09. He didn't move, letting her vent her pain.
Mu Jia got into the car and quickly picked up the phone to call her mother.
Yuan Mei answered the phone and first scolded him, saying that her sudden abdominal pain was a minor problem. She had just been to the hospital and the doctor said it was just a common gastroenteritis.
As for the specific reason, it should be that I ate a mixed bag of food at the captain's dinner on the way back from Singapore last night. After getting an IV drip at the hospital just now, I feel fine now and I'm home now.
She then added that neither she nor Mu Xiangming had originally intended to tell her. However, Mu Xiangming had inadvertently mentioned their hospital visit while on the phone with Mu Meixi, which led to the information reaching her through Lu Siming.
Upon hearing this, Mu Jia was both amused and exasperated, thinking to herself, "How come these two are getting more and more backward as they get older? They don't learn anything else, but they have learned her old trick of only reporting good news and not bad news when she was out in public." She then immediately said that she would go home to see her right away.
Yuan Mei told her not to go back yet, "My little darling, at this moment, I don't have the extra energy to serve you anymore."
"Mom! Who needs you to wait on them like this!" Mu Jia protested into the phone. "If I go back, it'll be to help take care of you, okay!"
She said it fluently, but as soon as she finished speaking, she felt that her words lacked conviction and conviction...
The hospital's diagnosis has come out, and Yuan Mei is fine. Besides, with Mu Xiangming around, he can certainly take good care of her.
In this situation, her going back would only cause more trouble, and the two of them would have to spare energy to take care of her.
She was about to give up and go along with her mother's wishes for now when she suddenly remembered something. "Why did you come back early? Shouldn't it have been next week?"
She should have kept quiet until she asked, because then Yuan Mei remembered, "Isn't it all because of you?"
"My...my affairs?"
This topic touched on Mu Jia's sore spot. She deliberately returned to China during the few days her parents were traveling in Singapore to avoid them meeting Xiao Yu directly. Originally, she planned to wait until they returned in a few days, then make up an excuse to say that Xiao Yu had returned to Huai City and that they could meet again later.
After all, it's fake. No matter how realistic it looks, the more people it's shown to, the greater the risk of it being exposed.
Besides, no one knows a daughter better than her parents, Yuan Mei and Mu Xiangming...
Who knew that unforeseen events could happen, and plans could never keep up with changes?
At the moment, she hadn't figured out what to do, and she was a little embarrassed to bother Xiao Yu again, so she quickly interrupted Yuan Mei and said, "Yes, yes, yes, we met! Mom, you should take good care of yourself first. We can talk about other things when you're fully recovered! I have some things to do here, let's talk later."
After saying that, before the other end could say anything more, she hung up the phone, feeling a little guilty.
She put down her phone, feeling confused, her heart still pounding in her chest.
Half of it was because Yuan Mei had just asked to meet her boyfriend, and the other half was because of Chu Chiyi's concise statement, "Your parents are in the hospital."
His blunt and direct tone and manner really made her mistakenly believe that Mu Xiangming and Yuan Mei had encountered some serious trouble during their trip...
But now that it's been explained, it turns out it was all a misunderstanding.
Nothing was wrong, yet it unnecessarily stirred up her emotions.
Mu Jia was furious but couldn't vent her anger, so she naturally turned her anger towards the culprit, "Why didn't you tell me from the beginning that my parents had already gone home?"
Is this guy trying to embarrass Xiao Yu in front of her?
"Your brother didn't mention this when he told me."
His expression was calm, even carrying a hint of innocence.
Mu Jia stared at him for a few seconds, but couldn't tell if he was faking it.
She had no choice but to give up, giving him an angry glare before turning to look out the window.
Her anger shifted somewhat to her cousin, Lu Siming, who seemed to have no idea what he was busy with all day.
And why does he have to tell Chu Chiyi everything? They might as well just live together!
As she gazed at the receding street scene outside the window, she suddenly heard someone behind her ask, "Where are you going?"
"go home."
"Which home to go back to?"
“My own home! Number 10 Chaoxi Street!” she said irritably.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became, and she couldn't help but turn to him again and ask, "Do you watch TV dramas?"
The man was a little surprised by her sudden question. "What TV series?"
She deliberately emphasized the words "supporting role," then instantly switched to a gritted-teeth mode, "Is it when that person is about to go offline?"
