Chapter 175 Timeline Skin as Creamy as Cream

This incident was unexpected but reasonable. After being stunned for a while, Zhu Yingning asked Zhu Zhiwei for details, but Zhu Zhiwei said she didn't know either.

Zhu Zhiwei and Zhou Tianqing had been in intermittent contact since they had dinner together during the previous Spring Festival. Zhou Tianqing was a generation older than her and had given her a lot of advice on life and career. The fact that Xu Sirui was involved in the lawsuit was something Zhou Tianqing accidentally let slip when they were talking on the phone.

Zhu Yingning recalled their encounter at Nongdayun Company that day. Xu Sirui said that he had something to do, but it was not yet clear, and he would tell her after it was done. Could he be referring to this matter?

She stayed at Zhu Zhiwei's house that night, and packed her luggage to go to Zhou Tianlan's house the next day.

Zhou Tianlan had been released from prison three years earlier. Since Zhu Yingning and Xu Sirui were both living on campus at the time, and Xu Sirui was far away in Shanghai, leaving no one at home, Zhou Tianqing, fearing she would be lonely, took her in with her parents, leaving the house vacant for a while.

While Zhou Tianlan was serving her sentence, they all tacitly kept silent about Xu Zhengkang's affair, to avoid upsetting her. It wasn't until she was released that Zhou Tianqing revealed the truth. Six months later, Zhou Tianlan and Xu Zhengkang divorced, and the house was transferred to her name. It was then that Zhou Tianlan moved from her parents' home to this house permanently.

It’s not quite accurate to say that she lived there permanently. After she divorced Xu Zhengkang, in order to celebrate her new life and help her change her mood, Zhou Tianqing signed her up for a lot of tour groups, which resulted in Zhou Tianlan either traveling or preparing for a trip.

She is currently traveling in Chefchaouen, a small town in Morocco, and has posted many beautiful photos on Instagram. The town is blue, like pieces of solidified glass sea.

There was no one to look after the house in Beijing, so Zhou Tianqing temporarily moved here to look after her sister's house. So strictly speaking, Zhu Yingning went to see Zhou Tianqing.

She had already called Zhou Tianqing in advance and told her that she would be there for lunch today.

After taking a taxi to the downstairs of the residential complex, she went to the 16th floor and rang the doorbell as she was familiar with the place.

Through a door, she could faintly hear the ringing of a bell echoing through the house, but for a long time no one came to open the door for her. After all, Zhu Yingning had lived here for three years of high school and had a spare key. After waiting for a while but still no one was opening the door, she simply used the spare key and walked in.

After changing into slippers at the entrance, she called out, "Auntie, are you there?", but still got no response. She walked into the house in confusion, slipping on her slippers, and saw that the bathroom door was closed and there was the sound of running water.

Oh, so you are taking a shower.

She was just about to go to the living room to watch TV and wait for Zhou Tianqing to finish washing when she saw the bathroom door open in front of her. Xu Sirui came out wiping his hair, bringing out the hot and humid mist in the bathroom.

Zhu Yingning: “?”

He probably didn't expect to see her after taking a shower. He was slightly stunned, and the two of them stared at each other with blank expressions.

After a long while, she finally spoke first: "Why are you here...?"

He pulled the towel off his head, threw it casually over his shoulder, and said, "I'm back to stay for a few days and take care of some things."

She suddenly realized and guessed it was about Xu Zhengkang's lawsuit, but Xu Sirui didn't tell her directly, so she couldn't ask directly. She could only pick a safer question to ask him: "Oh... When did you come back?"

"The day before yesterday." He pursed his lips.

Zhu Yingning nodded.

After the awkward chat, the air around them instantly became quiet.

She glanced at his attire—he'd just showered, and though he was dressed neatly, it was a departure from the suit and tie he'd worn the last time they'd met. He looked much more personal. Even though they'd lived together and seen him shower countless times before, she still felt a subtle sense of unease. Perhaps it was because she hadn't seen anything like it in so long.

Of course, there is a greater possibility that his appearance has changed.

Unlike the thin boy before, he has grown taller and has some strong muscles on his body, which spread out thinly along his bones. Although thin, he looks very strong. Unlike the large muscles with distinct blocks, he is neither arrogant nor artificial. He must have trained them while playing badminton or doing other sports.

His muscles were barely visible beneath his clothes, and the reason she could feel them so clearly was due to the distance between them. Not close enough to be impolite, but she could clearly feel the warmth radiating from his shower.

He was still very white, but no longer the sickly paleness he had been when he was sick. Instead...

She couldn't clearly describe what kind of white it was now, and could only generally describe it as skin as white as cream.

These subtle and unfamiliar changes made him feel inexplicably more oppressive when he stood in front of her.

She took a step back, staring at the living room, and said something to make conversation: "...Isn't my aunt here?"

"She went out to buy groceries." He glanced at her and didn't go to get the hair dryer. Instead, he walked into the living room, picked up the remote control on the coffee table and pointed at the TV. "What to watch?"

