Sending you a little peach heart.

Chapter 02: The Angry Unicorn

9.

That night, when she took Fang Keqi home, Qiao He sneezed non-stop, her head pounding painfully. She thought she might have caught a cold, unaware that she had already "picked up" a future engagement.

Fang Keqi, slightly drunk, kept insisting on sending a WeChat message to her bald boss, wishing him a future as green as Lazy Goat's grasslands. Qiao He had to put in a lot of effort to stop her. On the way, they ran into a street vendor selling crispy rice snacks. Fang Keqi wouldn't settle for a pound—she insisted on ten pounds and refused to leave until she got them. Then, she wanted to do a pole dance around a streetlight.

Exhausted both physically and mentally, Qiao He recalled a joke she'd seen online: "When someone angers us, don't get mad. Just prepare a pinch of dried tangerine peel, two ounces of licorice, boil them down to one cup, and then pour it on their head while it's still hot."

Right now, she really wanted to pour that hot mixture all over Fang Keqi's face!

While Fang Keqi ran off to buy the crispy rice, Qiao He's small car parked along the roadside, blocking the way. Another car came up behind them, honking to let them know to move.

It was dark, and Qiao He couldn't see what kind of car was behind them. With one arm holding a massive bag of crispy rice and the other restraining Fang Keqi's neck, she made her friend bow apologetically and said, "Sorry, my friend's had a bit too much. Let me get her in the car, and I'll move right away."

The driver behind seemed to lose patience, honking twice more. The honking flustered Qiao He, and as she hurried, she accidentally smacked her head against the car frame with a painful "thunk."

Qiao He clutched her head in both hands, almost in tears.

The window of the car behind her rolled down, and a male voice inside calmly said, "Maybe you should eat fewer crispy rice snacks, so your head doesn't start hardening."

The voice was gentle and young.

Humiliated and in the wrong, Qiao He didn't dare look back. She scrambled to get Fang Keqi settled and stepped on the gas to move out of the way. The car behind quickly swerved around her and sped off.

As the two cars passed, Qiao He felt as if the driver glanced her way. But with the tightly closed windows, she couldn't make out anything about him, not even his shape. Only after he'd driven past did she notice the make: a Brabus, with the last three digits on the license plate—

438!

It was him, it was him again—that sharp-tongued little jerk!

"Who are you calling thick-headed?" came Zhou Yiyang's annoyed voice through the headset.

Huo Tinglan brushed a few stray hairs off his forehead and replied casually, "Wasn't talking about you. You don't even have a brain."

Zhou Yiyang didn't bother arguing. Instead, he said, "You're really not taking that business with Mr. Qin?"

Mr. Qin, a real estate developer, wanted Huo Tinglan to repair an intricate purple clay Ruyi-pattern teapot, claiming it was a masterpiece by a famous artist. He even insisted on hiring Huo and offered an attractive fee if the work turned out well. His attitude was all money and power.

Mr. Qin had grown up poor, and his current wealth was due to his father-in-law's support. But after his father-in-law's death, Qin quickly divorced his sick wife and married someone else.

Disgusted by such a character, Huo had straightforwardly told Zhou, "No, I'm not interested."

Zhou blurted, "Are you...thinking of your mother?"