When Chu Li returned home at night, she still felt as if she was immersed in a beautiful dream. She herself did not realize what had happened: she spent a few dozen dollars on a taxi to go to the pet store, and then got the right to live in a high-end residential area for free.
A high-end residential area with an average price of at least 50,000 to 60,000 yuan per square meter! 70 square meters!
Stay for free!
Oh my god!
When she stepped into the room again, her mood was completely different from a few hours ago. Chu Li picked up her phone and found that her mother had sent her another WeChat message.
[Mrs. Chu: Oh, by the way, I haven’t asked you yet, how is the working environment? Can we expect you to get married there?]
[Mrs. Chu: In other words, do you have a boyfriend? You are over the legal marriage age, it’s time to get married.]
[The water army hired by the monkey: At this time last year, you warned me that students should study hard and not indulge in premature love. Now that I have graduated, you think I should get married. Universities don’t allow premature love. Where can I find a boyfriend for you? You can get married after graduation! Do you think I am Doraemon and can pull a man out of my pocket? ]
[Mrs. Chu: Look at you, kid. How can you speak so vulgarly?]
[The monkey’s hired navy: You are talking nonsense. I am a fairy.]
[Mrs. Chu: What did you do just now? ]
[Mrs. Chu: I thought you were acting weird just now and was a little worried. Why do I feel like you're suddenly in a good mood now?]
[The monkey’s hired navy: I won’t tell you.]
[Mrs. Chu: Your wings have hardened. ]
[The water army hired by the monkey: Mom, to be honest, a tall, rich and handsome boy just said to me: The moonlight tonight is so beautiful.]
【Mrs. Chujia: ...You are dreaming again. You are so old and still fantasize about those unrealistic things in comic books. Regardless of whether the person who said this knows Natsume Soseki (*Natsume Soseki, a modern Japanese writer, once translated "I love you" into "月が绮麗ですね (The moonlight tonight is so beautiful)", which fully shows the implicitness and romantic literary atmosphere of oriental men and is widely circulated), he probably just wants to exaggerate the beauty of the moon. 】
[Mrs. Chu: How can a man know so much? 】
[Chu Jia Niang Niang: Look at your father, a cultured man, a university professor, he still learned to confiscate his wife's wallet when he got old.]
[The navy hired by the monkey: …]
[The Monkey's hired navy: What if? ]
【Mrs. Chu: What if? 】
[The water army hired by the monkey: The tall, rich and handsome young man is blind. ]
[Mrs. Chu: How did I give birth to such an optimistic daughter like you? ]
[The navy hired by the monkey: …]
The blunt blow did not affect her good mood. Chu Li held her mobile phone with a grin, and rolled on the bed with a chuckle, this time rolling happily.
The next day was Friday.
When Chu Li went to work, he suddenly understood what it meant to truly survive from a desperate situation.
After the salary was deducted for the mistake in the peripheral printing quantity, the matter came to an end. After that, no one mentioned it again, because no one could laugh at each other, so everyone seemed to be in tacit understanding;
Although Lao Miao and Xiao Niao were mentally ill, they were clear-headed and knew that they were the ones who were primarily responsible for this incident. Chu Li and Yu Yao were the ones who were implicated, so they kept a low profile and did not come to cause trouble for a while.
The tension in the editorial department suddenly became less intense, and Lao Miao and Chu Li were polite to each other...
The world suddenly became a better place.
When Lao Miao went to pour coffee, he even took the initiative to get a box of milk for Chu Li and asked her, "Have you found a new house?"
Moving to the storeroom of the Hirokawa family should be considered as finding a house, right? Chu Li pinched the milk and was flattered. After thinking for a while, he nodded: "Move on the weekend."
Lao Miao nodded as if he was relieved: "That's good. Has the cover artist of Luohe Divine Book been decided? I saw the picture of the artist you found at Ah Xiang's yesterday (Ah Xiang, whose name was called, quickly raised his head in fear), and that one is not good (Ah Xiang lowered his head with a sigh of relief when he saw that he had nothing to do). Why don't you convince Zhechuan to use the net? Although he is not a good person, the work of that artist is commercial enough. About 30% of the passers-by who actually buy books in bookstores don't care what your reputation is like online. After all, the world is so big and they are too busy with their own things to care about it. They only care about whether the painting is good or not."
Chu Li nodded, still a little confused——
Lao Miao hadn't spoken to her in this human and sociable way for nearly a month.
………………This one thousand yuan fee is well worth it.
Chu Li turned his chair and was about to go to QQ to discuss the matter of finding the goddess, when the QQ message box popped up. Someone posted a photo of workers moving things up and down the attic, with the caption:
[Not an actor but a benefactor: I have been busy since 8 o'clock in the morning. Why are there so many things in my attic? It's all your fault.]
