In the room President Huo left behind before his departure, Mr. Liang received an entire childhood’s worth of dreams, memories, and wishes.
And lost all his pillows.
“There’s always a trade-off.” Duan Ming patted his shoulder. “You didn’t take them out to sell, did you?”
Liang Xiao was as wronged as snow in June and raised the childhood water gun to attack the manager.
Duan Ming wiped the water from his face, opened the wardrobe, and searched thoroughly.
From the master bedroom to the side bedroom, all bathing supplies and bedding were complete, and even exceptionally well-prepared, with several safety handles installed for using the bathtub alone.
Only the pillows had mysteriously disappeared, not a single one left.
“Who would take these things… they could have at least left you one.”
Duan Ming was puzzled and checked his phone: “Should I ask the hotel for another one?”
Liang Xiao looked at the time: “It’s too late, don’t bother.”
He had been sleeping with his head on President Huo lately and hadn’t really needed pillows. After careful reflection, he couldn’t recall any impression: “Maybe the pillow community was dissatisfied with my long-term neglect, rose in revolt, and left the bed…”
Duan Ming: “…Can I explain it like that when the hotel asks what happened tomorrow?”
Liang Xiao coughed and promptly shut up.
Duan Ming really couldn’t figure it out and stopped wasting brain power: “Forget it, I’ll contact them tomorrow and ask if President Huo’s side accidentally packed them.”
The butler was responsible for taking Liang Xiao and President Huo to the airport this morning, while the head of the bodyguards was in charge of packing the suite. To inquire about the luggage, they would probably need to contact the bodyguard team.
Duan Ming found the Huo residence work communication group, opened it, and searched: “How’s your thank-you message to President Huo coming along?”
Liang Xiao: “I sent it.”
Duan Ming was surprised: “What did you send?”
“I received the gifts, I really like them, I’m really happy, I was so touched I cried…”
Liang Xiao read to him: “And where did all my pillows go.”
Duan Ming: “…”
Duan Ming felt a toothache and pressed it, taking a deep breath: “…My fault.”
The butler had repeatedly warned before leaving that President Huo and Mr. Liang had developed a new mode of interaction that they couldn’t easily participate in.
Duan Ming had been careless, not heeding the elder’s advice, and now it was clearly too late for regrets: “Wasn’t it supposed to be a thank-you message? Why ask President Huo about this?”
Liang Xiao was quite embarrassed: “What if President Huo couldn’t bear to part and wanted to take some memento related to me, and happened to choose the pillows…”
Liang Xiao’s imagination was as bold as he was, his ears heating up as he stood tall: “In this one question, I’ve hidden 0.1 points of intimacy within 7 points of emotion and 2.9 points of happiness.”
Duan Ming was shocked by his articulate pie chart statistics, opened his mouth but couldn’t speak, and felt Liang Xiao’s forehead.
Liang Xiao thought his speculation was quite reasonable and moved the manager’s hand away: “Is that wrong?”
“…Right.”
Duan Ming: “Let’s talk about the pillow uprising.”
Between the two options, the logic and possibility of pillows revolting and leaving were clearly slightly superior.
Liang Xiao was embarrassed and angry, using the water gun to drive the manager out of the room.
“It must have been a miscommunication during packing, a mistake from President Huo’s assistant team.”
Duan Ming, quick-eyed and quick-handed, grabbed several bags of snacks and leaned half his body through the doorframe: “I’ll contact them tomorrow morning to confirm. Rest well, and if necessary, roll up a blanket. Be careful not to get a stiff neck…”
Duan Ming quickly dodged a stream of water, closed the door for him, and went downstairs.
Liang Xiao’s final attack regrettably missed. He held his breath in the living room for a while, reluctantly put away the gun, and returned to the side bedroom.
His phone was quiet; it was probably too late, and President Huo had already gone to rest.
Liang Xiao held up his phone and scrolled for a while, then scrolled back through those few messages, reading them word by word, and opened the character analysis he had saved.
The side bedroom’s light was warm, and the room was even fuller than usual.
Liang Xiao had collected a stack of sticky notes, from reminders to eat to reminders to sleep well, and carefully aligned them along the edge of the headboard.
