Chapter 33
After arranging the flowers, Ji Ting pushed the vase forward onto the center of the island counter. The vibrant red roses were dripping with allure, faint droplets of water still clinging to their petals. Ji Ting turned back to fetch some water from the tap, sprinkling it gently among the petals.
Tan Yucheng leaned against the island counter, watching her.
Ji Ting turned to look at him. “Is this okay?”
Tan Yucheng glanced at the droplets on the flowers and nodded. “Yes.”
Ji Ting also leaned against the island counter, her hands damp. She observed him leaning lazily nearby for a few seconds, then suddenly moved closer, tiptoeing to kiss his thin lips. Tan Yucheng was momentarily stunned, then he maintained the posture and leaned down to kiss her rosy lips. She propped herself on the island counter with one hand, leaning forward, while her neck tilted back.
Tan Yucheng released his arm, using one hand to lift her onto the island counter, rubbing against her nose, and kissing her again.
Ji Ting stretched her arms over his shoulders, fingers intertwined, palms wet.
For a long time.
He left her lips and whispered, “Have a rest today?”
Ji Ting’s breath was chaotic, and she opened her eyes. “I have to go back to the shop in the afternoon.”
He responded with an affirmative sound.
His palm held her waist, his backhand lines were clear, and he could hold her waist with one hand.
At this time, the sweeping robot issued a warning, seemingly out of power, with no return to their own place to charge, Ji Ting and Tan Yucheng turned their heads and looked at the reminder: “Help it.”
Tan Yucheng chuckled lightly, released Ji Ting’s waist, and walked over to where the sweeping robot with four still-moving claws and a red light above its head was stationed. He walked to the slot, bent down, and pushed the robot inside.
Ji Ting remembered the scattered lipsticks on the floor, walked back to the sofa, picked up the box, and put the lipsticks back inside. Luckily, not many lipsticks were taken out. There was a notification on her laptop behind her, and it beeped twice.
She called out to him, “Your computer is ringing.”
Tan Yucheng half-crouched to plug in the charger, acknowledged her, then stood up and returned to the sofa. He walked past her side, both dressed casually at home, giving a faint sense of living together. Ji Ting hesitated for a moment, then put the box into the shopping bag. Tan Yucheng sat down on the sofa, picked up the laptop, and placed it on the armrest, then turned it on.
The message was from Chen Fei.
Ji Ting pushed several shopping bags aside and sat down on the carpet. The intelligent sweeping robot had already cleaned most of the carpet, but faint marks were still visible on the light-colored carpet. She focused her gaze and blushed slightly.
She turned her head to look at Tan Yucheng sitting on the sofa.
He was typing on the keyboard, his knuckles distinct, occasionally picking up his phone to glance at it, which seemed to have messages too.
Ji Ting watched him for a while. Today, he was dressed in a black shirt and casual trousers, looking relaxed and homely, devoid of his usual coldness. Ji Ting propped her chin and after a few seconds, she got up and sat on the sofa, leaning back against him, then directly lay down on his legs. Tan Yucheng paused, glanced down at her, and Ji Ting picked up her phone without looking at him, asking, “Do you have a maid to clean this house?”
Tan Yucheng reached out to push aside the strands of hair that were falling on her forehead, then returned to typing on the keyboard, replying, “Yes, why do you ask?”
Ji Ting shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Actually, there should indeed be one, whether it was in Tianyu or in the residential area he lived in or the apartment here, there were maids who came to clean. The maid mainly worked in Tianyu on weekdays.
She held her phone and asked, “Want to play some Punk Thugs?”
Tan Yucheng replied to a message, “You go ahead and play.”
“Okay.”
Ji Ting clicked into Punk Thugs and wandered inside. These days have been too busy; it had been a long time since she played Punk Thugs. For leisure, she spent most of her time playing parkour. Xu Xu needed multiple tests for this game. The tasks in Punk Thugs had piled up. Ji Ting flipped through those tasks, and gradually, sunlight poured in, falling on the two people on the sofa.
Warm.
Some tasks were becoming more and more difficult, and Ji Ting couldn’t pass one of them.
A notification sounded on her friends list. A colorful avatar came online. Meng Jia was still in the newbie city, probably just logging in. When Ji Ting was looking for tasks, she accidentally clicked into the newbie city, and her character ended up next to Meng Jia’s. Meng Jia was controlling a character that looked like it was obtained by spending money, staring at this already advanced game character.
