“Miss Miao, you can rest for a bit. President Mu will contact you after her meeting.”
Miao Zhu met her gaze and smiled gratefully: “Okay~”
That day, Miao Zhu wore a low-saturation soft pink off-shoulder long-sleeve top, tight jeans. The top was thin and slightly cropped, clinging like wet tissue paper to outline her beautiful bust and waist-to-hip ratio. A matching silk narrow ribbon draped loosely around her neck, small hoop earrings dAngeld from her lobes, and her straight hair was swept behind her ears.
Her red lips contrasted her snowy skin; her smile made her eyes sparkle radiantly. Lu Zheng averted her gaze politely, never lingering even once. She didn’t step out of the elevator hall and left after dropping her off.
Miao Zhu slipped into the previous slippers and stood in the spacious living room of the penthouse, once again enveloped by that sense of silence.
Mu Shanyi wasn’t there, so she didn’t wander. Thirsty, she only went to the fridge to see what might quench it.
Inside were water and a sealed box of fresh milk, expired by two days.
Miao Zhu took the water and left the milk untouched.
She didn’t want to overstep boundaries. She was just an occasional guest here and had no right to act like the owner.
Miao Zhu returned to the living room and stood in front of the large floor-to-ceiling window, sipping water while gazing at the distant Glazed Cloud Tower.
In the height of summer, under the blazing sun, the water patterns at the tower’s base refracted dazzling golden light.
It was a rare moment of leisure. Aside from waiting for Mu Shanyi, there was nothing else she needed to do.
Miao Zhu checked the time. It was five minutes to four.
She had slept little the night before, and the turbulence on the plane had kept her awake too. As soon as she settled down, drowsiness washed over her. She didn’t go to the bedroom but simply lay back on the living room sofa.
A dark red cashmere shawl lay on the sofa, with a picture book placed on top of it.
In her sleepiness, Miao Zhu picked up the picture book and flipped it open casually.
It featured watercolor-style illustrations—strawberries, hedgehogs, little snails, all rendered vividly lifelike. The corners of the pages showed signs of frequent handling, clearly well-loved.
Was it Mu Shanyi’s? Or one of her “friends” who visited here? But since it was left out, Mu Shanyi must have looked at it at least a few times.
Miao Zhu snapped a photo of the picture book and sent it to Mu Shanyi, letting her know she had arrived at Tower Shadow Sunny River and was about to read it.
Knowing Mu Shanyi was busy, Miao Zhu didn’t wait for a reply. She set her phone aside and continued flipping through the book.
Each spread featured two illustrations side by side—similar scenes but with different focuses. The left page pulled back for a wider view, while the right zoomed in on details, the two echoing each other, with the same line of poetry beneath both.
Miao Zhu didn’t grasp the story’s narrative technique at first and puzzledly flipped further, discovering every spread followed the same pattern.
Only at the end did she find the answer.
This final spread broke the divide, forming a complete picture. Beneath a park bench, the child from the left page met the squirrel from the right.
“One thing was certain—I wouldn’t meet a you like this every day.”
It turned out to be a story of a child and a squirrel viewing the world from dual perspectives. The corresponding left and right illustrations showed what they each saw in the same scene—different landscapes.
With this understanding, Miao Zhu flipped through the entire book from the beginning again. Her phone chimed softly; Mu Shanyi’s reply had arrived.
She had shared her location with Miao Zhu.
Miao Zhu tapped it open. Mu Shanyi’s pin was at the company headquarters campus. Staring at the still Green Plains Snow Mountain avatar for a moment, Miao Zhu’s sleepiness deepened, her eyelids growing heavy.
The picture book’s content lingered in her mind. Half-dreaming, Miao Zhu thought: As the moon set and the sun rose, through clear skies and rain, spring, summer, fall, and winter, amid the bustling crowds, the person you met might have been in the same scene as you once, neither of you aware at the time.
So romantic.
She drifted off to sleep on the sofa, covered by the cashmere shawl.
The shawl was fine and soft, infused with Mu Shanyi’s scent lingering around her nose. Miao Zhu slept deeply and comfortably. When she stirred awake, the sky outside was still bright. Her phone had slipped onto the carpet under the sofa at some point. She fished it up and saw the screen still on the location share—Mu Shanyi hadn’t turned it off.
By now, the Green Plains Snow Mountain avatar had left the campus coordinates and was moving on the map.
Miao Zhu counted the blocks and estimated the time. Rush hour after work—it would probably take another ten or twenty minutes by car.
At first, all was well. She drank some water, stretched in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, watched the tower’s shadow in the sunset, her mood unchanged.
But as time passed and Mu Shanyi’s avatar drew visibly closer—until it overlapped completely with hers—Miao Zhu suddenly heard her own heartbeat, thumping loudly and lively.
Clutching her phone, she couldn’t sit still or stand properly. She needed to do something, so she strode quickly toward the elevator hall.
The screen already showed the elevator had arrived on this floor. The moment Miao Zhu stepped into the hall, the doors slid slowly open.
The person inside stood with one hand in her pocket, head lowered at first. Hearing the hurried footsteps, she looked up.
In the short distance of a few meters, before Mu Shanyi could even exit the elevator, Miao Zhu flew into her arms.
Had she overstepped? The thought flashed through Miao Zhu’s mind in an instant.
No, she was just providing emotional value.
“You’re back~” Miao Zhu tilted her face up in Mu Shanyi’s embrace, her voice sweet. “I waited for you and fell asleep!”
“Is that so?” Mu Shanyi naturally wrapped an arm around Miao Zhu’s waist, using her other hand to hold the elevator door open. Amusement laced her voice. “Such a good girl.”
