In the end, the purple hyacinth bean flowers were still placed together with the yellow pumpkin blossoms and a few green vegetable leaves, inserted into the flower vase in the living room that had been left empty for a long time, adding a touch of fresh color to the monotonous living room.
The one who completed this flower arrangement was Yan Qiongyu, an outstanding yet-to-graduate student of the Imperial Omega Academy. He had won championships in various on-campus flower arrangement competitions and was regarded by the teachers as a future artist with exceptional aesthetic taste.
Of course, Wang Luan knew none of this. Every time she passed through the living room and saw her hyacinth bean flowers and pumpkin blossoms, she still felt a tiny pang of heartache.
Fortunately, there were plenty more in the vegetable garden.
The guest who had come to stay was mindful of basic courtesy and had no intention of causing her too much trouble. After finishing a simple breakfast, he sat resting on a reclining chair by the vegetable garden, not disturbing her work.
Wang Luan busied herself in the shop for a while, continuing the tasks she hadn’t had time to finish two days earlier. Once she got busy, she forgot the time. It was nearly noon when she remembered there was still someone at home, and only then did she get up to check on him.
He was still on the reclining chair with his eyes closed. The sunlight that had covered his whole body in the morning now only shone on his feet. Perhaps from basking in the sun for too long, his face had turned red.
“You’ve been lying here all morning?” Wang Luan thought of his injuries and suggested, “Why don’t you go upstairs to sleep—aren’t you getting sunburned here? Your face is already red.”
Yan Qiongyu reached out one hand toward her. Wang Luan didn’t understand what he meant, and he took two of her fingers and placed them against his forehead. His forehead was very hot, and Wang Luan immediately reacted, blurting out, “Your wound must be inflamed and causing a fever.”
Letting go of her hand, Yan Qiongyu’s expression showed a brief moment of helplessness and amusement. Wang Luan didn’t pay much attention to that and went to get medicine for him. Yan Qiongyu accepted it and took it without much objection.
At noon, Wang Luan followed her usual habit and took a nap on the sofa in the living room, so she could also keep an eye on the activity in the shop out front.
She remembered that before falling asleep, she had been curled up alone on the sofa. After waking up, however, she discovered that her limbs were stretched out as she lay sprawled on a human cushion.
This human cushion radiated a warm, toasty heat, making Wang Luan feel as though she was sweating all over. Yan Qiongyu had one hand resting on her and the other hanging down to the floor, and on his slightly sweaty face was an unconcealed trace of fatigue.
Wang Luan: “…………” She suddenly felt that this scene seemed oddly familiar.
Her mind made a sharp turn, and she reacted. To verify her guess, she leaned in and sniffed by Yan Qiongyu’s neck, catching a faint scent of pheromones.
So it really was! At this moment, the Yan Qiongyu who appeared to be asleep spoke up, “My heat period arrived two days ago. But there’s no need to mind it—this time I brought enough suppressants.”
Because he had injected a sufficient—or rather, excessive—amount of suppressants, his pheromones hadn’t erupted, and only a faint trace could be smelled when one got close.
This was his third heat period. After enduring the intense and painful reactions of the first one, the ones that followed were, for Yan Qiongyu, within a tolerable range and couldn’t be considered serious.
Wang Luan grabbed the back of the sofa with one hand, pulled herself out of Yan Qiongyu’s embrace, and directly vaulted over the back of the sofa, landing lightly on the ground.
From outside, where the shop door was half-closed, came a series of urgent knocks. Hearing the sound, Wang Luan casually took the gun from the rack and tucked it onto herself, then went over to open the door.
Usually, anyone who came looking for her at this hour had run into problems with airships or spacecraft at the spaceport and wanted her to go over to repair them.
Sure enough, as soon as she opened the door, the visitor immediately said, “Boss Luan, hurry, hurry! My ship won’t start anymore—it’s parked at the North Spaceport. Come help me take a look.”
Wang Luan braced one hand against the door and refused, “I have something to do today and can’t go. Find someone else.”
With someone sick at home, she wasn’t at ease going out to work.
No matter how much the rejected person complained, Wang Luan didn’t care. After sending him away, she went to a nearby market.
Yan Qiongyu heard the sound of her leaving, and not long after, she returned, carrying several large bags and going straight into the kitchen.
“Have some water.” Wang Luan brought over a cup of a somewhat pungent-smelling drink. It was red sugar ginger tea she had made herself using ingredients from this world.
Yan Qiongyu didn’t know that this was a drink women from another world used during their menstrual periods. He reached out to take it and said, “Thank you.”
The drink smelled strange and tasted strange as well. He tried taking a couple of sips and saw that Wang Luan’s expression held a subtle hint of awkward struggle.
Wang Luan: Forget it—this subtle sense of gender dissonance wasn’t the first time anyway.
She quickly convinced herself, watching the patient study the drink, then got up and returned to the kitchen. Yan Qiongyu discovered that she was simmering a strange soup in the kitchen, cooking it for several hours, using exactly the large pile of ingredients she had just bought.
