“I’ll wait until you’re ready.” Qiao Anchen turned around to face her, his expression unchanged.
"If you feel it's okay, then we'll have the baby."
Chu Yi blinked. His words brought a brief moment of relief, but also a feeling of heaviness in her heart.
She joked, "Aren't you afraid that you'll end up having a child late in life?"
Qiao Anchen smiled too, a slight upturn of his lips and a gentle curve in his eyes.
"Then I can only say that this is fate's arrangement."
In the quiet room, the two gazed at each other. Chu Yi had most of her face buried under the covers. She watched him quietly for a while, then suddenly moved closer to Qiao Anchen.
She was about to touch his shoulder, and with each breath, she could feel the warmth emanating from him.
"Qiao Anchen, do you like children?" she asked softly. Qiao Anchen looked down at her and thought for a moment.
"good."
"Not bad?" Chu Yi was somewhat dissatisfied with his answer, yet it also seemed to be expected.
"If we really had a child, would you have time to be with him, love him, and fulfill your responsibilities as a father?"
After asking the first question, Qiao Anchen thought about it seriously for a moment, then nodded.
"I will try my best to do so."
"I've always felt like I'm still a child," Chu Yi said after a while, his expression clearly showing confusion.
"So I'm a little scared."
“The word ‘mother’ is too distant. It might take me a year, two years, or three years to accept it, Qiao Anchen…” Chu Yi tentatively asked, “Would you mind?”
Before Qiao Anchen could answer, she became sad again and buried her face in his chest, rubbing against him.
"Waaaaah, I think I'm being really unreasonable, but I really don't want to have a baby so soon... Otherwise, if you really want one, how about we try having one first?"
Chu Yi finally raised her face, looked up at him with pleading eyes, and looked as pitiful as could be.
Qiao Anchen gently ruffled her messy short hair, his eyes filled with helplessness, and leaned down to kiss her lips twice to comfort her.
"Don't overthink it, just let things take their course." He added, emphasizing his words as soon as he finished speaking.
"I'm not in a hurry. Serving one of you is tiring enough. I can wait a bit before taking care of the other one."
"?"
"I don't need you to serve me!" Chu Yi immediately forgot her worries and glared at him angrily. Qiao Anchen sighed helplessly.
"Now."
"..."
"You're so annoying." Chu Yi couldn't refute him and was so angry that she could only kick him under the blanket to vent her anger. Qiao Anchen took the kick and raised his leg to stop her when she tried to kick him a second time.
Chu Yi tried to pull away twice but failed, so she started pushing him. Qiao Anchen easily grabbed both of her wrists, and Chu Yi was completely unable to move. She was furious and yelled while tilting her head back to bite him.
Qiao Anchen's neck was bitten twice by her, and it hurt quite a bit, so he simply let go of Chu Yi and reached out to pinch her chin.
"Are you born in the Year of the Dog?"
"You're the dog!" Chu Yi retorted angrily.
"Still swearing?" Qiao Anchen narrowed his eyes and threatened in a low voice.
"I need to punish you properly."
"What do you want to do! Ugh—" Chu Yi had just started to speak aggressively when he grabbed her chin and forced her to open her lips. Qiao Anchen entered without any hindrance, hooking her soft tongue and sucking it hard twice.
The way he was pinning her down gradually changed. Qiao Anchen used his knees to pry open Chu Yi's legs and covered her with his whole body.
This is truly a painful 'punishment'.
Chu Yi's eyes were red and swollen with tears as he stared at the illusory and swaying ceiling above him.
The next day, Qiao Anchen went to work looking radiant, while Chu Yi lay in bed with a sore back and couldn't get up.
After finishing breakfast, Chu Yi collapsed onto the sofa, feeling weak all over. She thought that Qiao Anchen must have been retaliating against her for not wanting to have a child with him last night, which was why he had been so ruthless.
Fortunately, her comic has already been completed, so I don't need to draw anything today.
Chu Yi happily clicked on a youth idol drama that she had recently become obsessed with and started watching it.
The male lead in this story has an incredibly handsome face that perfectly matches Chu Yi's aesthetic preferences. His features are exquisite, with long eyelashes, a straight nose, and delicate peach blossom eyes. His face is small and fair, and he can be both aloof and adorable. Chu Yi is completely captivated by him.
Putting everything else aside, the food blogger she recently successfully transitioned into has already become a celebrity-chasing blogger.
Every day, they are supporting Ji Mubai, the actor who plays the male lead, and expressing their love in all sorts of creative ways. They have even drawn countless hand-drawn illustrations of him, showing none of the solemnity expected of a top-tier comic artist with hundreds of thousands of fans.
However, Chu Yi may have been born with a lucky charm that attracts fans. The few pictures she drew of Ji Mubai were widely circulated in the fan circle because of their unique style and the fact that they made Ji Mubai's clean and beautiful features and temperament even more perfect. She attracted a lot of Ji Mubai's fans, who urged her to post more content in the comments section every day.
Chu Yi recently had a break from watching TV series. Sometimes, when she finished watching the latest episodes, she couldn't control her fangirling and would draw a couple of pictures and post them online. As a result, more and more fans flocked to her Weibo account.
As Xiao Gao watched her follower count increase rapidly, visibly approaching the next 100,000 mark, he couldn't help but send her a picture.
White background, a huge green tree, its branches laden with wrinkled, weeping yellow lemons, and beneath the tree, a line of text is written.
[Lemons on the lemon tree, only me under the lemon tree] was accompanied by a matching crying, aggrieved emoji.
Chu Yi was laughing uncontrollably while holding his phone, and sent her six emojis of a little yellow chick pushing up its sunglasses, which were both cool and cheeky.
