Cold as Ice

This was the earliest day Zhu Maolin had returned home in recent times.

It had only just grown dark, and it was not yet seven in the evening.

There were no slippers left outside the door, nor was there any food on the table that had been prepared long ago and had already gone cold. The only thing that remained the same was the silence inside the house.

Hou Chen Yuhan was not home.

Zhu Maolin did not even know that she would not be home at this hour. He could have checked before returning, but for some reason, he had not done so.

He tried to pick up his phone. Several times... several times, he could not think of anything to say.

Not long afterward, Zhu Maolin carried a bowl of noodles out of the kitchen, turned on the television, and ate while watching it. Yet he did not know whether the noodles tasted good, what was playing on the television, or what the dialogue was saying.

Because it was truly very quiet here. Zhu Maolin liked a quiet working environment, so his office was also extremely quiet. However, the two kinds of silence gave him entirely different feelings.

Should I continue working in the study later? Zhu Maolin suddenly had this thought... but first, he should finish his noodles.

Only one warm-colored downlight was on in the living room, serving to add a touch of warmth to the room's coldness.

When he was halfway through his meal, his wife, Hou Chen Yuhan, opened the door and came in with a bag in her hand... It was a bag from the convenience store downstairs, and the box inside was probably food.

Hou Chen Yuhan had not expected that, at this hour and at the very moment she opened the