CH 42.2

Today was an unexpectedly busy day. 

In the morning, she had a one-hour appointment with Li Xiaoxing to check on his homework through video call. Later in the afternoon, she would meet Zhang Ning for lunch to discuss the preparations for their next film before accompanying Song Shiyu for a three-hour date at an art exhibition. At night, she would head over to Bai Zhou’s place to prepare dinner for him, another three-hour appointment. 

It was quite troublesome having to deal with so many appointments in a single day, but at least she was making good money out of it. 

After looking through her work for the day, she grabbed a phone and tapped into the ‘Temptation of Home’ app.

Totaling her income, she had accrued 700,000,000 on the app thus far. Once their film started screening in movie theaters, she should be able to reach her first billion. 

She didn’t leave her spare cash lying around in the bank either. She chose to entrust it into the hands of a financial management company. The interest rate she was offered wasn’t spectacular, but it was still money.

It was quite remarkable how she was able to advance this far despite having only transmigrated over for a few months. Once the screenwriting studio took off, she would be able to quit her stand-in job and finally take it easy. 

Ahh, I’m looking forward to it. 

… 

Two minutes before 10 A.M., Ji Fanyin had already switched on her laptop and was prepared to accept Li Xiaoxing’s video call. 

As soon as the clock struck ten, she received a video call request from Secretary Fan. She accepted the request, and Li Xiaoxing’s face appeared on her laptop screen. 

“Mr Li.” Ji Fanyin took out a notebook and twirled a pen on her finger. “What’s your current progress?”

“… Following your instructions, I expressed my dissatisfaction toward her for the first time,” said Li Xiaoxing. “I hung up the call on her afterward too.”

“Well done.” Ji Fanyin put a tick on the assignment she had assigned him last week. “Do you remember the details of the conversation? Even the general flow of it would do.”

“There’s nothing to be said here. You were spot-on about her replies.” Li Xiaoxing stared at her through the camera. “Your predictions have always been on the dot. It’s almost as if she’s reading off your script.”

Ji Fanyin’s eyebrows shot up. “That could only mean that she’s the same ‘King of the Seas’ as me.”

“If I hadn’t known Ji Xinxin for years now, I’d have thought that you were the one who taught her.”

Ji Fanyin chuckled at those words. “Doesn’t that mean that I’m curbing my own tactics? … Alright, let’s get back to the main topic at hand. After you expressed your dissatisfaction toward her for rejecting your invitation and hung up on her, how did she respond?”

Li Xiaoxing fell silent.

It had been two months since the start of their lessons. They’d had dozens of lessons thus far, and there were several occasions where he paid Ji Fanyin extra for stand-in practice sessions, but he was still uncomfortable with reporting his private relationship to her. 

That wasn’t the kind of person Li Xiaoxing was.

“Mr Li?” Ji Fanyin urged him to answer her question.

Li Xiaoxing had no idea how Song Shiyu and Bai Zhou ended up being played like a fiddle by Ji Fanyin. If the two of them had just put some thought into it, they would swiftly realize that she was far more callous and heartless than Ji Xinxin. 

Or maybe the two of them are already aware of it, but they simply can’t bring themselves to break this beautiful dream. 

“… She said that she’ll be returning to the country soon and asked if I’ll have time to meet up with her. She mentioned that she has a surprise prepared for me,” replied Li Xiaoxing. 

“We have gone through this before. How should you reply to that?” 

The Ji Fanyin on the screen had a notebook and a pencil in hand, making her look like a real private tutor. 

Li Xiaoxing nodded stoically. “We’ll talk about it then.”

“Not bad. You’ve made good progress.” Ji Fanyin was heartened. “Our first step of making her realize that you’re no longer under her absolute control anymore is pretty much done. Let’s proceed to the next step…”

The one-hour tuition ended rather quickly. Ji Fanyin switched off her alarm and took off her blue light glasses. “I’m in a rush, so I’ll have to head off right now. See you next time.”

With a polite nod, she closed her laptop without waiting for Li Xiaoxing’s response. She didn’t think that he would have anything to say anyway.

She had already set her laptop to automatically shut down after the lid was put down, so she couldn’t be bothered to go through the additional step of manually shutting it down. Lazy people like her were good at finding little ways to reduce daily hassles.

While she was grabbing her keys and leaving her apartment, Zhang Ning called. 

“… You’re already there? I just left my house. Give me twenty minutes. You’re the best, sweety. Wait for me, alright?” 

From the laptop that hadn’t completely shut down yet, Li Xiaoxing: “… Sweety? Is that Song Shiyu or Bai Zhou?”