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◎Green Tea Attack 1◎

"Qing, what do you mean by 'handling'?" Jiang Mu placed the soda can in Mu and Qing's palms.

Mu Heqing lowered his head, opened the soda can, and said, "It's something like telling them to stop bothering you."

Jiang Mu shook his head, "This is just a small matter, no need to trouble yourself."

He now believes that what Uncle Gua said is true.

Mu and Qing are really different now.

In the past, she would never have uttered the word "deal with" to anyone.

"Jiang Mu, I'm sorry. I've been ignoring what happened that night. I think I might have been subconsciously running away from it." After thinking for a moment, Mu Heqing decided to be honest.

Jiang Muxin's heart tightened. Did Mu and Qing not want to acknowledge their relationship?

He looked anxiously at Mu Heqing, only to be embraced by her.

She was hugging him.

Jiang Mu realized this and didn't know where to put his hands. Last time when Mu Heqing hugged him, he hadn't even realized what was happening before Mu Heqing let go.

This time, Mu and Qing hugged him for a long time, burying their faces in his chest. Jiang Mu carefully lowered his hands and wrapped them around her.

"I feel like I'm slowly remembering things. I will take responsibility for you," Mu Heqing said sullenly. She was responsible for her own actions. Since she had kissed him and he had taken the initiative to come to her, she had to take responsibility.

Mu and Qing gave themselves a thumbs up for taking responsibility.

Jiang Mu knew why Mu and Qing couldn't remember. Uncle Gua had told him that it was a minor side effect of the replacement drug. Mu and Qing would retain their original feelings for the last human they had emotionally interacted with before taking the drug, but they would temporarily forget and need to recover slowly.

Jiang Mu thought that Mu and Qing must have had two reasons for kissing him at that time. First, she wanted to distract him while kissing him so that she could leave smoothly. Second, she must have thought that she would never come back.

Jiang Mu learned a lot from Uncle Gua about Mu and Qing's high school, about her past, and about her high school classmates.

He understood many things. No wonder Mu and Qing wouldn't let him interfere in his affairs. No wonder she always told him to leave her.

He couldn't tell whether what Uncle Gua was saying was true or false, but he felt sorry for her, that she had lived alone in that kind of world for three years.

Uncle Gua didn't go into detail about how she survived or how she left that place; most of it was just speculation, but it was still heartbreaking enough.

In particular, he learned about the period after Mu and Qing graduated when they couldn't speak to each other.

Jiang Mu had never hugged anyone before, especially not in this way. Mu Heqing was in his arms. She must like him, otherwise, she wouldn't have taken the initiative to kiss him and hug him.

However, she was previously limited by her high school classmates, but now he has become the only human being with feelings for her.

"Qing." Jiang Mu called out Mu and Qing's names.

"Why do you call me Qing? Didn't you always call me He Qing before?" Mu He Qing asked.

Ah, then wouldn't he be just like all her high school classmates? He doesn't want that.

“Aren’t we together now? I want a different way of addressing you,” Jiang Mu said.

But it seemed like someone else had called her Qing before. Mu and Qing were too lazy to think about who it was, so she accepted the name.

After spending some time with Jiang Mu, Mu Heqing felt that her memories of the past time with him became clearer and clearer. It was as if she could accurately recall what she ate every day for the past month, and that every meal was something she loved.

She rubbed her forehead, feeling guilty. No wonder Jiang Mu was upset; after what she had done, he hadn't seen her for a month, and it was definitely her fault.

Mu Heqing placed his right hand on Jiang Mu's cheek, his eyes reflecting only Jiang Mu's image.

"I will definitely cherish you," she said.

Jiang Mu's hand covered the hand that Mu Heqing had used to touch his face, and he felt slightly flustered.

Uncle Gua told him that those strange guys valued Mu and Qing highly and listened to her, while he, Jiang Mu, was the last acquaintance Mu and Qing met after she drank the drug, and he could influence her.

Their plan was to influence Mu and Qing through him, and then Mu and Qing would control those guys, so things wouldn't fall into chaos.

However, Jiang Mu's heart pounded violently. In Mu Heqing's eyes, he only saw his own figure. Now, he was Mu Heqing's only connection to the human world.

She no longer cares about the people in the birthday photo posted by Mu and Qing on their WeChat Moments.

Jiang Mu was the only one.

From the moment he first met Mu Heqing, he was no longer himself. He knew clearly that getting to know Mu Heqing better would be dangerous, but he didn't want to leave for a moment and was willing to succumb to temptation.

Ah, perhaps this is retribution for Jiang Mu's past actions.

Jiang Mu looked at Mu Heqing, whose face, which had originally only wanted to stay away from him, now only showed him a smile.

He couldn't refuse.

…………

Mu Heqing stared at the hands of the alarm clock on the table, which ticked away, each tick representing a second that had passed.

She was waiting for Li Shi to reply to her message.

The clock has ticked three hundred times; five minutes have passed.

The hands ticked another hundred times, and the phone rang once.

I'm at Kyushu Manor. You know where to find me.

Upon receiving the message, Mu and Qing got up and headed to the Kyushu Manor.

Now, Mu Heqing is very familiar with the Kyushu Manor. She knows where every door leads and has access to it.

She successfully found Li Shi, who was still sitting at the long table, enjoying his bloody lunch.

While stuffing food into his mouth, Li Shi asked, "He Qing, I'm not used to looking at my phone. If you want to come, just come. You don't need to ask me."

