Pretty young anchorwoman: Big brother, come into my bowl!

the next day.

Sunlight streamed through the gap in the slightly ajar curtains, landing precisely on Xu Qingyi's eyelids. She frowned, burying her face deeper into the pillow, letting out a soft whimper like a small animal. The bed was paradise; reality was an abyss.

"Buzzing—"

The phone kept vibrating on the bedside table, and two big words appeared on the screen: Mengmeng.

Xu Qingyi struggled to reach out a hand, groped for the phone, and said in a sticky voice like unmelted malt candy, "Hello... Mengmeng..."

"Xu! Qing! Yi!" came She Mengmeng's energetic and penetrating voice from the other end of the phone, "Is the sun already high in the sky? What time did you stream until last night? Judging from your voice, you just crawled out of the Spider Cave, didn't you?"

"No way..." Xu Qingyi tried to explain, but her voice was soft and unconvincing, "It's just... a little bit late..."

She turned over and pulled the blanket tighter, as if that would block out She Mengmeng's "noise attack".

"A little bit? I don't believe you for a second!" She Mengmeng exposed her bluntly. "Get up! I brought you pan-fried buns from that super popular place in the east of the city. If you don't get up, I'll suck all the soup inside!"

Pan-fried buns! From the same place in the east of the city!

Xu Qingyi's stomach rumbled in perfect unison. The allure of the delicious food instantly overcame the desire to stay in bed.

"Get up! Get up right now! Leave me two... no, leave me three!" Xu Qingyi instantly became more and more awake, and tried to sit up with a somersault... but failed, and instead slowly writhed to sit up.

"You have ten minutes! No time to lose!" She Mengmeng said sternly and slammed the phone down.

With her hair sticking out even more wildly after sleeping, Xu Qingyi slowly shuffled off the bed like a koala, shuffling towards the bathroom in her bear-patterned slippers.

The cool water splashed on my face, and it was finally a successful start-up. The person in the mirror still had slightly puffy eyes, but at least looked somewhat human.

The doorbell rang at just the right moment, ding-dong, ding-dong, like a death knell.

As soon as the door opened, She Mengmeng rushed in like a gust of wind, carrying two fragrant paper bags in one hand and pinching Xu Qingyi's cheek without any politeness with the other: "Tsk tsk, look at those dark circles under your eyes, which wild man did you have a three hundred rounds with last night?"

"Get lost!" Xu Qingyi slapped her hand away, her eyes fixed on the paper bag. "No wild men, but there is a wild cat. It was just nestled in my arms."

The little lion smelled the aroma and came over on its short legs, circling around She Mengmeng's feet and meowing.

The two sat cross-legged on the living room carpet, the aroma of pan-fried buns filling the air.

Xu Qingyi couldn't wait to bite into one, and the scalding hot and delicious soup instantly filled her mouth, making her gasp for breath, but she couldn't bear to spit it out.

"Mmm...a delicious treat!" She squinted her eyes in satisfaction.

"Eat slowly, no one's going to take it from you." She Mengmeng handed over a tissue with a look of disgust, then picked one up for herself. "By the way, how was your live stream last night? You looked so lazy before you went offline, did you lose the PK?"

"How is that possible!" Xu Qingyi instantly perked up, swallowed the bun in her mouth, and began to recount the "thrilling" battle of last night with great enthusiasm, "...You don't know, in the last ten seconds, Rabbit and the others made a series of swift moves, and the health bar 'whooshed' back to the top! It was so cool! And then Jin Duoduo..."

She vividly described Jin Duoduo's "buttock book" performance.

"Pfft, hahaha! Jin Duoduo? She went to Douyin?..."

Jin Duoduo knew this too; they had connected quite a few times when they were with the whale.

Upon hearing this, She Mengmeng laughed so hard she slapped her thigh.

After laughing enough, She Mengmeng wiped away the tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes and changed the subject: "Seriously, didn't Auntie just urge you yesterday? Have you booked your plane ticket yet? It'll be a few days, right?"

Xu Qingyi paused in her eating of the steamed bun, her face falling: "I've ordered it... Ugh, just thinking about being interrogated when I get back makes my scalp tingle. 'Do you have a boyfriend?' 'How much do you earn?' 'When are you bringing him home to meet us?'... Just thinking about it makes me suffocate."

She imitated her relatives' tone of voice perfectly.

"Pfft, it's a shame you're not a comedian with that kind of imitation talent." She Mengmeng laughed heartily. "Just copy me, when asked, it's always 'Looking for it, looking for it,' 'Enough to support myself and the kitten,' 'Almost there, almost there!' The standard answers, you can fool people to the extreme!"

“Will this work…” Xu Qingyi sighed and poked the last pan-fried bun. “The key is the live stream! My mom doesn’t know yet, and I don’t know what to say.”

“That is indeed a problem.” She Mengmeng stroked her chin, looking like a strategist. “How about… you pretend to go to bed early tonight? And then hide under the covers… No, that’s too obvious. Or… find an excuse to say you have to work overtime tonight? An online meeting?”

The two huddled together and whispered and discussed "counter-surveillance" strategies for a long time, from "hiding on the balcony when the signal is bad" to "pretending to study online classes." Each plan was more outrageous than the last, and in the end, they laughed so hard they almost fell over.

"Forget it, forget it," Xu Qingyi laughed until her stomach hurt, waving her hand, "Let's take it one step at a time, at worst... I'll just say I'm working as an online customer service representative! Well, a chat-based customer service representative, that counts as customer service too!"

"Pfft! Your customer service costs are really high, you even have to bring your own talent performance!" She Mengmeng rolled her eyes. "Fine, good luck to you. I have to go, I have a date this afternoon."

That despicable woman, who forgets all principles for the sake of beauty.