My online dating circle has millions of followers, why would she put a collar on me?

When Jiang Yi arrived at the Japanese restaurant, it was already 11:30 a.m.

Jiang Yi found a seat by the window, took off his coat and draped it over the back of the chair, then took out his phone to reply to messages.

To be precise, it was a reply to Su Xiaoyue's message.

He had to deal with her all afternoon, at least to prevent her from feeling any obvious distance from him.

The message that came after the tutoring session ended: "Honey, are you done with your work?"

Around 3 PM, she asked, "Honey, what are you doing?"

At five o'clock, she said, "Honey, I'm so bored today, I've been thinking about you the whole time."

Then at 6:30, she texted, "Honey, don't you like me anymore? Why are you replying to my messages so slowly?"

The density of news about Su Xiaoyue is at least three orders of magnitude higher than that about his girlfriend, Xia Anmian.

While waiting for Xia Anmian, he replied to Su Xiaoyue's messages one by one, trying his best to make his tone sound less perfunctory.

He was typing when he caught a glimpse of someone walking into the restaurant.

He wore a black knit sweater, dark blue jeans, and his hair was casually draped over his shoulders. He was carrying a bag he had never seen before.

Summer sleep.

Jiang Yi quickly locked Su Xiaoyue's phone screen, stuffed it into his pocket, stood up, and waved to her.

"Over here."

Xia Anmian walked over and sat down opposite him. The first thing she did was not to look at the menu, but to stare at him for two seconds.

You've lost weight.

Jiang Yi was taken aback: "Really?"

"Yes," Xia Anmian said confidently, "Your chin is sharper, and your dark circles are worse. Did you stay up late again?"

Jiang Yi smiled guiltily, "No, no, I've been sleeping well lately."

What he didn't say was that he hadn't been sleeping well lately.

"Please place your order. I've made quite a bit of money today thanks to you."

Xia Anmian glanced at Jiang Yi, took the menu, and started ordering without saying anything.

After quickly ordering, Xia Anmian spoke first while waiting for the food.

"How's it going? Are the students behaving well?"

Jiang Yi couldn't help but smile when he thought of Gu Qingying's stubborn and willful little face.

"Well... when she first met me, she called me a 'bookworm'."

Xia Anmian raised an eyebrow: "Oh? And then what happened?"

She had also met that younger sister, so Gu Qingying's comments about Jiang Yi were within Xia Anmian's expectations.

"Later I said I had played LOL and reached Master rank." Jiang Yi picked up his water glass and took a sip, a rare hint of pride in his eyes.

"Guess what? Her expression immediately changed, and she kept asking me all sorts of questions. In the end, I forced her to finish half of the test paper before she let me go."

"You've got quite a knack for this," Xia Anmian laughed, her smile carrying an indescribable sense of pride.

She always thought Jiang Yi had one redeeming quality.

He always finds a way to deal with people, neither humble nor arrogant, never behaving subserviently because the other person is rich, nor giving them the cold shoulder because they are difficult.

This was one of the reasons she fell in love with him in the first place.

"By the way, how's Jiang Miaomiao doing with that equipment moving job?"

Xia Anmian paused for a moment as she picked up some food with her chopsticks, her expression momentarily unnatural, but she quickly returned to normal: "I think she seems a little unhappy."

"She didn't want to, but I threatened her with my parents," Jiang Yi continued.

"You don't know, that girl spent over a hundred on in-game purchases—cough cough, anyway, it's good for her to do some physical work, so she doesn't just lie at home all day."

He almost let slip "one million three hundred thousand," but quickly covered it up with a cough.

Xia Anmian glanced at him but didn't ask any further questions.

She lowered her head and took a bite of meat, but her mind was elsewhere.

Today at Aiyi Studio, she saw Jiang Miaomiao moving equipment on the surveillance camera.

That girl was indeed delicate; she was panting against the box after carrying it for less than an hour, and she even had blisters on her hands.

Xia Anmian was standing in the monitoring room at the time, and seeing her looking like she was living a life worse than death, she actually felt a little sorry for her.

After all, she is Jiang Yi's sister.

So later she had her assistant inform Jiang Miaomiao that she would have the afternoon off, but her salary would still be paid.

