At Yuxiu Garden.
Ning Meng obediently sat up on her bed and drank the mouthful of water that Huo Beichen was feeding her. He did not continue elaborating on what he had wanted to say earlier. Perhaps it was because she was sick. While they were waiting for Su Ye to arrive, Ning Meng decided to ask, “How is Ning Ke related to you, anyway?”
Huo Beichen covered her with a blanket and dampened a towel. He held her hand and rubbed her palms to bring down her body temperature. After he heard her question, he slowly replied, “Highschool classmates.”
“??”
A moment of realization suddenly dawned on Ning Meng after being confused for such a long time. No wonder the comic had seemed so weird. It looked as though it had been drawn from Huo Beichen’s perspective! The female lead was not properly introduced, and her origins were not explained. The comic started with both of them at a school. So, that was because Ning Ke was his high school classmate and not the female lead, which was supposed to be Ning Meng in the comic!
She raised her brow. “What is her relationship with your ex-girlfriend?”
Huo Beichen threw a glance at her, his eyes seething with resentment. “They were best friends akin to sisters.”
“…”
What plotline was this! This was too eerily uncanny! Just because they were close like sisters, did that justify her pretending to be Huo Beichen’s ex-girlfriend?! She pursed her lips. “But she does not look like a good person.”
Huo Beichen mulled over what she had just said. He glanced at her with grief in his eyes. Had she suddenly grown clever after eight years? Back in the day, he had told her countless times that Ning Ke was acting strangely toward him. Yet, she had refused to believe him. In fact, she had even asked him to be nicer toward Ning Ke and not be too cold to her… If it were not for her, Huo Beichen would have settled things with her long ago!
Now that she seemed to have finally woken up, Huo Beichen coaxed her. “Mm, please stay away from her.”
Ning Meng was confused. Was this not supposed to be the other way round?! She should be the one saying this to Huo Beichen. He should stay away from Ning Ke! She could only purse her lips and reply, “Oh.”
She lay down on her bed and thought about what Ning Ke had said to her earlier. She had said that Huo Beichen was staying at the villa only because he was staying there with his ex-girlfriend. Then, she thought about how Xiao Tiantian behaved around Ning Ke. Ning Meng suddenly asked, “How about… Your ex-girlfriend?”
Huo Beichen was about to dampen the towel again in the bucket to help cool down her body temperature. When he heard this, his fingers paused. He stopped for a good four to five seconds before lifting his head to look at Ning Meng. “No more.”
No more?
Ning Meng did not understand why, but his words pulled at her heartstrings. Was it what she understood it to be? Huo Beichen’s ex-girlfriend was no longer in this world? Ning Meng clamped her mouth shut and did not continue to press further, sighing instead.
Regardless, she was still affected by Ning Ke. She would not be calculative with a dead person. After all, she was not here in this world anymore. What was the point of being jealous? Seeing that she did not ask why his ex-girlfriend was no longer around, Huo Beichen breathed a sigh of relief. He did not know how to bring up the past to her. He took the freshly dampened towel and put it on her forehead.
When Su Ye rushed over, he gave her some antipyretic. They both waited until midnight. Su Ye only left when Ning Meng’s fever had cooled down and she showed no other signs of sickness.
***
Ning Meng had always thought that Su Ye was not the tale-teller type, but now that Qi Shan, Fei Bai, Li Shiyao, and Su Ye were all sitting on the sofa, causing such a big fuss, even naming the day “Patient Visiting Day”, she could not stop her mouth from twitching.
Just as she was thinking about this, the doorbell rang, and she walked over to the door, speechless. The moment she opened the door, Zhen Shanmei’s loud voice rang across the room. “Sh*t! Meng Meng! I heard that you had such a steamy night with Huo Beichen that you caught a fever? How ferocious was he?!”
