27. I can't hear my heartbeat anymore.
From the floor-to-ceiling windows of the ocean-view room on the 38th floor of the hotel, Mu Jia watched the golden sunrise finally leap above the sea and rise completely.
The man took the computer and heard her say, "Besides our company's portion, I've also added the promotional materials from other channels based on the information you provided. However, I've noticed that our side accounts for a large proportion of the investment across all channels, so I'd like to use as detailed data as possible. We'll add this part once the detailed data from Latin America arrives in the next few days."
"Is it okay to use your internal data?" Xiao Yu looked up at her.
"It's alright." Mu Jia shook her head. "This part isn't classified."
"Thank you, Jiajia," Xiao Yu said sincerely, looking at her.
She glanced at him with a smile, "Why are you being so polite with me?"
Last night, Xiao Yu suddenly messaged her, asking for some relevant cooperation data.
The old man suddenly wanted to see the brand's marketing investment and performance feedback in the Latin American market over the past two quarters. In other words, he wanted to conduct a surprise inspection of his "homework" to see if he had truly neglected his duties during his six months abroad.
She knew that Xiao Yu was not a professional, and she had troubled him quite a bit with her personal matters recently, so she gritted her teeth and, out of loyalty, came to the hotel to help him in person.
With the help of other data provided by Xiao Yu's team, we worked all night and finally produced a report framework that was reasonably acceptable.
"Take a look first. We'll add some more detailed data in the next couple of days, and we should be able to present it to your dad by the end of this week."
“Jiajia,” Xiao Yu looked up from the screen and suddenly said with a smile, “Sometimes I really want to hide you away.”
"What?"
"If my dad knew that you did this for me, he would probably be very eager to poach you and switch jobs."
Mu Jia laughed and said half-jokingly, "How did you know I'm about to have to find a new job? Well then, I'll have to ask Mr. Xiao to help me make some connections when the time comes."
"Don't give me that!" Xiao Yu closed his laptop. "Who doesn't know that our Manager Mu is getting promoted every year in Latin America, and his future is bright?"
Mu Jia smiled and lowered her head, saying nothing more. Yes, levels can keep rising, but you might never be able to go back.
"Are you sleepy?" Xiao Yu poured her a glass of warm water, glanced at the two cups of black coffee on the table beside her, and couldn't help but feel sorry for her. "Sleep here for a while? Or shall we go downstairs and have breakfast first?"
Mu Jia followed Xiao Yu downstairs. Just as they stepped out of the elevator, her phone rang.
On the other end of the phone, a sweet and professional female voice said to her, "Hello Ms. Mu, I am an employee of the Lijing Holiday Hotel who contacted you last night. The lipstick you left in your hotel room was sent to you this morning via same-city express delivery, and it has been signed for."
"..." She paused for a moment, then her grip on the phone tightened for a split second. "...Okay, I understand, thank you."
Chu Chiyi closed the door and looked down at the package in his hand.
In the dimly lit fire escape, a middle-aged woman with impeccable makeup asked him, "Who's that young girl? Your new girlfriend?"
"No." The boy shook his head, looking directly down at the other person. "Classmate."
The next second, unexpectedly, a crisp slap landed mercilessly on his face.
The half-dead emergency light in the fire escape suddenly flickered as if in a final burst of life.
“Xiao Yi,” the woman stared at him, her crimson lips parting, “it seems I still have to remind you, don’t forget why you’re here, and who you are.”
The space fell silent for two seconds.
The boy suddenly raised his head again and said calmly, "I understand, Aunt Lan."
The woman paused for a moment, then suddenly laughed. She raised her hand, and her bright red nail polish was even more striking than the bloodstains on the boy's lips.
Her red fingernails rubbed against his lips, wiping away the blood inch by inch.
Chu Chiyi placed the same-city express delivery package on the cabinet in the entryway, his gaze sweeping over Mu Jia's name again, as well as the sender's name, "Lijing Holiday Hotel".
For some reason, I suddenly remembered her comment on last night's dream: "It was indeed a mess."
The two had breakfast at the hotel's buffet restaurant.
Mu Jia swallowed the last bite of French toast and suddenly looked up. "I want to go to the hospital to get a tooth pulled later."
"Tooth extraction?" Xiao Yu looked at her with some surprise.
"Yes. A wisdom tooth has come in, and it's been hurting lately."
Half an hour later, they went to the city's First Stomatological Hospital to have their teeth extracted.
From registration and consultation to X-rays and tooth extraction, Xiao Yu provided attentive care throughout the entire process, attending to her every need.
Her lower left wisdom tooth had indeed fully erupted, so the specific treatment required was not surgical; it was a relatively simple and quick "one-tweezers deal."
The whole process went very smoothly and took less than two hours.
Aside from the nurse accidentally delivering the wrong X-ray during the dental X-ray session because she was staring at Xiao Yu, and the anesthetic injection before the tooth extraction being quite painful...
After the tooth extraction, you need to stay in the hospital for observation for half an hour.
The two sat on a bench in the observation area, with Mu Jia holding an ice cream and applying it to her cheek.
Seeing that Xiao Yu was staring down at the dental X-ray she had just taken, she couldn't help but tease him, resting her chin on her hand: "What are you thinking about? Are you thinking about that nurse who blushed after you comforted her a few times?"
"No, not at all." The man smiled and shook his head. "I just think it looks pretty good."