But she didn't plan to tell Jiang Yi about it.

"How's your day?" Jiang Yi turned the conversation to her. "How's your part-time job going? Giving me such a fat tutor, your part-time job must be pretty bad!"

Xia Anmian put down her chopsticks, picked up her orange juice, took a sip, and began to fabricate the story she had prepared long ago.

"It's just helping a female CEO handle some daily tasks, like arranging schedules, organizing documents, and liaising with clients," she said casually, as if she were talking about how nice the weather was today.

"It's not actually that tiring, just a lot of trivial things. The salary is about three or four thousand a day."

Hearing that the salary was three or four thousand, Jiang Yi felt much better. He was just glad that Xia Anmian wasn't trying to give him the lucrative job.

Jiang Yi then continued to ask questions.

"President Sister?" Jiang Yi looked at her curiously. "Which company?"

"Uh... Ai Yi, a studio." Xia Anmian told the truth, but only halfway through. "The boss is a pretty young female CEO, a nice person, and she's been very good to me."

This is the truth.

However, the expression "she's very good to her" sounds a bit like saying "the boss is very good to the employees".

"That's great." Jiang Yi nodded, genuinely happy for her. "Weren't you looking for an internship? This seems much better than those menial jobs."

"Yes," Xia Anmian replied, but in her heart she was thinking: If one day you knew that this company belonged to me, would you still think "it's pretty good"?

She dared not think.

The waiter quickly brought out all the dishes, and the two ate and chatted happily.

Jiang Yi didn't like Japanese food, so he didn't eat much.

In the end, all I could do was watch Xia Anmian eat.

Xia Anmian eats very gracefully, slowly and deliberately, as if she is savoring each bite.

Looking at her profile, Jiang Yi suddenly felt a tension in his heart ease a little.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Xia Anmian looked up, wiping her mouth with a tissue. "Is there something on my face?"

"No," Jiang Yi smiled. "It's just that... it's been so long since we had a proper meal together."

Xia Anmian blinked, her chopsticks hovering in mid-air: "The way you're talking makes it sound like we're in a long-distance relationship. Didn't we just see each other a couple of days ago?"

"How can that be the same?" Jiang Yi poured himself a glass of cola and took a sip.

"Those were all rushed moments, nothing like sitting here and eating slowly like this."

Xia Anmian stared at him for two seconds, then put down her chopsticks, crossed her hands and rested them on her chin, looking at him with an expression that said, "You can't fool me."

"Jiang Yi, are you hiding something from me?"

Jiang Yi paused for a moment, almost spilling the cola.

"No, no."

"You stutter every time you lie." Xia Anmian's tone was as calm as if she were stating the weather.

"And the way you looked at me today was especially guilty, like you'd done something wrong."

Jiang Yi opened his mouth, wanting to say "no," but swallowed the words back.

He did indeed do something wrong.

Every day, he would use that phone to send "husband," "baby," and "good girl" messages to a girl he had never met.

Although he was forced to do it, and although he felt immense guilt every time he sent it out, those words did indeed come out of his fingers.

A lie is a lie, no matter what the reason.

He took a deep breath, put down the cola cup, and looked into Xia Anmian's eyes.

"Mianmian, there is something I need to tell you."

Xia Anmian's expression didn't change much, but she leaned forward slightly to show that she was listening attentively.

"This is a big deal, and it's outrageous." Jiang Yi's voice was very low, as if he were talking about some unspeakable secret.

"I didn't want to tell anyone, but I just couldn't take it anymore. You're my girlfriend, and I don't want to hide it from you."

Xia Anmian was a little puzzled. This was the first time she had seen Jiang Yi speak so solemnly, but she was quite interested.

Jiang Yi licked his lips, about to speak—

"President Xia?"

A man's voice came from the side, not loud, but enough to interrupt all the words he had prepared.

Jiang Yi looked up and saw a young man in a dark gray custom-made suit standing next to their table.

He looked to be around twenty-five or twenty-six years old, with regular features and a perfectly placed smile on his lips.

He held a glass of red wine in his hand, looking exactly like the professional elite Jiang Yi remembered.