Without showing his face, Chu Minghe just caught a snippet of the conversation before retreating back to the room. It took another half hour before Zhao Xingjian finally returned from the laundry room.
By that time, Chu Minghe wasn’t lying on the bed anymore. He had already tidied up the bedding and moved to the sofa, while the bed was occupied by the blanket Zhao Xingjian had been using all along.
“You should sleep on the bed tonight.”
Chu Minghe propped the bolster horizontally at the other end of the sofa, feeling it with his hand it was a bit firmer than a pillow.
Zhao Xingjian had been resting his head on this thing for the past few days, and it probably hadn’t been very comfortable either.
And after talking about letting Zhao Xingjian sleep on the bed for so many days, it was only today that he was finally making it truly comfortable for him.
Yet Zhao Xingjian didn’t say a word.
Because the duvet was bulky, he had stuffed all the excess material along the side closest to the back of the sofa, leaving very little space remaining. Squeezed in there, it looked uncomfortable no matter how one looked at it.
Seeing this, Zhao Xingjian wanted to have him switch back, but recalling what Zheng Yuan had said, he paused before asking, “Why can’t we sleep in the same bed?”
Right. Why couldn’t they sleep in the same bed?
At the beginning, Zhao Xingjian had slept on the sofa because Chu Minghe tossed and turned restlessly before falling asleep. But once Zhao Xingjian left the bed, Chu Minghe stopped having so many little restless habits.
He had never thought about it deeply before, but now he was digging up old accounts.
Noticing that Zhao Xingjian didn’t look like he was blaming him merely showing genuine curiosity Chu Minghe casually fabricated an excuse.
“I’ve always slept alone, I’m used to it.”
That was roughly the same reply he had given on the first night. No matter whether it was true or false, no other fresh reason could be pried out of him, so Zhao Xingjian didn’t press further.
Nor did he forcefully demand that Chu Minghe return to the bed, only saying right before stepping into the bathroom, “Come back if you can’t fall asleep later, or we can swap.”
Chu Minghe agreed.
However, a soft sofa like this was far more comfortable than a hard wooden bed, and much cozier than the floor paved with two layers of thin mattresses. It was impossible not to fall asleep.
He still remembered that back by the street corner where he used to fry dough sticks, there had been an oversized trash can. Whenever garbage was tossed in, it would hatch a whole nest of mice in the winter.
The mice would scramble out and look for warm places to squeeze into, and as luck would have it, the door of his shop had a crack that provided the mice with a lifeline leading to safety.
During that period, every single night he could hear mice brushing against the wallpaper, rustling plastic bags, or gnawing on cabbage leaves. At first, he would turn on the light to chase them away, but eventually, he grew so used to it that he could simply flip over and fall right back asleep.
If he could sleep comfortably under those abysmal conditions back then, what was this compared to that? When he had first transmigrated over, he wasn’t even used to sleeping in a big bed and living in a massive villa, so he had laid down a pallet on the floor for a whole month. Now, a mere sofa wasn’t going to give him a hard time.
By the time Zhao Xingjian emerged from the bathroom, Chu Minghe was already fast asleep, facing toward the back of the sofa.
Standing by the bed for a moment, Zhao Xingjian ultimately returned to the bathroom, picked up Chu Minghe’s dirty clothes, and retraced his steps to the laundry room.
As he hung Chu Minghe’s washed clothes up to dry alongside his own on the same clothesline, Zhao Xingjian suddenly paused.
Chu Minghe had told him while he was showering that since his clothes were soaked through, he would take them out to wash himself once he finished bathing. Yet when he returned to the room, Chu Minghe had clearly been finished tidying himself and the bed for quite a while, leaving the dirty clothes completely unattended.
That didn’t sound like his habit…
Pursing his lips, a vague suspicion began to take root in his mind. He tried to carefully retrace the conversation he had shared with Zheng Yuan, wondering if something inappropriate had slipped out for Chu Minghe to overhear.
Yet after racking his brain for a long while, he just wanted to curse aloud—not a single sentence of it was fit to be heard.
Zheng Yuan had asked them whether their intimate life was harmonious, to which he had replied that it wasn’t. At that exact moment, he had vaguely heard a sound outside the door.
