Chapter 23 (3/3)
They walked back together under the umbrella.
Mu Wan had gotten a little wet, so the moment they got inside, she went with practiced ease to the bathroom off the second bedroom and took a shower.
When she came out, the heat had been fully washed from her body. Her face was faintly flushed from the steam, and she was once again wearing Liu Qianxiu’s shirt. It was long and oversized on her, making her look smaller than she was. Below it, her two bare legs showed pale and slim.
The sweet-and-sour lotus root he made was delicious.
Mu Wan had spent the whole day filming and had barely eaten. By the end of dinner, she had gone through two full bowls of rice.
After that, she carried the three little kittens out to the living room.
She had only just sat down when a bolt of lightning split the black sky outside, lighting the whole living room in a flash.
Then the rain came down in sheets.
“There’s going to be a huge storm tonight,” Mu Wan said over the growl of thunder.
The three little ones in her arms had already been frightened badly. They kept burrowing deeper into her. Mu Wan wrapped both arms around them and felt them tremble.
“They’re so scared of thunder.”
Another crack of thunder rolled outside.
All three kittens shuddered again, their cries suddenly edged with panic.
It made sense. They were still so little.
Little things were always afraid of thunder.
She had been afraid of it as a child, too. Later on, she had gradually stopped being afraid. Thunder was just loud. It was not going to strike her directly, so there was no reason to fear it.
Liu Qianxiu sat by the low table, one page of the book in his hand, lightly lifted by his fingers. He lowered his eyes to the three in Mu Wan’s arms, then looked away again.
Outside, lightning flashed, and thunder rolled. Wind and rain battered the world.
Inside, all was quiet, warm, and safe.
Mu Wan let her body unfurl.
She laid both arms across the table and rested her face there. The sound of rain, the turning of pages, the calming scent of sandalwood—wrapped in all of it, Mu Wan curled up by the table and gradually closed her eyes.
Liu Qianxiu kept a very fixed routine.
When the hour came, sleepiness followed.
Closing the book in his hand, he lifted his eyes and looked toward the side of the table.
The woman there was fast asleep.
He could hear her breathing, slow and even. Her hand lay pillowed beneath both arms. Thick black hair veiled part of her face like a soft black gauze.
Behind that gauze were long brows, upturned eyes, faintly curled lashes, and moist red lips.
She slept very quietly.
Quietly, but with a kind of laziness to her—like a little cat who had finally played itself tired, found a warm place to shelter, stretched once, and fell asleep right where it landed.
In the soft lamp light, her small body cast a faint shadow across the living room.
She had been asleep for a while now and was no longer paying any attention to the three frightened babies in her arms. After mewing a few times without receiving comfort, the kittens soon found themselves another source of security. Now they too had drifted asleep, nestled against Liu Qianxiu instead.
Lifting his eyes to the clock, Liu Qianxiu saw that it was already ten.
Outside, the lightning and thunder had died down, but the rain was still coming hard, with no sign of easing.
Holding the three little ones in his arms, Liu Qianxiu stood and carried them back to the cat room.
After setting them down, he came back out and paused just beyond the pool of light cast by the lamp in the living room.
Under the lamp, the woman and the light itself, together with the low table and the scattered books, looked like a delicately composed painting.
She was not sleeping comfortably. Her slight back leaned crookedly to one side. The collar of the oversized shirt had fallen open, revealing one narrow shoulder. She had not managed to keep her legs tucked up; one of them extended from beneath the shirt, long and pale.
Yet despite how uncomfortable the pose looked, she had no sign of waking.
Her breathing remained slow and even.
Liu Qianxiu stepped into the painting.
When his left arm wrapped around her waist, he caught the scent of freesia again on her, layered with the faint sandalwood of his own body wash and shirt.
His lips pressed together.
With one arm around her waist and the other supporting beneath the bend of her knees, he lifted her from the floor.
She was very light.
Wrapped in the white shirt, she felt like a white feather in his arms.
When he lifted her, the feather shifted twice, her little head burrowing closer into his chest, one hand catching at his shirt.
There was even a tiny displeased sound from her throat.
Her breath was warm against him.
The lamp stayed below now. Once Liu Qianxiu stood with her in his arms, both of them moved out of its light. In the dark, the lines of her face were blurred, but he saw a faint twitch near her eyes.
“You’re awake?” Liu Qianxiu asked, his voice low as the night.
“I’m not,” the woman in his arms answered immediately, the words soft and slightly hoarse.
“...”
After declaring herself not awake, Mu Wan felt her heart jump straight into her throat.
She clung to the warmth of the moment, tightening her hand in the fabric at his chest. With that small force in her fingers, Mu Wan spoke in a voice drowsy and trailing, as though it had wandered out of a dream.
“Liu Qianxiu... can I stay tonight? I’m tired. I don’t want to go home.”
As she spoke, her head stayed buried against his chest.
Breathing in the faint scent of sandalwood, she seemed to drift toward sleep again.
And just before she slipped fully under, she heard his answer.
Outside, the rain was wild against the night.
His voice, by contrast, was impossibly gentle.
“Mm,” Liu Qianxiu said softly. “You can do whatever you want.”
