Chapter 51

The Only One Embarrassed is Me

Hu Xiu never imagined that at 27, her life could get this good. She was being pursued by two top-tier handsome guys.

One had a unique aura and top-tier beauty, like he’d stepped out of a manga, always surrounded by a protagonist’s halo. The other could knock a patient out cold with his looks alone, and was adored by girls and aunties alike.

Ouch. She slapped herself hard in the mirror. The pain was real; it wasn’t a dream.

After getting dressed, Hu Xiu looked at the black down jacket on the chair and sighed sadly.

That young, hot-headed boy had just thrown on his sweater and run home. Maybe kissing her had gotten his blood pumping and body temperature soaring, so he didn’t need a coat anymore?

She checked her phone and saw messages from Pei Zhen and Diao Zhiyu. She felt like the sky was falling. One was asking if she wanted to eat soup dumplings with him in the morning, and the other said he was waiting downstairs.

Looking out the balcony, she did see Diao Zhiyu. He was sitting on his bike, dressed neatly, waving. Even from a distance, he was incredibly handsome. The retro green bicycle seat gleamed in the sunlight.

The phone rang. “Waiting for you downstairs...”

“What are you doing here again so early? Didn’t you sleep?”

“Not tired...”

His urgency threw her off. She had a meeting on Monday. For a formal occasion, she definitely needed a suit. Her dress pants were too thin and her legs would be cold. Her new black stockings and knee-length wool skirt might be warmer. Her black leather shoes were a bit old, so she quickly wiped them with a cloth. Before going out, she thought, wearing that to meet Diao Zhiyu would make her look too old. She grabbed a rubber pink down jacket from her closet. Her ears might get cold, so she put on a berry red beanie.

She felt like her outfit was a mess and hurried downstairs. When Diao Zhiyu saw her, his face turned red.

Did she look bad? Was her outfit a disaster? Oh, that’s right, he had just confessed to her last night.

The boy who had been so cool last night didn’t dare look at her from head to toe. He took a deep breath before speaking, “Get in...”

“What, do you think my bike isn’t fancy enough because it doesn’t have four wheels?”

“Of course not!” It was only three degrees above zero. You can’t be this careless about the cold. Hu Xiu looked at his hands, “Diao Zhiyu, you’re going to get frostbite like this.”

“I’ve ridden a bike in minus twenty degrees. Get on.” After saying a few words, he seemed less nervous and muttered softly, “Why are you dressed like a raspberry ice cream?”

Hu Xiu had a bit of a 90s Beijing vibe as she rode on the back of Diao Zhiyu’s bike to work. His bike had a really nice yellowish-brown leather seat, and he was wearing a light blue denim jacket with a cream-colored beanie, clearly put together.

Boys always looked friendlier in the sunlight, and she rarely saw him in this light.

Street vendors were lined up selling breakfast, and most people walking towards the subway station hadn’t opened their eyes yet. Electric bikes and motorcycles quickly overtook them, and Hu Xiu felt quite at ease.

It would take about forty minutes to bike there, so Diao Zhiyu, in all his free time, had come to take her to work. That was something only young people would do.

As they waited at a traffic light, he opened and closed his hand, then pressed it against his neck, refusing to talk to Hu Xiu.

Her ears were either frozen or shy, turning bright red all the way there. Hu Xiu sat stiffly for twenty minutes, her back aching. She thought to herself that sitting on the back of a bike for so long was really uncomfortable, and she said to the rider who was focused on the traffic light, “I’ll just find a shared bike...”

“No...”

“Brother, you still have at least twenty minutes. I can ride one myself, and you can just accompany me.”

“You doubt my stamina?”

“I’m afraid you’ll get tired...” especially after coming to my place at four in the morning to confess.

“It’s a man’s job to work hard. A man can’t say no.”

What a mess! Hu Xiu leaned against him and wrapped her arm around his waist—if you’re not tired, I am.

The body she was holding stiffened for a second, and he pedaled even harder. Hu Xiu thought, maybe the shortcomings of youth weren’t always regrets.

For example, she hadn’t ridden on the back of a handsome boy’s bike in high school. Now she was not only sitting on it but also hugging him, and the boy was devastatingly handsome, and more importantly, he was chasing her!

The scent of his laundry detergent, floral and fresh like sunshine, filled the air. The young boy’s bike was faster than the other bikes, and as he stood up to pedal, he exuded a vibrant youthfulness, like a long-lost youth film.

