Chapter 33
Gu Xiyu and Lu Ziqing finally moved the last of the things to Xie Chunhua’s new home. He turned back to check on Lu Ziqing’s state, only to see him crouched in a corner of the living room, helping to sort out the heavy items that needed to be brought into the kitchen.
He let out a silent sigh.
He had obviously done his best to comfort the Great Demon, but he looked as if he was in an even worse mood.
Teenagers were really hard to understand.
“It’s been hard on you two; auntie has made some home-cooked food; that is, if Ziqing doesn’t mind staying and eating together.” Today, Gu Xiyu had seen the most smiles on Xie Chunhua’s face since he had crossed over.
Lu Ziqing was rebellious at home and school, but in front of Xie Chunhua, he acted extremely polite and understanding: “Then I’ll definitely try to eat two more bowls today.”
It was the first day of moving, so Gu Xiyu didn’t want to leave Xie Chunhua alone to sort everything out. It just so happened that tomorrow was Sunday, so Gu Xiyu said to Lu Ziqing, “I want to stay and help my mother unpack, so you can go back first, it’s been a hard day for you.”
Lu Ziqing asked sorrowfully, “Is Little Mom ready to kick me out after using me?”
Gu Xiyu subconsciously replied, “That’s why I said from the beginning that I didn’t want to bother you.”
“I understand, I’m at fault for volunteering to help.” The more Lu Ziqing spoke, the more humble his tone became, causing Gu Xi Yu to inexplicably carry a sense of guilt.
“…… There are only two bedrooms, if you stay, you might have to sleep on the sofa. And you didn’t bring a change of clothes, it would be more comfortable to go home and rest.”
Xi Chunhua happened to hear Gu Xiyu’s words as she passed by, and she said, ‘ There is a double bed in the bedroom, why not let him sleep with you? You two aren’t that big anyway; you’ll have enough room.”
“I remember you packed a lot of clothes from home, just lend some to Ziqing to wear.” Xie Chunhua said and looked outside, “It’s so dark, how tiring would it be to let Ziqing drive back alone? It might even rain later.”
Gu Xiyu looked out and saw the stars winking at him; there wasn’t even a cloud around the moon.
Lu Ziqing was smart enough to go past him and say to Xie Chunhua, “Thank you, auntie.”
“……” All right.
Xie Chunhua moved quickly and immediately took out Gu Xiyu’s clothes, with a small, unopened packet on top of them.
“This was underwear I bought for Ah Yu before, but I accidentally bought a bigger size, so they’re all new and unworn.”
Gu Xiyu: “?”
Lu Ziqing smiled with mirth: “Oh, is that so.”
Gu Xiyu: “……”
Which is.
At midnight, Gu Xiyu sent Xie Chunhua, who hadn’t been able to resist yawning several times, to bed and dragged Lu Ziqing the toolman, who had volunteered to stay behind to sort out the rest of the large items, to shower and prepare for rest.
Outside the house, the rain suddenly poured down in torrents.
Xie Chunhua’s prediction was unexpectedly accurate.
Gu Xiyu was sitting under the covers playing with his mobile phone when Lu Ziqing came out of the bathroom with a wet body and glanced at him, saying meaningfully, “Although these underwear are a bit too big for Little Mom, they are a bit too small for me.”
One of the pillows on the double bed was suddenly thrown onto the floor.
“Amazing, then hit the floor.” Gu Xiyu calmly put down his phone and turned off the bedside lamp with his back to him.
The room was suddenly plunged into darkness, and Gu Xiyu’s hearing became sharper. He could clearly hear the breathing and low laughter belonging to another person in the room, slowly coming to his side.
Lu Ziqing picked up the pillow and climbed into the bed, “I know little mom doesn’t want me to catch a cold.”
“I’m willing to give you all the quilts.”
Lu Ziqing then got rid of the pillows Gu Xiyu had put on the bed to separate them and said in a low tone, “My mother left me when I was very young, my father has been busy working outside for as long as I can remember, and today is actually the first time someone has slept with me.”
Gu Xiyu slowly opened his eyes and pursed his lips without speaking.
Lu Ziqing’s voice continued, “I heard from my classmates that their parents used to be pampered and cuddle them to sleep.”
“So Little mom, can I cuddle you?”
Gu Xiyu only thought to himself, ‘Lu Ziqing is a really clever little ghost.’
He was still hesitating about whether to expose Lu Ziqing’s little tricks when the system’s special task was suddenly announced.
[[A special task has been triggered; please let the target enjoy the warmth of a cuddle; it can lower the target’s risk value by up to 10 points!]]
Gu Xiyu: “……”
He seemed to vaguely understand why the bureau would call it the latest type of intelligent system. The mission instructions and tasks it issued were completely different from what he expected and understood, everything had definitely been upgraded.
