Gu Qingnian's consciousness blurred for a moment. Dimly, he saw a pair of delicate hands waving before his eyes.
He also felt something soft and slightly damp against his face, followed by a faint touch on his lips, leaving him momentarily dazed.
As his awareness returned, Gu Qingnian felt a ticklish sensation. A pair of hands was clearly pinching at his waist, seemingly trying to find a bit of flesh to grab. After a while, apparently deciding there was nothing to pinch, they began creeping toward his stomach instead.
Almost instinctively, Gu Qingnian raised a hand and slapped at those hands, which abruptly froze.
Then the weight in his arms suddenly grew lighter. Only then did Gu Qingnian remember that he was holding Ma Xiaotao.
Lying in Gu Qingnian's arms, Ma Xiaotao had noticed that he had gone completely still. Her curiosity piqued, she kept staring at him. After tentatively waving her hands before him several times and finding that he truly gave no response, she finally confirmed that he had fallen into some strange state.
It seemed that in this state, Gu Qingnian could neither speak nor remain conscious, and his body was stiff.
At first, she had worried that something might have happened to him, but she soon relaxed. Ever since she had asked that question, Gu Qingnian had kept slipping in and out of this state. Even she could make neither head nor tail of it; she had never seen anything like it.
She had initially panicked a little, but he had suddenly recovered, spoken a couple of sentences, and then slipped back into it. It seemed there was no serious problem.
That was not the point. The point was that Gu Qingnian had been holding her like this for a very long time. No matter how