This Best Actress is a Bit Annoying - Chapter 27.2

So annoying. Why is raising a single potted plant so much trouble? You even have to control the temperature. My heart is tired.

Xia Qingye watered the narcissus and placed it outside where it could get some sunlight. She patted its buds. “You’d better show some spine, or you’ll be heartlessly abandoned by her.”

She could already tell that Nie Zhuying was not cut out for gardening.

In the afternoon, Nie Zhuying received a phone call, disguised herself, and went out using Xia Qingye’s car.

Xia Qingye didn’t ask questions. She basked in the sun outside, and just as it was about to set, she moved the narcissus back inside. She carried it upstairs, but as she was about to knock, she remembered Nie Zhuying was out. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned back toward her own room, thinking she’d just keep the plant there for now. After a few steps, she stopped and returned to Nie Zhuying’s door.

After struggling like this for ten minutes, Xia Qingye held the pot in one hand and twisted the doorknob with the other, instinctively telling herself, “I’m just here to deliver a plant.”

Then, the door opened.

Xia Qingye took a step inside, cautiously poking her head in. She didn’t see the dog, but she did see the hamster on the desk. The hamster, Xia-Xia, was holding a sunflower seed; it froze the moment it heard the commotion at the door.

The hamster looked just as it did the other day—clutching food and nibbling incessantly. Its yellow-and-white fur was a bit fluffy. Setting aside the fact that it looked a lot like a rat, it was actually quite cute from other angles.

Xia Qingye approached step by step and placed the pot on the desk. Xia-Xia the hamster heard the heavy movement; its two black-bead eyes stared fixedly at a certain spot, and its pink paws held onto its afternoon snack, motionless. It looked a bit dim-witted.

Recalling her experience from that early morning, Xia Qingye still felt a lingering fear. Anyone would be startled to open their eyes and see a creature so similar to a rat appearing before them, especially since it was one of her most hated animals.

She searched around the desk and picked up a “dog-beating stick”—the one her brother had bought, which Nie Zhuying later used to train Nuonuo. Xia Qingye tapped the desk. “Finally caught you, didn’t I?”

Xia-Xia the hamster was so startled that the seed fell from its paws.

Xia Qingye didn’t care if it had its seed or not. She poked the end of the stick into the cage and jabbed its rear. Xia-Xia seemed to receive a huge shock; it scurried away, hiding in a corner. “Do you have any idea how much you scared me? I have a psychological shadow just going back to my room, afraid you’ll scurry over my feet. I threw away my blankets and almost moved my whole room to another house.”

Seeing it huddled in the corner in terror, Xia Qingye found it quite amusing, and the grudge in her heart partially dissipated. She poked it again—first Xia-Xia’s round bottom, then Xia-Xia’s little head…

After poking it like this for a few minutes, suddenly, Xia-Xia the hamster collapsed onto the floor of the cage, belly-up. Its limbs twitched once, its little black eyes closed, and it stopped moving.

A complete “I am dead” state.

Xia Qingye froze. After a long daze, she pulled out the stick, and only one thought flashed through her mind: Holy f–k.

She had never done anything so brainless in her past life. The only time she had was right now. She had seemingly, accidentally, poked one of Nie Zhuying’s beloved pets to death with a dog-beating stick.

If Nie Zhuying found out, it would be the end of the world.

Back then, she had only bitten her once while drunk, and the woman had settled the score twice already.

Xia Qingye was a bit distraught. How could this hamster’s vitality be so weak? She hadn’t used much force.

She immediately tossed the stick back to its original spot on the desk, thinking of leaving first. However, as she took a step back, she heard a “Yelp! Yelp!” Looking down, she realized Nuonuo had run to her feet at some point, and she had stepped on the little guy while backing up.

Nuonuo retreated under the bed, whimpering and howling incessantly.

Xia Qingye was so startled she immediately jumped onto the bed and cautiously left from the other side.

Back in her own room, Xia Qingye felt uneasy no matter how she thought about it. She went to deliver a narcissus, and the hamster kicked the bucket. When Nie Zhuying returned, saw the narcissus on the desk, and found her pet dead, she would almost certainly assume it was Xia Qingye’s doing. After all, she had once threatened to poison it.

For an arrogant person like that to proactively admit to a prank just because she heard Xia Qingye talk about poison… she would probably be heartbroken if the hamster died.

Xia Qingye tossed and turned for a long time before deciding she couldn’t let it stay like this. So, she sneakily returned to Nie Zhuying’s room and took the cage. After thinking about it, she realized nowhere was safe, so she eventually put it in her own room. She took a photo with her phone, covered the cage with a cloth, and temporarily hid it in her bathroom.

Then, she borrowed Xia Yanbo’s car and drove out to the flower market they had visited before. She went straight to the destination and found the place specializing in hamsters. She stood over a meter away from the cages and showed the photo on her phone to the owner. “Boss, find me a hamster that looks exactly like this one. Put it in the same type of cage, and it’s best if the things inside are identical too.”

The owner looked closely. “Oh, the yellow-and-white ones are our bestsellers. Do you want a male or a female?”

Xia Qingye: “…”

After a half-second of consideration, she quickly made a decision. “A female, of course.”

It took ten minutes to get all the equipment ready. The owner even threw in three bags of supplies: coarse grains, bath salts, and pee pads…

Xia Qingye had no idea what they were for. Since the owner gave them, she took them all back to the car. She threw a red cloth over the cage to cover it—out of sight, out of mind.

“Please don’t come back too early.”

“If you come back early, I’ll have to find an excuse.”

Xia Qingye muttered to herself while driving, terrified that Nie Zhuying would beat her home. Perhaps her sincerity moved the heavens; when she pulled into the garage, her own car hadn’t returned yet. She immediately grabbed the hamster cage and rushed upstairs, only to run right into Xia Yanbo, who was about to head down for dinner.

“Qingye, back so soon?”

“Brother.”

“What’s that you’re carrying? It’s pretty big,” Xia Yanbo said, reaching out to lift the red cloth.

To prevent a tragedy similar to falling down the stairs, Xia Qingye immediately turned her body to block him. “Brother, how can you just rummage through a girl’s things? This is a secret.”

Xia Yanbo was stunned by her words; his curiosity vanished. He pulled his hand back and sighed slightly. “True, Qingye is a grown girl now.”

Xia Qingye nodded vigorously—it was normal for a grown girl to have secrets. She immediately went upstairs. Under her brother’s gaze, she went into her own room first. After waiting a bit, she peeked out to see Xia Yanbo at the door on the phone, his back to her. She immediately went back, grabbed the cage, slipped into Nie Zhuying’s room, and put everything back in its place.

During all this, Nuonuo didn’t seem to hold a grudge at all. Forgetting that she had just stepped on him, he trotted after her heels. Xia Qingye was nearly scared to death and hurriedly closed the door.

Once it was all done, Xia Qingye lay back on her bed, exhausted. After thinking for a moment, she couldn’t help but burst into laughter. She didn’t know why she was laughing; she just felt incredibly refreshed.

Doing something like a thief for the first time felt very strange.

“You shouldn’t be able to tell the difference, right?”