After letting out a quiet sigh in secret, Gu Qiu’s mood became complicated.
Actually, before their marriage in his previous life, Qin Zhiyi had known how to manage a household. Unfortunately, one marriage changed her far too much. Although most of the reason could be blamed on her pair of bizarre parents, her stubborn personality was also deeply involved.
Now that he saw her doing better than in his previous life, Gu Qiu felt very relieved.
Suddenly, he blurted out:
“Qin Zhiyi!”
“Hm?”
Qin Zhiyi, carrying a huge box, stopped in her tracks and looked at him, waiting for what came next.
Gu Qiu had originally wanted to remind her not to care too much about other people’s opinions and to live according to her own heart, but he felt that saying such things now would be a little abrupt, and for a moment, he could not bring himself to speak.
Who would have thought that just then, Qin Zhiyi, with almost no strength left, slipped her grip and dropped the large box she was holding onto the floor.
She took a deep breath and raised a hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead.
Just as she was about to pick it up again, Gu Qiu snatched it away.
“Take a break!”
After saying that, he helped move the box into the room.
Qin Zhiyi lightly pressed her lips together, and a hint of a smile spread across her cheeks.
She did not rest at all. Instead, she instantly came back to life, even more energetic than before.
There were only about twenty boxes, and with the two of them working together, the hallway was cleared in no time.
However, most of the boxes were filled with clothes, and they were not light. The ones Gu Qiu carried were the biggest and heaviest, so he was exhausted after just a short while.
He leaned half against the shoe rack by the entryway and asked:
“How long have you been in Yuncheng?”
“About ten days!”
Qin Zhiyi began organizing and sorting the boxes, answering casually.
Gu Qiu blinked in confusion.
“You bought this much stuff in just ten days?”
You have to know, before he helped, there were already more than twenty boxes piled up in the apartment. Altogether, that was nearly fifty boxes!
This woman had truly changed. She had become even more of a spendthrift than in his previous life!
Qin Zhiyi just shrugged and explained:
“Not really!”
“95% of these things were still bought in Hangcheng!”
Hearing that, Gu Qiu asked further:
“You moved everything from Hangcheng here?”
“What about your house?”
Qin Zhiyi pushed two boxes of kitchenware to the kitchen doorway and continued:
“I already found a real estate agency and sold it!”
Gu Qiu’s gaze followed her figure.
“Are you really planning to stay in Yuncheng forever?”
“Not going to school anymore?”
“Wasn’t your goal to get a doctorate?”
Qin Zhiyi paused slightly, then turned back with a smile.
“That was before. The target now is you!”
Gu Qiu lowered his eyes and said very seriously:
“Zhiyi, you shouldn’t give up the studies and career you love for my sake. Don’t let all these years of hard work go to waste. I hope you’ll think it over carefully again.”
“Mm-hmm, I know!”
Qin Zhiyi nodded repeatedly.
She knew Gu Qiu meant well, but the result of choosing that broad, easy path in her previous life was that she lost the person who loved her most in the world. And now, even the price of taking that road had become parting ways with Gu Qiu forever. No matter what, she could not possibly consider it!
Besides, she was a reincarnator. In her head, she still had the knowledge she had learned in her previous life, along with the research results obtained through the effort of countless people, resources, and time.
If she wanted to, money and fame were not hard to obtain.
But as she had just said, her only goal now was Gu Qiu!
Gu Qiu did not know what she was thinking, but he felt there was nothing else for him to do here.
“It’s getting late. I’m heading back now. Don’t stay busy too late either.”
After saying that, he did not linger and walked straight out the door.
Suddenly, Qin Zhiyi raised an eyebrow and hurriedly called out to him.
“Right, A-Qiu, I made some snow fungus soup. Would you like a bowl?”
Gu Qiu stopped in his tracks and froze for a moment. In the end, he politely refused:
“It’s too late. I don’t feel like eating anything.”
In reality, he was absolutely a sweet-tooth addict!
If Qin Zhiyi had said that ten minutes earlier, he probably would not have refused.
But after just lecturing her, eating her food immediately afterward really did not feel appropriate.
So he suppressed his craving and quickly went home.
…
Half an hour later.
Gu Qiu came out of the bathroom wearing a bathrobe. He tossed the towel he had just used to dry his hair onto the rack and walked straight to the sofa. Just as he was about to lie down and play on his phone for a while, he was interrupted by a sudden knock at the door.
He walked slowly to the door and looked through the peephole, seeing Qin Zhiyi standing outside.
