Chapter 42
When people are extremely frightened, they are incapable of thinking. Like right now.
Su Qiong rushed into her bedroom, her chest heaving, the veins popping from her hand gripping the kettle handle. The door slammed shut. She looked around frantically at the dark room. Dots of light from the city outside shone through, seeming to attract ghosts. Su Qiong rushed out of the bedroom again.
"Mu Yunting Mu Yunting!"
Su Qiong cried out in a heart-wrenching voice. Before she could even reach the master bedroom, the lights in the living room were turned on, and the hallway suddenly became bright. She stopped abruptly, not knowing who was outside. She poked her head into the living room and asked softly, "Mu Yunting?" It couldn't be that the lights turned on by themselves, could it?
Mu Yunting stood next to the switch in the living room with one hand behind his back: "It's me."
Su Qiong patted her chest and said, "I was so scared! I was just fetching water when a dark figure suddenly appeared in the kitchen and started moving." She walked towards the kitchen and glanced at the floor in front of the sink in shock. "I'm sorry to have woken you up. Oh my god, what happened just now? I just appeared in the blink of an eye."
"Why did you come out so soon?"
Mu Yunting's eyebrows twitched and he blinked quickly several times.
Su Qiong turned around and saw Mu Yunting standing straight. She looked him up and down and asked in confusion, "Why are you holding one hand behind your back?"
Mu Yunting froze for a few seconds before slowly reaching his hand out from behind. The red can stood out against his dark pajamas. He opened his mouth and offered an explanation.
"Actually... that, um..." His gaze passed through Su Qiong's eyes and moved to the sofa, "Actually, that black shadow just now was me. I was there getting a Coke."
Su Qiong: "Ah?"
Su Qiong: “Ahhhhh???”
Su Qiong paused for a few seconds and opened her mouth.
Why do you drink Coke in the middle of the night?
Why are you squatting by the pool drinking Coke?
Su Qiong opened her mouth for a few seconds, then saw Mu Yunting's embarrassed look and swallowed her complaints. She said dryly, "Oh... so that's how it is."
The atmosphere between the two was filled with awkwardness for a moment, and Su Qiong was the first to move. She walked to the sink, filled the kettle she had been holding all the way, and boiled water.
Su Qiong thought about it for a moment, then held it back, still finding it funny: "Why are you squatting and drinking Coke?"
Mu Yunting was sitting at the bar. He saw Su Qiong's slender fingers lighting up the water-boiling panel, and said helplessly, "I felt a little embarrassed to be discovered drinking Coke in the middle of the night, so my first reaction was to squat down. I didn't expect you to come and boil water." Unexpectedly, it was even more embarrassing.
Su Qiong laughed so hard that she tapped the table. "Hahaha, what a coincidence."
"There was such a loud noise just now, I hope everyone upstairs is alright."
The water boiled quickly and steam gurgled out.
Su Qiong poured half a cup into the glass and continued chatting: "I didn't used to be afraid of ghosts, but I feel like the older I get, the more superstitious I become."
Mu Yunting watched Su Qiong's movements, unable to tell whether he was watching the water tumbling in the cup or the clean fingers. "Hmm."
Su Qiong blew on the cup, pulled a bottle of ice water from the refrigerator, and mixed it in. "It's not that I don't believe in science, you know? It's just that some things in life are quite mysterious. Sometimes it's better to believe it than not to believe it." Feeling that the temperature was almost scalding, she filled the ice bottle with hot water and put it back in the refrigerator.
"For example, tarot cards. I used to believe in them when I was in college. Some of them were actually quite accurate."
Mu Yunting shook the Coke in his hand: "What do you mean?"
Su Qiong pulled up a high stool and sat across from Mu Yunting, taking a sip of water. "There are many ways to read tarot cards. I'm not sure if my reading was legitimate. The way I read is to silently recite the question I want to ask, then draw three cards and see what the explanation is."
