Chapter 13

With the recent hot weather, she was wearing a cool cotton linen shirt with a gray bustier today, and when Zhao Shuming’s palm gripped her shoulder, Jiang Yimiao had already vaguely felt his temperature.

It wasn’t until his palm was pressed into the crook of her arm that she realized that Zhao Shuming’s hand was much hotter than hers.

Jiang Yimiao turned back to look at him.

Through her shirt, Jiang Yimiao vaguely saw the lines of his body.

Zhao Shuming patted her arm, “Go inside.”

His hand, however, took a few seconds before completely letting go, and when he lowered it, the cold air around him swarmed back in, and the hot sensation gradually dissipated.

Jiang Yimiao nodded at him and slowly closed the door behind her, “I’m so hot, I want to take a shower.”

“The hot water is ready, you can wash if you want.”

Zhao Shuming turned back to look at her who looked like she was in a daze, he reached out and waved his hand in front of Jiang Yimiao’s eyes.

“What’s wrong, thinking about something in your mind?”

Jiang Yimiao came back to her senses, “Thinking about the afternoon code.”

Her brain circuits were just weird, it was possible that she could pass into thinking about work-related things anytime, anywhere, but Jiang Yimiao wasn’t so outrageous as to pull out her laptop on the subway and knock out code.

When she was a child, she envied the kind of adults who were knocking on their laptops outside, but in retrospect, she could only say that children were really too naive.

Zhao Shuming couldn’t help but lose his smile, ”You’re off work and still thinking about going to work? Tomorrow is another weekend, have a good rest.”

Jiang Yimiao nodded busily, “Then I’m going to take a shower.”

With that, she slipped on her slippers and quickly ran to the balcony to collect her clothes.

Zhao Shuming stood behind her looking at her swaying back, and then looked down at the palm where he had just held her arm.

He smiled and gently clenched his fist.

After taking a shower and looking at the mirror that was covered in a layer of water mist, Jiang Yimiao all felt that her entire face was a little rosier, and she finally looked like she didn’t have that programmer’s social animal smell.

She patted her face and hummed the sweet song she had been listening to recently and walked out of the bathroom.

After moving into the master bedroom, Jiang Yimiao had always bathed in the bathroom in the master bedroom while Zhao Shuming used the outside master bathroom, and when she finished bathing Zhao Shuming also happened to be done and was sitting on the sofa looking at his cell phone.

“I haven’t even had a chance to look at last night’s update.” Jiang Yimiao sat paralyzed beside him.

She turned on the TV and quickly found the drama she was still following.

“I’ll be able to catch up if I’m free in the next couple days.” He chimed in, then put his phone on the desktop in a state of wanting to watch it with her.

It was windy tonight, and with the balcony door half open, the evening breeze swept in leisurely wrapped in a comfortable coolness.

Jiang Yimiao’s loose hair blew away with the wind, and she was surrounded by a mixture of scents from her body and Zhao Shuming’s body, two complex scents intertwined together, but inexplicably harmonious.

Jiang Yimiao liked this kind of scent that could make people feel comfortable, so much so that she sat on the sofa in a more and more comfortable position, and gradually began to watch the TV series with full attention.

Just as she was watching, the high . When the climactic episode came, the sixty-second commercial suddenly popped up.

Jiang Yimiao wrinkled her eyebrows, “How come members have to watch commercials too.”

She muttered, and in her heart, she angrily cursed the evil capitalists several times.

“Miao Miao, have you made a good decision?” Taking advantage of the commercial break, Zhao Shuming coldly asked.

Zhao Shuming was sitting right beside her, and his voice was soft but she heard it clearly.

However, Jiang Yimiao’s attention was still stuck in the episode just now, and she turned around and furrowed her brows in some confusion, “What decision?”

“The house ah, have you thought about which one to choose?”

“Oh, I almost forgot, in fact, I really think they’re both similar, my parents also said they’re both quite good. Why don’t you help me with my counseling?”

Jiang Yimiao picked up the cell phone that was sitting on the coffee table, “I took some pictures.”

Zhao Shuming sat on the sofa, waiting for her to show him the photos.

Jiang Yimiao tilted her body closer to him, “These are all of them, I took pictures of both the kitchen and the bedroom, the orientation of these two houses are the same, I can’t even choose one by metaphysics.”

“Let’s see.” Zhao Shuming looked down at her cell phone screen.

“It feels like this one’s bedroom orientation and bed placement might be better.” Zhao Shuming pointed to the bedroom in the photo.

“Right oh, isn’t there a saying that it’s not good to have the head of the bed facing the toilet.” Jiang Yimiao stroked her chin.

