Ji Xiangzhou glared at the two of them. He started to speak, then stopped, wanting to give them a hint: it would be really awkward if someone actually saw them. He gave Ji Xiangnian a pointed look and said in a voice of affected maturity, "People need to learn to control themselves."
Ji Xiangnian: "??"
Seeing that he had failed to pick up on the hint, Ji Xiangzhou continued obliquely, "You're thirty. Can't you show a little self-control?"
Although Ji Xiangnian and Fang Ning were usually quite sharp, they were a little slow in this particular area. Two people, two heads, four times the confusion. They looked at each other for a good while before finally picking up on something in Ji Xiangzhou's deliberately profound gaze.
Fang Ning felt so awkward inside.
Ji Xiangnian reached up and rubbed his nose, his expression a little unnatural. He pressed his fist to his lips, gave a light cough, and explained in a low voice, "We only went swimming. We didn't do anything else."
Fang Ning nodded, trying to straighten out Ji Xiangzhou's warped thinking. "Yes, we were just swimming. It wasn't what you're imagining."
They would have been better off not explaining. The more they explained, the worse it sounded. To Ji Xiangzhou, their explanations only made them look guiltier. He looked at them with an expression that said, "Do you take me for an idiot?" "Swimming? In the middle of the night, in weather this chilly? Swimming?"
Ji Xiangzhou put particular emphasis on the word "swimming," as though saying, "Stop pretending."
For the first time, the two adults had been made this uncomfortable by a child. Fang Ning felt awkward for a good while before another thought struck her. Wait, no! What am I embarrassed about?
*It's not like anything actually