"..." Mu Jia stared at her own stark white, naked bones on the black and white film, speechless for a moment, wondering where he found any beauty in it. "I guess I have to thank my mom for forcing me to wear braces when I was little..."
“It’s not a tooth,” he suddenly turned his head and gave her a different ice cream. “This one’s not cold anymore, I’ll eat it.”
When Chu Chiyi returned home that evening, Mu Jia was leaning against the sofa, holding an ice pop as a face mask.
Perhaps because she had been applying ice all afternoon, her face didn't swell up; however, the anesthetic wore off, and the extraction site started to hurt.
Hearing Chu Chiyi ask, "What happened to your face?"
"My face is fine, but I had a tooth pulled," she said, her voice muffled as she barely opened her mouth, "a wisdom tooth."
But before she could finish speaking, she suddenly realized that the ice pack she had used for the ice compress was now stuck to her face because it had been in contact with her skin for so long...
Chu Chiyi stared blankly at her grimacing face for a moment, then realized what was going on. He was both annoyed and amused: "Mu Jia, who told you to put ice on it like that? Don't you care about your face?"
"You're shameless!" she retorted irritably, while continuing to grimace and pull, trying to separate her face from the ice.
He suddenly grabbed her hand, saying, "Don't pull."
The next second, a warm palm covered her cheek, and Mu Jia suddenly trembled. Her pupils dilated involuntarily as she felt something melting quietly under his palm.
A little over half a minute later, Chu Chiyi held up the popsicle and asked, "Does it hurt?"
She rubbed her cold cheeks. "...It doesn't hurt."
"I mean teeth."
"That still hurts a bit."
Why aren't you taking your medicine?
As she spoke, she glanced at the popsicle in his hand again, "Give it to me, I won't stick to it so tightly this time."
The next second, Chu Chiyi's hand suddenly touched her face again.
His face was suddenly cupped in her hands, and Mu Jia instinctively shut her mouth. After a while, she stammered, "What...what are you doing..."
"Will this work?" He had been holding the ice in his hand the whole time, and his palm was now cool, just the right amount of cool.
Her face felt burning hot, and almost instinctively she wanted to get closer to that cool spot.
Chu Chiyi naturally adjusted his posture so that his left hand could better rest on her left cheek.
Mu Jia adjusted to his position, and after a while, she suddenly realized that she was practically leaning against him in this posture, and her heart began to pound.
Half a minute later, the space remained quiet, but her heartbeat grew louder and louder. She couldn't take it anymore and sat up uncomfortably.
Chu Chiyi's arms suddenly felt empty: "Want to apply it a little longer?"
"No need, it's a little numb."
Does your tooth still hurt?
Mu Jia looked up at him, her words tinged with a hint of grievance, "There's still a little bit left."
Their eyes met, and her cheeks were still flushed. Chu Chiyi looked at her for two seconds, and then, as if possessed, he reached out and touched her.
Seeing her face, which was smaller than his palm, he instantly puffed up like a pufferfish, "Don't you dare pinch my cheeks!"
The next second, he withdrew his hand, suddenly lowered his head, and gently kissed her cheek.
Sure enough, I received another question from her: "What are you doing?!"
"Here's yours from last night."
Mu Jia paused for a moment, then remembered and asked with a smile, "Did Mimi walk me this morning?"
"I've taken a walk," he replied, then suddenly gave the reddened area a light peck. "Is this any better?"
"..."
She didn't refuse, so he escalated his actions until he finally received her protest: "Don't kiss me on the lips!"
He stepped back, as if suddenly remembering something: "You had a package this morning, I signed for it for you."
"Okay." When she returned, she had already seen it on the cabinet in the entryway.
"It was sent by the hotel."
Mu Jia's body suddenly stiffened, and she felt her heart beating faster. She didn't know why she was avoiding his eyes, but she still steadied her voice and said, "Oh."
The two were so close, so close that it seemed they could even share their breath, but it was as if they could no longer hear each other's heartbeats.
She suddenly opened her mouth subconsciously, but ultimately closed it.
Looking away, I saw Chu Chiyi's Adam's apple bob.
Mu Jia's heart jumped again.
Whether he asks or not, she will be afraid.
The next second, he stood up and said, "You still need to eat even if you have a tooth pulled. I'll go cook you some porridge."
After finishing the porridge, Mu Jia picked up a bowl from the table and filled it with ice cream. The doctor's instructions said that she could eat something cold after the tooth extraction.
I had only taken two bites when a wave of nausea suddenly and uncontrollably washed over me.
She put the ice cream on the table, covered her mouth, and quickly went into the bathroom.
A few minutes later, she rinsed her mouth and came out of the bathroom.
Seeing Chu Chiyi sitting on the sofa, looking up at her, their eyes met, and she noticed that his expression seemed unusual.
Mu Jia paused for a moment, then understood, and sat back down as if nothing had happened: "Don't worry, it's not what you think."
As she spoke, she picked up the ice cream on the table again, and heard him ask from the side, "What do you mean?"
She took a silent breath, used a spoon to separate the melted part from the rest, but didn't eat any more.
"I'm definitely not pregnant, don't worry."
"..." What are you worried about?
“Even if she is pregnant,” Mu Jia suddenly put down the cold little box in her hand, turned her head, and smiled easily at him, “it still can’t be yours.”
This is so good! I want to see a love triangle and a tsundere, arrogant man chasing after his wife!!
Thank you, baby, for liking it! You'll have plenty!
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