The more Mu Yanxi thought about it, the angrier she became.
When she submerged herself for a while and accidentally tasted the bitter bathwater, she grew even more furious.
She choked twice, then couldn’t resist turning her head to peek at Yi Wulan.
Yi Wulan was sitting patiently by the bathtub, holding her phone and looking at something.
Although Yi Wulan was soaked to the bone and in a sorry state, her calm and composed demeanor betrayed no hint of disarray. It was as if she were sitting upright in an important meeting, about to make a multi-billion-dollar decision.
Mu Yanxi was extremely displeased and angrily wanted to disrupt this equilibrium. She childishly splashed a few drops of the red-tinted water from the bath bomb onto Yi Wulan’s shoulder.
She even feigned an innocent look, as if she had only accidentally spilled it while turning and lifting her hand.
But Yi Wulan also thought it was unintentional. She merely glanced over coolly, shifted aside slightly, and went back to looking at her phone.
It was as if she were deliberately avoiding her.
Mu Yanxi immediately felt that she was being disdained.
She stared thoughtfully at Yi Wulan’s profile for a while longer, then suddenly scooped up a large handful of water from the tub and splashed it all over Yi Wulan.
Yi Wulan finally reacted, taking a nearby towel to wipe herself off.
Mu Yanxi shook her hands, then contentedly leaned against the edge of the tub closer to Yi Wulan, resting her head on her arms. Half of her long hair danced with the currents in the water, making her look like a siren who had finally found a human to bewitch.
But her smugness didn’t last long. Yi Wulan used a dry towel to wipe her soaked arm and carefully dried her phone, still not giving Mu Yanxi any attention.
Yi Wulan’s movements were effortless. She didn’t seem to mind Mu Yanxi’s actions at all and continued to wait for her to finish her bath.
She even held her phone, sending messages to someone in a chat window. A glance showed that the replies were long paragraphs, and Mu Yanxi found it too strenuous on her eyes to read them carefully.
She had just lost a lot of face when Yi Wulan pinned her in the bathtub and had intended to get it back now.
But Yi Wulan completely ignored her, which was even more unbearable for Mu Yanxi than failing to win this round.
It was just too humiliating.
Mu Yanxi turned on the faucet again, and the stream of water hitting the surface stirred up more bubbles.
Relying on the fact that Yi Wulan was looking at her phone, she brazenly played with the water with all sorts of grand movements—lifting an arm one moment, kicking a leg the next, and occasionally doing a full 360-degree turn.
After doing this back and forth many times, Mu Yanxi was about to collapse from exhaustion, yet Yi Wulan remained completely still. Later, she even draped a large towel over her back, as if deliberately ignoring her.
Mu Yanxi was so angry with Yi Wulan that she felt like she could drink the entire tub of bathwater. She snapped, “Yi Wulan!”
Yi Wulan had been engrossed in receiving files from Gu Yan, reading about what Yi Hongwei and his son were doing behind her back. Hearing her name, she finally came back to her senses. “What is it?”
Mu Yanxi had been making a fuss next to her for a long time, yet Yi Wulan hadn’t noticed at all that it was intentional, assuming it was just Mu Yanxi’s normal bathing habit.
After guessing Yi Wulan’s thoughts, Mu Yanxi became even angrier.
She looked at Yi Wulan as if she were looking at a major scumbag woman.
Yi Wulan replied to Gu Yan with a few sentences and finally put down her phone to look over. She saw Mu Yanxi’s slightly puffed cheeks and her fox-like eyes filled with anger, unable to quite grasp what was on her mind.
After two seconds of silence, she asked, “Are you… not going to continue bathing?”
Furious, Mu Yanxi suddenly splashed the water in Yi Wulan’s direction again, but this time it didn’t hit her. She said coldly, “Didn’t you see how my phone malfunctioned just now? Aren’t you afraid your phone will be ruined?”
