Yet no matter how anxious he was, it was useless, because a certain little girl who had eaten and drunk her fill was particularly sleep-deprived and difficult to wake once she had fallen asleep.
Even the incessant ringing of her phone couldn’t rouse her.
Xu Zhizhi was listless without enough sleep—dizzy, uncomfortable all over, even nauseous.
So at night, Lin Xitang would never call or message her to disturb her rest.
If Xu Zhizhi had something urgent, she would contact Lin Xitang herself.
At six in the morning, Xu Zhizhi woke up on time, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and changed clothes. After tidying herself up, she went to drink water, opened the refrigerator, took out frozen buns and eggs, and heated them up.
Finally, she wolfed them down in a few bites, choking so hard her eyes rolled back.
Two solid thumps on her chest, and she was fine.
After filling her stomach, she curled up in her dog bed again, opened her tablet and computer, and continued writing.
She was working on two books simultaneously: on the computer was one with a romantic pairing but full of heart-wrenching angst; on the tablet was a cultivation story without any romantic pairing.
As she put it, when she got tired of writing on the tablet, she would switch to the computer for a while to refresh her mind.
She lived alone, and aside from Lin Xitang and Zhou Che keeping an eye on her, hardly anyone cared about her.
To put it bluntly, Xu Zhizhi was a product of an arranged marriage.
Back then, the Sun Family and the Xu Family of Jiangcheng arranged a marriage alliance. Originally, it was supposed to be the eldest daughter of the Sun Family, but she was in a car accident and became a vegetable, so the second daughter took her place.
Both the second daughter of the Sun Family and the eldest son of the Xu Family had their own beloved partners, but their parents forced them to hold a wedding ceremony, and they secretly obtained a fake marriage certificate.
Afterward, the two remained in separate rooms, even living apart. Their parents urged them to have a child, thinking that a child would stabilize the marriage.
But they overlooked the fact that these were young people with their own thoughts and plans. The second daughter of the Sun Family was unwilling to bear a child, and the eldest son of the Xu Family had no intention of touching her.
The two of them conspired: Sun Feifei pretended to be pregnant, and they bribed the doctor at the old mansion to falsify a five-week pregnancy test to deceive everyone.
Both were busy with work, often traveling on business, and they didn’t live with the elders, which made things much easier.
They only needed to return for meals periodically, exchange a few words occasionally, and leak the test reports. The rest required no explanation—their families would fill in the gaps themselves.
This deception was never exposed.
As for how Xu Zhizhi came into the picture, Xu Qing’s exact words were that she was adopted from an orphanage when she was already two months old. However, she was premature and born weak.
She stayed in an incubator the whole time, and the family could only look at her from outside—unable to touch her or see her clearly.
Xu Qing and Sun Feifei claimed it was for the child’s good, so Xu Zhizhi spent a month in the incubator. When she returned home, they said they were afraid the child would be frightened by too many people and didn’t allow visits. Even when visits were permitted, it was only a fleeting glance.
Yet no one suspected anything.
Their marital relationship lasted for five years, maintaining appearances for each other. To the outside world, they claimed it was an amicable divorce.
Within two months of the divorce, they both remarried.
Xu Qing took his wife and moved abroad. Sun Feifei’s elder sister had also awakened by then, and she had long planned to shift her career to the south, leaving with her husband as well.
Xu Zhizhi was left with no one to care for or ask about her.
The Xu Family wanted a grandson who could inherit the family fortune and shoulder its responsibilities.
The Sun Family wanted benefits.
However, due to public opinion, they pretended to dote on her on the surface.
When Xu Zhizhi was eight years old, she was in a car accident. A blood type test revealed she had a rare blood type. Both sets of parents turned pale, realizing the truth of the situation, but it was already too late.
Xu Zhizhi’s already awkward situation became even more difficult. The Xu Family wouldn’t acknowledge her, and the Sun Family didn’t want her either. She was pushed back and forth, unwelcome everywhere.
Amidst all sorts of filthy insults, three or four years passed like this.
Fortunately, she started boarding school upon entering middle school and left Jiangcheng for university.
She had finally managed to escape.
The house was bought with money she had saved over the years from scholarships, competition prizes, and countless other awards.
The properties in this area were under the Zhou Group, developed by Zhou Che’s father. He took charge and gave her a fifty percent discount. The renovation and all the appliances were arranged by Lin Xitang, with half purchased by her and the other half by Xu Zhizhi herself.
Through the relentless efforts of the three of them, Xu Zhizhi’s little nest came into being.
She had been writing novels for three years now. It was Sheng Sijia who had first suggested the idea, but she never expected to become so obsessed with it.
After writing all morning, Xu Zhizhi’s alarm went off. She pushed aside the electronic devices on her lap, planning to get some exercise.
Afraid she might forget, she had specifically set an alarm before going out yesterday afternoon to remind herself.
Sitting for too long had left her butt numb and her legs sore.
Her limbs felt stiff.
She stretched out her arms and shook them, then drew a circle in the air. Crack—a sharp pain shot through her arm, and Xu Zhizhi didn’t dare move it again.
Slowly, she lowered her injured arm.
She inched her feet along, using her still-intact hand to fish out her warm, cozy phone from under the blanket, and called Lin Xitang.
“My arm is dying, come quick.”
Lin Xitang: “…!!! ”
At the Zhou residence, Zhou Che’s aunt and her family had also returned. The children were playing noisily, so Lin Xitang didn’t catch what Xu Zhizhi said at first.
All she heard was—”dying, come quick!!!”
Dying.
“What happened to you? I’ll be right there. Hang in there! Wait, no, I’ll call an ambulance first, let them take you to the hospital.”
Lin Xitang hastily said goodbye to Zhou Che’s mother, frantically put on her shoes, and rushed out.
Zhou Che quickly followed.
Only when the noise faded did she hear Xu Zhizhi say, “It’s my arm, feels like it’s about to fall off.”
This wasn’t much better than the “dying” situation earlier. She stepped on the gas, and the car sped off.
Zhou Che remained relatively calm. Since Xu Zhizhi didn’t cook and rarely entered the kitchen, they always put away knives, scissors, and other such items after using them.
She never rummaged through the house.
So there was no chance of her getting hurt that way.
Zhou Che thought for a moment. “Did you fall?”
Xu Zhizhi shook her head. “No, but I wanted to exercise, so I stretched my arms and drew circles in the air. Then there was a crack, and it ended up like this.”
“…”
The two of them breathed a sigh of relief. Good grief, they were breaking out in a cold sweat.
This clueless girl hadn’t even considered that her arm might be dislocated.
“Just wait, Zhou Che will set your arm back in place.”
Xu Zhizhi muttered softly, “He’s not a medical student.”
(;¬_¬)
The girl was sharp.
“But he was the school bully in middle school, always getting into fights. Dislocations and fractures were routine for him. Practice makes perfect—setting your bone is no problem for him.”
Zhou Che ruffled her hair and whispered, “Don’t bring up my dark history again, or I’ll bite you until you cry.”
Lin Xitang: “Not listening, not listening, turtle chanting sutras.”
“…”
Realizing it wasn’t anything serious, Xu Zhizhi hung up the phone and stopped worrying.
There weren’t many messages on her phone, and she quickly noticed someone had sent her a friend request. The profile picture wasn’t particularly distinctive—a simple sketch of a kitten against a black background, with the username: [y.].
It was the same as the name of the bar from yesterday.
Equally simple and incomprehensible, equally—something she wanted to add to her blocklist.
Poor Fu Chengyan had no idea that the seed of his love had withered before it could even sprout.