After a long while, she finally spoke. "Xiao Xi, do you have any idea how dangerous what you did was? Just because someone said a few random words, you went off with them. What if they were lying to you? If they sold you off, would you still be helping them count the money? You’re not a kid anymore, you’re already in your twenties, and you’re a public figure now. Don’t you know that in the worst case, you could lose your life doing something like that?"

Right now, Song Qiao was really furious, so angry she wanted to crack open Song Xi’s head to see if it had turned into cotton candy, coming over with someone like that without considering any consequences or bad possibilities at all.

Besides, even if the other party was telling the truth and she really was worried about her, she still couldn’t just stupidly follow along like that.

The more she thought about it, the more Song Qiao felt a tight ball of anger stuck in her chest.

Song Xi just stood there obediently, not saying a word. The moment she’d found her sister, the heart she’d been holding up finally settled, so she let Song Qiao scold her however she wanted, because for the first time she felt that her sister’s voice sounded so nice.

So warm it made her heart feel all soft.

She knew her sister was only doing it for her own good.

Hearing Song Qiao’s words, Nan Moyan paused in the motion of sitting down, and instinctively lifted his eyes to look at Song Qiao, who was staring angrily at Song Xi while lecturing her. In the end he only hesitated for a few seconds before sitting down again.

Ping-ge stood off to the side listening to Song Qiao, and instantly felt indignant on behalf of his boss. He couldn’t hold it in and spoke with open disdain, "If our boss was really as bad as you’re imagining, do you think you and your mother-in-law would still be alive right now?"

Song Qiao’s voice faltered. She subconsciously looked at Ping-ge, then at Nan Moyan, and finally said, "I was just making an analogy, that’s all."

Ping-ge, "..." She was obviously pointing at the mulberry tree to curse the locust tree.

Nan Moyan sat down at the dining table, still expressionless, and said directly to the people in the middle, "Everyone, sit down and eat first."

As he spoke, his gaze fell back on Song Qiao and the others, and he said lightly, "You come over and eat too."

Song Xi stayed where she was, her eyes fixed on Nan Moyan.

Instead, it was Song Qiao who was already used to this. After all, she’d prepared these dishes herself. The hotpot ingredients had been bought by them, but the stir-fried dishes were done by her, since the cooking skills of those two little underlings were simply unbearable.

She took Xu Qian by the hand and said, "Mom, let’s eat first. Xiao Xi, you too..."

...

Jiang Yingjie couldn’t find Song Xi. A full day and night had passed, and Song Xi still hadn’t come to him, not even a call or a text. When he called her, the prompt said the phone was switched off, and the texts he sent got no reply.

After he brought Tan Shuya back to Shallow Bay Villa, she immediately came down with a high fever. But she wouldn’t let him examine her; instead, agitated, she insisted he take her to the hospital and hand her over to a specific female doctor she named to do the check-up.

Standing at the ward door, he watched the female doctor inside giving Tan Shuya an examination and putting her on an IV. Jiang Yingjie leaned against the wall, phone in hand, calling Song Xi three times in a row, but it was still the same switched-off message.

The man’s face was extremely grim. He’d already called Song Xi’s agent just now, but the other party said Song Xi hadn’t gone back at all.

Jiang Yingjie knew Song Xi’s father had died a few years ago, and not long after his death, her mother had left her behind and run off with a younger man.

Now, with Song Qiao having been set up and kidnapped by Tan Shuya, the Song Family villa had been auctioned off two years ago. Since he also lived in a villa district, and because Song Xi was always filming, whenever she came back she stayed at his villa.

Song Xi hadn’t bought a place in An City. She really seemed to be planning to entrust her whole life to him, so you could say that in An City she had nowhere to go, no place to stay, unless she went to a hotel.

But her ID card was with him now. When they were staying in the hotel together, she hadn’t had a cent on her, just a phone.

A bad premonition flashed through his mind. Jiang Yingjie immediately opened his contacts, found a number, and dialed. The person on the other end picked up quickly.

"Hello, Yingjie? What’s up, calling me?"

Jiang Yingjie tried to keep his tone level as he said, "Help me check if Song Xi has checked into that hotel in An City."

Aside from a hotel, he couldn’t think of anywhere else.

The person on the other end was quiet for over ten seconds, then tentatively asked, "Hey, Yingjie, you didn’t have a fight with Goddess Song, did you? Or did you, once again, do something to let her down because of the Tan Family’s young lady?"

Jiang Yingjie pressed his lips together without answering.

The other party immediately felt he’d guessed right and hurriedly said, "Yingjie, I’m telling you, no matter how easygoing that girl is, if you keep hurting her over and over again because of another woman, you’re going to regret it sooner or later. And we told you before, that Tan Shuya woman is not as good as you think. Song Xi loves you so much, really loves you... If you let her down again, you’ll be the one picking up sesame seeds and dropping a watermelon. You’ll regret it..."

"Are you going to help me check or not? What are you rambling on for?" Before the other person could go on, Jiang Yingjie cut him off.

The other person immediately said, "Okay, okay, I’ll check right now, all right? I’ll call you back in a bit."

With that, he hung up.

Staring at the call screen that had just gone dark, Jiang Yingjie blanked out for a moment. It was like he’d never actually thought about what he would do if one day Song Xi really left him.

He knew Song Xi loved him—and loved him very, very much.

Precisely because he knew that, he had never seriously considered what would happen if she left.

Because in his mind, he’d always felt that Song Xi would never leave him.

Thinking about how there was still no word from her, a wave of irritability surged in Jiang Yingjie’s chest. He took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and was about to light one when his eyes landed on the "No Smoking" sign opposite him, and he shoved the cigarettes back in his pocket.

The ward door behind him opened. Hearing the sound, Jiang Yingjie turned around and looked at the female doctor coming out, and asked, "How is she?"