And the photos are in his hands.
If it wasn’t him who had someone take the photos, then who was tracking her?
"Could it be Jing Qing who gave them to you? — Why is she clinging to me like a nagging mother all the time?"
Qin Mu looked at Mu Yichen’s raised eyebrows and knew she had guessed correctly. She immediately threw the photo onto the table, unhappily leaning back on the sofa, which also meant leaning into his arms.
Mu Yichen looked down at her tantrums and felt a pang of distress: If there’s nothing to hide with your master, why are you afraid of her taking photos?
"It’s not about fear of being photographed, but if someone were watching you every day, either taking pictures or monitoring, wouldn’t you become annoyed?"
"You think my life is any better than yours?"
He had been photographed a lot since he was young.
Especially in recent years, as his abilities grew, being stealthily photographed or followed was already par for the course. Yet even so, he actually did not want her to be exposed to other people’s lenses, especially with other men.
Qin Mu immediately lost her temper when she thought about how it wasn’t easy for him either. She then asked him, "Should we still go to her birthday party tomorrow?"
"Don’t you want to regain some presence in front of her?"
"Why should I seek to establish my presence in front of her? I’m already a powerful presence."
Qin Mu lay in his arms, sliding down his chest to rest on his legs, lifting her own legs and placing them on the couch’s arm on the other side, lying on top of him and blinking up at the light overhead.
"Let’s go to sleep together! Just rest for half an hour—I still have to attend a meeting this afternoon."
He said softly, his hand gently stroking her hair.
"Alright then, my back is a bit stiff too."
She agreed, then sat up.
Without further ado, Mu Yi picked her up in his arms and carried her to a room not too far away.
The bed there wasn’t as soft as the one at home, but when the two of them were together, skin touching skin, it seemed to transform into something different, as if it were the best in the entire world.
In the afternoon, Mu Yi returned to the office to get some things, and Qiao Yi went to find him with a headache: "You just left like that, do you know what they’ve been asking me?"
"They’ve been asking when you and Jing Qing are going to announce your marriage."
Qiao Yi, irritated, slumped into the chair in front of his office desk, his hands hanging uselessly to the sides, his face expressionless.
Mu Yi chuckled lightly, thinking they were asking about the secrets of their pharmaceutical company.
"And what did you answer?"
"What else could I say? I had to tell the truth."
"Well, that settles it, doesn’t it? What are you so annoyed about?"
"It’s always me who has to answer these brainless questions, and it truly annoys me."
Qiao Yi grabbed the chair’s armrests and suddenly sat up straight, addressing the man opposite him.
"Hmm, next time just change the subject, since you know their family well anyway."
Mu Yi soberly advised him, and Qiao Yi...
"Seeing Jing Qing act like that today, you can tell she’s not yet given up. Can’t you just make her stop persisting?" Qiao Yi really did change the topic.
"I’ve said what I had to say. I can control myself, but how can I control her? As for you, if you still like her, better think of a way to save her before she falls too deep."
When Mu Yi said this, it gave Qiao Yi an even bigger headache.
"How can I save her? Look at her attitude today, acting like a boss’s wife instructing a subordinate to take good care of the two bosses, and then she left with your coat. Those two executives even thought you two had gone upstairs to a room."
Thinking about it made Qiao Yi angrier, feeling as though he was on the verge of vomiting blood.
"Tell me, how are things going with you and Xiao Mu? Are you still together after she moved out of the Mu family’s house?"
"I can tell you very seriously and responsibly, as long as she’s in Rongcheng, we ’sleep’ together every day."
Yichen was being smug again.
It wasn’t a matter of being together or not, the point was that they were sleeping together every day, sleeping together.
Wasn’t that enough to show that they had actually been getting along fine all along?
Suddenly feeling less vexed, Qiao Yi became somewhat buoyed by the thought.
"I just remembered I need to run an errand this afternoon, so I’m heading out first."
Feeling better, he stopped the chit-chat and got up to get busy.
Mu Yi couldn’t help but smile, and just then his secretary came in to tell him: "You have a meeting with the municipal government in an hour."
So, he went to the municipal government alone that afternoon, attending a lecture by the leaders with some local business owners.
Liu Jingyuan was also there, greeting him politely when he saw him, but his gaze held a sense of distance.