(1)
The new house was much larger than the wooden cabin they had lived in on the island before.
It was not only large enough to accommodate the entire family together, but also allowed each person to have a room of their own.
Each floor of the small western-style house was divided into two sections, with a staircase leading to the middle of each section.
Each staircase was surrounded by eight rooms, so the two staircases together made a total of sixteen rooms.
Each section had two shared bathrooms, and each floor had four bathrooms in total. Even after removing these bathroom rooms, the three floors combined had thirty-six rooms, enough for every child and grandchild to have their own room, with some to spare.
Qian Mingfei and Minghui Yu’s rooms were on the other staircase side, while An Jing’s room was on the fourth floor of this section.
—The lower floors were reserved for the elders, while the higher floors were for the younger ones.
The younger the person, the higher the floor they lived on.
It was mainly because the young people were agile and walking a few more stairs was no problem at all.
Probably because climbing stairs was too tiring, Grandpa and Grandma didn’t follow up and just let An Jing go to the fourth floor to find her own room.
No need to worry about not finding it, because each door had a nameplate engraved with a name. Although this was her first time staying here, seeing those familiar names already gave her a feeling of coming home.
“Wow, so many rooms.”
Zhu Ying stood by the hallway window, her gaze sweeping over each nameplate, finally landing on the one engraved with ‘An Jing’.
“How amazing—I’ve never seen such a big scene. Xiao Jing, your family really has a lot of people.”
“Yeah, look, they even have a room for my nephew over here. There are a few empty ones next to it, probably reserved for others.”
“Your nephew??”
“My eldest cousin… that is, my eldest uncle’s eldest son, already has a son, and he’s in elementary school. I remember he’s not that much younger than us.”
“What a big family…”
Zhu Ying couldn’t help but exclaim again.
“Anyway, behind that door is Xiao Jing’s room, right?”
“Yeah… I’ve always heard that there’s a room for me in the hometown, but I’ve never been here before. I wonder what it’s like inside.”
An Jing walked forward two steps, stopped in front of her own door, stood on tiptoe, and reached out to touch the engraved marks on the nameplate.
“Seems like it’s made of copper.”
“Is that row of numbers below—Xiao Jing’s birth date?”
“Ah, if you hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have noticed… It really is.”
An Jing nodded and was about to turn the doorknob when she heard Zhu Ying make a confused sound.
“Xiao Jing! How come there’s a smaller plate under the nameplate of this door? Seems like it was added later.”
“That’s Sister Ming Jin’s room. The plate below seems to be Brother-in-law’s name.”
“You can add names to the nameplate after marriage!”
Zhu Ying got excited immediately and quickly grabbed An Jing’s arm.
“Xiao Jing! Then I can add mine in the future, right?”
“Uh… I don’t know how to explain it, but it should be possible to add it.”
“I want to get a transparent plastic wooden plate—those look nice!”
“Ha—really? I think that looks like a hotel front desk…”
An Jing muttered and finally pushed open the door.
The room wasn’t big, which didn’t surprise her.
After all, how big could the whole house be? One floor was divided into two sections, each section had eight rooms… It probably couldn’t be very big even if it wanted to.
But what was somewhat surprising was that the room wasn’t a simple rectangle. In fact, the whole shape was L-shaped, adding some depth to the small room so that you couldn’t see the end at a glance.
By the door of the room was a shoe cabinet. In the space about as wide as the hallway was a desk, and above it was a wooden bookshelf that reached the ceiling. It was empty, not even a single book, waiting for An Jing to fill it herself.
At the corner of the L was a sliding-door wardrobe, which looked like it could hold not only several sets of bedding but also a lot of clothes.
Turning the corner, a large bed about 1.8 meters wide occupied the entire space, so that the bedside table could only be placed next to the wardrobe.
Perhaps to avoid making the room feel too small and oppressive, there was a whole row of windows beside the bed. An Jing counted carefully and confirmed there were as many as eight windows.
If they were all opened, the open feeling would probably be almost as good as sleeping outdoors…
She scratched her head a little sheepishly.
“Uh… the room is a bit small, although the bed is quite big…”
“Xiao Jing—!!”
“What…”
“I really love the feeling of this bed! Both sides are walls, and there are windows here. It must be so comfortable to sleep at night!”
“Huh? Won’t it feel oppressive?”
“Not at all—it gives me a great sense of security! And with the room so small, it’s perfect for playing music—you can easily create a surround sound feeling!”
“Is that so?”
An Jing took another look at the bed that seemed to have been stuffed into the end of the hallway.
“Actually, this is already much better than before. Back then, our beds were all messily placed upstairs, and some were right next to the stairs. Now at least we have separate rooms.”
“Yeah, this is our own little space!”
Zhu Ying sat down hard on the soft mattress, her petite body bouncing a couple of times.
“Hehe, so soft and comfortable!”
