“Go away. Leave me alone!” Ai Changhuan broke away from his arms anxiously before he finished speaking. She dared not look into his eyes, so she stared at the ground instead and said, “You… could you not get in the way here? Can you just let me cook by myself?”
Lu Zhanke took one more step, staring at her firmly as if he were seeing through her heart. “Ai Changhuan, you are afraid of me.”
“…Who…? Who is afraid of you?” Ai Changhuan shook the kitchen knife with little confidence and did a self-protection move.
Lu Zhanke smirked and said, “If you are not afraid of me, then why do you want to kick me out?”
“I’m… hot… yes, it’s hot, so I am very hot. Don’t you think that it seems to be very hot today? Is it going to rain?” She even wiped the sweat off her forehead to sound more convincing.
Lu Zhanke took a towel and helped her wipe the sweat on her forehead, smirking. “Well, you are hot indeed, as hot as fire!”
“… Go away!” Ai Changhuan pushed him awkwardly.
Seeing her regain her former shyness and cuteness, Lu Zhanke finally couldn’t help laughing. He raised his hand to touch her head. “Okay, I’ll wait for you outside.”
“…” He had acted impolitely again, and Ai Changhuan expressed dissatisfaction.
However, Lu Zhanke smiled mysteriously.
After she finished cooking, Ai Changhuan said that she would take a bath before dinner. She let Lu Zhanke eat first.
In fact, the reason why she did so was that she wanted to avoid him and any close physical contact with him. She tested the water temperature. It was just right. Ai Changhuan took off the last piece of her clothing and stepped into the bathtub.
But she only enjoyed soaking in water for a while before the bathroom suddenly became dark. Ai Changhuan was shocked. “Is the bulb broken?”
She moved, got up from the bathtub, and fumbled for a bath towel. Then, she cracked open the door, only to find that it was completely dark outside. Turned out, it was a power failure.
When she was about to step out of the bathroom, she got a bit scared. She held the door frame and shouted, “Lu Zhanke, what’s going on?
No one outside responded.
The windows behind her suddenly rattled. Ai Chang was startled, and when she looked back, she saw a dark shadow flash in the mirror.
“Ah!!!” Ai Changhuan screamed, rushing out in a hurry, almost frightened out of her wits.
But it was also dark in the living room. At the same time, she always felt that something strange was drifting around, and there was a coolness behind and around her.
Ai Changhuan felt her legs go a little soft. Following what she remembered of the living room furniture, she groped around, sat on the sofa, and curled up in the corner with a pillow. “Lu … Lu Zhanke … where are you?”
Ai Changhuan wanted to shout Lu Zhanke’s name, but she was afraid of evoking something strange, so she could only hug herself tightly and stare at her surroundings with vigilance.
“Lu Zhanke …Please don’t scare me … Show up soon, please… Stop playing tricks on me…”
“Lu Zhanke …”
There was no response at all. It seemed that he was not in the room.
Damn it! Wasn’t he sitting and eating in the living room just minutes ago? Why did he suddenly disappear?
The noise from outside was so loud that it sounded like the wind blowing. Oh my god, was there really a ghost outside? Otherwise, why was there a sudden wind? The weather was fine in the afternoon.
It was just like the saying, “It never rains but it pours,” and Ai Changhuan was anxious when the door rang again. It sounded like something strange was scratching the door with its claws, making her hair stand upright.
She had originally planned to go out and take a look, but she didn’t dare to move once she heard the movement. The sound became louder and louder as if there were something trying to break the door and enter any second.
Ai Changhuan quickly got up and hid behind the sofa, clutching the pillow so tightly that she almost ripped it to pieces.
The sound continued, and Ai Chang swallowed once, groped again, and moved upstairs step-by-step.
When she finally reached the bedroom, there was a thick layer of cold sweat on her back. She scolded Lu Zhanke in her mind and lay down in the duvet, covering herself.
When she touched a cold metal object with her fingertips, she was shocked, and then she mustered the courage to grab it. She was relieved when she found out that it was her cell phone. To be honest, she was so scared that she had become oversensitive.
She called Lu Zhanke, only to be informed that there was no signal! She couldn’t be more unlucky, and she felt like crying, but she had no tears. Finally, she played a song on her cell phone, and finally, a normal sound could be heard.
But where did Lu Zhanke go?
When Lu Zhanke was eating, Song Shizhang suddenly came to visit and said that there was something that needed to be negotiated with him. Thus, both of them went to the office by car. When they reached the office, they found that the whole building was dark. Someone came to report that there was a sudden power failure, and they were trying their best to solve it.
Within half a minute, the office area had restored its lighting. In addition, Song Shizhang said that the matter was more urgent, so it never occurred to him whether or not the living quarters had a power failure. When he finished discussing with Song Shizhang, Lu recalled that Ai Changhuan was at home alone.
Without too much thought, he immediately got Song Shizhang out of the car and drove back quickly. The wind roared heavily. There was a tree branch across the door of the house, which must have blown there from somewhere. He threw the tree branch aside and took out the key to open the door.