I also wish you all the best.
A huge "Get lost" character came back from the other end.
After watching today's dose of sweetness, Chu Yi is completely enveloped in pink bubbles. In the two episodes I just watched, the male and female leads confessed their love and got together, and even gave each other their first kiss.
The scene of Ji Mubai confessing his love to the female lead was deeply etched in Chu Yi's mind and lingered there for a long time. She couldn't help but go downstairs, grab a pen and paper, and skillfully began to sketch his facial features on the paper.
It took several hours to finally finish, and it almost perfectly replicated his expression and demeanor during his confession.
Chu Yi was increasingly satisfied with the painting and liked it very much. Suddenly, he felt it would be a pity not to color it, so he took several photos from different angles with his phone and then went to the study to turn on the computer.
As they revised and painted, time flew by, and before they knew it, it was dark. Chu Yi turned on the light and continued, his eyes sparkling with focused excitement.
Chu Yi didn't notice the living room door being pushed open. Qiao Anchen changed his shoes, looked around, and didn't see Chu Yi, but he did see light coming from the study.
As he was about to walk over, he caught a glimpse of the painting on the coffee table out of the corner of his eye as he passed the sofa.
Qiao Anchen bent down to pick it up, and his eyes narrowed slightly when he saw the man on it. After carefully examining the face in his hand, he felt that it looked somewhat familiar.
He searched his memory and remembered that it was the male lead of the drama that Chu Yi had been watching recently. Every time he saw her, she would happily roll around in bed with her phone in her arms.
So now it's not just about watching the show, it's gotten to the point where people are drawing pictures of him.
Qiao Anchen put the paper back in its place and continued walking towards the study.
Pushing open the door, sure enough, Chu Yi was sitting in front of the computer, engrossed in drawing. When he heard the noise, he only raised his head and said something to him.
"Time to get off work."
"So early today." After she finished speaking, she immediately lowered her head, and Qiao Anchen saw the busy work in front of her.
The images on the screen were zoomed in and out, carefully colored, and every detail of the man, including his eyelashes, was meticulously depicted.
The painting is almost finished; the man's face in it is practically perfect, bearing an eight or nine-tenths resemblance to him.
Qiao Anchen glanced at Chu Yi's focused and excited expression, felt a tightness in his chest, silently took a deep breath and exhaled, and then asked a question.
"Did you have meal?"
"Not yet, I'll go eat in a bit." Chu Yi answered casually, her hands still moving as if she was finishing up. Qiao Anchen didn't say anything more and turned to leave alone.
When the project was finally completed on the first day of the lunar month, I was satisfied with it and posted it on Weibo before I remembered Qiao Anchen.
She immediately got up, pushed open the door, and went out. She smelled a delicious aroma and saw a figure in the kitchen stirring noodles in a pot with chopsticks, with white steam rising from it.
"You cooked noodles for me?" Chu Yi ran over and asked excitedly. Qiao Anchen hummed in agreement, picked up the bowl next to him, and took the noodles out of the pot.
"It smells so good! I was originally planning to order takeout." Qiao Anchen finished serving the noodles, which were topped with scrambled eggs with tomatoes and sprinkled with chopped green onions. The red, yellow, and green colors made it look and smell delicious.
Chu Yi held the bowl, took a deep breath, and sighed with satisfaction.
"You eat by yourself, I'm going to take a shower." Qiao Anchen rinsed the pot under the tap and said calmly. Chu Yi blinked, looking somewhat regretful.
"All right."
Before going to bed that night, Chu Yi was scrolling through the comments under her Weibo post. The picture had generated a very strong response, with the number of reposts quickly exceeding a thousand and even becoming a trending topic.
The comments were varied, with fans mostly expressing their love in a flurry of cuteness. Chu Yi covered her mouth and laughed out loud, unable to resist rolling around in her blanket.
Qiao Anchen glanced at her sideways.
After a while, Chu Yi seemed to be laughing even more happily. He lay on the pillow with his cheeks flushed with excitement, his fingers tapping away on the keyboard, doing something unknown.
Qiao Anchen slammed the book shut, turned off the light, and spoke in a cold, hard voice.
"It's getting late, time for bed."
Author's Note: Qiao Anchen: Heh, she actually drew pictures for another man. (So angry she couldn't speak.)
54. Chapter 54
The room went dark in an instant, with only the faint light from Chu Yi's phone screen remaining. She glanced at the time in the upper right corner, puzzled, and uttered a question.
"But it's only a little past ten o'clock now."
"I'm tired." Qiao Anchen's emotionless voice came through the phone. Chu Yi responded with an "oh," turned around, and started playing with her phone by herself, remaining silent.
After scrolling through all the comments, Chu Yi clicked on the topic of the drama "Ji Mu Bai" again, quickly browsed the homepage updated today, and saw netizens frantically shouting "sweet, sweet, sweet!" and crying their eyes out. She couldn't help but laugh, her shoulders trembling slightly.
After a while, I heard Qiao Anchen's emotionless voice again.
"Chu Yi, can you please stop playing on your phone?"
"What's wrong?" Chu Yi turned her head slightly and asked, looking somewhat aggrieved.
"The light is too bright, it's blinding."
"..." Chu Yi glanced at the faint light from her phone, said nothing, and hunched over, burrowing deeper into the blankets to cover herself tightly.
"Won't this be too bright for my eyes?" she said, her voice muffled, from under the covers. The phone's light was indeed completely obscured, not a sliver showing.
Qiao Anchen choked and couldn't speak for a while.
After a few minutes of peace, Chu Yi started to feel suffocated in bed, so she moved her body and poked her head out to get some fresh air. Just as she was about to get back under the covers, she heard Qiao Anchen speak again.