The Lover's Prattle

The CEO//5

— "Mhm, she is very precious."

He had wanted to ask her what she meant by not calling him for an entire week, but when the words reached the tip of his tongue, he felt that they would make him sound too resentful. His expression, which he hid from her, was already stiff with aggrievance.

"Let's eat out. What do you want to eat?"

Earlier, she had practically collapsed onto the sofa. Although it was true that he had been without a good meal for a week, he didn't want to make her cook when she was already so tired.

Currently, they were inside his car. He was driving, while she was resting against the front passenger seat with her eyes closed.

"When she heard his question, she shook her head. "I don't want to eat out, let's just go back." The movement caused her hair to rub messily against the headrest; saying that she looked lazy" would be an understatement.

Feng Qi took a moment to think about what he could cook before realizing... he couldn't cook anything. Growing up, every single one of his meals had been prepared by his family's servants.

"Okay."

***

As she waited for the water to boil, Qingruo placed a pan over another fire and fried an egg. When the water boiled, she put in some noodles and moved on to make vegetable soup. From start to finish, the meal took at most twenty minutes to prepare. Feng Qi was astonished.

"So soon?"

Qingruo carried the noodles out of the kitchen and pointed to the container of sauce on the dining table. "The sauce is a bit spicy, so don't put too much," she warned before turning back to get the vegetable soup. She filled two small bowls with it.

Feng Qi polished off the plate of simple egg noodles and even downed an entire bowl of soup. When he saw that she was going to collect the dishes, he quickly shot out a hand to stop her.

"You're tired, so go rest. You can wash the dishes tomorrow," he chided.

A shallow crease formed between her brows. "I don't want to leave them out," she said.

She moved her arm and tried to grab a different dish, but he blocked her again.

As she lowered her head to look at him with displeasure, a yawn slipped past her lips.

That was when she relented.

Later, Feng Qi's notorious band of friends called him to ask if he wanted to go out and have some fun with them. After the call, he put his phone on mute and threw it aside.

Qingruo was asleep in her bedroom. The television was off, and so were all of the lights. The balcony was speckled with the amber glow of the setting sun, and because Qingruo had left them for a week, all of the plants were slightly shriveled.

In the entire apartment, the only sounds that could be heard were the sounds of his light footsteps. He managed to find a watering can in the kitchen. After filling it up with water, he returned to the balcony and started to water the plants, albeit carelessly.

Suddenly, a flash of light assaulted his eyes, then an extremely frightened paparazzi jumped into his line of sight, as though guilty of being caught red-handed. Qingruo lived on the sixth floor, a good distance from the ground, and the lighting was bad. When Feng Qi looked down, he couldn't even see the paparazzi very well.

They were that afraid of his "King Yama" title, huh?

Feng Qi was in a good mood as he held a watering can in one hand and dangled the other over the side of the balcony. He even raised an eyebrow and waved at the paparazzi.