Thick dark curtains blocked out the moonlight outside. The lights were off in the dim, spacious room. Gu Qingwu curled up on the black leather sofa with her legs hugged, staring dazedly at the lighted bathroom with her long, curled eyelashes.
Through the open frosted glass door, the sound of gurgling water can be heard clearly.
Half an hour ago, He Sui Chen brought her from the stable to the lounge, then went to take a shower. It was not known whether he was confident that she would not peek, or whether he felt they were so familiar with each other that there was no need to cover up, so he did not even close the bathroom door.
Gu Qingwu rested his chin leisurely on his bent snow-white knees. After a while, he took out his mobile phone and sent a WeChat message to Luo Yuan: Brother Yuan, please ask the crew for three more days of vacation for me.
At around ten o'clock, Luo Yuan did not reply.
The surroundings gradually became quiet. Gu Qingwu leaned her head lightly on the pillow, struggling hard against sleepiness. She had been busy all day since she flew back to Sicheng, and her abundant energy had long been exhausted.
Not long after closing his eyes, He Suichen came out of the shower, changed into dark grey trousers and a bathrobe, with his belt loose and untied, vaguely revealing some of his strong abdominal muscles. He walked to the sofa and sat on the edge, watching Gu Qingwu lying down, unconsciously turning over, her black hair entangled with her arms and spread out, indirectly making her face seem only the size of a palm, her eyelashes were very long, and there was a small mole on the tip of her nose.
Her beauty lies in her bones. When she is still, she is not aggressive at all, giving people a harmless feeling, which easily makes men want to protect her.
He Sui Chen has never been tempted by beauty and has been regarded as a gentleman who can remain calm in the face of beautiful women for many years.
But only to her.
There is a lack of self-control.
He Sui stared at Gu Qingwu's sleeping face for a long time with deep eyes. His slender fingers lifted a strand of hair from her cheek, wrapped it around his fingers for a while, and then stroked it behind her ear. His knuckles touched her fair and smooth skin for three or four seconds. After he moved away, the warmth quickly dissipated.
The man stood up and left the sofa in silence, and the sound of his footsteps gradually faded away.
Gu Qingwu's curled eyelashes were like butterfly wings, tightly closed and trembling.
…
The next morning, the car stopped in front of the century-old house with two red lanterns hanging at the door.
The 101-year-old elder of the He family lives here. The courtyard looks quite old, with a strong ancient atmosphere, and it exudes the style of an aristocratic family from the inside out.
He Sui Chen helped her out of the car with great gentlemanly manners, and a butler was already waiting inside the door.
The cheongsam was still in the crew's hotel. Gu Qingwu chose a conservative style this time. She wore a dark blue silk skirt that was ankle-length, which made her look slim. She stood next to a handsome man in a suit and tie, and they walked up the stairs one after the other. The sunlight shining through the bamboo forest was particularly gentle, casting their low shadows.
After entering the main hall, Gu Qingwu let go of his arm and then remembered to ask, "Is that centenarian your grandfather?"
"It's the head of the He family." He Sui Chen whispered to her, "This is where the head of the family has always been in seclusion. After he abdicates in two years, a new person will be chosen to take the position."
Compared to the He family, a century-old family where family rules are paramount, Gu Qingwu's family background is at most an ordinary scholarly family. She joked, "You don't have hundreds of family rules, do you?"
"more than."
When He Suichen uttered these two words with his thin lips, he said, "If you are interested in the He family rules, I can show them to you."
Gu Qingwu smiled: "No thanks, I've always felt sleepy when reading since I was a child..."
He Sui Chen led her through the corridor. The autumn wind blew in his face, making his voice a little blurry: "Qing Wu, you will see it sooner or later."
Gu Qingwu listened carefully, but avoided the implication of his words.
Instead, he naturally changed the subject and asked him, "Who will be the next patriarch?"
He Suichen lowered his eyes and looked at her without saying a word, and a slight smile appeared on his very pleasing face.
"… "
Oh, you are the next one.
Gu Qingwu chose to end the conversation silently. One should not be competitive. He was truly in a high position of power at such a young age.
I walked all the way to the central hall, which was surrounded by ancient buildings with carved beams and painted rafters. I walked past the screen and saw an old man in a simple long robe sitting on an armchair. It seemed that he had been waiting here for a long time. He was sipping tea from a white porcelain cup.
Seeing someone coming, he took out his reading glasses and looked at Gu Qingwu carefully, then raised his head and asked He Suichen: "Is this the girl you wanted to bring back so much?"
The clan leader had a different version of the story, saying that it was He Sui Chen who tried to bring it back to the old house.
Gu Qingwu glanced at the man.
He Sui Chen did not argue. He walked over calmly, raised his hand to support Gu Qingwu's shoulder, and introduced her to the clan leader.
The old man nodded: "He is a good-looking child."
Then, he told the housekeeper to make two cups of hot tea and some pastries that girls liked, and asked Gu Qingwu to sit next to him.
Gu Qingwu felt a little confused and a little nervous. She had no experience in getting along with elders. She was usually eloquent, but here she sounded like a little mute.
I subconsciously turned my head to look at He Sui Chen and found that he was very calm and composed, and started chatting with the old man.
In every word, the old man praised her highly, saying that she looked beautiful and that the future generations of the He family, whether they took after their mother or their father, would surely be outstanding people.
After a while, the butler brought hot tea and pastries and placed them in front of Gu Qingwu.
