According to Lu Zhanke’s usual routine, he was to get up soon after five o’clock, lead the team to exercise, have breakfast with his teammates in the canteen, and then go to the office.
But now that Ai Changhuan was injured, he had to go home after his exercises to help her wash up and eat.
When he got home, Ai was still sleeping in bed, cozy in her den.
Seeing that she lounged on the bed, he felt jealous of her. Outside all day, he was as busy as a bee, while she had a lovely day in bed. So, he came up with the idea of playing a prank on her.
He flung himself on the bed on top of her body, kissed her fiercely, and said, “Get up. Don’t sleep. It’s time to have breakfast.”
“Come on. I’m leaving in a moment, and then no one will help you.”
“…” Ai covered her ears and rolled over.
Lu leaned forward again. “Don’t you want to have breakfast? Today…” Ai frowned, but her eyes were still closed.
“His breakfast is very splendid. You’re gonna regret not having it.”
Ai had woken up on the wrong side of the bed, and now his shouts jangled her nerves and made her even more upset. She grabbed a pillow and threw it at him. “Go away. You’re too noisy.”
The prank succeeded, and Lu went downstairs with satisfaction. “Hurry downstairs and eat.”
Ai felt fidgety and sat up, staring resentfully at the door.
When Ai went downstairs, Lu had set the meal. She went directly to the bathroom to wash up.
Looking at her slightly messy long hair, she felt terrible, so she said to Lu, “Help me tie my hair up.”
Lu put the towel down and asked in a daze, “How do I do it?”
“How could you be so stupid? Just use this rubber band to tie my hair up.” Ai urged, “Hurry up. Hurry up. I’m melting with heat. I believe the all-powerful Commander Lu shouldn’t have any problem with such a little thing.”
With those words, she burst into laughter. It was clear that she wanted to make a fool out of him.
It was putting him on the spot. He picked up the rubber band, watched for a while, and finally got started.
Ai’s hair was long, black, and also very lustrous. It felt good to grab her hair in his hand. Lu took a long time to grasp all of her hair and tie it with the rubber band.
When he finished, he said to Ai, “Look. Pretty good?”
Ai looked at the strand of long hair hanging down her forehead and was speechless. “Why didn’t you tie this up as well? I am not master Ximen.”
Lu looked at it, and really, it was a bit like the hairstyle of those heroes in costume dramas. He laughed, and then he hurriedly helped tie up her hair again.
Although it was terribly uneven, all her hair was tied up. She looked at herself in the mirror, and she didn’t want to look again. “All right, all right. Leave it at that. Let me tell you, Lu Zhanke, you need to learn how to tie hair. You can’t go on like this.”
Lu was a little speechless. “I am not a woman. Why would I learn something like that?”
“Have you forgotten that you want to be a nice gentleman? This is also a required skill.” Ai conned him. In fact, she was getting back at Lu for disturbing her sleep. Haha.
“Stop it. Eat first.” Lu would not learn it, for he was already a nice and considerate good man. Even if he could not tie her hair, it would not impair his good-naturedness.
“What’s going on? Why do we have soup so early in the morning?” Ai sat down and found a bowl of soup.
“This is the bone soup that sister Anxin stewed for you. For your supplement,” Lu explained.
“Wow, how nice of sister Anxin. She is not only virtuous and beautiful, but she is also kind. She’s really the model of a perfect woman.” Ai genuinely praised her.
“Huh,” Lu replied. “Right. She is kind to everyone.”
Ai had never felt she was inferior to others. But now that she was being compared with Yang Anxin, such a meek and virtuous woman, it was inevitable that she felt a bit of inferiority.
She glanced up at his face and then asked, “Well… Do you like such virtuous and able women?”
“I…” Lu looked up and found her staring at himself, and he burst out laughing. “You are what I like.”
“Really?” Ai was full of joy.
“Of course it’s true.”
“At least you’re tactful.” Holding the bowl of soup in her left hand, Ai sighed. “Oh, this is really inconvenient.”
The inconvenience lasted for a week until the cast on Ai’s arm was removed. After she got the cast off, Ai felt relieved and free all over. It was still early when they came out of the hospital, and she took Lu with her to the department store.
Lu was tall, with two thick black eyebrows hung high above a pair of bright eyes. He was decent and honorable, which turned quite a few heads their way. And Ai was a tall, slim, pretty young girl, and she also looked attractive when she stood with Lu. The beautiful girl and handsome guy grabbed a lot of attention.
