Volume 2 Chapter 42

Volume 2 + Chapter 42: The Irritated Bai Yuxuan

“Stop pretending! I know you’re fine!” Bai Yuxuan snapped at Ouyang Qianxue lying on the bed. Yet the person on the bed still showed no reaction, his expression even looking somewhat pained.

“Hoo…” Bai Yuxuan took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the anger boiling inside her. She turned around, pulled a calligraphy brush from the pen holder, and deliberately put on a troubled expression.

“If she isn’t pretending, then this could be a real problem. Heatstroke shock is very dangerous, we have to wake her up quickly. But how should I do it? Ah, right! Maybe I should give her some stimulation. I remember last time when I tickled her soles with a brush, her reaction was extremely intense!”

At that moment, Ouyang Qianxue’s body trembled violently. Seeing that he still refused to give in, Bai Yuxuan reached over and began taking off one of his shoes and socks.

“You’re actually going to do it for real?! Treating a fainted patient this ruthlessly?!” Feeling the sudden coolness on the bottom of his foot, and remembering the humiliating incident from last time, Ouyang Qianxue immediately jumped up from the bed.

“Oh? Not acting anymore?” Bai Yuxuan snorted coldly.

“Anyway, my objective has already been achieved. I’ve gotten inside.”

“Then I can kindly invite you back out again!” After saying that, Bai Yuxuan grabbed Ouyang Qianxue and tried to force him toward the door. But the moment she exerted even a little strength, a sharp pain shot through her injured arm.

“You’d better stop struggling. With that injured arm of yours, you can’t possibly do anything to me,” Ouyang Qianxue said, shaking his head.

“Hmph. Do whatever you want then. But don’t expect me to talk to you again today!” With that, Bai Yuxuan walked out of her room. As soon as she left, Ouyang Qianxue tried to follow, but suddenly clutched his forehead in pain.

For a moment, everything in front of his eyes went black.

It turned out he had not been completely acting earlier. After all, that awful pale complexion couldn’t have been faked. Standing for three hours under such scorching heat had taken a serious toll. Just staying conscious and talking to Bai Yuxuan moments ago had already required tremendous effort.

So he lay on Bai Yuxuan’s bed for a few minutes to recover. Only after his mind cleared a little did he stand up again.

“Luckily I secretly brought this inside earlier,” Ouyang Qianxue murmured as he glanced at the gift box in his arms.

He quietly crept to the doorway of Bai Yuxuan’s study. Inside, Bai Yuxuan was reviewing a stack of documents. Although she had been stripped of her status as the Bai family’s heir and had lost control over several subsidiary companies, her father still occasionally assigned her various “tasks,” so that she wouldn’t become rusty should she one day return to manage those companies again.

Ouyang Qianxue pulled up a chair and sat down across from her.

“Bai Yuxuan, to thank you for coming to rescue me last time, I specially prepared this for you!” Ouyang Qianxue placed the gift box on the desk and slowly opened it. Inside was a bag of neatly shaped, golden-brown cookies.

However, Bai Yuxuan didn’t react at all and continued reviewing the documents in front of her.

“Bai Yuxuan, you’ve been writing for so long, you must be tired. Won’t you treat yourself a little?” Ouyang Qianxue said as he opened the bag. Immediately, the rich aroma of cookies mixed with the scent of milk drifted out.

Yet Bai Yuxuan seemed as if her nose had stopped working. No matter how Ouyang Qianxue waved the cookie bag right in front of her face, she remained expressionless and continued her work.

“Hmph!” Ouyang Qianxue puffed up his cheeks in annoyance. Cooking was one of the few skills he genuinely loved, and having the cookies he had painstakingly baked ignored like this made him extremely dissatisfied.

So Ouyang Qianxue picked up a cookie and began eating it himself while talking.

“These cookies are made with fresh milk kneaded into the dough, with butter and sugar whipped together. I baked them ten times just to determine the perfect proportions, and this batch is the one I’m most satisfied with. They’re crispy and delicious, with a rich milky aroma!”

