Wedding room?!!
Tan Mo’s almond eyes widened into perfect circles: “You mean this… this is the house we’ll live in after our marriage?!”
“Yeah.”
Tan Mo froze: “Aren’t we going to live separately like we did the other day?”
“The villa was still undergoing interior decoration when we got married a few days ago. It was just finished these two days.”
Xie Qichen met her gaze, speaking in a relaxed tone: “Tan Mo, although our marriage is arranged, we still need to do the necessary formalities. Have you ever seen a married couple live separately right after getting married?”
If others found out that they still lived separately after marriage, there would inevitably be rumors, which would be bad for both parties.
Tan Mo’s heart beat slightly faster. She then heard him say casually: “It’s not far from F University either. And are you sure the apartment you’re living in now is safe?”
“Hmm…”
Indeed, she had been on edge every time she returned to her apartment recently, fearing that she might encounter the muscular man from the neighboring apartment again.
Tan Mo hesitated: “But I’ve already paid the rent for my apartment until next month…”
Xie Qichen teased her in a low voice: “Madam Xie, you’re already a billionaire now. Do you still care about a few thousand yuan?”
Her face turned red.
“Actually, it’s not a problem. You can move your main stuff over first and then slowly pack the rest.”
Tan Mo twisted her fingers together, hesitating, her eyes slightly downcast. The man raised his long eyes slightly, fixing his gaze on her:
“What’s wrong? Are you really that nervous about living with me?”
She detected the teasing undertone in his voice and denied guiltily: “I’m not nervous. I’m just thinking carefully…”
From what he had said, she seemed to have no good reason to refuse. So she agreed reluctantly: “Then I’ll pack my stuff these days. It’s just that I have a lot of things.”
“There are moving companies. You don’t need to worry about it.”
Xie Qichen then asked her, “Want to go upstairs and take a look?”
“Okay.”
The man led her upstairs. The space upstairs was also very large, with two studies, a gym, a screening room, a living room, and so on. There was also a riverside balcony with an extremely wide view and a swimming pool. It was truly a dream house. Tan Mo felt like she could get lost in the house, it was so big.
As she wandered around, she thought of an important issue, and her heart suddenly tightened.
Following behind Xie Qichen, her mind couldn’t help but imagine certain scenes. Her steps slowed, her heart raced. After a while, she couldn’t help but call out to him:
“Xie Qichen, that…”
He turned back, “What’s wrong?”
“That is… how many bedrooms does this place have?”
Upon hearing this, Xie Qichen’s lips curved slightly into a smile:
“How many do you want?”
“I…” She tried to remain calm as she glanced around, “I just think the villa is so big, there should be quite a few bedrooms, right?”
In the corridor, upon hearing this, Xie Qichen put his hands in his pockets, leaned lazily against the wall behind him, and gazed at her with a smile:
“What are you trying to say? I don’t understand.”
“…”
Was he pretending not to understand or was he really not getting it?!
“What I mean is…” Tan Mo’s face turned red. Finally, she decided to just come out with it directly, “We’re sleeping separately, right?”
She grumbled unhappily: “Don’t tell me we have to pretend to be affectionate and sleep in the same room.”
The man’s deep gaze fell on her as he spoke in a leisurely tone:
“That’s not impossible.”
Tan Mo: What did you say? ??
Seeing that he didn’t seem to be joking, her face turned red: “No, the prenuptial agreement doesn’t cover that kind of thing…”
She had married him to work, not… no, that’s not how it should be put…
Wait, could his real intention be about that?! No wonder he had given her so much property!
The girl blushed all the way to her ears. Her almond eyes glared at him, wet and glistening, as if she had already been bullied by him. Looking at her innocent demeanor, Xie Qichen rolled his throat, suppressing the rising restlessness inside him. His voice came out deep and hoarse:
“I’m kidding. There are two rooms.”
The man straightened up and looked down at her, his deep voice continuing:
“I’m not so desperate right now.”
She didn’t understand his meaning. Xie Qichen changed the subject: “Do you want me to take you back? Or are you going to stay here tonight?”
She hadn’t prepared herself to move in yet, “I’ll go back to my apartment first…”
Xie Qichen took her back. When they arrived at the apartment building, he still accompanied her upstairs as usual.
Then, the man returned to his Rolls-Royce. Wen Cheng, sitting in the front seat, noticed his relatively good mood and curiously asked, “Boss Xie, was Madam satisfied with the villa’s decoration?”
The man lifted his eyes to look at him and slightly curled his lips: “I bought the house, and you’re asking if she was satisfied.”
Wen Cheng chuckled: “Boss Xie, isn’t that exactly what you want, for Madam to be satisfied?”
Xie Qichen didn’t say anything. He rubbed his wedding ring on his ring finger, “Arrange the moving company tomorrow and contact Tan Mo.”
“Yes.”
—
Tan Mo spent the entire night digesting the fact that she was going to move in with Xie Qichen. The next day, after waking up, she began packing her belongings.
She first organized the clothes for the current season and daily necessities. In addition, there were kitchen utensils and photography equipment she needed for making videos.
