Hello, How Long Has This Been Going On?

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[Tao: …the taste of tea is so strong.
]

He was thinking about what advice he should give when HR immediately replied.

[HR: Is Doctor Tao drinking tea? ]

[HR: If it is too strong, don’t drink it, lest you suffer from insomnia at night.
]

Tao Zhi was stunned, not reacting until the waiter brought his order of steaming noodles in front of him.

He almost forgot that he was talking to a middle-aged man who didn’t have much access to the Internet.

[Tao: I’m not talking about the tea that’s for drinking.
It’s a catchphrase on the Internet— green tea or a tea with a strong flavour, are both phrases used to describe others.]

[HR: Ah, I seem to have heard my sister mention something about green tea before, so what does that mean?]

[Tao: I don’t know how to describe it exactly, let me think… You can say that it’s used for someone who pretends to be pitiful and innocent on the surface, but that person is actually one who schemes very well.
]

[Tao: For example, it was obviously this friend who harassed you and caused you trouble, right? But he apologised and admitted his mistake afterwards, putting his ego very low.
He blamed every single one of his actions on the excuse that he likes you too much and subtly transferred the responsibility to you.
In doing so, he looks very wronged and pitiful, which makes you want to comfort him.
From there, he will probably make some modest requests that you probably won’t say no to, marking his slow invasion into your life.
]

[Tao: It’s just a guess but I think that he didn’t lose anything at all.
He should be very familiar with your habit of replying to messages, which means that he knows that there are certain issues that you will most definitely reply to urgently.
Hence, I think he did this on purpose.
]

The dialogue box showed that the other party was typing for a long time, but it was merely an emoji with a sweat drop over a smiling face(1) that represented HR’s feelings.

(T/N: he means this)

[HR: //fail//fail//fail//]

Through the screen, Tao Zhiyue could feel the huge impact the revelation had on the heart of this simple middle-aged straight man.