Mu Heqing didn't know whether to accept it or not, but she took the tea brought by the housekeeper and drank it down, mixed with the smell of blood in the air.

"I have a question for you, Shi."

"What?" Li Shi swallowed the last bite of raw meat.

"Have you ever seen this plant before?" Mu Heqing opened her phone and showed Li Shi a painting she had recently completed.

Although she didn't learn much useful painting from Sifei, she still managed to paint the plants from her dream.

Li Shi stared at the painting on his phone for a while, then hesitated and said, "I don't think I've seen it before, but it feels very familiar. Didn't you ask Principal Fa Jiuyi?"

"I asked, and I also asked other classmates. They all said they had never seen him before, but he seemed familiar to them."

"Why are you suddenly asking about this plant?" Li Shi asked.

Mu Heqing looked somber and said, "I think there's something wrong with my memory."

"What?" Li Shi swallowed hard.

Has the medicine stopped working?

"I think I've seen this plant before, but I just can't remember it." Mu Heqing had a headache; whenever she tried to think, she could only get a vague memory.

In my dream, it was very clear.

"It's probably just a rather strange plant, and don't worry about it, it won't pose any threat to you," Li Shi reassured her.

"Well, I was just asking casually." She was simply curious.

Mu Heqing glanced at the time; it was almost time for her appointment with Jiang Mu.

She stood up, put the tea she had finished drinking aside, and said goodbye to Li Shi.

"Wait," Li Shi called out to her.

"What's wrong?" Mu Heqing turned around.

"What about what I told you last time, Qing, what have you thought about it?"

Mu Heqing was silent for a moment, then said, "Let me think about it some more."

When she left the Kyushu Manor and returned to the city center of Ancheng, Jiang Mu had already been waiting for her for a while.

There is a large aquarium at the border of Anseong and Gyeongseong, which is their date location today.

Jiang Mu was wearing an outfit similar to the one they first met: a khaki jacket and black trousers, his brown eyes filled with joy.

This should be considered their first date. Jiang Mu picked up a carefully wrapped bouquet of daisies from the back seat and handed it to Mu and Qing.

“Qing, I think this bouquet of flowers looks a lot like you,” Jiang Mu said gently, looking down.

Mu Heqing accepted it, smiled and said "thank you," but when she took Jiang Mu's hand, she noticed that his palm was slightly damp.

Is Jiang Mu nervous?

Mu and Qing looked up at him and found that although he behaved much the same as before, he would occasionally drift off into thought, and was far less relaxed than when they first met.

She lowered her head and smiled softly.

"What are you laughing at?" Jiang Mu saw Mu and Qing laughing and couldn't help but laugh along.

The two stood beside a glass display case, where schools of fish swam in the azure water of the coral reef, much like Jiang Mu's current mood—turbulent, uneasy, and unsure how to cope. All his years of experience in dealing with people were now rendered useless, leaving only primal instincts.

Mu Heqing was still smiling, and the smile in her eyes made Jiang Mu understand. He immediately felt embarrassed, coughed, and introduced the fish in the pavilion to Mu Heqing.

But he still held her hand.

After strolling around for a while, the two came to the shop inside the aquarium, where they could buy fish, souvenirs and the like.

Mu and Qing bent down to look at the small fish swimming in the glass tank in the store. The fish were very beautiful, and their tail fins looked like an open cobalt blue folding fan.

"Do you want it? You can buy it, or you can keep it with me. You can come to my place whenever you want to see it," Jiang Mu asked Mu Heqing.

"He probably won't live much longer," Mu Heqing shook his head.

The shop owner walked over and said, "Young lady, this fish can live for a year or two without any problem."

"No need, thank you," Mu Heqing declined.

She and Jiang Mu walked out of the store and sat down in the rest area. Suddenly, she asked, "If that fish could choose the length of its life, ten years, twenty years, or two hundred years, do you think it would choose a life that ends in the next day or choose to live longer?"

Mu and Qing's question was sudden and strange.

Jiang Mu was unaware of the reason, but still replied, "That should be up to the fish's own choice."

"If it were you, Jiang Mu, how long of a life would you choose?" Mu Heqing asked again.

Jiang Mu said, "I've never thought about that kind of question. All along, I've only thought about living, and living better."

"Hmm?" Mu Heqing asked, puzzled.

"Perhaps you think my family is well-off, but that's not true. Jiang Kaicheng is my older brother, but his confidence comes from his mother, not from me. As for my parents, let's not talk about them." Jiang Mu smiled bitterly.

"To be able to marry Chairman Ouyang, your father must be quite well-off," Mu Heqing said.

She couldn't understand why Ouyang Zhu would marry a coward, but they were both divorced, so it was hard to say.

"Perhaps. After leaving my father, Ouyang Zhu's career flourished. My father was always immersed in the glory of his ex-wife being the chairman of Guihui, not to mention that they had a child together. At home, my father favored Jiang Kaicheng. My mother was a woman who believed that men were everything, and I was just a tool for her to control my father."

Jiang Mu spoke these words tactfully and with great difficulty, for he had never revealed his family background to anyone.

To outsiders, he was outstanding and omnipotent, but he also had unspeakable pain.

Mu and Qing understood; it meant that Jiang Mu was unloved by his father and mother, and had an older brother to keep him in check. However, given Jiang Kaicheng's character, he probably wouldn't pose much of a threat to Jiang Mu.

Now, Jiang Mu himself is doing quite well, isn't he?

Jiang Mu suddenly grabbed Mu Heqing's hand, glanced to the side, and asked, "Qing, will you dislike me?"