Ai Changhuan didn’t know where the backup power source was, so the home was completely dark.
Finding the battery from the bottom of the cabinet, Lu Zhanke opened it, and the dark room suddenly became bright.
“Changhuan? Changhuan?” Lu Zhanke held the flashlight, searching the kitchen and bathroom, but he didn’t see her.
There was still some water in the bathtub, which meant that the power failure happened before Ai Changhuan had finished her shower. A series of wet footprints led all the way from the bathroom door to the sofa, indicating that Ai Changhuan had been on the sofa. A pillow was lying behind the sofa, pointing to the direction of the stairs, so Ai Changhuan might have gone upstairs. After a cursory look, Lu Zhanke got the following clues and went upstairs.
Opening the bedroom door, he saw a bulge on the bed.
“Changhuan?” gently he called.
Ai Changhuan froze for a moment, then slowly lifted a corner of the quilt. Seeing that it was Lu Zhanke who was standing at the source of light, she burst out crying, “Lu Zhanke! You bastard! Where did you go? Why did you leave me here alone? I was almost scared to death.” Even her trashy cell phone only sang a few lines of a song before the battery died. It was too much!
Lu Zhanke hurriedly put the battery in place and hugged Ai Changhuan, comforting her. “It’s over. It’s over. It’s just a power failure. Why are you so scared?”
His consolation did not calm Ai Changhuan. Instead, it provoked her. “Of course a strong old man like you isn’t afraid of anything. I am just a weak girl. How can I not be scared when I hear whimpering noises outside? And there seems to be something weird in the room that keeps floating around. Is it a ghost?”
The fear and the chagrin in her heart all of a sudden broke out, and Ai Changhuan couldn’t help but want to cry.
After hearing these words, Lu Zhanke burst into laughter. “You are also an intellectual. Can you not be so superstitious? Besides, are you sure you are a weak girl, not a female King Kong?”
He hadn’t forgotten the two slaps she had given to him.
“You … what do you mean?” Ai Changhuan angrily cried out, pushing him away.
Lu Zhanke hurriedly changed the topic. “Never mind. Oh, have you eaten yet? Would you like to go down to have dinner first?”
“Not yet, but I have no interest in that now.” How could she be in the mood to have dinner? She was determined to go to sleep.
While she spoke, Lu Zhanke pulled Ai Changhuan into the quilt.
“Wait, wait, I haven’t finished my shower yet.” Ai Changhuan got up from the bed again.
At this time, Lu noticed that Ai Changhuan was only wrapped in a bath towel, which could only cover her upper body, not the lower part. He almost spurted blood from his nose with only a slight glance.
She was dressed like this, which obviously caused him to do some bad things on purpose. There was a little thought in Lu’s heart, “It would be great to take advantage of the moonless night…”
While he was thinking this, Ai Changhuan got out of bed, grabbed the battery, and walked downstairs to the bathroom, still complaining about why the power was suddenly cut off, and when it could return to normal, etc.
Lu Zhanke stared at Ai Changhuan, whose shadow was hidden in the light, and he smiled maliciously.
After entering the bathroom, Ai Changhuan discovered that Lu Zhanke had also come in! Without hesitation, she pointed at Lu’s face with the flashlight, questioning straightforwardly, “Why are you here?”
Lu Zhanke looked pretty innocent. “I’m worried that you’ll feel scared, so I decided to protect you personally!”
Ai Changhuan politely kicked Lu Zhanke out of the bathroom. “I can’t believe you had the nerves to do that! Stay outside!”
Lu Zhanke touched the tip of his nose and obediently acted as a door god besides the bathroom door.
Fearing that Lu Zhanke would suddenly leave, Ai Changhuan shouted out the name of Lu Zhanke from time to time and talked to him.
“Lu Zhanke?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you like any other girls before you met me?”
“No.”
“You are cheating.” She had seen the picture before.
“Well, yes.”
“Ha, you are not honest at all.” Ai Changhuan pouted.
“Oh.” Lu Zhanke laughed indifferently.
Somehow, that laughter stung Ai Changhuan. She stood up from the bathtub, put on her pajamas, and opened the bathroom door. She said rudely to him, “I’m done. It’s your turn.”
Lu Zhanke raised an eyebrow. “Remember to leave the battery. How can I take a shower without electricity?”
Ai Changhuan rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Lu Zhanke had no choice but to sneak into the bathroom without any light. Irritated, Ai Changhuan opened the refrigerator, took out an iced watermelon, and ate it. She scooped a spoonful of it, and every time she ate, she scolded someone in her heart. “Damn Lu Zhanke!”
After she had taken care of the whole watermelon, she felt better, and Lu Zhanke was immediately stunned the moment he saw the huge watermelon peel in the trash can. Was Ai really a weak girl?
Since she was scared at night, after Lu Zhanke had climbed up to her bed, she hesitated once and finally admitted it.
This guy was pushing his luck a bit. Ai Changhuan glanced at the arm across her chest and looked up at Lu Zhanke. She asked, “What the hell are you doing?”