The next day.
Lin Ci got up early, took a shower, and came out with her hair still damp.
Every girl knows what it means to wash your hair especially for a boy.
Lin Ci rarely put this much thought into her outfit, but today she carefully matched her clothes.
It was obvious she didn’t want to be overshadowed too much by Qin Sheng, but she was also afraid her intentions would be too obvious.
So she cautiously balanced herself somewhere between “meticulously dressed up” and “casually relaxed” to a degree she could accept.
Her mother was surprised when she saw this, thinking: Usually on weekends, my daughter would sleep until the end of time if she could. What’s going on today?
“You’re going out?”
“Yeah.”
“Where to?”
Where there’s something unusual, there must be something going on. Her mother was a bit worried that Lin Ci was starting an early romance.
Now in her early forties, she was well past her youthful years and at the most full and rounded stage of a woman’s life.
But her skin was still firm, her eyes still sparkled with vitality, and her well-maintained figure had not changed. Time had only added a mature charm to her.
Supervising.
Aside from the woman next door, she was the most beautiful in the neighborhood.
Among the kids, only Wenwen could compete with Lin Ci. At school, she was definitely the center of attention for many boys, but luckily Shen Xiyan was always around.
Lin Ci grabbed two slices of bread and quickly filled her stomach. “Aunt is going to be hospitalized. I’m going to accompany her for a bit…”
“What happened to her?”
“She has a small polyp in her stomach.”
Her father frowned and asked, “What’s that got to do with you? Why do you need to go with her?”
“Well, we know her. My mom and Aunt are really close…”
In psychology, this move is called seizing the moral high ground.
First, she pulled her mother to her side, leaving her father isolated and outnumbered.
“Even if you know her, that’s not necessary, is it? Why are you joining the crowd? Did you finish your homework?”
“Oh, come on! We’ve been neighbors for ten years. Aunt has always been good to me. When you both went back to our hometown, she took care of me.”
“Now that she’s hospitalized, what’s wrong with me keeping her company?”
Her mother nodded in agreement.
“That’s right, stop being so suspicious all the time. Our daughter knows what she’s doing. After her surgery is done, we’ll buy a fruit basket and go visit her together.”
“So no one’s home at their place these days?” her mother asked again.
Lin Ci nodded. “Yeah, so just make a little extra food when you cook. I’ll bring it over or invite them here to eat.”
Her father grumbled sourly, “You’re really being considerate…”
“They really look after me at school! I’m not talking to you anymore, they’re about to leave.”
Lin Ci slung her little crossbody bag over her shoulder and hurried out the door.
***
Next door, Shen Xiyan woke from a nightmare.
In his dream, he saw a field of blood, Qin Sheng lying on the ground covered in blood, smiling at him.
He couldn’t help but feel a little down…
He could only keep telling himself that Qin Sheng in that world would probably live well.
Only by trying would she know that in this world, no one is so indispensable you can’t live without them. The old her had trapped herself.
He stretched and loosened his stiff limbs, making a series of cracking sounds.
The beginning he wrote last night had already been uploaded.
Even though Qin Sheng had interrupted, it was his first time writing, and after a lot of writing and deleting, he’d only really deleted two or three hundred words—not a big deal.
If he’d had to delete two or three thousand words…Qin Sheng, hmm, Qin Sheng wouldn’t be that unreasonable.
Now all he could do was wait—if his future inspiration matched his decent writing skills, maybe he could recreate it…
Shen Xiyan rolled his neck, yawned, pulled open the curtains, and the room instantly became brighter.
Usually at this hour, the room would be bright even without pulling the curtains, but today it was raining outside and the sky was gloomy.
The alarm rang right on time. Shen Xiyan picked up his phone to turn it off, got out of bed, and opened the door to go wash up—only to find his bedroom door wide open.
He poked his head in for a look. Qin Sheng’s sleeping posture was anything but proper.
She was still on the bed, but her pillow was in the wrong place, clamped tightly between her long, snow-white legs. She was lying across the bed, her hair in a messy tangle covering her little face.
Shen Xiyan looked at her delicate, sleepy face, his voice stuck in his throat…
He forced down certain inexplicable morning impulses and was just about to speak when Qin Sheng’s alarm started ringing too.
But Qin Sheng didn’t open her eyes.
She rolled around in the covers, stretched out her pale, plump arm to fumble for her phone on the nightstand, hit the stop button, then lay back down in the same spot, snorting like a lazy pig and continuing to sleep soundly.
“Qin Sheng? Qin Sheng?”
Shen Xiyan called her name twice, lifted the thin blanket, and shouted, “Get up!”
“Mm?”
