Chapter 28 "I like it".

The deliveryman left with the signed receipt. Gu Lin closed the door and walked in from the entrance hall. Ji Tong was already sitting on the sofa with a bag in her hand.

He unfastened the clasp on the bag and took out a packaging box.

A huge floor plan of a surveillance camera came into Gu Lin's view.

Gu Lin stopped, his mind blank for a moment. After standing quietly for a few seconds, he leaned against the edge of the central island and looked at the person.

"Why buy this?"

Ji Tong raised her gaze from the camera and placed it on Gu Lin.

“‘Discipline tool’.” Ji Tong raised an eyebrow.

“Because someone’s credibility has dropped to zero,” Ji Tong said as she unpacked the package, “so that you can experience what it means to be ‘stared at from every angle.’”

Gu Lin remained noncommittal.

"Prepare to place this," Gu Lin glanced lightly at the object in Ji Tong's hand, "'Discipline Tool,' where?"

Ji Tong: "Living room."

He was trying to correct Gu Lin's bad eating habits; he wasn't a real control freak. Placing one in the living room was already the limit.

Ji Tong paused, seemingly lost in thought, as she unpacked the package.

He narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked at Gu Lin.

Why did he ask that?

Given the existing crisis of trust, Ji Tong turned his head and looked at the can of oatmeal not far away. After a while, he stared at the central island again and issued a warning.

“If someone tries to avoid the cameras by taking that can of oatmeal to their room, I’ll…” Ji Tong pointed to the guest bedroom, “install one there too, so you can change your clothes under the covers.”

"You'll be scared to death."

The moment Ji Tong finished speaking, "someone" who had been leaning against the central island platform got up and walked over. Under Ji Tong's expectant gaze, the person raised their hand, their palm lightly cupping Ji Tong's wrist, and casually turned it in a certain direction—

That's my room.

"It's installed in the wrong place."

Ji Tong looked in the direction "he" was pointing.

It's the master bedroom.

Ji Tong: "...?"

He's not really a pervert, so why would he install a security camera in his bedroom?

Besides, he's still the one living there.

Ji Tong was pondering whether this was Gu Lin's silent "resistance" when he turned his head and saw that Gu Lin had already sat down next to him, his expression unchanged and his movements still natural, as if what he had just said was indeed just a casual remark. So he looked away and continued fiddling with the things in his hands.

Gu Lin sat down next to Ji Tong, leaning back slightly on the sofa.

Their knees were still touching, but their upper bodies were separated by a subtle gap due to Gu Lin's posture, one in front of the other.

Ji Tong opened the packaging and began studying the instruction manual.

Gu Lin's gaze lingered silently on Ji Tong's clean nape.

The spinous processes of the cervical vertebrae became even more prominent due to the person's head-down posture.

Gu Lin's fingers were loosely spread open, then closed again.

monitor.

How dare you?

After reading the instruction manual, Ji Tong patted Gu Lin's knee and said, "A mobile phone."

Gu Lin handed over the phone.

Ji Tong scanned the QR code, verified her login, and added a user.

Five seconds later, Gu Lin's phone had a new camera cloud app.

“To be fair,” Ji Tong handed the phone back to him, “I’ll install one for you too.”

"When I look at you, you can look at me too."

Even though he was the one taking advantage of Gu Lin, he had to put it nicely.

Gu Lin took the phone without saying a word.

After downloading the software, Ji Tong pulled the laptop out from under the coffee table, bent her legs, and leaned back on the sofa.

He opened the apartment's network settings interface, changed it to a local area network, modified the program, restricted the camera's access to other networks, encrypted transmission, and deployed a traffic monitoring system.

Is that enough?

Ji Tong thought for a moment, then created a "guest network" in the router, setting up a separate Wi-Fi network so that Li Yuan and the others could connect to it when they arrived.

The internet carries the risk of privacy leaks, and although it's not a place like the bedroom, Ji Tong tries her best to minimize the risk.

…After all, someone still needs to apply scar removal cream and often wanders around shirtless.

The guardian can watch it.

Others can't do it.

“Okay, next…” Ji Tong was about to exit the network interface when an arm suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision. He stopped talking, and the next second, his leg felt light as Gu Lin took the computer from him.

Gu Lin took Ji Tong's computer, logged into the intranet of the School of Computer Science at Anhui University, paid for a weekly penetration testing and vulnerability scanning software for the laboratory, turned off a P2P penetration service, encrypted it, installed it, and bound it.

Ji Tong: "".

Ji Tong originally thought that setting up a traffic monitoring system was already quite "worrying about nothing," but who knew there was something even more "worrying" out there.

Some corporate firewalls aren't even as thick as their small apartment of about 100 square meters.

Ji Tong suddenly found it very funny. He stared at Gu Lin for a while, then leaned closer and said, "Are you so afraid of people looking at you?"

Gu Lin lowered his eyelids and glanced at Ji Tong's pajamas without leaving a trace.

"Um."

Ji Tong laughed out loud: "Coward."

After setting up the network, Ji Tong turned on the camera and confirmed that it was connected to the phone.

