His brother-in-law was not in a good mood.
Song Tingye smiled slightly. He knew it! His brother-in-law was definitely sneaking snacks behind his back.
Looking smug and triumphant, he held his hand out to Qin Yuhe: "Hand over the snacks!"
"Here you go..."
Qin Yuhe raised his arm and gave him a heavy flick on the forehead.
"Ouch!" Song Tingye wailed, clutching his forehead. "Brother-in-law, why did you hit me?"
It was a good thing he was his brother-in-law.
Qin Yuhe said, "If you were my own brother, I would have ended you."
Song Tingye protested, "Eating secretly behind my back and flicking my head! Are you being reasonable at all, you tyrant!"
Smoothing out her disheveled clothes, Song Xinya walked out of the study.
Song Tingye took a step right in front of her: "Sis, my brother-in-law hit me! Tell him he's wrong!"
Song Xinya gave a simple two-word verdict: "Deserved it."
Song Tingye pursed his lips: "Sis, how could you? You're so biased!"
Men forget their mothers when they get wives, and women forget their brothers when they get husbands!
The more Song Tingye thought about it, the sadder he got: "Sis, am I still the person you love the most?"
Song Xinya: "Of course you..."
Qin Yuhe: "Ahem."
Song Xinya: "...Of course you are just as important as your brother-in-law."
Song Tingye: "Balancing the scales so perfectly. Sis, you truly are a Libra."
Although he wasn't completely satisfied with his sister's answer, at least his brother-in-law's status in his sister's heart hadn't surpassed his own. Song Tingye felt a tiny bit relieved.
Song Xinya explained, "Mr. Qin and I weren't secretly eating in the study, you can rest assured."
Song Tingye's eyes scanned back and forth across Song Xinya's face: "Sis, why is your face so red?"
Song Xinya: "I'm wearing too many layers. I'm hot."
Song Tingye: "But you're only wearing a dress, and it even shows your legs."
Song Xinya's face grew even redder.
Qin Yuhe stepped in to bail her out: "Xiaoye, didn't you say you had a language arts question you wanted your sister to teach you?"
Song Tingye: "Oh, right."
Song Xinya: "Then what are you waiting for? One of my tutoring sessions is 40 minutes and costs 8,000 yuan, which is 200 yuan a minute. Don't waste my time."
She walked toward the living room, and Song Tingye ran to catch up, completely forgetting about what his sister and brother-in-law had been doing in the study.
The question Song Tingye was stuck on was an essay prompt.
The prompt read: Mother, an endless prose poem. Please write an essay titled 'My Mother', no less than 800 words.
Looking at the prompt, Song Xinya thought to herself that it wasn't hard at all. It was an incredibly simple essay question because the student didn't even have to come up with a title; the examiner had already provided it: My Mother.
How could he possibly go off-topic on such a simple essay?
Song Xinya asked, "Where do you think the difficulty lies?"
Song Tingye: "First, I don't know if 'my alma mater' refers to my elementary school, middle school, or high school. Second, an alma mater doesn't breathe; it's dead. I can't write heartfelt, emotional words about it."
Song Xinya: "Are you blind? The title is 'My Mother', not 'My Alma Mater'!"
Song Tingye: "Huh?"
Song Xinya poked her finger at the essay prompt, tapping it three times: "Look again. Use those big eyes of yours and look carefully. Is it 'My Mother' or 'My Alma Mater'!"
Song Tingye leaned over the test paper and stared: "Whoa, it really is 'My Mother'."
Song Xinya was truly speechless: "How could you misread that? Did you read it with your belly button!"
His language arts teacher once said that Song Tingye was the ancient Greek god of going off-topic. He could stray from Greece all the way to India, then circle half the globe to the Tibetan Plateau. The angles of his tangents were so tricky that not even a guided missile could catch him.
Song Xinya felt the teacher had put it too mildly.
