Chapter 19 (2/3)
Once they got into the car, Mu Wan fastened her seat belt.
Liu Qianxiu’s friend lived in the south district. From Tang’er Hospital in the north, it usually took more than an hour to get there. But they were leaving early—only four-thirty now, not yet the evening rush. By the time traffic began to build, they had already reached the coastal road.
The car pulled away smoothly from the hospital.
At the first traffic light, Mu Wan asked, “Is your friend a doctor too?”
Mu Wan did not have many close friends herself. Counting them carefully, there were really only Lin Wei and Gao Mei. It seemed Liu Qianxiu had even fewer. During all the time they had spent together, he had always been alone. He disliked being disturbed, and naturally disturbed others just as little. If he was willing to leave the cats with this friend, then they must be very close indeed.
“No,” Liu Qianxiu said.
The light turned green, and the car moved off again. The motion settled Mu Wan back against the seat.
Her gaze stayed fixed on the line of his profile—perfectly shaped, quiet, and clean.
If neither of them liked being disturbed, then perhaps two people like that could still help one another. Perhaps this friend had a temperament very much like Liu Qianxiu’s. Mu Wan shifted slightly in her seat.
“Then what is he? A... fellow Taoist?”
There were no more lights ahead, and the road stretched flat and open.
Liu Qianxiu glanced at her.
She was watching him closely, plainly waiting for an answer.
“No,” he said. “A university classmate.”
“Ah.”
Mu Wan looked away at the broad road ahead and murmured, “So he’s a classmate.”
Outside the window, the sun was still brilliant. Xiacheng was generously green. As the car passed beneath the overpass, the clear,n smooth road was lined with dense vegetation, leaves shining with a rich oily light.
Mu Wan had spent the whole of the previous night filming, working until four in the morning. The moment they wrapped, she had hurried back to Xiacheng without pause. She had not rested at home either. After tidying herself up a little, she had come straight here.
Now, chatting idly with Liu Qianxiu, watching the scenery blur beyond the window, she found that once the car reached the coastal road—steady, flat, and free of interruption—she had actually fallen asleep.
The car pulled smoothly into the south district.
Liu Qianxiu parked and glanced at the passenger seat.
Mu Wan’s head had tipped sideways against the window, her hair falling over one pale shoulder, her throat slightly stretched so that the line from neck to jaw showed cleanly. Once the engine switched off, her long,ong even breathing became audible in the silence. She was sleeping very peacefully.
Liu Qianxiu withdrew his gaze and got out.
He rang the bell at a detached villa.
It was already half past five, but the sun was still bright. The sea breeze carried cool dampness, and there was an unmistakable feeling that it would rain again soon.
The bell rang once.
Someone came to answer very quickly. The door opened, revealing a woman’s gentle smile.
She was very beautiful in a quiet way. Her features were fine and soft. Her long black hair was tied into a low ponytail that fell down her back. When she smiled, she carried the particular grace of a Jiangnan woman—gentle, delicate, and calm.
Seeing Liu Qianxiu, she smiled and said, “You’re here.”
Then she stepped aside to make room.
After thanking her, Liu Qianxiu entered.
Huai Jing was just coming downstairs. Seeing him, he lifted the corner of a peach-blossom eye and said, “For a moment I thought you were planning to give me these cats for good.”
Huai Jing was the first among the so-called Huai-He-Mei-Liu group.
He looked as though he had only just come home from work. The tie had been stripped from his deep purple shirt, leaving the collar slightly open and revealing a little collarbone. As he spoke, he was undoing his cuffs and walking down the stairs.
He and Liu Qianxiu were about the same height—both around one ninety, both tall and striking. But standing together, their temperaments could not have been more different.
Huai Jing carried the sharp, aristocratic polish of a businessman. His features were precise and deep-set, and there was a lazy hint of provocation and flamboyance in his gaze.
Liu Qianxiu, by contrast, was all quiet detachment. Even his face seemed shaped by that quality, his brow touched by a lonely, almost transcendent coolness. Calm, but impossible to ignore.
“You want them?” Liu Qianxiu asked.
Huai Jing had not yet answered when a streak of white brushed against his trouser leg. A beautifully groomed ragdoll cat leaped toward his wife. Xu Xingkong picked it up with a smile and stroked its head.
“Forget it,” Huai Jing said, shaking his head. “Even one is time-consuming.”
Xu Xingkong looked up at him.
