Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"Good grief!"

Uncle Li returned from an errand and was shocked by the mess as he walked in.

He quickly cleaned up and went upstairs to call Shen Gali down to prepare dinner.

Although he hadn't had a proper dinner in days, for some reason, the young master insisted that Shen Gali cook.

Even an old man like him couldn't take it anymore.

Impatient and forgetting his manners, he pushed open the door to the storage room. Sure enough, Shen Gali was fast asleep leaning against that hideous doll.

He suddenly wondered—did Shen Gali really like that doll that much? Why would he willingly sleep on it?

The young master also seemed fond of it, having kept it by his side since childhood. He said several times he'd throw it away but never did. Yet he didn't want to see it either, so he left it collecting dust in the storage room.

But that wasn't the point.

"Mr. Shen, please get up quickly. The young master will be home soon, and you haven't prepared today's dinner yet."

Shen Gali slowly opened his eyes, dazed: "Weren't there leftovers from breakfast? I didn't touch them. You can heat them up and eat."

Uncle Li thought: Good grief! He dares suggest the young master eat leftovers?!

He dragged Shen Gali to the kitchen, took a few deep breaths, pulled out his hardcover notebook with trembling hands, and began reciting:

"Today's menu: staple—hand-pulled noodles; main course—..."

Shen Gali lost all interest as soon as he heard "hand-pulled noodles."

Luckily, the house had an automatic dough mixer, saving him some trouble.

The proper way to make hand-pulled noodles: roll the dough into a large sheet, fold it, and cut it into your preferred width.

Shen Gali's hand-pulled noodles—

Uncle Li couldn't bear to watch.

Just then, the sound of the fingerprint lock echoed. Uncle Li hurried over to greet the young master.

As soon as Nan Liujing entered, he asked, "Where's Shen Gali?"

Uncle Li smiled nervously, his wrinkled face full of worry: "Mr. Shen is in the kitchen preparing fresh and delicious hand-pulled noodles for you."

Nan Liujing nodded, his eyes scanning every corner of the room.

Clean and tidy—different from what he had imagined.

He changed clothes and walked to the dining table. Shen Gali came out carrying a bowl of noodles.

Nan Liujing sneered: "Absolutely stunning."

He was referring to Shen Gali, whose face, nose, and hair were dotted with flour, making him look like a snowman.

At this moment, every muscle in Shen Gali's body screamed in pain. He had wanted to see what the suspected cheater Nan Liujing actually looked like, but now he barely had the energy to breathe.

He slumped over the table and said weakly: "Eat."

Uncle Li looked puzzled: "No other dishes?"

Shen Gali slowly raised his index finger, pointing at the bowl: "Too much trouble, so I just threw it all together."

Both of them looked down at the bowl.

Stir-fried vegetables—yes, a few leaves of bok choy on top of the noodles;

Chicken stewed with mushrooms—yes, pre-cooked chicken strips with mushrooms;

Dessert yogurt with mixed nuts—yes, a few large peanuts bobbing in the soup.

The noodles were twisted into odd shapes, clumped into a messy heap in the bowl, most of them no longer resembling strips.

Everything from today's menu was there, but the two of them were left speechless.

"Oh, right." Shen Gali remembered something else, pulled a carton of yogurt from his pocket, slowly slid it across the table, and lay back down: "Yogurt with mixed nuts. Here's the yogurt. Mix it with your tongue."

"Trying to piss me off?" Nan Liujing made no move to pick up his chopsticks, his voice cold.

Shen Gali closed his eyes and slowly shook his head: "I tried really hard, but I'm a useless piece of trash with zero life skills. I'm sorry."

That "I'm sorry," combined with admitting he was useless, was so sincere that Nan Liujing couldn't find a way to vent.

Sincerity is always the ultimate killer move.

Shen Gali wasn't lying—he had indeed tried hard, though his patience for effort lasted only three minutes.

If you sifted through the noodles carefully, you could still find a few properly shaped pretty ones.

Nan Liujing put down his chopsticks, remained silent for a moment, then asked: "What about the clothes? Did you wash them?"

Shen Gali pointed to the ceiling, meaning they were hanging on the third floor.

