The first time Jiang Zhixia officially went to meet the parents, she successfully turned the tables and performed well in the evening and cooked dinner for the Xia family.
Compared to the lunch, this meal was a real feast, with five dishes and a soup, all delicious and tasty, and the four members of the Xia family were full of praise. Even Alice got a big bone stick that was cooked deliciously, and her depressed mood was swept away. She lay on the table and gnawed until her tail was wagging.
Sheng Mingyan and Xia Junmei had a very good impression of Jiang Zhixia to begin with, and now they couldn't be more satisfied. The couple looked at their son eating with gusto, and Jiang Zhixia helping their son peel shrimps, and they were very pleased: their son could find such a good partner who was both capable of housework and cooking, so at least he didn't have to worry about going hungry.
As for Sheng Yingying, she was so moved that her eyes were filled with tears. She sighed in her heart for the Nth time today: How can there be such a perfect person! Not only is he handsome, he can sing, dance, and act, and even his cooking skills are top-notch! This man is simply omnipotent! It's a pity that she can't get such a perfect man, but fortunately, he finally entered their house and didn't give it to others!
After dinner, Jiang Zhixia took the initiative to ask to wash the dishes. Xia Junmei and Sheng Mingyan tried to persuade her for a long time but failed. In the end, they could only watch Jiang Zhixia go into the kitchen with feelings of emotion and guilt.
Xia Zhi still felt sorry for her boyfriend, so she went in to help.
Seeing this, Xia Junmei asked Sheng Yingying to go in and help. However, Sheng Yingying ran to the kitchen door and turned around before coming back - the kitchen was full of the sour smell of love. If she went in to help, not only would they not thank her, they might even dislike her for being an eyesore.
This light bulb is still not made well!
Jiang Zhixia successfully conquered everyone in the Xia family with a meal. Sheng Mingyan and Xia Junmei looked at him as if he were their own son, with eyes full of love; Sheng Yingying also treated him with the same enthusiasm as if he were her own brother, calling him "Brother Zhixia" left and right, and was very affectionate; even Alice, who had always been lukewarm, became much friendlier after Jiang Zhixia fed her a delicious big bone stick, and would take the initiative to rub against him when she was in a good mood.
Xia Zhi and Jiang Zhixia both had to go to work tomorrow, so after dinner they sat for a while before preparing to leave. Everyone felt reluctant to see them off and walked them downstairs together.
"Zhixia, come often in the future." Xia Junmei stood beside Xia Zhi, but her eyes were fixed on Jiang Zhixia in the driver's seat, with a look as loving as it could be. "Xia Xia, if you don't have time, just come by yourself. Just give me a call before you come. Your uncle and I will welcome you anytime."
Xia Zhi: “???”
Jiang Zhixia suppressed her laughter and agreed: "Okay. Xia Xia and I will come to see you and uncle another day."
Sheng Yingying leaned against the window on the driver's side and said to Jiang Zhixia reluctantly, "Brother Zhixia, you should come to our house more often."
"I will." Jiang Zhixia raised her hand and patted her head, saying softly, "I'll take you to the crew next time."
Sheng Yingying's eyes suddenly lit up: "Is it okay?"
Jiang Zhixia smiled slightly: "Of course."
Sheng Yingying was so moved that her eyes welled up with tears: "Brother Zhixia, you are so kind, you are my real brother!"
Xia Zhi said in dissatisfaction: "Your brother is here."
However, at this moment, Sheng Yingying's eyes were only focused on her "sister-in-law", the handsome man who was not like her brother but was more like her brother. She didn't even give her own brother a glance.
Xia Junmei and Sheng Mingyan also looked at Jiang Zhixia, one reminded him to drive carefully on the road, and the other reminded him to send them a message when he arrived.
Xia Zhi: “… ”.
Xia Zhi folded her arms and sulked - how come she lost all the favor just because she brought her boyfriend home?! She is not his biological father!