[Not an actor but a benefactor: so noisy. ]
[Not an actor but a benefactor: There are still injuries at home and I cannot rest in peace. ]
First ceremony black question mark face.
At this time, Lao Miao, who was standing behind her holding a coffee cup, saw the picture posted by Zhuchuan. Because Chu Li changed the name in the caption, he didn't know that the person was Zhuchuan, so he just asked casually: "Is he your boyfriend? ... The profile picture is exactly the same as Zhuchuan's."
Chu Li tightened her grip on the milk, replied "That's not how you use 'rest'" and quickly closed the conversation. She raised her hands and shook her head, vaguely but concisely saying, "I'm preparing to move, and the profile picture... is the same. Who told Mr. Chu Chuan to like using such a crappy profile picture?"
Lao Miao did not doubt and sat back in his seat. Chu Li then opened a certain plague god avatar in his QQ.
[The monkey’s hired navy: Why aren’t you sleeping so early in the morning? ]
[He is not an actor but a benefactor: I am here to clean up the doghouse for you. ]
[The monkey's hired navy: ...Thank you, teacher.]
[Not an actor but a benefactor: I wrote until 4am last night, and the movers came knocking on my door at 8am... You think the torture I suffered can be offset by a simple "thank you", who are you looking down on? ]
[The navy hired by the monkey: Thank you, teacher. I kneel down and kowtow to you. Bang bang bang.]
[The Monkey's hired navy: Oh, by the way, last night the teacher agreed to ask the Goddess of the Stream to give it a try, I will go and make sure of that now!]
[Not an actor but a benefactor: ……………Why are you so arrogant? Go ahead. Although she is still a lousy person these years, it doesn’t matter that her pictures are becoming more and more valuable. And you are so urgent, she may not agree.]
[Not an actor but a benefactor: If she doesn’t agree, then you can’t blame me. ]
[Not an actor but a benefactor: I have a strong feeling that she will not agree.]
Chu Li was too lazy to listen to his nonsense, so she threw down a sentence "wait for my good news" and turned to Weibo. She searched Niangniang's Weibo and saw that she had just posted a picture of breakfast about five minutes ago. Chu Li suddenly felt very dreamy: What happened this morning? These full-time painters and authors who have only night and no day actually got up early.
Chu Li directly contacted Empress Yu through the official blog of Moonlight magazine and left her a message:
【Moonlight Magazine: Hello, teacher. This is the editorial department of Moonlight Magazine of Yuanyue Publishing House. We have a book that is about to be published and we would like to arrange a contract with you for the cover photos of the manuscript. It will be two photos for the upper and lower volumes. The specific submission time is very tight, which is mid-August. We can consider expediting the fee appropriately... May I ask if you have a schedule? 】
After typing, Chu Li checked it again and again, and found no problem, so he clicked send.
She was still calm when she clicked "Send". She had thought that she would be a little emotional after seeing the artist she loved again after so many years, but she found that she didn't seem to be emotional at all - probably because the shock of meeting Jiang Yucheng and Zhuchuan was much greater than that at this moment...
Much more exciting.
Chu Li sat in front of the computer and was in a daze for a while, thinking about what else she needed to buy after moving. About ten minutes passed unknowingly. Just when she was wondering whether the goddess of the moon would not see her private message, and was considering whether she should find someone to directly connect her, at this time, Weibo suddenly rang with a private message notification sound -
Chu Li shuddered and came to his senses.
Three minutes later.
In a high-end residential area in the center of G City, a man who was standing at home with his hands on his hips, bracing himself to face the dissatisfied gaze of a caged dog, while directing a moving company worker to move a shabby bookcase and reminding him not to bump into the stairs, suddenly felt his phone vibrate. He took out his phone and took a look, and found that it was a screenshot sent by a certain banana man——
[The Monkey’s hired navy: “Screenshot”]
The screenshots are from a private message chat on Weibo:
[The Day the Cocoon Was Broken: Yuanyue Society? Two pictures in mid-August are a bit rushed. It’s already July.]
[The Day the Cocoon Was Broken: Could you please tell me which book your publishing company published? If I’m not very interested, I’d better not accept it.]
【Moonlight Magazine: This is Mr. Chu Chuan’s new work, The Divine Book of Luo River.】
[The day the cocoon was broken: Chu Chuan? ]
[The Day the Cocoon Was Broken: That’s fine, add me on QQ or WeChat to discuss in detail. ]
The entire conversation, from when Queen Xun responded to when she agreed, took less than two minutes.
