I bet that the reason why Dong Xiaoye’s legs trembled was not that she was embarrassed, but she resisted the desire to kick me to death. This also proved that she finally gave up struggling.

  My shamelessness had caused her to push herself into a dead end. She, who was arrogant, preferred to be taken advantage of by me than admitting that she played herself, but before my two hands touched her legs, I heard the doorbell ring. The four people in the room were stunned at the same time. Who would come here at this time?

  Dongfang Lianren stood up instantly from the chair, her face suddenly turned pale, “It must be my mother! She found me!”


  This bratty girl almost knocked over me who was squatting on the ground. She was clearly overreacting.

  “How can you be so sure? She doesn’t know that you are living here, does she…” Dong Xiaoye said it like this, but she couldn’t hide the joy on her face. While staring at me fiercely, she simply lifted her feet and rushed into the bathroom with the basin of water without even wiping her feet dry. “Hurry up and clean up the living room. It is so messy here. Are you not ashamed that your guest will see how messy your living room is?” She said loudly.

  I was speechless, the snack bags and Coke cans all over the floor seemed to be the masterpieces of those three girls!

  Dongfang’s unusual reaction obviously attracted Chu Yuan’s attention. She patted Dongfang on the shoulder and comforted her, “It’s nighttime now, so it can’t be Aunt Ran’s, Dongfang, why are you so nervous? This is not like you.”


  Dongfang, who heard the words, realized her gaffe. She suppressed her panic, chuckled, and said embarrassedly, “What do you mean that I am so nervous? I’ve been hiding in your flat by myself for a while now, so naturally I would get startled easily when I heard the doorbell ring. It almost became my instinctive reaction, hehe. ”


  Dongfang refused to admit that she was nervous, but her two little hands grasped Chu Yuan’s arm tightly, making Chu Yuan frown in pain. I patted Dongfang’s head lightly, and said, “This is your instinctive reaction? Relax. You are going to break my little sister’s arm if you keep grasping her arms tightly like this.”


  “Ah!” Dongfang Lianren jumped a step back hurriedly and said in a panic, “Yuan Yuan, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”


  The eyes of Chu Yuan, who was afraid of pain, had already teared up, but she still said with a soft smile, “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt… that much…”


  I didn’t know how painful it was, but Dongfang felt very distressed. I gently pinched her cheek and said, “Didn’t I tell you that I won’t go back on my words? Even if your mother is here, you still don’t need to be afraid. I will try to reason with her on behalf of you. If I really can’t reason with her, I will create an opportunity for you to escape. You can hide in your Elder Sister Xiaoye’s home for a few days.”


  “Elder Brother Nan…” Dongfang little brat was so moved that there were even tears in her eyes. She pouted her lips, held her tears back, and said suspiciously, “Why do I feel like you are trying to kick me out and push this trouble to Elder Sister Xiaoye.”


  Damn it… She saw through my plan…


  “Am I that kind of person?” Seeing Chu Yuan stare at me fiercely like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, I replied vaguely and then quickly headed to the door, “I’m going to answer the door. We shouldn’t let our guests wait at the door for so long.”


  In fact, I knew very well that the visitor would not be Dongfang’s mother, nor would it be Zhen Nuo. Although I didn’t know much about them, from the fact that Zhen Nuo could afford bodyguards, their identity was definitely not simple. Women with important backgrounds would not choose to visit a single man’s flat at night, because their status simply would not allow them to do this kind of thing.

  To my surprise, the visitor outside was a woman. It was a woman who I never expected to see outside my flat at this time.

  “I know you are surprised, but do you intend to just keep standing at the door and looking at me like that? Don’t you want to invite me in first?” Wearing a white long-sleeved T-shirt and black sports trousers, she, who dressed up like a girl living next door, tilted her head and looked at me who was in a daze with a playful smile. She lifted the plastic bag in her hand and shook it gently in front of my eyes, pushing my soul that had already come out of my body back into my body.

  “Why are you here? Wait, how do you know that I live here?” I came back to my senses and hurriedly opened the anti-theft door. While taking the bag she handed over, I asked. “Have you been to my house?”


  “No,” Ziyuan held her hands behind her back and hopped into the door like a bunny. There was a trace of complexity that I didn’t understand flowing through the corner of her eyes. She smiled and said, “I’m not ready to see uncle and auntie yet. Mo Fei told me the address.”


