The Beautiful Wife I Picked Up Is A Little Mute - Chapter 32

Chapter 32: The Return

Master Ji’s reputation was of the utmost importance. Ji Hanyue mumbled something incoherent, and before Xie Mo could understand it, he was pulled up from the rug.

“Stop working on those problems all day. It’s late; go upstairs and sleep.”

If a problem wasn’t solved, Xie Mo would literally dream about it at night. Hearing this, he broke free from Ji Hanyue’s grip and wrote piteously on the scratch paper: “Please, teach me.”

He mistakenly thought Ji Hanyue found it a nuisance and was unwilling to teach. This was the first time since they had met that Xie Mo had ever begged for something.

Could Ji Hanyue admit he didn’t know how to do it? Naturally, it was impossible. He never imagined that in just a few short weeks, Xie Mo would have progressed to this level at a speed unimaginable to most.

He leaned down, picked Xie Mo up in a horizontal carry, and headed for the stairs. “I’ve been tired all day. Can’t we write it tomorrow?”

His tone was perfectly righteous. Final exams were approaching; he had been in classes all day and spent his free time at the company. Hearing him say this, Xie Mo stopped pestering him about the math. He buried his face in the Alpha’s chest, his mind still swirling with the logic of that equation.

Perhaps he truly was exhausted; Ji Hanyue didn’t do anything that night. He pressed his head against Xie Mo’s soft neck, nuzzled him, and fell fast asleep shortly after.

Xie Mo’s eyes remained wide open, staring at the ceiling. The heating in the master bedroom was particularly strong—the kind where you could sleep a whole night without a blanket and not catch a cold. Now, held tightly by an Alpha who felt like a human furnace, Xie Mo moved uncomfortably, a thin layer of sweat forming on his forehead.

Once he was absolutely sure Ji Hanyue was asleep, Xie Mo struggled out of the embrace with great effort. He propped himself up, sat up, and tiptoed out of the bedroom.

Right, I still have my phone. If he hit a problem he couldn’t solve, he could check online.

Ji Hanyue was a germaphobe and loved peace and quiet. Thus, besides the butler, the villa only employed two servants to clean and prepare meals. At this hour, the hall was silent and desolate. Xie Mo turned on a small desk lamp the butler had prepared for him, returned to his study spot, and pulled out his phone to search for the solution.

His phone, usually silent, was suddenly flooded with consecutive notifications. They were text messages. Xie Mo instinctively clicked in, and the messages kept popping up:

“Where are you?” “Are you in danger?” “What happened to the house? Why is it like that?” “I’m back.” “I had some things to deal with before, so I didn’t come home.” “Message me back when you see this.” “…”

Tang Yingrui was bombarding him with messages so fast that Xie Mo’s fingers couldn’t keep up with the scrolling. He simply pressed the keyboard and replied to one: “I am not in danger.”

The next second, Tang Yingrui called him directly.

Fearing he would wake the butler sleeping on the first floor, Xie Mo gripped his phone and walked out of the villa. Squatting by a flower bed, he habitually tapped the rough surface of the stone twice—representing “Safety.” This was their secret signal.

Hearing the sound, Tang Yingrui breathed a massive sigh of relief. “Where are you? How far are you from me? Tap once for every thousand meters.”

Xie Mo suddenly hesitated. Ji Hanyue had said Tang Yingrui gave him away. But Tang Yingrui’s anxious tone didn’t seem faked. When Tang Yingrui urged him again, he finally did it. Recalling the distance from the villa to his home, he tapped about ten times.

Ten kilometers or so—not too far, but not close.

“Can you come back on your own?” Perhaps because they hadn’t seen each other in a while, Tang Yingrui’s tone lacked its usual irritability. “Or should I come get you?”

Xie Mo looked back at the door. Inside the half-open entrance was a world of luxury and opulence. After a moment, he turned his head away. Whether Ji Hanyue’s words were true or false, he could only get the answer from Tang Yingrui’s own mouth. Only then could he be certain.

Tang Yingrui waited patiently for Xie Mo’s response. The Omega was weak-willed; having been away from his protection for so long, who knew what corner of the world he was sheltering in.

A long time later, a dull sound came through the receiver: I’ll come back myself.

“Okay, I’ll wait for you at home,” Tang Yingrui said, his voice a bit airy. He didn’t hang up.

