Definitely not what I expected after seeing Zhong Xiao drunk in the back seat of a car with her teenage crush.
In fact, the crush isn't even mentioned at all in this chapter. However, the crush and designer probably both overheard Zhong Xiao's phone call (with some choice words like "darling" and such). The designer actually seems like a geniunely good person, so that's fine, but the crush probably isn't, based on her insistence to ride with her.
Dunno if you could blackmail somebody with half a phone call, especially when it wasn't that spicy or telling, but this story has had a lot of blackmail, so it is possible.
I honestly think Lin has the wrong attitude for successful long-term relationships. You are going to have to sacrifice for each other or compromise at some point. If you don't, your relationship is going to be extremely weak because the only thing holding you together is coincidence when you aren't willing to make an effort to be together. She makes it sound like she wants the two of them to lead parallel courses through life, as if they're just two passing ships in a storm that hung around each other for a while afterwards. Life rarely works like that, though. Lin makes it sound like if Zhong Xiao had to move to a different city for her job or something, then Lin would abandon her right there because her career is the primary thing in life and she isn't willing to sacrifice any aspect of that for their relationship.
I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but when Lin says things like that, it makes me think she puts such a low value on their relationship that they'd be better off apart.