Page 18

Is she a "housekeeper," or a "kindergarten teacher"?

No, who knows if her claim about graduating with straight A's is even true? She needs to find someone to look into that.

Ah, so noisy. Can this noise-making machine go to sleep already?

Yu Qing buried one side of her face into the pillow and raised a hand to cover her other ear with the quilt, revealing a look of misery that no one could see, as if life had lost all meaning.

Xiang Changge merely glanced at Yu Qing's movements before continuing to read the poetry in her hands.

Compared to having to sleep with one eye open for fear of being eaten by zombies or robbed in her sleep, providing a bedtime service was simple and even a little interesting.

As for what the person forced to receive the service was thinking, that was none of Xiang Changge's concern.

But what exactly is this poem trying to express?

Too lazy to use her brain, Xiang Changge read it out in a stiff, monotonous tone, not understanding a word of it.

As she read on, the movement on the bed ceased, and Xiang Changge couldn't help but steal a yawn.

Come to think of it, it was actually quite hypnotic.

She checked the time; she had been reading on and off for over half an hour.

Seeing that the person on the bed had been quiet for a good while and her breathing was steady, Xiang Changge asked the system full of anticipation: "Is she asleep?"

System: "No."

"..."

The system's two brief words plunged both people in the room into the next stage of torture.

Xiang Changge continued to read, and Yu Qing continued to be forced to listen.

When she heard her stop for a moment, Yu Qing had felt a flicker of joy, thinking that Xiang Changge was tired or that the other party thought she was asleep and was ready to finish. Who would have guessed she would keep reading!

Read, read, read, read, read—she might as well poison herself; at least that would be a quicker end to the pain.

After enduring for another five minutes, Yu Qing couldn't take it anymore. She stopped pretending to sleep, turned her head, glared at the person by the bed, and asked: "How long do you intend to read for?"

Isn't she tired? She was tired to death just from listening.

Xiang Changge looked up from the book, her eyelids drooping as she looked at her: "Until you fall asleep."

Since she was already here, her mission was to help her develop a normal sleep schedule. How could she leave halfway through? She had to sleep, whether she wanted to or not.

Yu Qing: "..."

Yu Qing turned back around, continuing to face away from Xiang Changge.

The sight she had caught when she first turned to look at her flashed before her eyes again.

The other party was sitting on the chair. She had been sitting quite properly at first, but now she was leaning back lazily as if she had no bones, and her eyes revealed a sense of fatigue.

She didn't quite understand.

Looking at Xiang Changge like that, she must be tired and bored from reading poetry to her, so why did she insist on doing it?

She didn't want to listen, and the other party was wasting her energy, so couldn't they just go back to their own rooms and sleep in peace?

Why on earth was she doing this?

In any case, she was the only one left in the Yu Family now. Whether she did a good job or was diligent, no one would know. She should just be like the housekeepers of the past, doing her part and leaving it at that; why go out of her way to demand this and that of herself?

Is it responsibility? Or does she feel that since she promised her parents, she must do it well?

Yu Qing didn't know, just as she didn't know why her heart felt so heavy at this moment.

The voice, with its flat tone and slightly hoarse timbre, read one line of poetry after another, even though the person reading didn't know what she was reading, and the person listening wasn't really listening either.

The rain outside the window grew heavier, and a few rumbles of thunder seemed to sound, but the people inside the room didn't care.

The rain outside the window could not drench them inside.

Yu Qing originally felt she wasn't sleepy, but that voice was just so boring that, without realizing it, she didn't even know when she had drifted off.

The steady breathing in the room became long and rhythmic. This time, without needing to ask the system, Xiang Changge knew Yu Qing was asleep.

She silently closed the book and placed it on the nightstand.

Standing up, she stretched her arms over her head. Xiang Changge checked the time; it was twenty minutes past eleven.

She had read for almost an hour.

However, she had read slowly, pausing occasionally, so she didn't feel too tired.

Glancing at the person curled up in the quilt on the bed, sleeping soundly, Xiang Changge left the room without a sound.

Emerging from the main house, Xiang Changge planned in her heart that she would find a cot or some folding chair tomorrow. Sitting like that was a bit hard on her backside; it would be better to lie down while providing Yu Qing's bedtime service.

Hearing her thoughts, the system: "...Why don't you just lie on the supporting character's bed to read to her?"

Xiang Changge, who was starting up the sightseeing cart to return to her dormitory, was surprised: "That wouldn't be very appropriate, would it?"

Regardless, that was the employer's bed. Even if she could accept it, Yu Qing probably wouldn't agree.

