go home

Lin Ting remained attentive, asking, "Have you remembered something?"

Qiu Mingyue pursed her lips and said, "Actually, sometimes I feel that it's a blessing from heaven that he met you."

Lin Ting immediately understood who Qiu Mingyue was referring to as "him." He said gently, "Why would you think that?"

Qiu Mingyue forced a smile. "The first part of the journey was the hardest. When he was walking on that path, you gave him a lot of encouragement."

Lin Ting understood what she meant. "I was very lucky to meet him."

The meal lasted for over an hour. Neither of them drank alcohol, but they both became quite talkative. However, every meal eventually comes to an end, and the two reluctantly parted ways.

Lin Ting said, "I'm waiting for your job offer."

Qiu Mingyue gave him an "OK" sign, her smile confident and radiant. Lin Ting realized that the occasional sadness that surfaced during their conversation, and the annoyance she showed when faced with bizarre situations, were not Qiu Mingyue's true nature; she was, at heart, a very bright and cheerful person.

When Lin Ting got home, he glanced at the time. His video was scheduled to be sent at 6 p.m., and more than two hours had passed since then.

So he sat down at his computer, opened his video, looked at the comments below, and slowly replied.

When he refreshed the page, he saw that the account named "Maple Leaf," actually owned by Zhao Qinfeng, had just posted a comment.

Lin Ting remembered that Zhao Qinfeng should be at the recording site tonight. She didn't know how she managed to steal a moment from her busy schedule to watch his video, and just like she always did, she left an extremely serious comment.

He wanted to reply seriously, but what could he say? Lin Ting had already said almost everything he wanted to say in the video, and Zhao Qinfeng was a meticulous person. The things he added were so good that Lin Ting couldn't find any fault with them no matter how he looked at them, and there was nothing else to add.

Lin Ting thought for a long time, and finally replied with the same simple reply as she had given to other comments.

Zhao Qinfeng didn't get his phone back until 2 a.m. The recording of the show was scheduled late, and he had to go through each segment one by one. After that, there were still some things that needed to be re-recorded. When he finished and left with his assistant, he finally realized how tired he was. Or rather, he had exhausted his energy in order to appear energetic in front of the cameras and the fans waiting near the recording venue.

His assistant handed him a thermos. Zhao Qinfeng thanked him softly, took the thermos, opened it, and took two sips. The temperature was just right.

Zhao Qinfeng opened his phone and casually tapped into the video app. Based on his understanding of Lin Ting, he knew that sometimes Lin Ting would reply to a portion of the comments at a certain time after a video was posted, and sometimes he wouldn't.

Although Zhao Qinfeng could communicate directly with Lin Ting face-to-face, out of some tacit understanding, Zhao Qinfeng would still leave comments for Lin Ting as he always had, and Lin Ting would reply to him in the same way.

He checked the comments he had received. The first few were replies from other viewers. He scrolled down a bit and saw that Lin Ting had replied to his comment around 9 p.m.

Zhao Qinfeng thought aimlessly: He must have started replying to the comments after he and Qiu Mingyue went home from dinner.

Even for someone who frequently stays up late, 2 a.m. is never a time when they can always stay awake.

He loves his job and cherishes every opportunity he has, so his schedule is packed.

Zhao Qinfeng realized that he missed Lin Ting very much, missed his voice, missed his body temperature, missed every little thing they did under the same roof.

Even though he was eager to go home, he needed to continue recording after a quick nap. Only after finishing recording could he board the plane that might be delayed. By the time he got home, Lin Ting would probably already be asleep.

Zhao Qinfeng didn't want to wake Lin Ting, so he would temporarily leave his suitcase unpacked, go to the guest room's bathroom to wash up, and then gently lie down next to Lin Ting.

Only after doing this will he feel like he's home.

Lin Ting stretched and drew back the curtains. The weather was lovely today, and he hung his clothes out to dry in the morning sun. The clothes had a pleasant scent, which became even more delightful after being dried in the sun.

He glanced at the weather forecast, which said it would be sunny all day, so he took the blankets from his room to the balcony to air them out.

Then he poured water into his glass, sat cross-legged on the sofa closest to the balcony, facing the balcony so that he could see the morning sunlight and his clothes swaying in the breeze.

At night, Lin Ting turned off all the lights in the house except for one in the entryway. She watched TV in the almost completely dark living room without any sound.

At first, he turned on some news channels, but the blue background made him a little dizzy. After switching between them, he finally decided to watch a movie on the movie channel.

He had watched the movie that was playing. Although he didn't turn on the sound, he could almost completely recall the intonation and tone of each character when they recited their lines, as well as the sounds of various objects and the background music.