What caught her attention was a set of writing brush, ink, paper and inkstone, which were placed on the desk on the old man's side. He Suichen unbuttoned his cuffs with long fingers and slowly rolled them up half an inch, revealing his clear and strong wrists. He stood tall and straight beside him and ground the ink with his own hands.
The tip of the ink-black brush in the old man's hand was hanging above a piece of red rice paper. The pattern on it could not be seen clearly due to the distance.
In an instant, he looked at Gu Qingwu kindly and suddenly asked, "Girl, what's your name?"
Gu Qingwu didn't understand why he asked this, but he did not forget that he came to the old house to repay He Sui Chen's favor, so he had to be polite.
She couldn't help but sit up straight, and said with her red lips slightly opened: "Gu Qingwu."
The old man started writing, and his old voice asked again: "What is your birth date?"
Most girls nowadays may not remember their birth date, but Gu Qingwu remembers it clearly. Because when she was disobedient since she was a child, her grandmother would scold her for being born in the wrong time and space, which led to her such a bad character.
After Gu Qingwu told the old man his birth date and horoscope, he looked at He Sui Chen again with a puzzled look.
He Sui Chen didn't look at her from beginning to end. He dripped the clear water from the white porcelain teacup onto the inkstone and slowly and skillfully ground the ink. There was a color like thick ink in his eyes, and his gaze fell on the old man's pen.
On the rice paper, each character is first carefully measured with a ruler for spacing, and then written stroke by stroke, with the black ink spreading out in an instant.
The atmosphere in the hall was so quiet that there was no sound.
Gu Qingwu couldn't see what was written, so she could only stare at the white porcelain teacup with her eyelashes lowered, until she heard the old man speaking to her: "In the He family, no one can control this kid's behavior now... Girl, he really broke the family motto for you..."
After the old man finished speaking, Gu Qingwu let out a soft "ah" before he could fully come to his senses.
She obviously lost her composure and didn't hear the elders' words clearly, but the old man didn't care. He drank half a sip of tea and said, "I'm going to take a rest, you guys go and look around the old house."
—
Gu Qingwu easily repaid the favor he owed He Sui Chen by just telling him his birth date.
She followed He Suichen out of the hall, not knowing where they were going. When she went back to the corridor, she would occasionally meet one or two people from the old house. When they saw He Suichen, they would stop in tacit agreement, step aside and respectfully call out, "Second Young Master."
Then, he glanced at her with a very obscure and complicated gaze.
He quickly looked away, not daring to look again.
Gu Qingwu didn't understand what this meant and cast a curious look at the man next to her.
This time, He Suichen did not ignore her curiosity like Zhongtang did. There was a smile in his eyes: "Do you want to visit the yard where I lived in my childhood?"
His tone was slow and his words were extremely clever, which immediately distracted Gu Qingwu's curiosity and attracted her to other things: "Did you live here when you were a child?"
"Well, my parents died unexpectedly when I was three years old. There was no one at home to take care of me, so I was sent to be raised by the clan leader."
He Sui Chen took her to continue visiting every part of the old house. It was the first time she heard him talk about the past, and it was as if he was telling someone else's story, so calm without any ups and downs.
Gu Qingwu couldn't help but look at him a few more times, and even ignored those valuable antique ornaments.
Soon, He Suichen asked her: "Why are you staring at me?"
Gu Qingwu's heart suddenly skipped a beat. He quickly looked away and turned around to notice a swing in the courtyard in front.
She deliberately walked over first to avoid the shyness she had just felt. By chance, a chubby cat, not afraid of strangers, came lazily from behind the tree, its orange tail brushing the hem of her dark blue skirt from time to time.
Women naturally have no resistance to cats, so Gu Qingwu was not surprised.
She picked up the orange cat, sat on the swing, and stroked it gently with her fingertips, as if trying to calm her fluctuating emotions.
With her eyelashes lowered, she saw the corner of He Suichen's suit trousers gradually getting closer and closer, almost touching the hem of her skirt.
"Green mist?"
"Yeah." Gu Qingwu raised her head and saw his tall figure half-kneeling on one knee, at eye level with her. He held her soft hand in his palm, and rubbed her tiny veins inch by inch with his fingertips. Her snow-white skin became hot and extended to her heart.
At this moment, He Sui Chen looked a little strange in her eyes.
Instinctively realizing that their behavior was crossing the line, Gu Qingwu felt a little nervous, and tried to change the subject by saying, "The lifeline on my palm is very short, right?"
He Suichen looked at her palm for a while, then took out a pen from the lining of his suit, and gently slid it down along the lifeline on it, extending it to the wrist bone, and whispered: "This will bless you with a long life."
Gu Qingwu looked at him in amazement. He didn't expect that he could play like this.
Somehow, after looking at He Sui Chen for a second or two, her red lips couldn't help but curl up into a smile.
He Sui looked at her with deep eyes.
There was no one in the courtyard. The leaves overhead were thick, and the afternoon sun slanted down through the gaps. Dots of golden spots enveloped the two figures and also illuminated his extremely focused profile.
Gu Qingwu suddenly stopped smiling, and her fingers tried to slip out of his palm: "Let's go shopping somewhere else."
He Sui Chen clenched his fists slightly and leaned over, making the shadows of the two people on the ground closer.
Gu Qingwu sat stiffly on the swing, unable to move, and felt the man's breath quietly fanning over her neck, sliding along her cheek to her soft lips with warmth. The atmosphere was ambiguous and contained a hint of suffocating tenderness.
The next second, she heard his gentle voice, which was lower than usual, but it clearly penetrated into her heart:
"Qing Wu, do you believe that I am serious about you?"