“The sheets are pretty clean—”
An Jing muttered and opened the wardrobe. Inside, two bathrobes were hanging neatly, which meant that even if she came back temporarily without clothes, she didn’t have to worry about having nothing to wear at night…
“Xiao Jing, if we wash our clothes now, will they be dry by tomorrow morning?”
“Probably about that? But we need to wring them out a bit more.”
“Then let’s take a bath!”
Zhu Ying grabbed An Jing’s wrist and shook it vigorously.
“Bath, bath, bath~!”
“You go wash first?”
“No, together!”
“You got addicted to bathing together, huh…”
“We’ve already washed together several times anyway, why be so shy! Today you have to scrub my back too!”
“You just want me to scrub your back, right?”
“Of course, and also—to admire Xiao Jing’s beauty on the side.”
“Ew~”
(2)
The bathroom upstairs was actually quite large, and each one had a washing machine installed. By now, An Jing and Zhu Ying’s clothes had been tossed in, tumbling together, making a sloshing sound.
Behind the glass sliding door, steam rose. Their bodies were covered in white foam, and their smooth skin occasionally touched lightly, making An Jing’s face flush slightly.
“Mm—!”
“Aiya, Xiao Jing, be a bit careful.”
“The foam is too slippery…”
“Just lean against the tiles. By the way, let me scrub your back first?”
“Huh? Me?”
“Yeah, after I’m done, you scrub mine.”
“Actually, we’re not dirty, why bother scrubbing…”
“Who said? Those places you don’t usually wash well yourself. Since we have the chance, we should scrub them properly!”
Zhu Ying, without giving An Jing a choice, stood behind her and gently placed her soft, boneless little hand on Yi’s back.
Although the force wasn’t strong, An Jing could feel that she was scrubbing very carefully, not missing a single inch of skin.
“Haa… haa…”
“What’s wrong?”
“My back, it’s so sore. It feels really good when you press there.”
“Like this?”
“Yes, yes… ah… you can press a bit harder.”
“Like this?”
“Mm—haa.”
An Jing felt her tense muscles relax.
“That feels much better…”
“The muscles here on Xiao Jing are so hard. You sit too much usually?”
“How do I have time to walk around…”
“Pfft, even if you had time, you’d still be playing games, right?”
“Cough…”
“How about playing around during the summer break?”
“Sure.”
“Where do you want to go tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? Uh… Let’s rest for a few days before going out. I’m a bit tired…”
“Tsk, lazy Xiao Jing.”
“You have to sleep hard the first few days of summer break!”
“Then let’s sleep hard tonight.”
“With you around causing trouble, how can I sleep hard?”
“Huh? Xiao Jing is actually slandering me. It seems I have to let you experience what ‘hard trouble’ really is today!”
“No, no tickling! I surrender!”
“Hmph, boring. You give up so quickly?”
“I have experience, okay.”
“Tch, you even look proud. Then I—reject your surrender!”
“Hey hey—!! Ha, hahaha—I’m ticklish to death—I surrender!! Puh… hahaha—!!”
(3)
An Jing’s delicate skin was now flushed red, as if steamed, and her whole body was emitting heat.
She staggered out of the bathroom and stood by the hallway window, taking a deep breath of the cool night air.
“Haa—haa… I feel like I’m about to pass out from lack of oxygen.”
“You washed for too long.”
“It’s all your fault…”
An Jing gave her a displeased glance.
“We showered in hot water for an hour. If the water hadn’t turned cold later, you’d probably still be at it.”
“But hot water is so comfortable, and scrubbing each other’s backs and massaging and stuff~ is also really fun!”
“Y-you call that scrubbing? I felt like I was a rag tumbling around violently in a washing machine.”
“Is it really that exaggerated?”
“Of course it is!”
“Oh right, the clothes are done washing, right? Let’s hang them out to dry~”
“In my room?”
“Isn’t there a balcony?”
“It doesn’t seem like it… uh, I saw Grandpa and Grandma’s clothes are dried downstairs.”
“Then let’s hang them downstairs—I’m a bit thirsty, want to buy some drinks?”
“Where would we buy drinks? This isn’t the city… Even in the city, there aren’t necessarily 24-hour convenience stores.”
“Did Xiao Jing forget? Isn’t there a vending machine next to the village committee building?”
“Huh? Oh right. And it’s not far.”
“Exactly, we can just go buy some. And we can enjoy the night breeze on the way.”
“Didn’t we wander enough after dinner just now?”
“It’s different. The feeling after a bath is different—it feels fresher and more relaxed.”
“But… wait a second, we don’t have any clothes to change into now. We’re wearing bathrobes, and nothing underneath.”
“Huh? Mm… that’s right.”
“I thought you were going to say we should go out anyway…”
“I’m not an exhibitionist!” Zhu Ying pouted and glared at An Jing.
“Is that so…? I feel like it’s something you’d do…”
“But it does seem kind of fun. What if we let Xiao Jing try—? I’ll just wait at home for you.”
“No, no, absolutely not!