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

It was already getting dark when the taxi stopped downstairs at the shared apartment building.

A group of brightly colored girls sat around a folding table at the entrance of the supermarket.

Bai Xiaojing was sitting cross-legged on a plastic stool, carefully lifting her newly bought Lolita dress and piling it on her knees, afraid of getting the hem dirty.

She was holding a grilled sausage in her hand and chewing on another one, her cheeks puffed out like a hamster's.

A woman with tattooed arms, a cigarette dangling from her lips, was taking pictures of the skewers on the table with her new phone, while a woman with tattooed legs leaned over to instruct her on how to adjust the filters.

Pink-haired and green-haired girls squeezed onto a plastic stool, sharing a bottle of iced cola. The straw was covered in teeth marks.

Qi Liuhai sat on the steps at the entrance of the supermarket, holding a space capsule cat carrier in his arms, while Wangcai poked its paw out of the hemispherical window and patted the glass.

Sisters Shen Qing and Shen Na sat side by side by the flower bed, each holding a cup of milk tea.

When Lin Ye got out of the taxi, Huang Mao was the first to see him.

She placed the sausage on the table, sprang up from the plastic stool, her honey-brown pigtails swaying like two propellers, and ran to him in a few quick steps, looking up at him with a gleam of self-satisfaction in her deep brown eyes.

"Brother! You're back! We've packed everything! There are six snakeskin bags, three suitcases, and the sunglasses case for the tattooed arm is in a separate bag. The tattooed arm said the sunglasses shouldn't be pressed down, or the temples will bend. There's also Wangcai's cat food and cat litter. The bangs guy said it shouldn't be put with the clothes, so it's in a separate cardboard box."

She paused abruptly, tilted her head to look behind Lin Ye to make sure Zhou Fang wasn't following, then leaned close to his ear, her voice so low that only the two of them could hear, the strawberry-flavored lip balm gleaming under the streetlights: "Brother, I'll make you something good tonight. You don't need to lift a finger, your sister will do it all automatically."

Her breath brushed against Lin Ye's earlobe, warm, with a strange aroma that was a mixture of the cumin scent of grilled sausage and the sweetness of strawberry lip balm.

After saying this, she stepped back, took out a cigarette from the pocket of her Lolita dress, and offered it to Lin Ye, a smug and mischievous smile curving her lips.

Lin Ye took the cigarette and put it in his mouth, while Huang Mao took out a lighter.

He looked at the blond-haired man's face, which was gleaming under the streetlights, then at the group of girls waiting for him to return by the folding table, and flicked her forehead.

The flick wasn't hard, but the blond guy exaggeratedly covered his forehead and jumped back a step, shouting, "Brother, you're abusing me again!" but he couldn't suppress the smile on his face.

Lin Ye walked to the folding table and pulled out a plastic stool from under the table to sit down.

The stool leg scraped against the cement floor with a short creak, and the plastic stool under my bottom groaned under its weight, wobbling twice before finally settling down.

The tattooed man placed his new phone on the table and pushed over a plate of untouched grilled skewers.

"Brother, have some of this. Yellow Hair tried to steal some earlier but Flower Leg slapped his hand."

The man with the flowery legs added a comment without even looking up.

"There weren't many to begin with, and she wanted to make a move before her brother even got back."

The blond-haired man covered the back of his hand, making a wronged expression, but the smile on his lips hadn't faded at all.

Lin Ye picked up a skewer of grilled pork belly and took a bite. The meat was a little overcooked, but the ratio of cumin and chili powder was just right. Combined with the charred aroma from the charcoal grilling, it was even more satisfying than the set meal at the amusement park-themed restaurant that cost two or three hundred yuan per person.

"Oh, right."

Lin Ye put the bamboo skewer on the table, picked up the half-finished iced cola in front of his tattooed arm, and took a sip.

"The initial cleaning and finishing of the villa will take a few more days. The smart home system needs to be tested, the automatic irrigation system in the garden needs to be re-piped, and the charging stations in the underground garage haven't been installed yet. We'll have to stay here for a few more days."

"no problem!"

The blond guy was the first to raise his hand.

"I'm fine with staying for a few days. I've been here for so long already, I've grown attached to the sofa."

