Sui Feng was once again dressed in that rigid black suit, his tie tied meticulously.
He looked like the kind of elite professional you’d see in a magazine ad.
Though his face was still rather plain, the overall packaging was good enough to make a decent impression.
He smiled, revealing a row of neat white teeth.
“It’s nothing. Just order whatever you like.”
Dong Jiaoyan’s fingertip hovered for two seconds over the Australian prawns priced at over nine hundred.
Then she tapped it without hesitation.
She seemed to follow the principle of “pick the expensive, not the right,”
ordering every dish on the menu that looked beautiful, had pricey ingredients, and photographed well.
Only then did she hand the tablet to Qiao Liuyue, grinning brightly.
“Liuyue, hurry up and order! Brother Suifeng is treating us today.”
The way she dragged out that “oh” was playful and prolonged, as if it were only natural—no need to feel any burden about it.
Qiao Liuyue took the tablet, glanced at the four-figure total in the bottom left corner, and handed it back to Sui Feng without any extra fuss.
“No need. I’m not picky. You two go ahead.” Her tone was polite but distant.
Sui Feng took it, added a few cold dishes and some drinks, and then passed the tablet to the waiter.
He acted very generous throughout, as if a meal costing over a thousand yuan was just a decimal point in his daily expenses.
At the table, Dong Jiaoyan quickly became the center of attention.
With playful banter, teasing, chatting, and laughter, she kept Sui Feng smiling nonstop. The two of them chatted merrily.
Sui Feng’s attitude was exceptionally accommodating—no matter what Dong Jiaoyan said, he had a follow-up.
They talked about everything under the sun, from gaming to the workplace, showing that he was knowledgeable and good at conversation.
Qiao Liuyue, meanwhile, quietly buried herself in her food, saying almost nothing throughout.
Halfway through the meal, she got up to use the restroom.
As she walked through the restaurant hallway, her peripheral vision swept across a corner.
At an angled table sat a man in sunglasses and a casual dress shirt.
The spot wasn’t particularly hidden, but something about him felt off.
What struck her as odd was that everyone else in the restaurant was eating at this hour.
He alone had a laptop in front of him, blocking half his face, revealing only the outline of one eye behind the sunglasses and a sliver of his forehead.
His fingers tapped away on the keyboard, looking like he was still working overtime.
Qiao Liuyue glanced at him briefly and looked away, not giving it much thought.
The world was full of surprises—maybe he was just a poor working stiff eating while on the clock.
When she came out of the restroom, the man in sunglasses had closed his laptop, exposing a lean jawline and thin, pressed lips.
His gaze was fixed on something not far away.
That direction was exactly where Dong Jiaoyan and Sui Feng were sitting.
How strange, Qiao Liuyue muttered to herself.
She wasn’t the type to meddle.
But combining the gray sedan that had followed the black Mercedes earlier with this man in sunglasses, a vague idea started forming in her mind.
Just as she hesitated for a few seconds, Dong Jiaoyan suddenly turned her head and called out to her.
“Liuyue, come on! The food’s getting cold!”
The moment she spoke, the man in sunglasses visibly stiffened.
His neck tilted slightly to the left as he instinctively, almost flusteredly, turned his face toward the wall.
The reaction was unnaturally quick, like the reflex of someone caught red-handed.
Standing in the shadow of the hallway, Qiao Liuyue took in the scene.
The hazy thoughts in her head suddenly sharpened.
This guy is tailing someone. Specifically, Dong Jiaoyan and Sui Feng’s table.
Her face, however, betrayed nothing. She simply curved her lips in a small smile and replied,
“Okay, I’m coming.”
She quickly returned to her seat, moving as naturally as if nothing had happened.
Dong Jiaoyan was still grumbling, pointing at an empty dessert plate on the table.
“What took you so long? You missed it—there was a dessert with a rose taken out of a dry-ice bucket, all misty and smoky. It looked gorgeous!”
Qiao Liuyue smiled shyly.
“This restaurant is huge. I walked the wrong way and had to ask a waiter where the restroom was.”
“Oh, okay.”
Dong Jiaoyan nodded half-heartedly and handed her phone over.
On the screen was a series of carefully framed photos—
The rose dessert with the dry-ice smoke.
Each one was taken in live mode, clearly showing the drifting mist effect.
She tapped one photo, showing off.
“What do you think? Pretty cool, right? Too bad you missed it.”
Qiao Liuyue leaned in to look, nodding along with compliments like “So pretty” and “So delicate.”
Her tone was sincere, but her words carried a hint of reluctance.
When the waiter brought out the Australian prawns priced at over nine hundred, Dong Jiaoyan pulled out her phone again and snapped a flurry of shots from three or four angles.
She even subtly angled the corner of the table’s bill into the frame.
The little move was quick and sneaky—if Qiao Liuyue hadn’t been sitting right across from her, she wouldn’t have noticed.
Near the end of the meal, Dong Jiaoyan got up to touch up her makeup in the restroom.
Qiao Liuyue’s phone buzzed—a message from Dong Jiaoyan saying she might need a bit longer.
Qiao Liuyue glanced down at it, then looked up at Sui Feng across from her, who was sipping water.
Finding the silence far too awkward, she made up an excuse about being sleepy and needing to wash her face, then left the table.
She hurried back to the corner from earlier, wanting to see if the man in sunglasses was still there.
But the spot was empty now. Nothing on the table.
The laptop was gone, and the two or three plates that had been there had already been cleared. The tabletop was clean, as if no one had ever sat there.
How strange, she thought again. He left so fast. Almost like someone tipped him off.
As she turned to leave, she hadn’t even taken a step
when her body bumped into something solid.
Not a wall—a man’s chest.
Her nose almost brushed against his shirt, and a faint woody perfume scent washed over her.
She jerked her head up, looking against the light, and saw a sharply defined face.
The sunglasses were still hanging from his collar, revealing that pair of eyes hidden for so long.
Those eyes were very dark, like ink that couldn’t dissolve.
Now they were looking down at her from above.
His voice came from above her head.
Low, magnetic, unhurried.
“Were you looking for me?”
