Chapter 172 I Know Everything About You

After the food was served, they started chatting while eating.

She was mainly asking him questions, like why he was suddenly there and whether he had any work. Xu Sirui's answers were vague, saying only, "I have some things to take care of." Then, perhaps fearing she might think his response was a deliberate attempt to hide something from her, he added, "I haven't made any progress yet. I'll tell you when it's done."

Zhu Yingning nodded in understanding. He'd always been like this, always waiting until things were almost done before speaking up. He never liked to tout goals as accomplishments, from small things like getting her a birthday present to big things like making money from a game he'd made in his sophomore year of high school. Heaven and earth could bear witness to this, and Zhou Tianqing and Zhou Tianlan still didn't know about it.

After chatting intermittently throughout the meal, Zhu Yingning realized that she had been asking him all sorts of trivial questions, making it seem like a household registration check. So, she politely asked, "Is there anything you need to ask me?"

Xu Sirui shook his head: "No."

She half-jokingly said, "Are you not curious about me at all?"

He didn't smile with her. He looked at her slightly curved eyes and said calmly, "I know everything about you."

She was shocked, and the teasing smile on her face was stuck at the corner of her mouth.

It was hard to tell what power this sentence had, and what kind of ripples it caused in her heart. They didn't say much after that. They quietly finished the last bit of food and sat facing each other for a while. She looked down at the time on her phone and found that it was almost ten o'clock. She said that she didn't want to leave Chen Fei alone for too long. If she went back too late, she might disturb Chen Fei's sleep.

"Where do you live? I'll call a car for you." he asked.

Zhu Yingning told the name of the hotel, a very common chain hotel, quite standard.

Unexpectedly, after she finished speaking, Xu Sirui showed a slightly surprised expression and said that he also lived there.

"Huh? What a coincidence?" she asked in surprise.

If you think about it carefully, it doesn't seem surprising. Nongdayun Company is located in the suburbs and there are not many hotels to choose from nearby. They chose this hotel purely because they were about to rush to the company after lunch. In order to make it convenient to check in at night, they just picked a decent hotel near the company. If Xu Sirui happened to come here for business, it is not impossible that he and they chose the same hotel.

"Then..." She hesitated for a moment, "Shall we go back together?"

"Yeah." He nodded and lowered his head to call a car.

There was no conversation all the way to the hotel.

After entering the hotel lobby, Zhu Yingning asked the front desk for something and then turned to ask Xu Sirui which floor he lived on. He told her his floor, and she was surprised again: "...We're on that floor too, which room are you in?"

"1107."

"I'm at 1112."

The odd-numbered rooms are on the same side, the even-numbered rooms are opposite the odd-numbered rooms, and Xu Sirui's room is right on the upper right corner of their room.

They took the elevator to the 11th floor together. Zhu Yingning was still in shock at the ingenuity of fate when she heard Xu Sirui say to her, "I'll go in first. If you need anything, you can call me."

"Oh, okay." She responded stupidly, watched Xu Sirui enter his room, then turned around and opened the door with the room card.

Chen Fei had already taken a shower and was sitting at the foot of the bed playing Candy Crush. Seeing her, he looked up and smiled at her: "How was it, Captain? Did you have a good chat with your friend? I think your friend is quite handsome."

Did you have a good chat?

She really couldn't answer this question. She smiled awkwardly, mumbled "okay" vaguely, and took her clothes to go to the bathroom to wash up.

While washing her hair, perhaps because she was rarely able to calm down, her mind began to wander. Xu Sirui's words, "I know everything about you," echoed in her ears like a magical sound. She sighed and slapped the words away.

After quickly tidying herself up, she came out of the bathroom and browsed through the notes she had made during the past two days of visits while blowing her hair.

It’s a mess, so it’s best to sort it out while the memory is still fresh.

Zhu Yingning wasn't one to procrastinate; she'd do anything she thought of right away. After drying her hair and putting the hairdryer back in its place, she sat down at the hotel's desk and began organizing her notes.

Shen Fei looked at her, then looked down at his own Candy Crush game, and said shamefully, "Captain, do you need my help?"

"No need, you're tired today too, just lie down and rest." After she said that, she remembered something and took out two Band-Aids from the pocket of her dirty clothes - she had asked the front desk for them just before she came up - and put them on the bedside table of Shen Fei's bed, asking her to stick them on her heels when she put on her shoes tomorrow.

"It won't wear out that way," she explained.

Chen Fei was stunned for a moment, his eyes slightly red, and he snorted in frustration. He couldn't bring himself to go up and hug her, so he could only sincerely say, "Thank you."

During the two days of business trip, they walked more than 20,000 steps every day. Although Chen Fei was not spoiled - when her grandfather was alive, he had very high requirements for her body shape and paid attention to her physical fitness. He would take her to practice Ba Duan Jin every morning - but after all, she had never suffered much hardship and seldom walked for such a long time. In addition, she was very delicate, so after walking for two days, the edges of her shoes rubbed her heels and made them bleed.

