The landlord has multiple personalities and wants everyone to pay him.

"That...that's my dad."

? ? ? !

Zhi Qiu's mind went completely blank, and even her breathing went from automatic to manual.

As if burned by the words "my dad," she turned her head and followed the direction Ye Shu was pointing, finally seeing the middle-aged man on the sofa who seemed like a background figure.

Swish-!

Ye Shu seemed to hear the color-changing sound effect.

Right before his eyes, Zhi Qiu's face, which was originally flushed pink with excitement and shyness, turned bright red in an instant, from her cheeks to her ears and then to her neck, almost to the point of bleeding.

The last time Ye Shu saw a chameleon change color so quickly was on a nature documentary on TV.

She just... hugged Ye Shu in front of Ye Shu's father? And hugged him for so long? And said those things?

Zhi Qiu felt all the blood rush to her head, her ears were ringing, and the shameful feeling of social death made her want to find a crack in the ground to crawl into, but the cracks in Ye Shu's floor tiles were too small to fit into.

It took her a long time to barely regain a little control of her body from this morbid shame. She stiffly took a small step away, trying to create a distance that "didn't seem so intimate," though it was nothing more than self-deception.

Then, she bowed deeply towards the sofa, her head bowed low, not daring to look at Ye Shu's father's expression. Her voice was very soft, but it trembled violently.

"Uncle, Uncle... Hello... I... I'm Ye Shu's... friend... My name is Zhi Qiu..."

She even gave a disjointed self-introduction, completely losing her usual mature and older sister demeanor.

"Um... okay, okay..."

Ye Shu's father also felt a little embarrassed, and hadn't even noticed that the girl had changed her name so quickly.

He instinctively wanted to take a puff of cigarette, but when he raised his hand to his mouth, he realized that the cigarette butt had already burned down to the filter. He could only throw the cigarette butt into the small tin can of eight-treasure porridge on the coffee table, which was already full of cigarette butts.

Ye Shu's father felt even more embarrassed. He sat on the sofa, feeling as if he had nails growing out of his butt.

Looking at the little girl whose face was flushed, and then at his son who looked like he was saying, "Dad, let me explain, but I don't know where to begin," for the first time in his life, in the house where he had lived for decades, he felt like he was a little... superfluous.

I should have been under the car, not inside, to see how sweet you two were.

The TV show on TV finished airing, and just like the situation in the room now, A-Du's songs started playing inexplicably.

Ye Shu's father unconsciously rubbed his hands on his knees a couple of times, then touched his shirt pockets.

He cleared his throat with a cough, realizing he really shouldn't be there. He stood up from the sofa and said to Ye Shu:

"Well...you guys...you young people chat, I'm going out to buy a pack of cigarettes."

After saying that, Ye Shu's father strode across the threshold and into the courtyard, closing the door behind him.

Inside the room, only Teacher A-Du was still singing passionately on TV, and two young people were standing in front of the sofa, each one blushing more than the other.

Ye Shu turned to look at Zhi Qiu, who was about to evaporate on the spot.

Zhi Qiu maintained her slightly bowed posture, her head bowed low, revealing only the tip of her ear, which was so red it looked like it could bleed.

After several seconds, Ye Shu swallowed and tentatively asked:

"Um... Sister Zhi Qiu, are you... are you alright?"

Zhi Qiu squatted down on the spot, covered her face with her hands, and let out a sound that was like a sob, a mixture of shame and despair:

"He's been dead for a while now..."

Ye Shu looked at Zhi Qiu, who was curled up on the ground, and felt both sorry for her and amused. He squatted down, gently patted Zhi Qiu's shoulder, and said:

"It's okay, Sister Zhi Qiu, it's really okay... My dad doesn't care... I guess so..."

He himself didn't have the confidence to say those last three words.

Zhi Qiu slowly raised her head, her face still frighteningly red, and her eyes even a little moist. Looking at Ye Shu, who was so close to her, she asked softly:

"What exactly happened? Why...why am I in your house?"

Her memory was still stuck in that weary darkness in the Cloud Garden.

Ye Shu tried to explain the general outline of the matter as concisely as possible:

"It's Xiaonuan. She found my address, bought a ticket, and came all the way here. I just brought her back. At the door, she said she was afraid of strangers, but as soon as we went inside, she ran away... and then you came out."

Zhi Qiu understood. Xiao Nuan had completed the task of "finding Ye Shu" and then forcibly dumped this social task on her, who was theoretically better at "interpersonal communication." It was a typical "Xiao Nuan-style" efficiency that didn't care about after-sales service.

and many more!

Zhi Qiu suddenly thought of a more crucial question. She looked at Ye Shu uncertainly, and with a last glimmer of hope, asked:

"Little Shu... Xiao Nuan... when she came to see you... she didn't say anything, did she?"

Ye Shu was completely baffled and asked:

"Which aspect are you referring to?"

Zhi Qiu became even more flustered by his question, her face turning even redder, and she tentatively offered a hint:

"So... why did she come out... the reason... what did she tell you?"

"She said... she said... you all miss me."

!

Zhi Qiu's body swayed slightly.

