Bai Zhou: "..."
He exclaimed incredulously, "You're asking me for money when you're so generously treating others? You didn't even leave anything behind for me when you left yesterday! I was so hungry in the middle of the night that I had to call for delivery!"
"You were the one who asked me to take everything away with me when I left." Ji Fanyin paused for a moment before asking doubtfully, "If you wanted me to buy you something, why did you reject my offer to treat you to an ice cream cone earlier?"
"When did I ever say that I want you to buy me anything?" Bai Zhou immediately refuted with a disgusted look on his face. "Ji Fanyin, don't be so narcissistic."
"Young master Bai, I know that this bit of money is no more than pocket change to you, so I am certain that you have only forgotten to reimburse me. There is no chance that you'd be intentionally delaying the reimbursement, right?" said Ji Fanyin.
Feeling like his integrity was being questioned, Bai Zhou clenched his jaws. He angrily whipped out his phone and transferred the money to Ji Fanyin on the spot to prove his innocence.
He only remembered that the amount was five digits and the first digit was '1', so he decided to round up the figure.
In less than a minute's time, 20,000 dollars was transferred from one bank account to another.
"I assume that the extra amount you sent over is a tip for my service?" asked Ji Fanyin as she looked at the message she received from the bank. Not intending to return the extra amount, she quickly added, "Thanks, young master Bai."
She bit down on her waffle cone and headed into the ice cream store, not sparing a glance at Bai Zhou at all.
Compared to an entire set of high-class French cuisine ingredients, buying a couple of university students some ice cream cones wasn't expensive at all.
By the time everyone had a uniquely colored ice cream cone in their hands, Bai Zhou muttered with a glum face that he was going to head back.
Bai Zhou's buddies glanced at one another with conflicted looks on their faces. While they were determined to get to the bottom of this peculiar relationship between a senior and an alumnus of their school, they weren't so vicious as to actually ruin their date.
After a brief moment of hesitation, they decided to leave with Bai Zhou.
Ji Fanyin didn't stay for too long either. Her mind was still fixated on the movie review that she wasn't done with yet.
So, she politely exchanged contact numbers with the young man before heading home.
By the time she finally finished crafting the entire movie review—she was so serious that one would have thought that she was writing a thesis—it was already nightfall.
Ji Fanyin took off her blue light glasses and headed to the fridge to look through the ingredients she had left from yesterday. While pondering about what to make for dinner, her phone suddenly rang.
She cast a glance over, and her eyebrows shot up.
She had already deleted most of her contact numbers ever since she moved out of the Ji Family a week ago, and the only ones who had called and messaged her during this period of time were her two clients.
As for Ji Xinxin, they communicated via a video call application since she was overseas.
The caller this time around was another number that was already stored in her contact, but it wasn't either of her two clients. Looking at the word 'Father' on the phone screen, she couldn't help but feel the irony of this situation.
It had been little more than a week since she had moved out from the Ji Family. No matter how blind Father Ji and Mother Ji were, they should have noticed that someone was missing from their house, not to mention that Ji Fanyin even dropped them a message on WeChat to inform them of the matter in view of their blood ties.
But ever since that day, neither Father Ji nor Mother Ji had dropped a call or asked how she was faring. It looked like they couldn't care less if she was alive or dead.
Ji Fanyin casually accepted the call and put it on speakerphone before turning her attention back to the fridge. She greeted Father Ji with a casual "Hey".
Her perfunctory greeting immediately brought about an outburst from Father Ji.
"Hey what hey? You aren't going to call me father? You're really getting out of hand now! Go and learn a thing or two from your younger sister on how you should speak to your elders!"
Ji Fanyin didn't have much respect for Father Ji since she wasn't 'Ji Fanyin'.
Her attention remained focused on picking out two of the most beautiful bell peppers while asking nonchalantly, "What do you want?"
Father Ji lashed out angrily, "Watch your tone! Do you still take me as your father?!"
Ji Fanyin decided to clear away two of the nicer bell peppers today. So, she grabbed her ingredients, closed the fridge door, and swiped her finger across her phone screen, hanging up the call from Father Ji.
She remained unfazed as if the call she had just received had come from a telemarketer asking her to buy insurance.