Just as she finished speaking, Cheng Wenyao sent her a message.

[Have you thought about which house to choose, or are you ready to take another look?]

Zhao Shuming looked at the message pop-up window, and after seeing that Jiang Yimiao’s note to Cheng Wenyao was “Yao”, he narrowed his eyes.

He remembered that Jiang Yimiao’s note to him used to be “Brother”, and after so many years, he didn’t know if Jiang Yimiao had changed her note to him.

However, according to the habits of a normal person, such things as notes probably wouldn’t be changed frequently.

“Then choose this set, this bedroom is a bit better.” Jiang Yimiao no longer dwelled on it.

It was true that metaphysics was the more suitable psychology for Chinese people.

Zhao Shuming slightly opened his lips, wanting to say something but swallowing it down by himself, “Well, Miao Miao, you watch it.”

“I’ll give Cheng Wenyao a message back first.” She directly cut the cell phone page to WeChat in front of Zhao Shuming and quickly returned a message.

Zhao Shuming wore glasses and had sharp eyes.

At a glance, he saw her top, and he was still lying comfortably in the front row of her top, and even the note that she had given him in the first place had never been changed.

That sour feeling of jealousy he felt had completely dissipated today.

“Then we’ll decide to rent that one, I’ll talk to mom and dad again as well.” Jiang Yimiao glanced at Zhao Shuming after replying to the message, and then she stood up and ran to the balcony to call her mom and say something to that side again.

But she didn’t expect the agent to return her message at night, there’s money to be made, son of a bitch.

The agent immediately told Jiang Yimiao on Saturday to discuss the matter of signing the contract.

It wasn’t until the morning after Jiang Yimiao had a mouthful of steamed dumplings and a mouthful of soymilk that she asked Zhao Shuming, “Are you free this afternoon? I told the agent that I’d go back this afternoon to look at the house and sign the contract if there’s no problem, so if you’re free, can you accompany me?”

Today’s temperature is a bit high, the sunlight casts a ray of light through the balcony, and the clothes hanging on the balcony are pulled out in long shadows.

Noise Cuckoo’s voice was loud, drawn out and long and mournful. Its voice could be heard even on the sixteenth floor, and there was more than one noise cuckoo screaming.

Zhao Shuming suddenly felt a little distracted.

“Signing the contract today, so is it going to move out soon?”

“No, the contract is signed for half a year, starting from July 1st.”

It was only early June now, there was still some time before July.

“Going to sign it this afternoon?”

Jiang Yimiao nodded.

His good-looking eyebrows wrinkled, “I’m sorry Miao Miao, only yesterday I was informed that there is a teacher training in the afternoon at the school’s psychology center and the college side, so I may not be able to accompany you to sign the contract.”

He paused, “But I should be able to come back in the evening.”

Jiang Yimiao raised her head to look at him, “Oh, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine for me to go and sign by myself.”

Her intention was to go there to sign the paper contract, and in the meantime take another look at the surroundings of the house. The fact that Zhao Shuming couldn’t accompany her just meant that she would have to take the subway and it wasn’t as convenient as driving.

“Call me if there’s anything on your end.” Zhao Shuming was inexplicably a little uneasy in his heart, and after thinking about it, he still instructed one more time.

Jiang Yimiao nodded her head, but on her lips, she said, “Why, nothing will happen, it’s not like I haven’t signed a contract before.”

She stuffed another bite of Xiao Long Bao, “This Xiao Long Bao is so delicious.”

“Then eat some more.” Zhao Shuming pulled a smile and stuffed her with another xiao long bao.

Jiang Yimiao somewhat regretted coming to sign the contract this afternoon because it was just too hot today.

The heat on the ground was steaming upwards one by one, and the heat spread from her feet to her whole body, even the asphalt on the ground was softened by the heat.

She held the umbrella and squinted her eyes to look at the map on her cell phone to navigate the route.

She was under the impression that she could get there within a few minutes of walking out of the subway station, but she had already been walking for almost ten minutes and still hadn’t found her destination.

“Strange, I remember that’s how I walked last time.” Jiang Yimiao took her cell phone and waved it up and down, trying to make the map more accurate.

But there were just too many paths and alleys here, and she was a bit of a roadie with no sense of direction, so Jiang Yimiao had to resign herself to restarting the map software and re-navigating.

She walked forward aimlessly until she reached a street that looked somewhat familiar, when a group of people suddenly flooded into her sight.

It looked like they were all residents of the neighborhood, and they were saying something in the local dialect, which Jiang Yimiao could understand but not too clearly, so she thought of going forward to ask for directions.

