Chen Qingqing had already shifted over next to Xu Ye. He turned onto his side and gathered her in. One arm went through the hollow of her neck and settled under her head; the other came around her waist, and his palm came to rest flat on her stomach.

Through the thin pajamas Chen Qingqing could feel exactly how warm his palm was. She went red, adjusted her position a little, then shut her eyes tight and lay there feeling the warmth under the covers climbing.

"Stop wriggling. Go to sleep."

"Oh."

… At dinner the night before, Jiang Meilin had let Chen Hansong's question go as though it were nothing. In fact she badly wanted to know herself whether her daughter and Xu Ye had really gotten as far as sleeping in the same bed.

So on Sunday, first thing, with the sky barely light.

Jiang Meilin took out her phone and called Xu Ye.

A ringtone going off in a silent room woke both of them at once. Chen Qingqing only rolled over and retrieved the leg she had draped across him. Xu Ye, still mostly asleep, fished the phone out from under his pillow, hit answer without so much as looking at the screen, and put it to his ear.

Jiang Meilin didn't waste a word. "Hello. Xiao Xu. Is Qingqing awake?"

Xu Ye: "Not yet."

Jiang Meilin: "Fine. That's all I wanted. It's nothing, go back to sleep."

Xu Ye stuffed the phone back under the pillow.

Two minutes later.

Xu Ye's eyes snapped open.

Damn it.

I let it slip.

A moment's thought about the call, and Xu Ye knew that the two of them staying the night at a hotel was now out in the open.

It was far too late to regret it.

Xu Ye looked at Chen Qingqing, still fast asleep, and decided to keep it to himself. Telling her now would achieve nothing.

And Jiang Meilin, all the way over in Jinling, had her suspicions confirmed and found that her mood had barely shifted — because the way the two of…