Perhaps feeling insulted by her hanging up, Father Ji didn't call back. But around ten minutes later, while Ji Fanyin was busy working in the kitchen, Mother Ji dropped a call.
Her tone was much more amicable compared to Father Ji's. She started off by calling Ji Fanyin by her nickname, saying, "Yinyin, are you doing well outside? If you don't have enough money on hand, feel free to ask us for more."
Ji Fanyin continued chopping her asparagus. She disregarded Mother Ji's hypocritical load of useless padding and repeated what she had told Father Ji earlier, "What do you want?"
Mother Ji coughed awkwardly at Ji Fanyin's candidness, but she managed to keep her calm as if she was mentally prepared for this. Instead, she asked, "Where are you living at the moment?"
"Are you planning to visit me?" asked Ji Fanyin.
Mother Ji hesitated for a long while before finally coming out clean, "Your father and I... we're worried about you. Someone told your father that he saw you at a place where women with proper upbringing shouldn't be. Yinyin, be honest with me. Did you make any bad friends and visit inappropriate places with them?"
Ji Fanyin thought about the places she had been to thus far and deduced that the place they were talking about was the bar she met Song Shiyu at the other night.
"Is there a problem with an adult visiting a bar?" asked Ji Fanyin nonchalantly.
Mother Ji immediately got agitated and exclaimed, "Of course there is! How can a demure lady visit that kind of place? Think about how our family's friends would think of us if they were to find out about it!"
Ji Fanyin turned on the tap and washed the knife as she asked calmly, "You called me for this?"
"How can you say that? Don't you know how serious this matter is? We're nagging you for your own good, or else..."
This means that there's nothing else.
Ji Fanyin wiped her hands using a soft cloth before hanging up the phone once more. After that, she switched her phone to 'Do Not Disturb' mode. With this, the only ones who could contact her were her clients.
It was only after she was done cooking, eating, and clearing the dishes that she checked her phone once more. By then, several hours had already passed.
There were several missed calls from Mother Ji. She seemed to have noticed at some point that Ji Fanyin wasn't going to pick up her calls, so she decided to write long paragraphs in her WeChat instead.
Ji Fanyin took a brief glance at them. The crux was basically that her actions had shamed her family, and that since she wasn't young anymore and wasn't planning to further her studies like Ji Xinxin, she should think about getting married, and that she had prepared a candidate for her, so on and so forth.
Mother Ji appeared to have delved deeper into the background of the person she wanted to match make her with, but Ji Fanyin didn't bother to skim on.
Why do rich people like matchmaking that much? First Song Shiyu, and now me.
Ji Fanyin wasn't as patient as Song Shiyu as to bother sparing a meal's time to satisfy them.
However, Father Ji and Mother Ji clearly weren't planning on giving up easily. If they ever uncovered her address, she would probably face some trouble from them.
She took a sip of water as she thought about this issue, but she eventually decided that it was no big deal and tossed it to the back of her head.
She was someone who had weathered through storms worse than this. Why should she get worried over something as minor as this?
The world was huge. There were plenty of jobs and houses out there for her to pick from anyway.
Other than that, she also received some messages from Ji Xinxin and the young man she had added to her WeChat's friend list earlier in the day.
Ji Xinxin's message looked the same as usual, though she seemed to have casually mentioned Bai Zhou in it.
As for the young man, he sent a particularly formal self-introduction, saying that his name was Chen Yunsheng, followed by a great deal of personal information like his age, hobbies, and hometown. He started off by asking if she had reached home, and an hour later, he timidly added.
[Are you still busy with work?]
Ji Fanyin ignored the former. She slipped a new disc into her player and started watching it while occasionally responding to the latter. By the time the movie came to an end, she said goodbye to him with a 'Good night'.
Chen Yunsheng was a decent and earnest person, so the hour she spent chatting with him while watching the movie was actually quite relaxing and enjoyable.
When she put down her phone, she suddenly recalled that Zhao Qi hadn't contacted her for quite a while.
Hmm... Forget it. It's normal for friends not to contact one another for a month or so.
After washing up, Ji Fanyin lay down on her bed and conducted her daily pre-sleep routine―checking the records of 'Temptation of Home'.
While looking through the transaction history, she noticed something peculiar.
