Transferring to a dedicated vehicle after stepping off the aircraft, Li Mo felt that a day of grueling travel and bouncing around was even more exhausting than a full day of physical labor. Still, he finally managed to arrive back at Huo Jingsi’s home just as night fell.
This was a detached villa with no other residents within a five-kilometer radius, built specifically for the Chairman. Three years ago, when he and Huo Jingsi married, he moved in here, and this place became their home.
Yet, despite calling it a home, layers upon layers of security surrounded the perimeter, leaving it completely devoid of any warmth or feeling of home.
Li Mo did not ask the driver to drop him off right at the front door. Given Huo Jingsi’s special status at present, bringing an outside vehicle inside meant that both the driver and the secretary would have to go through security clearances upon entry and exit, and even the car itself would be inspected inside and out it was an absolute hassle.
In fact, when he had first married Huo Jingsi, entering and leaving the house used to be just as troublesome, to the point where it drove him to avoid going out altogether for a long stretch of time. Later on, bit by bit reportedly due to a specific directive issued by Huo Jingsi he was finally exempted from being checked whenever he came and went, which at least gave him a tiny sliver of a sense of belonging.
Just a sliver.
Looking at that cold, unfeeling iron gate, Li Mo held up his index finger and thumb to measure a tiny gap in his mind.
That was why he had instructed the driver to park at the outer gates, telling them he would just walk the rest of the way in.
After getting out of the car, he offered a polite smile to the guards holding rifles at the entrance, bid farewell to Secretary Wen and the driver, and walked inside alone.
The house was brightly lit, and a familiar aroma of home-cooked food drifted from the kitchen, but Huo Jingsi was nowhere to be seen.
Li Mo glanced into the house, and the only person who came out to welcome him was the housekeeper. As he changed his shoes, he asked, “Where is your Chairman?”
The housekeeper’s surname was Zhou. He was someone brought over from the old Huo family estate, having worked for the family for many years even before Huo Jingsi was born. He could be considered as someone who watched Huo Jingsi grow up. Although he had been brought over here by Huo Jingsi for several years now, and everyone else addressed Huo Jingsi as “Chairman,” his form of address for Huo Jingsi remained unchanged he still called him “Young Master.”
“The Young Master is currently attending a meeting in Sector 8.”
“Then he won’t be coming back tonight?”
“That’s right.” Butler Zhou stepped forward to take Li Mo’s coat, adding, “Madam, dinner is already prepared. The Young Master instructed me to tell you to sleep early tonight. Please eat and rest soon, and feel free to call me if you need anything.”
“Alright.” Li Mo took a seat at the dining table and gave an affirmative reply.
To be honest, he wasn’t particularly fond of Butler Zhou calling him “Madam.” He had intentionally reminded him before, saying that addressing him as “Mr. Li” would suffice, and Butler Zhou had agreed at the time. But later on, he still didn’t change it, so Li Mo simply let it slide.
“The soup is ready too.” Auntie Wu brought out the old duck soup that had been simmering all day long it was served in a giant soup bowl the size of a basin, half an arm’s height deep, filled with a whole old duck and various medicinal herbs whose names Li Mo didn’t know. The broth was clear and bright, and the aroma was overwhelmingly enticing.
“Here, be careful, don’t burn yourself.” Auntie Wu meticulously helped him arrange the dishes, ladled a separate bowl of soup for him to let it cool down, and told him to drink the soup after finishing his meal.
During this time, Li Mo tried several times to reach out and take the soup ladle from Auntie Wu’s hands to serve himself, but every single attempt ended in failure.
However, he really didn’t require such minute, attentive service when eating. Besides, compared to this, he much preferred to eat like Huo Jingsi—slurping down rice in huge, hearty mouthfuls. Even though it made him look a bit like some large-breed canine that hadn’t learned how to chew its food properly—eating so fast and voraciously as if he’d starve to death the next second, not to mention only loving meat and refusing vegetables eating like that was genuinely uninhibited and deeply satisfying.
Gazing at the dishes before him, Li Mo picked up his chopsticks. Having consumed too many plain, watery meals over the past few days, suddenly facing Auntie Wu’s cooking again left him momentarily unsure of where to start, even though it was just an ordinary spread of four dishes and one soup.
Of course, a single person had no need to eat a spread this extravagant, especially the massive portion of soup before him, which was easily enough to feed five people. But perhaps this, too, was something Huo Jingsi had specifically ordered.
“And this too.” Just as she finished serving the soup, Auntie Wu returned to the kitchen and came back out carrying a small bowl, saying, “The Chairman said you’ve been working too hard these past few days, so he specifically instructed me to stew a portion of bird’s nest for you to nourish your body.”