Wait, how did he know she would be leaving at 7:30?

When they reached the hospital, Diao Zhiyu parked his bike in front of a breakfast shop and asked, “What do you usually eat?”

“Soup dumplings...”

“Let’s go...”

“You-” Before she could finish, Hu Xiu saw Pei Zhen and cursed silently in her heart. Why did this love triangle never end?

Of course, Pei Zhen hadn’t reacted yet. He was wearing a thin jacket over the black shirt Hu Xiu had given him for Christmas. He was carrying two large boxes of soup dumplings, clearly for Hu Xiu. Seeing the two of them together, his expression was very unnatural.

There was an empty table at the end, and Diao Zhiyu said, “Don’t leave, let’s eat together. I haven’t had soup dumplings in a long time.”

Pei Zhen smiled, “Then let’s eat together. I bought three servings, and I’ll give Doctor Jin’s share to Diao Zhiyu.”

Diao Zhiyu immediately replied, “Thank you.”

Hu Xiu wanted to find a hole to hide in.

Even handsome guys didn’t look good eating soup dumplings. When they opened their mouths, it was like a big, bloody mouth. When they slurped the soup and got scalded, they showed their big white teeth. The boxes were empty in no time.

One was so hungry after working the night shift and attending an early morning meeting, and the other had been pedaling for forty minutes. Hu Xiu watched the two men eat like hungry wolves, and she felt like she was sitting on a hot seat, forced to choose between two equally difficult options.

It was like asking a starving person to choose between a feast and a delicacy; their first reaction would be to wonder if they were going to be executed the next day.

She couldn’t eat her soup dumplings because she was too hot wrapped in her down jacket. As soon as she put down her chopsticks, Diao Zhiyu pushed a tissue towards her, “Where are you going tonight? Do you want me to pick you up?”

Pei Zhen handed her a straw and a cup of soy milk, “There’s a report to write about the medical insurance inspection. The vice president just asked you to go to a meeting with the secretary and the secretary.”

Before Hu Xiu could answer, her colleague, a senior nurse, saw her and said, “Oh, Xiao Hu, you’re having breakfast with Doctor Pei early in the morning. Oh, this boy looks pretty good. What’s your name?”

“I’m Diao Zhiyu.” Diao Zhiyu shook hands with her.

“Xiao Hu, you’re amazing. A man harvester? But you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Our little Pei can’t handle this.”

Pei Zhen smiled and looked at the time, “Hu Lao shi, we should go back to the hospital. Diao Zhiyu must have something to do too, right?”

The only one embarrassed is me. Before her colleague left, Hu Xiu regretted eating breakfast. She should have just bought a sandwich and gone to the office. She didn’t need the whole hospital to know about her breakfast date with two handsome guys.

When the three of them went outside, Diao Zhiyu froze. Hu Xiu followed his gaze—oh no, where was his bike?

The spot where he had parked his bike was empty. People were walking back and forth on the narrow road, blocking and then revealing the view. The British green bike was nowhere to be found.

They searched for about fifteen minutes. Pei Zhen said without a hint of schadenfreude, “It’s easy for a bike like that to be stolen in a place like this. There are all kinds of people coming and going, so you have to be careful.”

Diao Zhiyu mumbled, “You guys go first...”

Diao Zhiyu’s plan to impress Hu Xiu by taking her to work on his bike had failed on the first day. Hu Xiu sat at her desk, feeling a headache coming on. She searched online for the SAVORELLO bike and asked her colleague Li Ai, “It’s so expensive...”

“His was a limited edition. Why, do you want to buy one?”

“Long story...” Hu Xiu looked at her bank balance. Forget it, since Diao Zhiyu had quit his Snowpiercer job, she would just consider this as payment for the murder mystery games he had taken her to. As long as she didn’t have to deal with Diao Zhiyu directly, she would be fine.

As soon as she sat down, she received a message from Chen Yang. Even though they were in separate offices, the gossip was strong, “Hu Xiu, is your boyfriend a big handsome guy?”

“No. Focus on your work.”

“My senior saw you and said you secretly got a TV drama male lead. ‘Gao’—that word is not simple. So, what’s the deal between you and Doctor Pei?”

Hu Xiu rolled her eyes inwardly, thinking, Friends, huh? She sat behind the vice president, urgently proofreading, her head aching, as if words were bullets shooting into her eyes.

