After the breakup, I was taken in by a group of trendy young women.

It was already getting dark when I came out of the barbershop.

The mall lights illuminated the pedestrian street brightly. Bai Xiaojing walked at the front, touching her new hair color every few steps. The honey tea brown color shone with a warm glow under the streetlights.

She turned around and called to Lin Ye to hurry up, and the way her hair swayed when she did so looked much better than usual.

The man with the tattooed arm was sitting next to me, a cigarette dangling from his lips, sunglasses pushed up to his forehead, his newly trimmed short hair making him look like a completely different person.

Zhang Jingjing's slightly curly hair swayed gently in the evening breeze. She was taking a picture of herself with her phone, but after taking the picture, she felt that it didn't show the rose tattoo on her leg well enough, so she changed the angle several times.

The green-haired and pink-haired birds touched each other's highlights, one pink and one green, walking down the street like a pair of parrots wearing matching outfits.

Qi Liuhai quietly followed behind, holding Wangcai in her arms. Her side braid was draped over her shoulder, and Wangcai's tail dangled from her elbow, swaying back and forth.

Shen Qing walked at the back, the light from the streetlamp falling on her profile, her delicate features causing passersby to frequently turn their heads to look back.

The seafood buffet restaurant is located on the third floor of the mall. There are a few half-dead lobsters in the aquarium at the entrance, and the neon sign reads "Seafood hot pot and barbecue buffet, all-you-can-eat".

This time they didn't choose the 9.9 yuan one.

With his arm tattooed, he put his arm around Lin Ye's neck and said that he had spent tens of thousands of yuan to do their hair today, so they had to treat them to this meal. As a result, the seven of them spent a long time collecting the change in their pockets, but they still couldn't raise enough money for one person's meal.

Lin Ye smiled, took out his phone, scanned the code for eight people, a seafood buffet, priced at 380 yuan per person, a meal costing more than 3,000 yuan, and paid without even blinking.

The system notification exploded in his mind as he was carrying a plate to the food area to get oysters.

With a 50x return, 152,000 yuan arrived in my account, and my balance jumped even higher.

He put his phone back in his pocket, thinking that the meal would taste even better.

The private room is semi-open, with a row of soft seats next to the floor-to-ceiling windows, offering a view of the night scene from the third floor of the mall.

The hot pot broth bubbled and steamed with red oil, the garlic oysters on the hot plate sizzled, the lid of the steam seafood pot popped up and then fell down, and the caramel color of the grilled eel glistened under the light.

The table was piled high with plates of salmon sashimi, sweet shrimp, crab legs, beef rolls, shrimp paste, abalone, and scallops. Plates were stacked on top of plates, and bowls clinked together. It was many times more impressive than the last time we had a 9.9 yuan all-you-can-eat buffet.

"Come on, let's toast our brother!"

She stood up, holding a full glass of beer, her newly cut short hair accentuating her sharper jawline than usual. The koi fish tattoo on her arm tensed its scales as she raised her glass.

"You got a medical check-up and a haircut today, bro. You're so good to us, we'll be your slave in our next life!"

"And this lifetime?"

Lin Ye raised an eyebrow, holding his cup.

"Being a little lucky person in this life isn't so bad."

The tattooed arm downed the beer in one gulp, his tongue flashing briefly between his lips.

Everyone at the table laughed.

Bai Xiaojing, halfway through her laughter, suddenly turned her head, leaned close to Lin Ye's ear, and whispered, so low that only the two of them could hear, "Brother, when you stood up from the chair after your haircut, I almost didn't recognize you. Do you know how handsome you are?"

She didn't back down after she finished speaking; she just looked at him, her deep brown pupils misty from the steam of the hot pot, and her lips still glistening with the moisture from the beer she had just drunk.

Before Lin Ye could reply, Zhang Jingjing leaned over from the other side and held up her phone screen to show him a picture of his profile that she had just taken.

In the photo, he is looking down at the menu, his newly cut short hair revealing his forehead and brow bone, and his jawline is sharply defined under the light.

"Brother, look, I posted this on my WeChat Moments with the caption 'My Big Brother,' and the comments section is full of people asking which celebrity this is."

Green Hair and Pink Hair squeezed over to see, and Qi Liuhai lifted Wangcai up from under the table, placing her paws on the edge of the table. She said Wangcai wanted to see too.

Shen Qing sat on the other side of Lin Ye, not coming over, but she picked up a peeled sweet shrimp and put it into Lin Ye's bowl very quietly, as if she didn't want to be discovered.

With his sharp eyes and tattooed arms, he pointed at Shen Qing with chopsticks and said, "You've been secretly giving your brother special treatment again." Shen Qing's face flushed red, and he lowered his head and pretended to drink water.

After a few rounds of drinks, those who could drink were already slightly tipsy, while those who couldn't were slumped over the table.

Green Hair and Pink Hair each held half a roasted lobster shell and played with it as a hat, while Qi Liuhai put Wangcai on his lap, and the cat was already asleep and snoring.

Bai Xiaojing was the one who drank the most.

She drank at least four cans of beer by herself and also sneaked a taste of the sake from the tattooed arm. Now her whole face was as red as a boiled crab, and her new honey tea brown hair was slightly damp with sweat from the heat of the hot pot, with a few strands of hair sticking to her forehead.

She leaned on Lin Ye's shoulder, her body limp as if boneless, muttering something unintelligible.

Lin Ye was peeling a crab leg with his head down. The crab shell was too hard, and it took him a long time to cut a slit with scissors.

Just then, he heard a crisp clinking of glasses next to him. The man with the tattooed arm had opened another can of beer and was clinking glasses with Zhang Jingjing. The foam spilled out and stained the tablecloth with several dark dots.

Lin Ye glanced at it, a slight smile playing on his lips, before lowering his head to continue peeling the crab.

Then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

The hand reached out from the right, the fingers were slightly cool, and the fingertips were trembling a little.

"Brother, turn around."

The voice came from the right rear, slightly hoarse from being soaked in alcohol, but the tone was steady.

Lin Ye turned his head and saw Shen Qing standing behind him.

Her black hair was loose over her shoulders, as smooth as if she had just come out of the hair salon, but a few strands had been slightly curled by the steam from the hot pot.

Her cheeks turned bright red.

She held a glass of sake in her hand, with a thin layer of transparent liquid at the bottom and her lipstick stain on the rim.

She looked at Lin Ye, her eyelashes casting extremely fine shadows under the lamplight.

Then she tilted her head back and poured the sake into her mouth without swallowing.

She slammed her wine glass down on the table, the bottom of which made a crisp sound as it hit the glass turntable. The two men, Huabi and Zhang Jingjing, who were playing a drinking game, stopped at the same time. The green-haired and pink-haired men, who were holding lobster shells, turned their heads at the same time. Qi Liuhai, holding a cat, stared wide-eyed. Even Wangcai woke up.

Shen Qing took a step forward.

She took a big step, her knee almost hitting the armrest of Lin Ye's chair. She reached out to hold his shoulder to steady herself, and then bent down.

Lin Ye only had time to see her eyelashes blur at such close range before he felt a pair of soft lips press against his.

A firm, warm kiss with a slightly spicy, sweet scent of sake.

Then her tongue gently pried open his teeth, and a warm liquid flowed from her mouth. The spiciness of the sake mixed with a hint of sweetness, whether from the sake itself or from her lips, slid down his throat and warmed him from his throat to his stomach.