Chapter 146: Is This My Home?

After confirming that everyone had left, Lin Yu immediately went to the kitchen to start cooking plain rice porridge. Ji Ya, waking up with a hangover, wouldn’t have much appetite at first, but drinking some warm porridge would soothe her stomach and make her feel much better.

As the porridge boiled in the pot, Lin Yu did a few pull-ups. Exhausted, he stopped to drink some water to regain his strength. Opening his phone intending to watch some short videos, he was unexpectedly bombarded with a flurry of notifications from a music app.

Curious, Lin Yu clicked to check and was stunned. “My super-fan count? It’s only been one night, and his new song has already received over a hundred thousand reviews?! Do these netizens not need sleep?!”

Ji Ya was still asleep, though she should have been awake by now. Lin Yu pondered whether to wake her up. At that moment, Su Xiaolin called.

“Just woke up?”

“Awake for a while now.”

“Have you seen the trending topics on Weibo? Why didn’t you contact me?”

Lin Yu was confused. Trending topics? Why would she want to involve herself?

Opening the trending page, he saw several topics related to his name occupying the top three spots:

[Ji Fei’s agency in turmoil! The beauty CEO and the rookie’s love-hate drama reaches a conclusion?! Quick romance, marriage, and divorce in a short time?!]

[Shocking! The beauty CEO’s twenty-year single persona was just a façade? Secret romance exposed! Click fast!]

[Lin Yu’s new song MV moves the entire internet to tears! Netizens exclaim: It’s insane!!]

What on earth was going on? The explosive popularity of the new MV was expected, but what was this nonsense about romance, divorce, and breakups? Were these netizens crazy? My goodness!

Damn it, he had just uploaded a song and taken a nap. How did the world turn upside down overnight? Who bought these trending topics? All lies! Pure slander!

These netizens must have lost their minds.

“What’s going on here?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing...” Su Xiaolin sounded exasperated. She had received files from the company’s crisis management team and skimmed through them.

“The situation is roughly like this: after your MV was uploaded, you two didn’t keep things low-key, and netizens caught on. Then…”

“They assumed you two were secretly dating. But honestly, from the way you acted in the MV, I half thought you might be a couple. No wonder people jumped to conclusions.”

Lin Yu was speechless. Didn’t she know the nature of their relationship? Great!

This matter needed clarification immediately, or his career would be doomed.

Logging into his account, Lin Yu was astonished to find he already had over a million followers. What the heck? His comments and likes didn’t even reach a million. Were these all fake accounts?

Realizing what mattered now wasn’t dwelling on this, Lin Yu quickly posted the first statement to prevent fans’ imaginations from running wild. Otherwise, next would be clarifications about whether they had a child together.

No sooner had he posted the clarification than he heard footsteps downstairs. Turning around, he saw Ji Ya, still groggy from sleep, her hair tousled and a shirt several sizes too large slipping off her right shoulder.

She looked at Lin Yu in a daze, rubbing her eyes. Upon realizing it was him, her eyes widened, and she pointed at him.

“Y-you, you... I—I...”

Why was he in her house?!

Frozen in place, she felt numb. She had never had a man other than family members in her home before.

Last night... well...

Ji Ya scratched her head, then looked at Lin Yu with confusion. How did he end up here?

She couldn’t remember, only that she drank too much and then lost all memory.

Early in the morning, in her own house, did he do something to her? Did he? If he did, she would surely have felt it.

So probably nothing happened, right?

But if truly nothing happened, the situation was even more complicated. If nothing was done, then did he not see her as a woman? How infuriating!

Lin Yu brought the porridge to the table, adding some homemade pickles to whet her appetite, neatly placed in small dishes.

“Eat some porridge to sober up and make your stomach feel better.”

Ji Ya sat down at the table, still stunned.

“You…”

Lin Yu studied her. Waking up to find a man in your house and not being shocked? So calm? No wonder she was a boss—steady-minded and emotionally balanced!

“You drank too much last night. When I tried to send you home, you insisted on continuing to drink. I couldn’t find your place, so I brought you back to my place.”

“Wait, actually, it’s your place,” Lin Yu corrected himself.

It was Ji Ya who arranged the residence for him—it was the three-story villa under her name.

“Huh... my place? Which one?”

Lin Yu was silent.

Alright, alright, so this was humblebragging. She had so many houses she’d forgotten which one was hers.

After drinking too much, Ji Ya’s memory was completely blank. She tried hard to recall, but no fragments came to mind. Seeing Lin Yu about to help her remember, she raised a hand to stop him.

“Don’t remind someone who’s drunk.”

“Not afraid of being drunk, just afraid of others reminding you of what you did while drunk, right?”

Lin Yu chuckled.

Ji Ya spat and took a strong, composed bite of porridge, but soon felt that something was off. Damn curiosity.

She couldn’t help but ask, “I didn’t do anything too outrageous yesterday, did I?”

Lin Yu handed her some pickled radish, “Handmade, clean, and hygienic.”

Ji Ya stared at him blankly. “I really didn’t do anything over the line, right?”

“No way. The boss is such a good person, how could she do anything outrageous? You just held onto me and wouldn’t let go.”

“And kept saying you wanted to keep drinking. After much persuasion, you finally agreed to go to bed, but then…”

“Wait! Don’t say another word!”

Ji Ya covered his mouth with a protesting look.

“Stop it!”

Go to bed... go to... bed???

My goodness! Could it be that something inappropriate really happened between them? And from Lin Yu’s account, it sounded like she was the one who took the initiative!

Ah, beer was the real culprit! When drinking, it seemed fine; after drinking, people got dumb and did all sorts of crazy things!

Realizing she might have done something very embarrassing, her face flushed, turning from purple to black to red.

What should she do?

Would she have to hide every time she saw Lin Yu? How mortifying! Getting drunk and then throwing yourself at someone... Ahhh! So embarrassing!

Lin Yu laughed out loud watching her hide under the table.

Pfft.

Ji Ya felt even more embarrassed, stopped drinking the porridge, and dashed upstairs, locking herself in her room. She buried her head under the covers, hiding from the world.