Her colleague sure had a vivid imagination. After seeing two men sitting opposite each other in the morning, she could come up with such a dramatic story. Was she running a neighborhood committee?

After being confessed to at 4 AM and then biking for 40 minutes at 7:30 AM, Hu Xiu felt like her soul had left her body.

After a meeting with the secretary, her phone was flooded with screenshots. The caption read, “A beautiful woman sitting between two handsome men while enjoying soup dumplings.” A new piece of hospital gossip.

Well, it wasn’t entirely wrong. Handsome men were rare, and Diao Zhiyu was even rarer. Usually confined to murder mystery rooms, he was now out in the open, shining brightly. Hu Xiu, a completely ordinary girl, felt like she didn’t deserve him.

“Xiao Hu, is the report ready? Let’s go...”

Hu Xiu took a deep breath, took off her down jacket, and walked out with the vice president, head held high. The medical insurance service was very effective, and the report needed to be presented to the TV station, so a formal translation was required.

She took off her pink down jacket, revealing a gray suit underneath. She looked very plain, especially with her black-framed glasses.

But her professional skills were top-notch. After proofreading the draft for the vice president, she sat behind him and, as soon as she stepped into the booth, she became the English-speaking ambassador of the hospital, with a standard British accent. No one else in the entire hospital could match her.

There were many media outlets in the large conference room, snapping photos of the vice president’s report. Hu Xiu lowered her head and listened attentively, her voice soft yet steady. It was strange, but she felt like her confidence was overflowing.

She hadn’t realized until now that she was actually a competitive person. The more nervous she was, the better she performed. Even when the vice president spoke without pausing, she could translate smoothly.

She took a sip of water during a break and remembered a graduate-level training course on conference interpretation. We had to translate seven or eight minutes of dialogue without taking notes, and the information had to be quickly reorganized in our brains and then translated into Chinese. Two teachers taught the course at the same time, and they would often take us to real-world government meetings for practical training.

Everyone was on the verge of a breakdown back then, but after the course, we were no longer afraid of long-term interpretation.

She was capable after all. Maybe it was because she was being chased by two handsome guys that gave her this boost of confidence.

Pei Zhen was standing outside the door. Maybe he was just passing by, but she saw the appreciative look in his eyes.

So it wasn’t like she had absolutely no appeal.

After work, Hu Xiu was thinking about going home to get some sleep when Pei Zhen texted her, “Want to have dinner together tonight? I just finished surgery, so I might be a bit late. But I don’t have much time before I go abroad.”

Before Hu Xiu could reply, Diao Zhiyu appeared at the door.

Seeing her, he greeted her casually, “I’ll take you to REGARD.”

“I’m tired... I want to go home to sleep.”

“Then I’ll take you back. You’re a bit weak. You can’t sleep right after staying up all night.”

“Because you have so much energy, you can come to my place at four in the morning and still have your eyes wide open now.”

“I have more than just energy. You should try it, and you’ll be scared.”

Hu Xiu was stunned and speechless. Diao Zhiyu hadn’t expected her to be so easily flustered, and he scratched his head awkwardly, changing the subject, “Don’t buy a new bike. It’s okay if it’s lost. Don’t stress about it.”

“After all, you gave me a ride, so I can afford to buy a new one.”

“I’m a man, how can I let a woman pay? You’ve been to Snowpiercer seventeen times, which is 8500 yuan. You’ve spent enough on me.” His eyes seemed a bit apologetic.

“Why are you bringing up gender? Let’s settle this one matter at a time, don’t try to confuse things.”

Her phone vibrated in her hand. Pei Zhen, who had just come out, saw Diao Zhiyu and immediately understood the situation.

The boy in front of him was seriously competing with him. He had never encountered such a situation before and didn’t know how to react. If he turned around and left, it would be impolite...

But Pei Zhen smiled suddenly and looked at his watch, “There’s a Cantonese restaurant nearby. Let’s go eat dinner together.”

Diao Zhiyu didn’t say anything. His expression was one of calm confidence, like Qin Xiaoying facing Ning Zechen. He was defensive without being aggressive, always aware of his opponent’s weaknesses, and he would wait for the right moment to strike. Hu Xiu felt a sense of unease.

They ordered a variety of dishes, including clay pot rice, roast meat, curry beef, and pineapple buns. Hu Xiu was so sleepy that her eyelids were drooping, but she was also very nervous.