Ji Ting was caught off guard by this encounter.
She planned to open the map and leave, but she needed to greet her first.
Ting: Morning.
Jiajia: Morning there, or is it not morning?
Ting: It’s almost 10 o’clock.
Jiajia: Yeah.
Ting: I’m doing some tasks, gotta go.
As she was about to click on another map, Meng Jia noticed she was leaving. Twisting in her flashy, seemingly purchased character, she said, “I passed by Zhuoyue this morning. You weren’t at the store. Are you still in the neighborhood? The shop shouldn’t be open in the afternoon if you haven’t arrived yet.”
The character controlled by Ji Ting hesitated.
Meng Jia rarely asked about other people’s schedules. She only cared about Tan Yucheng. Asking like this now seemed like a probe. Perhaps those red roses were her point of inquiry.
Ji Ting didn’t care about the Lucky Cat.
Ji Ting paused and edited her response: “I wasn’t at either place. I went home.”
Jiajia: Oh, so you hurried home so late? Aren’t the auntie and uncle asleep yet?
Ting: My family runs a supermarket at home.
Jiajia: Oh, I remember now.
Ting: Gotta go.
Jiajia: Bye.
Without waiting for Meng Jia to finish, Ji Ting’s controlled character flew away. She landed in a new city and continued to search for tasks. Tan Yucheng finished his work, closed his laptop, looked up, and saw the woman lying on his lap. Her oversized bathrobe was open to the side, revealing her collarbone prominently, with several vivid red kiss marks on it.
Tan Yucheng admired for a few seconds, a smile in his eyes. He reached over and picked up his phone from the side, opening the game page.
Controlling his character, he landed next to her.
Meanwhile, Meng Jia was preparing to leave the game. Seeing him online, she opened the map and found that he and Ji Ting were in the same map, their markers together. This meant that the two game characters were currently standing together.
Meng Jia’s face changed suddenly.
A few seconds later, she angrily threw her phone.
The suspicion grew stronger.
At noon, Tan Yucheng took Ji Ting downstairs to a private restaurant for lunch. Ji Ting had just thrown her clothes into the dryer, which was still tumbling, so she couldn’t wear them. Instead, she had to put on his shirt and shorts to go downstairs.
There was a hint of embarrassment.
Ji Ting, with her long hair down, sat opposite him.
Tan Yucheng handed the menu to the waiter, then after the door closed, he opened a small box of candies and handed one to her casually. “It’s not like you haven’t worn these before.”
As soon as these words were spoken, they earned him a kick from her.
Tan Yucheng’s eyes twinkled with a smile.
Ji Ting pursed her lips, chewing on the candy, her cheeks flushed. Her face was small, and wearing his black shirt made it appear even smaller. However, she was indeed beautiful, with a natural charm that shone even without makeup, so whatever she wore had its own significance.
Looks matter.
He was referring to the year they graduated from university. Both families went to a hot spring resort together. She, Qiu Dan, and Xiao Xi soaked in one hot spring, while their fathers and Tan Yucheng were in another, separated by a wall.
They couldn’t see each other.
Ji Ting felt dizzy after soaking for a while. Xiao Xi and Qiu Dan were worried about her and helped her up. She sat dizzily while Qiu Dan coaxed her to drink water, and Xiao Xi went to get clothes for her.
Their suitcase was locked with a password that Qiu Dan had forgotten momentarily.
At her urgency, Xiao Xi went back to their side, grabbed a white shirt, and returned to help Ji Ting put it on. When Ji Ting put it on, she also put on the unwashed underwear, which carried a faint smell of ebony from the collar. However, she didn’t pay much attention to that, just leaned back and didn’t want to move. She still wore her own skirt because her shirt was too wet to wear.
Both fathers came to check on her and, seeing she was fine, started cooking barbecue.
As Ji Ting lifted her head to drink water, Tan Yucheng leaned against the door with his arms crossed, looking at her and raising his eyebrows. “Feeling better?”
Ji Ting nodded slightly.
Tan Yucheng’s gaze moved downward, noticing the oversized shirt she wore and the creases at the cuffs, recognizing it immediately as his own. He paused but didn’t say anything.