When they got downstairs, Mu Jia went to the Cainiao Station at the entrance of the community to pick up her package.
A few days ago, while she was still abroad, she had already ordered some daily necessities online that she needed urgently, and they should have all arrived by now.
When the innkeeper saw it was her, she helped her out of the warehouse and greeted her warmly, "Jiajia's back!"
“Sister Ma,” she returned the greeting with a sweet smile, “I’m back on vacation, I just landed yesterday.”
Before she could finish speaking, Mu Jia interrupted her, giving her a frank and open smile: "Sister Ma, please don't joke with me. We're just ordinary friends."
There were quite a few packages; after taking them all out, she could practically hug them to her chest.
Chu Chiyi tried to help her, but she rudely brushed him off.
As the two stepped out of the post station, they discovered that it had started to drizzle outside.
The moment Mu Jia looked up at the rain, her view was blocked as an umbrella was raised above her head.
A shadow, neither too big nor too small, enveloped her.
She looked at the person beside her, momentarily stunned, wondering where he had conjured the umbrella from.
Too lazy to ask any more questions, he turned and walked home.
After entering the first door downstairs, I began to climb the long flight of stairs.
The steps weren't wide, and Chu Chiyi walked half a step behind her, with the umbrella still over her head.
As she walked uphill, she mentally planned to shoo the people away.
Unexpectedly, before he could even say "You can go," his foot suddenly slipped.
The stone steps were slippery from the rain. She was carrying a bunch of things that blocked her view of the ground. Before she could even react, she fell backward.
In that instant, Mu Jia's breathing and heartbeat seemed to stop for a moment.
The cardboard box in her arms hit the ground with a loud crack. Clearly, there was no time to do anything; she could only instinctively close her eyes.
But after a few seconds, the pain and misery I had imagined did not seem to happen.
I only feel a slight pain in my chest.
It's unclear whether it was the shock from the fall from a great height or the impact of his back hitting the chest of the person behind him.
"I was so scared! I was so scared..." She was still in shock, tightening her arms and letting out a breath, unconsciously whispering her fear.
As soon as she finished speaking, whether it was her imagination or not, the person holding her seemed to raise their hand and gently ruffle her hair while they were still embracing.
Just now, at the critical moment, Chu Chiyi helped her from behind.
The air should have had the distinctive fishy smell of the seaside, but for some reason, it seemed impossible to smell it at all.
His perfume was lighter than in the morning, with only a faint, lingering finish, which smelled quite nice...
No, that was the perfume she chose, how could it not smell good!
The base notes of the same perfumes are intertwined, making it difficult to determine whose they are.
Equally indistinguishable was the booming heartbeat in her ears, which made Mu Jia's eardrums throb.
She suddenly realized that this was the second time today that she had experienced this sudden increase in her heart rate.
The first time was when Chu Chiyi told her about her parents being in the hospital.
Thinking about this, she started to get angry again.
She had become much more sober and realized that because of the physical shock she had just experienced, her hand was now unconsciously gripping his clothes tightly.
She was hanging sideways on him in a koala-hugging-tree pose...
She turned around.
Chu Chiyi was tall, and when she stood on the two low steps, her line of sight was almost level with his.
He still hasn't given up.
"...Don't do this here." Mu Jia pushed him away with her elbow against his chest, using force in the opposite direction, and managed to break free from his embrace.
At the same time, he suddenly gasped.
She looked down and saw a small red patch on the front of her right ankle. It must have been from when she fell down and scraped against the step above.
The wound wasn't serious; it just looked like a small cut on the skin.
Before she could react, Chu Chiyi suddenly took two steps up the stairs, then lowered his body slightly and picked her up in his arms.
She wanted to tell him she could walk and ask him to put her down, but then she changed her mind, knowing full well that he wouldn't go along with her, so she simply gave up.
As soon as he entered the room, Chu Chiyi carried Mu Jia straight into the bedroom, placed her on the bed in the master bedroom, and then turned to go to the bathroom to wash his hands.
Half a minute later, he returned, knelt down in front of her, and casually opened the drawer by the bedside.
Seeing how familiar he was with the place, Mu Jia couldn't help but purse her lips; he certainly had a good memory.
Chu Chiyi remained calm and focused, his eyes fixed straight ahead as he reached out and pulled out the medicine box.
