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The last notes of the piano music were still echoing in the sky above Hengjin Secondary School. He didn’t know which year the warehouse was demolished. Wild grass grew in the open unused space, and unknown wildflowers bloomed in clusters. The flowers were small and multi-colored, growing enthusiastically.

Mu Nanqiao stood in this open space, looking down at the small flowers swaying in the wind.

There was a rustling sound on the wall behind him. He turned around and caught sight of a boy climbing over the wall. He was wearing a Hengjin Secondary School uniform, and one of his legs had already swung over the wall. He didn’t expect to see anyone here and gave Mu Nanqiao a blank look, asking tentatively: “You are?”

Mu Nanqiao raised his eyebrows and made a welcoming gesture.

The boy breathed a sigh of relief and jumped down from the wall neatly, his movements skilful. It looked like this was not the first time he had done such a thing.

“I thought you were a school leader, big brother. You scared me to death.” The boy patted off his dusty hands, took off his suit-style school uniform jacket, and casually put it on his back. “What are you doing in this wasteland?”

After standing here for a while, the smell of tobacco and alcohol had been blown away by the wind. Mu Nanqiao planned to go back, so the two of them walked toward the sidewalk together.

Regarding the boy’s question just now, Mu Nanqiao answered casually in a lazy tone: “I’m thinking about what to do with this vacant land after gaining control of Hengjin.”

The boy looked up at him in disbelief.

Anyone who said such a thing was most likely talking nonsense, but for some reason, he felt that this person was not joking.

“Damn it…..jumped over the wall and met a bigshot…..” He murmured a few words in a low voice and quickly caught up with Mu Nanqiao. “Boss, how about I buy you a drink?”

Mu Nanqiao: ……

Checking the expression in his eyes, he was a full-level extrovert.

There were many people in Shanghai who wished to have a drink with Mu Nanqiao, but right now he wanted to go back to the old neighborhood and have a drink with his little neighbor on the pretext of watching the kittens.

His face was cold, his refusal obvious. Still, he warned the child: “Minors are not allowed to drink alcohol.”

“Who said anything about drinking alcohol?” The boy pointed to the street corner. “Look, milk tea. This milk tea shop is super tasty, and the queue can reach the school gate after school. I climbed over the wall in advance to buy it for my girlfriend!”

The underage brat had a girlfriend. Mu Nanqiao fell silent.

When he came to his senses, he was already standing at the door of 501 with two cups of milk tea.

He hadn’t drunk something so high-calorie in many years. Not knowing whether Lu Qi would want to drink it or not, he stood at the door and hesitated for a while, then laughed angrily at his tangled appearance.

There was nothing to be hesitant about. He should have invited Lu Qi to drink milk tea a long time ago. He didn’t drink it when he was young, so he would make up for it today. If Lu Qi didn’t like it…..

Then he would just ask him what he liked to drink.

After successfully convincing himself, Mu Nanqiao raised his hand and knocked on the door.

There was a click click sound through the door. After a pause, the door lock popped open crisply.

Mu Nanqiao raised the milk tea in his hand. “I passed by the milk tea shop after getting off work. I don’t know if you…..”

At the door, Lu Qi was wearing beige house clothes, with red eyes and a red nose.

His smile faded at once, and he frowned at the other’s flushed face. “What’s wrong?”

Lu Qi opened his mouth, and finally turned sideways in a huff, saying in a muffled voice: “Come in.”

Mu Nanqiao walked in, hung the milk tea on the coat rack at the entrance, and changed his shoes. He was anxious to find out why Lu Qi was angry. However, this person with long legs and long arms was squeezed into the small entrance and couldn’t move freely, and even stepped on himself. 

There were obvious shoe prints on his handmade Italian shoes, but Mu Nanqiao didn’t care. He entered the small living room wearing cinnamon roll dog slippers, and Lu Qi stuffed a tablet into his hands. A variety show was playing on the tablet, and there was sliced fruit on the small coffee table. It could be imagined that Lu Qi was sitting on the sofa, eating fruit and watching the variety show just now. So how did he get himself angry?

Mu Nanqiao clicked play.

A little star appeared on camera.