Xie Mo held onto the rough edge of the flower bed, pushing his body up with stiff legs. The cold wind blew through his hair, a chill seeping down his neck into his collar. Xie Mo shrunk his neck, a trace of confusion flickering in his eyes.

…

He pushed open the master bedroom door gently. The person on the bed hadn’t moved; he was likely still in a dream. Xie Mo held his breath, found his old short-sleeved shirt with the bear pattern in the closet, and changed into it. It was the only piece of clothing his mother had bought him on the street before she passed away. Wherever Xie Mo went, he wore it.

The two thousand-plus dollars Ji Hanyue had promised to return to him was sitting on the nightstand. Xie Mo grabbed it and stuffed it in his pocket. Reaching the villa entrance, a gust of cold wind made him shiver. He couldn’t help but turn back and put on the camel hair coat. His eyes caught the exercise books on the coffee table; Ji Hanyue probably wouldn’t know how to write them anyway, Xie Mo thought. So, he found a bag and packed the books inside.

At exactly 2 AM, Xie Mo left.

Winter had arrived, and every breath turned into white mist. Xie Mo wrapped himself tighter, his small face frozen, a fine layer of frost forming on his eyelashes. He could only hug the bag of exercise books to his chest as a shield against the biting cold.

The streets in the early morning were hauntingly quiet, save for the occasional passing vehicle. A car sped past him, and he instinctively looked up. Through the half-open window, he caught a glimpse of a man’s profile in the back seat.

It was a face that felt familiar. A long, long time ago, shortly after they had moved into that old residential building, he had gone downstairs late at night to pick up a drunken Tang Yingrui. Under the dim streetlights, a black car had been parked by the road, and in the half-open window, a man had sat with the exact same profile. But it was just a fleeting glance; Xie Mo couldn’t be sure.

Relying on his memory of the past few trips, he finally returned to that familiar concrete road just as the moon hid behind the clouds. Under a yellowish streetlight, he saw a figure standing at the edge of the glow. Sensing something, the person turned and walked toward him.

The footsteps grew louder. As the person drew closer, Xie Mo saw it was indeed Tang Yingrui waiting for him. Having not seen him for days, Tang Yingrui had deep dark circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in ages, and he radiated an air of desolation.

The moment he saw Xie Mo, he unleashed a barrage of questions: “Where did you go???”

His tone was fierce and urgent, a mixture of reproach and a faint, trembling relief. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Seeing the Omega before him shivering from the cold, still clutching something in his arms, he paused. He took off his own jacket and draped it over Xie Mo, leaving himself in only a black sweater. He gripped Xie Mo’s shoulders firmly, pulling him closer.

He didn’t ask where the expensive coat Xie Mo was wearing came from. In his mind, it was likely another “treasure” scavenged from a trash heap. But for no reason, Xie Mo felt that Tang Yingrui was uneasy. As for what he was afraid of, Xie Mo didn’t know.

The two walked side by side in the darkness. Xie Mo was half a head shorter than Tang Yingrui. Looking up, he could only see the man’s tense jawline. Inadvertently, Xie Mo noticed a small, dark shadow on the back of Tang Yingrui’s neck. It looked like a bruise, as if he had been bitten hard.

But Tang Yingrui was an Alpha. Xie Mo couldn’t fathom what Omega would have the courage to bite an Alpha near their gland. But Xie Mo didn’t ask. On one hand, Tang Yingrui didn’t like being questioned; on the other, Xie Mo had no interest in prying into others’ privacy. If Tang Yingrui wanted to speak, he would.

As they reached the stairwell, Tang Yingrui’s throat moved, and he blurted out a sentence very quickly, as if making a promise: “I won’t go away on long trips again.”

When his gaze landed on him, Xie Mo knew he was waiting for a response, so he nodded.

The broken door that had been leaning against the threshold was stood up again by Tang Yingrui. The cracked wooden boards were nailed together crookedly with rusty nails. In any case, though it wasn’t as good as before, it could barely block the cold wind.

The interior had been tidied up slightly; broken bricks and debris were pushed into corners, clearing a narrow path to the bedroom. Tang Yingrui pursed his lips, his dark, deep eyes looking at Xie Mo.

“What happened at home while I was gone?”