My Blind Date Looks Very Fierce

Chapter 16

At 2:30 PM, Cao An declined the invitation to come inside for tea and drove away.

“Are you tired from all the walking?” Jiang Tao asked, changing into her slippers, a bit worried about her grandmother.

“I’m fine, but I need a nap. We’ll talk about Cao An when I wake up,” her grandmother said.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” Jiang Tao muttered softly.

Her grandmother laughed and went to the bathroom, then headed straight to her bedroom to sleep.

Jiang Tao didn't feel tired. She took off her coat and started cleaning the house, hoping to spare her grandmother some work. She wiped the tables and cabinets and mopped the floors. Before she knew it, an hour had passed.

Jiang Tao lay down on her bed. Just as she started to relax, her phone buzzed with new messages.

Cao An was sending her the photos he had taken today, one after another. Jiang Tao turned over, her phone beside her, waiting until no new photos appeared on the screen. Then she scrolled to the top and began looking through them.

The first photos were all solo shots of her grandmother. The old lady knew how to pose and exuded a natural, confident charm, making each picture look particularly comfortable and genuine.

Jiang Tao remembered when she was in elementary school, there were often old men trying to court her grandmother, only to be turned down every time.

Inspired by TV dramas, young Jiang Tao once guiltily asked her grandmother, “Are you not remarrying because you need to take care of me?”

Her grandmother, knitting on the sofa, looked at her with an amused expression and said, “Don’t flatter yourself. My not remarrying has nothing to do with you. It might have been a bit tough raising you before, but now that you’re so considerate and helpful, my life is easy and carefree. Why would I need another old man? Would he cook for me or do my laundry? Most likely, I’d end up taking care of him. Only a fool would fall for that.”

Thinking about it now, Jiang Tao realized her grandmother was truly wise.

Back to the photos, Jiang Tao gradually noticed that every picture Cao An took had a special touch.

She opened her own photo album and compared the photos of her grandmother taken from the same angles. Cao An's looked like professional portraits, while hers were just ordinary phone snapshots, lacking in quality.

In the middle were photos of her with her grandmother.

Jiang Tao: ...

She felt a bit narcissistic—why did she look so good in the photos?

The last twenty or so photos were solo shots of Jiang Tao. The more she looked, the more she suspected that Cao An might have studied photography.

After the photos, there was a text message: "There's also one from the boat. Should I send it?"

Jiang Tao remembered her awkward pose and, though she knew it would look silly, she still wanted to see just how silly.

Jiang Tao: Sure, send it over.

A few seconds later, a photo arrived.

On the wooden hand-rowed boat, with the clear blue sky and lake as the backdrop, Jiang Tao looked at the camera with an extremely unnatural expression, her smile so stiff it seemed as if someone were pointing a gun at her from the other side.

Jiang Tao: You can delete that.

The photo soon disappeared.

Cao An: How about the other ones?