In terms of appearance and temperament, this little star actually looked a bit like Lu Qi. Although his facial features were more delicate than Lu Qi’s on camera, that kind of delicateness was too deliberate, and his makeup was heavy.

This person was someone Mu Nanqiao recognized. He was the little star Lin Yuan hired.

But how did Lu Qi know?

He glanced at Lu Qi doubtfully and pretended to be confused: “Who is this person?”

“He’s just a star.” Lu Qi came over and pointed at the screen, saying, “That’s not important, look back.”

As soon as he came closer, Mu Nanqiao was able to see the small tuft of messy hair on his head. It turned out that the reason why that tuft of hair misbehaved was because there was a whorl there.

“That’s it!” Lu Qi patted his arm. “Look at this packed lunch!”

Only then did Mu Nanqiao turn his eyes away from his hair and look down at the tablet.

This variety show was a daily event. The little star’s cooking skills were surprisingly good. When the program team asked them to make a packed lunch, the other guests just fooled around casually. He was the only one who made three dishes and one soup and packed them neatly into an insulated box.

When asked by the other guests why he did so well, he smiled shyly and said: “I have a good friend who had a stomach ache for a while, so I brought him food.”

The other guests immediately started heckling him, saying, isn’t this relationship between friends unusual, ah?

The little star just lowered his head and smiled with his lips pursed. This attitude of neither admitting nor denying was very ambiguous.

Lu Qi squeezed out a sentence through his teeth: “I’ve seen this packed lunch before.”

Mu Nanqiao: ? ? ? 

“I started thinking that it was just the same style, but then I saw these dishes he made, and the rice that was pressed with a mold to make a little penguin impression…..” Lu Qi took a breath. “When I was in the hospital, all I ate was food cooked by others! I thought it was Lin Yuan who made it, and because I was so touched, I agreed to date him…..”

Mu Nanqiao could imagine, but Lu Qi was about to explode with anger.

Lu Qi had a constitution that was a little bit prone to tears. When he was emotional, his eyes would easily turn red even if he wasn’t going to cry. Right now, for example. He was actually just angry and wanted to use a crowbar to hit Lin Yuan. He was very curious about this person’s brain circuits—maybe he could open his brain and take a look: Oops! This is not an earthling at all!

Mu Nanqiao was speechless for a moment.

How should he put it, he had still thought too highly of Lin Yuan. If this idiot young master Lin wanted to pretend to be “virtuous,” he could have ordered a nutritious meal at his hotel and put it in a lunchbox. And there were always the housemaids at home, right?

In the end, he found another way and gave the meals cooked by his lover to the person he was pursuing.

It was not to save money, which Lin Yuan was not short of. It was just that he didn’t want to put in the effort.

Mu Nanqiao patted Lu Qi’s back gently, as if smoothing a kitten’s fur, but his focus was not on that idiot Lin Yuan. “You were hospitalized some time ago? What was wrong? How is your recovery now?”

“It wasn’t a big problem,” Lu Qi murmured to himself, “Did the doctor stab me in the eye? How could I be with such a person…..”

“Don’t talk nonsense.” Mu Nanqiao rubbed his head. His wish was fulfilled, and he pressed down that unruly hair.

Lu Qi was still in a state of bubbling anger, his head buzzing, until Mu Nanqiao pushed him to sit on the small sofa. Something warm was stuffed into his hands, and he lowered his head subconsciously. It was a cup of milk tea with the straw inserted.

“Drink something sweet.”

Lu Qi took a sip of milk tea and puffed out his cheeks.

The sweet peach flavor and taste of milk tea flooded his mouth. The temperature was just right, soothing his manic depression little by little.

He chewed the soft peach pulp and blinked, saying belatedly, “Thank you, this is delicious.”

Mu Nanqiao also took a sip from his own cup. He had asked for full sugar, but surprisingly, it wasn’t too sweet and tasted pretty good.

It was impossible to persuade Lu Qi not to think about this matter. Anyone who encountered such a thing would be angered to death. The two of them were silent for a moment. Lu Qi was still angry, and Mu Nanqiao was wondering whether Lin Yuan’s broken leg was too minor.

“Mew….” 

Fortunately, there were four small creatures in the room who couldn’t give them meaningful looks. Lu Qi drank half a cup of milk tea and gave a long sigh. “I’ll feed the kittens.”