In the next two days, the moving company gradually helped her move her things into the villa. She discovered that the villa’s open kitchen was very large, divided into a Chinese kitchen, a Western kitchen, and a dessert-making area, with various tools and machines. It was truly a paradise for a food blogger.
One evening at the villa, Tan Mo asked Xie Qichen, who had just returned from the group, with confusion. The other explained calmly: “The kitchen was specially enlarged because you need to shoot videos, right?”
Tan Mo was stunned: “How did you know I was making videos?!”
She had never told him about it!
Leaning against the kitchen counter, Xie Qichen unscrewed a bottle of water, “Is it hard to know that—Teacher Xiaomoli?”
Her social media account ID was “A Bowl of Xiaomoli.” Now, this name was spoken by the man’s seductive voice, adding a deeper sense of intimacy.
A faint blush appeared on Tan Mo’s face. She hadn’t expected Xie Qichen to know, and she was almost socially embarrassed to death:
“You… when did you find out? You shouldn’t know much about me, right…”
Xie Qichen looked down at her, “Yeah, not much.”
She felt relieved, guessing that a busy person like Xie Qichen probably didn’t spend much time surfing the internet, “Please don’t follow my account or watch my videos. My videos are really boring.”
Xie Qichen indifferently agreed and left first. Tan Mo finished tidying the kitchen before going upstairs.
On the second floor, a warm orange light was on in the corridor, creating a very quiet atmosphere.
Tan Mo and Xie Qichen’s bedrooms were adjacent. Finally, she returned to her room, closed the door, and walked onto the balcony.
The cold wind brushed against her face as she looked at the vast river view in the distance, her thoughts swirling.
From now on, she would live here for the next two years.
Her gaze slightly shifted, seeing the light on in the study at the far right of the same floor.
It should be Xie Qichen working in there.
Looking at the light that seemed within reach, she suddenly realized what it meant to live under the same roof with Xie Qichen.
Once, he was abroad, like the moon in the sky in her heart, and she thought they would never cross paths again in this life.
But now, she suddenly felt he was so close, so near.
Close enough to feel like a dream, too unreal.
—
Thus, Tan Mo moved out of her apartment. It took her a week to pack five or six large suitcases, moving almost all her belongings from the apartment to the villa.
Two days before officially moving in, she was very nervous about this new life, even suffering from insomnia because of it.
However, in the following days, she hardly met Xie Qichen at the villa.
In the mornings when she woke up, the man had already left for the group, and in the evenings after she returned to her room to rest, Xie Qichen would come back after finishing work.
She felt awkward to send him messages asking what he was doing or when he would come back. She always felt it was strange to talk about these things between them. So during meal times, she would cook something in the villa by herself, spend her evenings reading or making videos, and clean the house.
It was a bit like a little wife waiting at home for her husband…
Time flew, and it was the last week of December.
On Tuesday, after finishing her classes at school, Tan Mo guessed that she would be alone cooking dinner when she returned to the villa, so she decided to go with Chang Yue to try the newly opened army hotpot near the south gate of the school.
After dinner, Chang Yue went out for part-time work, so Tan Mo took a car back to Jiayu Tiancheng.
Fifteen minutes later, the taxi arrived at the villa’s entrance. Tan Mo got off just as her phone rang. It was Ji Shu on the line, who got straight to the point: “You moved into Xie Qichen’s villa this week?”
Tan Mo had told her this morning, “Yes.”
Ji Shu laughed, “I knew it. Xie Qichen definitely wouldn’t let you live separately. You two are officially starting to cohabitate. Don’t tell me it’s just a marriage of convenience.”
Tan Mo rolled her eyes, unlocking the door and turning on the lights one by one as she entered, “It’s not what you’re thinking. We’re sleeping in separate rooms.”
“Ha? Are you two turning into roommates?”
Tan Mo sighed, “Do you know how busy a group president can be? We live under the same roof, but I haven’t seen him all day. We’re more like strangers than roommates.”
“So, do you want to see him or not?”
She huffed lightly, “I don’t really have any feelings about it.”
Perhaps because she hadn’t yet adapted to him entering her private life, she always felt a bit nervous when she saw him, so it didn’t really matter whether she saw him or not.
Ji Shu had something to do and hung up after a few more words.
Tan Mo went upstairs to freshen up, humming a song happily, “Fold a thousand paper cranes, tie a red ribbon. May kind people have good luck every day. You work hard for a beautiful life, you stay healthy all year round. All your efforts in life are for…”
She was in a good mood, singing loudly. But just as she stepped onto the second-floor staircase, a figure came into her view—
The man was in casual clothes, his sharp eyebrows and bright eyes shrouded in vapor, his long eyebrows slightly furrowed. Even without much adornment, his handsomeness was captivating.
Xie Qichen had just finished taking a shower, walked out of the bedroom, and was heading to the study to handle some work.
When Tan Mo saw him, her song abruptly stopped in her throat.
Hearing the sound, Xie Qichen lifted his eyes and saw the stunned Tan Mo at the foot of the stairs. His eyebrows lifted slightly, and he asked in a calm tone:
“What’s such a happy occasion today?”