Looking at the bird’s nest placed in front of him, Li Mo uttered a polite thank-you.
Truth be told, he had no idea whether bird’s nest could treat over-exhaustion, nor did he know whether bird saliva could nourish the body. To him, this stuff was no different than milk mixed with a few chunks of gelatin—it didn’t taste like anything particularly special, nor did it give him any profound feeling after eating it. But since Huo Jingsi wanted him to eat it, he might as well comply, lest this man find out he skipped it and start asking endless questions.
Li Mo picked up the small bowl of bird’s nest, thinking to himself that he could easily down this entire thing in a single gulp, but his hand automatically picked up the spoon anyway, bringing a tiny morsel to his mouth.
Fine. Now a dish that lacked flavor to begin with tasted even less like anything.
He set the spoon down, noticing that both the housekeeper and Auntie Wu were still lingering by his side, seemingly waiting for him to finish eating.
“You guys go on to sleep. I’ll just wash the bowls myself after I’m finished,” Li Mo said, swallowing the tasteless “bird’s-nest gelatin” in his mouth.
Auntie Wu immediately refused him: “That won’t do, Madam! You’ve been working so hard these past few days, and if we made you do chores right after coming back, the Chairman would scold us. Besides, we’ve had a whole day of leisure today and aren’t tired yet. Please eat slowly, Madam, and just let me know if you want anything else.”
“A whole day?” Li Mo accurately captured the key phrase in Auntie Wu’s words and asked, “Huo Jingsi has been out the entire day today without coming back?”
“Yes.” Butler Zhou chimed in, adding, “You might not know this, Madam, but during the days you were away, the Young Master has been extremely busy every single day. He often leaves before dawn and doesn’t return until very late at night. Sometimes he even makes do by sleeping right there in his office at the base center.”
“That folding bed is so tiny, he can’t even turn over properly, and there isn’t even a thicker blanket. He’s going to ruin his health if he catches a chill…”
As Butler Zhou spoke, his brow furrowed in tandem, his eyes filled with aching concern for Huo Jingsi. Watching him, Li Mo clicked his tongue internally well, he was a child he had watched grow up, so feeling distressed for him was only natural.
Even so, he couldn’t help but secretly roast the situation in his mind. He knew Butler Zhou’s intentions in caring for someone came from a good place, but Huo Jingsi wasn’t some delicate princess from The Princess and the Pea. He was massive, built like an S-grade Alpha with muscles hard enough to kill someone, so lying on the floor for a night—oh wait, sleeping for a whole month—wasn’t going to threaten his health in the slightest.
Besides, even if Huo Jingsi genuinely were a pea-princess, he at least had a brain; he’d know to pull up a blanket if he was cold and kick it off if he was hot, right?
Right.
“He originally could have had a good rest today, but then he had to go to Sector 8 for a meeting in the afternoon, and it hasn’t ended from three o’clock all the way until now.” Butler Zhou shook his head, casting his gaze toward the window outside before letting out a sigh.
Hearing this, Li Mo glanced up at the wall clock: it was currently 8:15 PM. That was indeed quite a long time for a meeting.
Huo Jingsi’s backside must be getting pretty tired, Li Mo deduced, nodding with conviction in his heart.
Still, what kind of meeting in Sector 8 could possibly drag on for this long?
A slow-rising question mark materialized in Li Mo’s mind.
Sector 8 was the empire’s economic hub, and meetings held there were typically economic conferences. No matter how difficult it was to reach a consensus, things ought to be wrapped up within two hours. Why on earth did it drag on for so long today…?
“Madam? Madam?” Butler Zhou’s voice interrupted Li Mo’s train of thought. “Did you hear what I just said?”
“Huh?” Li Mo had no idea what he had just blabbered on about. “Could you please repeat that?”
“It was so hard for you to finally come back. When the Young Master returns, please take good care of him and persuade him to cherish his health while working hard.” Butler Zhou repeated, “After all, our Young Master only has you as his pillow-partner; our words carry nowhere near as much weight in his heart as yours do.”
Li Mo instantly caught the subtext in Butler Zhou’s words. He knew Butler Zhou was a rather old-fashioned man, and saying things like this boiled down to nothing more than telling him to properly fulfill his duties as Huo Jingsi’s “wife” and do something to comfort an exhausted husband working hard outside.
To speak candidly, however, Li Mo muttered inwardly, a butler like Butler Zhou in a novel would definitely be the type to wipe away tears with a moved expression while saying, “I haven’t seen the Young Master smile this happily in a long time.”