Zhuchuan: “…”
[The navy hired by the monkey: The teacher's name is really useful! 】
[The monkey's hired navy: As expected, everyone loves him. I surrender.]
[The navy hired by the monkey: Queen Xu is your little fan, hahahahahahahahahahaha! ]
The man twitched his lips, looked up at the movers who were carrying a broken TV downstairs, paused, and resisted the urge to ask them to put the things back. He lowered his head and quickly typed out four concise words -
【Zhuchuan: Shut up. 】
…
Saturday noon.
Chu Li checked out of the rental house and came to the door of Zhu Chuan's house carrying a lot of bags. Standing in front of the familiar door, her finger hovering over the doorbell, Chu Li hesitated a little, and then she realized belatedly that she was really going to live under the same roof with an adult male creature...
'Thinking of this, her face began to heat up rapidly, and her mind was filled with colorful bullet screens exploding——
[Oh my god, you have never had a first love and have been single all your life, so how come you end up living with a man just because of a disagreement? Do you know what modesty and shyness mean?]
[What's the point of being shy? Does it prevent you from sleeping under the bridge? Poor people don't have the qualifications to be shy.]
[That's true, but cooking, feeding the dog, walking the dog, and cleaning, what else are you doing if not being a babysitter?]
[What's wrong with being a nanny? A house with a price of 60,000 yuan per square meter costs 4.2 million yuan for 70 square meters and is free to live in. Where can you find such an expensive nanny? Why don't you kowtow and thank the Lord for His grace? Why are you being so pretentious?]
[The doorbell is right here, press it, and 4.2 million is yours]
[If you press this button, you will have to face the actors 24 hours a day without stopping. With prices soaring today, $4.2 million is not enough to buy you a nice grave to bury your life.]
Chu Li: "..."
Chu Li: "Stop arguing!"
Chu Li suddenly retracted her hand that was hanging on the doorbell, took a deep breath, turned around and was about to go out for a walk to calm down and think about something, but when she turned around, she looked into a pair of calm brown eyes - a tall man wearing simple black shorts, short-sleeved shirt, flip-flops and chicken-hole hair, holding a large bag of fresh beef and carrots in his hands, standing behind her with an indifferent face, and at this moment he was looking at her with an expression that said "please start your performance" -
Chu Li: "..."
Chu Li took a big step back: "Teacher?!"
Zhuo Chuan saw that she looked like she was facing a formidable enemy, just like when they first met... With a sarcastic expression on his face, he raised his hand to show the beef and carrots in his hand: "Buy dog food for Ergou, come in and put the food in and cook it first, chop the meat and cook the carrots... The furniture will be delivered this afternoon, go in and sit down first, I have something to show you."
Chu Li nodded in confusion, and when she came to her senses, she was already standing at the entrance of her house with Zhuchuan.
Er Gouzi jumped down from the sofa and put his paws on her shoulders. He sniffed here and there as usual, and rubbed her chin with his wet nose to greet her. Then, his nose slid down to the things she was holding. Chu Li lowered her head to look at the beef and carrots in her hands, then raised her head to look at Zhechuan who was putting down her various pots, pans, and bags at the other end of the room...
Chu Li blinked——
Huh.
When did it happen?
...The things in their hands were swapped or something. Does this person know magic?
How come he was so weak that he couldn't even hold me, but now he's like a little superman, carrying all the bags? Did he upgrade his gene lock Alpha after soaking in a hot spring?
Chu Li was standing at the entrance with a confused look on her face. At this time, Zhu Chuan put his things away and turned around to see her still standing there stupidly: "Are you going to stand there forever? Did I invite a tenant or a decoration for the entrance?"
Chu Li: "...Tenant, I am a tenant."
"Nothing is as unartistic as yours. Placing anything there will ruin the feng shui," Zhao Chuan waved his hand and pointed at the sofa. "Come in. The slippers are in the overhead cabinet on your right. They're new. Open them and have a look..."
Chu Li stood on tiptoe and opened the shoe cabinet above her head. She silently took out a pair of small white plush slippers with a picture of a monkey holding a banana on them. Chu Li: “…”
Zhuo Chuan: "Thanks to the almighty Taobao for expediting your SF Express delivery."
Chu Li: "I can't even say thank you."
Zhuochuan: "Ginger-eyed wolf."
Zhuochuan: "Come and sit down."
The ungrateful man silently put on his slippers, walked to the sofa and squeezed into the sofa with Er Gouzi. Zhuo Chuan looked at the little girl sitting obediently with her hands on her knees, and then looked at the dog lying on its back beside her. Suddenly, he had the illusion that he had two pets...
