Chapter 55

They rode back in silence. When they returned to the villa, Lin Tantan felt as if she'd been given another life; inside, everyone was in the living room.
"You're back!" Mei Baisheng was first to greet her. Lin Tantan replied, "You weren't all waiting up for me, were you?"
Bai Cheng, who was checking today's completed deals on his computer, said, "Not exactly, we were talking about how to spend tomorrow." He glanced at Ye Xiao. Ye Xiao had come in behind Lin Tantan, leisurely closed his umbrella and left it by the door before stepping in to shut the door. Hmm, seeing him like that, it was obvious he wasn't exactly cheerful.
"Tomorrow? How do you mean, how to spend it?"
Jiang Xiaotian, crunching on something, said, "I told you you'd definitely forgotten, tomorrow's New Year's Eve!"
Lin Tantan was stunned, New Year's Eve? She really hadn't realized. "So, how should we celebrate?" She walked over to Xu Qin. "How are you today?"
Xu Qin lounged on the sofa, still looking pale and weak; this illness had dragged on for more than ten days and he'd been badly depleted. Yet he held a small teaspoon in his hand and it was slowly changing shape as he pinched it back and forth, not by brute force, but through his power.
His eyes were bright; he was clearly in a good mood.
He told Lin Tantan, "My ability got a bit stronger today."
"Let me see." Lin Tantan sat down beside him.
Mei Baisheng continued, "Of course we should feast. Everyone come back early tomorrow, it's not right to miss New Year's Eve dinner together. Old Bai, remember to hire a great cook."
Ye Xiao came to the edge of the living room and slowly rolled up his sleeves. "Fruit?"
"Yes!" Jiang Xiaotian, the glutton, responded first. Ye Xiao turned and went into the kitchen, and the sound of a tap being opened and water running came from inside.
The villa originally only supplied a hundred liters a day, which was hardly enough, so Bai Cheng bought some extra water. He wasn't going to be as stingy as Jiang Zhongyi and the others, he sent the water-type ability user to the upstairs tank to fill it, and after that the villa's water never ran out.
That said, they still didn't waste it.
Once Ye Xiao left, Lin Tantan relaxed and helped Xu Qin tidy up the part of his power that hadn't fully awakened. His ability was metal-based, but not an offensive type; it let him reshape metal into any form. As it grew stronger, it could even alter the fundamental structure of matter, a formidable talent, perfectly suited to Xu Qin's main work of improving weapons and developing power-based arms.
That part matched history; what didn't was that his ability had awakened a full year earlier.
Because I'm here, did he go out in the rain without restraint and force his ability to surface early?
Next was Cheng Qinan. His ability had also awakened; unsurprisingly, it was precognition. Lin Tantan asked curiously, "What can you foresee?"
Cheng Qinan looked at her and thought for a moment. "We might not be able to have New Year's Eve dinner."
Everyone: "..."
They didn't want to hear that, and when they asked him why, he couldn't explain.
Cheng Qinan looked toward the front door. "I feel this base is full of danger everywhere, something about to burst forth." His voice was hoarse and a little grim; spoken like that on a night like this, it felt eerie.
His words left everyone feeling uneasy.
Ye Xiao came out carrying a plate of apples. "Can you tell what kind of danger it is, or when it will happen?"
Cheng Qinan pressed his lips together and shook his head. He only had a vague, fuzzy premonition and couldn't grasp any specifics. If that's all he could do, his ability was practically useless.
Ye Xiao told everyone to take an apple and, attempting to soothe him, said, "It's normal for powers to be weak at first."
The fruit platter was handed to Lin Tantan. She glanced at it and saw that each apple slice was exactly the same width, as if measured, and the cores had already been removed, as if cut by some gadget that slices apples. But the question was, did the kitchen actually have such a thing?
She let her mind run wild, took a piece, and said, "Thanks."
After everyone had taken a piece, he set the fruit plate on the coffee table. "You two carry on chatting, I’ll head upstairs first."
The others dispersed one after another.
Lin Tantan walked behind; Mei Baisheng quietly grabbed her. "What happened out there just now? The boss looked... like he wasn’t very happy."
Lin forced herself to say, "Really? I thought he was fine. We didn’t have any falling out, when we met, we just turned around and came back."
"Turned around and came back when you met? But the boss said he was coming to find you before nightfall, we thought you might have been held up by something."
"Huh? Really?"
Lin Tantan’s mind was a tangle. Back in her room she stood stupefied for a while, then angrily raked her hair. No way, no way, no way!
But if it was just a normal relationship, why did he give that look?
Did he give Mei Baisheng or Xu Qin that same look?
A complicated, and, almost, tender kind of look.
Lin Tantan felt thunderstruck and kept telling herself maybe she’d misread it.
Still, something felt off. Recalling all the little details before, that awful hunch grew clearer, Ye Xiao, could he have feelings for me?
