Love Apartment: Yifei is my junior aunt

Chapter 17 Strategist and Strategist

"South Wind!" Hu Yifei shouted angrily.

Nanfeng took in the panic, worry, and fear on Yifei's face. Suddenly, he couldn't help but slap his thigh and burst into laughter.

"Just kidding, you actually believed that?" Nanfeng laughed so hard she couldn't straighten up. "You know I hate my dad's irresponsible behavior the most."

"Besides, if I wanted to die, I would have died after the car accident three years ago. Why would I have waited until today?"

Nanfeng pointed to the laptop in her arms: "Look at me, I'm busy until this early every morning, I don't look like someone who's about to die!"

"You lied to me?" Hu Yifei was initially relieved, then annoyed. "Well, Nanfeng, you're getting bolder and bolder, even lying to your junior aunt!"

"I was just trying to sober you up since you were still hungover," Nanfeng said with a grin. "How's that? Are you instantly awake now?"

"Very well, then I'll beat you up later as a way to loosen up your bones." Yifei's knuckles cracked and popped, and as she looked at Nanfeng, her eyelids twitched, and memories of being badly beaten as a child swept over her.

"Sister Yifei, calm down, calm down," Nanfeng pleaded.

"...You really lied to me?"

Nanfeng said earnestly, "Absolutely true."

Hu Yifei's tense body finally relaxed. She didn't know if Nanfeng was lying to her, but even if he was, it at least proved that he still cared about his family.

This is enough.

"Alright, I'll let you off this time. So, why did you call me here? You didn't just come here to play this joke on me, did you?"

As she spoke, Hu Yifei tugged at the swing's chain again, still feeling uneasy; the quality was indeed excellent.

"My main question is, why did you let them take the walkie-talkie just now?"

"I...I had no idea they could make such a mess of things." Hu Yifei didn't dare look Nanfeng in the eye and could only turn her head away, stammering, "If I had known they were this unreliable, I would have made them wait in the living room long ago."

"You're lying," Nanfeng concluded with certainty.

"I don't……"

You're definitely lying.

"I told you I didn't!" Yifei's tone became somewhat out of control, and she turned her whole body away, refusing to talk to Nanfeng.

Nanfeng said seriously, "You know, the more familiar someone is with me, the less likely they are to lie to me."

If a person lies, their breathing, heartbeat, and pulse will all show subtle differences from usual.

While some professionals may be able to control their breathing and heartbeat through training, there is one thing they cannot control and cannot fake.

That is, the tone, ending sound, and speaking speed of a person's lie when they are lying are slightly different from their usual truth.

The reason they can't fake it is because normal people simply can't hear it or realize it. This is a result that even audio track analysis might not be able to detect, but Nanfeng can.

The more familiar he is with someone, the more accurately he can hear them, and he can discern the other person's inner emotions from every word they say.

This is Nanfeng's unique talent—an almost superhuman gift in terms of voice.

Yifei also understood Nanfeng's talent. She gritted her teeth and said, "I really miss when we were kids. Back then, if you dared to expose me, I would give you a good beating. But not now. You're too weak. If you exert yourself too much, you'll have to lie in bed."

"Nanfeng, why are you meddling in so much? I'm Zhanbo's older sister."

Nanfeng placed the laptop in his arms next to the table entwined with vines beside the swing chair and said gloatingly, "Isn't it just that someone told me that Zhanbo can't just call me Brother Nanfeng for nothing all these years? I have to take some responsibility as his older brother no matter what."

"Besides, you know you're Zhanbo's sister, not him. Zhanbo's in his mid-twenties, and his pursuit of Wanyu isn't illegal or immoral. We can help if we can, but if we can't, let's not cause trouble, okay?"

Hu Yifei did not reply, and Nanfeng did not press further; only the soft whisper of the wind remained around them.

"South Wind, you don't understand."

Finally, Yifei turned around, her tone a mix of murmurs and reminiscences.

"You know we're a blended family. Zhanbo's biological mother abandoned him. I still remember the first time we met, he didn't dare to say a word to other girls, but he actually dared to follow me around like a shadow."

"You brat, I suspect he didn't see me as a woman when we first met." As she spoke, Yifei laughed out loud. This laugh was less sharp and arrogant than usual, and more gentle like water.

"But there's nothing I can do. Who told me to suddenly have a younger brother? So I have no choice but to take this little tagalong with me."

"And so, I've been taking care of him all this time, and I've had to worry about him constantly since he was a child."

Even after he went abroad to study, I still cared about him every day and thought about him constantly.

"It seems like he grew taller than me without me even noticing."

Yifei sighed, a sigh that seemed to linger on and on.