"Although it sounds simple, the steps are actually quite complicated and time-consuming. But I was really confused at the time..."
Mu Yunting hadn't expected Su Qiong to actually believe in such esoteric things, despite being such a prominent figure in her profession that she could scare even a greedy person into a state of panic. He listened attentively, nodding gently.
Su Qiong spoke very enthusiastically, and when she got excited, she couldn't help but clench her fist in the air with one hand.
Even after Su Qiong finished drinking the glass of water, the conversation between the two was still lively.
Su Qiong finished her speech and took a sip, habitually, but it was only air. Looking down, she saw the glass had been completely empty. She turned to glance at the living room clock, slightly surprised. "Oh my god, it's so late!" It was almost 3:45 in the morning.
Mu Yunting clenched his fist slightly, feeling the warmth of the tin can, and realized that he had finished the drink without even realizing it. "Go to bed." He watched Su Qiong return to her room, staring at the empty Coke can in his hand for a few seconds before returning to his room.
The next morning, Su Qiong struggled to get out of bed and hit the alarm on her phone. She chuckled a few times in her blankets and unsteadily sat up. She'd had a great time chatting the night before, and even though she'd fallen asleep as soon as she got back to her room, she was still very sleepy at dinner time this morning.
Don’t want to get up…
On the one hand, she didn't want to get up, but on the other hand, she really wanted to have breakfast with Mu Yunting. One of them worked, and the other didn't, so the most regular time they spent together was at mealtime.
After washing her face, Su Qiong felt much more awake. At this time, she felt hungry and didn't want to sleep so much. She wanted to eat more.
It was Su Qiong's turn to cook today. She'd barely left her room, still deciding what to make, when the aroma of food caught her nose. A few steps in, she spotted Mu Yunting's tall figure, standing over a casserole, a spoon in one hand. The yellow apron around her waist looked familiar; she knew it was the Pikachu apron.
Mu Yunting turned around as if he had sensed something and said, "We're having shrimp porridge today. The community sent some seafood here early this morning."
"Isn't it my turn to cook today?"
"I just happened to get up early and wanted to make breakfast." Actually, I didn't sleep much last night.
Mu Yunting touched his nose. The porridge in the pot was almost ready to be taken out of the pot. He turned around and put on his scald-proof gloves, his mind absent-minded. He hadn't slept much last night, tossing and turning in bed.
Lying in bed at night, with his eyes open, his mind was empty; with his eyes closed, Su Qiong's jokes replayed randomly in his head. Mu Yunting tossed and turned, opening and closing his eyes repeatedly in bed. Finally, he suddenly sat up, threw back the quilt, and paced the headboard. After a few steps, he returned to bed and opened WeChat.
The screen, which did not automatically adjust the brightness, was too dazzling. Mu Yunting squinted his eyes to dim it, and clicked on Su Qiong's circle of friends with an unknown mentality.
The background of Su Qiong's WeChat Moments is a ten-foot-long white wall, topped with a beam of sunlight. Her signature is simple, consisting of just one 1. This perfectly matches her image in the company and workplace.
The updates on his Moments were far beyond Mu Yunting's expectations. He saw several business-style updates mixed with playful, everyday ones. Although he had never opened Su Qiong's Moments before, he was certain he had never seen any of her daily updates. Thinking about it, Su Qiong must have added him to a group where he could see updates. Mu Yunting felt strangely relieved.
Su Qiong had a lot of friends on his social network and had never set a date limit. So he unknowingly stayed up all night.
Sunlight flooded the bedroom, and Mu Yunting finally came back to his senses. His eyes were aching from looking for so long. He glanced at the date on the last dynamic feed and decided to get up, wash up, and cook. As he cooked porridge for breakfast, he thought about something, but also thought about nothing. When Su Qiong's voice came from behind, Mu Yunting turned around and saw a few strands of Su Qiong's hair falling on her cheek, smiling at him.
He suddenly felt that he must like Su Qiong.
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