Chapter 119: Because… I Miss You
After Qin Junchi stood there blankly for a while, he asked, “Little Keke, are you serious? You want me to sleep outside? It’s all grass out here—are you telling me to sleep on the grass?”
Su Keke grinned. “Of course not. You’re a guest—how could I let a guest sleep on the ground?”
Qin Junchi thought to himself: You’re already making me sleep outside, and you still call me a guest?
Very quickly, Su Keke pulled a simple hammock woven from coarse hemp rope out of a wooden chest. “Here, a hammock. You sleep on this. It’s perfect—now that it’s getting hotter, sleeping in a hammock is cool.”
Because she felt apologetic, Su Keke even took the initiative to help set it up. She tied the two ends to two peach trees, tying them especially firmly.
She jumped down from the tree and patted her hands. “Is this height okay?”
Qin Junchi looked at the hammock, which hung nearly two meters above the ground, and asked, “May I ask… how am I supposed to get up there?”
It really didn’t need to be tied that high!
Su Keke said, “Climb up.”
Seeing Su Keke’s matter-of-fact expression—like it would be abnormal for him to say he couldn’t climb a tree—Qin Junchi silently swallowed the words he was about to say.
It wasn’t that Su Keke assumed he definitely could climb. She just felt that for a man, two meters wasn’t that high. It wasn’t like Uncle, climbing ten or twenty meters up to raid a bird’s nest.
“I’m a bit restless when I sleep. Let’s lower the hammock. If I fall from up there, my butt will split in two.”
Su Keke let out a snort of laughter. “How are you even more restless than me?”
In the end, Su Keke lowered the hammock to about a meter above the ground. “It can’t be any lower. Any lower and it’s basically the same as sleeping on the ground.”
Qin Junchi gave a dry laugh. “Actually, sleeping on the ground is pretty good too. How about you give me a quilt, and I’ll just spread it on the ground and sleep?”
Su Keke said, “But there are lots of bugs in the grass. Sometimes there might even be grass snakes. Do you really want to—”
“No!” Qin Junchi cut her off immediately. “I suddenly feel like the hammock is great. Thank you for hosting me, Little Keke.”
Qin Junchi took off his shoes and crawled into the hammock.
He struggled inside for quite a while before finally adjusting into a position he could sleep in.
This was probably the roughest “bed” he’d ever slept on. The coarse hemp rope dug into him everywhere. But he was too tired now—he had no standards left. As long as he could lie down, that was enough.
“Then sleep first. Tomorrow we’ll talk about your low luck.”
Qin Junchi yawned, already sleepy beyond belief. “Okay.”
Seeing he was adapting alright, Su Keke went back inside.
Lying on her luxurious wooden plank bed, Su Keke had barely closed her eyes before opening them again, feeling like something was missing.
Tonight, Uncle hadn’t called her, and he hadn’t texted either.
Su Keke first converted the time in her head and felt that it shouldn’t be busy over there. Only then did she send a message: Uncle, did you forget to say something today?
A reply came quickly.
Uncle Qin: Still not asleep? After I finished, it was already very late. I thought you were asleep and didn’t want to wake you.
Su Keke called him immediately.
“Hello, girl.”
Su Keke giggled. “I just lay down and felt like something was missing. Then I realized Uncle didn’t talk to me at all today.”
“So you called?” The man’s low voice came through the line.
Hearing his voice made Su Keke feel at ease. “Yeah. And also to confirm Uncle is safe.”
Qin Mochen let out a deep chuckle. “What, texts can’t ensure my safety?”
“No. What if someone else used your phone and pretended to be you?”
Qin Mochen laughed.
Su Keke’s voice lowered a little, and she muttered, “Actually… it’s because I miss you, Uncle. I haven’t seen you for a full two days.”
As she spoke, she couldn’t help sighing and murmured, “Once I help Uncle get past this life hurdle, I’ll probably go a very, very long time without seeing you.”
The person on the other end suddenly fell silent.
After quite a while, the man’s voice sounded again—lowered, with a hint of hoarseness. “After that… am I no longer your uncle? You won’t come see me anymore?”
Su Keke hurriedly said, “Of course you’ll still be. But once my job is done, I can’t keep freeloading at Uncle’s house. After that, seeing Uncle won’t be as convenient as it is now. And once Uncle is safe, I also won’t be able to ‘check in’ on you so often and bother you.”
“…You can keep freeloading.”
Because he said that too softly, Su Keke didn’t hear clearly. “Uncle, what did you just say?”
“I said—you can come find me anytime. Come to the house as a guest.”
“Haha, okay. As long as Uncle doesn’t mind me mooching food and drinks.”
Qin Mochen seemed not to like this topic and switched to something else. “What did you do today? Why were you busy so late?”
Su Keke seemed to have formed a habit—whatever Qin Mochen asked, she answered in full detail. She poured out everything that happened during the day.
She had only gotten to the part about Qian Yunze asking her to check feng shui for a friend, and hadn’t yet mentioned running into Qin Junchi, when the man on the other end suddenly interrupted, “Next time he asks you to look at feng shui for something, I’ll go with you. If I’m not around, then find a friend to go with you. Don’t casually go to meet a strange man alone.”
Su Keke nodded, smiling. “I remember what Uncle said. That’s why today, when Qian Yunze invited me to dinner, I didn’t go.”
“Is that so? He even invited you to dinner?” The man paused, then said in a steady voice, “You did the right thing. After all, you’ve only met once.”
Su Keke’s lips curled higher and higher.
After that, she mentioned Qin Junchi too, but because she didn’t want Uncle to worry, she skipped the part about the ghost taxi.
“So he went back to Peach Blossom Village with you?” After a pause, the man asked in a low voice, “Where is he sleeping?”
Su Keke coughed lightly, a little embarrassed. “Uncle, he has a strong women’s perfume smell on him. I don’t like him sleeping on my bed, and Shifu’s is even more impossible, so… I made him sleep outside. Tell me—am I too petty?”
“…No. Girl, you did very well.” The man’s voice seemed to carry a trace of a smile.
Su Keke hugged her phone and chatted with Qin Mochen for a full half hour before reluctantly hanging up.
Before ending the call, the two of them said goodnight to each other.
After talking with Uncle, Su Keke immediately felt sleepy. But just as she closed her eyes, she heard a terrified scream outside.
Su Keke’s eyes snapped open and she rushed out.
Qin Junchi had fallen out of the hammock. He was staring beside it, his face deathly pale.
A little boy of eleven or twelve was floating in midair, meeting his gaze.
Qin Junchi had been half-asleep. He opened his eyes and glanced over—and that single glance nearly made his heart jump out of his chest.
In the middle of the night, suddenly there was a little boy right in front of him—no, not standing—floating! This would absolutely scare someone into a heart attack!
