Sweet slice-of-life love story: Wife, Let's love again
Chapter 221 - 217: Bloomed

Chapter 221: Chapter 217: Bloomed

A lifetime spans just over thirty thousand days.

When this number lay before him, Qin Guanglin felt a sudden tightness in his heart.

It seemed... rather short.

Now in his twenties, after one-third of his time was devoted to sleep and another third to work, the remaining time he truly had at his own disposal was merely a few thousand days.

"You calculate it like this, and suddenly I feel like there really isn’t much time left."

Qin Guanglin was startled by his own calculations.

"Pfft, pfft, pfft, why does everything you say turn sour once it reaches your lips?" He Fang muttered discontentedly, looking down.

"What changed... Don’t use math problems to calculate the length of life. We have many more years together. If we work harder now, we’ll relax later..." Qin Guanglin said slowly as he pinched her soft flesh, bending down to kiss her, "I’ve noticed you’re becoming more and more ladylike, what’s happening? Huh?"

He could no longer remember when He Fang started becoming so clingy... It seemed she had always been that way, and yet not quite. Unnoticed, she had become like she was now, curling up in his arms like a small cat and whispering desires to stay together.

"Where am I being ladylike... Turn off the light, I’m going to sleep, just remember, we agreed at most till New Year’s Day. If you’re still this busy after New Year’s Day, don’t touch me."

"Okay, okay, for sure, I can’t bear to make you wait so late every day either." Qin Guanglin got out of bed to turn off the bedroom light. Not lying back down, he squatted at the foot of the bed and caressed up her foot, "You said each passing day is one less, so shouldn’t we..."

"No, didn’t we agree to wait until you’re healed?"

"I feel like I could punch a cow to death right now, I’m in an unexpectedly great shape."

"Go, go, hurry up and sleep... Stop messing around." He Fang wriggled her body and groaned, "I’m very tired, go to sleep. We’ll talk after you’re healed."

Qin Guanglin was unwilling. At his age, he was eager for nightly endeavors. From the end of September to the seven days of National Day, not having touched her at all, and occasionally being playfully teased by her, he had been looking forward to satisfying his urges after returning from his father-in-law’s home. As for being injured, it was on his head, not his waist.

"It’s already healed, I’ll prove it to you."

"Mmm, don’t..."

...

Afterwards.

Lying against the headboard with little desire for sleep, Qin Guanglin’s hand rested on He Fang’s back, feeling the smooth touch, he suddenly became reflective.

In truth, he wasn’t a real fetishist, simply quite lustful.

He just craved Teacher He’s body, in every way.

Quietly savoring the afterglow for a while, the energetic Qin Guanglin felt a renewed stirring. He turned to look at He Fang’s sleeping face, tucked her in without disturbing her rest, quietly slipped on his nightshirt, and sat down at the desk to turn on his computer.

In the following months, he’d probably have to work overtime until eight or nine o’clock like today. There’d be no time to handle commissioned writing, so he would have to stop taking orders temporarily.

Art was highly subjective; some people would spend thousands on a piece they admired, and those who weren’t interested wouldn’t buy even for a hundred. Like the landscape painting of rain-drenched mountains he did before, it was still hanging, unsold, leaving him to passively accept commissions and create commercial art to client specifications.

It paled in comparison to manga.

The core of manga is the story, followed by the art style. With a good script provided by the company, and his craftsmanship, the two combined would come to fruition without much extra effort, just time needed to produce the work. It would naturally turn out to be excellent, and then with strategic promotion based on traffic, there would be no worry about earning money.

In both income and stability, the two were worlds apart.

Having sorted everything out, it was already past eleven at night. Qin Guanglin yawned, shut down the computer quietly, and slipped into bed to embrace that fragrant body for a brief massage before closing his eyes and falling deeply asleep.

A night without dreams.

Perhaps because she had absorbed enough energy, He Fang woke up earlier than Qin Guanglin in the morning. She snuggled into his arms with her eyes still closed, cherishing the warmth for a while before lifting her head to plant a kiss on him. Then she carefully peeled back his arm and climbed out of bed slowly, pulling a nightgown over herself, stepping down to visit the bathroom, and, while yawning, took some eggs out of the refrigerator to fry.

Qin Guanglin had never mastered the skill of frying eggs, either scrambling them or breaking them when trying to flip. To avoid wasting ingredients, if he was up early, he would just go downstairs and buy ready-made breakfast, varying it with buns, fried dough sticks, soy milk, and millet porridge. If He Fang was the early riser, breakfast was simply two fried eggs and a box of milk.

The sizzling sound from the kitchen drifted into the bedroom, and Qin Guanglin reached back with his hand for the familiar touch, realized it wasn’t there, and opened his eyes to sit up. After waking up a bit, he shuffled out to wash up with his slippers on.

"Do you get any supper when you work overtime? If you come back very late, I can make you some soup or something in the evening."

He Fang didn’t want him to come home late every day, but given that things were already this way, since she couldn’t dissuade him, all she could do was support him.

What else could she do? Argue? That was even less of what she wanted.

"Yeah, yeah, there’s always supper when we work overtime."

"Then you should eat more, don’t save money for that stinky boss of yours."

"I won’t save him any money, don’t worry... bleh."

Qin Guanglin finished rinsing his mouth, wiped it, and leaned over to plant a kiss on her cheek. He didn’t bother defending his boss; let the anger be misplaced—as if it would cost him a piece of flesh.

"Hey, this... is that a garlic sprout? It’s really going to bloom?" He sat on the couch, looked all around, and his gaze suddenly became fixated. Curiously, he walked to the corner of the living room and crouched down to closely examine the plant he had once jokingly called a leek.

Back in August, when he was helping with the watering, its leaves had already shriveled up. He thought it had died, but now, to his surprise, while no new leaves had grown, there was a green stalk shooting up from the soil with what looked like a bulbous bud on top.

"What?" He Fang, taken aback, looked over at him crouched there, and her heart jumped. She turned off the burner and ran over, staring blankly at the budding plant in the pot.

"Have you never seen it before?"

Qin Guanglin asked, seeing her reaction, and looked back at the flower pot. "We’ll look at it later; it’s not blooming yet, plus the eggs will burn."

"Oh."

"We made a bet, didn’t we? It looks like I’ve lost. Tell me, what do you want me to do? I’ll satisfy your wish." He paused and added, "Except for quitting. Quitting now would be dishonorable, and I’d feel guilty too. The boss has been good to me, taught me a lot. It wouldn’t be right to bail on him at a critical time."

"Let’s talk about it later." He Fang furrowed her brows slightly and returned to the kitchen to see that the eggs were almost done. She used tongs to place them on a plate and brought them out, her gaze inadvertently falling back to that pot of Lycoris radiata in the corner.

Why had it bloomed?

"What are you thinking about?"

Qin Guanglin’s voice brought He Fang back to reality. She nonchalantly picked up the fried egg with chopsticks and took a small bite. "This flower... when did it start growing?"

"I don’t know; I’ve just noticed it too—maybe it’s supposed to bloom around this time?"

"..." He Fang’s chewing paused, and she turned to glance at the flower pot again, nodding. "That’s right, usually around September or October... Luo City’s climate usually leads to them blooming in October."

Normally, Lycoris radiata would bloom around this time, but this one was abnormal... no, that’s not right.

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she remembered something she had previously overlooked.

It blooms once in ten years, during the height of summer.

The last time was the anomaly—where in Luo City do you find Lycoris radiata blooming in June?

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