The two returned to Xia Zhi's apartment, and Jiang Zhixia posted a message in the family group saying that she had arrived home safely as promised - the number of members in this family group was only 4 an hour ago. Before Jiang Zhixia left, she added Sheng Yingying as a WeChat friend, and Sheng Yingying immediately added Jiang Zhixia to their family group. Sheng Mingyan and Xia Junmei also expressed their warm welcome in the group.
After returning home, Xia Zhi took a shower. When he came out, he saw Jiang Zhixia still typing away on his phone. He leaned over to take a look and found that he was still chatting in the family group. He reached out and poked him on the shoulder twice, with a slightly dissatisfied tone: "When did you become such a chatterbox that you actually have so much to talk about with them."
Jiang Zhixia smiled, put the phone aside, pulled Xia Zhi to her side, picked up the dry towel that Xia Zhi had just thrown aside, and helped him wipe his hair, while explaining to him: "We are talking about you."
"What do you want to talk about?" Xia Zhi kicked off her slippers, put her legs on the sofa, and lazily lay on Jiang Zhixia's knees.
Jiang Zhixia gently wiped the water off the ends of her hair with a towel, and raised the corners of her mouth slightly: "We are talking about interesting things in your childhood."
"Huh?" Xia Zhi opened his eyes, and when he saw the ambiguous smile on Jiang Zhixia's face, he knew something was wrong. He squinted his eyes and stared at him for a while, then suddenly reached out and took his cell phone.
Jiang Zhixia continued to wipe his hair and did not react at all when his phone was snatched away.
After unlocking the screen, the group chat interface appeared. Xia Zhi scrolled through the chat history. The four of them had chatted a lot while he was taking a shower. A rough estimate was that there should be more than a hundred messages, and about 60% of the messages were contributed by Sheng Yingying.
The topic initially revolved around Jiang Zhixia, but Jiang Zhixia seldom took the initiative to share her work and life, so I didn't know what to say. The two sides kept chatting in a question-and-answer mode, which made the atmosphere more and more dull.
Later, in order to ease the increasingly awkward atmosphere, Sheng Yingying brought the topic to his brother. Seeing that the topic was related to Xia Zhi, Jiang Zhixia really became much more active and would take the initiative to bring up topics.
After Sheng Yingying mastered the correct way to chat with Jiang Zhixia, she immediately became excited and began to tell him about his dark history, risking being hunted down by her own brother. Jiang Zhixia was really interested.
Later, Xia Junmei and Sheng Mingyan found it interesting and started to tell Jiang Zhixia about their son's dark history.
For example, when Xia Zhi was a child, he ate sweets secretly and damaged his teeth. The couple tried various methods but failed to change his bad habit of eating sweets secretly. Later, he went to the hospital to see a dentist and successfully quit sweets.
For example, after going to kindergarten, Xia Zhi wet the bed in the middle of the night. However, the child was too ashamed to tell his parents, so he ran to the bathroom in the middle of the night, filled a basin with water, and washed the sheets naked. Sheng Mingyan got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and was almost scared to death - because Xia Zhi didn't dare to turn on the light for fear of waking up his parents, so he washed in the dark.
Xia Zhi's eyes twitched as he watched. They were truly his own father, mother, and sister!
"If you don't drag me along, there's nothing to talk about, right?"
It would have been fine if he didn't mention it. Once he mentioned it, Jiang Zhixia's smile deepened. He took off the towel, smiled and leaned over to kiss him gently at the corner of his eye: "You were very cute when you were a child."
"Thank you," Xia Zhi was unmoved, "but I don't like this comment at all."
"I like it." Jiang Zhixia's eyes were full of gentle smiles. "Auntie said she would give me your childhood photos next time she goes home. I heard that you wore little skirts when you were a child?"
"..." Xia Zhi explained calmly, "At that time, I had prickly heat on my legs, and the ointment would easily rub off when I put on pants, so I went to my aunt's house and borrowed a skirt that my cousin had worn when she was a child! Just that one time!"
