Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Once we got in the car, for the first time ever, Chu Huai didn’t talk to me.

He seemed to be in a bad mood.

I suddenly remembered that I’d once overheard Tao Muxue telling someone about the date of Chu Huai’s mother’s death anniversary.

It was today.

No wonder he was upset, no wonder he’d come looking for me.

I had a feeling he’d always seen me as his new source of amusement.

The last few times I’d managed to cheer him up, and maybe he was hoping I could do the same today.

But I honestly didn’t know what to say. I’d been so busy studying lately, I hadn’t memorized any jokes.

At the restaurant, I could only sit quietly and watch him drink.

He drank one glass after another, one bottle after another, drinking and drinking until he grew weary of it.

Then I helped him to the hotel room.

The presidential suite on the top floor had been reserved for him in advance.

The moment I pushed open the door, I was stunned.

I’d always thought a hotel room was just a bedroom and a bathroom.

But this presidential suite had a living room, a bedroom, a terrace, a dining room, a bar, a walk-in closet, and even… a movie screening room?

My eyes nearly glazed over.

Now this was what people meant by ‘sigh, capitalism.’

I didn’t quite understand how Chu Huai could live such a life and still be miserable.

If I could live his life, I’d be cheerful even if my whole family dropped dead. (This is just hyperbole, I’m not saying anything bad about my family, nor do I actually wish them all dead. Although my parents are alcoholic gamblers, favor boys over girls, tried to trade me for a bride price, and abused me since childhood, and my younger brother insults and beats me and asks for money every day, I still wish them a long life of a hundred years, and that our whole family will be harmonious and happy, all of us making! dumplings! together!)

Chu Huai was drunk and in a stupor.

His eyes were closed, his black hair disheveled, a few strands falling over his face. His cheeks were flushed crimson.

Seen like this, he actually had a strangely alluring, devilish beauty, so devastatingly handsome it could strike you like lightning.

I didn’t feel obligated to sleep in the bed, so I helped Chu Huai onto the bed and let him sleep there while I took the sofa.

The sofa was wide and spacious, almost like a bed.

Coincidentally, the dorm was already closed at this hour, so I couldn’t go back anyway. Might as well sleep here.

I’d studied a lot today and was a bit tired. I lay down on the sofa and quickly fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, I woke up from a nightmare.

After waking, I felt something soft pressed against my side.

I turned my head and saw it was Chu Huai, wrapped in his blanket, snuggling up to me.

He was still fast asleep, his thin red lips pressed together. His hands only held his own blanket; he didn’t touch me. The way he pressed against me had not a hint of lust.

It was more like small animals instinctively huddling with their own kind, hiding in a tiny place for warmth in a vast world.

I found it a little amusing.

So,
it wasn’t ‘serving a king is like serving a tiger,’ but ‘serving a king is like serving a tabby cat.’

The hotel’s ornate artificial fireplace crackled softly, its simulated flames casting a warm orange glow over the two of us.

Even though it was a fake fireplace, fake crackling sounds, fake firelight, I still felt quite warm in that moment.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows was the Jing City nightscape, dazzling and extravagant, with specks of white drifting from the black sky: the first snow of the year in Jing City.

I let him stay by my side and fell back asleep.