“Whatever.” Gu Xiyu could only agree.
Lu Ziqing was like a child who had successfully gotten candy and was afraid that the person who gave it would back out, immediately reaching out for his little mom’s small beans …… ah no, seek for the desired warmth.
Half of what he said was genuine.
As a child, he was actually very afraid of thunder, and he used to wish he was like the other children who had a haven or got comforted whenever they run to their parents when they were afraid or had nightmares. But all that was waiting for him was a cold, empty room, and he could only use perseverance to gradually adapt to what he was afraid of
Lu Ziqing had just started to enjoy the warmth of Gu Xiyu’s body when he heard the other man’s words sandwiched between the thunder and lightning.
“It’s not the first time anyway.”
Gu Xiyu might have made a soft murmur, but it accidentally fell into someone’s ears.
Gu Xiyu was sleeping off when he was forcibly turned over, and the boy made a move he was incredibly familiar with, cupping his jaw with a gloomy look and asking, “It’s not the first time?”
“Little mom-” Lu Ziqing’s voice was lazy with a hint of danger, “Who else have you cuddled in bed beside me?”
Gu Xiyu fell into silence.
He couldn’t say anything about the previous world.
The rebellious boy’s hand had reached under his clothes at some point and started rubbing his skin with increasing intensity.
He frowned and grabbed his hand, saying in a cold voice, “It hurts a bit.”
Even though Lu Ziqing was restricted in his movements, the gloom in his eyes still showed no sign of diminishing. He stared at him for a long time before suddenly releasing him.
“Forget it.” Lu Ziqing’s voice was inaudible in the darkness, “I don’t want to know about the past.”
“But Little mom, you promised to always stay by my side and keep me company in the future, you must do what you said.”
Gu Xiyu was a little bewildered as he listened.
Had he really promised Lu Ziqing such a thing?
With his head full of doubts, Gu Xiyu fell into a deep sleep in exhaustion.
He got up early the next day, but Lu Ziqing was no longer there. What surprised him even more was that the risk value, which had originally soared to 70, had suddenly dropped to 45 overnight.
“System, why did the risk value drop? When did it drop?”
The system replied a few seconds later, [You rolled into Lu Ziqing’s arms during your sleep and wouldn’t let go.]
“?” He didn’t believe it.
However, the risk value on the panel had indeed become 45. The special task had been completed, but by his calculations, the risk value could only reduce by 10 points at most, but this 25-point jump…?
What changes had Lu Ziqing’s psyche undergone in the course of one night? He still remembers the way he stared at him last night, it was just like Ji Chen when he was about to go crazy.
Perhaps the unexplained decrease had something to do with the target’s mood and not the task. When he walked out of the bedroom, he saw Lu Ziqing and Xie Chunhua drying clothes on the balcony, talking and laughing.
Xie Chunhua saw him come out, and she had an embarrassed expression as she said, “Ah Yu, how can you make Ziqing get up early in the morning to wash clothes?”
Gu Xiyu looked at the clothes swaying in the wind on the clothes rack as well as the underwear, and suddenly let out a chuckle.
It seems that he has found the reason for the sharp drop in risk value.
When they left the house after breakfast, they met Zhou Tianyi, who happened to be returning from shopping for groceries.
Zhou Tianyi stopped stiffly on the walkway and looked at them in embarrassment, as if she were debating whether to say hello or not.
Lu Ziqing didn’t even glance at her and brushed past her with his eyes looking forward. After taking his eyes off Lu Ziqing’s back, Gu Xiyu nodded politely at Zhou Tianyi before following him and leaving the place.
At least the risk value didn’t rise again.
The consequence of insisting on staying at Xie Chunhua’s house to help out was that Lu Ziqing was forced to spend the whole day locked in his room catching up on his homework and listening to Gu Xiyu review it for him.
Gu Xiyu’s voice was warm and pleasant, and whenever he spoke, Lu Ziqing could not help but recall the sound Gu Xiyu had made by the door that day and what had burst into his dreams yesterday night-
“…… If you keep scribbling like that, you will have to repeat everything.”
Lu Ziqing snapped back to his senses, only to find that the words he had copied were accidentally done with long strokes due to his daze, and they looked ugly.
He pursed his lips, crossed them all out irritably, and rewrote them.
Gu Xiyu didn’t know about the messy things Lu Ziqing was thinking about in his mind, only that he was particularly inefficient and strangely quiet today.
He only thought he was still having a hard time over Zhou Tianyi’s matter.
“Little mom, I’m done ……” Lu Ziqing had finished all the homework Gu Xiyu had assigned him and had just turned around to call out for him to correct the answers, only to find that he was the only one left in the room.
He dropped his pen and rushed over to open the door, but almost collided with the person who was about to enter.
Gu Xiyu’s reaction was quick, and with the steaming sweet soup in his hand, he steadily avoided the tragedy of colliding with Lu Ziqing, without spilling a single drop.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?”