There were quite a few small figures coming in from people she didn't recognize, and the amounts were fairly small, ranging from two figures to three figures. They were all tagged under 'Emotion Points', and they only started appearing earlier this afternoon.
Ji Fanyin pondered for a moment before checking her Weibo in uncertainty.
Just as she had expected, the movie review she had sent earlier in the afternoon had gone viral. It had been reposted more than 10,000 times, and the likes were severalfold of that—and it wasn't showing any signs of losing steam yet.
There were quite a lot of impassioned responses in the comments and re-post, some positive and some negative... but that didn't matter to Ji Fanyin.
She casually checked the re-post calmly and soon determined the source of this abrupt explosion of popularity. It appeared that a celebrity had liked her movie review and hadn't unliked it yet.
So, Ji Fanyin went to look up the celebrity, only to realize that he was a familiar face. Given that she had done a marathon of the movies in this world, it went without saying that she would recognize the influential four-time 'Best Actor' award winner, He Shen.
Even from the perspective of an industry insider, Ji Fanyin felt that his acting skills were on the dot. He was definitely worthy of being called an artist.
What was even rarer was that he was good-looking too.
She would be happy to collaborate with him if she was still in the entertainment industry, but for now, probably not.
In view that he had contributed so many Emotion Points to her, Ji Fanyin decided to 'Follow' him on Weibo, and the app immediately reflected that there was a mutual following between them.
Ji Fanyin's eyebrows shot up.
Celebrity accounts on Weibo were usually managed by professionals, and the celebrities themselves wouldn't be involved in the content posted, liked, or users followed.
Even if the celebrity had a true passion for Weibo, they would secretly create a side account to play with.
After all, the slightest mistake made by an official account could easily stir a riot, not to mention that celebrities usually had their schedule so completely jam-packed that they wouldn't have time to personally manage their accounts.
Given He Shen's standing in the film industry, his Weibo account should be managed by a team...
But... He Shen wasn't in the film though?
Ji Fanyin checked her Weibo messages, and she didn't receive any collaboration requests from He Shen's studio. In the end, she decided to close her Weibo and go to sleep.
She had seen more than enough celebrities in her past life anyway. Interacting with a 'film emperor' was no big deal.
...
The collaboration request from He Shen's studio belatedly arrived the following day.
Ji Fanyin browsed through the message while brushing her teeth. The request was written formally, starting off with showering compliments on the sharpness and uniqueness of her review before extending an invitation for her to attend the premiere of He Shen's newest movie. Of course, she was expected to compose and post a review at the end of it.
It was pretty normal for newly released films to employ an Internet Water Army to garner some good reviews on social media. (Internet Water Army refers to internet ghostwriters paid to post online comments with particular content.)
But even so, it seemed odd that they went to the extent of following her with He Shen's official Weibo account. On top of that, they were only offering an invitation without any mention of money, which hinted that they weren't intending to buy good reviews from her.
That being said, the amount of Emotion Points she received last night was really substantial. Unlike the usual ones she received from Song Shiyu and the others, a viral Weibo post continuously brought in more Emotion Points as long as it remained there as new readers were constantly stumbling upon the post.
The amount earned from each individual might be small, but it was still something. There was no reason for her to turn it down, especially since it was something she liked doing and didn't take up too much of her time.
After coming to a decision, she gargled her mouth before responding to the message with her address.
The other party replied extremely quickly. They started off by sending her the time and location before informing her that the invitation letter would be sent to her home very soon.
Ji Fanyin stared at the reply, and somehow, she felt that something was off with the tone.
The first message was extremely formal, but the following ones were oddly casual, almost as if it was someone else.
But when she looked at the message she had sent over, which contained only a cold and lofty address...
Yup, I'm also pretty casual myself. I'm in no position to talk about them.
While walking out of her bathroom, she decided to give He Shen's studio a clear heads up first.
[I'm honest with my reviews.]
[I'm not going to betray my conscience for you if you show me crap.]
The other party replied immediately.
[No problem, that's what we want too.]
Regardless of whether it was just a formality or not, Ji Fanyin felt more at ease after receiving their assurance. She noted down the date of the movie premiere in her schedule lest it accidentally clashed schedules with a client's reservation.
If a clash really occurs... Well, that would depend on how much the client is willing to pay.