An Jing finished washing the dishes and returned to the inner room; it was already dark and a bit cold, so staying nestled in bed seemed best.
After Xiao Changyi finished his bath, he saw the oil lamp lit in the inner room and knew An Jing was there. Instead of immediately going to the inner room to find An Jing, Xiao Changyi first checked the courtyard door to make sure it was securely closed before entering the house.
After bolting the main room’s door, Xiao Changyi proceeded to the inner room.
Only when Xiao Changyi approached the bed, taking off his outer and inner clothes and removing his shoes, did An Jing lift the blanket for Xiao Changyi to slide in.
The moment Xiao Changyi lay down, he wrapped the blanket snugly around them both, and An Jing asked him with a smiling squint, "Is it warm?"
"I climbed in quite early, so with my body heat, of course, it’s warm," An Jing said with a face full of proud coquetry.
"Hmm," he paused, then kissed her forehead tenderly, adding, "I should be the one warming you up."
An Jing immediately became unhappy, retorting, "What ’should be’? You don’t owe me anything. Whoever gets to the bed first naturally gets to sleep in the warm blanket!"
Still unsatisfied, An Jing demanded, "Say you were wrong!"
Xiao Changyi immediately said, "I was wrong."
"That’s more like it," An Jing was satisfied, gave him a kiss, and then said, "Don’t say that again in the future, it makes me uncomfortable."
"From now on, you’re not allowed to say anything that makes me uncomfortable."
"You know how I feel, don’t you?"
"I know," he paused, and then added, "I was wrong. I won’t say it again in the future."
Finally content, An Jing dropped the subject and said, "When my belly gets bigger, we won’t be able to hug face to face anymore."
Although they were still sleeping face to face, the couple didn’t dare to truly hug each other; even if they did hug, it was not as tight as before, very loose in fact, for fear of hurting the child in the womb.
Xiao Changyi really liked the position of hugging his wife face to face while sleeping, but he also had to consider the child in his wife’s stomach, so as soon as he heard An Jing say this, he suggested, "When your belly grows bigger, I will hug you from behind while we sleep."
Anyway, no matter what, he wanted his wife to sleep in his arms.
Thinking about sleeping with her back to Xiao Changyi, with him hugging her from behind, her back tightly against Xiao Changyi’s body, An Jing actually found the idea quite nice and happily agreed, "Mm-hmm~"
Then, suddenly lifting her head with a mischievous smile, she said, "But if we sleep like that, won’t we miss out on a lot of kisses?"
As it stood, with their faces so close, they could kiss whenever they wished, which was indeed very convenient.
Without a second thought, Xiao Changyi said, "Then let’s make up for it now while we can still sleep this way."
With that, he didn’t wait for An Jing’s reaction and kissed her lips.
An Jing was momentarily stunned, then smiled and responded to Xiao Changyi.
The next day, Shi Xiaolan came to visit An Jing and incidentally brought out the three taels An Jing had previously given her to return them.
Seeing the three taels intact, An Jing knew that Shi Xiaolan and Yuyu Niuniu had been living quite well over the past three months, without any issues that required a large sum of money. However, she didn’t immediately take the money, instead asking, "You’re giving me all the money now; do you have enough for yourself?"
Shi Xiaolan didn’t hide anything from An Jing and honestly said, "People from the village come to my place bringing things from time to time. My mother and the three of us don’t need to spend much, so there’s still more than three hundred coins left."