Howard perked up and said to Mingzhao, "The construction team is here. They'll build you a new bathroom and toilet. You stay inside; it's too dusty outside."
After saying that, he strode towards the courtyard gate.
Mingzhao stood still, holding her new sketchbook.
She listened to the conversation between Howard and the foreman outside the courtyard gate, their rough, heavily accented dialect reaching her ears. Her gaze, however, involuntarily drifted towards the entrance to the main room.
Through the open gate, a corner of the courtyard could be seen. Several men wearing coarse cloth jackets covered in mud and grime were working enthusiastically.
The shovel turned over the soil in the corner of the yard, and bricks were unloaded from the cart one by one with a dull thud. The sun beat down on the ground, and the air was filled with the smell of fresh earth and sweat.
Howard stood in the shadow of the courtyard wall, pointing to a vacant lot in the corner and talking to the foreman. His profile was sharp and focused. His tall figure stood out among the busy workers, exuding a sense of power and control.
Mingzhao watched quietly. A new wardrobe, a new rocking chair, new sketchbooks... and now, a new bathroom and toilet, all of her own.
These "new" things, like solid bricks, were built up in her originally empty and turbulent world, forming the prototype of a "home".
And the man who stood calmly and decisively under the courtyard wall was the cornerstone of this "home".
An unprecedented sense of security, like a warm tide, slowly enveloped her. She lowered her head, her fingertips unconsciously tracing the smooth cover of the sketchbook.
Just then, a figure wearing dark blue overalls and slightly thinner than the other workers walked past her open doorway carrying a stack of bricks.
The man seemed to glance casually into the room, his gaze quickly sweeping over the sketchbook in her arms and the brand-new, glaringly red wardrobe.
That gaze was extremely brief, so quick it was almost an illusion. But in that instant, the hairs on Mingzhao's back stood on end!
A cold, chilling sensation, as if being stared at by some slippery, sticky reptile, suddenly shot up my spine and into my brain without warning!
It's not a physical threat scan! It's intuition! An instinctive alarm against malice and spying, honed through countless laboratory crises and interstellar voyages!
She tightened her grip on the sketchbook, the paper slightly deformed from her grip.
She abruptly raised her head, and the warmth that had just begun to emerge in her clear eyes vanished instantly, leaving only an almost inorganic, cold sharpness, like a drawn blade, precisely piercing the direction in which the thin worker outside the door had just disappeared.
The man had already blended into the busy group of workers, and was working with another worker to lift a thick piece of wood. His profile was obscured by sweat and dust, making it difficult to see clearly.
Under the shadow of the courtyard wall, Howard seemed to have finished giving instructions and was turning around to walk back to the main room.
Mingzhao, like a shadow, rushed to the doorway silently and swiftly. Just as Howard stepped one foot into the hall, Mingzhao stretched out his thin but unusually strong hand and grabbed the hem of Howard's clothes.
Howard paused, looking down at her in surprise.
Mingzhao tilted her small face up, her complexion somewhat pale, her beautiful eyes fixed on him, a lingering chill of fear still present in the depths of her pupils. Her lips moved, her voice extremely low, carrying a tension, almost trembling, quality that Howard had never heard in her before:
“Howard…” she called his name, her fingertips digging so hard they almost embedded themselves in his clothes, “There are eyes here…”
Her gaze passed over Howard's shoulder, fixed intently on the group of busy workers in the yard. Her voice was as soft as a breeze, yet carried a tremendous weight:
“They are watching us.”
Howard followed Mingzhao's taut fingertips and icy gaze.
In a corner of the courtyard wall, the construction team was working enthusiastically.
Seven or eight men, shirtless, had beads of sweat rolling down their bronze skin, glistening in the blazing sunlight.
Shovels flew, throwing yellow mud onto the brick wall with muffled thuds. Heavy breathing, shouts, and the clanging of bricks mingled together, filled with primal vitality and the raw feel of labor.
Everyone was focused on their work, sweating profusely and covered in dust; they all looked like ordinary farmers or bricklayers.
There were no unusual gazes lingering on them, nor the cold, sticky feeling of being spied on that Mingzhao had described.
Howard's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, his sharp gaze sweeping swiftly and discreetly across the faces, movements, and even the weariness that occasionally slipped through their fingers, like an invisible searchlight.
Nothing suspicious was found. But he was well aware of Mingzhao's "abnormality".
Her intuition, which had already shown its edge during the National Security Bureau's blueprint controversy, was certainly not unfounded.
He subtly withdrew his gaze, his large, warm hand gently landing on the back of Mingzhao's hand, which was tightly gripping his clothes, and patted it with a soothing force. The back of that hand was icy cold and still trembling slightly.
“It’s nothing,” Howard’s voice was low and steady as a rock, carrying a reassuring power. “They’re just construction workers, getting to work.”
He turned slightly to the side, his tall figure intentionally or unintentionally shielding Mingzhao from most of the view in the courtyard. "It's dusty outside and the sun is scorching. Why don't you go back inside and read a book, or... draw? Didn't your new notebook arrive?"
He deliberately guided her attention, speaking calmly, as if the phrase "has eyes" was merely a child's babbling.
Mingzhao tilted her small face up, and the cold sharpness deep in her clear pupils had not completely faded, still stubbornly fixed on the group of busy workers.
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