Hearing Shen Xiyan’s voice, Qin Sheng woke up with a start. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was the figure standing by her bed, and her gaze turned dazed for a moment.
She suddenly came to her senses, coughed lightly while lying in bed, and shrank back into the covers, hiding her face so Shen Xiyan wouldn’t see her bare face, mumbling, “When did you get here?”
“I saw your door wasn’t closed…”
“I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and left it open.” Qin Sheng sat up, leaning against the headboard, rubbing her eyes sleepily.
“Aren’t you hot?” Shen Xiyan glanced up at the hard-working air conditioner.
“It’s fine. The AC outside isn’t that great anyway. I’ll send some cold air your way. Besides, I have period cramps, so I shouldn’t be too cold…”
“???”
All the air conditioners in the bedrooms were newly installed by Aunt. The rooms were small, so the cooling was especially good.
But the one outside was more than ten years old, left by the previous old lady, and since it wasn’t used much, it had never been replaced—the casing was yellowed.
Shen Xiyan felt a little touched. Anyone would be.
As long as they didn’t know Qin Sheng was faking period cramps.
“Xiyan~~”
Qin Sheng gave him a listless glance, then closed her eyes and rested her head on her knees, pretending to nap, her moist, delicate lips pouting. “I think I must have been a carbonated drink in my previous life.”
Shen Xiyan bent down and casually picked up the clothes on the floor. “Yeah, you soaked in carbonation too long, so now you’re calcium deficient, your brain didn’t develop fully, and your cerebellum is also…”
“What the heck!”
Qin Sheng kicked Shen Xiyan in the face, putting on the most exaggerated “ashamed and angry” act: “Whenever I see you, I get so happy I bubble over!”
Shen Xiyan was silent for a few seconds, rubbing his lips.
If he didn’t feel wrong, that girl just shoved her toes in his mouth…
“Don’t act crazy first thing in the morning. Get up and come out to eat…”
“I don’t want to eat, nothing suits my taste~~” Qin Sheng wriggled around, acting like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum.
“Acting cute won’t work on me. Stop that!”
“Then I’ll act cute with Aunt~~”
“So what do you want to eat?” Shen Xiyan asked impatiently.
“I want to stare at you dreamily.” Qin Sheng wrinkled her nose, acting like a little girl being silly.
Shen Xiyan was exasperated, glaring at her, not sure if he should get mad or not.
If he got mad, it’d make him seem uptight and unable to take a joke.
But if he didn’t, did it mean he was being too soft on Qin Sheng?
I want to be gentle, but I don’t want to be gentle to Qin Sheng.
Qin Sheng cleverly changed the subject, saying, “Go out, go out, I need to put on makeup…”
“Aren’t you going to brush your teeth, wash your face, and then do your makeup?”
“Oh, I forgot…”
Qin Sheng rushed to the bathroom to wash up, then announced she was dieting and wouldn’t eat breakfast, and did her makeup while everyone else was eating.
When she came out, she was wearing a black long dress, eight-tenths in length, just reaching her calves, exposing two pale, slender legs.
She spun lightly in front of Shen Xiyan, the skirt flaring out gracefully like a willow in the wind.
“Xiyan? Do I look good?”
“…” Shen Xiyan ignored her.
Qin Sheng’s features were already flawless, but with makeup she was simply stunning.
Qin Sheng didn’t mind, because Shen Xiyan’s gaze had already given him away. The corners of her lips curled up, revealing her inner pride.
As expected, this lady is the most beautiful!
Afterward, the group left the house. Lin Ci had already been waiting at the door for a while…
Shen Xiyan glanced at her. She was wearing a simple white T-shirt and washed blue jeans, her soft hair falling down her back.
Her small hands hung naturally in front of her. Maybe because he was looking at her, she seemed a bit uneasy, her white sneakers pressed tightly together, shuffling lightly on the floor.
Shen Xiyan asked, “Why are you here?”
“Aunt is having surgery. It just feels weird not to go…”
“What’s so weird about it?” Qin Sheng frowned, not looking pleased.
Aunt agreed, “Yeah, I can handle it alone, or at most with Qin Sheng. The rest of you don’t need to come. It’s raining outside—wouldn’t you rather sleep in at home?”
“Aunt~~” Wenwen clung to Aunt’s arm, whining, “We won’t get to see you for so many days, how can we not go?”
“Mm!” Lin Ci nodded in agreement.
Aunt didn’t say anything more.
When the group entered the elevator, Lin Ci noticed Shen Xiyan looking at her, so she turned her head to look elsewhere, trying hard to act calm.
But when Shen Xiyan stopped looking, she wished he’d look at her a little longer…
A young girl’s heart is full of twists and turns.
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