In the afternoon cafe, the air conditioning was turned on very sufficiently, but Shen Linyin, sitting by the window, seemed to have anger burning around her whole body that was visible to the naked eye. Her action of stirring the coffee was so big it was like she was stirring cement; the metal spoon hit the cup wall emitting "ding ding dang dang" crisp sounds, making the guests in the neighboring seats tremble with fear.
Until Lin Feng pushed the door and entered, that killing aura of hers, which was almost about to materialize, finally restrained itself a little.
Lin Feng sat down opposite her, did not order, and did not exchange pleasantries, but said straight to the point: "Old Ren asked me to come. He said if you want to hit someone, hit me first; his skin is thin and his health is low so he can't withstand it, he let me come to block the lightning."
Shen Linyin's hand stirring the coffee paused, and she laughed out of extreme anger: "He is actually honest, daring to let you pass on even these kinds of words."
Although her mouth was still being sarcastic, Lin Feng could clearly feel that because of his own honesty, the fire in her eyes dissipated quite a bit. After all, getting angry at a "shield" with a facial paralysis face really held no sense of achievement.
"Let's go." Shen Linyin suddenly stood up, slapping a few banknotes onto the table, "It is too stuffy here, accompany me for a walk."
Lin Feng just stood up, and before he had time to react, Shen Linyin naturally linked her arm with his.
Lin Feng went stiff all over, and his whole person instantly turned into a moving tombstone.
Although he usually always had that high and cold appearance of "No woman in the heart, drawing the sword is naturally god-like", he was after all a physically and mentally sound male university student with normal hormone secretion. Being held so intimately by a girl of the school beauty level, with the soft tactile sensation and faint perfume smell coming from his arm, even if his face was kept tight, the roots of his ears turned red at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"That..." Lin Feng attempted to pull his arm out.
"Don't move." Shen Linyin glared at him, her tone still on the crest of anger, "My mood is very bad right now. If I don't find something to hold onto, I am afraid I will faint from anger. Do you want to let me faint, or do you want me to go back and chop Ren Yichen into eight pieces?"
Lin Feng weighed the pros and cons, and silently chose to abandon resistance. For the sake of his brother's life, sacrificing a little physical appeal was something that couldn't be helped.
The two of them walked along the riverside near the school just like this.
Passersby looked sideways one after another; the male was handsome and the female was beautiful. Although the boy's expression was as stiff as if he had been kidnapped, since the girl was holding him intimately, no matter how one looked, they appeared to be a young couple in the middle of a awkward spat.
This walk lasted for over half an hour.
When passing a small stall selling iron plate squid, Shen Linyin stopped her footsteps.
"I want to eat that." She pointed at the iron plate that was sizzling with oil.
Five minutes later, the two sat on a bench by the river. Shen Linyin held two skewers in her hand, and Lin Feng held three skewers in his.
Lin Feng expressionlessly took a bite of a squid tentacle covered in sauce. The way he ate food was exactly the same as when he played guitar, full of a certain weird sense of ritual and precision, as if executing some rigorous task.
However, reality is cruel. A stubborn squid tentacle sprang up, and deep brown sauce instantly splashed onto the corner of his mouth and the tip of his nose.
Matching his expression of "I am very cool, don't touch daddy", the image appeared incomparably comical.
"Pfft——"
Shen Linyin beside him finally couldn't hold it back and laughed out loud.
She pulled a tissue from her bag, and while laughing, handed it to Lin Feng: "Lin Feng, you this person are really too fun. Clearly you have such a serious face, why does everything you do look like a child who doesn't want to admit he caused trouble?"
"...That was an accident." Lin Feng took the tissue and wiped his mouth indiscriminately, but his heart breathed a sigh of relief.
It is good that she laughed. Laughing means the anger value has already dropped below the safety line.
At this time it was already evening, the afterglow of the setting sun sprinkled on the river surface, and a breeze brushed past, taking away the day's dry heat.
Shen Linyin finished eating the last bite of squid, leaned back on the chair, gazing at the sparkling river surface, and was silent for a long time.
"Lin Feng." Her voice was much lighter, unable to hear the irritability from just now, instead carrying a trace of confusion, "Say, am I really too clingy?"
This is a sending-life question.
But here with Lin Feng, this is a math problem.
"En." Lin Feng nodded without hesitation, "If calculated by seven days a week, you request to meet five times, plus being online on WeChat at all moments, it is indeed slightly a bit much. Boys sometimes need a little... cave time."
If it were someone else being this blunt, Shen Linyin would have turned hostile long ago. But because it was Lin Feng, plus that padlock filter, she actually felt these words were sincere to the point where they could not be refuted.
"Cave time huh..." Shen Linyin muttered to herself, then her eyes lit up, as if she had thought of some marvelous idea.
She turned her head, looking at Lin Feng with burning eyes: "Then since it's like this, later if Ren Yichen wants to drill into his 'cave' and doesn't want to come out, how about you come out to keep me company instead of him?"
Lin Feng's action of drinking water stopped abruptly, and he almost choked to death.
"What?"
"A substitute!" Shen Linyin said as a matter of course, "Look, I want to find someone to go shopping and eat, but he finds it annoying. Then you are my best friend, and also his good brother; you replacing him to accompany me satisfies my needs and also gives him freedom, isn't this the best of three worlds?"
Alarm bells rang loudly in Lin Feng's brain.
What the hell best of three worlds! This is a slide leading to hell, okay!
What kind of dangerous speech is this? This script of "Boyfriend has no time, brother takes his place", in any ethics drama, is the prelude to cheating!
"Absolutely not." Lin Feng put down the water bottle, his face more serious than at any other time.
"Why?" Shen Linyin did not understand, "Didn't we get along quite well just now?"
"This is different." Lin Feng took a deep breath, trying to strangle this dangerous sprout in the cradle, "Second Sister-in-law, you must understand a concept. Boyfriend and male bestie are two completely different species. Time is also not substitutable."
He looked directly into Shen Linyin's eyes, emphasizing one word at a time: "You want to see Ren Yichen because you are his girlfriend, that is an interaction of love. If because you cannot see him, you find me to fill this time blank, that is called emotional transference. This is not only unfair to him, but it is also very dangerous for you and for me."
"We must put an end to all possibilities of a 'good friend' turning into a 'spare tire' or a 'third party'."
Lin Feng felt that he had never spoken such philosophical words with such correct three views in his entire life. He was really working hard to instill the concept of "sense of boundaries" into Shen Linyin.
Hearing these words, Shen Linyin froze.
She looked at Lin Feng's appearance of facing a great enemy, as if guarding some holy bottom line, and her eyes gradually became somewhat profound.
She did not get angry, nor did she refute, she just nodded thoughtfully, the corner of her mouth hooking up into a meaningful arc.
"Sense of boundaries huh... You are right."
She spoke softly, but her gaze still lingered on Lin Feng's face; the things contained in that look made Lin Feng inexplicably feel a burst of chill down his spine.