Her eyes were beautiful, clear, and steady.
Huai Jing met them, and after a moment,t his mouth tightened just slightly.
“One would be fine,” he corrected. “Any more than that really is too many.”
“That’s no way to talk about someone else’s cats,” Xu Xingkong said, correcting not his judgment, but the idea itself.
She set the cat—Mimi—back down, then turned to Liu Qianxiu with a smile.
“Qianxiu, your cats are in the cat room.”
The cat room was on the first floor. Xu Xingkong led the way, with Huai Jing and Liu Qianxiu behind her, chatting in easy back-and-forth.
“I’m not keeping you for dinner. I don’t want to wash more dishes.”
“What difference would one dishwasher make?”
“This is why you’re single. You don’t understand the pleasures of married life.”
Hearing her husband, Xu Xingkong turned and shot him a look.
“Huai Jing,” she said softly.
Looking at the tips of her ears turning pink in embarrassment, Huai Jing’s gaze softened.
“I’m just speaking from experience.”
With a helpless little sigh, Xu Xingkong lowered her eyes. She was still shy in front of others.
She glanced at Liu Qianxiu and said to Huai Jing, “Don’t say things like that.”
“All right,” Huai Jing said with an easy smile. “I won’t.”
Standing between the two of them, Liu Qianxiu asked calmly, “Can I take the cats now?”
The married couple turned to him in unison.
Xu Xingkong lowered her gaze first, cheeks faintly pink, and opened the cat-room door.
“...Yes.”
On Sunday afternoon, before deciding to go to Wencheng, Liu Qianxiu had brought the cats here.
Five days later, the three little kittens had grown another noticeable bit. Even before Xu Xingkong opened the door, the sweet milky sound of their meowing could already be heard from inside.
Hearing the door, Zhouyi—who had been asleep nearby—lifted its head too.
The moment it saw Liu Qianxiu, it jumped down from the cat tree with effortless grace, came to his leg, and gave a small cry.
Liu Qianxiu bent and stroked it once.
Beside him, Xu Xingkong was gathering up the kittens’ things. As she did, she said, “Stay for dinner. Eat before you go back. Huai Jing was only teasing.”
Liu Qianxiu was placing Zhouyi into a carrier and was just about to refuse when a woman’s voice came from outside.
“Liu Qianxiu!”
Huai Jing and Xu Xingkong both looked toward the door.
Liu Qianxiu placed the three little ones into another carrier, lifted it, and said, “No need.”
Mu Wan had woken to find Liu Qianxiu nowhere beside her.
The car was parked in front of a detached villa. She had tried calling him first, only to realize his phone was still in the car. Growing anxious, she got out and simply called toward the house.
The moment she did, Liu Qianxiu came out from inside.
He had a cat carrier in his hand. He raised his eyes to her once, expression composed as ever.
The sea breeze was soft beneath the bright afternoon sun.
Looking at his face, the noise in Mu Wan’s heart settled all at once.
It was only afterward that she realized he was not alone.
Seeing the woman standing just behind him, Mu Wan felt a sudden wave of embarrassment. The woman’s whole bearing was soft and tranquil—the sort of person who would never dream of shouting at someone else’s door.
Belatedly, Mu Wan’s face flushed.
Xu Xingkong walked with Liu Qianxiu to the car and, at a glance, politely took in Mu Wan.
She was a little dazzled by how pretty she was.
Long black hair. Dark black eyes. A face no bigger than a palm, pale as snow, with red lips bright as a drop of honey. On her right cheek, there was still a faint mark from sleeping on it, which softened her glamour with a trace of sweetness and made her all the more vivid.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” Mu Wan said in a low voice first to Liu Qianxiu.
Then she turned back and smiled at Xu Xingkong.
“Hello. I’m Mu Wan.”
“Hello. I’m Xu Xingkong.”
After introducing herself, Xu Xingkong explained, “My husband’s on the phone, so he didn’t come out with me.”
“Oh.”
Mu Wan understood the meaning behind the explanation.
She glanced at Liu Qianxiu and said, “Liu Qianxiu already told me. Thank you for helping look after our cats.”
“Ah.”
As if remembering something, Xu Xingkong turned back to Liu Qianxiu.
“There’s one small bag we forgot. Wait a moment.”
She hurried back inside. When she returned, she had a little backpack in one hand and a washed plum in the other, which she handed to Mu Wan.
“I just bought it,” she said with a smile. “It’s very sweet.”
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