonight?"
Li Sui picked up a piece of honey-glazed lotus root, the sweet flavor instantly lifting her mood. "Yeah."
"Why not take a few days off?"
"Business has been better lately with the calligraphy work. Might as well make the most of it while I can."
"I thought you said you didn’t like sugar painting?" He Xiaoyu chuckled. "But it seems like you’ve been working harder than ever."
Li Sui hesitated for a moment, then brushed off the question.
"Money’s the motivation. That’s always been the rule for my side gigs."
"Please, you’re just tsundere—ack—!" He Xiaoyu’s words were cut off as she choked on her noodles, coughing violently until her face turned red.
Li Sui panicked and quickly handed her a glass of water. "Slow down!"
"Th—that…" He Xiaoyu pointed somewhere behind her, still coughing, and managed to wheeze out:
"Your… your husband… with a… pretty woman…"