Zheng Yuan had told him there were many stray cats around here, which wasn’t strange, so he hadn’t bothered to go out and check. Now he realized that person must have been Chu Minghe. Aside from deep regret, he felt nothing else.
He tried to forcibly reconstruct his own logic, telling himself he hadn’t spoken wrongly. Wasn’t “harmonious or not” simply defined by whether it existed or not?
If it existed, it was harmonious; if it didn’t, it was unharmonious. He hadn’t said anything incorrect.
Yet, thinking was one thing, but if the roles were reversed and he overheard Chu Minghe saying something like that…
Torture.
He lingered in the laundry room for forty minutes, running the washing machine through two separate spin-and-wash cycles while his mind cycled through countless scenarios of what he should say if Chu Minghe ever brought it up one day explaining that it was merely an adult’s lingering curiosity at play.
By the time he finished, it had started drizzling outside, yet his brain remained as tangled as a mess of porridge, turning over every stray thought. Even images of Chu Minghe looking embarrassed or flushed with anger rolled through his head.
He hadn’t figured out a solution. Once the washing machine finished its cycle and he hung the clothes up, he finally headed back to the room.
Chu Minghe was maintaining the exact same sleeping posture. Catching sight of him, a sudden surge of defensiveness rose inside Zhao Xingjian.
Wherever Chu Minghe was, one had to remain on high alert; who knew when he might pop out, having accidentally overheard some bizarre nonsense he and others had chatted about, making their relationship even more muddled and unclear.
Yet he blamed this entire mess squarely on Cheng Zhou.
He was the root cause of where all the trouble began! Once that kind of accidental eavesdropping incident occurred, it became contagious and spread rapidly proving it by happening all over again tonight.
There must not be a next time.
After locking the door and turning off the lights, plunging the room into abrupt darkness, Chu Minghe lying silently on the sofa quietly relaxed his stiff wrist, which had been gripping his phone.
Who knew what Zhao Xingjian had been staring at just now? He had stood silently at the doorway for ages before finally locking the door.
Earlier, seeing Zhao Xingjian step outside, Chu Minghe had gone online to check the public sentiment following Sister Hong’s released statement. Some netizens claimed it was a forced whitewashing attempt, while others demanded solid evidence.
If they wanted evidence, Sister Hong had already discussed the matter with him beforehand: their plan was not to lay the complete truth bare, but rather to leave some maneuvering room as a precaution against future troubles.
As long as this wave successfully shifted public opinion and cleared Chu Minghe’s name, they wouldn’t push things to absolute extremes.
Though Sister Hong hadn’t stated it outright, Chu Minghe understood that she was worried about the things he had done in the past perhaps that “little assistant” also held so-called evidence of their own.
The evidence left in their hands served as a fallback for him, as well as a bargaining chip for Chu Minghe.
The remaining fraction of netizens consisted of staunch defenders of Chu Minghe’s interests who were actively preparing to establish an official fan club.
Roughly eighty percent of these new fans came from viewers acquired after the broadcast of this variety show. Feeling that the results were not too shabby, Chu Minghe scrolled through those comments, and while reading, he ended up wandering right back into the CP super-topic forum shared by himself and Zhao Xingjian.
Compared to the previous two days, he had made some progress: looking at those items now no longer stirred up any turbulent ripples in his heart, and he could even point out minor flaws when shippers were “harvesting sugar.”
For instance, a certain screenshot claimed that Zhao Xingjian had stolen a kiss from him while the camera wasn’t looking, only to accidentally capture it.
Chu Minghe’s mental note: Didn’t kiss. He was staring at the chicken feet I was holding.
Result: Cursed, blocked, and muted by the poster.
Or for another example, a video clip claimed that Chu Minghe kept stealing hand-holding glances at Zhao Xingjian, frequently looking away shyly and avoiding Zhao Xingjian’s gaze.
Chu Minghe’s mental note: Didn’t hold hands, but did brush against each other, because Zhao Xingjian failed to manage his facial expression in the previous second and looked unhappy.
Chu Minghe added another mental note: Looking away was indeed intentional not daring to stare him down directly, in order to fabricate the illusion of “I didn’t mean it.”