Lu Ziqing froze: “I was trying to find you.”
“I went downstairs to get you something to eat. Come on.” Gu Xiyu brought the soup and small biscuits in his hand and put them on the table, then picked up Lu Ziqing’s workbook.
In this short period of time, he had made up for the classes he had missed, and could now answer seventy to eighty percent of the questions on the mock paper correctly. No wonder the world’s consciousness was so worried that he would surpass the protagonist’s achievements.
Lu Ziqing, however, stared at the food on the table for a long time before asking, “Did you personally make this for me?”
“No, I ordered takeaway.” Gu Xiyu replied without raising his head.
Lu Ziqing knew he was saying nonsense, but his mood was more or less complicated.
This was the first time that someone close to him had cooked something special for him.
He mentally prepared himself to finish everything no matter how unpalatable it was, but he didn’t expect Gu Xiyu’s cooking skills to be no worse than Auntie Zhang’s.
The sweetness of the soup seemed to spread all the way to his heart, and Lu Ziqing looked up at the boy leaning against the table and seriously going through his homework.
The other boy even looked up at him when he sensed his gaze: “Are you feeling better?”
Lu Ziqing’s hand holding the spoon suddenly tightened.
Why could Gu Xiyu only be his guardian?
——
“I heard that a new bun shop has opened in Siyuan Square in the city and that the pan-fried buns there are particularly delicious, why don’t we go eat that at lunchtime?” Zhang Ming said to Gu Xiyu as they left class.
As a result, two classes later, this guy sent him a message after he arrived at Siyuan Square: [QAQ Sorry Xiyu, I can’t come to eat buns, my goddess suddenly called a meeting with the cadres of the drama department].
He helplessly put away his phone and walked in the direction of the bun shop by himself.
There was no class in the afternoon anyway, so why not bring back some for the rebellious boy?
As he thought this, an acquaintance suddenly walked out of the bakery in front of him.
It was Lu Mingren, who was accompanied by a brown-haired woman of his own age. The woman was holding his hand with a sweet smile on her lips, looking particularly happy.
The expression on Lu Mingren’s face was rarely casual, and there was a rare gentleness under his eyes.
When Gu Xiyu walked up to them, he was just in time to see the scene where the woman raised her head and the man lowered his head for a kiss.
He didn’t miss the guilt and shock on Lu Mingren’s face the moment he looked up and collided with his eyes. The woman seemed to have guessed what was going on and awkwardly let go of the hand she was holding onto, saying with a somewhat unhappy bow of her head, “I’ll leave first then, bye.”
Gu Xiyu and Lu Mingren stood in the crowded street, silently staring at each other for a while, and then Gu Xiyu spoke first, “Mr. Lu, can we find a place to talk?”
They ended up at the café across the street.
Lu Mingren ordered him an iced Americano as he wished, before sitting down in front of him and opening his mouth with a helpless, “Sorry.”
Although the two of them only had the marriage certificate, he felt that Gu Xiyu wouldn’t like the feeling of being given a green hat…
Gu Xiyu’s mood was actually fine, but he was a little curious: “How long have you and that lady… been together?”
Lu Mingren didn’t expect him to be so open, and recalling that Gu Xiyu didn’t “marry” into their family by choice, he explained, “It’s been a few years.”
“She was just my assistant at first, and we later became friends because of how much we had in common. I didn’t think of her in that way at first; Ziqing was very obsessed with his mother and was particularly averse to me dating other people, so I gave up on those thoughts for a long time to avoid family strife.”
“Perhaps she was the only person who could give me flutters after Zhou Tianyi. After a few years together, I still accidentally fell in love with her. We had originally planned to find an opportunity for Ziqing to get to know her and then slowly accept her as they got along….”
There was a pause before he continued with a bitter smile, “Plans always fail to catch up with changes, my father suddenly had an accident and I was the only one in the family who could still bring him positive energy, so here we are now.”
Gu Xiyu thought to himself, ‘This wedding thing almost ruined two families.’
“What do you think of the other party?” Gu Xiyu asked.
Lu Mingren was a little surprised but still replied, “She is pretty good; she’s not the kind of woman after vanity and usually lives a frugal life. She even prevents me from spending money recklessly.”
He probably really liked that woman, as he could not help but smile whenever he mentioned her.
Gu Xiyu was silent for a moment before speaking again, “Actually, if Mr. Lu is willing, we can go ahead and get a divorce.”
“If you’re worried about affecting Ziqing, we can keep this under wraps for now. I don’t mind staying at the Lu house and overseeing his academic progress until he goes to college. Just promise me that if Ziqing manages to get good grades, you will respect his choice in whatever he plans to do with his life.”
“This way, you’ll be feel free to date and talk with the person you like. What do you think?”