Before long, Ouyang Qianxue had eaten nearly half the bag. Yet Bai Yuxuan still gave no reaction whatsoever.

“If you don’t come and try some now, there won’t be any left!” Ouyang Qianxue said, shaking the bag in his hand.

Bai Yuxuan remained completely unmoved.

“Come on, just try one!” Seeing himself ignored to this extent, Ouyang Qianxue decided to shamelessly persist. He leaned over Bai Yuxuan’s desk and poked her cheek with a cookie, hoping to provoke some kind of reaction.

At last, Bai Yuxuan extended her hand forward.

Ouyang Qianxue’s face lit up with anticipation, and he prepared to hand the cookie to her. But her hand suddenly stopped about five centimeters away from the bag. Then it simply moved downward, picked up a document from the desk instead, and continued reviewing it.

Seeing this attitude, Ouyang Qianxue left the room in disappointment.

(Now things should finally be a bit quieter, Bai Yuxuan thought.)

But just as Bai Yuxuan was enjoying the rare moment of peace, she suddenly smelled a familiar fragrance, one that brought with it a warm, comforting feeling simply from the scent alone.

“Could it be…?!”

At that moment, Ouyang Qianxue walked in carrying a bowl and chopsticks, stopping in front of Bai Yuxuan.

“It’s already dinner time. I figured you must be hungry too. This is the preserved egg and lean pork congee I made for you on your birthday last time.” After saying that, he placed the bowl and utensils on her desk.

“Well? You said back then that it was the best congee you’d ever had in your life.”

Bai Yuxuan glanced at it briefly before withdrawing her gaze. She then pulled out a bag of instant bread from under the desk and began eating it.

“You…! You’d rather eat instant bread than eat something I cooked?!” Ouyang Qianxue trembled with anger at her reaction.

“Fine! I’m staying right here today. I refuse to believe you won’t give in!” With that declaration, Ouyang Qianxue leaned over Bai Yuxuan’s desk and stared at her stubbornly.

Bai Yuxuan paid him no attention. She calmly ate her bread while reading through her documents. Time passed quietly. Before they realized it, the sky outside had filled with stars.

Only after finishing her work did Bai Yuxuan glance at Ouyang Qianxue, and discover that he had fallen asleep on her desk.

Taking advantage of the fact that he was still sleeping, Bai Yuxuan quietly studied the girl in front of her. Ouyang Qianxue’s emerald-green eyes were usually so striking that Bai Yuxuan had never really noticed his long eyelashes before, only now, when they were closed in sleep.

His fair face, flushed slightly pink, had been squished by the pressure of the desk, puffing up like a dumpling filled with brown sugar.

(Good heavens… how can this girl look so cute while sleeping?) 

For a brief moment, Bai Yuxuan felt that even she, a girl herself, had almost been charmed.

“How well does this face have to be cared for…?” Looking at Ouyang Qianxue’s skin, smooth and delicate like glutinous rice cake, Bai Yuxuan couldn’t resist reaching out and pinching his cheek.

“Mm…” Ouyang Qianxue murmured softly in his sleep as he felt a slight pain. Bai Yuxuan immediately withdrew her hand.

“Mm… did I fall asleep?” Ouyang Qianxue woke up. As soon as he regained consciousness, he immediately looked at the bowl of congee on the desk. Bai Yuxuan still hadn’t touched it.

But after staring at the bowl more carefully, Ouyang Qianxue suddenly shouted.

“Bai Yuxuan! You secretly drank some, didn’t you?! Look, the level of the congee has dropped by a whole millimeter! You must’ve licked it secretly so I wouldn’t notice!”

“Can you use your brain for once? That drop in the level is obviously because the water in the congee evaporated!” Bai Yuxuan finally exploded after enduring Ouyang Qianxue’s harassment all day.

[https://ko-fi.com/golden_dragon]