"Keep an eye on it for me while I find a spot." Ji Tong tossed her phone to Gu Lin, stood up from the sofa, took the camera, walked to the TV wall, stepped onto the chair that had been set up earlier, and picked out an angle.

Gu Lin saw him sit down on the chair and immediately walked over.

"Don't help me, this chair isn't very high, I won't fall," Ji Tong slapped Gu Lin's hand away. "Look at your phone, is this spot okay? Can you see the kitchen and living room from here?"

As Ji Tong spoke, the 3-megapixel high-definition lens finished buffering and automatically activated face tracking mode. Receiving the program's command, the lens smoothly rotated downwards—

Gu Lin looked down and saw Ji Tong's face close to his on the screen.

Because it was held high, the skin beneath the neckline of the pajamas was faintly visible.

But that person kept moving around.

"How about it?"

"Is this angle okay? Can you see it?"

able.

I've seen everything, both things I should and shouldn't have seen.

Gu Lin's temples throbbed. He put down his phone, reached out to the person on the low stool, and said calmly, "Get down."

Ji Tong: "It's not installed yet."

Gu Lin: "I'm pretending."

Ji Tong thought about it and realized that Gu Lin probably didn't know the effect he wanted, so he stepped down from the low stool, took the phone, and began to give instructions.

"A little higher, to the left, um, a little to the left, um, that's it."

"Let me rotate the lens to take a look."

"Okay, this will do."

Apart from a small section of wall blocking the view in the entryway, there were no blind spots, and Ji Tong was very satisfied.

After confirming the location, Ji Tong quickly walked to the coffee table and handed over the no-drill bracket: "Be careful."

Gu Lin got ready quickly, getting off the chair in a few swift movements.

After all that fuss, it was almost 1:30 am by the time I finished cleaning up.

Ji Tong yawned.

Gu Lin walked over, picked up the cardboard box from the coffee table, and threw it into the trash can: "Go wash up and go to bed."

Ji Tong nodded, walked to the door of the master bedroom, and suddenly remembered something.

"By the way, have you been sleeping in the master bedroom these past two days?"

Gu Lin paused in tying the garbage bag, then nodded: "Mm."

Ji Tong: "What happened to your room?"

Ji Tong remembered that Gu Lin hadn't come back to sleep since he started sleeping in the master bedroom.

Gu Lin carried the trash bag towards the door. Passing through the entryway, in a blind spot where neither the person nor the security cameras could see him, he pulled open the protective cover of the home's electrical panel. Without even looking, he raised his hand and pulled down the switch labeled "Guest Room."

“哢”.

The circuit breaker tripped.

At the same time, Gu Lin's voice rang out.

"The lamp is broken."

"The light is broken?" Ji Tong was taken aback.

He recalled that when he went to open the guest bedroom door, the lights were indeed off.

Ji Tong turned around, walked to the guest room, opened the door, and fumbled for the light switch on the wall, pressing it twice.

It really is broken.

"Have you asked someone to come and take a look?" Ji Tong asked.

Gu Lin put the trash at the door and casually said, "Found it."

Ji Tong: "When are you coming?"

Gu Lin: "Ten o'clock."

After throwing out the trash, Gu Lin went into the kitchen and washed his hands: "It's late, go to sleep."

Ji Tong didn't move, standing there lost in thought. After a few seconds, she beckoned to Gu Lin: "Come here."

Gu Lin took out a tissue, wiped his hands clean, and walked over.

"Gotcha." Ji Tong said, then grabbed Gu Lin's shirt around his waist, turned around, and pulled him to the wall with the TV set. With a flick of his wrist, he turned off the lights.

The living room suddenly went dark.

Ji Tong continued tugging at his clothes and walked in a certain direction.

The moment the master bedroom door opened, Gu Lin's temples began to throb again.

Only one word remained in my mind—

Digging their own grave.

I don't even know if they're talking about the person in front of me.

It was still him.

Ji Tong dragged Gu Lin from the living room to the master bedroom, but he didn't let go until he locked Gu Lin and himself in the bathroom.

Gu Lin had been sleeping in the master bedroom for the past two days, so traces were naturally left in the bathroom as well.

For example, Gu Lin's toothpaste and toothbrush.

"Wash up." Ji Tong handed over the toothbrush cup.

Gu Lin stared at him for a while, as if he had resigned himself to his fate.

The two stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the bathroom mirror, quietly and intimately washing up.

After washing up, the two walked out together.

"Which side do you want to sleep on, by the door or by the window?" Ji Tong asked, standing at the foot of the bed.

"casual."

"Then you can lean against the door."

"Um."

Having received the reply, Ji Tong didn't even bother to walk around to the side of the bed. She kicked off her slippers, stepped onto the bed at the foot of the bed, and lay down. She even lifted the corner of the blanket on Gu Lin's side and patted it with her hand: "Quick."

Gu Lin: "..."

Gu Lin bent down, hooked up the slippers that had been kicked aside, walked around the foot of the bed, and placed them on the side of the bed near the window, so that the person wouldn't wander around the room in the middle of the night looking for their slippers.