"Yeah," Jiang Zhixia added, "I also wore pigtails."
"..." Xia Zhi hammered the sofa under him, raised his head and angrily questioned his lover, "What did they tell you?"
How much! Did you catch them with something that made them sell out their own sons to please you?"
"Uncle and aunt shared your childhood stories with me because they recognized that I liked you," Jiang Zhixia said, "This is obviously a good thing."
"hehe."
"How about celebrating?" Jiang Zhixia suddenly suggested.
"What are you celebrating?" Xia Zhi asked coldly, "Celebrating that my underwear was stripped off?"
"Celebrate the successful completion of the trip to meet the parents." Jiang Zhixia said, and without waiting for Xia Zhi to express his opinion, he picked him up and walked towards the bedroom.
Xia Zhi leaned on his shoulder, looking hopeless - he had lost all his face, what was there to celebrate!
However, when Jiang Zhixia put him on the bed, put her hands on his ears and leaned over to kiss him, he did not resist and cooperated very well.
-
Since meeting Xia Zhi's family, Jiang Zhixia's mood has obviously improved. On the set, a smile began to appear frequently on that cold face. Although it was not to the extent of laughing out loud, the slightly raised arc at the corners of his mouth was indeed a smile.
Except when filming, Jiang Zhixia's face had no obvious expression at other times, and she didn't show any joy or anger. So when this plain face suddenly began to smile frequently, such an abnormal change quickly attracted the attention of the entire crew.
The staff members were privately wondering what good thing had happened to Jiang Zhixia, as to why she was smiling so happily every day.
"Did he win another award?" Staff member A guessed.
"I haven't heard of any award ceremonies recently." This guess was immediately denied by his gossiping companions, "Our teacher Jiang is not a person who cares about fame and fortune. What kind of award can make him happy for so many days?"
"Is there some happy event at home?" Staff member B guessed.
"What a happy event that would be." As soon as this guess came out, someone immediately responded, "Is someone in the family getting married?"
"Actually..." another person interrupted weakly, "I think given Mr. Jiang's personality, he wouldn't necessarily be this happy even if he got married."
After a brief silence, everyone who was involved in the gossip nodded in agreement.
“That makes sense.”
At this time, a middle-aged man passed by them, heard their discussion and suddenly interrupted slowly.
"You're in love, right?"
All of a sudden, everyone's eyes were focused on him, and they were all quite frightened—Love! Love!
A young girl came up to the man and asked in a low voice, "Is this melon ripe?"
Someone curiously asked, "What was it like to date your first love?"
"I was just laughing foolishly." The middle-aged man put his hands in his pockets, his tone still a little nostalgic, "We had just been together for a short time, and no matter what I did, my girlfriend was in my mind, and I laughed just thinking about it. Later, my roommate told me that my behavior at that time could be summarized by three idioms: spring heart rippling, spring breeze triumphant, spring tide surging."
"Why do they all start with the word 'Spring'?" someone complained in a low voice.
"Because... I'm in heat." The middle-aged man said with a slight smile and left gracefully, leaving everyone in deep thought.
The gossip squad looked at each other in bewilderment. After the middle-aged man pointed it out, they began to think it was true.
Are they really in love?!
After a long silence, someone spoke up weakly: "Actually, it's normal for Teacher Jiang to fall in love. After all, he's not young anymore. It would be abnormal if he didn't fall in love."
"That's right." The others agreed.
"Didn't Mr. Jiang disclose his relationship status on the show earlier? This news isn't too surprising."
"That time he just revealed that he had a crush on someone. Maybe he was still in a state of unrequited love at that time. He probably just got the girl recently. This can explain his abnormally good mood these days."
"What do you think Jiang Zhixia's partner looks like?"
"I guess it's not that bad. Jiang Zhixia should have high standards."
