Bang! The bathroom door flew open as if blown by a gust of wind, and a snow-white figure came flying out trailing scattered droplets of water, straight up to Ye Tianxie, calling out impatiently, “Master! Lollipops! Lollipops!”
The instant Guoguo shot up in front of him, Ye Tianxie’s eyes went momentarily rigid, and he instinctively clapped a hand over his nose and groaned, “Guoguo… go put some clothes on first!”
Guoguo, dripping wet and without a stitch on her, had no sense whatsoever of propriety between the sexes; she never gave a thought to whether she was dressed in front of him. She slept the same way, sprawled unceremoniously beside his pillow, and she took no more care in the bath. For Ye Tianxie, it was a form of torment that was difficult to endure.
He had never once considered himself a good man, still less any sort of upright gentleman. Had Guoguo been an ordinary young woman, and had she stirred him, he would not have hesitated for a heartbeat. But Guoguo’s body was so tiny that on more than one occasion it had nearly reduced him to tears.
“I’m still taking my bath — I don’t want clothes! Master, where are my lollipops…? Hm? How strange. Why can’t I smell any lollipops?” Guoguo flicked the water from her little hands and lifted her small nose, her voice full of puzzlement.
“They were sold out today, so I’ll have to buy them tomorrow. And don’t eat sweets at night — it’s bad for your teeth.” Ye Tianxie said to Guoguo the way an adult lectures and consoles a child.
But if lectures like that worked, Guoguo wouldn’t be Guoguo.
Just as Ye Tianxie had expected, the excitement drained from her face at once. Her soft pink lips flattened, and a mist of grievance clouded her two eyes in an instant, as though tears would spill the very next second. Faced with Guoguo in this state, nothing worked short of meeting her demand or offering a promise she found satisfactory — buying her a hundred lollipops tomorrow, for instance. Any other form of consolation was useless.
Ye Tianxie was just about to speak when the wronged look on Guoguo’s face vanished all at once. She blinked hard, her eyes glittering as though set with stars plucked from the sky, and said with a pout, “It doesn’t seem like master’s lying to me this time… Boo-hoo, then no lollipops tonight. But master had better remember to buy them tomorrow for your cutest, best-behaved Guoguo… Master, come and take a bath with me.”
Watching Guoguo drift lightly away like a little butterfly, scattering droplets of water as she went, Ye Tianxie stood petrified on the spot for a full five seconds.
Deep in the night, the room lay in silence. Hazy moonlight spilled like quicksilver through the white gauze curtains on the balcony, falling across the spotless floor and onto the small, delicate face on the bed. Guoguo slept in whatever position she pleased, yet the sight of her asleep was as adorable as a doll one wanted to gather up and hold tight.
Seen up close, her little face filled his vision — a truly beautiful girl of twelve or thirteen, her features like a painting, a shallow dimple in one round cheek. She lay slantwise beside the pillow, her own small pillow scaled to her size, her black hair spilling across it, a thin white blanket drawn over her.
Ye Tianxie watched the tiny sleeping girl quietly, his gaze fixed and unmoving. Even after all these days together, in the stillness he still felt a deep sense of unreality. This girl had burst into his life without the slightest warning, adding another stroke of moving color to his lonely, blank world. They had only just met, yet this sprite-like girl had woven herself into his life with astonishing speed: on the very first day she had entered his home; on the very first day she had made him willing to go out and buy her lollipops; and on that same first day they had slept side by side. Everything had moved swiftly and without his noticing, and yet it all felt so natural. For all her seeming silliness, she had no shortage of little cleverness and small schemes of her own — yet toward him she held not the faintest reserve, taking him entirely in earnest as someone dear to her, a “master” she could accompany, rely on, and wheedle at will. He didn’t know where this closeness of hers came from. He didn’t even know, to this day, who this little thing really was, or how many secrets she carried.
As though sensing his gaze upon her, Guoguo’s long lashes stirred faintly. After a moment, the girl slowly opened her eyes — dark as black gemstones, bright as stars. The clear moonlight fell across her face, lending it a hazy luster, and set against those crystalline eyes, she looked all the more beautiful, like something out of a dream. That drowsy, unfocused gaze glanced blearily at Ye Tianxie, a small unconscious murmur escaped her lips, and then her newly opened eyes slid lazily shut again as she returned to her dreams.
It was the first time Ye Tianxie had looked so long and so carefully at the tiny person beside his pillow. Without meaning to, he reached out a hand, wanting to brush her cheek — and just as he was about to touch her, his hand stopped and quietly withdrew, for fear of waking the sleeping girl.
He lay back down, stared blankly at the ceiling for a while, then closed his eyes, his consciousness soon dissolving into haze. There was about Guoguo a spiritual clarity and a flawless charm that no ordinary person could possess, a quality that made anyone drop every last defense before her… And a Guoguo like that was precisely the companion Ye Tianxie had most longed for — and the kind who should never have existed at all.
A dream…
A dream…
(End of Chapter 67)