Rong Ning took a deep breath and compromised helplessly. “Fine, but only for today. Whether we run into each other after this is purely up to luck.”
“Okay.” Jiang Mohan surprisingly agreed with unusual crispness.
In the back seat of the black Maybach, Rong Ning and Jiang Mohan each sat on opposite sides, leaving a wide space in the middle.
According to their past dynamic, Rong Ning would have snuggled right over, perhaps even hugging Jiang Mohan’s arm and acting coquettishly, but he didn’t dare to now.
Suffering a physical reaction in the car would be utterly embarrassing!
After that, they bumped into each other a few times while heading out for work, but they always took their own cars.
If things stayed in this state, it wasn’t entirely unacceptable.
That week, the new technology entered its trial run, and Rong Ning went to the company obediently almost every day.
Whether he was worn out or his eyes were playing tricks on him, Rong Ning always felt like things were missing from his home.
Feeling a bit baffled, he marked his commonly used items.
Sure enough, as expected.
Shirts, T-shirts, pants, and even two pairs of underwear were missing.
Yet the stolen items were all old things, completely worthless.
The jewelry and accessories in the drawer remained untouched.
Did thieves nowadays have this high of a technical level? It was so smooth and flawless that without paying close attention, he might never have noticed.
He called the cleaning lady from the old family residence to ask if she had thrown away his clothes.
The lady felt quite wronged, saying she wouldn’t dare touch a single thing belonging to the young master.
Fine, fine, he believed her!
Unwilling to let it go, Rong Ning turned on the security cameras installed at home. He used to think they were unnecessary and hadn’t connected them to the internet, but now he wanted to see which freak was doing this.
Whenever he wasn’t home, he kept his eyes glued to the video feed on his phone, ready to screenshot and screen-record at any moment.
Strangely enough, once the surveillance was active, the thief vanished into thin air.
Waiting around wasn’t a solution, so Rong Ning went to the property management office to check the hallway surveillance footage.
The figure appearing in the video made Rong Ning’s scalp tingle and broke out in a cold sweat. “How is it him?!”
He couldn’t believe it was actually Jiang Mohan!
Although it was blurry, it was definitely him!
“What is he doing coming to my place? How did he know the password? He, he…” A massive string of questions churned wildly in Rong Ning’s mind, his thoughts instantly plunging into chaos, his pupils losing focus as he stared at the monitoring screen.
“President Rong, do you need us to call the police?” The security guard looked at Rong Ning’s twisted expression and asked quietly.
Rong Ning snapped back to reality. “Oh, no need, we are friends.”
“Friends shouldn’t just casually break into other people’s homes, right? If…”
“I really don’t need to!” With that, Rong Ning bolted.
The very first thing he did when he got home was change his password.
This time, he changed it to a 10-digit number.
“Heh, let’s see you guess that.” A crafty smile appeared on Rong Ning’s face. “Jiang Mohan, you’d never guess this in a million years.”
The password change went well and was very complex.
So complex that the next day after getting off work, Rong Ning couldn’t remember it anymore.
Hunching his head over, he squatted by his own front door, feeling as dead inside as ash, while muttering continuously. “Pig brain, pig brain…”
“Who is a pig brain?” Jiang Mohan had just stepped out of the elevator when those words reached his ears. He glanced sideways and saw Rong Ning squatting desolately on the ground.
Rong Ning ignored him, continuing to pull at his own hair in frustration.
Jiang Mohan walked over and squatted halfway down in front of him. “A’ning, what’s wrong?” A gaze full of concern fell on the half-exposed face.
Rong Ning thrust both hands into his roots, dragged his hair back forcefully, and slowly lifted his eyelids. His listless tone carried a hint of helplessness. “Didn’t President Jiang hear it? I’m calling myself a pig brain.”
Jiang Mohan curved the corners of his lips slightly. “I know. Even if it’s a pig brain, it’s still your own.” Raising a hand to pat his shoulder, he continued consoling him. “It’s cold outside, go inside to curse yourself.”
“Jiang Mohan!” Rong Ning clenched his jaw tight, wishing he could punch him.
Jiang Mohan let out a muffled laugh and held out his hand. “I’m not teasing you anymore, get up.”
Seeing that Rong Ning was glaring at him with puffed-up cheeks and showed no intention of getting up to go home, Jiang Mohan raised an eyebrow slightly and asked tentatively. “Going to my place?”
“I won’t!” Rong Ning refused decisively. “I have a home of my own.”
He steadied himself against the wall and stood up, reaching his arm toward the door lock. Just as he wanted to input the password, his arm dropped abruptly, and his energy drained away instantly.
He genuinely couldn’t remember a single digit.
“Why aren’t you entering the password?”
Rong Ning furrowed his brow slightly, casting a sideways glance at Jiang Mohan. His irritation grew a notch, but he forced a relaxed smile and squeezed out. “Hehe… President Jiang, you go on ahead. I want to catch some breeze in the hallway…”
Jiang Mohan narrowed his eyes, studying the young man before him with nine parts of suspicion in his gaze. “Something’s off, very off…” With that, he clasped Rong Ning’s shoulder and led him toward his own apartment.
“What are you doing?” Rong Ning shook him off forcefully, his expression radiating a distant, aloof indifference and pride that kept people a thousand miles away.
With his arm suddenly empty, Jiang Mohan froze for a moment. He lowered his gaze awkwardly, his eyelashes concealing his obscure, deep pupils, while his throat ached with sour tightness.
He hadn’t expected Rong Ning to react so intensely.
He had only put an arm around his shoulder.
