Chapter 41: For us, let’s make up for the next eight months…
Wen Mu bit his lower lip, his fingertips digging deep into Song Xingran's back.
That kind of extremely gentle tenderness made her tremble all over, as if she was hanging on the edge of a cliff, unable to fall down nor reach the top.
"Is Teacher Wen satisfied with this?"
Song Xingran propped himself up, his black hair wet with sweat and stuck to his forehead, with a sly smile on his lips.
Wen Mu stared at him with cold eyes, but his voice was soft: "Are you not capable?"
"I did it strictly according to Teacher Wen's instructions." He leaned over and whispered in her ear, deliberately slowing down his movements.
Wen Mu was so angry that he kicked him: "A racing driver can't even accelerate?"
Song Xingran's eyes darkened, and he grabbed her wrist and pressed it over her head: "Then sit tight."
The next second, the world was spinning.
All that remained in Wen Mu's world was the shaking ceiling and the man's hot breathing, as if he was caught in an interstellar storm.
As the morning light filtered through the gauze curtains, Wen Mu curled up in his quilt, counting Song Xingran's eyelashes. The man's brows relaxed as he slept, his bold features softened by the morning light.
This face is indeed very beautiful.
Her eyes fell on the teeth marks on his left shoulder. They were the marks left by last night when she couldn't bear it anymore. They were particularly conspicuous on his cold white skin.
The phone on the bedside table vibrated.
Wen Mu tiptoed over. A message from Xu Yuesheng popped up on the screen: "Sister Amu, there's something I forgot to tell you. There's something wrong with Kepler-13b's light curve. Can we have a video conference sometime?"
She glanced at the time. It was twelve o'clock in Norway. Just as she was about to reply, she felt a sudden tightening around her waist, and was pulled into a warm embrace.
"I only slept for four hours." Song Xingran buried his face in the crook of her neck, his voice thick with sleep. "Don't you researchers need to rest?"
Wen Mu poked his shoulder: "You didn't have this attitude last night."
The man chuckled, his morning stubble tickling her: "Then I'll give you a good morning kiss now?"
As he said this, he was about to turn over and press on me.
"Stop it." Wen Mu pressed against his chest, "It's urgent."
Song Xingran sighed and let go of her hand, but when she stood up, he suddenly grabbed his laptop and said, "Use this one, it has a bigger screen."
He entered the password skillfully, and the desktop wallpaper was their wedding photo under the aurora.
The moment the video was connected, everyone's eyes widened.
Wen Mu was wearing a men's shirt that was obviously too big, with a suspicious red mark faintly visible on his collarbone, and a muscular arm was draped over the headboard behind him.
"Cough." Yu Mo coughed tactically, "Well, did we disturb you?"
Wen Mu'ergen felt hot and slammed his notebook shut.
When she turned around, the man was already leaning against the bed with his upper body naked, his eyes full of mischief: "Teacher Wen's image as a teacher is——"
A pillow hit him squarely in the face.
"Shut your mouth."
*
Wen Mu still dragged Song Xingran back to China the day before the start of school at Ningbo University, and the next day he resolutely threw himself into the laboratory of the Astronomy Building.
In this regard, a man named Song expressed great dissatisfaction.
But what can you do? It's your own wife, so you should spoil her yourself.
In the conference room, the light curve of Kepler-13b was projected onto a screen. This hot Jupiter, located 1,700 light-years from Earth, orbits its parent star at a frantic rate of 1.76 days, with a surface temperature of 2,700 Kelvin.
"Here's the problem." Xu Yuesheng pointed his laser pointer at a group of unusual fluctuations. "The Hα absorption line is 40% weaker than expected, but the sodium D line is surprisingly strong."
Meng Meng frowned as he flipped through the literature: "This doesn't fit the atmospheric model of a hot Jupiter."
"Unless," Wen Mu zoomed in on a certain part of the spectrum chart, "there are clouds here."
