"Jie, did you sleep with this Yang Menghuo already?"

…

"WHAT?!" I almost choked out of thin air the moment I heard that. Still, with her straight, nonchalant face, Shi Qiang asked me again as if there was nothing wrong with her question.

"Jie, did you sleep with this Yang Menghuo already? I mean, I just want to make sure, especially since you seem to like him too," Shi Qiang said.

"H—How could you say something like that so nonchalantly?! Don\'t you have shame?!" I yelled at her, to which she replied with a simple shrug.

"I\'m not a complete virgin like you, Jie. So I\'m just asking, I\'m afraid you two forgot to use safety like a condom, and you end up pregnant. It\'ll be difficult, Jie," Shi Qiang said.

…

"Seriously, Qiang, I think there is something wrong with our moral ground here," I commented.. I didn\'t want to answer, but then again, thinking something so promiscuous as sleeping with Meng Bao gave me both excitement and shame.

My face gradually reddened, "W—Well, I—I haven\'t done it. B—But I didn\'t even plan to do it! I—I\'m not as promiscuous as you, Qiang!" I stuttered when replying to Shi Qiang\'s question.

Shi Qiang rolled her eyes in response and didn\'t seem to be bothered denying my accusation, "Jie, I really thought you are at least more confident about this. Why aren\'t you sleeping with him yet?! And why didn\'t you tell me that your date is actually Yang Menghuo, your boss\' son!"

"Ssssh!" I covered Shi Qiang\'s mouth with my palm, urging her to shut up. Because Mr. Yang Zhuhuo was still inside Mr. Feng Xiaojun\'s office. I didn\'t want him to overhear and create an even worse situation. Shi Qiang\'s brow curled, and she grinned mischievously.

It seemed that she had witnessed something so interesting.

"So, your boss doesn\'t know about it?" she asked.

"Of course not! I don\'t even know that he is Yang Menghuo until I accidentally found him visiting my office to meet with my boss, aka his dad! I had to use a paper bag to cover my face! It\'s ridiculous!" I complained.

"Ahahaha! Why do you need to do that? If you\'re already dating him, then you should take the utmost advantage and announce your relationship publicly as soon as possible, so he can\'t run away from you!" Shi Qiang said devilishly. "That\'s why I\'ve been asking you whether you\'ve slept with him or not. Jie, sleep with him to make sure that he will be responsible in the future! MUAHAHAHA!"

…

"Shi Qiang, I think your moral compass is broken," I said. But I sighed after that, "It\'s not that simple. First, Yang Menghuo and I have a bit of a misunderstanding. I don\'t know his real identity when I rented him as a rental boyfriend! In fact, I don\'t even know the reason why is he in that Rent A Boyfriend app."

"And? What\'s seem to the be the problem?" Shi Qiang asked me. "Just tell him that you\'re actually his dad\'s secretary, and everything will be alright."

"How is that easy? Do you know what I did to him before? I smashed his head with a ten kilos grocery bag, dropped him out because I said he didn\'t fit my criteria to meet mom and dad. And I also blocked his number! Even if he acts so kind in front of me, do you think I will 100% believe all his sweet words? I\'d rather not risk my job and hide my identity as his dad\'s secretary!"

I also wanted to add to the biggest reason, that Meng Bao was actually a mafia-like businessman that was ruthless enough to gut his competitor… literally. It didn\'t help that I got scared thinking how unpredictable Meng Bao was.

As expected, Shi Qiang just stared at me blankly with her mouth gaping like a koi. Just like what Zhu Luli did when I told her about what happened.

"Yeah… that happened…" I said regretfully.

"Wow, Jie. You had the stroke of good luck followed by a stroke of bad luck in just a short time. I\'m starting to wonder if you did something bad in the past that collected all this bad karma," Shi Qiang commented.

"Well, I don\'t know! But you see, I don\'t know if Yang Menghuo actually likes me or not, I\'m too scared. Especially with my job on the line," I said.

"Aish, you really blew this up, Jie," Shi Qiang said. "Though, I\'m still wondering why did he need to join the Rent A Boyfriend app? I mean, he doesn\'t lack money at all, right?"

"I believe he is rich as heck!" I said. "I mean, even my boss said that his son is actually richer than him."

"Then, what\'s the reason for him joining? Don\'t tell me that he is actually a billionaire with too much time in his hands. And then he joined the Rental boyfriend service because he needed to find a fake girlfriend to shut his parents. But turns out, he fell in love with the girl for real, and who knows, the girl might actually like… a childhood sweetheart or his first love."

…

"Shi Qiang, you\'re basically telling a rom-com story there," I crossed my arms. "I also don\'t know the reason, but one thing for sure, knowing him via that Rental Boyfriend app, flipped my life upside down in just one night."

"In a good way or…"

"Both, in a bad way because he completely ruins my peaceful single life. In a good way because… he completely ruins my peaceful single life."

I lowered my head, thinking about the moment when Meng Bao gave me a warm coffee during that cold morning, giving me a sweet and memorable, though quite awkward first date. And He was also the one who said that he had fallen in love with me like a clap of thunder in a clear sky.

\'Nobody ever gave me that kind of sweetness, other than Mengmeng and Meng Bao…\'

\'I mean, I get it, how could that Gorilla Girl, that Tarzan Girl, actually have someone that liked her for real. Even I couldn\'t believe it myself,\' I thought. Really, having a man saying that he had fallen in love with you was so much of an imagination for me. I never expect a man to do that.

Sometimes, I felt a bit lonely, knowing that no man would actually like me. But I had always been the tough girl in the village, and I\'ve managed to be the tough woman in the city. I could do everything by myself. So when Meng Bao suddenly invaded this pride of mine, not with arrogance and challenge, like most men did.

But with gentleness with a bit of shameless spice, I subsequently lowered my guard down and allowed him to enter my heart.

\'Really, Shi Ying, you\'re not exactly the type who is hard to get, are you?\' I thought as I ridiculed myself.

Shi Qiang sighed and patted my shoulder, "Ying Jie, why do you look so down?"

"Well, you see, it\'s just an entirely new feeling for me. I feel overwhelmed, especially with him constantly showing his love to me. It made me unsure about myself. He just acts so differently when he is with me and when he is with other people."

"It made me both expectant and scared," I said truthfully.

Shi Qiang seemed to think for a moment before he said, "It seems that you\'re still too scared for a change in your daily life, Jie…"

"I know that you\'re the toughest woman I\'ve ever seen in my life. I won\'t even deny that you have sacrificed so much for us because you are the oldest. But sometimes, being the toughest won\'t doesn\'t mean that you need to close your heart to anyone."

Shi Qiang sighed and leaned her back on the seat, "I feel like you\'re just being difficult for the sake of defending your pride as the tough girl. But you inevitably make things harder for yourself."

I stared at Shi Qiang, my little sister, whom I protected a lot since we were a child. She was always the wittiest and boldest, but I didn\'t know that she became wise over time too.

Though her glutton and lazy behaviour never changed, and probably won\'t change for a while.

"Ying Jie, I honestly want to know more about your relationship with Yang Menghuo. I actually saw him few times here, having a deal with my boss. He looks so intimidating and has this real mafia boss-like aura. He is cold too."

"I just didn\'t expect you to be entangled with him romantically," Shi Qiang said. She glanced at me and continued, "But it seems everything is a bit more complicated than I thought, is it not? Maybe you should sort out your feeling first."

"But hear me out, Jie. If you feel right about your feeling, then you shouldn\'t be scared about anything else, okay?"