Liang Xiao lay on the bed, looking up at the notes one by one, tossing and turning a few times. He accidentally pulled at the wound on his ribs, inhaled sharply, and rubbed it.
President Huo’s shirts were still in the wardrobe, all particularly soft and comfortable casual styles, neatly arranged in a row.
Burying his head in them, he could still smell the faint cool scent of fresh snow.
Liang Xiao, pressing his ribs, jumped off the bed, crouched in the wardrobe, and empathetically thought that the image of their President Huo burying his face in a pillow wasn’t so impossible.
…
Though not very likely.
Liang Xiao tried to imagine for a while but ultimately couldn’t let his imagination run completely free. He yawned, turned off his phone, and kept it close to his body.
Even without pillows, it wasn’t a serious problem.
Liang Xiao was always adaptable. He washed up with the little yellow duck, bundled up President Huo’s pajamas into a small ball, and used them as a pillow to sleep.
–
Huo Residence.
“…That’s roughly what happened.”
The head of the bodyguards pulled the butler to a corner and lowered his voice: “Which blind fool was responsible for packing and brought back all of Mr. Liang’s pillows?!”
Before returning, when packing the luggage, President Huo had specifically instructed that not much needed to be brought. The head of the bodyguards had been puzzled about the discrepancy in the quantity and volume of the luggage.
In a moment of carelessness, such a mistake had occurred.
The head of the bodyguards still hadn’t found out who did it and grew increasingly angry: “President Huo needs to investigate! I only found out why we brought so many cars of things when their manager contacted me today!”
The butler sighed and gave him a complicated look.
The head of the bodyguards was confused by his look: “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” The butler asked, “Did you tell President Huo?”
The head of the bodyguards: “Of course! How could I hide something like this from President Huo?”
The butler finally understood where the snow in the bedroom this morning had come from. He took a deep breath, pressing his head: “Then you-”
The butler looked down at the suitcase by the head of the bodyguards’ feet: “…Never mind.”
The head of the bodyguards had been reassigned to the outer perimeter more than once, considering it a normal job rotation where he could shine anywhere, and hadn’t taken it to heart: “How can it be nothing? At best, this is a mistake; at worst, it’s embezzlement! Why bring pillows back for no reason?”
The two were standing not far from the study. The butler acted quickly, firmly covering the head of the bodyguards’ mouth.
“Maybe they were sold!”
The head of the bodyguards persisted stubbornly, struggling to finish: “Five-star hotel pillows are valuable now. If they’ve been sold, we must investigate the market…”
“No need to investigate.” The butler had a headache and dragged him away. “They’re not on the market.”
The head of the bodyguards was surprised: “Then where are they? Who brought them back?”
The butler: “…”
They were all in President Huo’s bedroom, neatly arranged in a row standing at attention. If President Huo felt his work for the day was satisfactory, he would select one to spend five minutes with.
The butler really couldn’t say it, held his forehead, and remained silent for a while: “I took them.”
The head of the bodyguards looked at him in shock: “What did you take them for?”
The butler didn’t know either, but being loyal, he steeled himself: “The assistant team bought a vacuum compressor… I had an itch to try it.”
The head of the bodyguards hadn’t expected his decades-long partner to be this kind of person and stared at him incredulously: “You had an itch, so you compressed all of Mr. Liang’s pillows and brought them back? Couldn’t you have at least left him one?!”
The butler had asked President Huo the same question at the time, but the image of President Huo silently sulking in the snow while peeling walnuts was too heartbreaking, and the butler really couldn’t bring himself to be harsh.
This morning, the butler had already contacted the hotel, used the black card member discount to purchase all the pillows they had brought back, and notified the hotel to quickly replace a new batch for Mr. Liang. Looking at the still confused and troublesome head of the bodyguards, he had a terrible headache and shooed him downstairs along with the luggage.
The villa was particularly quiet today, with notably fewer staff moving around.
As the two pushed and pulled their way to the entrance, they noticed the commotion outside and realized something was wrong.
The butler didn’t have time to throw the person out, released his hand, frowned, and went over: “What’s going on? Who sent these things?”
“The branch family…” the person in charge of the outer perimeter responded hesitantly. “We don’t know where to put them, and we can’t just pile them at the door.”