The tattooed man took the cigarette from his mouth, tapped the table with the temple of his sunglasses, and said something very honest: "There are just too many people, and the restrooms always have long lines. But I'm used to waiting so long, so I'm not in a rush these next few days."

Flower Leg chimed in from the side, his tone full of precise Versailles: "It'll be great once we move into the villa. Eight or nine bathrooms, one for each person with room to spare. We can shower as long as we want, whenever we want."

Qi Liuhai sat on the steps, holding Wangcai in his arms. He rarely spoke first, but his voice was soft yet every word was crystal clear: "If we move into the villa, will I have my own room?"

The man with the tattooed arm slapped his thigh and laughed, "Of course you have one, not only do you, but Wangcai does too."

Qi Liuhai buried his face in Wangcai's cat fur, and his ears turned red.

Just as Lin Ye was about to speak, he caught a glimpse of someone out of the corner of his eye.

Wang Xiaoying leaned against the door of the white SUV, her high ponytail swaying gently in the night breeze.

She was still wearing the same tracksuit she had changed into at the amusement park that day—a white quick-drying T-shirt and dark gray yoga pants. Under the dim streetlights, she looked somewhat out of place. It wasn't that she looked bad, but rather that she was too sophisticated and didn't fit the style of this dilapidated urban village street.

She didn't come over; she just leaned against the car door.

Lin Ye stood up from the plastic stool and walked over.

When Wang Xiaoying saw him walking over, she instinctively straightened up.

Her bare face looked very clean under the streetlights, a stark contrast to the disheveled woman with red eyes and swollen lips who had been kneeling on his knees in the parking lot that morning.

"Why aren't you going back?" Lin Ye stood in front of her, his hands in the pockets of his casual shorts.

"You just said that the post-construction cleaning of the villa will take a few more days. I was thinking that I could come over and help move things in the next few days, or..."

Wang Xiaoying hesitated for a moment, her fingers unconsciously rubbing the hem of her clothes, her tone carrying a hint of probing and a cautious expectation.

"Or I could stay here for a few days so I can help out."

Lin Ye glanced back at the old building behind him. His tone was calm, but there was no room for negotiation.

"Go back to your apartment. This place is too small, you can't fit."

Wang Xiaoying's fingers tightened for a moment. She wanted to say, "I can sleep on the sofa," she wanted to say, "I don't take up much space," she wanted to say, "If Huang Mao and the others can squeeze in, why can't they?" But she didn't say anything.

She remained silent for a while, then nodded.

"Okay. I'll head back now."

He turned and opened the car door, then suddenly turned back, leaned halfway out of the window, looked Lin Ye in the eye, and said in a voice much lower than when he usually yelled at people in the office,

"Lin Ye, I'm so happy today." He paused, then added, "Really."

The taillights of the white SUV disappeared into the narrow alleyway of the urban village. Lin Ye turned and walked back to the folding table. As soon as he sat down, the blond-haired man came over.

"Brother, Manager Wang left? Why didn't you let her stay for a few days? You made her suffer like that today, her voice is hoarse."

Lin Ye ignored her obvious question and reached out to pick up a skewer from the table and stuff it into her mouth.

The blond-haired man's mouth was stuffed with skewers, and he made two muffled noises, but the smile in his eyes just wouldn't go away.

The tattooed man watched this scene from the side, tapped the table with the arm of his sunglasses, flashed his tongue piercing between his lips, and delivered a concluding remark in the tone of someone with experience: "You blondie, you're just bored. You know I'm a man of my word, yet you still went and flirted with him. He has his reasons for not keeping Manager Wang. This shabby place is crammed with nine people, and the bathroom lines are so long that some people have to go to the kitchen sink to brush their teeth. If another one comes in, do you want Manager Wang to brush his teeth in the kitchen too?"

Everyone at the table laughed.

Lin Ye leaned back in his plastic chair, legs crossed, a cigarette between his fingers, watching a rumble of thunder roll across the distant horizon. It was going to rain.

He stood up, put the cigarette back in his mouth, and waved to the group of girls around the folding table.

"Let's go upstairs. We need to go to the villa tomorrow to oversee the renovations."