Xu Ye’s own small home was of course no match for the villa at Red Leaf Estate.

The apartment had been bought early. Back then the complex was actually a fairly decent place to live, but with the constant property development of the last couple of years and new blocks going up one after another, it looked a little old by comparison.

Old Zhang was fond of a clean house, though, and cleaned whether there was any need to or not, so the place still looked spotless.

Chen Qingqing followed Xu Ye into the living room and started looking around with interest.

The first thing Xu Ye did on getting in was go to his own room, shut the window and turn the air conditioning on ahead of time.

Chen Qingqing perched cautiously on the sofa. Once he had sat down beside her she still couldn’t help asking, “Your mom and dad won’t suddenly come back, will they?”

“They won’t.” Xu Ye was full of confidence. “They left me a note when they went. They said they’d be staying at my grandmother’s for two days before coming back. Mostly it’s because my Second Aunt married into a family in Suzhou, so she hardly ever gets back to her mother’s. Now that she’s finally made the trip she’s bound to stay a good while.”

“Your Second Aunt’s in Suzhou?”

“Mm.”

“Xinyi’s in Suzhou too, you know.”

Xu Ye tilted his head onto Chen Qingqing’s shoulder and asked with a smile, “Come to think of it, what are your three roommates doing over the summer? I don’t see much talk in your group chat.”

“Zhang Ruowei’s gone to Australia with her mom and dad — didn’t she put it on Moments a while back? Jiang Yu’s working at her aunt’s bubble tea shop. As for Xinyi, I think she’s just been at home. She wants to travel, but she’s not quite comfortable going on her own.”

“Then I’d better pass that on to Zhiwei. He can make a trip to Suzhou in August and take Shen Xinyi out somewhere for a few days.”

Chen Qingqing remembered something and laughed. “Let me tell you, Qin Zhiwei is so good to Xinyi. Right at the start of the winter break she had period cramps and called him. He was so sorry for her when he heard that he sounded like he was about to cry on the phone.”

“Maybe he was on his period too.”

Chen Qingqing gave him a flat look immediately.

Xu Ye yawned and stood up. “Come on. Time for a nap.”

Chen Qingqing squirmed and turned her head away. “No. I’m not tired.”

Xu Ye caught her by the wrist and hauled her toward his room whether she liked it or not. “It’s hot out here. I’ve got the air conditioning on in my room.”

Chen Qingqing had no time to answer before he pulled her into the room, and shut the door behind them too.

His room was very small. A bed, a wardrobe beside it, a desk and chair at the foot of it, and no other furniture at all.

Once Chen Qingqing was inside, the photographs on the wall above the desk quickly caught her eye. Some were family pictures, but most of them were of Xu Ye on his own. The oldest went as far back as when he was one year old: he was in split-crotch pants, sitting on a rocking horse, with a shell-shaped hat on his head and his cheeks bright red. He looked particularly cute.

That photograph was Old Zhang and Old Xu’s favorite. She had used it as her lock screen for a long time and had only changed it after Xu Ye insisted.

Chen Qingqing pointed at one of the pictures on the wall. “Is this you too?”

“Mm. They’re all of me.”

“You looked so dumb when you were little~”

“That’s called cute.”

Chen Qingqing ignored him. She got out her phone and photographed all the pictures of him as a child, then laughed, thoroughly pleased with herself. “Next time you annoy me I’m sending all of these to the group.”

“I’m not scared of you.”

Xu Ye shrugged. He was in the habit of napping in summer, and was soon lying down on the bed.

Seeing that, Chen Qingqing first pulled out the chair beside the desk and sat there for a while. When the room started to feel chilly she finally couldn’t help asking, “Dumb pig, aren’t you cold?”

“No.”

“Could you turn the air conditioning up a bit?”

Xu Ye got up and went through the nightstands on both sides, then made a puzzled sound. “Where did I put the remote? I was using it just now.”

Chen Qingqing had been set up too many times not to know all his little tricks.

She stamped her foot lightly and pouted. “Stop pretending. You’ve obviously hidden it. Do you think I’m that easy to fool?”

Xu Ye gave an awkward laugh, got up and opened the wardrobe, took the remote out of the pocket of a winter coat, then set the room to twenty-six degrees.

He raised his wrist and looked at the time. “It’s two thirty now. We’ll nap for an hour, go swimming at four, then eat at six. That works out just right.”

“Then you have to keep your hands to yourself.”

“I’ve always been an entirely aboveboard sort of pervert. I’ve never gone in for sneaking around.”

Chen Qingqing thought, It’s all the same — where’s the difference?

It wasn’t the first time anyway. She went around to the other side of the bed, shook off her slippers and lay down on her side, then immediately pulled the blanket over herself.

Xu Ye got up and drew the blackout curtains, and the room went pitch dark in an instant.

He got onto the bed and almost immediately seemed to be asleep, lying flat there, not moving at all.

Chen Qingqing heard nothing from beside her for a long while, and wondered: Was he really asleep?

She turned slowly to look at him and found that he really was asleep, which left her feeling faintly let down. She pulled a face and said to herself, So I tell you to keep your hands off me and you actually go to sleep? You wretched dumb pig, you stinking dumb pig. Since when have you been this obedient?

But her face was scalding a moment later. Oh — Chen Qingqing, Chen Qingqing. What exactly were you hoping for?

Her thoughts were a complete mess.

She started tossing and turning on the bed, her mind in such a tangle that she couldn’t get to sleep at all.

And just as she turned onto her side again, a pair of large hands came around her from either side of her middle. They tightened a little and Chen Qingqing was pulled hard against him, as though her small waist had been cinched in.

Then a voice with a deep richness to it sounded next to her ear.

“Be good. Stop wriggling. Go to sleep.”

“Oh.”

Chen Qingqing froze as though somebody had hit pause on her, going rigid against him. With her waist held tight by two strong arms, all the tangled thoughts in her head were swept clean away.

After a stretch of racing, her heartbeat gradually steadied.

The room went quiet very quickly.

The only sounds were a distant horn from beyond the window and the cicadas calling in the poplars.

In the blink of an eye it was six in the evening.

In a Santana that had just come off the highway.

Xu Xiangdong was driving and complaining at the same time. “Honestly, you. We agreed you’d stay at your mother’s for two days, and then you go back on it every time.”

Zhang Hong hollered, “There are only three beds in that house. You tell me how we’re supposed to sleep.”

Xu Xiangdong: There are hotels in town.

Zhang Hong: A hotel is two hundred a night. Two hundred is the gas money for two trips home. Worst case, we drive back tomorrow.

Xu Xiangdong: You’re plainly doing this to give me a hard time.

Zhang Hong grabbed his ear. “Say that again!”

(End of Chapter 273)