Shen Antu whispered to himself: "Then you have a pretty good temper."
Xie Duo laughed muffledly.
In Xie Duo's eyes, Shen Antu's behavior over the past two days was like that of an insecure puppy, who wanted to mark Xie Duo all over his body, not to mention that after throwing a tantrum, he took the initiative to send himself to his master to be squeezed and kneaded as he pleased.
"So you dressed yourself like this just to apologize?" Xie Duo asked.
Shen Antu pretended to be dead.
Xie Duo was in a good mood. He leaned over and kissed his forehead, his voice extremely lazy and hoarse: "Do you want to try to crawl under the table next time when I have a video conference and see if I will get angry?"
Shen Antu no longer had any worldly desires today. He pretended not to hear Xie Duo's flirting and fell asleep soon after.
Chapter 26 Xie Family Mansion
Since Shen Antu had demonstrated with his own actions the day before that he had recovered, Xie Duo did not take him to the hospital and went straight to the company early the next morning.
Before the morning's work was halfway done, Xie Duo received a call from the Xie family's old house.
Xie's mother Li Wei first chatted about family matters for a few sentences, and then changed the subject and said, "You haven't been home for a long time. Your father misses you very much. Why don't you come home for dinner tonight? If you have a drinking party, just postpone it, okay?"
Zhou Minghui's bad words came true. Xie Duo glanced at Shen Antu, who was sketching in front of the swimming pool at home, and said to the phone, "Okay, I'll go back tonight."
Shen Antu seemed to be practicing sketching. In less than two hours, he had already drawn five pictures. The subjects of the sketches ranged from the bedside table in the bedroom to the swimming pool on the underground first floor. At the beginning, it took him half an hour to draw a picture, but later it only took ten minutes to complete a picture. The one that reached the swimming pool was already the sixth one.
Xie Duo called him while he washed his hands and went to the kitchen to get some water.
It was the first time Shen Antu received a call from Xie Duo. He stared at the caller ID for a long time before pressing the answer button: "Hello?" The end of his tone was slightly raised, with a hint of subtle surprise.
"I'm going back to the old house for dinner tonight," Xie Duo realized that Shen Antu didn't know what the old house meant, so he explained, "It's my parents' house. I might stay overnight."
"Oh..." Shen Antu's voice trailed off, "Then I'll ask Aunt Zhao to make a meal for one person, and you can enjoy your meal at home."
"Well, call me if you have anything."
"good."
Xie Duo stared at Shen Antu in the surveillance video, watching him slowly hang up the phone, stand alone in the kitchen in a daze for a while, and then go to the garage with a drawing board.
The Xie family's old house is an old house in the true sense, with white walls, green tiles, low eaves and pink decoration. It is an old city area with a completely different modern style from the city center. Because of its age, it has become a unique landscape in Z City and is an ancient building that the government has explicitly approved to be protected.
Xie Duo grew up here, but moved out when he was in junior high school for the convenience of going to school, and rarely came back after growing up.
The impression that Xie Duo had most here was not the warmth of home, but the pervasive pressure. It wrapped around Xie Duo, molded him, and made him into Xie Duo.
As the next heir of Ruiqian, Xie Duo had to remain perfect since he was a child. Although no one really required him to do so, his parents' teachings, the looks of his relatives, and the attention of the outside world were like a heavy burden hanging on his shoulders.
Xie Duo successfully became what everyone expected him to be, calm and composed, and decisive in killing, but this was not because he wanted to.
Xie Duo parked the car outside the courtyard gate and entered the house greeted by the old housekeeper.
"Uncle Zhang." Xie Duo greeted the housekeeper.
Uncle Zhang smiled and said, "Come in quickly, your parents have been waiting for a while. Is work still so hard?"
When Xie's father just handed over the company to Xie Duo, Xie Duo lived in the old house and stayed up until two or three in the morning every day. Uncle Zhang made midnight snacks for him for a period of time.
Xie Duo replied: "Better than before."
The two chatted all the way to the lobby. The old house had been renovated once before, and the inside was not as old as it looked from the outside. Walking into the house from the outside felt like traveling back to the modern era from the Republic of China.
Li Wei was sitting on the sofa watching TV. When she saw Xie Duo, she stood up and went to greet him: "You are here. Why are you so late? The guests are waiting anxiously."
Even at home, Li Wei likes to wear a decent cheongsam with a waistcoat draped over her body. She wears light makeup, and her facial features are delicate and soft. Even in her twilight years, she is still a beauty, and even her wrinkles seem to be decoration. Xie Duo inherited most of her facial features, except for his eyes, which are more like his father Xie Changqing's.
"Mom." Xie Duo handed the coat to the housekeeper and continued what she had just said, "Who is the guest at home?"
Li Wei was about to speak when she heard some noise upstairs, so she didn't need to explain much.
I saw several people coming down the wooden stairs from the second floor. Leading the group was a middle-aged man in his fifties, wearing a dark Tang suit. He had a serious look and looked intimidating without even getting angry.
Xie Duo walked up and called out "Dad". Xie Changqing nodded and walked down the stairs. Three people followed him down. The first two were a middle-aged couple, and the last one was a slim girl in a velvet dress.
Xie Duo greeted everyone one by one: "Uncle Chong, Aunt Zhong, Shi Rui."
Xie Duo had no appetite for this meal, which was more tiring than talking about business at the wine table. He also had to be alert to Chong Shirui's small movements of touching his hands and legs from time to time. What made Xie Duo even more irritated was that he had not been able to see Shen Antu through the surveillance camera for two hours.