Mysterious Beautiful Wife at Home (GL) - Chapter 10

Back in the car, Chi Nian leaned against the seat, her profile turned toward the window. The soft sunlight bathed her, yet a heavy sense of loneliness enveloped her. She gazed outside, though it was unclear what she was looking at. The faint reflection in the window showed only a blurred face.

The ride was silent. What had seemed like a successful social gathering now left no trace. Chi Nian reverted to her usual self—
cold, detached, and wrapped in an isolating melancholy.

Zhang Yuning couldn’t understand why she always exuded such an indescribable sadness, as if she had once slept in despair and
awakened to find no hope in sight. The lighthouse in her eyes flickered occasionally, only to dim again.

What was hidden in her heart? Which version of Chi Nian was the real one?

Zhang Yuning could even sense a latent power beneath that frail frame. A force that tugged at her own heart.

The heiress of the Chi family shouldn’t be like this. The Chi Nian at the social table had been more like the woman people
imagined, the “Miss Chi” the world knew.

She shouldn’t try to decipher Chi Nian any further. If she did, it wouldn’t be Chi Nian’s iron walls that crumbled. It would be her
own defenses. She feared that one day, her steel-like resilience might shatter under some unknown, terrifying force.

Zhang Yuning’s small clinic was located in an ordinary downtown area, beneath a residential building. She had bought both floors of
the shop space, the ground floor for the clinic and the upper floor for her home. An internal staircase connected the two, making
it convenient.

She was used to living freely. The clinic handled basic ailments and sold medicine, but her main income came from selling code
online, gaming equipment, and even horse racing a mix of odd jobs with no fixed career. Of course, working for Xiao Changying paid
better. The house had been a reward for designing the security system for Butterfly Manor.

Having been away for days, the clinic had turned into a pharmacy. Thinking she’d be with Chi Nian for a while, Zhang Yuning had
told the nurse not to come in anymore, planning to convert the place fully into a drugstore.

Chi Nian’s luxury car stood out starkly in this residential area, drawing attention, but Zhang Yuning gritted her teeth and drove
it in anyway, parking it in a corner and taking up a temporary spot.

She helped Chi Nian out of the car, still uneasy. The surroundings were too ordinary. Only street cameras at intersections and her
clinic’s entrance, with no security measures.

She glanced around, familiar as she was with the area and its residents, yet she couldn’t help but stay alert. After all, as a
bodyguard, Chi Nian’s safety was now her responsibility.

“What’s there to fear? This is your turf,” Chi Nian said, her tone shifting. Seeing the sign “Zhang Zhang Clinic,” she smiled
faintly.

The sunlight once again illuminated her profile, and the extinguished light in her eyes flickered back to life.

Was it the sunlight’s doing, or the novelty of the moment? Stepping down into the ordinary world, surrounded by the hum of daily
life, she seemed more at ease than usual.

Turf…

Zhang Yuning used to joke with patients, “My turf, my rules.” In truth, she often gave free medicine to the slums. She had picked
up some medical skills along the way and miraculously obtained a license, becoming a half-baked doctor—not for money, but for
something else entirely.

Hearing such streetwise words come from Chi Nian’s mouth felt strange, yet oddly familiar.

“Can we leave after looking?” Zhang Yu Ning thought it was just a simple visit.

“Leave?” Chi Nian raised an eyebrow. “We’re staying here tonight.”

“What?”

Zhang Yu Ning was caught off guard. She stared at Chi Nian in shock, unmoving. She had never brought anyone home before even Xiao

Changying’s people only met her downstairs or elsewhere.

“My place…”

She was about to make an excuse when Chi Nian pulled the door open herself. Zhang Yu Ning’s habit of not locking her door was known
only to a few.

Was this just a coincidence?

Chi Nian didn’t even give her a chance to speak.

“Miss Chi, my place isn’t suitable for guests,” Zhang Yu Ning chased after her, blocking her path. “There aren’t any spare clothes,
nothing’s prepared. It’s really not fitting for someone of your status.”

“I told you not to call me ‘Miss Chi.'”

“Then…”

“Break my rules, and you’ll be punished.” Chi Nian adopted a boss-like tone.

“Fine, whatever you say. But staying at my place…”

“Your punishment is staying at your place.” Chi Nian’s tone was firm, leaving no room for refusal. Zhang Yu Ning’s lips twitched,
utterly exasperated.

As she spoke, Chi Nian glanced around. The clinic was about 80 square meters, divided into two sections. One for medicine cabinets, the other a doctor’s office with an examination bed for minor treatments.
Chi Nian never gave Zhang Yu Ning a chance to refuse. She even found the staircase on her own and asked, “This leads straight to your home, right?”

“Yes…” The word stuck in Zhang Yu Ning’s throat, unwilling to be spoken. Before she could fully respond, Chi Nian was already
heading upstairs.

“Wait, Chi… No, Boss…”

Suddenly unsure how to address her, Zhang Yu Ning sighed. Chi Nian’s antics were endless, who knew what she was up to now?

Whatever. She’s the boss. She’s the boss. Repeating it in her mind, Zhang Yu Ning resigned herself to the situation.

She never imagined compromise would become her daily routine.

Chi Nian reached the door, grasped the handle, and smiled faintly. “Not locked either?” With a twist, the door swung open.

“Indoor doors don’t need locks.” Zhang Yu Ning wouldn’t admit she found carrying keys a hassle. To her, no lock was truly secure at
least, her lock-picking skills had never failed.