At that time, Ji Ting didn’t realize it was his shirt.
The scent was just familiar to her, and she didn’t think much of it.
Until the next day.
When she folded the shirt and returned it to Xiao Xi, Xiao Xi cleared her throat and said it was Yucheng’s shirt.
Ji Ting’s face immediately flushed red, feeling embarrassed. She quickly took back the shirt and said she would wash it before returning it to him.
Xiao Xi nodded in agreement.
It was also at that time that Xiao Xi realized their son and Ji Ting seemed like they could give it a try. So, three days later, the parents of both families separately asked their children if there was any possibility between Tan Yucheng and Ji Ting.
Both of them replied separately that there was no such intention.
The parents then dropped that idea.
She wondered if he remembered what happened later. Ji Ting chewed on the candy with a strained expression, looking up at him. His phone, placed on the table, rang. He picked it up, glanced at it, and replied. He also came downstairs wearing casual clothes. The black shirt emphasized his sharpness, reminiscent of his college days. Many memories from their university days floated through Ji Ting’s mind.
She remembered him standing at the bus stop, smoking and waiting for them.
Tall and casual, he stood out.
She also witnessed a girl confessing to him once, asking for his WeChat. It happened at the bus stop; he leaned against the sign while the girl held up her phone with the QR code. He casually slipped his hand into his pocket, glanced at the QR code for a few seconds, then looked up with a calm expression, saying his phone was out of battery.
But she also remembered another time when he exchanged WeChat with someone.
She stood beside him, her heart pounding. She still remembered the joyful look on that girl’s face, but she never saw that girl with him again.
The server opened the door.
The food was brought in and placed on the table.
Tan Yucheng finished replying to the message on his phone, set it down, and picked up the chopsticks to pick up the hottest braised pork for Ji Ting.
After lunch,
Leaving the private restaurant, Ji Ting and Tan Yucheng returned to his home. As soon as they entered, Ji Ting yawned. Tan Yucheng used the remote to close the intense sunlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows, then glanced at her and asked, “Want to sleep for a while?”
Tears welled up in Ji Ting’s eyes. She nodded. She had been restless all night and hadn’t slept much in the morning either.
She leaned against his shoulder. Tan Yucheng’s throat moved slightly as he looked down at her, then he hugged her waist and led her to the master bedroom. He closed the floor-to-ceiling windows in the room, leaving only a dim light. Inside the bedroom, Ji Ting lay down on his bed and didn’t want to move. Tan Yucheng looked at her lazy appearance and found it quite rare.
He bent down and gently held her waist.
With her lying like this, his shirt slipped down to his waist, and his grasp touched her delicate skin. He watched her for a few seconds before pulling the blanket over her. Then, Tan Yucheng got up and went to the bathroom. Since the maid hadn’t come to clean up, he tidied up the bathroom a bit, with water marks everywhere.
The sunlight was intense.
Actually, the weather at this time was at its hottest. Tan Yucheng took the opportunity to take a shower, filling the bathroom with steam. After coming out and drying his hair, water droplets slid down his prominent nose.
He didn’t usually take naps.
But looking at that soft figure on the big bed, he hung the towel on the rack, lifted the blanket, and lay down. The warmth from her sleeping in the bed enveloped him. Tan Yucheng buried his head close to her neck, while his hand around her waist.
Her original fragrance of the “Pure Color Imprint” had faded a lot, replaced by the ebony scent from his bathroom. This fragrance on her also suited well, adding a touch of freshness and softness.
Gradually,
He also drifted off to sleep.
The sound of the humidifier in the room continued, marking the passage of time unnoticed. At some point, the fragrance stirred some emotions, and her waist was caressed by his palm. Ji Ting was kissed by him in a daze.
Her arms instinctively wrapped around his neck, he propped up his shoulders, his back muscles evident. He leaned over, kissing her lips, her disheveled shirt sliding up, revealing her fair and tender waist.
The room temperature rose.
The humidifier misted softly, casting shadows on the bed, tangled figures, necks tilted back, and sweat. Ji Ting clung to him like a drowning fish, tightly. Tan Yucheng whispered something in her ear.
Ji Ting weakly hammered his arm, he chuckled and kissed her neck.
Water droplets dripped onto her slender abdomen.