"Why can’t I get through to your phone?"
He strolled over, his voice leisurely yet impossible to defy.
"I switched to a local number because I’ll be staying in the country for a while."
She held up her phone, shook it, and smiled at him with forced ease.
Mu Yichen reached out for her phone without a word, intending to check it, only to find it locked and requiring a password or fingerprint.
"What’s the password?"
He looked up at her, then back at the phone.
Qin Mu turned and unlocked the phone with her thumb while standing beside him.
Mu Yichen couldn’t help but glance at her, noticing her comfortable demeanor—nothing like that of a woman who had been given the cold shoulder for a week.
He even wondered if she had been secretly happy while he wasn’t at home.
"What did you want to talk about when you called today?"
He dialed his own number, and without checking his phone, he casually sat down on the sofa, still holding hers.
Qin Mu got sidetracked by the change in topic and forgot about the phone, pondering her earlier thoughts and looking seriously at him where he sat.
"I’ve been house hunting recently, but... did you have someone keep an eye on me?"
"Why would I keep an eye on you?"
He raised his eyes to glance at her, his look frank.
"Every house I like gets bought by someone else; for one of them, I even paid a deposit."
As Mu Yichen’s fingers entered his fingerprint, he looked up at her, his brows slightly knit. Are you saying someone is preventing you from finding a studio?
With just that brief exchange, Qin Mu trusted him completely.
With no more apprehension, she sat down beside him. If it’s not you...
"Were you just now suspecting it was my doing?"
Qin Mu gaped at him, at a loss for words, and awkwardly chuckled.
"I’ll look into this matter."
He couldn’t guess who might be meddling with her finding a studio, but as her man, he would naturally smooth out any obstacles in her path.
"Actually, I suspect someone!"
Mu Yichen looked at her skeptically, his gaze quite intimidating.
"I know you might not believe me; after all, it’s just a suspicion."
She shrugged helplessly and then looked up at him with fetching eyes.
Mu Yichen looked into the soft glow in her eyes, and the agitation he felt those past few days dissipated, calming him instantly.
"As long as it’s not you, I’m relieved. Don’t worry about the rest—"
She had just wanted to reconcile with him but then remembered they had been giving each other the cold shoulder recently, so she shut her mouth and just looked at him deeply.
Suddenly, Mu Yichen chuckled evilly, forcefully pulling her head close to his. "You heartless woman."
"This heartless woman will be exhausted to death by you eventually."
"I can’t bear that, but living in agony might be possible."
He smirked more wickedly, forehead pressed against hers.
He was so well-proportioned that Qin Mu couldn’t help but stare at him, entranced.
"When will we have our own baby?"
He suddenly envied that little girl who called him daddy, how fortunate she was to have him and Qin Mu as parents. He really wanted a child of his own now.
Qin Mu’s mind boomed at the thought. The day he left, she had gone to buy birth control pills.
Seeing his earnestness now, she naturally didn’t dare tell him, but the secret made her nervous.
"Haven’t we got Huanhuan? Isn’t that enough?"
"I’ll love her, but we need to have a child of our own."
Qin Mu didn’t know what to say, her heart pounding chaotically.
Huanhuan is indeed their biological child, and besides, they haven’t announced their marriage publicly. If she suddenly got pregnant, people would think she was using the child to force him into marriage.
But now wasn’t the time to ponder such things, especially since she didn’t want to have another child with him.
Huanhuan was an accident, but her favorite accident.
Such accidents could only happen once, and they must only happen once.
In their lifetime, the complications between them were already enough.
One day, she would leave; she was convinced they were bound to break up.
How could he always be good to her? Even if he could support her forever, he wouldn’t cherish her this much in a few years.
The image of her mother discovering her father’s infidelity, her mother lying dead in a pool of blood, haunted her—she didn’t believe in enduring love.
She believed more in bodily desires, momentary impulses, sparks ignited by chance.
The man who was so cold that night, almost shattering her bones, didn’t seem like him.
But just as they were about to do something, they heard voices outside the door. Mu Yichen instinctively covered her, and Qin Mu listened intently before explaining to him: It was Xiaomei and Huanhuan returning.
Mu Yichen sighed reluctantly: Indeed, it’s not lonely, but really inconvenient.
Qin Mu could only smile at him, her eyes seeming to say: We’ll just have to manage.
"Be good, pacify Huanhuan for a while. She missed you a lot when you weren’t here."
"Was it just her who missed me?"
Although he also missed the little one, he was far from content.
"Her mom missed you so much she could die!" she soothed him before opening the door, a bit happier.
Later that night, with Huanhuan asleep between them, Mu Yichen watched the little girl, glanced at the woman across and sighed affectionately.
Qin Mu looked up at him: Go to sleep already!
"We’re not done yet!"
Qin Mu immediately shut up and closed her eyes, intending to sleep.
Because if she didn’t sleep, Mu Yichen, in his state tonight, would surely be lethal.
Ever since they started being intimate a few years ago, he always managed to make her cry for mercy with his vigor.
In the dark, his finely chiseled jaw rested on her shoulder.
"Here, or shall we go to the next room?"