Chapter 198: Grandpa
“I’ll ask her when she wakes up, okay?”
Yu Fan stood up with his phone in hand, pulled open the curtains, and looked down at the view outside the apartment building.
But suddenly, a loud voice from the phone made him jump. “What did you say?!”
“I said I’ll ask her if it’s okay to send you a photo after she wakes up,” Yu Fan explained, a bit helpless. “She doesn’t like people sending her pictures around. Honestly, I don’t even have many of her photos myself.”
“Wakes up?”
“What’s wrong?”
There was a long sigh from the other end, and then his father spoke in a serious tone.
“Yu Fan, you’re both still young. I know you’re excited, but you haven’t been with her for long. Don’t ruin her future.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Did you use protection? Getting a girl pregnant before marriage can really hurt her reputation. You have to think about her too.”
“......”
“How about this, when I get back, we’ll invite her parents over, and both families can meet.” But then his father suddenly changed the topic. “Wait a second. You two haven’t been together long, right? Things are moving so fast… what if she’s just after your money?”
Yu Fan had originally wanted to explain things clearly, but after hearing that last part, he calmly hung up the phone.
“Crazy.”
He mumbled as he sat back down at his computer. He wanted to play a game, but his eyes kept drifting toward the bedroom.
“I wonder if Li Mu will open my closet…”
He felt a little guilty and very uneasy.
“Xiao Jing, come here a sec.”
“Coming, coming!”
“Go check if your sister is asleep. Also, see what kind of expression she has.”
Xiao Jing looked confused. “Why?”
“I’m worried she might not sleep well in a new place.”
Even though Xiao Jing was usually a little mischievous, she was easy to trick. She didn’t suspect anything and happily ran off to check.
After all, a kid in her early teens usually doesn’t have any bad intentions.
She carefully pushed open the bedroom door and peeked inside. It was dim in the room. Li Mu was lying on her side, resting her head on her arm while playing with her phone.
“Sister, you’re still awake?”
“I'll just play with my phone a bit until I doze off.”
Li Mu glanced toward the door and yawned. “Is something wrong?”
“Is it hard to sleep here?”
“A little. The bed’s too soft.”
She frowned slightly as she pressed down on the soft mattress. After getting used to the hard wooden dorm bed at school, soft beds were kind of uncomfortable for her.
Even at home, her bed was made of wood with only a thin mattress on top.
Xiao Jing remembered her mission and carefully watched Li Mu’s face, which showed a bit of frustration from not being able to sleep.
Got it!
She turned and ran out of the room.
“She didn’t even close the door…”
Li Mu yawned and got up to close it, but then suddenly felt like something was off. She left the door slightly open, leaned against it, and listened to what was going on outside.
“Well? Is she asleep?”
“Nope! She’s still awake!”
Xiao Jing happily ran over to Yu Fan and held out her hand. “Red envelope!”
“Didn’t I already send one?” Yu Fan muttered as he sent another. At the same time, he asked, “So, what’s the situation?”
“She said the bed’s too soft, and she can’t sleep.”
“That’s not too bad…”
“But she didn’t seem very happy.”
Yu Fan’s eyebrow twitched. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe she’s just having trouble falling asleep?” Xiao Jing smiled as she looked at the red envelope notification on her budget phone. Then she added, “She kind of looked a little mad too.”
“Angry?”
Xiao Jing looked up with an innocent smile and said, “Yeah, maybe she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see?”
“Go check again!”
“But…”
“I’ll send you another red envelope right now!”
Inside the bedroom, Li Mu was deep in thought. She realized Yu Fan was so nervous about a secret in this room that he didn’t even notice Xiao Jing was clearly tricking him.
He was clearly too anxious and had lost his cool.
Her curiosity grew, and she looked again at the wardrobe in the room.
Even though she knew it was wrong to go through someone else’s closet when staying at their home, her curiosity slowly got stronger.
She swallowed nervously. But just then, her phone suddenly rang.
She turned to look at the phone on the bedside table. The name on the screen said “Grandpa.”
Li Mu’s face darkened. Her mood immediately dropped. She had no choice but to walk over and answer the call.
“Xiao Mu~ It’s New Year’s holiday. Why didn’t you come back to visit me?”
“You haven’t even come back to get your living expenses these past two months.”
Her grandpa’s old voice sounded sharp and made Li Mu feel a little guilty.
“Um…” she hesitated, trying to find an excuse.
“I’ve been working part-time recently and can make my own money now. I’ve just been really busy.”
“Xiao Mu, what’s wrong with your voice?”
She quickly coughed and made her voice sound lower and rougher. “Just a small cold.”
“You really can’t come back?”
“You know I’m busy. I have to work, and the spring entrance exams are coming up.”
“It doesn’t take that long to visit just once…”
Li Mu scratched her head in frustration.
Even though her hair wasn’t very long, it already covered her ears and finally looked a bit more like a girl’s hairstyle.
But if she went back, she would have to cut it.
“Next time. I promise I’ll visit next time.”
After finally getting through the call with some excuses, Li Mu looked up and saw Xiao Jing peeking in through the door crack. She wasn’t in the mood to play around, so she walked straight out of the bedroom.
When Yu Fan saw her, he jumped up like the chair had needles. “What’s wrong?”
He could clearly tell Li Mu was in a bad mood.
Did she really find out? Was it something that upsetting?
“It’s nothing. I’m going downstairs to get a haircut.”
“A haircut?” Yu Fan was surprised. “Your grandpa wants you to go visit him?”
“Yeah.” Li Mu touched the hair around her ears, feeling even more annoyed. “I’ve been growing it for a while now…”
She used to cut her hair about once a month, but this time she had let it grow for two months already.
At first, when her hair barely reached her eyes, she couldn’t stand it. She thought it looked like a bird’s nest and didn’t even want to go outside. But now, after using Wang Ruoyan’s conditioner and hair oil every day, she had really put effort into taking care of it.
And now she had to cut it.
“Is there no way not to go back?”
“No way…”
Hearing her grandpa’s old voice made her feel like not going home would be like committing a crime.
She let out a sigh and didn’t say anything else to Yu Fan. She opened the door, put on her shoes, and was ready to leave.
“I’ll take you. There’s a good hair salon nearby,” Yu Fan quickly followed her.
He loved long hair, and most of his drawings of Li Mu had her with long straight black hair or wavy curls. Unfortunately, real-life Li Mu was about to cut her hair again.
“Why don’t you just tell your grandpa the truth?”
“I can’t. What if he can’t accept it?” Li Mu mumbled. “He’s not in good health. He has high blood pressure and heart problems.”
Even though she looked like a girl on the outside now, if she cut her hair short again, she could still pretend to be a boy when needed.
“Then how about buying a wig? One of those short-haired ones for men. Since your hair is long, you can just tie it up and put it in a hair net.”
Li Mu paused and turned to look at him.
“You don’t visit often, and you don’t stay overnight at your grandpa’s house. He probably won’t notice.”
“That could work…”