Song Tingye was the god of going off-topic for the entire universe. He had already left Earth, broken out of the solar system, flown out of the Milky Way, and was wandering around the cosmos. His tangents were so wild that even the speed of light couldn't catch him and could only chase his rear end the whole way!
Song Xinya: "Song Tingye, I really want to ask you, is your IQ only applicable to math, physics, and chemistry? The moment you see language arts, does your brain turn to mush and you become an idiot?"
Song Tingye sighed deeply: "God opened a door for me, so He had to close a window. If I were excellent at everything, how would other people survive?"
Song Xinya: "Copy the words 'My Mother' a hundred times, otherwise don't even think about eating beef today!"
Upon hearing he couldn't eat beef, a sudden spark of genius hit Song Tingye, and he said, "Even if I wrote 'My Alma Mater' instead of 'My Mother', it would be fine! At the end of the essay, I'd just add one sentence: I am an orphan, and the school is my mother!"
Song Xinya picked up the language arts textbook from the desk, rolled it into a tube, and whacked Song Tingye on the head with a thud.
"Do you think the graders are idiots? You think they wouldn't see that you went off-topic and tried to force a fix!"
"An idiot brain like this doesn't deserve beef!"
"Copy it 100 times!"
Song Tingye rubbed his head, sat at the desk, and started copying: My Mother, My Mother, My Mother...
Damn! Why is language arts so hard!
...
Song Xinya had made plans with her mother-in-law, Jiang Yaoxue, to go see the little princess, Qin Yuyan.
It was almost time to leave.
Meanwhile, Qin Yuhe was sitting on the sofa, his head leaning back against the backrest, his eyes closed.
He looked like he was in a bad mood.
Song Tingye had gotten to finish his task, but Qin Yuhe hadn't gotten to finish his.
Song Xinya walked over and sat next to Qin Yuhe: "Mom is going to see Yuyan today. Are you coming?"
Qin Yuhe didn't open his eyes and replied, "No."
Song Xinya stood up: "Okay, I'm leaving then."
Qin Yuhe opened his eyes: "You're going?"
Song Xinya: "Yes. I'll have dinner there, so I'll be back quite late."
Qin Yuhe estimated the time. She would probably be away the entire afternoon and wouldn't be back until around nine in the evening.
He stood up: "I'll go too."
Didn't he just say he wasn't going?
What a fickle man.
Qin Yuhe didn't have the chauffeur drive; instead, he drove Song Xinya himself.
He knew that if he sat in the back seat with Song Xinya, in that enclosed space, with the woman's fragrant, soft body and her elegant, sweet scent, he would once again feel the urge to possess her.
It would make it seem like he was thinking about that kind of thing every day.
Like a sex maniac thinking with his lower half.
He wasn't the kind of man who only wanted to indulge in a woman's body all day long.
During the month they were apart while he was on a business trip, he was actually fine and didn't think about that sort of thing much.
It was just that the moment he saw her, his brain went out of control, and it was all he could think about.
Qin Yuhe felt like he was becoming somewhat obsessed.
She was his wife; he should respect, protect, and care for her.
He didn't want to give her the impression that he only wanted to see her just to sleep with her.
Qin Yuhe sat in the driver's seat, finding something to do to distract himself.
The passenger door opened. Song Xinya didn't sit in the spacious and comfortable back seat, but instead sat in the front passenger seat.
"I feel like if I sit in the back, I'm treating you like a chauffeur, so I decided to sit up front with you."
A faint fragrance lingered around the woman. Unlike the overpowering scent of artificial perfumes, it smelled like sun-kissed petals, clean and soft, making one's heart melt the moment they drew near.
Qin Yuhe swallowed the words, "Sit in the back."
The car let out a rhythmic beeping alarm. He turned to look at Song Xinya. "You didn't fasten your seatbelt."
Just as Song Xinya reached out to pull the seatbelt, Qin Yuhe's tall, lean, and muscular body leaned over, pressing against her.
"Mrs. Qin, we haven't done it in a car yet..."