The conference room erupted in an uproar. Theoretically, clouds were impossible in the high-temperature environment of a hot Jupiter, but the spectral features pointed out by Hot Jupiter were consistent with the scattering effect of clouds.
"We need to remodel it." Yu Mo made the decision, "Amu, you are responsible..."
Before he finished speaking, the door of the conference room was pushed open.
Song Xingran walked in carrying two paper bags, his black turtleneck sweater accentuating his shoulders. "Dear teachers, afternoon tea is here."
Everyone in the lab looked subtly back and forth between Wen Mu and him.
Without time to think about how this person got in, Wen Mu took the paper bag with forced calmness: "Thank you, just leave it here."
Song Xingran walked straight to her side and leaned over to look at the screen: "Is this the baked potato planet?"
"It's a hot Jupiter." Wen Mu corrected.
The man pointed to a spot on the spectrum chart. "Does this bump look like the airflow disturbance on a racing car's rear wing?"
The room was filled with silence.
Wen Mu grabbed the mouse and enlarged the area he pointed to - the tiny fluctuation that had been ignored was indeed highly similar to the characteristics of the Karman vortex street in fluid mechanics.
"You..." She looked up at him, her eyes widening slightly behind her gold-rimmed glasses.
Song Xingran shrugged innocently: "We saw a similar curve when the team was doing wind tunnel experiments last year."
Then he took out a cup of milk tea from the paper bag and put a straw in it. "Three parts sugar and oatmeal, if you like it."
After the man left, the laboratory exploded.
Wu Tong covered her mouth and screamed, "Help me! My brother-in-law's leaning forward was too tempting!"
Yu Mo stared at the kiss mark on Wen Mu's neck and sneered: "Some people said they were busy with work last night?"
Wen Mu bit his straw and pretended not to hear, but his fingertips unconsciously rubbed the sticky note on the milk tea cup:
[Hotpot tonight? I bought your favorite bamboo fungus. P.S. Don't miss me too much.]
As the aroma of mushroom soup hot pot wafted from the kitchen, Wen Mu frowned at her laptop. The new model of Kepler-13b was still giving an error after its 17th run, and the red warning on the screen stung her eyes.
"Open your mouth." Song Xingran suddenly came over, holding a piece of braised beef with chopsticks.
Wen Mu subconsciously took a bite of the meat, the delicious gravy exploding on her tongue. Only then did she notice the induction cooker bubbling on the dining table, with red oil and mushroom soup on either side of the double-flavored hot pot, surrounded by her favorite side dishes.
"Let's eat first." The man took her computer away. "Xu Yuesheng said he's going to call the police if you don't rest."
Wen Mu was surprised: "You added him on WeChat?"
"More than that." Song Xingran proudly waved his phone, "I have the contact information of everyone in your lab."
As he poured her a bowl of bamboo fungus and chicken soup, he said, "Yu Mo said you slept an average of four hours a day this week?"
Wen Mu sipped his soup and suddenly remembered something: "Why are you always reading economics books lately?"
Song Xingran paused while rinsing the tripe: "Just, just take a look."
"Macroeconomic Theory? Monetary Finance?" Wen Mu raised an eyebrow. "Master Song's 'casualness' is quite unique."
The steam rising from the hot pot blurred the man's expression.
He picked up a piece of baby cabbage with chopsticks and put it into her bowl: "Eat it quickly, it's about to be cooked."
After dinner, Wen Mu was forced to rest on the sofa.
After Song Xingran finished cleaning up the dishes, she sat on the carpet with her computer. "Can I see the error code?"
Wen Mu propped himself up: "Can you?"
"No," he admitted frankly, "but the team programmer taught me how to debug basic logic."
She leaned over to watch him operate. The man's profile was particularly three-dimensional under the desk lamp, and the way his slender fingers tapped on the keyboard was inexplicably sexy.
But ten minutes later, he pushed the computer back in frustration: "Damn it, I can't handle this matrix operation."
