Here, the young girl was lost in wild thoughts.
On the other hand, as the two of them walked side by side towards the parking lot with shopping bags in hand, the atmosphere was subtly tense.
The teasing of the supermarket salesperson, Mrs. Chen's probing, the young girl's direct gaze.
And Meng Ruozhao's words that seemed to draw a clear line, calling him "little brother"…
It was like invisible threads twining in the air.
At first, Meng Ruozhao didn't think much of it. But when she noticed the other person's silence, she also felt a bit uncomfortable.
So she stole a glance at the silent Pei Jiangmu beside her.
The dim yellow light of the street lamp outlined his perfect jawline.
He slightly lowered his head, and his expression was unclear.
Only the tightly pursed line of his lips and the low - spirited aura emanating from his whole body silently spread.
Meng Ruozhao opened her mouth, wanting to explain the reason why she introduced him as her younger brother just now, but she thought it would seem deliberate.
In the end, she just tightened her grip on the shopping bag and quickened her pace.
After they got home.
A floor lamp was lit in the living room, and the warm yellow halo enveloped the two of them in a quiet and subtle atmosphere.
The shopping bags were casually placed at the entrance. Pei Jiangmu took the initiative to help sort out the daily necessities.
When he picked up the couple's body wash that had been force - sold to them, his fingertips paused for a moment.
But in the end, he calmly put them on the storage racks in the bathrooms of the two bedrooms respectively.
He walked back to the living room and saw Meng Ruozhao curled up in a corner of the sofa.
Maybe because she had been overly worried in the past two days, she had been suffering from dull pain in her lower abdomen.
Pei Jiangmu saw that her side face looked a bit tired under the light, with a sense of aloofness due to her preoccupations. He couldn't help but feel heartache.
Just by looking at her like this, he knew that she was having menstrual pain.
Strangely enough, she didn't have this problem before. In the past year or two, she always suffered from it.
He had invited quite a few doctors, but there was still no significant improvement.
Suddenly, he remembered the incident of her having an abortion in the winter the year before last.
Could it be related to that?
Just thinking of this, Pei Jiangmu felt both heartache and self - blame.
So he walked into the kitchen, took out the brown sugar cubes, boiled a pot of water to make a cup of brown sugar water, and then brought it to Meng Ruozhao.
These brown sugar cubes were secretly stuffed to him by Qi Yu when Meng Ruozhao went to pick out sanitary napkins.
When he handed it to Meng Ruozhao, she was naturally surprised.
"Where did this come from?"
She herself didn't even remember to buy it.
Pei Jiangmu smiled slightly. "I got it at the supermarket. There were too many things, so you might not have noticed."
Meng Ruozhao took it and thanked him.
After thinking for a while, she said again, "You're really considerate. Your future girlfriend will be so lucky."
She hadn't mentioned that she was uncomfortable in the past two days.
But he was just so observant and considerate.
For some reason, this clearly complimentary words of hers seemed like an invisible thorn, pricking Pei Jiangmu's heart.
No.
To be precise, it seemed that this thorn had been planted when she introduced him as her younger brother to Mrs. Chen at the supermarket entrance.
It was repeatedly ground by the infatuated look in Mrs. Chen's daughter's eyes and fermented into a dull and unwilling pain.
He stood beside the sofa without sitting down, just leaning against the backrest. His gaze fell on the top of Meng Ruozhao's head.
His voice was deliberately kept steady, but there was a hint of barely perceptible tension, like a fully drawn bowstring.
"Sister."
He paused for a moment, as if weighing his words.
"If your boyfriend knows that I'm staying here with you, will he mind?"
Meng Ruozhao's finger that was sliding on the phone screen stopped.
She looked up at Pei Jiangmu.
The light fell on his handsome face. His eyelashes cast a thick shadow under his eyes, covering the surging emotions in his eyes.
To be honest, this question made her feel inexplicably guilty.
But for a moment, she couldn't tell exactly who she felt guilty towards.
She coughed lightly.
Her tone carried a nonchalance that even she didn't notice.
"Him?"
She twitched the corner of her mouth, showing a somewhat perfunctory smile.
"He's not that narrow - minded."
"Besides, you're my friend. We're just helping each other. He won't mind."
Speaking of which, Yan Qiubai really hadn't shown any controlling desire towards her in this regard.
At least he had never interfered with her making friends.
Oh, that's not right. Maybe it was because she hadn't made many friends in the past six months.
However, she believed that Yan Qiubai wouldn't care so much.
Moreover, with that abortion report, the future between her and Yan Qiubai was still uncertain.
Just thinking of that report with no result yet, her mood sank again, and she didn't notice the change in Pei Jiangmu's expression beside her.
Defending that bastard like this?
And still calling him a friend?
The nonchalance in her tone, and even that faint perfunctoriness, couldn't offset the coldness brought by the word "friend".
All his painstaking efforts, the closeness he had gained through his injuries and grievances.
With just one of her casual words, it seemed to have regressed to the starting point.
An unnamed fire mixed with sharp sourness instantly rushed to his head. He almost couldn't control the impulse to question her.
But soon, he calmed down again.
Indeed, from her perspective, he was someone she had only known for a few days.
To get the evaluation of "friend" was already a high honor.
He shouldn't be greedy and impatient.
"Then your boyfriend is really magnanimous."
Just as he finished saying this, Meng Ruozhao's phone suddenly vibrated.
The name "Yan Qiubai" was clearly reflected on the screen.
The air seemed to freeze instantly.
Pei Jiangmu's eyes were fixed firmly on that name.
The anger that he had just suppressed flared up like a fire being doused with oil.
It burned so fiercely that his internal organs were in searing pain.
He gritted his back teeth tightly, and his jawline was tense.
The hand hanging by his side unconsciously clenched into a fist, and his knuckles turned white due to the force.
The gauze on the back of his hand also faintly showed red, looking even more glaring under the light.
Meng Ruozhao subconsciously glanced at Pei Jiangmu.
There was no expression on his face, but his eyes were extremely gloomy.
She felt inexplicably nervous in her heart. She picked up the phone and pressed the answer button, trying to keep her voice steady.
"Hello, Qiubai?"
Yan Qiubai's deep and pleasant voice came from the other end of the phone, with his usual gentleness.
"Zhaozhao, what are you doing?
"Do you want to come over tonight? Naonao has been missing you a lot these days. It has been holding the little toy you gave it and won't let go."
He let out a low laugh, with a bit of doting and an irresistible invitation.
"Come and see it? And… accompany me?"
"Naonao" was a pure - bred Samoyed that Yan Qiubai raised.
It was snow - white all over and was especially close to Meng Ruozhao. Meng Ruozhao really liked it.
But at this moment, the obvious hint in Yan Qiubai's words - going to his house at night. Seeing the dog was secondary, and the real purpose was self - evident.
This hint made Meng Ruozhao, who was already in a bit of a messy mood, even more unhappy.
For some reason, she subconsciously glanced at Pei Jiangmu beside her again, who was exuding a low - pressure aura.
Pei Jiangmu clearly heard the voice on the phone.
Every word was like a poisoned needle, stabbing deeply into his heart.
See the dog? At night?
Wasn't this just like directly inviting her to go to bed with him?
How dare he?
Raging anger and sharp jealousy surged in Pei Jiangmu's chest, almost burning his rationality to ashes.