Quick Travel to the Clouds

Chapter 559 The Little Demon 20

The two sat across from each other across a narrow coffee table. The afternoon quietness instantly descended, and the aroma of food that had just filled the air seemed to be replaced by an invisible tension.

The chirping of insects outside the window became a vague background sound.

Chi Jingchen's state of mind shifted almost instantly. He was no longer the neighbor who'd been confused about the type of bok choy, nor was he relaxed like he had been at lunch. He sat up straight, leaning forward slightly, his eyes fixed on Yun Chu, yet seemed to penetrate her, looking at the person in the script who had captured his heart.

"Begin." His voice lowered, carrying a hint of the character's unique restraint and hoarseness, the tone of a male protagonist, "'Just now, we met in the corridor. You... seem to always avoid my sight?'"

Yun Chu was shocked by his aura and the sudden change in his voice, and her heart skipped a beat.

She hurriedly looked down at the script, found the corresponding line, cleared her throat, and read it out as calmly as possible, trying to ignore the fact that she was the one being "watched": "'...I didn't.'"

There was a strange, disguised tone to her voice.

The line was short, but it surprisingly fit her slightly stiff state at the moment due to nervousness.

"Really?" The character played by Chi Jingchen let out a short, emotionless laugh and leaned forward slightly. A gentleness that carried both inquiry and oppression flowed through the air. "'Then why are your eyes wandering again now?'"

His lines accurately captured Yun Chu's subtle movements as she subconsciously tried to avoid his sight.

Yun Chu felt her cheeks getting a little hot. She forced herself to look up and meet his now bottomless gaze—a gaze filled with the character's complex emotions, yet strangely reminiscent of the Chi Jingchen she knew.

She was so absorbed in it that she almost forgot she was just reciting lines. Her tone was unconsciously tinged with genuine panic and embarrassment from being exposed: "'I... I'm just... not used to it.'"

Her voice was lighter and softer than before, and even had a slight tremor that she herself didn't notice.

"'What are you not used to?'" the male protagonist played by Chi Jingchen asked, his voice lowered even lower, like a feather gently scratching the heart, with extremely strong penetrating power.

He tilted his head towards her, the warm golden sunlight outlining his handsome nose and jawline, and also fell into his eyes as he stared at her intently, as if broken stars were falling. "'Are you... not used to me looking at you, or...'

He trailed off with a kind of itchy temptation, "Not used to it, are you hiding something in your heart that you don't want me to know?"

The air seemed to freeze.

The next few lines on the script were a little blurry in her eyes.

Yun Chu's heartbeat was so fast it felt like it was about to burst out. She understood the ambiguity and felt the carefully constructed yet incredibly real atmosphere.

The feeling in this "play" made her fingertips slightly numb and her throat a little tight.

She opened her mouth, and the line seemed to be stuck there.

She should have said, "You're overthinking it," but at that moment, surrounded by that magical gaze and that gentle, almost bewitching aura, her mind went blank for a moment, and she blurted out, surprising herself with a cornered eagerness and a hint of subtle vulnerability: "'I... I just... seem to be... a little used to having you around...'"

As soon as she said it, she suddenly realized she'd read it wrong! That wasn't the line at all! The script had written it as a rebuttal to past issues, not... something close to... a response.

Time completely stopped at this moment.

Chi Jingchen's movements also seemed to pause for a frame.

The words that were carefully written in the script and should have been spoken by a specific character in a specific situation were spoken softly by the girl in front of him who had no acting experience. She spoke in a tone that was surprised, embarrassed, shy, but extremely natural and unpretentious.

Every word is like throwing a stone into the calm water.

The light cut by the blinds slanted down and hit the two of them, forming a subtle barrier.

A faint white vapor rose from the teacup on the coffee table.

The bone-deep gaze of the character played by Chi Jingchen seemed to have a slight crack at the moment Yun Chu misread (or accidentally confessed?).

A trace of extremely real daze and deeper concentration replaced the purely performative emotion and quietly emerged in his eyes.

He stared at Yun Chu, whose cheeks were flushed, eyes were evasive and a little annoyed, as if he wanted to see something clearly through her panic.

The broad leaves of the fiddle-leaf fig tree placed in the corner of the living room seemed to tremble slightly in the silent air.

The quiet of the afternoon seemed to have a sticky texture, the air flowing slowly, carrying the lingering warmth of the out-of-control lines just now.

Yun Chu's completely unscripted and almost straightforward words, "I'm used to having you around," were like a loud pause, hitting between the two of them and making her eardrums buzz.

She lowered her head almost instantly, her thick eyelashes covering her eyes, her cheeks burning hot, her fingers gripping the script so tightly that her knuckles turned white, and she wished she could shrink into the crack of the sofa.

Chi Jingchen's pause lasted only a fleeting moment. He didn't correct her, didn't tease her, and didn't even betray any displeasure at having his script interrupted.

In his deep eyes, the icy lake constructed by the character's emotions was like a red-hot charcoal thrown into it the moment Yun Chu blurted out the words.

The surface ice silently shattered, and the real heat underneath surged up, blending strangely and dangerously with the concentration of the performance.

His eyes fell heavily on the small whorl on the top of her head. The seductive blush that spread out because of extreme shyness was flowing down her white neck and spreading to the edge of her delicate collarbone.

The script should have been for the male protagonist to ask with a hint of mockery: "Oh, habit? Habit of what?" But Chi Jingchen's Adam's apple rolled, and his eyes seemed to be attracted by a magnet and couldn't leave Yun Chu's fragile and embarrassed posture at the moment.

For some unknown reason, he changed the lyrics.

"Really?" His voice lowered even more, like a whisper against the eardrum, with a precisely calculated hoarseness that mixed character exploration with Chi Jingchen's own genuine interest.

The hoarseness was not entirely an act, but more like a suppressed tremor deep in the chest.

He didn't follow the script's logic to expose or ridicule her "wrong" confession. Instead, he seemed to follow her "habit" and explore further. "Then... give it a try? Get used to this feeling?"

He leaned forward a little more. The two of them were originally separated by a small coffee table, but at this moment, the coffee table seemed to no longer exist.

The refreshing and pleasant smell of his aftershave, mixed with a hint of his own warm breath, clearly enveloped her. His eyes were locked on her aggressively, leaving her no room to escape.

Yun Chu felt his breath was choked.