Chapter Ninety-Six: The Signature

The two of them fell silent after that, eating in peace, yet the private room held a gentle warmth.

Lord Zhou kept placing pieces of meat into her bowl and topping it up whenever she finished the rice. “Enough, enough, stop refilling it or I won’t be able to finish!” Yu Qian protested quickly when he reached for the bowl again.

“Not enough. You’ve only eaten this little. Look at you—there’s hardly any flesh left on you. You don’t need to lose weight!”

He knew she had already eaten quite a lot—two full bowls of rice, in fact—but seeing her slender arms and legs, he still felt it wasn’t enough. She needed more.

Back when he first saw her in the newspaper, she had been a plump little girl. How had she grown thinner and thinner over the years? It wasn’t as though she ever ate less.

Yu Qian was somewhat helpless. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to gain weight; after the marrow-cleansing elixir changed her constitution, no matter how much she ate she would never become fat. Any excess nourishment would only make her grow taller.

That worried her a little too. In her previous life, by the age of thirteen, the small fullness on her chest had already begun to develop, but in this life it remained as flat as an airplane runway.

Could it be that the hourglass figure she had longed for would never be hers, and she would only end up with a flat chest?

She felt a little vexed, a little pained in the head. When she got back tonight, she would have to ask the goddess of creation and Su Daji about it.

Ignoring her refusal, Lord Zhou added another half bowl of rice and also served her a bowl of soup.

With a sour little face, she poked at the rice in her bowl, then looked up at his expectant eyes, uncertain how to refuse him.

Seeing that she had been stirring the bowl for ages without eating, Lord Zhou finally understood she truly could not take another bite. “If you can’t finish it, then don’t force yourself. How about some soup instead?”

Her eyes lighting up, she leaned over and kissed his right cheek. “A-Zhen, you’re the best. Love you, kiss-kiss!”

Then she lowered her head and drank the soup in small sips.

Lord Zhou froze, absently touching his right cheek. He could feel his ears growing hot, and he grinned foolishly to himself.

When she finished the soup and looked up, she caught sight of that silly expression of his and could not help laughing. “You fool.”

She put on her mask and led the still-dazed Lord Zhou to the cashier. With him looking like that, there was no way he could pay by himself, so Yu Qian had to take out her own money.

When they stepped out of the restaurant, they found a crowd still gathered outside, though it did not seem to be the same group from before. Yu Qian said nothing more and quietly pulled Lord Zhou away.

Unexpectedly, the people’s gazes followed them as they moved.

The girls were looking at them with bright, sparkling eyes, each holding paper and pen. It was obvious they wanted autographs, but their expressions were still a little too timid to approach.

“Are you all A-Zhen’s fans?” After a pause and a few moments of hesitation, Yu Qian still spoke.

“Yes, yes!” several girls nodded frantically.

“We’re here on vacation. We saw online that you were eating here, so we wanted to come take a look,” the girl with glasses said excitedly and in a rush.

“Online?” Yu Qian blinked.

“Yes. Someone said you were very harsh to your fans,” replied another girl with long curly hair, her tone edged with anger. “They were the ones being touchy-feely, yet they still blamed others for being mean to them. How shameless.”

Hearing their tone and attitude, Yu Qian guessed these people were probably just genuine fans after all—and fans who didn’t mind her presence, at that.

Otherwise, they would not have treated her so kindly.

“You want autographs?” Since they were being friendly, Yu Qian naturally responded in kind.

“Yes, yes! We do!” the girls answered eagerly and loudly.

She tugged at the Lord Zhou beside her, signaling for him to sign.

By the time she spoke, Lord Zhou had already come back to himself, though the tips of his ears were still red. Naturally, he did not object. He took the paper and pen from them and began signing carefully and swiftly.

His handwriting was beautiful. His signature was not the fashionable cursive style popular among entertainers, the kind that made people unable to tell at a glance whose it was.

Instead, it was upright and proper regular script, each stroke sharp and clean, formal yet commanding, carrying a strong and distinctive personal style.