He got up and went to the kitchen, and when he turned around, he found Mu Nanqiao following him.

“We agreed to take care of them together.” Mu Nanqiao unbuttoned his cufflinks and slowly rolled up his sleeves. “I’ll learn how.”

Lu Qi thought about it in confusion. Had he agreed to let Mu Nanqiao help take care of the kittens? Wouldn’t it be too much trouble?

But Mu Nanqiao had already raised his hand to get the milk powder on the shelf. He had no choice but to move closer. The two of them stood in front of the sink, and the space was a bit crowded. Lu Qi put his shoulder against Mu Nanqiao’s arm and looked at the temperature display on the kettle.

45℃. Just right.

Lu Qi directed Mu Nanqiao: “Pour the water first, then put in the milk powder…..”

The man next to him lowered his eyelashes and looked as serious as if he was conducting an experiment. Lu Qi couldn’t help but stare at his hands.

Mu Nanqiao’s hands were beautiful, with long fingers and slightly convex muscles on the back, but his knuckles were red and slightly scratched.

“What happened to your hands?” Lu Qi asked.

The fingers holding the milk powder spoon tightened, and Mu Nanqiao said casually: “I accidentally bruised them.”

Lu Qi thought silently, why do these hands encounter so many accidents?

After the four kittens finished drinking milk, Lu Qi crouched beside the cardboard box to play with them.

Lu Qi rubbed the kittens’ heads with his slender fingers. Just as he was about to say something, his stomach growled.

Mu Nanqiao was standing behind him. When Lu Qi turned around awkwardly, he saw the smile in the other’s eyes.

“It seems there is still a kitten who hasn’t had enough to eat.” Mu Nanqiao glanced at the watch on his wrist. “I don’t have any kitchen utensils over there. How about lending me the kitchen in exchange for dinner?”

Lu Qi looked him up and down and asked uncertainly, “Can you really cook?”

“Who are you looking down on?” Mu Nanqiao raised his eyebrows. “Order whatever you want.”

“But…..” Lu Qi coughed. “I only have two eggs left in the refrigerator. How about fried rice with eggs.”

Mu Nanqiao: ……

How could elementary school homework such as egg fried rice reflect his superb cooking skills? The most important thing was that he wouldn’t be able to outdo that Lin Yuan, who plagiarized all of his elementary school homework.

“I’m going to buy groceries,” Mu Nanqiao said firmly.

Today, this peacock was determined to spread his tail!

. . . . . . .

There was a large supermarket downstairs, which was very convenient for shopping. Lu Qi also wanted to follow him down, but Xiao Bai, one of the four cubs, vomited milk. Thus, he had to stay and clean up, as well as monitor the kitten’s condition.

Mu Nanqiao returned to the bottom of the unit with shopping bags. He was about to press the code to open the door when a low-key black business car behind him suddenly honked its horn.

He turned around and the car door opened. His assistant got out nervously.

Mu Nanqiao frowned and saw a middle-aged man sitting in the backseat through the car window.

Compared to the previous president of Mu Group, Mu Chuanbai could be considered very young. He and his wife had married early, and Mu Nanqiao was their only child. He was only twenty-one years old when they had Mu Nanqiao, so he was still in his prime.

Sitting in the back seat, he flipped through a stack of paper documents. Anyone would be able to see the blood relationship between him and Mu Nanqiao. The father and son had similar features, but Mu Nanqiao’s facial contours were more handsome and three-dimensional, while Mu Chuanbai’s face was much softer, with a natural calmness and elegance.

There was a thick blanket covering his legs. When Mu Nanqiao sat down, he sat on one corner. Mu Chuanbai patted his thigh in dissatisfaction and pulled out his blanket.

“Dad.” Mu Nanqiao sighed helplessly. “What are you doing here?”

“Let me ask you, why is the eight-piece Ru porcelain set you gave me missing two bowls and two spoons?” There were fine lines at the ends of Mu Chuanbai’s eyes. He glanced at his son who was taller than him and smiled very kindly. “Your mother opened it and found two empty spots.”

Mu Nanqiao: …….

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Chapter Fourteen << Table of Contents >> Chapter Sixteen