After freezing for a few seconds, he decided that it was better not to have too much contact so late at night, so he reached out and turned off the entryway light.
But not long after, his phone lit up with a message.
“I’m outside and you turned off the light too? Isn’t that totally pointless!”
“Open the door quickly. I have something serious to talk to you about!”
After reading that, Gu Qiu let out a soft sigh.
He turned the light back on and opened the door.
The first thing that caught his eye was the bowl of snow fungus soup Qin Zhiyi was holding.
His gaze then moved upward, and he noticed that the black sportswear she had been wearing earlier had been replaced by a white spaghetti-strap mini dress.
Because they were so close, he could even see the valley between her two snowy peaks!
Realizing that his gaze was too direct, Gu Qiu quickly looked away and asked:
“What is it?”
Qin Zhiyi handed him the snow fungus soup, then lifted up the toiletry bag she had been hiding behind her back.
“My water heater seems to have a problem. There’s no hot water. Would it be convenient if I came to your place to take a shower?”
Gu Qiu’s brows lifted slightly.
“Really?”
Why did it feel like such a stale scene from a TV drama?
Seeing that he always doubted what she said, Qin Zhiyi pouted in grievance.
“Why would I lie to you?”
“If you don’t believe me, come with me and take a look!”
But Gu Qiu happened to be very straightforward. Hearing her say that, he did not stand on ceremony, set the snow fungus soup down nearby, and prepared to go check it out.
Who would have thought that the moment he stepped outside, Qin Zhiyi let out a cry of alarm.
“Oh no, I didn’t bring my keys!”
Gu Qiu’s face remained expressionless, but his eyes were full of speechlessness.
Still, he had to admit that this habit of forgetting things everywhere did fit the image he had of Qin Zhiyi.
In his previous life, this woman would leave documents and all sorts of things at home every few days, then call him to deliver them to her company.
At the same time, after Qin Zhiyi tried the door handle twice to no avail, she turned around helplessly.
Just as she was about to speak, she noticed that Gu Qiu had also pulled his own door shut, and he was still wearing a bathrobe, clearly without his keys either.
“Now we’re both homeless!”
“It’s all my fault. I’m sorry.”
Seeing her look like a child who had done something wrong, lowering her head in self-reproach, Gu Qiu thought back to her proud and cold personality in the past.
Compared with that, he still preferred this slightly cuter version of Qin Zhiyi, and could not help but smile faintly.
Who knew that in the next second, Qin Zhiyi would take his hand.
“Come on, let’s go get a room at a hotel!”
Gu Qiu’s eyes suddenly widened.
Go to a hotel, get a room?
What kind of outrageous wording was that!
“Hey, hey, hey!”
He steadied himself and stopped Qin Zhiyi.
“It’s the middle of the night, and we’re both dressed like this. If we actually go out together, tomorrow we’ll definitely be on the campus headlines!”
Qin Zhiyi originally wanted to say that she did not care. After all, the two of them had been husband and wife in their previous life, and in this one they were destined to be together too. But she was afraid that being too careless would lower his impression of her, so she continued:
“Then we can’t just stay in the hallway all night, can we?”
“It’s already this late. It wouldn’t be good to bother other teachers either!”
“It’s not good to bother other teachers, but bothering me is fine, huh!”
Gu Qiu muttered under his breath, then turned to go back in, only to find that his hand was still being held by Qin Zhiyi. He hurriedly pulled it free.
He walked back to his own door, gently flipped up the sliding cover over the lock, and placed his thumb on the fingerprint scanner.
With a ding-dong, the door opened.
After doing all that, he turned back to glance at Qin Zhiyi, his eyes seemingly saying, “I’m not as stupid as you!”
In fact, he had switched to an electronic lock in the first place because there had been a time when he had gone out and forgotten to bring his keys.
Qin Zhiyi, on the other hand, cooperated by showing a surprised and admiring expression and then picked up the conversation again.
“I’m the one who knows you best!”
As she spoke, she slowly stepped closer, her big eyes fixed straight on Gu Qiu.
“Then I…”
Gu Qiu let out a soft sigh. In the end, he could not bear to let her spend the night in the hallway, so he opened the door wider.
“Come in!”
“I knew A-Qiu was the best!”
“Let me make this clear first: my place only has one bed. You sleep on the sofa tonight!”
“Ah, can’t we just squeeze together?”
“Hm?”
“Hehe, I was joking. As long as there’s somewhere to sleep, that’s fine!”