Yi Wulan gave her own phone a strange look, feeling that it wasn’t her fault. Then she looked at the water constantly overflowing from the tub due to Mu Yanxi’s antics. “Did the water offend you?”
Mu Yanxi: “Hmph.”
Yi Wulan: …
Seeing that Mu Yanxi’s tone had changed, Yi Wulan had no choice but to put down her phone and carefully study Mu Yanxi’s face. She asked doubtfully, “You didn’t happen to slip a few times in the tub and now you can’t stand up, did you? Do you need me to call the housekeeper?”
Mu Yanxi’s eyes widened. “Call the housekeeper?”
Yi Wulan had a matter-of-fact expression, as if she were very concerned about Mu Yanxi.
“Your health isn’t good to begin with. Soaking for too long can make you dizzy and catch a cold. You should get out sooner,” Yi Wulan said, reaching out to brush away the dripping strands of hair from Mu Yanxi’s forehead. “I’ll call the housekeeper.”
Mu Yanxi froze slightly. For some reason, her back, damp from her wet hair, actually began to feel a little chilly.
Mu Yanxi shrank back into the water.
Because of her sudden sinking motion, a lot more water splashed out of the tub.
This time, Yi Wulan was closer and was splashed all over.
Her clothes, which had just started to dry, were soaked through again.
Mu Yanxi looked at Yi Wulan with some guilt. The clothes Yi Wulan was wearing, which she had carefully selected, were now so wrinkled that their original shape was unrecognizable.
If she felt cold just soaking in the tub, wouldn’t Yi Wulan feel even more…
A wave of guilt washed over Mu Yanxi. She frowned. “You… aren’t you afraid I’ll really just keep soaking?”
“What’s there to be afraid of?” Yi Wulan glanced at a message on her phone, then turned her head without a change in expression. “Aren’t you still here?”
Mu Yanxi met her gaze and, for some reason, suddenly felt as if a part of her heart had caved in.
That feeling of being trusted was like an unnamed warm current sweeping through her chest, bringing her an inexplicable sense of joy.
She blinked and suddenly asked, “What if I ignore you forever?”
Yi Wulan clearly hadn’t expected her to ask this. She asked, puzzled, “Are you angry?”
Steam rose from the bathtub, and a white mist enveloped them, gradually blurring their vision. The close proximity made the surrounding temperature rise by a few degrees.
When Mu Yanxi’s answer didn’t come, Yi Wulan felt an inexplicable panic and instinctively wanted to reach out and grab Mu Yanxi’s hand, as if to keep her from leaving.
The next moment, a similar sensation threaded through the gaps between her fingers.
Yi Wulan froze and looked down.
She and Mu Yanxi had both reached out for each other at the same time.
Their fingertips happened to slide perfectly through the gaps between each other’s fingers, not deviating in the slightest.
The bathroom fell into a dead silence. Both of them were stunned.
After a long moment, Mu Yanxi’s fingers trembled violently, waking her from her daze. She immediately pulled her hand back and lowered her head, resuming her play with the bubbles in the tub.
It was as if nothing had happened.
But for some unknown reason, a faint blush still appeared on her collarbones.
Yi Wulan was sure Mu Yanxi was shy, but she didn’t quite understand it.
Why would Mu Yanxi blush to the roots of her neck just from touching hands?
On the day they went to get their marriage certificate, it was Mu Yanxi who had taken the initiative to hold her hand.
For a long time after that, touching hands had been a common occurrence between them.
Mu Yanxi remained silent, looking as if she didn’t know what to say.
Seeing this, Yi Wulan decided to ask herself, “Just now, you…”
But she had only said those three words when Mu Yanxi, as if suddenly startled awake, swished her hands in the water twice, making a loud noise, and deliberately interrupted her. “Ah, you’ve been waiting a long time, haven’t you? I’ll get out now, so you can take a bath, okay?”
Yi Wulan nodded and didn’t refuse. The clothes sticking to her body for so long were indeed very uncomfortable.
