Four Split Personalities

"Just to be clear, we didn’t come here specifically for your birthday, so don’t flatter yourself too much."

As soon as he entered the house, Yi Dong closed the door and handed the softshell turtle back to Motan, then effortlessly switched to slippers and threw himself on the sofa, giving Motan a serious look: "We just had a plan to have a farewell dinner these days, and since City B is our turf and we last celebrated New Year’s at my place, it just so happens to coincide with your birthday, so everyone decided to come over together. Aren’t you pleased?"

"Extremely pleased, but what do you mean by a farewell dinner? What’s this about?"

Motan casually asked, then turned to the group of people squeezed at the door and shooed them inside: "No need to change your shoes, my place isn’t big, it’s easy to tidy up later. Go on in and take a break."

"Ha ha, when we say a farewell dinner, it actually means that some of us are about to start school soon. For students like Xiaoge and Xiao Island, school has already started a few days ago, so they really need to make haste."

Tall and burly, Cui Xiaoyu ducked under the wind chimes while walking into the house and explained the meaning of this ’farewell dinner’, then swayed the bag of ingredients in his hand: "Where should I put this?"

"Just put it on the kitchen shelf, I didn’t expect everyone to come over. I’ll go out and get some more ingredients in a bit."

Motan pointed towards the kitchen, his eyes momentarily losing their mocking sparkle and unintentionally returning to a state of ’Absolute Neutrality’, smiling and saying, "These years I haven’t dealt much with school, almost forgot it’s the new academic season. What does everyone feel like eating? I’ll go buy it and we can cook when I get back."

Then Yu Chen slightly furrowed her eyebrows, hesitating: "Uh..."

"What?"

Motan looked slightly anxious.

"Motan, haven’t you been busy writing your thesis lately?"

The girl blinked innocently and asked: "Logically, you should be frequently dealing with the school authorities, right?"

"Ha ha ha ha ha~!"

Yi Dong burst into laughter, rolling off the sofa to the floor, and although he didn’t say anything extra, Motan immediately understood his thoughts from his raucous laughter—With you skipping class for three months a semester, you’re still talking about writing a thesis?

"Ha... ha ha..."

Motan gave a dry laugh. After hearing from Feather Song that Yu Chen was ’only serious when she was serious’, he knew the excuse he had made up earlier was probably seen through, so he simply didn’t explain and just bluntly changed the subject: "So, what does everyone want to eat?"

The response was as expected—a chorus of ’anything’, ’all is fine’, ’it’s up to you’, ’doesn’t matter’.

Nowadays, many young people are exactly like this, not picky or specific about anything, anything edible will do, and if a friend is hosting or cooking, even if it’s slightly unpalatable it’s fine, since the point of gathering isn’t really about the food anyway, although they might be more picky when ordering takeout themselves.

However, it’s not like no one cares about this aspect, like...

"I’ll go with you!"

Dressed in a David hoodie and cargo pants topped with a high-brimmed hat looking all hip-hop, Ji Xiaoge eagerly raised her hand and volunteered: "It’s not appropriate for Motan to cook alone on his shell-breaking day. Let me help!"

"Shell... shell-breaking?!"

Motan was startled at first, and after reacting for a few seconds, his face turned as pale as death, he gulped down his saliva: "Help... help?!"

The deceptively innocent-looking girl nodded vigorously: "Uh-huh!"

"Sister..."

Following this was Xiao Island, who had been coldly observing everyone mingling next to Ji Xiaoge. She tugged on her sister’s sleeve and shook her head: "You should just stay here and chat with everyone today."

"Why!?"

Ji Xiaoge looked aggrieved.

"Because it’s Motan’s birthday today."

"And then?"

"It would be somewhat inappropriate if it turned into a mourning day."

"Xiao Island! How can you talk about your own sister like that?"

Ji Xiaoge’s face filled with hurt as she hugged her sister, pitifully bumping her forehead against her’s: "Dad even praised my cooking last night! I was finally feeling confident, you don’t know how harsh Wang Ba was!"

"Wang Ba?"

Kang Lan, who was fiddling with the coffee maker, turned his head curiously: "What Wang Ba?"

Ji Xiaoge’s expression darkened as she pursed her lips: "Never mind!"

Xiao Island ruffled her sister’s hair, letting out a resigned sigh: "Although dad really did praise your cooking last night, but..."

"But?"

"I logged off the game early this morning, around five o’clock or so."

"And then what?"

"Dad was still in the bathroom clinging to the toilet vomiting."

"..."

Ji Xiaoge slid weakly off Xiao Island, kneeling on the floor as if powered down, her face ash-gray.

Xiao Island shook her head, helped her sister up onto the sofa across from Yi Dong, and gestured to the paralyzed Motan at the entrance, meaning ’your problem has been solved, go do whatever you need to do now.’

Then Motan handed the softshell turtle to Yu Chen, who came to offer help, and dragged a seemingly idle Wanyang out to replenish the ingredients.