Chapter 10 Taking a Bath I have never been treated so unfairly.
In the original storyline, at this point, the young lady was infatuated with Jin Zhao.
However, Jin Zhao refused all the money, gifts, and even the house she offered.
In order to be able to spend every day with Jin Zhao, she was even willing to stand guard at this gloomy, dilapidated doorway and feed the mosquitoes.
Jiang Xiliu's dream naturally glossed over such details, but it wasn't until she saw this courtyard that she vaguely remembered—she seemed to have been here in her dream as well.
He even went inside.
It seems... because there are snakes in this dark alley?
Jin Zhao was afraid that she would be bitten by a snake and then cling to him, so he let her in to spend the night.
Oh my god! A snake? There's a snake in this alley!
Jiang Xiliu immediately jumped onto Jin Zhao: "Let's go quickly and stay at my place."
Jin Zhao didn't want to waste any more time with her; his patience had long since run out. "Go if you want, I need to rest."
After saying that, he pushed open the door and turned on the light.
It was a tiny bungalow, so small you could see the whole thing at a glance.
There was only a bed, a table, and a stool in the room, nothing else.
When the lights are on, mosquitoes are most likely to be attracted.
Jin Zhao stood inside the room, looking at her calmly: "I'm going to close the door."
How could Jiang Xiliu dare to return the way she came alone? In the original story, the reason she dared to stay here was because she had bodyguards protecting her.
She glared at me with her almond-shaped eyes: "You take me there!"
Jin Zhao closed the door.
"Hey!" The young lady ran over and squeezed past Jin Zhao into the room. "How can you be like this!"
They showed absolutely no respect for their benefactors!
She looked around the room with disdain: "There's no way to sleep in here."
Jin Zhao acted as if he hadn't heard.
He took a tube of mosquito coils from a box on the corner of the table and lit it with a lighter.
"I'm going to take a shower. Find a place to sit by yourself." Jin Zhao said, standing up. He looked at her, his eyelashes casting shadows, his tone unreadable.
The room wasn't very big to begin with, and when he stood up, his tall and straight posture filled most of the light, creating an inexplicable sense of oppression.
Jiang Xiliu suddenly raised her face, her almond-shaped eyes widening in shock. She asked incredulously, "You're going to leave me alone in this room? No, I'm scared."
With no outsiders around, she disregarded propriety and openly displayed her fear.
She never hesitates to admit her feelings.
Jin Zhaogang stopped in his tracks, turned his head, his brows furrowed slightly, and said in a tone that was hard to detect: "I'm going to take a shower."
"So what?" Jiang Xiliu took half a step forward, grabbed his hand, raised her chin slightly, and said with a confident and self-assured tone, "It's not like I haven't seen your body before."
She paused, as if to suggest that her words lacked conviction, and then added crisply, "I've not only seen it, I've touched it!"
In truth, Jiang Xiliu felt uneasy, fearing that Jin Zhao wouldn't bother arguing with her—just like when he slammed the door shut earlier, he frowned and pushed her away, then turned around and locked the broken door from the outside.
Although Jin Zhao had kept the house clean, she always felt that snakes might crawl out from the corners when she was alone inside.
The young lady was adept at using both soft and hard tactics. She shook his arm playfully, saying, "Anyway, I want to be with you. I don't want to be alone."
...
Jin Zhao regretted it.
He regretted agreeing to let Jiang Xiliu come out with him because he had been soft-hearted.
The bathroom here is a space that Jin Zhao built himself. It's so small that two people can barely stand together, with only a thin curtain between them.
In less than a minute, the dense moisture filled the small space, and even the curtains became slightly heavy from the steam, swaying gently in the humid air as if they were about to fall down at any moment.
"Jin Zhao, why aren't you moving?"
Jiang Xiliu tilted her head, her fingertips idly twirling a loose thread from a curtain.
She paused, then added a touch of feigned innocence to her voice: "Would you like me to scrub your back?"
How could a young lady possibly scrub someone's back? She just wanted to touch it.
After all, it's tempting to look at something you can't eat.
Jin Zhao could feel a gaze peering at him through the gap in the gauze curtain, unabashedly falling upon him.
He took a deep breath, forcing himself to focus on the steam in front of him. His Adam's apple bobbed twice before he replied in a hoarse voice, "No need."
Jiang Xiliu outside the curtain gave a soft "oh," and her fingertips began to twirl the thread again.
This rag is actually of good quality; it doesn't fall off even when I pull it like this.
Jin Zhao acted quickly, lathering his entire body with soap, rinsing off with water, and that was it.
After he drew back the curtain, the young lady belatedly realized that she hadn't showered either. She glanced down at the only bar of soap in the cramped bathroom, then looked up at Jin Zhao, her tone one of spoiled entitlement: "What about me? How am I supposed to take a shower?"
Jin Zhao calmly replied, "What you see is what you get."
Jiang Xiliu: "..."
Of course, she couldn't accept sharing a bar of soap with Jin Zhao.
The grand plan to complete the mission was forced to a halt, and she needed to call Assistant Liao to come and pick her up.
Jiang Xiliu ran into the house, picked up the phone on the table, and swiped up.
It was pitch black, with not a glimmer of light in sight.
It seems like... the power is out?
Jin Zhao entered the house a step behind her, and he casually closed the door behind him.
The mosquito coils are highly toxic and have already killed most of the mosquitoes in the house.
He squatted down and crushed the burning mosquito coil.