There were two large leather sofas, and the seats opposite them were empty. Pei Zhen had sat down first, but when another customer left, he moved to make room for Hu Xiu, and Diao Zhiyu naturally took the seat next to her. It was so childish!

Before they could even take a bite, the white rice on their plates had turned into a colorful feast. The two men were clamping vegetables for her, each picking a piece of food and placing it on her plate, as if they were dealing cards. Diao Zhiyu was expected, but Pei Zhen, a 32-year-old associate professor, was also being so serious?

Men will always be boys.

“Hu Xiu, do you prefer roast meat or braised pork?”

Why don’t you just ask me if I prefer my father or my mother?

“This beef might be a bit hot. Let me blow on it for you.”

“Hu Xiu, the pineapple bun is delicious. I’ll feed you.”

I have hands and a mouth...

“Is the drink too cold? I remember you get menstrual cramps.”

“The fish balls are cold. Eat the hot beef tendon instead.”

What are you doing? Having a rap battle? Trying to see who can rhyme better?

The surrounding customers were all glancing at their table. An elderly lady, speaking loudly in Shanghainese, which Hu Xiu could understand, said, “Oh dear, look at these young girls nowadays, so bold. She’s got two guys wrapped around her finger.”

Hu Xiu’s pineapple bun wasn’t as cold and refreshing as it should have been. Her heart was racing. She swallowed the food awkwardly, unable to speak. After a while, she started hiccupping.

The two men, one patted her back while the other stroked her head. The hiccups continued, one after another, making her feel breathless.

Pei Zhen said, “Oh no, she might need to see a gastroenterologist.”

Diao Zhiyu said, “Maybe she should just go home and get some sleep. She’s been staying up too late.”

Pei Zhen frowned, “How do you know she’s been staying up late?”

Diao Zhiyu answered quickly, “I was downstairs at her place at four in the morning.”

“Enough!”

Slamming the table, Hu Xiu felt like she had seen this cliché scene in a TV drama. At that time, she had scoffed at the unrealistic plot, but now that she was experiencing it herself, she felt like she was sitting on pins and needles.

The two men were as still as statues, their chopsticks and spoons poised as if they were her left and right arms.

Hu Xiu said, “Diao Zhiyu, get out of my way.” She stood up and forcefully pushed Diao Zhiyu aside, then sat down opposite them, took off her down jacket, revealing a tailored suit, a white shirt, and a bodycon skirt. She sat up straight, glaring at the two men, her demeanor stern and imposing. “You two, combined, are almost as tall as the Yan’an Elevated Road. How can your emotional intelligence be so low?

Pei Zhen, you’re a resident physician in plastic surgery. Aren’t you supposed to be on night shift?

Diao Zhiyu, don’t follow me to the hospital anymore. Even if you’ve quit your job, mind your own business. Whether you become a director or work for someone else, during work hours, stay away from me!”

“This is off-duty time...”

“Shut up!” Hu Xiu was so angry she was fuming. “I have to work too. I’m a translator, and I’m going to rely on my abilities to make a living.”

“What does that have to do with us?”

“Of course it does. Society has a lot of stereotypes. People like me, who look ordinary, when you two feed me like this, what will people think?

So many eyes are on me. Being surrounded by handsome men like you will make people think I’m a brainless heroine in a romance novel.”

“Oh...” Diao Zhiyu glanced at Pei Zhen meaningfully.

“What do you mean?”

“Forget it, don’t say it.” Diao Zhiyu stopped Pei Zhen.

“Tell me!” Hu Xiu was furious.

Pei Zhen’s voice was soft and hesitant, “It’s just... like... a sexy female teacher with an explosive figure, wearing black stockings and high heels, teaching while seducing her students, and then... and then...”

“And then what?” What seduction? What teaching?

“SM...” It was Pei Zhen who said it.

Hu Xiu grabbed her clothes and bag and ran out, her steps getting faster and faster. Men’s minds were filled with such filth!

An AV actress? How shameless and vulgar! She had just run a few meters when she heard footsteps, more than one. In a few seconds, those tall men would catch up to her.

At that moment, she was pretending to be angry, but she was actually smiling. On the battlefield of love and business, she was a fearless warrior who could overcome any obstacle. But she hated it when her opponents were so casual and gave up easily. Encountering such a situation in her life was like winning the lottery. The only thing was, she would never wear black stockings again!