It wasn’t until evening that Wang Luan brought the soup she had been simmering all afternoon to Yan Qiongyu, and said solemnly, “This is a soup to nourish the body.”
Of course she wouldn’t say that it was a patient’s meal she had made by recalling her older cousin’s postpartum meal plan. Anyway, they were all for nourishing the body—pregnant women’s meals and patient meals shouldn’t be that different, right?
Yan Qiongyu’s condition did indeed look much better than when they had been on the desolate planet back then. At the very least, he would eat now. Although he showed a suspicious expression when facing her soup at first, he still drank two bowls under her urging.
At night, the two lay on the same bed. With an arm around her waist, Wang Luan thought about why things had turned out like this.
The person who had been very well-behaved yesterday had suddenly come in brushing past her head when she was about to turn off the lights and sleep, and very naturally occupied the other half of her bed, saying good night to her.
The entire process was so smooth that Wang Luan couldn’t find an opening to ask, “Why did you come over?”
She subconsciously replied with a good night, sat on the bed maintaining a posture of not yet lying down, and thought about whether it was she who was being taken advantage of, or Yan Qiongyu who was being taken advantage of.
“Going out tomorrow?” Yan Qiongyu chatted casually.
“Tomorrow? I need to go out to buy some meat and vegetables.” Wang Luan’s attention was led away by the topic, and she lay down along with it.
“I’ll go out with you tomorrow. Need to buy something?”
“Aren’t you still injured? Whatever you need, I can bring it back for you.”
“Just buying a few pieces of clothing. The injury isn’t serious.”
Speaking idle talk like a couple married for ten years, before she realized it, she had been pulled into his arms.
Wang Luan still couldn’t help it. Looking at the arm in front of her, she voiced her question: “Why are your movements so natural!”
Yan Qiongyu let out a muffled laugh from behind, seeming quite pleased. “Many thanks to Miss Wang Luan for your indulgence.”
Wang Luan had slept alone on this bed for a year. It was the first time she realized the bed was so small, the sleeping space infinitely compressed. The person behind her always rested his forehead against the back of her neck, pressing so that she couldn’t turn over.
This sleep was hot and sticky. At some point her hand had been held, slick with sweat, unable to pull free even if she tried. When she opened her eyes in the morning, the time was already later than usual.
The floor-to-ceiling door leading to the balcony was wide open. Yan Qiongyu had taken over her work, holding the hose and watering the vegetables. His movements were slightly unskilled but earnest enough.
Wearing simple, thin long sleeves and trousers, his back was tall, and he looked as though he was in a pretty good mood.
Suddenly, he bent down and reached his hand toward the trellised purple flowers. Wang Luan immediately flipped off the bed and rushed to the doorway, shouting, “Don’t touch my hyacinth bean flowers!”
“Ah, I’ve been discovered.” Yan Qiongyu regretfully withdrew his hand and continued watering the vegetables as if nothing had happened.
With the unconscious insistence of the patient, the two still went out together early in the morning, preparing to eat breakfast outside. Little Wu District was a relatively densely populated residential area, and the largest mall and grocery market were not far from Wang Luan’s residence.
The two strolled onto a street filled with the aroma of food. Wang Luan told him from her own life experience, “Be careful, there are a lot of pickpockets here. If someone comes close, you need to be cautious.”
Yan Qiongyu, whose face was mostly covered by a scarf, hooked a finger under the brim of the hat on his head and smiled subtly. “Is that so.”
Wang Luan didn’t understand the reason for his smile. After the two had walked more than ten steps, a disturbance suddenly arose behind them. Someone walking hurriedly suddenly fell to the ground and fainted. People gathered around to watch the commotion, pointing and commenting at the face revealed on the ground.
“Yo, isn’t this Stinky Ba? Haven’t seen him around for a while. This kid came here to steal today.”
“Did he have an episode?” Someone lifted a foot and kicked him, but there was no response.
“Drag him to the side. He’s in the way.”
Wang Luan also turned her head to look a few times. Stinky Ba was a well-known roaming pickpocket in this area—here today, there tomorrow. Whenever he encountered fresh faces, he would go up and make a move. When Wang Luan had first come here, she had also been stolen from. Wang Luan remembered that this guy had just brushed past her a moment ago.
Brushed past them? Wang Luan understood and looked at Yan Qiongyu with doubt. He reached up and tugged at the scarf on his face. A ring on his finger flashed with silver light—it was a ring concealing a miniature injection needle.
“I don’t like people getting too close,” he admitted with a smile.
So when that “friend” earlier came over trying to steal something from him, he gave him a little lesson.
Wang Luan: …Still likes knocking people unconscious at the slightest disagreement, huh.
After the two finished breakfast, they came to the mall. The left side of the mall was the clothing section, while the right led to the materials area. Wang Luan’s gaze was unconsciously drawn to the signboard over the materials section that read: “New arrivals of various new materials today, discounts on new products.”
New materials—if she didn’t go look early, there wouldn’t be any good stuff left.
Noticing her gaze, Yan Qiongyu considerately rested a hand on her shoulder and said, “I’ll go take a look over there. You go buy materials, we’ll meet up later, alright?”
