Shi Jing's second bath took a little longer than expected; almost twenty minutes had passed and he still hadn't come out.

Zhu Jinchao sat on the bed, absentmindedly playing with his phone.

She scrolled through short videos for a while, but when she got bored, she checked Shi Jing's WeChat.

Shi Jing's WeChat interface is very simple. At the top are a few people he frequently contacts and a few private WeChat groups, and at the bottom are various work notification groups.

Zhu Jinzhao glanced at it briefly before fixing her gaze on the prominently pinned contact.

—"The cutest baby Chaochao"

This is the note that Shi Jing set for her.

She smiled, pursed her lips, and reached for her phone to change the nickname she had given Shi Jing.

The phrase was changed from "It is the mirror of time" to "It is my mirror of time".

"I'm all better now."

Shi Jing pushed open the bathroom door and came out, blushing as she looked at Zhu Jinchao: "What are you looking at, Chaochao? Why are you laughing so happily?"

Zhu Jinzhao put away her phone and shook her head: "It's nothing."

"Didn't we say we'd have barbecue? Which place should we go to?"

“Let’s eat at our own home.” Shi Jing walked to the bedside and sat down next to Zhu Jinzhao. “My dad recently recruited a barbecue chef from out of town. He used to run a street food stall, and his barbecue is especially fragrant. I have a menu on my phone. We can just send him the dishes we want via WeChat, and he’ll have someone deliver them when they’re done grilling.”

"Is it far?" Zhu Jinchao asked.

Shi Jing pinched her cheek: "It's not far, it will be delivered in a few minutes."

Zhu Jinzhao: "Okay, let's order."

Shi Jing picked up her phone and showed her the menu: "What does Chaochao want to eat?"

I've been starving all afternoon, my stomach has been growling for ages, and now I want to eat everything I see.

She ordered all the signature barbecue items on the menu, and then went to wash her face and do her skincare routine.

Shi Jing followed her around like a little tail. When she put on a face mask, he would put one on too; when she applied serum, he would apply it too, and he even wanted her to apply it for him. And after applying it for only a few strokes, he would grab her and kiss her a couple of times.

Thanks to him, Zhu Jinchao spent more than ten minutes wiping her face, which usually takes five minutes.

Just as I finished wiping it up, the barbecue arrived.

The night was beautiful, so Shi Jing had the barbecue brought out to the balcony. He and Zhu Jinzhao sat facing the garden downstairs, enjoying the moon and the barbecue in a relaxed manner.

"Chaochao, were you ever beaten when you were a child?" Shi Jing suddenly asked.

"I've been through it." Zhu Jinzhao swallowed the oyster in his mouth, slightly altered his childhood experience of being beaten, and told Shi Jing with a smile.

“When I was seven or eight years old, I stayed at my grandma’s house for a while. My grandma lived in the countryside, and there were many trees planted in front of and behind her house. Children in the countryside didn’t have many entertainment activities, so they would climb trees, play hide-and-seek, and run around wildly in the mountains and by the river every day.”

“I didn’t dare to run too far, so I tried to imitate them and climb trees on the back hill. I was very short at that time, so I could climb trees, but I didn’t know how to get down. I got stuck halfway down, and I couldn’t get back up, and I didn’t dare to jump, so I could only cling to the branches and cry until my grandma came to find me.”

"Grandma was laughing as she picked me off the tree. At first, she felt a little sorry for me, but when she turned around and saw that I had hung a big hole in my new pants, she immediately turned sour."

Shi Jing: "And then you got beaten up?"

"No." Zhu Jinzhao shook his head. "She didn't hit me the first time. It was because I was disobedient and went to climb trees on the back mountain for several days in a row. I tore four pairs of pants in one go and ended up with no pants to wear. That's when she couldn't take it anymore and beat me up."

"After beating me up, I called my brother to complain, so my brother beat me up too."

"Hahahaha!" Shi Jing laughed loudly, "So it turns out our Chaochao was a little rascal when she was a kid too."

"Hehe..." Zhu Jinzhao laughed, "I was really naughty when I was a kid. During the naughtiest period, I was beaten three times in one day."

Shi Jing took off her disposable gloves and placed a bowl full of shrimp meat in front of Zhu Jinzhao: "Why were you fighting so fiercely? What trouble have you gotten into?"

Zhu Jinzhao counted on her fingers: "Hmm... I crushed two eggs with my bare hands, fell into a mud puddle right after changing into my new clothes, accidentally stepped on a chick, and..."

"Buzzing—"

"Buzzing—"

Before she could finish recounting her glorious past, a video call from Jiang Jingwen abruptly interrupted her conversation.

She took off her disposable gloves, picked up her phone, and answered the video call.

"What are you doing?"

Jiang Jingwen and Ning Shi appeared together in the shot.

"Hello." Zhu Jinzhao smiled and waved to them.

Jiang Jingwen smiled wryly and asked sarcastically, "Chaochao, what are you and Shi Jing doing?"

Zhu Jinzhao held up a skewer of grilled chicken wings and said confidently, "Shi Jing and I are having barbecue. Do you want some?"

"No, no, no..." Jiang Jingwen and Ning Shi waved their hands at the same time.

"On this dark and windy night, during your candlelight dinner, you two finally have some alone time, how could we possibly bother you..." Jiang Jingwen smiled mischievously and cheekily, "You two enjoy your meal, I just wanted to video call you to see if you're available to answer the phone right now."

"Huh?" Zhu Jinzhao frowned in confusion. "Of course it's convenient for me to answer the phone. Why are you looking at this for no reason?"

Jiang Jingwen: "I'm not doing anything, I'm just looking around..."

He said "whatever" but his eyes had a strangely sly look on them.

Zhu Jinzhao took a bite of a chicken wing, her eyes warily scanning the two people in the video: "Is it really just something you can watch casually? But I feel like you two are acting strange."

“Not surprising, not surprising…” The two of them waved their hands at the same time.

Zhu Jinzhao: "...You guys didn't just call to watch me casually, did you? Or, what you really want to see isn't me eating barbecue?"

“This…” Jiang Jingwen and Ning Shi exchanged a glance, both looking guilty.

"Cough..." Shi Jing suddenly coughed twice, his cheeks inexplicably turning red.

Ning Shi snatched the phone away, saying hurriedly, "Hey, you can eat it now! We were just browsing casually. Okay, that's all for now, we're going to go sing karaoke. Goodnight and get some rest!"

After saying that, he quickly hung up the phone.

"Phew..." Jiang Jingwen breathed a sigh of relief, "Thank goodness, they didn't do anything like that."

"..." Ning Shi rolled her eyes at her, "You're just messing around—"

Before she could finish speaking, Ning Shi suddenly felt a buzzing sound in her head. Immediately afterward, a white light flashed before her eyes, and chaotic images, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, swirled wildly in her mind.

She saw herself stride forward and give a girl a hard shove on the shoulder.

"How can you be so shameless? How dare a despised imposter seduce Shi Jing? Have you lost all your shame?"

She heard a familiar yet distant voice faintly ringing in her ears.