In the square, the music was switched on again and all the noise came back.
Sheng Yize eyed her and said, “Eating ice cream this late is bad for your stomach.” Seeing the crestfallen look on An Xiaxia’s face, he hesitated, then added, “But if you really want one, we can share.”
“No problem!”
Sheng Yize bought an ice cream cone. An Xiaxia rubbed her cheeks, then took a big bite.
More than half of the cone was gone.
An Xiaxia grimaced as the mouthful of ice cream gave her a toothache. She mumbled, “It’s perfect — one bite each for us.”
Sheng Yize was speechless. He meant that they could split the ice cream between them, not each take a bite!
He sighed in resignation. “Don’t bother. You can have it all.”
An Xiaxia’s eyes sparkled. “Great!”
While she indulged in her ice cream, Sheng Yize began to think, trying to find something for An Xiaxia to do.
An ideal occupation would be one that consumed just enough energy so that she wouldn’t have strength left for public square dancing. (Just admit it, this was your real goal, Mr. Sheng!)
A couple of seconds later, he smiled and said affectionately, “Xiaxia, you look great today.”
Pffft —
An Xiaxia was caught off-guard by this pliment, which was pletely out of the blue. It took her a moment to react. “Did I not look great before?”
“You’ve always looked great.” The smile on Sheng Yize’s face became even gentler. “I’ve been really busy lately. You’re aware of that, right?”
An Xiaxia nodded. Sheng Yize had been spending a lot of time at work after the wedding, and had to stay up late most days.
“I’m in need of an assistant, but I don’t feel like hiring someone new. How do you feel about taking that position?” Sheng Yize blinked, looking very sincere.
“But I don’t know a thing about how to be an assistant…”
Sheng Yize said, “It’s really easy. All you need to do is book restaurants and plane tickets for me, and to look pretty. That way, I’ll be in a great mood and work more efficiently.”
He sounded so earnest that An Xiaxia didn’t know how to turn him down.
However… why did she feel that Sheng Yize had other plans with that request?
An Xiaxia considered it for a moment, then smiled mischievously. “Alright, but on one condition.”
“Which is?” He would do anything as long as it wasn’t dancing in a public square!
“Give me a puppy-dog look!”
“What?”
“A puppy-dog look! Sheng Yize, I want to see you play cute!” An Xiaxia grinned.
Sheng Yize looked around at the square bustling with activity and arched his eyebrows. “Here?”
“Yes!”
Controlling the twitching muscle in his face, Sheng Yize looked at the elders indulging themselves in public square dancing and decided that he needed to do this for the sake of his future!
Holding his fists up next to his cheeks, he wiggled them back and forth and said, “Xiaxia, give me hug hug.”
Wow!
An Xiaxia practically had stars flying out of her eyes. This was the very first time she ever saw Sheng Yize do this!
It was really adorable!
She was going to push it a little further when Sheng Yize switched back to his usual facial expression, frowned, and led her toward the parking lot.
“What’s wrong?” An Xiaxia thought that he was vexed by her request.
“Someone was taking pictures of us,” Sheng Yize explained. He actually rejoiced at that discovery, for he finally had an excuse to leave.
He called Grandpa Sheng to tell him that he and An Xiaxia had gone back home first.
The car drove steadily along the brightly lit street.
With nothing better to do, An Xiaxia tapped open Weibo and saw that she had been tagged repeatedly again.
Her heart sank. Please don’t tell her that she was going to relive that farce all over again.
Tapping into it, she was surprised to find that all was happy and harmonious.
“I’m so envious! So, my idol is but a child around the woman he loves!”
“Aah! He’s so handsome! Nice job, paparazzi!”
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