Besides, Yu Qing wasn't a child anymore. Did her bedtime service require her to hold Yu Qing in her arms and pat her back to coax her to sleep?

The system, which had originally been mocking her: "!"

"You really dare to dream!"

Rain pattered against the windshield, and Xiang Changge, who was driving, suddenly thought of something: "Still, it's not impossible..."

Didn't the book say the female supporting character never felt any warmth, which was why she felt the male lead, who visited her occasionally, gave her a sense of family?

She might as well find her a few sisters or friends to play with her, eat with her, drink with her, and sleep with her... letting her deeply experience what "thirty-seven-degree warmth" truly means.

Xiang Changge took this idea to heart, planning to recruit a few suitable candidates tomorrow when she hired the household staff.

The system, which had originally felt it was inappropriate for Xiang Changge to be lying down while providing bedtime services to Yu Qing, fell silently quiet, even feeling that Xiang Changge's idea of "thirty-seven-degree warmth" seemed quite feasible.

Two-thirty in the morning, the room was so quiet that only the faint sound of the central air conditioning could be heard.

When Yu Qing woke up, she stared blankly for a long while before she came to her senses.

She turned over.

Sure enough, the figure that had been sitting there reading a poetry collection aloud was gone from the bedside. The book had been placed on the nightstand, and even the chair she had sat on had been tucked away.

Everything was as if no one had ever been in the room to provide her with some unrefusable bedtime service.

Yu Qing stared at the ceiling for a long time before reaching for her phone next to the poetry collection to check the time.

Why is it only two-thirty?

Suddenly, she didn't know what she should be doing at this moment.

What would she usually be doing at this time?

Reading, playing the piano, or just... zoning out?

Probably all of them.

In this lonely, deep night, the surroundings were so quiet it felt as if she were the only person in the world.

Perhaps, it wasn't just "as if."

Life is truly meaningless; what is the point of living, anyway?

After lying there with her mind wandering for a while, Yu Qing listlessly opened her phone. She didn't know what she wanted to do; she just randomly opened every app on her phone, only to close them again out of boredom.

When she opened WeChat, she suddenly noticed an unread message in the contacts tab.

A voice suddenly appeared in her mind.

-"I have already added your contact information. Remember to accept it; I will send you your daily schedule then."

Yu Qing, who had felt as if her heart were wrapped in a swamp, dragging her down into the mud, suddenly widened her eyes.

She clicked on the friend request.

A request had been sent by someone whose profile picture was a penguin sitting in front of a hot pot.

Although there was no verification message, not many people knew her WeChat, let alone someone who had already told her in advance that a friend request was coming.

There was no need to overthink it; this was definitely Xiang Changge.

Yu Qing extended a finger and forcefully tapped the "Reject" option.

The next second, the screen changed, and the words "Added" appeared after the message on the friend request page.

Yu Qing: "?"

Why does something feel wrong? Shouldn't it have said "Rejected"?

Thinking this, Yu Qing opened the other person's profile, and to her horror, she discovered that there was a "Send Message" option on the page.

Yu Qing clicked it in disbelief, and as the screen jumped to the chat interface, a line of small text appeared at the top.

-"You have added One Meal Eight Bowls of Rice. You can now start chatting."

Yu Qing: "?!!"

Is she haunted? She didn't click reject? When did it become "added"? Did she click the wrong thing? That's impossible; she clicked it so carefully, how could she have clicked the wrong thing?

There was no time to think. As if afraid the person would suddenly come back to life, Yu Qing quickly and efficiently deleted the contact.

Only after deleting her did she let out a sigh of relief.

Hmph, some daily schedule—she shouldn't even dream of sending that over.

Even if she couldn't fire her, that didn't mean she had to listen to everything she said.

Thinking of this, not caring that it wasn't even three o'clock yet, Yu Qing scrambled out of bed and quickly went to lock her bedroom door from the inside.

That wasn't all; she found two earplugs and placed them by the bedside as a backup. Only then did she pick up the poetry collection, open it, and continue reading in a good mood.

Hmph, let's see what tricks Xiang Changge has up her sleeve now.

She would plug her ears tomorrow morning and let her knock on the door outside until she was satisfied.

Author's Note:

Little Yu: She is so annoying [Wailing][Wailing]

Sausage: You want warmth, right? [Question Mark][Question Mark]

-

Paragraph comments are open now, and I changed to a pretty cover [Lop-eared rabbit head]

Who on earth called her Sausage Brother? [Clown][Clown]