As a result, a cold sweat suddenly broke out behind her back, and her stomach churned as if she was being stirred with chopsticks.

At first she thought it was a physiological reaction to being hot and hungry, but it wasn’t until she walked up to the group that she saw the uniformed staff in front of her.

Further along was the area surrounded by a cordon, and that sickening feeling of revulsion in her body got worse as a strange odor seemed to rush in between her nostrils.

“Is this what happened?” Jiang Yimiao asked a mouthful of an aunt in front of her.

“Oops, dead.” Auntie returned to her in not-so-standard Mandarin, and then muttered, “It’s really Yin Gong Oh.”

Seeing the picture on the other side of the cordon, Jiang Yimiao was so scared that she took several steps backward.

She held onto the wall and walked to the corner of this street, and as if Big Data had located her, her cell phone received reports of the crime one after another.

She scanned it to realize that a murder had occurred here, and the modus operandi appeared to be brutal.

Jiang Yimiao covered her mouth and forced her discomfort to fly away from the place, and when she sat down at a sugar water store to take a breath, the agent called her.

There was a murder in the neighborhood, so she had to refuse to sign the contract for the time being; after all, she hadn’t signed it yet, not even one of the eight characters had been signed yet. The agent had to understand her somewhat sadly.

Jiang Yimiao drew several paper towels to wipe the cold sweat rising on her forehead, and made a few more calls to Zhao Shuming. But he probably didn’t receive her calls because he was busy.

She didn’t really believe in ghosts and gods, but she always felt that there might be certain magnetic fields in the world that could connect people to these unspoken things.

For example, her body would also experience such discomfort when she went to the cemetery.

The official report on the case hadn’t come out yet, but she had already seen some catches in the tweets on social media platforms, and the victims had died in a gruesome manner, so she felt uncomfortable from the bottom of her heart.

Jiang Yimiao looked down at her hands, which had lost their blood color, and spat out a breath as she walked towards the subway station, and had just swiped her card when the cell phone in her bag rang.

She picked up the call Zhao Shuming had given her.

“Miao Miao, is everything okay?” He asked, “I just got home and didn’t receive your call on the way.”

Jiang Yimiao gasped and shook her head while returning, “I didn’t sign the contract.”

“What’s wrong?” Noticing that her tone wasn’t quite normal, Zhao Shuming asked after her somewhat nervously.

“There was a murder in the neighborhood, and I just happened to see …… it,” she said, her tone a little scared and sad.

“Where are you now, do you want me to pick you up?” Zhao Shuming held his forehead, that sense of unease in the morning was indeed accurate.

“No need, I just entered the subway station.” Seeing the people coming and going in the subway station, Jiang Yimiao’s mood calmed down a little.

“Good, then I’ll go cook first, so don’t be in a hurry.”

Jiang Yimiao slowly returned, “Uh-huh.”

Even Saturdays had evening rush hour in the southern city, and when Jiang Yimiao returned to the neighborhood, she was so hot and dry that she felt like she had crawled out of a hot frying pan.

She desperately needed to stay in an environment where the temperature was low enough to be comfortable, and after rushing back to her door, Jiang Yimiao hurriedly searched for her keys from her bag.

But she couldn’t find her keys after searching for a while, Jiang Yimiao frowned as the sensor light in the corridor automatically turned off due to the time-delay circuit, and darkness filled her vision again.

She might have forgotten to bring her key out, or she might have lost it.

Jiang Yimiao looked down at the light peeking through the doorway, and she knew that Zhao Shuming had already returned home.

And the safe passage signage behind her was bubbling with green light, and the elevator not far behind her was ringing non-stop, and she who had been so muddled in the afternoon felt that her entire being had instantly tightened up, and she was suddenly a little panicked, and she lifted her hand and slapped the door forcefully several times.

Zhao Shuming hadn’t had time to untie his apron, and when he heard the knocking, he rushed to open the door for her.

Jiang Yimiao exhaled, she looked tired from not having enough nap, and right now, she was not just tired, she was even a bit wretched.

“Miao Miao.” He stared into her eyes, “Dinner is ready, are you hungry?”

Jiang Yimiao blinked, her eyes seemed a little sour, she arched her eyebrows and suddenly moved forward to encircle Zhao Shuming’s waist.

It felt hot but not as mushy and annoying as the weather outside, and Jiang Yimiao heard his thumping heartbeat.

Zhao Shuming’s hand paused in mid-air, and then he patted Jiang Yimiao’s back, “Don’t be afraid Miao Miao, you’re home now.”