Ai took his arm and said, “It’s time to test whether you really love me.”
Lu arched his eyebrows. “How are you going to test it?”
“How generous your wallet is shows how deep you love me,” Ai Changhuan replied with a smile.
Without any words, Lu immediately took out his wallet and gave it to Ai. “Take it. Buy whatever you want.”
Ai took it, tapped it on her palm, and asked, “Are there any pictures of other women in this wallet?”
“No pictures of other women,” Lu replied.
But Ai felt something was wrong because the normal answer should have been “No.”
But Lu seemed to emphasize it deliberately, saying “No pictures of other women” as if he were covering something up.
She was not thinking randomly, and it was based on science. That was the way that an American psychologist had come up with to prove if a person was lying, and the famous example was the incident of a certain president.
Ai looked Lu up and down and asked tentatively, “There really aren’t? On a second thought, you couldn’t fool me if I find something off about you.”
Lu smiled. “You’re not making any sense. There really aren’t. If you don’t believe it, you can just open it to see.”
“Oh.” Ai paid no mind to that. She did not open the wallet but instead returned it to Lu. “I believe you. I’m just kidding.”
Lu raised his eyebrows. “Just to show you how much I love you, though the method is a bit weird.”
“Haven’t you heard of this? If a man has one hundred and gives a woman ten, then his love for the woman is ten percent. If a man only has ten and takes this ten for the woman, then his love for this woman is one hundred percent.”
Lu disagreed. “Can love be measured with money?”
“Love is emptiness, and it is intangible and invisible, so it can only be measured by another kind of substance. In fact, it tests whether the man really loves the woman.”
“Then how do you test whether the woman really loves the man?” Lu asked back.
“It depends on how the woman intends to spend the money, whether it’s all for herself or all for the man.”
Lu put his wallet into Ai’s hand, “Come on. Let me see how you spend it.”
Ai laughed. “I’m not short on money, but it’s natural for a man to support his family. Don’t worry. I’ll spend it all.”
With these words, she dragged Lu into a pajama shop. “Our pajamas are different, and we should buy two sets of couple pajamas.”
“…Is this necessary?” Resignedly, he thought to himself that as a man, he was not fussy about what he wore, but he would pamper her if she had to buy it.
Ai nodded firmly and began shopping frantically. Finally, she chose two sets of purple pajamas. She seemed excited about them, and she immediately asked Lu whether they looked good or not.
The smile stiffened on Lu’s lips, but he had to nod his head in order to cheer her up. In reality, he thought to himself that thankfully, he would only wear them at home, and no one would see.
After buying the pajamas, Ai went to buy clothes. She especially selected couples’ shirts, and all the clothes were new fashion styles among young people. But for Lu, they could only be described in these words: bells and whistles.
When Ai took two T-shirts with flaming red lips on them and came to ask him for his opinion, he couldn’t help but finally say, “That’s too crazy, after all…”
After all, he was not seventeen, nor twenty-seven, but thirty-seven years old. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous to wear such clothes?
Ai took the clothes in front of him to measure. “Why? It’s pretty. Don’t you like it? How about this?”
Then, she changed to a set of light pink.
With blood throbbing visibly at his temples, he said, “Aren’t there any other colors?”
In fact, what he wanted to say was: I have to wear this?
“There is also a black one, but…”
“Okay, take the black one,” Lu said immediately.
Ai had a queer look on her face. “Are you sure you want the black one?”
“Yep.” Compared to red and pink, black was the color of angels.
“Okay.” Seeing Lu is so determined, Ai had to pick two sets of black T-shirts.
After buying clothes, they went to buy lovers’ toothbrushes, lovers’ towels, lovers’ slippers, and lovers’ cups. As long as she could buy in double, she almost bought them all.
After Ai enjoyed shopping, they finally started on their way home.
Ai took out the black T-shirts and handed one to Lu. “Come on. Put it on.”
“Why?” Lu was a little reluctant.
He actually wanted to hide the clothes when they got home so that Ai couldn’t find them because he did not want to wear them.
But Ai didn’t give him the opportunity to refuse. She grabbed his clothes and started to help him take them off, but Lu refused. The two were tangled together as the bystanders watched them.