Upstairs, Nan Liujing looked at the puddles of water on the balcony floor and the shirts that had completely shrunk into children's sizes. He pulled out his phone and took a photo, mentally opening "Plan 5.0 for Breaking the Engagement" and added "Disobedience" under the column "Shen Gali's Crimes."

If he wanted a clean break in the divorce proceedings and to shut up the Shen family, these records were necessary.

Night fell.

Shen Gali tossed and turned in bed. Maybe it was because he had slept too much during the day, but now he wasn't sleepy at all.

He felt like something was missing.

After thinking for a while, he got up and headed for the storage room.

In the living room on the second floor, Nan Liujing, watching TV, was rubbing his temples with one hand.

His head hurt again.

He glanced up lazily and saw Shen Gali, wearing wrinkled pajamas, leave his room and walk straight to the storage room.

He fixed his gaze on the storage room door, wondering what Shen Gali was planning in the middle of the night.

Then he saw Shen Gali drag that hideous doll out.

Nan Liujing's fingertips clenched. He suddenly sat up straight, then caught himself and quickly sat back down.

"Shen Gali," he growled coldly.

Shen Gali heard the voice, glanced over, and figured Nan Liujing was hung up on some rule again, so he said, "Good night."

"Put the doll back," Nan Liujing said coldly.

Even if Shen Gali took his car keys or property deeds, he wouldn't care, but the doll was a different story.

Shen Gali picked up the doll, stared at it for a long time, and said softly, "I can't sleep. I might be used to sleeping with it. Can you lend it to me?"

When he had the nurse read the original story to him, he had been drifting in and out of sleep, so he didn't know why Nan Liujing reacted so strongly to this doll. Was it something important that had been gathering dust in the storage room?

Maybe Nan Liujing just hated him personally.

But since the man had said so, he couldn't keep it, no matter how important it was.

He obediently put the doll back and even patted the dust off it.

Shen Gali walked out of the room, keeping his distance: "I put it back."

The hallway was unlit and dim, making it hard to see the man's face. Only the dark blue of his pajamas was visible, with his pale, slender hands and feet extending from the cuffs and pant legs.

Unable to sleep, Shen Gali felt a dull ache beginning in his head.

Shen Gali rubbed his temples and said weakly, "I can't sleep."

"What's that got to do with me?" Nan Liujing said mercilessly.

It really had nothing to do with him.

Shen Gali rubbed his throbbing temples and went back to his room. To help himself fall asleep, he even took a dense, difficult world classic from the bedside table, but the more he read, the more wakefulness surfaced like driftwood surfacing from the bottom, filling his mind.

He still couldn't fall asleep.

Shen Gali sat up, stared blankly at the bedside for a while, then suddenly got up and walked out the door.

He walked through the corridor to the hallway, approaching the man whose face was hidden in the darkness.

"Though insomnia has nothing to do with you, I've thought about it carefully—it has to do with the doll." Shen Gali slowly leaned down, his body gradually closing in on the man who was as cold as a statue. "You and the doll are pretty similar. Can you stand in for it?"

Nan Liujing: ?

Without waiting for an answer, Shen Gali reached out and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, wrapping his legs around his waist, and tilted his head into the crook of his neck.

"Except for being harder, you're pretty similar in other ways," Shen Gali commented.

Ignoring the face, he simply enjoyed the subtle comfort of being enveloped by a well-built body.

Nan Liujing smelled wonderful, like a mountain forest after rain, exuding a cool, bitter scent of trees, damp and mixed with greenery, refreshing.

He felt drowsy.

Nan Liujing's body gradually tensed, his eyes dark and heavy with irritation. His tone was warning: "Let go."

It wasn't because he was heavy—on the contrary, he was light—but because Nan Liujing hated such overly intimate physical contact, which made him feel as if his carefully concealed secrets were about to be exposed.

When the man didn't move, he raised his voice: "Let go."

He heard rhythmic breathing.

Shen Gali had fallen asleep.

Nan Liujing didn't move rashly, unsure if the man was faking sleep.

The slender body nestled in his arms, and through the thin pajamas, he could feel the warmth of his body—slightly hot, covering the night's moisture with a layer of heat.

The scent of laundry detergent on his clothes, warmed by his skin, transformed into another fragrance, like a traditional Chinese herb—subtle and cool.