Ye Shu continued, her voice even softer, but each word struck Zhi Qiu's heart clearly:

"She said Xiaoxue had an emotional breakdown and didn't want to come out for the time being. Sister Xiaqing drank too much and lost control, so she didn't want to come out either. You've been holding things together for the rest of the time, but you..."

"Alright! Stop talking!"

Before Ye Shu could finish saying, "But you're so tired that you called her out on your own initiative," a hand had already firmly covered his mouth.

Zhi Qiu's palm was slightly cool, and she pressed it tightly against Ye Shu's lips, silencing the words he hadn't spoken.

Ye Shu noticed that Zhi Qiu's face seemed even redder, and her eyes widened slightly.

In Zhi Qiu's mind, she had already complained about Xiao Nuan, who had deserted her post and spoken without thinking, eight hundred times over.

This child! Why does she say everything like that?! Is that something you should tell Xiaoshu directly?! "We all miss you so much"... Even though it's true, it's still...

No! I can't let him remember! At least... at least I can't let him remember this clearly! It's too embarrassing!

Overwhelmed by intense shame and a sense of image collapse, her mind went blank, and her body instinctively did something that she later found incomprehensible.

The two squatted in the living room. Zhi Qiu leaned to the side, resting her body against Ye Shu. Then she raised her head and looked directly at Ye Shu.

Although her face was now as red as a steamed crab, she slowly opened her slightly narrowed eyes, exposing her pupils completely to Ye Shu's gaze.

The afternoon sunlight slanted in through the window and fell into her eyes.

Perhaps it was due to extreme emotional excitement, perhaps it was due to some subtle, lingering effects of the personality switch, or perhaps... it was merely Ye Shu's subjective illusion.

In that instant, Ye Shu seemed to see a faint, almost special effect-like, pale purple halo appearing deep within Zhi Qiu's clear pupils.

He had seen this before, but this one was less intense.

Recalling how Zhi Qiu had treated him in the Cloud Garden, Ye Shu felt a surge of nervousness and unconsciously swallowed.

"Sister Zhi Qiu... what... what do you want to do?"

The next second, Zhi Qiu suddenly spoke, constantly muttering incantations in his ear:

"Forget it...forget it...forget what Xiao Nuan said...forget it...forget it...forget it..."

Is she... hypnotizing me?

Looking at this somewhat childish behavior, Ye Shu thought to himself:

Her persona is ruined! Sister Zhi Qiu! Her persona has collapsed!

Ye Shu should find this scene absurd, should want to laugh, and should interrupt her.

But looking at Zhi Qiu so close, her face flushed with shame, indignation, and panic, yet still trying to maintain a semblance of "mature older sister" composure, feeling the trembling of her slightly cool palms, and listening to her ineffective brainwashing spells...

Ye Shu felt that she was somewhat cute. The contrast between this mature older sister's vulnerability and her vulnerability made him suddenly reluctant to hurt her any further.

So Ye Shu cooperated and started shaking her head slightly, following her "Forget it" spell, as if she had really been brainwashed.

Seeing that Ye Shu actually cooperated with her childish actions, Zhi Qiu's chanting gradually subsided. She blinked and tentatively asked softly:

"Have you...forgotten?"

"Hmm, I forgot."

Both of them knew in their hearts that this was nothing but a childish trick of self-deception. Every word of those words seemed to be engraved on Ye Shuxin's heart, carrying a heavy weight and a bittersweet warmth. And this act of forgetting was merely a small way to make the humiliated and indignant older sister in front of him feel a little better.

Zhi Qiu slowly withdrew her hand, which was still half-covering Ye Shu's mouth, her fingertips inadvertently brushing against his chin, bringing a slightly itchy sensation.

Her heart was filled with tender emotion. Little Shu... even though he knew everything, he was still afraid of making her feel too embarrassed, so he cooperated by playing this childish game to make her happy.

But the "older sister's" dignity and a subtle desire to regain the upper hand made her, while moved, unable to resist taking another step forward.

She tilted her head slightly, her face still flushed, but her eyes had regained some of their liveliness. She asked softly, with a hint of mischievous probing:

"Then... have you forgotten me too?"

Ye Shu rolled her eyes upwards, stuck out a bit of her tongue, made a silly face, and said in a muffled voice:

"Hmm, I've forgotten that too. Who am I? Where am I? And who are you?"

Zhi Qiu was amused by his appearance, and the last bit of embarrassment and shame melted away in the laughter. A warm, sweet feeling spread from the bottom of her heart.

The two were now extremely close due to the hypnosis and conversation they had just had. Close enough that they could see their own reflections in each other's eyes and feel their warm breaths mingling.

In this warm atmosphere, Zhi Qiu looked into Ye Shu's smiling eyes, then suddenly reached out and gently cupped Ye Shu's cheeks in her hands.

She tilted her head slightly, looking at Ye Shu, who was momentarily stunned as she held him in her arms. A familiar gentleness, belonging to "Sister Zhi Qiu," and a hint of triumphant playfulness flashed in her eyes.

The gentle, mature Zhi Qiu who occasionally liked to tease her younger brother had finally returned at this moment.

She leaned closer and spoke clearly in a gentle, slightly coaxing tone that sent shivers down Ye Shu's spine:

"Oh, I see... It's okay if you forgot... I'll teach you... Tell me, 'You are my dear... Sister Zhi Qiu.'"