Perhaps sensing her gaze, the man looked up. He didn’t seem embarrassed in the slightest. Instead, he leisurely handed his phone to her.
“Wanwan, you don’t have to keep staring at my phone. I’m always ready to let my wife check up on me.”
Yu Zhiwan was speechless, her eyes widening in astonishment.
How did he even jump to the conclusion that I wanted to check up on him?
She immediately waved her hands.
“No, I wasn’t trying to check up on you.”
“I just think this contact name of yours is a little…”
Xie Jingmo raised an eyebrow. He casually spun his phone around between his long, well-defined fingers and said calmly,
“You don’t want to check up on my phone, but you want to control what I put as my contact names?”
Yu Zhiwan: “…”
The man’s Adam’s apple moved slightly as he let out a low chuckle.
“I didn’t realize my wife was so demanding. Fine. My phone’s lock screen password is 161027.”
Yu Zhiwan: “?”
She really wasn’t trying to check up on him!
She didn’t even want to control his contact names anymore!
Xie Jingmo turned off his phone and then lit the screen again, leaving it on the lock screen.
He leisurely took Yu Zhiwan’s hand, guided her index finger, and tapped the numbers one by one.
161027.
The phone unlocked.
Yu Zhiwan’s fingertip trembled involuntarily, and a shy flush spread across her pale earlobes.
Xie Jingmo didn’t immediately let go of her hand.
His index finger lightly traced across her soft, fair palm, the simple gesture carrying an inexplicable sense of tenderness and attachment.
He lowered his eyes and gave a quiet chuckle. Every line of his handsome face, from his brows to his jaw, seemed effortlessly seductive.
“My grandfather has always wanted me to fulfill the engagement with you and get along with you properly.”
“Over the past two years, my grandparents have gotten older. Since we’re planning to divorce after a year, we can pretend to be a loving couple for now. Just pretend. It will put their minds at ease.”
“Would that be all right?”
Yu Zhiwan blinked.
Then she suddenly remembered something.
Xie Jingmo didn’t have parents.
More precisely, both of his parents had passed away when he was young.
That was common knowledge.
However, no one outside the Xie family knew exactly how his parents had died.
It seemed to be a forbidden subject within the family. Everyone from the Xie family kept completely silent about it.
Some curious outsiders privately speculated that it involved some kind of wealthy-family scandal.
There were even rumors that Xie Jingmo had accidentally killed his own parents.
Of course, that rumor was far too absurd to be believable.
So Xie Jingmo had essentially been raised by his grandparents.
It was only natural that he was so devoted to them.
Yu Zhiwan nodded.
“I understand. I’ll do my best to cooperate with you.”
Pretending to be a loving and harmonious couple to make his grandparents happy wasn’t difficult.
“Then thank you in advance, Madam.”
The man smiled lazily, his expression charming and seductive.
He called her Madam so naturally, without even the slightest hesitation.
Yu Zhiwan, however, felt uncomfortable and reached up to touch her burning earlobe.
Then she noticed that the man was looking down at her phone.
He even raised his chin slightly, as though hinting at something.
Yu Zhiwan took two seconds to understand.
“Wait, I don’t need to give you an affectionate contact name too, do I? Grandpa and Grandma probably won’t check my phone, right?”
The man tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.
“If you don’t want to give me an affectionate name, then give me something else.”
“Or are you saying I don’t even deserve a contact name?”
“…”
Yu Zhiwan silently glanced at him.
She first pinned his WeChat chat to the top as well, putting him first among her contacts.
As for his contact name…
Husband was far too cheesy. She couldn’t bring herself to type it.
Yu Zhiwan thought for a moment.
Her slender, pale fingers tapped across the screen, and she gave him a two-character nickname:
A-Mo.
It wasn’t too distant, nor was it overly intimate.
It was affectionate without being embarrassing.
Xie Jingmo’s eyebrows lifted slightly. A lazy smile appeared in his flirtatious eyes, sparkling with amusement.
He seemed quite satisfied.
Only then did Yu Zhiwan have a chance to continue asking.
“By the way, that adorable pink bunny profile picture… Did you draw it yourself?”
The man lowered his eyes to look at her.
His dark, deep gaze rested on her face, carrying a hint of meaning she couldn’t quite understand.
After a long moment, he finally parted his thin lips and answered quietly,
“No.”
Yu Zhiwan nodded.
So he hadn’t drawn it himself.
Then someone else must have drawn it.
And that lock screen password, 161027, probably had some kind of special meaning too.
But Yu Zhiwan didn’t ask.
She wasn’t particularly curious, nor was she interested in prying into his private affairs.
Before long, the car arrived at Lanxi Garden.
It was a villa estate with a spacious garden and private grounds.
Only after arriving did Yu Zhiwan realize that Xie Jingmo’s home was actually very close to her university.
From the villa’s main gate, she could walk to her university in less than fifteen minutes.
However, as far as Yu Zhiwan knew, the headquarters of the Xie Group was located on Huaihai Road, quite far from here. Even by car, the journey took forty to fifty minutes.
Wouldn’t living here make his commute rather inconvenient?
Xie Jingmo got out of the car first, then walked around to her side and opened the door for her.
He placed one hand above the door frame to protect her from accidentally hitting her head.
“Take a look and see if you like this place. If you don’t, we can move somewhere else.”
Yu Zhiwan bent down and stepped out of the car.
“No need. This place is nice. It’s just that it seems quite far from your company. Do you always live here?”
The man remained casual, his tone completely unconcerned.
“Yes. I like the environment here.”
Yu Zhiwan immediately agreed.
“The environment really is nice. My university is right nearby!”
Xie Jingmo’s lips curved upward.
“Then that’s convenient. You can go to school whenever you want.”
After a brief pause, he added casually,
“I’ll occasionally go to your university too.”
A trace of surprise appeared in Yu Zhiwan’s eyes.
She suddenly remembered that she and Xie Jingmo had attended the same high school, though they hadn’t gone to the same university.
Back in high school, Xie Jingmo had been one grade above her.
Many people had assumed that, given Xie Jingmo’s family background and status, he would go abroad for further studies after graduating from high school.
Unexpectedly, he chose to attend a university in China.
And that university happened to be the one Yu Zhiwan had always dreamed of attending.
Unfortunately, her family had forced her to change her college application and enroll in another university instead.
Fortunately, her university wasn’t far from Xie Jingmo’s. The two schools were separated by only one street.
She was one year younger than Xie Jingmo.
On top of that, she had taken a year off to care for Yu Xiangxiang, so by the time she started her freshman year, Xie Jingmo was already a junior.
Even though they attended different schools, Xie Jingmo’s reputation was so widespread that she had heard plenty about him.
Back then, Xie Jingmo often visited her university.
At first, everyone assumed he was there to meet a girlfriend.
Later, they heard that one of his closest friends studied there, so it turned out he had simply been visiting his friend.
By the time Yu Zhiwan reached her junior year, Xie Jingmo had already graduated.
Once, she happened to run into him on campus.
At the time, she had wondered curiously,
Is he here to see his friend again?
Has his friend still not graduated?
Only now did she realize that he had continued visiting her university from time to time all these years.
Does he really like her university that much?
Then again, her university really was beautiful.
She was majoring in design, specifically fashion design.
She could draw and often sketched clothing designs.