Except for those few years when the Huo family had troubles, they hadn’t dealt with such a situation since. The person in charge of the outer perimeter was in a dilemma and said softly: “They said Qingming Festival is approaching, and they’ve come to pay respects to the master and mistress. We can’t refuse…”
The butler said coldly: “If they’re for the master and mistress, then properly deliver them to the cemetery, sweep and pay respects. President Huo will also go in the afternoon.”
The person in charge looked troubled: “If more people come to deliver-”
“If more come, have them deliver to the cemetery!” The head of the bodyguards recovered and sternly rebuked, “Why deliver to the Huo residence?”
The person in charge stammered: “We tried to persuade them, but they said they’re all family, blood is thicker than water, and sending to the home is also a way to express grief…”
“Grief is unclear, but each relative’s generational rank is written quite clearly… Now they’re all President Huo’s elders again.”
The butler took the gift list and flipped through it, his expression darkening. Just as he was about to speak, he tensed at the figure coming downstairs: “President Huo.”
The butler quickly threw away the gift list, lowered his voice to call out, and prepared to move everything away quickly.
President Huo’s expression was calm, seemingly unmoved by the flower paper and fruit baskets before him: “Take them with the car in the afternoon. Any more that arrive should all be redirected to the cemetery.”
The person in charge nodded hurriedly: “Yes.”
Xingguan still had work waiting to be handled, and President Huo needed to go to the company first: “No need to send someone to pick me up, I’ll drive myself over.”
The butler hesitated somewhat: “President Huo-”
President Huo cut him off mildly: “I’ll trouble you with the household matters.”
The butler closed his mouth, said no more, and lowered his head, remaining at the door.
President Huo didn’t linger, getting into the car alone.
The head of the bodyguards and the butler watched the car drive away, somewhat worried. He tugged at the butler: “President Huo… will he be alright?”
“He’ll be fine.”
The butler shook his head: “When President Huo is in a bad mood, he likes to be alone.”
If the company didn’t have so many matters to attend to, President Huo would probably prefer to stay alone in the small study that had been entirely moved back from Jiangnan. But at this critical moment, President Huo wouldn’t let his personal emotions interfere with or delay work in any way.
“It’s our fault,” the outer perimeter person in charge said with self-reproach. “People started sending things gradually from the end of March. We thought since President Huo wasn’t coming back anyway, it wouldn’t bother him, so we didn’t control it much…”
“We didn’t expect this either,” the butler sighed. “It was indeed unexpected.”
President Huo couldn’t always return to the capital for every Qingming Festival. In previous years, when Huo Corporation urgently needed revitalization, President Huo often went abroad for inspections and deals. If he couldn’t return, he would have the staff at the Huo residence pay respects and clean on his behalf.
They had thought this time would be similar and had made all the necessary preparations in advance. No one expected Long Tao to collapse so suddenly.
“What’s the use of sending these things?” The head of the bodyguards couldn’t understand and frowned deeply. “Just to upset President Huo? What are those branch family people trying to stir up?”
“It’s nothing more than them not having liquid funds lately, unable to endure hardship, and each rushing to remind President Huo that they are, after all, his elders.”
The butler looked at the gift list: “Even their generational ranks are traced from the master and mistress… When President Huo first returned and funds were tight, where were these blood-is-thicker-than-water elders?”
The butler still clearly remembered those days, and both old and new anger flared up: “When President Huo was alone in Jiangnan with a high fever from pheromone conflict that wouldn’t subside, where were they to show concern? When President Huo was presenting in the heavy rain, where were they?”
The head of the bodyguards, enlightened by his words, thought carefully and his expression also darkened: “They should be thoroughly dealt with.”
“They’re like grasshoppers after autumn, they can’t jump for much longer.”
The butler took a deep breath and exhaled, calming himself: “Let’s put these things away first. They’ll go to the cemetery with the car in the afternoon… what a sight to have them here.”
(advanced chapters available on kofi)
![After losing all his wealth, the ancestor rose from his coffin [BL]](https://www.freenovels.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Your-paragraph-text-1.png "After losing all his wealth, the ancestor rose from his coffin [BL]")