Seeing this, Mu Yanxi didn’t dwell on the little interlude. She placed her hands on the edge of the tub to stand up, wanting only to let Yi Wulan quickly take a bath and change her clothes to lessen her own guilt.
But before she could get up, Yi Wulan pressed down on her shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
Yi Wulan felt the warm, slick skin under her palm, and the faint, powerful rhythm of a beating heart.
She retracted her hand, averted her eyes as if facing a great enemy, and forced herself to remain calm. “You can get up now.”
Having been chatting face-to-face with Yi Wulan for so long, Mu Yanxi had almost forgotten she wasn’t wearing any clothes. She belatedly said, “Ah, okay.”
As Mu Yanxi dried herself and drained the water, Yi Wulan listened to the splashing sounds behind her and tried to tune them out. She spoke:
“The people behind Shuilin Fang have been identified. The police just went to a villa under Yi Zizhuo’s name. Yi Zizhuo and Yi Jingming were holding a victory party, so they were caught all in one go.”
Mu Yanxi’s hand paused as she was dressing. She smiled. “So eager to hold a victory party. They really made things convenient for the police.”
Yi Wulan hummed in agreement. “It’s just that all the evidence found in this matter points to Yi Zizhuo’s side of the family. The transfer records and the corporate leakers are all connected to Yi Zizhuo’s people. It might be difficult to find concrete evidence of Yi Jingming’s guilt.”
Mu Yanxi pressed the button for the bathtub’s self-cleaning function and walked smilingly in front of Yi Wulan. “Isn’t that great?”
Yi Jingming had once pursued Mu Yanxi and had continued to pester her even after their marriage. Yi Wulan could have ignored it before, but now, hearing Mu Yanxi happy that Yi Jingming might get away with it, her heart sank.
She pressed her lips together and asked, “Why?”
“I didn’t bother with him before because I wasn’t sure how big his ambitions were.” Mu Yanxi smiled, but her dazzling fox-like eyes gradually grew cold. “But now that he has colluded with Yi Zizhuo and even attended that ridiculous victory party, the answer is clear.”
Yi Wulan hummed in response, looking thoughtfully at Mu Yanxi. “What if he was just being used by Yi Zizhuo?”
Mu Yanxi’s tone was quite disdainful. “Yi Jingming may be stupid, but he’s not so stupid that he can’t tell the difference in a situation like this. He lacks ability yet has such great ambition; he deserves to be used.”
But this wasn’t just Mu Yanxi belittling Yi Jingming.
In her past life, she had risked her life for Yi Jingming. It could be said that no one understood his style in the business world better than she did.
Yi Jingming was a typical protagonist who just coasted to victory. Once his protagonist halo was gone, his true colors were immediately revealed in this life.
Mu Yanxi refilled the tub for Yi Wulan and chose a bath bomb with a different scent for her. The sphere gradually dissolved in the water, dyeing it blue and creating a mass of fine foam. “Do you need me to help you in?”
“No need, I can manage on my own.” Yi Wulan supported herself on the edge of the tub and half-stood, her tone noticeably lighter. “Then why did you say it was no good earlier?”
“Reacting to Yi Jingming’s previous minor, painless provocations was useless. One has to find the right moment to make him suffer a bigger loss, right?” Mu Yanxi helped her up anyway. “If he can’t be convicted this time, it’s fine to just keep him detained for a while to give him a criminal record, right? I remember that if the trial is delayed, it can be dragged out for half a year or so?”
“The lawyers will handle it.”
Mu Yanxi raised an eyebrow but said nothing more.
After Yi Wulan got into the tub, Mu Yanxi quickly turned her back. Listening to the rustle of clothes being removed behind her, she rubbed her earlobes, not knowing where to look, and casually examined the bathroom’s layout.
It was the first time Mu Yanxi had noticed just how many accessibility aids were in this bathroom.