He yawned. It was already his usual bedtime, but the movie wasn't over yet…

Zhao Qinfeng hadn't returned yet either. Lin Ting remembered seeing a message Zhao Qinfeng had sent in the early hours of the morning, saying that he would be recording for most of the day and wouldn't be back until 11 or 12 at night, and that he shouldn't wait for him and should go to sleep first.

He didn't do as instructed, and curled up in the corner of the sofa watching a silent movie.

Lin Ting unknowingly fell asleep leaning against the back of the sofa, while the movie continued to play.

Zhao Qinfeng said goodbye to the driver who brought him back, walked from the underground parking garage into the elevator lobby, and took the elevator upstairs.

The light flickered through the gap in the elevator doors, and the numbers slowly changed. Even the electronic announcement of the floor was too loud in the middle of the night. Zhao Qinfeng waited for the elevator doors to fully open, then slowly stepped out and quietly opened his apartment door.

The entryway light was on, but the living room wasn't completely dark. He couldn't see the TV screen directly from his position, but the constantly changing light and shadows indicated that the TV was on.

Zhao Qinfeng gently carried the suitcase in and placed it in the entryway. He changed into slippers and walked into the living room, where he immediately saw Lin Ting sleeping in the corner of the sofa.

He turned to look at the silent movie, reached for the remote control on the coffee table, turned off the TV, and then gently put the remote control down.

He touched Lin Ting's arm; a patch of skin was chilled from being near the air conditioner vent. Zhao Qinfeng wrapped his arms around Lin Ting's back and knees, scooped him up, and carried him towards the bedroom.

Lin Ting woke up midway, but not fully awake. Seemingly driven by her instinct to seek warmth, she turned and buried herself in Zhao Qinfeng's arms.

After Lin Ting was placed on the bed, he had actually become much more awake and began to close his eyes and pretend to be dead.

He heard Zhao Qinfeng laugh, then felt the other's breath getting closer and closer. A warm hand touched his earlobe, stroking it lightly and gently, slowly lifting his earlobe and sliding it down his neck. Suddenly, a warm kiss landed on his slightly cool collarbone.

Lin Ting shuddered, finally opened her eyes, and met Zhao Qinfeng's gaze with a less-than-righteous air, "What are you doing?"

"You're allowed to rub against me, but I'm not allowed to touch you?" Zhao Qinfeng said jokingly.

Lin Ting said "Oh," and then said, "Then you can touch it."

As he spoke, he turned his head so that the back of his head faced Zhao Qinfeng, while his body was relaxed.

However, Lin Ting did not continue to "encounter" Zhao Qinfeng's physical advances.

He heard a very faint plugging sound. After a while, Zhao Qinfeng reached out and turned his head around, putting the earphones into his ears.

Music started playing in my ears.

Zhao Qinfeng stared quietly at Lin Ting's face. The relaxed atmosphere between the two had vanished, replaced by a serious one.

He silently kept a rhythm in his mind. No one was more familiar with the audio Lin Ting was listening to than Zhao Qinfeng.

Lin Ting suddenly blinked several times in succession, his eyelashes fluttering. A smile appeared on his face, and then he closed his eyes again.

After the playback progress bar finished, Zhao Qinfeng reached out and covered Lin Ting's closed eyes. "So, have you gotten any inspiration for writing lyrics?"

Lin Ting chuckled, "So this is already pushing my work progress? Logically speaking, my work should only officially begin after the staff member on your side who is in charge of my work sends me the demo."

Zhao Qinfeng retorted, "Since I've already told you, you can start thinking about it now."

Lin Ting ignored Zhao Qinfeng's robber logic and simply shared his thoughts after listening to the demo: "If you make this song the main track of your new album, no one will criticize you for having run out of ideas."

This is a roundabout way of praising him. Because Zhao Qinfeng's previous albums were all of excellent production quality and achieved great success in both critical acclaim and sales, everyone had high expectations for him.

Zhao Qinfeng sent the audio file to their chat box in front of Lin Ting.

Lin Ting suddenly stood up, her earphone cord still dangling from her ear, and helped Zhao Qinfeng sit up straight. "My phone is still in the living room..."

Zhao Qinfeng got up and went back to get Lin Ting's phone back for him.

"Thank you," Lin Ting smiled as he took the phone. After unlocking it, he saw the audio file that Zhao Qinfeng had sent him. "Go wash up first. I'll listen to it for a while longer, and we'll sleep together when you come back."

After Zhao Qinfeng returned, Lin Ting put down her phone and lay down with him, turning off the lights. Zhao Qinfeng hugged Lin Ting as usual, but felt that the person in his arms kept moving around, seemingly very awake.

"Around what time did you fall asleep on the sofa in the living room?" Zhao Qinfeng asked.

"Around ten o'clock?" Lin Ting asked uncertainly.

"Are you not too sleepy right now?" Zhao Qinfeng asked.

"It's okay, she'll fall asleep soon," Lin Ting said softly.