Some of the content was quite entertaining. Reading while grading homework, he lost track of time and completely forgot Sister Hong’s warning to “stay away from the internet.”
It wasn’t until he heard a sound outside the door that he hurriedly tucked his phone beneath the quilt and feigned sleep, terrified that Zhao Xingjian would come over again to force him into the bed.
This feigned sleep led to an accidental discovery: after entering the room, Zhao Xingjian stood there completely “entranced.” Chu Minghe was genuinely terrified that Zhao Xingjian might march over with a piece of rope to strangle him in revenge for past blood-feuds.
Shortly afterward, however, he decided his acting skills were top-notch, because Zhao Xingjian merely stood there for a while before turning off the lights, sparing him from any extreme measures of passive endurance or bonus trip-to-heaven packages.
Relieved, he shoved his phone into the gap of the sofa and drifted off to sleep shortly after.
Zhao Xingjian’s experience was quite the opposite. Once the lights went out, his mind became even clearer.
Ever since arriving at this small villa for recording, these had been his days of lowest sleep quality—whether it was due to the pink room, or because of Chu Minghe who had chosen the pink room.
Outside the window, raindrops pelted against the glass with increasing intensity. Zhao Xingjian flipped over, though visibility was too poor in the pitch darkness to make out the silhouette on the sofa.
He wondered: Will it start thundering later? A fierce gale accompanied by lightning and thunder?
If Chu Minghe gets scared, will he haul his duvet back onto the bed, or will he tremble in fright and burrow straight into my arms?
At this thought, Zhao Xingjian let out a neurotic scoff playing hard to get, full of crafty tricks.
While he was busy entertaining these thoughts, Chu Minghe was sleeping soundly. Since it was early autumn, rain rarely came with thunder and lightning; Zhao Xingjian waited for two solid hours without seeing Chu Minghe burrowing into his arms.
Thinking about it for too long had cleared out his sleepiness; realizing how outlandish his thoughts were, he flipped over and forcefully forced his eyes shut.
He managed only three and a half hours of sleep that night.
The next morning, when Chu Minghe woke up, he stepped outside the door to take a look: the ground was wet but free of puddles, and the rain had stopped for now.
He returned to the bathroom, intending to fetch yesterday’s clothes to wash, only to discover upon entering that the garments were no longer in the dirty clothes hamper.
So he headed to the laundry room.
Inside the laundry room, his clothes were hanging right beside Zhao Xingjian’s.
Zhao Xingjian really had washed them for him.
Pausing, he reached out to brush his fingers against the hem of Zhao Xingjian’s shirt; it wasn’t dry yet, damp and heavy from the heavy rain outside, and his own clothes were the same way.
Zhao Xingjian must have followed him over at some point. Standing at the doorway looking somewhat fatigued, his heavy eyelids gave him a slightly fierce look as he reminded him: “They aren’t dry yet. If you have nothing to wear, put on mine.”
Chu Minghe shook his head, watching him still looking drowsy.
He asked, “Did you not sleep well last night?”
Mentioning last night instantly revitalized Zhao Xingjian. Now fully awake, he realized how absurd his behavior and thoughts from the previous night had been.
Averting his gaze from Chu Minghe, he spat out a quick “No” and walked away.
Chu Minghe stood frozen in thought.
For the past few days, Zhao Xingjian had looked poorly rested every morning, which he had previously attributed to sleeping on the sofa uncomfortably. But last night Zhao Xingjian had slept on the bed, yet he still looked less than energetic…
Could it be that Zhao Xingjian was worried I might harbor malicious intentions and try something against him in the middle of the night, keeping him awake in self-defense?
That was tricky; he certainly couldn’t tie up his own hands and feet to sleep.
Still, he hadn’t expected that while he himself was worried about Zhao Xingjian committing violence against him, Zhao Xingjian was simultaneously worried about him trying anything untoward how mutually difficult, how pitiful, and how mutually miserable they both were.
Just as he was pondering what to do next, a light rustling sound drifted up from downstairs.
The director had arrived with his little notebook, though this time he didn’t use the loud bullhorn. Instead, his gaze swept around the room before locking onto Chu Minghe, his eyes lighting up as he beckoned him over.
A fresh trap was about to begin.