"Jin Zhao, do you have a phone charger?" Jiang Xiliu had only decided to come with him on a whim today, so she naturally didn't ask anyone to help her pack her essentials, and she never had the sense to bring her own things.
It's fair to say that she brought nothing with her except her phone.
Jin Zhao's gaze lingered on her black-screen phone for a moment: "You can't use my charger."
He took out his phone, and his profile was reflected when the screen lit up: "If you need contacts, use mine."
Jiang Xiliu blinked: "I can't memorize other people's phone numbers."
She did memorize a string of numbers when she was a child, but later, the owner of that number went to a foreign country, and the two almost broke up.
Jin Zhao paused for a few seconds: "I have the contact information you left last time in my phone." He was referring to Assistant Liao's contact information.
Jiang Xiliu's eyes flickered almost imperceptibly. She stared at the phone Jin Zhao handed her for two seconds, then suddenly reached out and gently pushed it away, her voice lowered slightly: "Never mind."
She never expected to encounter such difficulties before she set off.
At the time, she confidently instructed Assistant Liao to block Jin Zhao's number, ostensibly to "cut off all interference." In reality, she was afraid that Jin Zhao would get impatient with her nagging and call Assistant Liao to complain, which would then relay the whole story to her father, ultimately delaying her mission.
Thinking back on her actions, Jiang Xiliu felt an urge to travel back 24 hours and slap herself... to slap Jin Zhao a few times.
She poked the system light: "Hey, can you help me contact Assistant Liao? Have him come pick me up."
[System 0777: Hehe.]
【System 0777: The system does not have communication capabilities.】
Useless artificial intelligence!
Jiang Xiliu sat on the only chair in the room, her gaze fixed on Jin Zhao—watching to see when he would finally realize his mistake and solve her bathing problem.
Jin Zhao was changing the bed sheets and duvet cover.
This kind of house is prone to accumulating dust, so he specially prepared two sets, and he would change and wash them every time he came to stay.
Jin Zhao straightened the last corner of the quilt cover, patted off any non-existent dust, and as he turned around, his gaze inadvertently swept over the chair.
Jiang Xiliu remained seated in the same position as before, her eyes reddening.
He was about to ask her what was wrong when he saw her blink rapidly.
She didn't shed a tear.
It's just that he was staring at someone so intently that he developed some red blood vessels in his eyes, making him look like he had been wronged.
Jin Zhao withdrew his gaze.
Seeing that he had changed the sheets and walked to the table without saying a word, Jiang Xiliu finally couldn't hold back and cleared her throat to call out to him, "Jin Zhao."
Jin Zhao turned around.
"bath."
The two words, seemingly without beginning or end, conveyed the meaning perfectly—she was still waiting to be washed!
The problem is not just that little bar of soap.
There was no bath towel belonging to Jiang Xiliu here, nor any change of clothes.
Food delivery is possible.
But those cheap goods from those small shops, before they even reach her, are probably still lying on some patch of ground, getting trampled on.
Wrapped around her body without washing it? She couldn't accept the thought of it.
Jin Zhao decisively closed the food delivery app interface. He lifted his eyelids and looked at the person in the chair: "Just make do for one night. You can just sit in this chair."
There was absolutely no room for negotiation in his tone, let alone any tenderness or consideration for women.
That's understandable.
Anyone who's been busy all day at work or school and still has to serve others won't have a pleasant expression.
Of course, the young lady didn't understand.
"I won't sit!" Jiang Xiliu stood up. "You figure out a way, or send me back."
The soap peeled away the outer layer that Jin Zhao had touched.
The water was splashing loudly. Jiang Xiliu awkwardly held up the soap, which was half the size it used, and quickly rolled it over her body. Not much foam came out, and her movements revealed a sense of reluctance and grievance.
She quickly rinsed off the soap, looked up, and saw Jin Zhao standing with his back to her at the bathroom door, with two sets of clean clothes on each shoulder.
One set of clothes was used to wipe her face, and another set was given to her to wear.
These are all Jin Zhao's clothes.
Jiang Xiliu casually picked out a set of clothes, dried them quickly, and then picked up another set of clothes, examining them critically.
Sigh, she had no choice. She sniffed, unable to understand how she had ended up in such a miserable situation.
It's all Jin Zhao's fault for being too poor, and also the fault of the stupid system that deliberately leaked Jin Zhao's rental information, tricking her into coming here.
"Are you done yet?" Jin Zhao asked after waiting for a few minutes and seeing that she hadn't made any move.
Jiang Xiliu shoved past him angrily, deliberately bumping his arm with her shoulder, and muttered irritably, "What's the rush!"
After tossing and turning until midnight, the young lady finally lay down on the bed.
Jin Zhao turned off the light and lay down on the edge of the bed.
The most basic wooden bed had a mattress so thin you could almost feel the hard wooden board underneath.
Jiang Xiliu tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep.
She nudged Jin Zhao's arm and complained softly, "The bed is so hard."
Jin Zhao was woken up by her push. His voice was slightly hoarse from just waking up, and his tone was so indifferent that it was almost perfunctory: "The ground is harder."
Jiang Xiliu gripped the blanket tighter and tighter, and suddenly felt a pang of sadness.
She couldn't hold back any longer and burst into tears. Tears streamed down her cheeks, quickly soaking her pillow.
She sobbed and gasped for breath, her shoulders heaving: "I've never been wronged like this before!"
A note from the author:
----------------------
Jin Zhao: ...
Miss: ? ? ? Haven't I been wronged?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