  “She told you?” Seeing Ziyuan open the shoe cabinet by herself, I actually felt a sense of familiarity. It was as if we had never parted in the last five years, “It is just to see my parents, why do you have to be ready? My mother often talks about you, knowing you come back, she will definitely be happy.”


  I was telling the truth. In fact, my stepmother really liked the well-behaved, sensible, gentle, and quiet Ziyuan, but since she left Bei Tian City, the name ‘Xue Ziyuan’ seemed to have become the forbidden topic in my house. Of course, to a large extent, it was because of the hospitalization of Chu Yuan…


  “What about you?” Ziyuan didn’t answer my question but turned her head. She looked at me with a smile and asked, “Do you miss me?” Are you happy to see me back?”


  I was not familiar with the way she asked questions, but the shyness of her face was something that I was familiar with. The unfamiliarity created by the five-year gap was an unavoidable reality. Like me, Ziyuan was probably afraid of making me feel strange because of her own changes. We tried our best to remember the past, trying to talk to each other in a way that we were both familiar with, to dispel the extremely uncomfortable strangeness that we both were unwilling to admit.

  If Ziyuan did not feel the same way as I did, she wouldn’t have asked such a question. In the past, such a question would only be regarded as an innocent question between two best friends. But now, all it left was the ambiguous meaning.

  “Mhm, I’m… Happy… but apart from being happy, I also feel a little complicated…” People who lied did not always like to lie. I answered her question honestly, and at the same time gave up the pretense and directly expressed my real feelings. It was really complicated. I had a lot of things that I wanted to ask her. I was curious, but I also wasn’t looking forward to the answers… so it was very rare that I actually stuttered in front of a girl.

  Although my voice was not loud, Ziyuan should be able to hear it clearly. However, as if she pretended that she didn’t hear it, she looked at the various women’s shoes in the shoe cabinet, smiled, and said, “In addition to Yuan Yuan, are you living with other women too? Are you living with your girlfriend now?”


  Her eyes were really sharp like a thief. She immediately noticed Dong Xiaoye’s high heels in the shoe cabinet, which were obviously different from the shoes that Chu Yuan and Dongfang Lianren would wear. I couldn’t help but tremble. Then I suddenly realized a very embarrassing problem. The owner of the shoes was still in the living room!

  How should I introduce Dong Xiaoye to her?

  Telling her that she was a policewoman, who was currenting protecting me? No. If I told her that, it would definitely scare her. Moreover, this was Dong Xiaoye’s task, so I needed to keep it a secret.

  But telling her that she was my girlfriend? That would be even worse. Chu Yuan had already said during the day that my girlfriend was Liusu. If I told her that I was living with another woman, what would she think of me?

  I was trying to find an excuse quickly, but it was still not as quick as Ziyuan. She took out a pair of Chu Yuan’s cotton slippers from the shoe cabinet, held my shoulder, and said while changing her shoes, “Fortunately, I’ve asked Ms. Mo to give Miss Cheng a call before I came. I know that she is with her cousin at the moment, hehe, otherwise she would definitely misunderstand it if I showed up at your flat.”


  “It’s not… Xiao Zi, it’s…”


  Suddenly, my language organization ability became even worse. I used to tell lies easily, but now I didn’t know what to say or even how to tell a lie. Ziyuan just thought I was embarrassed. She walked into the living room by herself and called out softly, “Yuan Yuan, are you home? Your Elder Sister Ziyuan came to see you and bought you a midnight snack… Huh? Who is this…”


  I covered my face with one hand before entering the living room, Ziyuan and Dong Xiaoye bumped right into each other…


  ….

  The original delicious duck was restless at this moment. Ziyuan was staring at Dong Xiaoye dubiously, and the atmosphere in the room became extremely awkward. My sense of taste seemed to have been attracted by her eyes. In terms of Dong Xiaoye, she was simply chewing the duck nonchalantly, completely ignoring Ziyuan’s gazes.

  “Are you really Xiao Nan’s… cousin?”


  “Mhm,” Dong Xiaoye lied without changing her face, “A distant cousin. My dad and his dad have a good relationship, and they are both teachers. I’m working for the city, but because my accommodation problem hasn’t been resolved, I don’t have anywhere to stay. My dad was worried about me living with other people, so he asked me to stay with my cousin first.”