Wen Mu took the computer and noticed the unusual parameters displayed on the console. She quickly retrieved the raw data file and discovered an incorrectly labeled wavelength range on line 7. This minor, almost unnoticed error was the real culprit.
"Found it." She modified the parameters and recompiled the code.
The progress bar advanced rapidly, and when the green "PLETE" prompt finally popped up, Song Xingran suddenly hugged her waist: "My wife is really a genius!"
Wen Mu turned around and kissed him on the cheek: "One third of the military medal is yours."
"At least we've ruled out the wrong direction."
The man took the opportunity to throw her onto the sofa, nuzzling her neck. "How about the remaining two-thirds?"
His voice was muffled by the fabric, and his warm lips pressed against the pulse at her collarbone.
Wen Mu pointed to the study and said, "Here's the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal. I've put it on the table for you."
“…”
Late at night in the study, two desk lamps each illuminated a corner. As Wen Mu was checking data, he caught a glimpse of Song Xingran taking notes in a copy of "Corporate Finance," a deep furrow between his brows.
The calendar on the bedside table turned to March 2nd, just ten days after the wedding and seventeen days before the start of the new F1 season.
Wen Mu suddenly realized that he started reading those economics works right after his grandparents returned to China to attend their wedding.
"Song Xingran." She called him softly.
The man looked up: "Hmm?"
The question Wen Mu wanted to ask turned around on his tongue and finally became: "Would you like a cup of coffee?"
*
Ningchuan experienced a late spring cold snap in March.
In the lab, Wen Mu wrapped himself tightly in a woolen shawl, staring at the latest spectrum of Kepler-13b on the screen. After two weeks of research, the team finally confirmed the presence of clouds composed of titanium oxides in the upper atmosphere of this hot Jupiter, a discovery that could rewrite textbooks.
Everyone was stunned when the lab's alarm suddenly changed to a cheerful "Good Luck!" Xu Yuesheng frantically shut down the program, the acceptance letter from The Astrophysical Journal flashing on his screen.
"Passed!" Meng Meng screamed and jumped up, and the folder in her hand fell to the ground.
Yu Mo hugged Wen Mu tightly and said, "I knew it! Titanium oxide cloud formation! This will definitely be one of the top ten discoveries of the year!"
Wen Mu was knocked back two steps, her gold-rimmed glasses tilted to one side. She adjusted them, her lips curling up unconsciously. "It's only passed the preliminary review. We still need to wait for peer review."
"Who cares! After the initial review, why would I have to worry about the rest?"
The lab erupted in activity. Xu Yuesheng dug out his treasured chocolate stash and distributed it, Meng Meng clamored for champagne, and Yu Mo had already pulled out her phone to make a restaurant reservation. Wen Mu, watching his colleagues in a state of chaos, suddenly remembered that when he had just returned to China last year, this project was just a casual idea Yu Mo had mentioned.
The dusk light filtered through the blinds, stretching the cheering figures into long shadows.
The group walked out of the experimental building in a noisy manner, and Wen Mu saw Song Xingran at the school gate at a glance.
"Here we go again!" Meng Meng pinched Wu Tong's arm and screamed softly, "Today's flower is baby's breath! I win, fifty cents!"
Wen Mu shook her head helplessly. Ever since Song Xingran became a regular topic on the Ningda Forum, she had become accustomed to this kind of scene.
She calmly walked up to the man and asked, "Why are you buying flowers again?"
Song Xingran raised an eyebrow and stuffed the bouquet into her arms: "Because I know there will be good news today."
"How did you know?" Wen Mu took the flowers in surprise. There was also a box of Godiva chocolates hidden inside. "We just received the email too."
"Because my last name is Song." The man raised his chin proudly, revealing his iconic fangs.
The sunlight danced on his eyelashes, making his eyes look particularly bright.
Yu Mo rolled her eyes: "Does this mean the Song family bought the observatory?"