Lin Tantan flopped onto the bed, clutching her head.
It wasn’t her intention, but if that were true, she’d unwittingly cut in and become the other woman!
Well, maybe the love hasn’t been won yet, but the signs were already terrible.
Lin Tantan rolled over and looked around the room. She decided this couldn’t go on. Living under the same roof wasn’t really right. At first, limited options and her desire to fit into the team had seemed to justify it, but now, maybe she should move out.
She got up to pack but realized there wasn’t much to pack: no bottles of skincare, no jewelry, no wallet or papers. In the end only a few small things fit into her bag.
The only real belongings were her quilts and clothes. When she opened the wardrobe, garments she’d bought and ones Bai Cheng had given her, layers upon layers of different thicknesses, had somehow filled an entire closet.
She wanted to take them all, but they were too bulky.
She sighed, grabbed her pillow and hugged it. The soft, fragrant pillow, she couldn’t bear to leave it.
She wandered about the room and out into the empty living room. A small lamp still glowed. The downstairs room that housed the gas generator had been shut off, everything felt very quiet.
Lin Tantan went down the stairs and heard squeaking. A large fat rat crawled in through the window, shook its fur, squeezed into the nest and rudely kicked aside the smaller mice to claim the comfiest spot.
She crouched by a cardboard box where a dozen mutated mice either slept or gnawed at tattered cloths. She didn’t usually tend them; they foraged on their own. She’d made them a rule: no eating people, dead or alive, and no stealing food from desperate households. They did their own thing, even climbing the mountains connected to the base to catch small animals. In any case, none of them had ever left her hungry.
"Look at you all, eat, sleep; sleep, eat. Happy as can be, no worries. Isn’t this villa great? You probably don’t want to leave, right?" Lin Tantan muttered. "If I leave, should I take you with me? I’d need a bigger place to fit you all."
Lin Tantan felt a gaze fall on her. She spun around and saw someone standing at the top of the stairs.
"!!!" She nearly had a heart attack and jumped up. "How did you just appear there without a sound!?"
Ye Xiao slowly descended the stairs. "I heard you coming down and thought you might be hungry, so I came to check."
Lin Tantan blushed a little.
Ye Xiao wasn’t a great cook, but at least he knew how to use the appliances. She didn’t, well, not at first. The first time she used the microwave she stuck in unpeeled eggs and blew it up. She’d fuss over the rice cooker timer for ages and still end up with a pot of uncooked rice at mealtime. She once opened the sterilizer while it was running...
She simply didn’t understand these everyday things. They felt ancient to her and there were no instructions. With a few tries she would have learned, but everyone had already labeled her hopeless with household tasks, and stopped letting her into the kitchen alone.
Thinking about how everyone looked after her made Lin feel a little down.
Ye Xiao came up to her, glanced at the pillow in her arms and the bag slung over her shoulder. She looked a bit wilted, like someone caught doing something wrong; his expression darkened.
He asked, "What would you like to eat?" as if he hadn’t noticed her belongings at all.
"Uh, no, I’m not hungry." She said, then tried to slip back upstairs.
"Tantan." Ye Xiao called after her, pausing briefly before forcing a smile. "You’re not mad at me, are you?"
"Hm?"
Ye Xiao turned to her, sounding a little frustrated. "Every time you stay out late or go somewhere, you only tell Bai Cheng and not me. In your eyes, is he closer or more trustworthy than I am?"
Lin Tantan froze.
Ye Xiao lowered his eyes; under the dim light he looked unexpectedly forlorn. "I know Bai Cheng is more lovable, he makes friends easily. I met you before he did, but now you only tell him things. It makes me... unhappy."
He looked up, his gaze clear and direct, every emotion laid bare, like a schoolboy’s accusation: why do you only hang out with the people behind you when I’m the one sitting next to you?
Lin Tantan... was startled, and utterly charmed.
Is he, he's acting cute? Damn, my heart just plummeted.
Ye Xiao stepped forward, earnest and slightly apologetic: "I'm not trying to control you. Go out, go wherever you want. No matter how late you come back, don't only tell Bai Cheng; tell me too. That's the only way I'll be at ease."
He finished with a gentle smile, calm as a clear night, eyes full of hope: "Okay?"
Her heart emptied; Lin Tantan's soul collapsed. She nodded dazedly: "Okay."
Satisfied with the promise, Ye Xiao looked pleased. "So, what do you want to eat? Noodles okay? There's a prepared pork-bone soup packet, tastes pretty good."
Lin Tantan kept nodding.
"Then sit and wait a moment." Ye Xiao led her to the dining table, glanced at the pillow she was still clutching, smiled faintly, and went into the kitchen to busy himself.
It took Lin Tantan a while to catch on, so his "unless" earlier meant she was supposed to report her whereabouts to him as well?