The Eloquent Director Xia

After the deed was done.

Su Bai first drove Xia back to her dorm.

The graduate student dorm was somewhat of a distance from Xia's office. Usually, she rode a shared bike to work, treating it as a bit of exercise.

If time was a bit tight, she would take a shared electric scooter.

Only when the weather was bad would she take a taxi.

Xia Lin actually had her own private car, but she was generally too lazy to drive it.

A lot of the time, driving was less convenient than riding a two-wheeler. Besides, her status had long surpassed the stage of needing a car to show off.

"Xia, don't fall asleep just yet, we'll be there soon." While driving, Su Bai glanced back through the rearview mirror and couldn't help but remind her.

Xia Lin's drowsy, half-asleep appearance was actually quite cute.

Only when her physical stamina was completely drained would she reveal such a rare side. In fact, most of the time, Xia Lin maintained a rather poised demeanor. As a lady from a prominent family, she had to have the elegant temperament of an eldest daughter to fit the part. Her family definitely thought so, placing great importance on etiquette education since she was a child.

The more she acted like this, the more excited Su Bai got. It was just like in fantasy stories where people love seeing a holy maiden or a female knight fall from grace—the exact same logic applied.

"Mmm... I'm fine, I won't sleep," Xia Lin mumbled indistinctly.

"Xia, there are mints in the storage box of the rear center armrest. They're double-strength. Have some to wake yourself up," Chen Yusheng reminded her.

"Oh, okay, thank you."

Despite saying she was fine, Xia Lin honestly followed Chen Yusheng's advice, taking two mints and popping them into her mouth.

The refreshing, cooling sensation rushing to her head immediately perked Xia Lin up quite a bit.

Have to say, it really worked.

"Sheng Sheng, do you like eating mints to stay awake when you study?" Xia Lin asked casually. "It's nice, much better than using bad habits to stay alert."

Among Xia Lin's fellow graduate students, some who had tested in from other universities liked to smoke.

Every time she went to the computer science department's lab building, she could see those people in the smoking area.

Her father also loved smoking. Of course, it was incredibly common for men of his age to smoke. However, among today's young people, especially those with higher education, the smoking rate was indeed decreasing year by year.

Speaking of which, none of Su Bai's female confidantes seemed to smoke.

That was good.

But Chen Yusheng shook her head and said, "They're not for staying awake while studying. I don't need help staying awake to study; I get energized the moment I see code."

"...Alright."

"Actually, they're used to recover energy after... you know."

Chen Yusheng openly and generously spoke those few words.

It was a very vivid description, but it instantly made Xia Lin's face flush bright red.

So, keeping double-strength mints stocked in the car was for this reason?

That was truly unbelievable...

Did that mean Chen Yusheng was often so tired and sleepy in the car because of Su Bai, making "refreshing the mind" a regular necessity?

It seemed Su Bai's performance today was by no means a one-off, but rather standard operating procedure.

Thinking of this, Xia Lin suddenly felt a little... well, a tiny bit scared.

Despite her love for sports, fitness, and various athletic hobbies, deep down, Xia Lin was a very soft, delicate woman.

She was happy if her man was a bit capable; but if his style was too wild, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to handle it!

Thank goodness there were so many other girls to help share the burden.

In a certain sense, that was a good thing too!

Embarrassed, Xia Lin quickly coughed twice and changed the subject. "When is Su Bai planning to set off?"

"Tomorrow morning, probably. I saw the weather is supposed to be quite nice tomorrow. If we wake up early, we can leave a bit earlier... well, provided those two can actually get out of bed."

After all, the destination of their trip was the Wan sisters' hometown. They were also taking the opportunity to pick up their grandmother and handle some miscellaneous affairs back there.

This itinerary actually had a universal, experimental nature to it. Because, in the future, it was inevitable that he would encounter situations where he needed to step up and handle things for the families of his other female confidantes.

Most of the time, he could actually ask his other capable female confidantes to help out, but sometimes, a man really needed to step forward. Besides, Su Bai had plenty of free time.

Unlike office workers who felt mentally and physically exhausted squeezing in time to handle family matters, Su Bai was purely just joining in on the fun.

...

Xia Lin got out of the car at the entrance of the graduate dorms. Coincidentally, at the adjacent unit of the same dorm building, a luxury car also pulled up.

A delicately dressed girl stepped out first. She glanced at Xia Lin, an indescribable emotion surfacing in her eyes.

Simply put, it was the smugness of a petty person flush with success, yet mixed with an obvious fear of Xia Lin's background...

"Oh, isn't this Xia? What, went out to play and only coming back this late?"

"Yeah, just finished a gathering with friends," Xia Lin answered vaguely.

"Haha, then it seems your friend has pretty good conditions, even driving a Mercedes-Benz GLE. I just wonder if he's worthy of a grand lady like you?"

"..."

Here it comes, the classic sowing discord segment!

Xia Lin didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Actually, she had encountered quite a bit of this discord-sowing lately. Because she was close to Su Bai, classmates or colleagues who seemed somewhat familiar but were actually complete strangers kept popping up around her. They would earnestly advise her not to fall too deeply in love with a younger guy like Su Bai, lest he take too much advantage of her.

Even though many people now knew Su Bai was wealthy, in their eyes, his conditions still couldn't compare to Xia Lin's.

Only Xia Lin herself knew that with Su Bai's almost absurdly massive cash flow, how could he possibly be a mismatch for her family?

It was clearly a match made in heaven, if you asked her.

These people definitely didn't have good intentions. They just saw her constantly radiating happiness lately, found it an eyesore, and decided to run their mouths a bit.

The so-called girls' circle was just like this: afraid to see their sisters suffer, but even more afraid to see their sisters driving a Range Rover.

The core essence of female social circles was complaining to each other. Who the hell wanted to see you blissfully happy every single day?

Xia Lin found this way of interacting quite exhausting. It was much more relaxing to hang out with her younger brother Su Bai, where she didn't have to worry about a thing.

She sighed and said, "You don't need to worry about how my friends are. You should hurry back to your dorm, edit your photos, and post them on social media. It must have been hard to get a man driving a Lincoln to take you out, shouldn't you hurry up and show off? Oh, right, just a reminder. With the decline of American manufacturing in recent years, the transmissions on many Lincoln models are prone to issues. Their consumer protection agencies have been arguing with the company for a long time without reaching a proper solution. Remember to remind your man to visit the dealership for maintenance frequently."

"..."

Watching the two women bicker, Su Bai didn't drive away immediately. Instead, he stayed parked and listened for a while.

It thoroughly amused him.

Oh my, not bad at all, Xia.

As expected of a grand lady, she was completely unforgiving with her words. She had a vast breadth of knowledge and was especially good at putting people in their place. He guessed that random grad student from who-knows-where was probably so mad her false eyelashes were about to fall off.