Smile Code (Lost Laughter) 失笑 - Zhu Le 祖乐

10

Why do you always appear when I'm having a bad day?

The moth disrupted Gu Yi's basic judgment. Although she had peeped into Liang Daiwen's bedroom, she never dared to open the curtain in the living room. After all, having seen the dried flowers and the moths, she was afraid that if she pulled it open, she might see a corpse. Living under the same roof as Liang Daiwen, they had barely crossed paths more than five times. The upright gentleman hardly ever came home. Gu Yi truly felt embarrassed—she had only slept at home two nights in half a month. If it wasn't for him deliberately lowering her guard, it could only be true—cold indifference.

At the company, she couldn't help but send a message to Liang Daiwen: "Are you coming home tonight?"

After sending it, she felt the tension all over her scalp. The warmth of marriage and cohabitation tightly wrapped around her. Having never experienced an intimate relationship, it felt as if she was waiting for her new husband. Her colleague's bangs fluttered across the projected PPT. All Gu Yi could see was Liang Daiwen's illusory shadow on the PPT, the halo effect making him appear more handsome, distant yet sharp-tongued—a type she had never encountered in her twenty-six years.

Although she hadn't seen many people, she wasn't inexperienced either. Her curiosity about non-typical characters was driving her crazy. After the Cadillac event, she hadn't gotten a spot for the open mic, and had been idly bored, her attention completely focused on Liang Daiwen. Jacqueline was still assigning tasks, searching for fashion in films, analyzing at least ten works in detail, and keeping the tone of the entire article refined and elegant. No one was willing to take it on—this kind of task, requiring film clips and screenshots, and maybe even asking film companies for poster permissions, was a complicated job for just one article, a perfect excuse to work overtime.

Suddenly, Liang Daiwen's message came: "Coming back."

Gu Yi shouted "Yes!" from her seat.

Jacqueline said, "Let Lindsey handle this project."

A troublesome matter arose, but Gu Yi rode her bike as if gliding on clouds. With her hands tucked in her neck for warmth, she didn't even feel the cold. Near the Van Gogh Museum, there were only high-end residences and small villas. Walking past Sinan Mansion and Hengshan Road, the plane trees shaded the sun, and even rushing felt leisurely. Holding her elevator card, she went up to the 14th floor, carrying two boxes of takeaway water-cooked egg salmon sandwiches. The feeling of becoming part of a home was amazing. In her life, she didn't seem to have spent so much time with a man before.

She opened the door and saw Liang Daiwen's white sneakers. Her heart raced as if she had lost control. The feeling of living with someone she liked was overwhelming!

But the surprise didn't end there. When she opened the living room curtain, she realized Liang Daiwen's home was truly a dream house. The beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the night view of Shaanxi South Road, and one wall by the window was filled with thick copper-plate paper albums, arranged by color, from light at the top to dark at the bottom. On the other side was a small bar. The alcohol was sparse, dust had settled on it, but it was the two black wooden leather trunks beside the bar that caught her attention. Pulling them out, she found both old and new ones—The Beatles, U2, Robert Johnson, and more modern ones like Bruno Mars and Charlie Puth. Next to the trunks was a hand-crank music box.

Gu Yi was so shocked that her jaw nearly dropped. "You were deliberately trying to make it look like a Cthulhu-inspired room the other day to see if I would be scared away, and now you're suddenly making me obsessed with your home?"

"I'm not that bored. I pulled the curtain to keep bugs from crawling into the record player. Also, you can pull the curtain open anytime you like. I didn't forbid it."