Mu Jia's gaze, however, was somewhat uncontrollably drawn to the small blue cardboard box in the drawer.
This is, after all, her maternal grandmother's old house, where there are many old neighbors, and everyone knows each other to some extent. Mu Jia was concerned about the impact, so when the two of them were together before, they mostly went to Chu Chiyi's place and rarely came to her place.
The last time he came was half a year ago when she went back to China for vacation.
After Mu Jia had a gathering with some friends who lived in the city, Chu Chiyi went to pick her up.
That night, neither of them had any plans, so they took her to her home.
They dropped her off downstairs, and I don't know if it was because she had a little to drink, but the two of them started acting silly in the car for no apparent reason.
As they argued, things escalated uncontrollably and things went awry.
In the end, it was Chu Chiyi who carried her upstairs.
At that moment, she opened the drawer by her bedside and took out an unopened box of Okamoto cigarettes.
He didn't ask her why there were condoms in her house.
I used up most of the box in one night, using it in various ways...
Mu Jia came to her senses and saw that Chu Chiyi was still kneeling in front of her on one knee. This posture made him no longer seem high and mighty, but rather he had restrained his sharpness, and even gave her a slight sense of submission.
He pinched two fingers together slightly and wrapped them around her overly slender ankle, leaving space at the front of the encirclement so as not to touch her chafed skin.
He used his palm to bring the injured foot into the natural light.
There was indeed a scrape on the front of my ankle, with tiny beads of blood seeping out, which looked rather jarring against my fair skin.
The man paused for a moment, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly. As he unwrapped the cotton swab, the plastic packaging rustled under his long, slender fingers. He lowered his head, stray hairs falling across his forehead, partially obscuring his expression, leaving only the focused profile of his face visible.
The cotton swab dipped in iodine was used to wipe the broken skin, causing a sharp pain. Mu Jia gasped and instinctively tried to shrink back, but Chu Chiyi grabbed her ankles and she couldn't move.
He applied slight pressure to his hand, revealing the clearly defined styloid process of the ulna. "Don't move."
Mu Jia glanced at the remaining half-box in the drawer again, and suddenly raised her hand. With a forceful movement, her nails dug into the back of Chu Chiyi's free hand, which was supporting her side.
Taking advantage of the height difference between the two, Mu Jia could see his high brow bone and nose from his angle. The man's gaze was still focused and lowered, his thick eyelashes casting small shadows under his eyes, but his expression remained unchanged.
He didn't speak or move, letting her vent her pain.
Suddenly, his thumb gently rubbed against the smooth skin on the inside of her ankle.
It's like a silent comfort.
But that subtle movement felt like an electric current, instantly shooting through her spine.
Mu Jia pursed her lips, remaining motionless, but her gaze involuntarily fell upon him. His kneeling posture made him appear unusually docile, yet his broad shoulders and the faintly undulating muscle lines beneath his clothes exuded a sense of power poised to be unleashed.
This contradiction within him creates a fatal attraction.
The molecules in the air seemed to stir restlessly. The previous anger had dissipated, replaced by something thicker and more dangerous. In the silence, only the sound of their breathing gradually became clearer.
"Does it still hurt?" He looked up.
Mu Jia looked down and saw him put down the cotton swab soaked in iodine.
She shook her head; there was no reason for her to hold his hand and vent her anger anymore.
Chu Chiyi tore off the bandage, leaned forward, and prepared to apply it to the wound. This action brought him very close, and his warm breath brushed against the skin of her calf, bringing a slight shiver.
But in that instant, her raised toes inadvertently brushed against a part of his lower abdomen through her thin sweatpants.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment.
Realizing what had happened, the two froze for a moment.
Mu Jia's eyes widened in surprise, her cheeks instantly burning, the sound of her blood rushing through her ears ringing. From the touch just now, she clearly felt the contours and heat of that place.
Chu Chiyi suddenly looked up at her.
Those eyes, which were sometimes nonchalant, were now unfathomable, surging with an unrestrained, naked desire, like a wildfire suddenly ignited, almost threatening to devour the person in front of them.
Mu Jia felt the temperature of the hand holding her ankle suddenly rise, pressing against her skin and unexpectedly burning.
The last thread of reason in the air was stretched to its limit.
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