"I was thinking that he'd grown up, which would be a relief for me. But this good-for-nothing still chickens out when he meets girls."

"If he just wanted to be single like you, I wouldn't have anything to say. But this coward has the desire but not the courage, which makes me so angry."

"But there's nothing I can do. Who told me to suddenly have a younger brother? Our parents raised us with great difficulty and now they're living their own lives. It's just that I, as the older sister, have to take care of things more."

"If you're too afraid to talk to girls, then practice like crazy. In this day and age, the cost of trying and failing at talking to girls isn't high. He's still young, and no matter how many times he fails, as long as he accumulates experience, he'll eventually be able to find a good girl and have a happy ending."

"Now there's such a wonderful girl standing right in front of him, and Zhanbo gets along so well with her, and you're telling me her family might be extremely wealthy!"

Hu Yifei almost couldn't help but curse: "If he fails to win her over, so be it. The result will be the same as the previous five, six, seven, or eight times. At most, he'll just suffer for a while longer."

"But what if? What if he succeeds... Wanyu is a very, very good girl, but my brother is no less so. He is also a very outstanding boy. Why should I assume that my brother will definitely not be able to win Wanyu's heart?"

"But if they actually get together, that's when the trouble begins."

"Money, values, class—these are mountains that cannot be overcome simply by being outstanding or in love."

"Whether they can stay together or not, I, as their older sister, can't help them at all."

"No one in this world understands Zhanbo better than me. If we really let them get together and then break up, he definitely won't be able to handle it."

"South Wind, do you understand?"

Nanfeng listened quietly to Yifei's story. He really didn't expect that his junior aunt, whom he thought knew her personality and character inside and out, also had a softer side that he had never noticed.

"I understand," Nanfeng sighed. "They say an elder sister is like a mother, and today is truly the first time I've felt that directly."

"But Sister Yifei, you're worrying too much. Zhanbo has grown up. Let him decide for himself who he likes and who he doesn't like, and who he wants to be with."

"Just like he likes Wanyu and wants to pursue her, which is why we had tonight's date. At most, we're just giving his still wavering heart a push; the final decision is still his own."

Nanfeng chuckled and said, "Just as you understand him, Zhanbo understands you very well. He also knows that if he doesn't want to make this call to ask someone out to dinner, are you going to grab him by the neck and force him to go on a date?"

Yifei snorted coldly: "He'd definitely not be choked, at most he'd just laugh at him for three days and three nights."

"And there's something else I've been meaning to tell you: before Zhanbo made the call, I had already told him my guess about Wanyu's identity."

"This was his own choice," Nanfeng said softly.

Yifei retorted, "But he's heading down a very dangerous path now."

"I don't see any danger ahead, and I believe Zhanbo is the same."

"And don't you think you're contradictory? You feel he's grown up, but you still feel he needs your protection to grow up."

"You believe Zhanbo is good enough to be with Wanyu, but you don't believe he's good enough to overcome everything in the future, whether good or bad."

Nanfeng looked directly into Hu Yifei's eyes: "Sister Yifei, just like you said, Zhanbo is already taller than you."

"He has the right to choose his own future, not to live the future you think is best for him. This is his life, he is his own master, and we are at best two incompetent strategists."

"The strategist only needs to fulfill his/her duties as a strategist, which is to offer suggestions but not make decisions."

Yifei's lips moved slightly, fluttering like a dried-up fish.

"Now that you mention it, I suddenly feel like he might not need me anymore."

"No one in this world will ever need another person forever; everything is just a passerby." Nanfeng's words seemed a bit cruel to Yifei, who had a patriarchal personality, but that was the truth.

"Fine," Yifei sighed. "I'm not going to interfere with Zhanbo and Wanyu's affairs anymore. Let him do whatever he wants."

"And another thing," Hu Yifei threatened, "about today..."

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone." Nanfeng was very pragmatic.

Upon hearing this, Hu Yifei proudly raised her head: "That's good. Do you have any wine at home? I'd like to have a drink now."

"How could I possibly have alcohol at home?"

Nanfeng thought for a moment and took out her phone: "I'm ordering a few bowls of hangover soup now. Want to come over for the hangover soup party? If you can't finish it, you can take it back to those drunkards later."

"Drinking hangover soup on its own is so boring."

"I guess Teacher Zeng has already finished his broadcast and driven back. Let's bring him over and play three-player Dou Dizhu (a card game). Whoever loses has to pluck their eyebrows."

"That's interesting. His eyebrow-waving today really bothered me. Just keep doing it!"

[Zeng Xiaoxian: Why do I suddenly feel a chill?]

The Advisors Alliance arc has ended.

(End of this chapter)