Gu Qili would never have imagined that Mu Shuoqian would have installed so many security cameras in her home, including one in her own bedroom.
She didn’t know that the sight of her secretly wiping away her tears had already been captured by a pair of deep, indifferent black eyes.
Studying until 2 a.m., Gu Qili was so sleepy she could hardly keep her eyes open, the various vocabulary words crashed around in her mind until she couldn’t remember a single one.
"If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere." After mumbling the last vocabulary word, Gu Qili couldn’t resist the urge to sleep any longer and dozed off on the coffee table.
After a while, a pair of feet clad in cotton slippers stopped in front of the coffee table, and slender fingers picked up the laptop set to the side, pulled up the browsing history from the backend, and after inputting a password, the websites that Gu Qili had been visiting popped up.
As he scrolled through the comments, Mu Shuoqian’s face grew darker and darker, until he finally closed the webpage.
His gaze fell upon the girl who was sleeping soundly; her cheek was pressed against her arm, and her white neck looked even more slender, her lips slightly pursed in sleep, her eyebrows lightly furrowed together, as if troubled by unhappy thoughts even in her dreams.
Because she was sitting on the floor, her skirt had rolled up to the top of her thighs, revealing a pair of slender, fair legs nestled in the soft white woolen carpet, their whiteness not inferior in the slightest to the wool’s. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ n0velfire.net
Mu Shuoqian took his cellphone to the kitchen, and while he was pouring a glass of water, the phone call connected.
"It’s me, Mu Shuoqian."
"I know, there’s caller ID." The person on the other end yawned lazily, his tone revealing annoyance at being woken up: "Rich brat, do you even know what time it is?"
"..." Zhuo Yanbei sighed, evidently too sleepy and listless: "What’s up, I have to return to the military base tomorrow, I’m begging you to look after things."
"Nothing serious, just giving you the chance to show off." Mu Shuoqian took a sip of hot water, the burning sensation sliding down into his chest, providing temporary relief from the discomfort in his stomach.
Returning to the living room, he glanced at the girl who was still deep in slumber and strode over.
He turned on the remote control; the television program was still on the children’s channel, which broadcasts cartoons 24 hours a day, often repeating the same cartoon for a whole month.
Nutcase, what kid would be watching TV at this hour.
The volume of the TV wasn’t loud, but the sound of it turning on still made the sleeping person’s shoulders twitch; she didn’t wake up, though, instead turning her head to the other side and continued to sleep on her arm, clearly exhausted.
Mu Shuoqian held a cup of water in one hand, and though there was a comfortable sofa to sit on, he chose to sit on the carpet instead, his long legs curled up, his knees almost touching Gu Qili’s arm.
He leisurely drank his water while watching the cartoon; his other hand seemed to move unconsciously, very naturally coming to rest on Gu Qili’s thigh exposed outside the blanket, its soft elasticity and comfortable warmth the perfect cushion for his resting hand.
"It’s you two stinky bears again, don’t run, stop right there." In the TV, Bald Qiang was brandishing his shotgun and chasing frantically after his targets.
Mu Shuoqian slightly furrowed his eyebrows; his refined demeanor was ill-suited to be framed together with this kind of cartoon. It was a mismatched scene, yet he appeared to watch with great concentration, his slender fingers rhythmically tapping on that porcelain-smooth thigh.
When Gu Qili woke up, she saw that "Boonie Bears" was still playing on the TV; she was groggy and couldn’t figure out what time it was until she turned her head and saw another living person sitting next to her; she sprung up from the carpet in shock.