"What I mean is..." Song Xingran took out several gift boxes from the car like magic and distributed them to everyone, "My wife's project cannot fail."
After a heated discussion, everyone finally decided to go to the newly opened Chongqing Lao Zao Hotpot.
Song Xingran leaned close to Wen Mu's ear and complained quietly, "I've already booked a hotel."
"It's the same with hot pot." Wen Mu pushed up his glasses. "It's cold, so eating hot food will keep you warm."
"You can't handle spicy food, can't you?"
"You're both a novice and a playful person." Wen Mu glanced at him, "Got it?"
Song Xingran chuckled softly, brushing her earlobe with his fingertips. "It seems Teacher Wen is quite adventurous."
“It would be great if we could apply this spirit to other things.”
Wen Mu poked the man's head with his index finger: "It would be better if you could use your mind on something else."
Yu Mo said she had to experience Mr. Song's Lamborghini. A car that caught his eye must be truly special. So, all four women got into the Lamborghini, leaving Xu Yuesheng alone in his Passat.
The two cars drove towards the city one after the other.
In the Lamborghini, Meng Meng and Wu Tong were excitedly taking selfies in the back seat, while Yu Mo was applying lipstick in front of the rearview mirror.
Wen Mu fastened his seat belt and heard Song Xingran softly ask, "Are you tired?"
She shook her head. The man had already lowered the backrest of the seat. "Sleep for a while. I'll call you when we get there."
The hot pot restaurant's private room was filled with steam.
As the red oil simmered in the pot, Yu Mo raised her glass and said, "First of all, let me toast to our Teacher Wen—the most serious scientist in the universe!"
"Last time, my data was off by 0.1%, and she made me redo it three times!" Wu Tong agreed immediately.
"Any punctuation errors in the literature review must be corrected," Meng Meng added.
Wen Mu took a sip of her juice, and the tips of her ears turned slightly red. Song Xingran held her hand under the table, his thumb gently rubbing her knuckles.
"What?"
"It's okay, I just want you to know that I don't dislike you."
After three rounds of drinks, Song Xingran pulled out a dark blue velvet box from his pocket: "A celebratory gift."
Inside the box is a pair of sapphire cufflinks. The gems are cut into hexagons and set in platinum bases, reflecting a deep glow under the light.
"You can't wear jewelry in the lab." Wen Mu reminded in a low voice.
"Isn't it for you to wear during experiments?" Song Xingran took out one of the rings and gently pinned it to her shirt cuff. "Don't you have an academic conference next month? It goes well with your navy blue suit."
Wen Mu was stunned. She did have an important academic lecture, but she had never told him the specific date.
"How do you know?"
"The meeting notice on your desk." Song Xingran winked proudly. "The Song Intelligence Network knows everything."
Yu Mo suddenly put down her wine glass heavily: "Master Song, do you dare to drink with me?"
The situation spiraled out of control. Yu Mo, under the pretext of "testing his alcohol tolerance," forced Song Xingran to drink three glasses of Maotai. The man accepted all the drinks, and by the fourth, his eyes were blurry, his black hair drooping limply over his forehead, like a drunken dog.
"I can't take it anymore." He hugged Wen Mu's waist and rubbed his head on her shoulder. "Wife, save me."
Wen Mu looked at Xu Yuesheng helplessly: "Help me get it in the car?"
Xu Yuesheng wiped his sweat: As long as I don’t ruin my brother-in-law’s good deeds, it’s fine.
On the way back to Xinghewan, Song Xingran was fast asleep in the passenger seat. Moonlight streamed through the skylight onto his face, outlining the lines of his superior nose. As Wen Mu waited at the red light, she couldn't help but reach out and gently brush away the strands of hair from his forehead.
As soon as the car stopped, the man suddenly opened his eyes: "Are we home?"
Without waiting for an answer, he stumbled out of the car and insisted on carrying her inside.
"Is it heavy?" Wen Mu asked, hugging his neck.
"It's heavy." He shook it twice deliberately. "After all, it carries my entire universe."