However, he didn’t want to comfort Huo Jingsi in the slightest. He had worked himself to the bone out there these past few days without even being able to take a proper bath, and now that he was back, they expected him to act as Huo Jingsi’s psychological counselor?
He refused.
Furthermore, compared to Huo Jingsi, he was clearly the one who needed a good rest right now. If nothing else, the bed in Huo Jingsi’s house was top-tier comfortable.
All of the above, naturally, remained strictly inside Li Mo’s internal monologue. On the surface, he remained the gentle, well-mannered Chairman’s wife. He nodded, his brows slightly knitted as if infected by Butler Zhou’s emotions, and began to look distressed for the overworked Huo Jingsi as well.
“I know. I’ll be sure to persuade him properly.”
Suppressing a strong urge to polish off three bowls of rice, Li Mo finally set his chopsticks down.
He reasoned with himself internally: an elegant person like him would be dangerously close to OOC (out of character) for eating two bowls of rice in a single sitting, so touching a third bowl was strictly prohibited.
Absolutely not, absolutely not, absolutely cannot…
Thus, with utmost cherishing, Li Mo finished the final spoonful of soup in the bowl Auntie Wu had handed him and stood up directly, despite his deep reluctance to part with such a delicious duck soup.
Sigh, whatever. I’ll just have Auntie Wu make it again next time.
Li Mo sighed inwardly, then turned to Auntie Wu and said, “Auntie Wu, ladle out a bowl of this soup and take it to the guards keeping watch outside. Standing guard all night is terribly exhausting.”
“Will do, Madam. You go on to rest; I’ll deliver it to them right away.” Auntie Wu put down her dishcloth, washed her hands, retrieved several clean bowls, and immediately set about doing as he instructed.
Li Mo nodded at her and was just about to turn and head upstairs when he suddenly remembered he hadn’t yet messaged Huo Jingsi to report his safe arrival, despite having been back for so long.
He hurriedly pulled out his phone, tapped into the sole pinned chat at the very top of his messaging app, and typed out a message while ascending the stairs—
[ : I’m back.]
Once sent, he even snapped a photo of the house and sent it over to prove that he had indeed arrived home safely.
Figuring that Huo Jingsi was currently tied up in a meeting and wouldn’t have time to look at his phone anyway, the words “Other party is typing…” popped up right at the top of the chat window the very second he sent it.
The meeting’s over? Li Mo raised an eyebrow.
It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. If the meeting adjourned at this hour, there was still a possibility that Huo Jingsi might return tonight.
Li Mo wasn’t particularly keen on having Huo Jingsi come back, as he didn’t much feel like sleeping with him. Even though they had already done things far more intimate than sleeping together, Huo Jingsi insisted on holding him tightly in his arms every single time they slept; if not for his own excessively robust physical constitution, he would have been squeezed out of breath by this man on some random night long ago.
Consequently, he waited with a mild sense of tension for the reply from the other end.
One minute later, the other side replied.
[ : Hello, Mr. Li. I am Liu Shun. The Chairman is still in a meeting, and he instructed me to relay to you that you don’t need to wait up for him tonight. Please get some rest early.]
Tsh, should’ve said so earlier, kept me tense for a whole minute.
With his mind set at ease, Li Mo read the message over twice more, feeling slightly puzzled by Huo Jingsi handing his personal phone over to a subordinate to reply—wasn’t he worried someone else might see his chat history with him?
Well, whatever; he had never quite figured this man out anyway. Besides, his chat history with Huo Jingsi basically consisted of good mornings, good nights, have you eaten yet what about you, and what did you eat what about you…
And it was always Huo Jingsi incessantly asking questions, leaving no real secrets to uncover.
He sent a reply back.
[ : Alright, Deputy Liu. Please help me pass along a message to him: remember to rest well amidst your busy work and don’t exhaust yourself. Thank you. (Happy) (Happy)]
After sending it, Li Mo looked at the message and felt that it sounded a bit too perfunctory.
Still, who cares? Showing concern is enough. Did they really expect him to write a sprawling, three-part argumentative essay of 800 words centered around the theme of you must take good care of your health in the chat box?
That would be vastly overestimating the depth of emotional attachment between him and Huo Jingsi.
Who tries to fall in love during a contract marriage? He had originally taken on the assignment solely to assassinate Huo Jingsi; managing to go undercover for three years without being discovered and shot dead by Huo Jingsi was already a remarkable feat.
So why bother stressing over all this? Li Mo tossed his phone aside, hurried through a shower and his evening routine at top speed, and then flung himself straight into the welcoming embrace of the 2.8-meter-wide king-sized bed.
Playing house with Huo Jingsi was fake, but Huo Jingsi’s bed was true love~