Then she thought about how Yi Wulan had been able to stand up from the floor on her own earlier, yet she had waited for her to finish her bath for so long…
Mu Yanxi let out a soft breath and finally couldn’t hold back. She turned her head with a strange expression to look at Yi Wulan. “Yi Wulan.”
Yi Wulan had just sunk into the water. “Hmm?”
Mu Yanxi said faintly, “Your legs have mostly recovered. You probably don’t need me to stay anymore, do you?”
Yi Wulan leaned forward slightly and said in all seriousness, “Before, when my legs had no feeling, I got used to it. But now that they have feeling but are still unsteady, it’s easy to fall and get hurt.”
Actually, Yi Wulan wasn’t wrong. When her legs had no sensation, she would instinctively use all her strength in her waist. But now that the feeling had returned but wasn’t fully recovered, it was actually harder to control.
Mu Yanxi’s face darkened as she looked down at Yi Wulan. “Since it’s inconvenient for you, I’ll just call the housekeeper up.”
Mu Yanxi had wanted to retort with the line she used on netizens—’if your brain isn’t working, you should sell it’—but the words wouldn’t come out when they reached her lips. She choked for a moment before tossing out a haughty, cold remark: “…Be careful, or I’ll find you too troublesome and ignore you.”
After saying this, even she herself was startled to realize it sounded a bit like a young couple having a tiff.
Her face grew even darker.
She didn’t have the face to stay in the bathroom any longer. Without a word to Yi Wulan, she hurriedly pushed the door open and left.
Yi Wulan was left alone in the bathroom. After a long moment, she slowly placed a hand over her left breast, feeling the accelerated rhythm of her heartbeat within. Her dazed eyes gradually cleared, and the corners of her lips curved up slightly.
She turned on the cold water tap at the side, lowering the temperature of the water in the tub.
A few minutes later, the steam in the bathroom had completely dissipated, and Yi Wulan’s heartbeat had returned to normal.
She picked up her phone to look at the information Gu Yan had sent about Yi Jingming and Yi Zizhuo, and gave a few specific instructions.
After finishing this, Yi Wulan looked at the empty space before her in the bathroom, an inexplicable and subtle unhappiness in her heart.
After her bath, Mu Yanxi used her tablet to quickly order a new phone for herself, arranging for it to be delivered that night.
Then she logged onto Weibo and scrolled for a while.
Although Mu Yanxi loved to verbally trash Yi Wulan for making a grand display by walking at the press conference, she couldn’t help but search for it when she had a free moment.
Perhaps because she had soaked in the bath for too long and her brain had gotten a bit waterlogged, Mu Yanxi couldn’t help but like several posts praising Yi Wulan and her wife for their loving relationship.
Reading the netizens’ comments gave Mu Yanxi the illusion that perhaps Yi Wulan’s final answer to the reporter at the press conference wasn’t an act.
With this thought in mind, the number of likes she gave increased.
By the time she realized what she was doing, she had already been discovered by the anti-fans who hadn’t been able to find any dirt on her for a long time.
Mu Yanxi didn’t know what had possessed her, but she quickly went to unlike the posts.
In the eyes of the anti-fans, this action was like burying one’s head in the sand.
Immediately, people started commenting on her latest Weibo post:
【What, no clout to chase lately, so you dare to ride the coattails of the Rongjia Group’s President?】
【Even if you think you can do whatever you want because you’re irrelevant, could you please look carefully before you chase clout? Those posts are praising the Rongjia President and the President’s wife, okay? Can you use your brain?】
【Aren’t you married? Don’t tell me you’re planning to have an affair? But can you take a look at yourself and see what league you’re in?】
【I advise you to go ‘accidentally’ like a few posts about Rongjia’s holography now, so you won’t be mocked so harshly later.】
【Stop liking posts. How long has it been since you posted a selfie? Can you please have some awareness of your only value?】
Mu Yanxi couldn’t be bothered to deal with them. Just as she was bracing herself for a barrage from her manager, she refreshed the page, and the trending topic about Yi Wulan had vanished out of thin air.