Gu Lin turned off the light and got into bed.

The scent of the orange grove permeated the entire long night.

Ji Tong had been working non-stop for three or four days, and Gu Lin had been awake since six o'clock. Both of them were a little tired.

Perhaps it was the comforting atmosphere of the orange grove and the quiet of the night that made them chatter, though Ji Tong did most of the talking.

"I came back in such a hurry that I forgot to bring the eggs," Ji Tong said with her eyes closed. "Aunt Yang had packed them all in a basket. She was planning to bring them back for you to try."

"I picked them all up one by one."

"How much did you pick up?"

"I don't know. Grandpa said there were hundreds, but I feel like there were thousands. They're so prolific."

Gu Lin smiled.

"You spent the whole day collecting them?"

"Half a day, collecting eggs in the morning and distributing them in the afternoon."

"Also, the message you sent me this morning was seen by my grandfather."

At 1:57 a.m., Gu Lin finally learned the reason behind the phrase "find someone to mess with you".

"So that's why they gave us chat metrics?"

"Um."

"Grandpa cooked boat congee and also made chicken stew with whelks."

I'll bring it for you next time.

"Um."

"You spent the afternoon at the welfare home?" Gu Lin asked.

"Yes, we arrived just in time for lunch."

"The child is growing so fast, he's much taller than he was two months ago."

"I also met a new little boy."

Gu Lin paused for a moment before asking, "An orphan?"

“No, his parents work away from home, and he lives with his grandfather… with an elder, but that elder… is irresponsible, so the Women’s Federation arranged for him to stay in a welfare home for a period of time.”

"Gu Lin, do you know what that child's name is?"

"What's your name?"

"Zhou Lin, his name is composed of two 'Lin' characters, and the dean calls him 'Linlin'."

"His skin is a bit dark, but his eyes are big, like Gu Linlin's."

"You'll think it looks similar when you see it."

"She's just a little thin."

"But he's better than you; he's not picky about food and will eat anything you give him."

"Gu Lin, let's go see him together next time, if he's still there."

"good."

"But I hope he has already been picked up by his parents."

“He said he likes airplanes, so next time we can bring an airplane…” Ji Tong’s voice trailed off, “…a model airplane, let’s go together.”

"good."

Ji Tong's breathing became more and more even, and her hand, buried under the covers, moved unconsciously and hooked onto Gu Lin's finger.

"Gu Lin."

Ji Tong's voice was so low it was almost inaudible, but Gu Lin still heard it.

"Um."

"Linlin said she likes... airplanes, do you like them...?"

After saying her last sentence, Ji Tong finally let go of his hand due to sleepiness, enveloped in the scent of the orange grove, and fell into a deep sleep.

Gu Lin slowly opened his eyes and looked at him in the sparse moonlight.

After a long while, he moved his long fingers slightly, took the man's loosened hand into his palm, and tightened the circle little by little before speaking.

"like."

-

The next day, Ji Tong was awakened by a cell phone ringing.

He was still asleep, his eyes closed. He just raised his hand and groped around in the direction of the sound. Before he could find the phone, he touched Gu Lin first.

Ji Tong buried his face in the pillow and turned to the side. He finally found his phone on the bedside table, opened his right eye slightly, and swiped to answer the call.

"…Hello."

"Lin-ge? Huh? Are you still sleeping? Well, I heard from Li Yuan in Class 1 that you don't seem to have any other plans for National Day. You're staying at Peninsula Apartments. A few of us happen to be at school too, so maybe we could..."

peninsula?

"Is that an electrician?" Ji Tong's consciousness was still lingering, and she didn't really listen to what the person on the other end was saying. She only heard something about "Peninsula Apartments" and thought it was an electrician coming to fix a light bulb.

"Yes, Peninsula, Building 21, Room 2104."

"Master, have you arrived yet?"

"I'm not there yet... Pshaw, no, I'm not an electrician."

"What's going on? This doesn't sound like Brother Lin's voice."

"Did you dial the wrong number?"

"Are you guys reliable? You can even dial the wrong number."

"The person is obviously asleep, okay? Let's hang up."

"Oh, sorry, sorry, I might have dialed the wrong number. I'll try again... No, wait, this is the right number. I used this number when I contacted Brother Lin to discuss our group assignment last time. Yongjie! Come and see, is this the right number..."

A group of boys from Class 9 of the Computer Science Department were frantically proofreading Gu Lin's phone call when the person on the other end, who had clearly been sleeping, spoke again, but it was obviously not directed at them.

"I'm so sleepy, you answer the phone, I'm going to sleep a little longer."

"Whose call was that?"

"Electrician."

The next second, the call was answered by a second person.

"Hello."

The person's voice was also noticeably hoarse from just waking up.

The group of students in Class 9 breathed a sigh of relief.

That's right, this is Lin Ge's voice.

"Hello? Brother Lin? I knew this was your number, I almost thought I dialed the wrong number, hahaha—"

Wait a minute, if I haven't made a typo.

Who was that person just now?

I can't breathe anymore.