"Hmm...anything's fine. Let's watch the latest hit drama." She gave a rambling, indecisive answer. She walked from the hallway in front of the bathroom to the living room and sat down on the sofa. She saw Xu Sirui turn on the TV. The homepage popped up to see the currently airing romantic drama. The picture was surprisingly a kissing male and female protagonists. Zhu Yingning was shocked and quickly changed the subject, "How about watching 'Soldier Assault'?"

"?"

Xu Sirui was silent for a moment, then retracted his gaze from her and said, "Okay."

He searched for "Soldier Assault" and clicked to play it.

A barren mountain appeared on the screen. The protagonist, a rural boy named Xu Sanduo, appeared on the screen and was being beaten by the children in the village. His father came to rescue him. Seeing Xu Sanduo's unyielding look, he became furious. After driving away the naughty children, he beat him up again and scolded him for being a son of a bitch.

The simple and rustic accent greatly diluted the ambiguous atmosphere. Zhu Yingning instantly felt much more comfortable, breathed a sigh of relief, and grabbed a pillow and hugged it in her arms.

She had just adjusted her sitting position when Xu Sirui sat down next to her, with a distance of one person between them. The distance was not close, but perhaps because of his long legs, after sitting down, his thigh still touched her leg through two layers of fabric.

To say they were touching was an exaggeration; in reality, they were merely touching, with layers of fabric separating them. Yet, somehow, she could still clearly feel the damp heat coming from his thigh.

Has his temperature been this high before?

Zhu Yingning felt extremely uncomfortable and wanted to move her legs, but she was afraid that the movement would be too obvious and would only arouse his suspicion. Her stomach was in knots, but beside her, Xu Sirui relaxed on the sofa, his hand casually resting on the backrest, looking very relaxed and at ease.

She felt inexplicably angry, mainly at herself. She felt that she was too nervous and had no idea what she had been nervous about from the beginning until now. Thinking of this, she simply learned to relax like Xu Sirui, letting her legs touch his and concentrating on watching the TV series.

She had developed her own method of concentration since she was a student, and it worked very well. Once she was truly absorbed in something, she became oblivious to the distractions of the outside world, and even just watching TV was a deeply engrossed process.

Time trickled by in the background music of the TV. The first episode ended, and the ending theme played. Zhu Yingning finally pulled her mind back from the TV, stretched herself, and turned her head to meet Xu Sirui's gaze.

He was looking at her.

She was stunned for a moment, and subconsciously touched her face, thinking that there was something on her face: "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Xu Sirui said lightly, and glanced away indifferently.

She stared at him in confusion for a moment, her mind flashing with thought as she suddenly remembered the blanket he had taken away when they last met. She hurriedly asked, "By the way, Xu Sirui, did you take my blanket away last time at the hotel?"

He stared at the TV screen, not at her. "What blanket?"

"It's..." She gestured, "The one I put on you... It's about this big, and it's brown. Didn't you see it when you woke up?"

"I don't know, maybe it's gone." He answered very perfunctorily.

Zhu Yingning frowned suspiciously: "Gone?"

"Yeah." He responded vaguely.

The more she thought about it, the more suspicious she became. She squinted her eyes and stared at his profile, wanting to bore a hole into it with her gaze. She didn't know if it was her imagination, but she seemed to see Xu Sirui's ears blush. Just as she was about to take a closer look, the doorbell suddenly rang in the living room. She instantly forgot what she was about to do, jumped up from the sofa, ran to open the door for Zhou Tianqing, and said excitedly, "Auntie!"

Zhou Tianqing was carrying bags of food and had no hands free to welcome her. Zhu Yingning was about to help Zhou Tianqing with some of the work when Xu Sirui reached out from behind her, took the various takeout bags from Zhou Tianqing, and headed towards the kitchen.

With his hands free, Zhou Tianqing smiled and stretched out his hands to pinch her arms and shoulders: "Come, let me see if you have eaten well."

After kneading her for a while and confirming that she had not lost weight, Zhou Tianqing patted her on the back and urged her to sit at the dining table and wait for food.

"You must be starving after waiting so long, right?" Zhou Tianqing said. "Ruirui too, rushed all the way from Shanghai to Beijing so early in the morning and hasn't even had breakfast yet. You two should eat more later."

Zhu Yingning was stunned: "Morning...he came this morning?"

Didn't he say he came the day before yesterday? Why did he lie to her?

While she was puzzled, Xu Sirui happened to come out of the kitchen. When he heard Zhou Tianqing's words, his expression froze slightly, but he quickly adjusted his expression and said to Zhou Tianqing, "You remembered it wrongly."

Zhou Tianqing didn't react: "What did you remember wrong?"

Xu Sirui said calmly, "I came here the day before yesterday."

"?"

After a full five seconds of silence, Zhou Tianqing let out a long "Ah" and said, "...Yes, yes, I remembered it wrongly. You came the day before yesterday. Look at my memory. Alas, this is how people become when they reach middle age."

Zhu Yingning was neither able to cry nor laugh, and she didn’t know what to say. Did these two people think she was an idiot?