It wasn’t like this before.
Jiang Mohan let out a soft sigh, then lifted his eyes again, burying the disappointment in his heart to speak calmly and earnestly. “Your emotions are off. You shouldn’t stay by yourself. Come to my place.”
“Not going!” Rong Ning dismissed it with disdain, lifting his chin and standing firmly in place without moving.
Then, a thought flashed through his eyes, and he quickly changed his mind. “Fine, I’ll see what kind of counseling President Jiang has to offer.”
Rong Ning strode forward, passing Jiang Mohan, and right in front of the apartment’s owner, brazenly punched in the password to the other man’s front door.
Jiang Mohan pressed his lips into a line, a faint smile coloring the corners of his eyes as his mood settled significantly.
Inside the apartment, the moment Jiang Mohan finished changing his clothes, Rong Ning urged him to go make dinner while sneaking off to search the rooms.
The layout of Jiang Mohan’s place was similar to Rong Ning’s, but in this sprawling flat of over 400 square meters, there were three walk-in closets alone, not to mention cabinets of all sizes. He searched a full round and found nothing.
In the end, Rong Ning had to change his train of thought.
If he had stolen items, he definitely would have hidden them exceptionally well. Therefore, he checked under the beds and beneath the duvets in every single room without missing a spot.
Unfortunately, he still came up completely empty-handed.
“Wasn’t it Jiang Mohan who stole them?” Rong Ning muttered to himself, utterly bewildered. “That shouldn’t be likely, right?”
The video clearly showed it was him.
When Jiang Mohan entered his own home, he was only holding a small paper bag when he left, which visually couldn’t possibly fit large items of clothing.
“Could someone have disguised themselves as him?”
“Or… did he steal them across multiple trips?”
“A’ning.”
Lost in thought, Rong Ning suddenly heard Jiang Mohan’s voice and snapped back to reality. The footsteps outside were growing closer, and he hurriedly and clumsily smoothed out the rumpled bedsheets.
When Jiang Mohan walked into the room, Rong Ning was sitting quietly at the edge of the bed reading a book.
Seeing this scene, Jiang Mohan’s gaze paused briefly before the corners of his mouth lifted. “Come eat.”
“Oh, right.”
Seeing Jiang Mohan step out of the bedroom, Rong Ning closed the book, tossed it onto the bed, patted his chest, and hurried out right behind him.
During dinner, Rong Ning was absent-minded with darting, unfocused eyes that anyone could spot instantly.
Jiang Mohan put down his chopsticks and looked at Rong Ning seriously. “A’ning, you have something on your mind. Tell me, what’s wrong?”
“Um…” Rong Ning lowered his gaze, his thoughts shifting quietly.
Should he ask or not?
Without knowing the answer, he definitely wouldn’t sleep well tonight.
Rong Ning bit his lip, put down his chopsticks as well, and met Jiang Mohan’s gaze. Lacking complete certainty, he feigned composure and asked. “Did you take my clothes?”
“I did.” Jiang Mohan remained composed and unperturbed, admitting it with crisp, clean directness without any attempt to defend himself.
“Ah?” Rong Ning’s pupils dilated, unable to believe his ears.
He wasn’t even going to argue?!
The man’s tone was so self-righteous that it made it seem like Rong Ning was the one in the wrong for poking his nose into it.
Rong Ning slumped his shoulders, his mouth opening and closing as he wanted to speak, but not a single word came out.
Earlier, he had suspected a pervert of stealing them, but Jiang Mohan’s casual frankness made him think his own mind was the dirty one, and that stealing clothes from his home was just standard operational procedure for Jiang Mohan.
Wait, it wasn’t stealing; it was taking.
The corners of Jiang Mohan’s mouth curved upward slightly as he took the initiative to explain. “It was cold, and I was afraid you wouldn’t have clothes to wear next time you stayed over, so I took a few pieces.”
“Oh.” Rong Ning replied dazedly, like a soul leaving its body.
“Huh?” That wasn’t right. He had checked every single wardrobe earlier and hadn’t seen his clothes anywhere. Rong Ning curiously pressed on. “Where are the clothes? Where did you put them?”
Jiang Mohan looked toward the living room and gave a slight nod of his chin. “They were a bit dirty, so I washed them.”
“Washed them?” Rong Ning followed the direction Jiang Mohan indicated. Hanging on the balcony were two tops, a pair of pants, and two pairs of black underwear swaying happily in the evening breeze.
The clothes had clearly been washed and ironed by the cleaning lady and hung properly in the wardrobe, how could they be dirty?
Gradually, his expression darkened, and all sorts of chaotic thoughts popped into his head.
He had been dodging Jiang Mohan these past few days, so the man must have harbored resentment. He definitely stole the clothes on purpose just to use them as floor rags out of spite.
And that pair of briefs, after using it to wipe the floors, Jiang Mohan had shamelessly washed it clean?!
The more Rong Ning thought about it, the angrier he got, the angrier he got, the more he backed himself into a corner. He turned back, bit his lip, and declared. “I don’t want them anymore, I’m giving them all to you. You can wear the briefs too, don’t waste them!”
“Uh…” The corner of Jiang Mohan’s brow twitched, his voice dropping lower. “The size is too small.” He picked up his chopsticks and resumed eating.
“What? Are you implying I’m small?” Rong Ning sprang to his feet, ready to storm off. “I’m not eating anymore!”
Jiang Mohan grabbed his arm. “No implication. Be a good boy, sit down and eat.”
“I’m full! I’m going back to sleep.” He couldn’t bear to stay in this house for another minute.