She endured it and didn't say anything, but she didn't expect Zhu Yingning to notice even such a small thing.

After being moved, he looked at the Candy Crush again and felt even more disgusting. He struggled to get up and help, until Zhu Yingning sternly told him to "go to bed" and he lay back down in dejection.

After a busy day, she was indeed very tired. She lay down on the bed and soon became drowsy. She felt like a feather floating in the air.

She didn't know how long she had been floating, but suddenly a series of rapid knocks on the door woke her up from her drowsy dream.

She suddenly opened her eyes and thought it was an illusion at first. It was not until her senses recovered from sleep and the sound of knocking on the door became clearer that she looked at the door of their room in horror, and then looked at Zhu Yingning who was still sitting at the desk in horror, her eyes full of confusion.

Zhu Yingning made a gesture to her to keep quiet, indicating that she should stay on the bed and not get down.

"Maybe someone is drunk and banging on the door." She explained to Chen Fei in a whisper, then slid down from the chair, picked up the landline connected to the front desk and started making a call, keeping an eye on the direction of the door from time to time.

Chen Fei heard her clearly explain the situation to the front desk, and saw her hang up the phone, pick up the kettle and walk to the door.

Her calmness gradually calmed Shen Fei's wildly beating heart. She wrapped herself tightly in the quilt, moved to the end of the bed, stretched her neck, and stared at Zhu Yingning and the rumbling door without blinking.

Seeing that banging on the door had no effect, the people outside began pressing the door handle, kicking it, and mumbling something. The voice was that of a strange man, not like anyone they knew.

The door was kicked so hard that it was about to fall apart. Zhu Yingning silently calculated the time it would take for the front desk to notify security and for the security to catch up.

As I was thinking quickly, a familiar voice came from outside the door: "Who are you looking for?"

It’s Xu Sirui.

Her heart, which had been hanging in the balance, strangely calmed down the moment she heard his voice.

The noise outside the door stopped instantly. She heard Xu Sirui raise his voice and ask again: "Who are you looking for?" This time the voice was closer to her and colder, and it sounded like it was walking towards her.

The man outside the door grumbled timidly, something like "I made a mistake" and "I didn't find anyone", his voice getting smaller and smaller, as if he was planning to slip away. He didn't give him a chance to escape. She heard the noise of their physical conflict from inside the door. Fearing any accidents, she handed the kettle to Chen Fei, asked her to stay in the room, and then she opened the door and walked out.

As soon as the door opened, I saw Xu Sirui holding the man's hands behind his back. The man he subdued was a bearded man of unknown age, with red cheeks and a pungent smell of alcohol.

Almost at the same time she opened the door, the security guard rushed up, took the man from Xu Sirui, and scolded: "Where do you live? Huh?! Which room are you a guest of?!" The man stammered and couldn't explain clearly. The security guard took him away and said that he would never be given the chance to come up again.

Only after they left did Zhu Yingning finally have time to take a good look at Xu Sirui. She nearly laughed out loud at the sight. He was wearing pajamas and the paper slippers provided by the hotel. His face was numb, and a wisp of hair stuck up from above his head. He looked like he had just drifted off to sleep.

"Thank you." she said gratefully.

"It's okay." He said slowly.

"Go to sleep. Security will take care of it, so it shouldn't be a problem." She urged him to go back to sleep.

Xu Sirui nodded, stood there for a while, and then returned to his room in a daze.

Zhu Yingning also turned around and returned to her room. Chen Fei was still nervously holding the kettle, kneeling at the end of the bed and asked her, "Captain, has that person left?"

"Let's go." She took the kettle from Chen Fei, told her to have a good rest and not to think too much, and returned to the desk to continue organizing her notes.

It was now past one in the morning. Chen Fei was still frightened and wrapped herself back in the quilt. She tossed and turned for more than half an hour before falling asleep again. Zhu Yingning heard her breathing gradually becoming steady.

Amidst the long and peaceful breathing, she used the dim light in front of the bathroom door to finish the last few fragments of notes.

I closed the pen cap and looked at the time. It was already half past two.

She went to the bathroom to wash her face, turned off all the lights, and prepared to go back to her bed in the dark.

As she reached the end of the bed, her knee, unable to see clearly, bumped against the board. It didn't hurt much, but at that moment, a sudden feeling struck her.

Driven by an inexplicable feeling or impulse, she tiptoed to the door and gently opened it.

Looking to the right, the corridor was brightly lit. Xu Sirui was guarding their room, squatting with his back against the wall, his hands wrapped around his knees, his head buried in his arms, sleeping soundly, only the strand of hair on the top of his head was still firm.