Chapter 179: Plans and Ideas
“Do I even need to explain why? I used to be a strong man, after all.”
Hearing her good friend say that and seeing his expression, Lin Muqing suddenly got flustered. She quickly tried to explain herself.
At the same time, she felt like having her head patted at a moment like this was disrespectful, like he was looking down on her. So she scooted away a little, trying to avoid his reaching hand.
“Hmm, so you're saying you're a cute strong guy?”
To match Lin Muqing's serious tone, Ye Ziming also put away his smile and replied just as seriously.
“I am not cute!” (Totally flustered.jpg)
“I think you're cute.” (Smiling.jpg)
Lin Muqing was left speechless. For a moment, she didn't know how to argue back.
“Everyone thinks you’re cute. If you don’t believe me, you can ask them one by one.”
Ye Ziming gave a victorious smile. If he could, he’d probably throw up a peace sign too.
And he wasn’t wrong, among the people he knew, more or less everyone had said Lin Muqing was cute at some point.
“You’ve said enough!”
Her cheeks turned red as she puffed up in annoyance. She was about to argue with Ye Ziming, ready for a round of playful bickering. But no matter what she said or did, Ye Ziming stayed calm, maybe even a little amused.
In the end, Lin Muqing grumpily dove under the covers with her phone, turning her back to Ye Ziming, not wanting to talk to him anymore because she lost the argument. But before fully going silent, she shot Ye Ziming a glare and pointed at the mattress.
“Stay on your side tonight! If you cross the line, I’ll smack your butt five times!”
With her face turning even redder, she tossed out that warning and went completely quiet, refusing to interact with him anymore. Seeing how cute she looked, Ye Ziming silently smiled, then looked away and went back to playing on his phone.
While browsing his photo gallery just now, he noticed something strange, one album seemed to be missing. After thinking carefully, he realized it was the one where he stored photos of Lin Muqing. He guessed she had deleted it earlier.
No big deal, she might have deleted the local version, but he still had a cloud backup.
A few moments later, the photos were all restored.
“Go to sleep early. You can play more tomorrow.”
Seeing how late it had gotten, Ye Ziming gently patted the small bump under the blanket next to him and softly said to the little cutie beside him. The “bump” seemed annoyed, wiggled a little, and let out a small “hmph.”
After a while, she still didn’t respond. Clearly, she was still a bit mad.
Even so, she obediently stretched out her hand and placed her phone on the nightstand on her side of the bed.
“Good night.”
Smiling with satisfaction, Ye Ziming spoke again before turning off the lights.
Lin Muqing didn’t say a word, trying to act all cool and aloof.
Click.
With a soft sound, the room light turned off, and darkness filled the space.
Ye Ziming didn’t mind Lin Muqing’s attitude and had no plans to stop calling her cute anytime soon.
As long as she wasn’t really mad at him, everything would be fine. He figured they could talk it out in the morning.
While those two were still bickering, elsewhere in the same villa community, something else was happening in the Lin household.
That night, after Meng Yue got home, she told her husband that she wanted to have a daughter.
There was no real problem with this matter. And even if there was, Father Lin (Lin Cong) would still say there wasn’t, because four votes beat one vote.
The real problem appeared when the husband and wife finally agreed on the idea, and Lin Cong was about to go check on Lin Muqing.
That’s when Lin Yiming suddenly noticed something.
“I think… she might be our parents’ secret daughter.”
It was late at night. After their parents went to bed, Lin Yiming called his two younger brothers into his room and said this to them.
“Bro, are you trying to stir up trouble or what?”
Lin Qiwen instantly got nervous after hearing it, thinking his big brother was going too far.
“Don’t joke about stuff like that. It could really cause big problems.”
Their second brother, Lin Zixuan, reacted more calmly, but he was still shocked. He didn’t expect their big brother to say something like that.
Everyone knew Meng Yue and Lin Cong were very much in love. If something like this caused trouble between them, that would be serious.
“Look here, these are our parents’ photos. And here’s a photo of my ‘little sister.’”
Lin Yiming waved them over to the computer, turned on the screen, and started showing them the pictures.
“What do you mean your little sister? Did she even admit that?”
Lin Qiwen didn’t get it at first, but after a moment, he realized something was off with that sentence.
“She will, eventually,” Lin Yiming said with confidence.
“Bro, have some shame, seriously.”
Lin Zixuan couldn’t take it anymore. He looked at his big brother with a face full of disgust.
That led to another round of back-and-forth teasing. In the end, they agreed to compromise, either call her “our little sister” or just “little sister.”
“First, look at the eyes. Then check the rest of the face.”
Finally bringing the topic back, Lin Yiming pointed at the screen and began explaining why he thought what he did. Looking closely, the eyes of Lin Muqing and Meng Yue were extremely similar, almost like they came from the same mold.
When they looked at other facial features and some small details, they found that many of them actually matched their dad.
“Whoa… Big bro, I don’t think I’ve ever heard about us having a sister.”
After seeing all that, Lin Qiwen took a deep breath in shock. The more he looked, the more convinced he became.
“Yeah, me neither.”
Lin Yiming rubbed his chin and thought for a second, then nodded. In theory, he started remembering things around the time their third brother was born, and back then there had been no sign of a sister in the house.
“So… what should we do now?”
Lin Zixuan frowned. He couldn’t decide what the right thing to do was, so he turned to ask his big brother.
“Here’s what we’ll do, we have to get closer to her first. After she joins the Lin family, we try to ask around and find out who her parents are.”
Big brother Lin Yiming quickly gave his first plan, and the two younger brothers added their own thoughts to it.
By the time dawn arrived, the three brothers had come up with a final plan, to figure out the connection between their little sister and the Ye family.
Of course, to avoid upsetting their parents, they agreed to keep it all secret. They discussed everything quietly, without disturbing the two adults who were fast asleep.
And just like that, the next day arrived.
Early in the morning, Ye Ziming was the first to wake up. He opened his eyes slowly while still lying in bed. Even after fully waking up, he didn’t move. He just lay there, staring at the ceiling in a daze.
If you looked closely, you could see a bit of helplessness in his eyes… along with a soft, gentle affection.
He didn’t even need to look to know. There was a little cutie who didn’t sleep properly and had snuck into his blanket during the night. Right now, she was hugging his entire arm and even had one leg resting on top of him.
And her sleeping pose? Totally shameless.
P.S.: Before they went to sleep, they each had their own blanket.