Tan Mo: “…”
Truly, “good luck” has come knocking.
Tan Mo coughed lightly, pretending nothing had happened as she shifted her gaze, “Why are you back so early today?”
“There’s no overtime tonight. What’s wrong with that?”
Tan Mo couldn’t help but turn her head to look at him again. She had never seen him like this, with such a down-to-earth vibe. It had been several days since she last saw him, and now her cheeks were slightly warming, “Nothing, just feels… unexpected.”
Xie Qichen: “…”
Feeling his gaze lingering on her, Tan Mo lightly pinched her tweed coat, her heart racing slightly, and quickly said, “Then I’ll go take a shower.”
She quickly returned to her room, closed the door, and let out a long breath, feeling both shy and embarrassed.
Oh no… this is so awkward…
After calming down a bit, Tan Mo took her clothes and went to the bathroom.
Half an hour later, she finished showering. It was still early, so she decided to make some desserts and took her water glass and phone downstairs.
She placed her phone on the coffee table in the living room and bent down to look at the crackling fire in the fireplace, feeling warm in her heart. Suddenly, she heard movement on the stairs. She turned and saw Xie Qichen walking down.
She was slightly stunned as she watched the man walk into the living room and finally sit on the sofa in front of the coffee table, lazily speaking:
“Tan Mo, can you tone down that surprised look? It makes me feel like I shouldn’t even be in this villa.”
“…”
Tan Mo scratched her head, “I didn’t…”
She turned her gaze to the kitchen and tentatively asked him, “I’m going to make egg tarts. Want me to make a couple for you to try?”
Xie Qichen never ate desserts in the evening.
He looked at the girl with bright eyes, “Okay.”
Tan Mo, who loved cooking for others, didn’t expect him to be so considerate. Her mood lifted as she quickly walked to the kitchen: “It’ll be quick! It’ll be ready in a while…”
The man withdrew his gaze, picked up the book beside him, and a slight curve appeared on his lips.
He was reading when, after a while, the sound of a phone ringing came.
He looked toward the sound. On the coffee table, the girl’s phone screen lit up.
The name displayed was: Ye Yao.
Xie Qichen had previously looked up this name.
Instantly, he matched the name with the boy’s face in his mind.
The man’s expression paused slightly, then he indifferently withdrew his gaze and continued reading.
However, on the other end, after not receiving a response, the call came again. Once, twice…
From the kitchen came a voice: “Xie Qichen, my phone is ringing. Can you check who it is? I’m busy now.”
The phone vibrated for the third time. A few seconds later, the man’s expression slightly darkened. He picked up the phone, swiped the screen, and answered.
The call connected, and Ye Yao’s voice came from the other end: “Tan Mo, good evening. Finally got through to you. I just wanted to ask, do you want to spend New Year’s Eve with me next Monday night? I want to invite you.”
Ye Yao finished with a smile. A few seconds later, he heard a cold, metallic male voice from the phone:
“She’s not here.”
Ye Yao heard a male voice: ????
Ye Yao was stunned, “Sorry, I thought it was her. Then… can you call her for me?”
“She’s busy now.”
The cold words directly shut down the other party’s intention.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Tan Mo had put the egg tarts into the oven and walked back to the living room just in time to hear Xie Qichen say this. She noticed he was answering her call and quickly stepped forward, “Who is it looking for me?”
She hurried over to grab her phone but tripped over Xie Qichen’s slippers.
The next moment, her body fell straight into his arms.
She lay on top of him, her head half-buried in his neck, her slender waist held by a strong arm. The faint fragrance from Xie Qichen, mixed with intense pheromones, rushed toward her. Even through the fabric, she could feel the warm temperature of the man in the winter. The close contact instantly raised the temperature in the air to something intimate. Tan Mo instinctively let out a soft moan, her mind exploding like fireworks:
“Xie Qichen…”
The man looked down at her, his teasing low voice whispering in her ear:
“What’s the excitement for? Rushing into someone’s arms like that?”
Tan Mo’s face turned completely red. She tried to get up but felt the scorching heat of the hand around her waist hadn’t loosened at all. She couldn’t escape, her voice filled with anger and embarrassment as she scolded him:
“Xie Qichen, let go of me…”
On the other end of the phone, Ye Yao heard some ambiguous sounds that made him think, suddenly slightly stunned. Remembering Xie Qichen’s cold response, he felt a bit awkward:
“Sorry, then I’ll call again later. May I ask… what’s your relationship to Tan Mo?”
The sound from the phone also clearly reached Tan Mo’s ears. Just as she realized it was Ye Yao on the other end, she heard Xie Qichen speak:
“I’m her family.”
???!!
Tan Mo’s face turned red instantly.
Ye Yao was also stunned: “Family? You… you’re her brother?”
Xie Qichen’s slightly cold eyebrows and eyes concealed a possessive desire. He looked at Tan Mo, who was right in front of him, and gave her a half-smiling, half-serious look:
“Ask her to tell you what kind of family I am.”
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