The night wind rustled through the tops of the sycamore trees.
Wen Mu smiled and patted his shoulder, but he suddenly said, "I'm flying to Barcelona next Wednesday."
Her arms tightened slightly. The new season was about to begin, which meant that for the next six months, she and he would be separated by miles, and she would only be able to watch his games live on television.
"Yeah." Wen Mu put his face against the back of his neck, "Good luck in the game."
Song Xingran stopped and turned to look at the night sky. Jupiter was exceptionally bright in the clear March night sky, like a gentle gem.
"See that star?" he whispered. "I look at it every time I miss you."
Wen Mu looked at the star with a calm gaze and said slowly, "I will go to watch your game."
"What?"
"Shanghai Grand Prix in April, Monza in May." She counted down the race calendar. "As long as I don't hit the observation window."
"I'll come to see you."
The man suddenly put her down, turned around and hugged her tightly. His heartbeat was so fast and heavy that it made her eardrums vibrate.
"Don't regret it." His voice was drunk and choked with sobs. "I recorded it."
Wen Mu smiled: "Where did you get the recording?"
"It's all recorded in my head and heart."
The man picked her up and carried her sideways, rushing straight to the villa.
Wen Mu: “What are you doing!”
Song Xingran's eyes were surprisingly bright, and there was no trace of drunkenness at all: "Go home! I have to hurry and make up for the next eight months!"
*
In front of the VIP channel of Ningchuan International Airport, Wen Mu watched Song Xingran turn back for the third time.
"Did you really bring your passport?" The man pinched her fingertips tightly.
"In the inside pocket of his suit." Wen Mu pointed helplessly at his chest.
Song Xingran touched his trouser pocket again: "Where's the boarding pass?"
"You just handed it to the ground crew yourself."
The final boarding reminder sounded on the broadcast, and the flight attendants were already looking over here frequently.
Wen Mu gently pushed him: "Go quickly."
The man pulled her into his arms, resting his chin on the top of her head and breathing deeply, as if to carve her breath into his lungs. Wen Mu quietly let him hold her, grabbing the back of his windbreaker.
"Message me when you get there." She finally let go of his hand, her voice a little softer than usual.
In first class, Song Xingran adjusted his seat to its maximum recline, but he still felt uncomfortable. He was the only one in the eight seats, making the space seem even more irritatingly empty. He pulled out his phone and took a picture of the window.
[Photo] I was alone in first class]
[The chair is so hard]
The blanket the flight attendant gave me smelled like disinfectant.
【Teacher Wen, do you miss me? 】
No reply, maybe he is on the way back.
Song Xingran closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, the image of last night surfacing uncontrollably. Wen Mu sat astride his waist, the moonlight filtering through the gauze curtains casting dappled shadows on her back. She rarely took the initiative, but shyly refused to turn on the light, so they could only see each other clearly in the dim light from the window.
He suddenly opened his eyes.
When she woke up in the morning, she seemed to have sneezed?
He turned his phone back on and quickly typed:
[Remember to ask mom to make you a bowl of ginger tea]
“Ding Dong——”
A message prompt sound came from behind.
The man frowned and continued:
【Remember to think of me】
“Ding Dong——”
Another ringtone rang out from close by.
"Please..."
Song Xingran turned his head impatiently, but stopped talking when the words came to his lips.
A white hand was resting on the back of his seat.
Following those slender fingers upwards, he saw the familiar sapphire cufflinks, and further up—
Wen Mu tilted her head and looked at him, her phone still lit up with the message he had just sent. She shook the phone, her eyes curved into crescents behind the lenses.
"Hello again, Master Song."
-----------------------
The author has something to say: He is really good at cooking! [Starry eyes][Starry eyes]
This chapter is a transitional chapter! Open a new map!
I'm rolling around in a cute way, asking for collections, comments, and nutrient solution!
It would be better if you could take a look at my pre-collection [kiss][kiss]
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