"I don't know if there will be an official announcement. I really want to see what this perfect girl who could attract Jiang Zhixia's heart looks like."
At first, the news about Jiang Zhixia's love affair was just an irresponsible guess, but somehow it became an established fact. Later, this matter, which was originally only discussed in a small circle in the gossip team, somehow spread throughout the entire crew.
That day, Jiang Chi and the driver arrived at the apartment building in Xia Zhi Community at 6:30 in the morning as usual to pick up Jiang Zhixia.
Jiang Chi called Jiang Zhixia to let her know they had arrived, and then waited patiently in the car. Jiang Chi sat in his seat, browsing Weibo, while the driver leaned over the steering wheel and stared at the high-rise building in front of him, his eyes full of scrutiny.
Jiang Chi caught a glimpse of his actions from the corner of his eye, frowned slightly, put down his phone and asked him: "What are you looking at?"
"Nothing." The driver probably sensed the vigilance in Jiang Chi's tone, and immediately retracted his gaze and smiled at him as if nothing had happened.
Jiang Chi still stared at him suspiciously.
The driver pretended to glance to the side casually, but happened to meet Jiang Chi's scrutinizing gaze, and quickly retracted his gaze guiltily.
Jiang Chi's suspicion deepened. However, he did not think the driver had any bad intentions. When he was in City C, this driver was responsible for picking up Jiang Zhixia. After working together for more than half a year, both parties knew each other better.
The driver is an honest man, he has no bad intentions, good temper and is very reliable. However, he does have some shortcomings, that is, he is very curious. He likes to get together with a group of girls to talk about gossip in the entertainment industry. Moreover, he can't hide anything in his heart. If he has something on his mind, he can't help but blurt it out without waiting for others to ask him.
So Jiang Chi was not in a hurry to ask, and he leisurely browsed Weibo. When the driver couldn't hold it in any longer, he just blurted it out without Jiang Chi asking.
Sure enough, within a minute, the driver couldn't bear it anymore.
"Xiao Chi," the driver moved closer to Jiang Chi. Although there were two other people in the car, he lowered his voice on purpose. It was obvious that he wanted to chat about gossip.
"What's wrong?" Jiang Chi asked, trying not to laugh.
The driver used a more euphemistic approach and spoke to Jiang Chi in a casual tone, "Teacher Jiang seems to be in a good mood recently. Did something good happen to you?"
As soon as the driver started talking, Jiang Chi knew his purpose. The news about Jiang Zhixia's love affair was spreading in the group these days, and he had heard about it. Many people who were close to him came to him to ask about it indirectly. Although Jiang Chi knew the truth, he naturally couldn't tell them, so he kept playing tricks on them, and his skills in deceiving them improved day by day.
"Yeah." Jiang Chi pulled the corner of his mouth and began to talk nonsense seriously, "It's almost finished, how can I be in a bad mood? Haven't you noticed that I've been in a good mood these days?"
"Ah?" The driver was stunned and asked in disbelief, "Just because of this?"
"Yes." Jiang Chi's tone was very sincere, "You've worked hard for half a year and it's about to end. Aren't you happy?"
"Well... I'm actually quite happy." The driver scratched his head, as if he thought this reason was quite reasonable, but he also felt that something was a little strange. But before he could figure it out, Jiang Zhixia had already gone downstairs, and the topic was forced to end.
Although he successfully fooled the driver, Jiang Chi was still a little worried. It seemed that the entire crew was paying attention to whether Jiang Zhixia was in a relationship. The filming was about to be completed, so he hoped that there would be no more complications.
The rumor that Jiang Zhixia was in a relationship spread more and more in the crew, and finally even the director Zheng Bin heard about it. Zheng Bin was also a straightforward person, so after filming a scene that day, while the staff were setting up the scenery for the next scene, he chatted with Jiang Zhixia who was sitting next to him. After chatting about the play for a few words, he suddenly changed the subject and asked bluntly: "I heard that you are in a relationship?"