He thought for a moment, then took out a piece of printed paper from his trouser pocket and handed it to Chu Li. He had printed it out when he went to buy Er Gou's dog food just now... Chu Li took it, opened it and took a look. When he saw the first line of the title, he took a deep breath -
【Thirty Tenant Rules】.
When Chu Li saw the first rule, "You are not allowed to bring any male creatures that walk on two legs home," he felt his worldview shaken. He silently pressed the A4 paper to his chest and looked up at Zhuo Chuan: "Does a rooster count as a male creature that walks on two legs?"
The man looked back at her expressionlessly: "See number three."
The third rule is: You are forbidden to argue with the landlord for no reason.
Chu Li: "..."
Chu Li adjusted his mindset and started reading the first rule again, [30 Rules for Tenants] -
First, you are not allowed to bring any bipedal male creatures home;
Second, it is forbidden to run around barefoot at home;
Third, it is forbidden to argue with the landlord for no reason;
Fourth, respect the landlord;
5. Love your landlord.
6. When someone comes to the landlord's house, you must hide well. If you are unmarried, you should be aware of the impact;
7. Do not pass off inferior food as good quality food or pass it off as home-cooked food to fool the landlord;
8. It is prohibited to take advantage of the fact that you live under the same roof to do something that goes beyond the “landlord and tenant” relationship to the landlord.
His heart started beating wildly, his mind was full of "What is bad behavior? What can I do to you? How do you know what I want to do to you?" Chu Li rubbed his dog eyes, his cheeks slightly red, and he mustered up the courage to finish reading the eighth article, and then found that the eighth article actually looked like this -
【Eighth, it is prohibited to take advantage of the fact that you live under the same roof to do something that goes beyond the "landlord and tenant" relationship with the landlord. For example, urging the landlord to submit manuscripts, asking for any items with signatures (*including but not limited to signed photos) to give as gifts to relatives and friends, brainwashing the landlord day and night to ask him to use an artist or cover design he doesn't like, or forcing the landlord to sign a publishing contract with a first print run so low that it's like giving alms to beggars.】
Chu Li: "It seems you have a lot of opinions about me."
Zhuchuan was surprised: "You just found out?"
Chu Li: "But I have a burning love for you. When you called me last night, I spent almost fifty dollars on a taxi to come see you even though I only had a hundred dollars to live on for the month."
Zhuo Chuan raised the corner of his lip: "Why else do you think you can sit here now?"
Chu Li: "..."
Zhuchuan: “…”
Chu Li put down the paper and raised his hand to touch his face. Zhu Chuan saw it and still had that cold and straight face: "Why are you blushing for no reason? Why do you always blush for no reason recently?"
Chu Li put down his hand and said indifferently, "No, you are dazzled."
As he spoke, he picked up the A4 paper in his hand and continued to read. Something like "resolutely protect the landlord's personal privacy and do not tamper with his computer"; "do not expose the landlord's photos on social media"; "use the landlord's nude photos to threaten the landlord to do anything the landlord is unwilling to do" -
Chu Li: "How come I have your nude photos?"
Zhuochuan: "How do I know you? That's why I wrote it in."
Chu Li: "I am a pure, innocent, pure and innocent girl!"
Chu Chuan: "The female cockroaches at home forget to fly when they see me."
Chu Li was stunned: "Do you have cockroaches at home?"
She is not afraid of rats and snakes, but she is afraid of any insects, especially those with shells... Zhu Chuan changed his posture and said calmly, "There used to be one, but later the male cockroach felt that if he continued to live here, there would be a piece of grass on his head, so he moved his family."
“…”
Chu Li wasn’t sure if she should laugh out loud at this moment, and shook the thing in her hand. At this moment, she had already regarded this thing as a “relaxing moment of moving”, especially when she saw the last line “If Er Gou becomes a human one day, notify the landlord immediately”, she raised her head in confusion, looked at the big dog sleeping beside her, and then twisted her head to look at its owner next to her——
"The last one is to help you relax, and it shows that the landlord is generally approachable," Zhu Chuan sat down on the sofa, "I still have a sense of humor."
Chu Li: "..."
Chu Chuan: “Isn’t it funny?”
Chu Li: “…Which one?”
Are you still this [Thirty Tenant Rules]?
…Never mind, they’re all pretty funny.
So Chu Li nodded silently.
The man sitting on the sofa showed a satisfied expression: "Okay, put your things away and remember them well. I will randomly check every breakfast time for the first ten days of your stay - welcome to stay. Now go cook for me, Er Gouzi and yourself. I'm hungry."
Chu Li: "..."
Mom, you are right.
Regardless of whether the man in front of me knew Natsume Soseki or not, he was probably just praising the moon for being big, round and beautiful last night.