When the two of them initially sat down, there was only a distance of two fists between them, let alone the fact that Jiang Ning had just leaned in close to him to pick up the letters he had previously torn open.
Qi Xingzhou was tall and strong, with long limbs.
Hugging the Jiang Ning in front of him was ridiculously easy for him.
In only a second or two, Jiang Ning felt her body lifted into the air for a moment, then pressed closely against Qi Xingzhou’s chest.
Jiang Ning was almost amused to the point of laughter.
If this counted as a sneak attack, it was already the second time Qi Xingzhou had done it.
The first time was during her previous visit to the Qi Family, when she went to give him a gift and ended up being tackled onto the couch by Qi Xingzhou.
This time... although a tackle had turned into a hug, the strong sense of restriction from Qi Xingzhou and his actions of desperately pressing her into his embrace while lowering his head to nuzzle her, made Jiang Ning’s nostrils fill with his faint, clean scent.
When she was suddenly tackled last time, Jiang Ning hadn’t really felt much.
This time, smelling the fragrance coming from Qi Xingzhou, and after hearing his joyous words, Jiang Ning inexplicably felt her heartbeat speeding up.
A warmth crawled up her cheeks, and in an instant, Jiang Ning came to her senses, "Stop, stop, stop, don’t get so excited, let’s talk this out nicely."
After getting close with Jiang Ning, Qi Xingzhou’s emotions weren’t as excited as before.
Hearing Jiang Ning’s words, his tightly gripping hands loosened ever so slightly.
Jiang Ning had just been abruptly lifted by him to sit on his lap, and even though he had let her go a little, their face-to-face sitting position remained intimate.
However, Qi Xingzhou seemed to enjoy it as he watched Jiang Ning with bright, sparkling eyes, his gaze filled with the happy emotions that hadn’t completely dissipated yet.
Jiang Ning averted her gaze from Qi Xingzhou and crawled off him on her own, walking over to the side.
With the weight suddenly gone from his legs, bringing along with it the absence of their shared warm body temperature, Qi Xingzhou felt somewhat reluctant and instinctively wanted to reach out and grab Jiang Ning but was restrained by the rationality of his brain.
Qi Xingzhou remained sitting on the ground without moving, like an abandoned puppy, looking up at Jiang Ning wherever she went, his gaze followed.
But Jiang Ning didn’t look at Qi Xingzhou; instead, she walked to the side and squatted down to pick up the letters that had fallen on the ground.
Jiang Ning frowned slightly as she looked over Qi Xingzhou’s letters again.
This time, she read them very seriously.
The atmosphere in the living room was somewhat quiet, with only the occasional sound of Jiang Ning flipping through the letters as both remained silent.
Although the silence was strange, indeed earlier when they were each opening their envelopes they were also not talking much, but Qi Xingzhou had been happy then, and the atmosphere was congenial.
Even someone as slow as him could vaguely sense that something was off now.
It was as if something cold was condensing in the air, almost freezing his eager and excited mood.
Qi Xingzhou’s expression gradually became uneasy.
He stood up and approached Jiang Ning cautiously, like an ostrich that had done something wrong and wanted to apologize, even though he didn’t know what he had done wrong.
He had only just spoken, when Jiang Ning had already seriously and quickly finished looking through the letters in her hands.
"The netizens were joking." Jiang Ning spoke, "I hadn’t read your letters before and I misspoke. The letters you received are different from what I got, yours seem to be from CP fans shipping the pairing..."
As she spoke, she took those letters that had both her and Qi Xingzhou’s names on them and, right in front of Qi Xingzhou, started to open every single one.
The packaging of these letters was largely the same, using uniform packaging from a courier company.
But after opening them, another envelope within revealed the personal touches everyone prepared before sending their letters.
These dozen or so envelopes, all inscribed with hers and Qi Xingzhou’s names, invariably showed inner envelopes adorned with heart patterns or in shades of soft pink... Some even contained cartoon stickers of her and Qi Xingzhou.
As for the contents of the letters... well, there was no need to elaborate.
Every one of them wished the two a lifetime of happiness together.
If Jiang Ning hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she never would have believed such things really happened.
As for CP fans, Jiang Ning didn’t know much about them. To her, they were a group of howling creatures on the internet who seemed to ’ship’ anything and self-indulgently create their own realms of adoration, a strange existence within the web.
Jiang Ning had seen those online comments teasing her and Qi Xingzhou about being a couple before, but she hadn’t taken them seriously at the time.
Most things on the internet were a mix of truth and lies, and netizens’ imagination was powerful.
The more the people involved tried to clarify, the more netizens thought it was an attempt to hide the truth.
Moreover, the emergence of these CP fans dated back to the last variety show she recorded with Qi Xingzhou.
In Jiang Ning’s eyes, it was like fans who ’shipped’ character couples after binge-watching a series. Since the variety show was over, she thought netizens would have long since stopped ’shipping’ her with Qi Xingzhou!
Yet, these CP fans were stubbornly persisting, not just alive but ’shipping’ from the show into reality, and even managed to lure one of the parties involved...
If Jiang Ning hadn’t been one of the ’shipped’ parties, she might have believed the "true love" these CP fans wrote about.
The imagination of CP fans was particularly strong, not only did they concoct a whole series of romantic life events between Jiang Ning and Qi Xingzhou, but they also painted their future blissful married life, and even took the liberty of writing letters offering advice to Qi Xingzhou, whom they perceived as too cold and solitary, fearing that if he remained so distant, his relationship with Jiang Ning would suffer.
It was totally a proactive precaution.
With such diligence and sincerity just for the sake of the couple they ’shipped’ staying in love, Jiang Ning momentarily wondered whether they were even this attentive to their own romantic lives...
Jiang Ning slowly turned her head, her gaze landing on the one beside her, who was one of those the CP fans had pushed into the spotlight.
Qi Xingzhou’s expression was visibly clear and confused, "CP fans?"
This term clearly touched upon an area of ignorance for him.
However, his animal-like keen intuition told him that he definitely should not agree with what Jiang Ning was saying at this time.
Moreover, he thought the netizens were right.
He and Jiang Ning were indeed a boyfriend-girlfriend couple.
They were a match made in heaven, loving and affectionate towards each other.
Although there were things he hadn’t done properly, it was because of his previous naivety, for not having done well. He would take advice.
He would definitely make things right in the future.
Qi Xingzhou’s eyes narrowed with determination, "No, they are not wrong at all, not joking in the slightest."
After thinking for a moment, he stole a glance at Jiang Ning’s expression and added, "I think what they said was excellent, it really, really resonated with me."