Free Web NovelChapter 420: Chapter 278: The Old Couple’s Plan
Between streaming and setting up the e-sports room, Jiang Yao had barely rested. Last night, she’d only gotten about four or five hours of solid sleep before getting up bright and early.
She was running on a special kind of adrenaline, unable to feel her exhaustion.
But now that everything was done and night had fallen again, an uncontrollable wave of fatigue washed over her from head to toe, leaving her feeling weak and her eyes dry.
While they were gaming just now, she couldn’t stop yawning, letting one out every few minutes. She had to force herself to stay alert to play with Chen Yuan.
The later it got, the harder it was for her to keep her eyes open.
So, Chen Yuan went off to play another game by himself. Jiang Yao said she wanted to watch a movie for a bit. After randomly picking a funny animated film, she leaned back in her gaming chair, hugged her knees, and started watching quietly.
Chen Yuan was locked in a fierce battle in his virtual world, with no attention to spare for anything else.
He would occasionally let out a sigh of regret, then immediately dive back into the challenge. The controller buttons CLICKED AND CLACKED as the game’s dazzling visuals shifted constantly on the screen.
An hour passed just like that.
The progress bar on the animated movie was more than halfway through by the time Chen Yuan finally defeated the boss. His neck was a little stiff, and he reached up to rub it forcefully.
"Yaoyao, are you thirsty? I’m going to grab a drink. Did you put any in my fridge? Or should I go across the hall—"
Chen Yuan didn’t finish his sentence. He turned his head and suddenly fell silent.
Beside him, Jiang Yao had fallen fast asleep...
Her arms were wrapped around her knees as she lay slanted in the gaming chair. Her cheek was turned toward Chen Yuan, her sleeping face peaceful and serene. Even her usually restless, mischievous strands of hair had settled, and the side of her face was lost in partial shadow.
Because she was wearing shorts, her long legs were folded, creating a healthy and beautiful curve. ’I don’t know why Jiang Yao has always been so self-conscious. While her legs aren’t as slender as her sister’s, they’re full of wonderful elasticity and a soft fleshiness—the perfect type to create a slight, alluring squeeze when wearing thigh-high socks.’
Most importantly, when Chen Yuan’s gaze fell upon her lovely feet, one of Yaoyao’s toes was curled up slightly, her nail gleaming with a pearly luster, as if it were waving hello to him.
It was utterly adorable.
When she was this quiet, she was truly captivating, possessing a softness he rarely got to see. freёweɓnovel.com
Chen Yuan quietly admired her for a long time, a gentle feeling blooming in his heart. He got up as quietly as he could, opened the door, and went to the living room balcony to find a sofa blanket that had been left out to dry.
The blanket had been basking in the sun for a full week and was filled with its scent, but no one had bothered to bring it in.
Chen Yuan returned to the room and draped the blanket over Jiang Yao. His movements were, of course, extremely careful, and he even tucked in the corners for her. But even this slight motion disturbed her.
Jiang Yao’s body trembled slightly. She opened her eyes and looked at him.
"I was afraid you’d get cold. Go back to sleep."
"Cold... I am a little," Jiang Yao’s voice was slightly hoarse, laced with the nasal tone of someone who had just woken up.
...
"If you’re cold, don’t you know how to put on something warmer? The temperature drops so much at night. You still think you’re some twenty-something young buck?"
「Qishui County, Ninth Middle School Family Housing.」
Mrs. Chen draped a jacket over Mr. Chen’s shoulders, swatting him irritably at the same time.
"I was just about to look for a jacket, and here you are bringing it to me. See? It has to be you, my dear He, who cares about me."
"Oh, cut it out. An old married couple like us, talking like that. It seems you really couldn’t live a single day without me," Mrs. Chen said, suppressing the smile at the corners of her lips and putting on a stern face.
Mrs. Chen’s real name was Liu He, and she was from Liujiawan in the next county. Usually, when Chen Yuan was home or when they were in front of outsiders, the couple would call each other "Chen" and "Old Liu," but in private, Mr. Chen would call her "He."
They had fallen in love on their own terms back in the day and shared a story that made one sigh with emotion. After all these years, their bond was still very strong.
Mr. Chen took his rarely-worn reading glasses out of their case, wiped them, and picked up a piece of paper from the coffee table that was covered in checkmarks and doodles, studying it carefully.
"I still think the properties at Wanxiang Century are better. It’s not close to us, but I heard from Principal Li that the area is going to develop more and more."
"How much better can it get? And supervising the renovations later will be such a hassle. Plus, the discount isn’t even that good. Listen to me, Longting District."
"Sigh... We’re supposed to sign the contract tomorrow. It’s not too late to change our minds."
"That’s my point! We’re signing tomorrow and you’re still hemming and hawing, thinking it over and over. I’ve already worked everything out with the sales agent. We can get it all done in one day tomorrow—first the sales office, then the bank."
Under the soft light, Mr. Chen sat on the red-lacquered wooden sofa. He gave a noncommittal response to his wife’s words, his eyes fixed on the paper with the loan calculations.
He was the head of the household. Although Mrs. Chen made most of the day-to-day decisions, a major event like buying a house ultimately required the head of the household to make the final call. Mrs. Chen couldn’t decide on her own.
The couple had been discussing it for over two months, starting their planning around the New Year. After a rigorous selection process, only these two developments had made it to the final round; all the others had been eliminated.
"Let me think, just let me think a little more..." Mr. Chen habitually held a pen between his fingers, his gaze deep behind his glasses.
He had quit smoking when Chen Yuan was a child and hadn’t touched a cigarette in over a decade, but he could never shake the habit of holding one.
Nowadays, buying a house wasn’t like it used to be. Society had developed, and housing prices had shot up along with it. A house in a small county could easily cost five or six hundred thousand, to say nothing of the city, where a million was just the starting point.
It was nothing like the old days. When Mr. Chen got married, he had just started working at an elementary school. With a few thousand yuan for the wedding, he was able to marry the then-young and beautiful Mrs. Chen. Later, he was promoted and transferred to the Ninth Middle School, where he was assigned a house that they had lived in for many years.
