He had said he wouldn’t go too far — and yet in the end, he still made her cry.
She curled in his arms and sobbed, her back arched and smooth as porcelain, long hair half-veiling a flushed and rosy face, thick lashes trembling with tears clinging beneath them. She looked utterly pitiful, and impossibly endearing.
Shen Mo coaxed her to sleep, bent down and kissed her softly, then slipped away to the bathroom to wash up. After composing himself, he returned to the room and pulled his wife into his arms to sleep.
……
Early the next morning, Shen Mo, Ada, Natasha, and Yuri ate their usual nutritionally balanced breakfast, then took stock of their weapons and ammunition and set out on the dot at nine-thirty.
When Bai Youwei woke up, the house was already empty.
She lazily brushed her teeth and washed her face. Dimly, she could recall that in the haze between sleeping and waking, Shen Mo had seemed to kiss her and murmur “good morning.”
Thinking about it now, she couldn’t suppress her smile — sweet as honey.
After finishing up, she stepped out of the room. The doll-type servants in the villa spotted her, bowed politely, and smiled: “Did you sleep well last night?”
“Quite well~” Bai Youwei curled her lips upward.
The maid asked: “Do you have any clothes to be laundered?”
Bai Youwei sorted out a few items and handed them over, then went downstairs for breakfast. The manservant had made fried eggs — quite good. She ate two, and drank half a glass of milk.
Once breakfast was done, there was truly nothing left to do.
She went out to the courtyard, strolled around, and enjoyed some sunlight. Through the ornamental latticed fence, she could see the doll servants of the neighboring house busy at their tasks — now hanging sheets to air, now watering plants, tireless and dutiful.
Now and then she caught a glimpse of real people passing along the street in front of the courtyard, though no one paid her any attention.
This residential district was all high-end villas. The teams living here were surely all formidable.
Bai Youwei settled lazily into a seat in the courtyard. The warm autumn sun made her drowsy.
Just as she was about to head back inside, she glanced over and spotted a small group passing in front of the courtyard gate. She recognized one of the men — the one who had tried to chat her up at the subway station. Those thin little whiskers of his were truly impossible to forget.
Whether it was the other person’s sharp instincts or simply coincidence, almost the instant Bai Youwei looked his way, his gaze swung over to her as well — carrying a flicker of surprise and delight.
“Hey~ girl!” The young man waved at her. “So you live here? What, is your husband not home?”
Bai Youwei wrinkled her nose in distaste, turned, and went inside without acknowledging him.
Bursts of laughter came from outside, apparently his companions teasing him for being snubbed by a girl. One of them with a booming voice called out: “Nick, if you’re that desperate, I can lend you my Erlinda!”
“Get lost — your doll girlfriend hasn’t been washed in weeks, you trying to fumigate me?!”
“HAHAHA!…”
The crude, lowbrow banter faded into the distance along with the sound of their footsteps.
Bai Youwei stood at the window watching them go for a moment, then turned to the maid wiping down the table beside her: “Who are those people?”
The maid glanced out the window and replied with a smile: “They’re the residents of No. 23 Grand Glan Avenue — one block over from us, not far at all.”
“How many of them are there?” Bai Youwei pressed.
“Five,” the maid answered. “Teams must have no fewer than 3 members and no more than 5.”
Bai Youwei turned this over in her mind for a moment but didn’t ask anything more. She turned and went back to her room.
……
Shen Mo’s group returned half an hour later than planned.
Before they even got through the door, they were hit by an extraordinary aroma — the rich, numbing heat of chili, the mouth-coating perfume of Sichuan pepper, and the deep, layered scent of spice mingling with the savory smell of meat, filling the entire courtyard. One whiff was enough to make the mouth flood with saliva.
“Oh my god, what is *that*?!” Ada was already practically salivating, and the moment he pushed the door open, he made a beeline for the dining table without even stopping to shower.
Bai Youwei was setting out bowls and chopsticks, wearing a small apron, looking every bit the devoted homemaker. She looked up at Shen Mo with a warm smile. “You’re back — go wash your hands, then come eat.”