Zheng Bin's voice was not small. There were quite a few people around the two of them at the time. In an instant, time seemed to have stopped, and the surrounding staff members froze for a moment. The voices of the people around them also disappeared in an instant, and everyone looked at Jiang Zhixia.
Jiang Zhixia, who was reading the script, raised her head and glanced at Zheng Bin indifferently, then asked calmly, "Where did you hear that?"
"Uh..." Zheng Bin was about to point his finger at the gossiping crowd around him who were listening intently, but he saw them waving their hands at him frantically. So he laughed dryly and turned a blind eye to Jiang Zhixia, "Don't worry about where you heard it from. Is this true or not?"
Jiang Zhixia lowered his head and continued reading the script without saying a word.
Zheng Bin couldn't help but raise his eyebrows when he saw this: "Since she didn't deny it, then she is pregnant?"
Jiang Zhixia remained silent, but some sharp-eyed people noticed that the corners of Zheng Bin's mouth rose slightly after he finished speaking.
So, the next day, word spread among the crew that Jiang Zhixia was really in love! She even admitted it herself!
-
Since Jiang Zhixia moved in, Xia Zhi seldom ate out for three meals a day. Breakfast and dinner were cooked by Jiang Zhixia, and lunch was a bento prepared the night before, which could be eaten the next day after being heated in the microwave for a few minutes. Therefore, Xia Zhi came to school to work every day these days with a bag in one hand and a bento box in the other, exuding the aura of a family man.
Later, a student secretly took a photo of him at work and posted it on the U University forum, which immediately sparked a heated discussion on the forum. After a fierce discussion, the students finally came to a unanimous conclusion - their idol professor has a wife!!!
Xia Zhi's love affair had a great impact on U University, especially for the majority of U University female students and some of the male students. It was a tragedy that made everyone sad and cry. Therefore, the U University forum immediately exploded, and seven out of ten posts were discussing Xia Zhi.
Like Jiang Zhixia, no matter what the outside world was talking about, Xia Zhi, as the person involved, knew nothing about it.
After finishing the last class in the morning, Xia Zhi returned to the office and prepared to enjoy the lunch box her boyfriend had prepared for her. As soon as she took the heated lunch box out of the microwave, Sheng Yingying called.
"Brother!" Sheng Yingying's roar was still as powerful as ever when she opened her mouth.
Xia Zhi's hands shook and the lunch box almost fell to the ground.
"What's wrong?" He casually placed his lunch box on the desk and took out a tissue to wipe the soup that accidentally stained his fingers.
Sheng Yingying said in a serious tone: "You and Brother Zhixia are on the hot search together!"
Xia Zhi was stunned. When he heard that they were both on the hot search, his first reaction was - their relationship was exposed? When he thought of this possibility, although he was surprised, he was not particularly nervous.
Xia Zhi pulled a chair over and sat down, picking up a piece of braised eggplant. While eating, he asked calmly, "What's trending? Someone broke the news that we are in a relationship?"
"…" Sheng Yingying paused for a moment and asked in disbelief, "No, this is how you react when your relationship is exposed! Shouldn't you be panicking and fidgeting?"
Xia Zhi was a little amused: "We are in a serious relationship, not having an affair, there is no need to be nervous."
"That's true." Sheng Yingying was convinced, but said regretfully, "But I may disappoint you. This time it's not because of the exposure of the relationship that it's on the hot search."
"What's that?" Xia Zhi felt that if the relationship wasn't on the hot search, then there was no need to worry, so he picked up the coffee at hand and took a sip leisurely.
Sheng Yingying told him on the phone: "It is now rumored on the Internet that you and Brother Zhixia are not getting along privately."
"Cough cough!" Xia Zhi almost choked. He tore off a piece of paper to wipe the collar of his clothes with a confused expression on his face.
"Not suitable? In what way?"
(End of this chapter)