The second floor mirrored the first in size but had only two rooms. A far cry from Chi Nian’s luxury home.

Yet the layout was bizarre, to say the least. Few would design a home this way, but for Zhang Yu Ning, it made sense.

An open kitchen greeted them at the entrance, with a bar counter replacing a dining table. Eating confined to a corner seemed
enough. Strangely, a sofa sat beside the counter, and across the narrow hallway was a large tatami-style bed, blurring the lines
between bedroom, kitchen, and living room.

Chi Nian scanned the space without surprise, as if the odd arrangement was nothing unusual. She walked down the hall toward the
inner area, where only a bathroom and a standalone study remained.

Zhang Yu Ning had remodeled the place, and the study was absurdly large. Almost as if the entire apartment had been rearranged to
accommodate it.

A wide, pale wooden desk nearly as broad as the wall stood against the west side, topped with three oversized monitors. Aside from
a notebook and a few scattered A4 papers, there was nothing else just a gaming chair in front. The east wall housed a bookshelf,
though it held few books, instead stocked with instant noodles, chips, and other quick snacks.

In front of the bookshelf was a whiteboard covered in dense scribbles. Some resembling letters, others numbers, all crooked and
messy, interspersed with a few Chinese annotations in handwriting so poor it was nearly illegible.

Noticing Chi Nian glancing at her chicken-scratch writing, Zhang Yuning hurried over and wiped the board clean with an eraser.
After all, not only was her handwriting unfit for others to see, but the content was also something only she could decipher.

Chi Nian smiled without comment, watching her frantically erase the board before her gaze drifted to the trash bin on the floor.
Inside were two books with pages torn out, giving the impression they’d been discarded after use.

“My place is so cramped, it’s not really fit for living in,” Zhang Yuning tried again to dissuade Chi Nian from staying the night.

Chi Nian, however, seemed to ignore her words and walked straight to the only habitable spot in the room. She brushed her fingers
over the beige window seat cushion and asked, “Do you sleep here at night?”

“Not necessarily. I can sleep anywhere.”

Zhang Yuning lived a highly unstructured, solitary life. Her home was sparsely furnished, sometimes appearing uninhabited. The
decor was minimalist; cool grays and whites, even the curtains a muted beige, devoid of any warm tones.

“The window seat’s too narrow. I want a bed.”

“You probably didn’t bring any toiletries or makeup, right? I don’t have any here. No pajamas, nothing,” Zhang Yuning persisted.

Chi Nian looked at her, amused. “Do you really have to keep hinting for me to leave?”

“…Not really.”

“If not, then go fetch the travel kit from the trunk for me.”

That sounded suspiciously premeditated. Zhang Yuning was left speechless, unable to find any excuse to turn her away. Resigned, she
figured it was just one night.

Chi Nian wouldn’t sleep comfortably here anyway. If she had a bad night, she’d leave on her own tomorrow.

“Fine,” Zhang Yuning reluctantly agreed. Satisfied, Chi Nian settled onto the window seat. The second floor wasn’t high, but even
gazing at the distant blue sky and white clouds required tilting her head up.

Zhang Yuning fetched the travel bag as instructed. With plenty of daylight left, she dreaded the awkwardness of the two of them
sitting around, staring at each other in silence.

But Chi Nian promptly assigned her a task. Extracting all the key information from the files by tonight, a job that would easily
take her past midnight.

Once immersed in work, Zhang Yuning became hyper-focused. Back in her own space, the wide screens made the job far more efficient.
With three monitors running simultaneously, she could shave at least two hours off the estimated workload.

One worked in the study, the other in the outer room. Zhang Yuning had no idea what Chi Nian was doing. She heard no movement,
though when engrossed in work, she might as well have been deaf, her eyes glued to the screens.

By evening, her growling stomach reminded her they hadn’t eaten dinner. Out of habit, she reached for instant noodles, only to find
Chi Nian placing a bowl of noodles on the desk.

The instant noodles had been elevated. Topped with two soft-boiled eggs, a drizzle of ketchup, and a small dollop of chili paste on
the side.

“Eat up. Then get back to work.”

Though shocked that Chi Nian had personally cooked instant noodles, Zhang Yuning couldn’t bring herself to say thank you. The next
sentence’s oppressive tone was enough to cancel out this bowl of noodles.

Zhang Yuning picked up a forkful of noodles, wondering who would add tomato sauce first, then a spoonful of chili paste when
cooking instant noodles? And insisting on two soft-boiled eggs. This was exactly how she liked it, something no one else knew. She
only bothered with this elaborate method when she was in the mood; usually, she just ate them plain.

“Who taught you to make instant noodles like this?” She eyed Chi Nian suspiciously, deeply suspecting her personal preferences had
been leaked. It couldn’t just be a coincidence, could it?

“I wanted to add some greens, but your fridge only had tomato sauce, chili paste, and kimchi—nothing else.”

Fair enough. Zhang Yuning figured these were probably the last two eggs in the house.

“I’ll buy some next time,” she muttered, mixing the noodles before taking her first bite. Her mood was strangely complicated.

“Does it taste good?” Chi Nian suddenly leaned in and asked softly, her tone carrying a hint of anticipation.

Zhang Yuning looked up at her, a strand of noodles still hanging from her mouth. The light in Chi Nian’s eyes hadn’t faded. Her own
reflection was still there, staring back. For some reason, her heartstrings twitched.