Chapter 56 — For Reference

His series of actions were so fast that Pei Yueran was caught off guard.

When she could finally form words, she stammered, "Wh-what are y-you doing?"

Inwardly, she was screaming, 'Is there going to be a repeat of that night? but I don't think I'm ready yet. What should I do?'

Both of them excelled at misunderstanding situations.

Fortunately for Pei Yueran, Li Chuanmo wasn't thinking in that line at all. She was sick after all, and he just wanted to keep her company and spend some time together in the process.

"What? Since we're both idle, let's play. What would you like to do?"

"Ah!" Pei Yueran exclaimed. Whether it was due to relief or disappointment, only she could tell.

After thinking for a few moments, she proposed. "Let's finish the puzzle Auntie and Uncle brought for me in the hospital." She had not touched it since she was discharged.

So Li Chuanmo got up and brought the puzzle to the bed.

"Let's see how good you are at fixing puzzles", Pei Yueran teased.

She soon found out that playing with Li Chuanmo was.... "interesting".

The puzzle that Pei Yueran spent hours on, only to arrange about one-tenth, was completed by Li Chuanmo in forty-five minutes.

And it took that long because Pei Yueran insisted on being useful by handing him the puzzle pieces, even though she didn't even know what piece he needed. However, Li Chuanmo was able to fix whichever piece she gave him in its exact or approximate place.

It was like magic. When she asked him, he looked at her like she was joking, "It's obvious that's where it is supposed to be."

Pei Yueran: "__"

Obvious my foot!

She was not really a fan of puzzles, but she considered herself decent at it. However, putting nine hundred pieces in their correct places in less than an hour, was way, way out of the range of "decent abilities".

Li Chuanmo added, "It's also because you have done the borders and fixed a few important landmarks. It made arranging it very easy."

"Ohhh okay." Pei Yueran accepted this reasoning.

But that was only the beginning.

Since the puzzle was completed so fast, the started looking for something else to do. Pei Yueran asked him to suggest something else since she was the one that made them do the puzzle. So Li Chuanmo suggested a mobile game he came across some years ago. It was a game where you guessed what character the given pictures were trying to describe.

He downloaded it into her phone, installed it and taught her to play. Pei Yueran got the hang of it pretty quickly. They began to play.

When the got to hard levels, Li Chuanmo was always able to breeze through it. Purely curious, Pei Yueran asked him if he had this game on his phone.

"Yes I do, but I have played up to the latest level and I'm waiting for the developers to update it."

Pei Yueran: ＼(°o°)／ She suddenly lost interest in playing.

It was her turn, so she decided on a game where you had to search for hidden items at a given scene. Li Chuanmo downloaded it on his phone. Before they started playing, Pei Yueran asked him, "have you played this game before?"

"No", Li Chuanmo answered honestly.

Pei Yueran was satisfied and they started playing. The goal was to see who would find all items first.

The result?

When Pei Yueran found all the items, she lifted her head excitedly, only to see Li Chuanmo still busy tapping his phone.

She smiled triumphantly. She finished faster than he did!

"I'm done", she announced.

"Really? You're amazingly fast", he praised her.

"Let me see, what item are you looking for?"

"The ukulele."

Ukulele? There was no item like that in the level they were playing. Suspicious, she scooted closer to him in order to see his screen.

"Huh? This is not what the scene should look like."

"Oh, I finished the one we started together. This is the eighth scene."

Pei Yueran: (ﾉ≧∇≦)ﾉ ﾐ ┻━┻)

She flipped a table in her mind.

She never knew playing games could make her question her intelligence.

At her look, Li Chuanmo seemed to notice something. "Should we play something else? You can choose this time as well."

Pei Yueran thought for a moment, "Okay, but I don't want to play games. Can you read to me?"

"Sure. What do you want to listen to?"

Pei Yueran handed him a romance novel, one of the books the Li couple gave to her.

He opened to the first chapter and began to read.

"The rain that fell throughout the night could not stop the sun from showing up to brighten the sky. The birds....."

Pei Yueran rested her head on his shoulder in a bid to get more comfortable and prepared to enjoy the story. When her head touched his shoulder, Li Chuanmo paused, but soon resumed his reading.

His voice was a rich baritone, and coupled with his slow paced reading, was very soothing and pleasant to listen to.

"....Sima Lin sat on her knees as she cried bitterly, while the rain came down in hard torrents."

That was the end of the first chapter, so Li Chuanmo asked, "Should I continue?"

He didn't receive a reply.

It was then he heard her long, deep and even breathing. She was asleep.

He gently closed the book and set it aside. He then put an arm around her and made her more comfortable.

He had some things to do, but felt contented to sit down and spend time with her like this.

When Li Yuchen came back from school, he hurried up to the room next to his dad's. He knocked gently.

"My Goddess, are you busy?"

When he didn't hear anything, he opened the door a crack and peeped in....

....only to see his father staring back at him.

He opened his mouth wide. Then he mouthed, "I did not see anything, continue!" and closed the door.

Li Chuanmo had woken up because of the knock and was a bit disoriented. While he was still wondering what Li Yuchen meant, the door opened again.

It was still Li Yuchen. He peeped in again, took a picture with his phone and mouthed, "for reference."

He then closed the door and ran away happily.