He lowered his gaze to Shen Gali's face, where snow-white skin from which dark, moist eyelashes extended, and his lips were a soft pale pink.

This scheming man must know which angle was most attractive. Using insomnia as an excuse, this was probably his real intention.

Just then, Uncle Li happened to get up in the middle of the night. Seeing this scene, he muttered, "Oh my, oh my," and quickly helped pick Shen Gali up.

As he carried Shen Gali away from the young master's embrace, Shen Gali's hand stubbornly clung to the young master's lapel. After struggling for a while, afraid of waking him, Uncle Li had to pry his fingers open one by one before finally lifting him up.

"Young master, should Mr. Shen be taken to sleep in the storage room or...?" Uncle Li asked softly.

Nan Liujing thought of the doll and said in a low voice, "Send him to his room. Gently, don't wake him."

If he woke him, he would come over and cling to him again.

Hearing the words "don't wake him," Uncle Li knew the young master's gruff concern but couldn't help feeling delighted.

Hehe, things are looking up.

The next morning.

"Buzz buzz buzz—" The phone vibrated incessantly.

Shen Gali opened his eyes, frozen for a few seconds. Realizing he wasn't in Nan Liujing's arms but in his own room, he didn't bother thinking about how he got back. He grabbed his phone and saw the caller ID: Moron No.5.

Since it was a moron calling, he could just ignore it, right?

He rejected the call and tried to go back to sleep.

But Moron No.5 was persistent, calling again and again.

Half-asleep, Shen Gali tried to turn off his phone but accidentally answered. A familiar voice came through:

"Li Li? Why did it take you so long to answer? Are you feeling unwell?"

Oh, it was his adoptive father.

Remembering the bank card and the man's reluctant look, Shen Gali, who rarely bothered, sat up and picked up the phone: "No, I was sleeping."

Adoptive father Gong Yuan sighed in relief and softened his tone: "Then let Dad finish talking, and you can go back to sleep, okay?"

"Go ahead."

Instead of "not good," he said "go ahead," meaning he was facing this adoptive father.

"This weekend is your brother Lanqing's birthday. It's his first birthday since he was formally acknowledged by the family. Your mother is especially throwing a birthday banquet for him at a hotel. A lot of people will come. You'll come too, right?" Gong Yuan's voice was filled with barely contained anticipation.

Shen Gali didn't want to go.

Just hearing "a lot of people will come" made him think of how awkward it would be. Besides, the people were strangers to him; they probably didn't care about his well-wishes.

Shen Gali was silent. Gong Yuan continued, "I know you don't like your brother, but he's been saying he hopes you'll come ever since last time. He chased after the car but couldn't catch it, and you didn't answer his calls, so he came to ask me."

“Li Li, come here. Dad really wants to see you too.”

Those words—“Dad really wants to see you too”—shattered all his resolve.

There were two reasons he didn't want to go.

First, he simply didn't want to.

Second, he had been awake when the caregiver was reading this part of the story.

In the original story, the antagonist Nan Liujing had long been enamored with Shen Lanqing. Growing up in an environment full of scheming and deceit, he was profoundly drawn to Shen Lanqing’s pure, innocent personality, and had long regarded him as an untouchable treasure. So, as the banquet was winding down, he made a rare public appearance and lavishly bought Shen Lanqing a worldwide limited-edition sports car as a birthday present.

Naturally, Nan Feiyao, as his romantic rival, was determined not to be outdone. Having learned of Nan Liujing’s plan in advance, he conspired with a minor character to secretly swap the birthday gift, causing the antagonist to suffer a major embarrassment at the banquet.

Nan Feiyao had always looked down on the original host, but saw him as an easy-to-use pawn. So he pretended to let slip that the original host was behind everything, framing him, while escaping unscathed.

Consequently, the humiliated antagonist believed the original host was responsible for it all. Upon returning home, he tortured him until he wished he was dead.

The description read: The desolate mansion was as lifeless as its master; only the screams coming from the house every night let people know someone lived there.

After recalling the plot, Shen Gali grumbled inwardly: Not only is this plot brainless, it's also off-putting, completely insulting everyone's intelligence.