Not only the trending topic, but the public square and the search term itself were also locked. Meanwhile, other trending topics related to Rongjia were still high on the list.
It was obvious that the person in question did not want to be discussed by the public, just like how it was impossible to find any of Yi Wulan’s personal information online before.
This swift and decisive action left many netizens dumbfounded, yet it also felt entirely reasonable.
As expected of the Rongjia Group, their efficiency is top-notch.
It also coincidentally saved Mu Yanxi from the embarrassment of her ‘accidental’ likes.
By the time Mu Yanxi came to her senses, she had already walked to the bathroom door, planning to condescend to show some concern for Yi Wulan.
Hearing the sound from the bathroom door, a thought instantly surfaced in Yi Wulan’s mind: that was the sound of Mu Yanxi’s footsteps.
Although Mu Yanxi’s behavior before she left didn’t suggest she would return, and although it could have been the housekeeper bringing a late-night snack…
…Yi Wulan still felt it was Mu Yanxi.
She didn’t know when it started, but Mu Yanxi had already seeped into her life.
Even though she tried her best to keep her distance and push the person away, the little ancestor still squeezed her way in as always, filling every bit of her life.
The bathroom door was pushed open. Mu Yanxi peeked her head in, theatrically covering her eyes with her hand. “Yi Wulan, I’m coming in, okay?”
Yi Wulan didn’t feel much inside the bathroom, but the air conditioning in the bedroom outside was set quite low, and the temperature difference quickly condensed into a patch of mist.
When the mist cleared, Mu Yanxi was standing there in a black nightgown, as if she had walked slowly out of the parting fog. Her half-damp, half-dry hair fell over her chest, partially concealing the spring scenery beneath.
Her lively fox-like eyes glanced at Yi Wulan with a mix of curiosity and softness, and she walked nonchalantly to the tub. “Are you done bathing?”
Yi Wulan’s breath hitched suddenly. She calmly said, “Why did you come back?”
Mu Yanxi said lazily, “I was afraid you’d get bored in here all alone, fall asleep, and drown.”
She turned her back. “Aren’t you getting up yet?”
Yi Wulan wasn’t as coy as Mu Yanxi had been. She quickly drained the water, dried herself, and got dressed.
When Mu Yanxi turned around, Yi Wulan was already standing behind her, holding onto the washstand for support.
Mu Yanxi helped support Yi Wulan and led her back to the bed. She finally couldn’t resist asking, “When I refreshed Weibo just now, all the search terms about you were cleared. Was that you?”
Yi Wulan nodded without any hesitation.
Mu Yanxi glanced at Yi Wulan, subtly wrapped the blanket tighter around herself, and said faintly, “You were secretly cyberstalking me.”
Yi Wulan clearly didn’t understand the term Mu Yanxi used. She frowned. “What?”
Mu Yanxi wore a triumphant expression that said, ‘I already knew, don’t try to hide it from me.’ She hooked a strand of Yi Wulan’s hair with ill intent and asked casually, “Then why did you have your trending topic taken down?”
“The focus of the press conference was that Shuilin Fang is a holographic product. The priorities shouldn’t be reversed.”
After speaking, Yi Wulan saw Mu Yanxi’s dazed expression and added, “Besides, this is what the public relations department is supposed to do anyway.”
Mu Yanxi: “That’s it?”
Yi Wulan thought for a moment more and explained seriously, “Ever since that female celebrity from your entertainment circle used my photo for marketing, Rongjia’s PR department has been extra vigilant.”
Mu Yanxi scanned Yi Wulan’s face several times. Those clear, limpid eyes plainly stated that Yi Wulan was not lying.
She let go of Yi Wulan’s hair and flopped onto her side without a second thought. “Oh.”
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