You're my wife, don't doubt it!

Xiao Yao rolled over, and the hissing sound paused for a moment, then resumed after seven or eight seconds.

"Baby," Xiao Yao called softly.

"What are you doing!" Shen Jie exclaimed in surprise, as if she had been caught red-handed doing something wrong. She was both ashamed and angry. "Turn your face away! Why aren't you asleep so late?"

"Why are you turning your face away? It's so dark, who can see you? Your snoring is too loud, that's why I can't sleep."

"Then go back to your room and sleep. Let Tianyun come back. You're the one who insisted on staying here."

"...Wife, do you think Song Haijian's death is somehow related to us?" Xiao Yao paused for a moment before asking.

"Why are you still thinking about Song Haijian?" Shen Jie picked up a stack of toilet paper: "It has nothing to do with us, okay? By the time I got there, Song Haijian had already been killed by Paddington."

“Nottingham,” Xiao Yao said.

The boy secretly found it amusing—you had previously boasted in the church, "Even if we were to kill this kind of person right now, it wouldn't be unjust; it would be doing justice for God," but now you're desperately trying to shift the blame.

“I’m thinking, maybe Nottington and Joan sneaked in while we opened the gates of the Great Abbey. Maybe we distracted Song Haijian while we were fighting the tanks, which gave Nottington the opportunity to succeed—is that possible?”

Shen Jie remained silent.

“Just two days ago, Song Haijian was swaggering around in front of me, saying ‘A wise man submits to circumstances’ in a strange accent. Teacher Song, now he’s just gone. Don’t blame me for constantly thinking about him,” Xiao Yao explained.

"Mmm," Shen Jie responded softly.

"Shen Jie," Xiao Yao said, "I'm wondering what to do next?"

"In the future? What future? Such a big country, can it be short of a teacher?" Shen Jie snapped the lid of the spittoon shut, pushed it under the bed, and lightly lifted her legs onto the bed.

“No, what are we going to do? What about you?” Xiao Yao said, “Although I’m happy that you’re staying here, you’ll eventually have to go back. How can we help you reconcile with your father? How can we solve your current problems? We can’t keep hiding like this, like mice, here.”

“That’s great,” Shen Jie said, her tone ambiguous, whether it was a pleasant surprise or sarcasm. “You’ve finally started to care about tomorrow.”

“I’ve always kept your matter in mind,” Xiao Yao said.

Shen Jie said quietly, "My business? — Instead of thinking about what to do with the two of us, you should be thinking about what to do with Yu Luying, right?"

"What can we do?" Xiao Yao asked anxiously. "On the way to the boat shop that day, we agreed that we would just be good friends."

“Just good friends,” Shen Jie paused and said, “Xiao Yao, you’re 16 years old now. Legally speaking, you can be criminally responsible. You should learn to take responsibility for many things. Even if this symbiosis issue isn’t your fault, you and Sha Mei have such a strong bond. How do you plan to settle her down? You can’t just let her stay single forever, can you?”

"You sound just like Yu Luying's mother..." Xiao Yao muttered.

“This is a very real problem,” Shen Jie told him. “Yu Luying’s mother is forcing you to be with her because of the same concerns, right?”

“First of all, you are the only one I love right now,” Xiao Yao told Shen Jie. “You blame me for keeping the symbiosis a secret from you, and I admit I was wrong. But have you ever thought about it? I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you would think that way?”

"Soliciting excuses," Shen Jie commented.

“Moreover, the symbiosis between us has weakened, which is a good start,” Xiao Yao said.

"Who knows if they'll come back? It's not like it's the first time," Shen Jie said calmly.

"Thirdly, besides my love for you, we also need to consider Tianyun, right? I can't just mention Tianyun and you accuse me of using my daughter to blackmail you—"

"Alright," Shen Jie said softly.

The two fell into a brief silence.

"As for your father," Xiao Yao spoke again, "it will be quite difficult to get him to agree to you being with me in the short term, right?"

"Be more confident," Shen Jie said, "remove the short-term limit."

"Uh……"

"Besides, whether we have a future together is still uncertain," Shen Jie added.

Upon hearing this, Xiao Yao immediately retorted angrily, "How can you be like this?"

"What's wrong with me?" Shen Jie asked calmly.

"Can you stop threatening to break up? It's been days already. Can't you stop now?" Xiao Yao blurted out, "I don't feel safe at all when you're like this."

"Enough is enough? You're telling me to stop?" Shen Jie's tone carried a hint of anger: "You mean, I, Shen Jie, only have the freedom to date you in this life, not the freedom to break up?"

Upon hearing this, Xiao Yao was filled with rage and malice. He threw off the blanket, jumped off the sofa, and ran to Shen Jie's bed, shouting, "Yes!"

This time, Shen Jie didn't give in to him. Instead, she forcefully pushed Xiao Yao aside. Xiao Yao reached out to grab her, but she slipped out from under his armpit like an eel, jumped off the bed, ran to the sofa, and lay down. The two then switched places.

“The key is to win over your dad,” Xiao Yao said, clutching the blanket that still held Shen Jie’s warmth. He decided to steer the conversation in his own direction. “I’ve thought of a few ideas, listen to them. Option one: just confront him directly, bring him to meet Tianyun, and tell him everything. Maybe grandparents will be more fond of their grandchildren, and your dad will fall head over heels for his granddaughter the moment he sees her.”

Shen Jie lay on the sofa, silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

"Option Two," Xiao Yao continued, talking to himself, "Actually, whether he approves of me, Xiao Yao, is not the most important thing. The most important thing right now is to annul Zhang Zhengkai's engagement."

"..." The girl remained silent.

"In other words, even if you can't belong to me for the time being, you can't belong to anyone else either, thanks to your father."

“I’m not an object, I don’t belong to you or someone else,” Shen Jie said.

"Yeah, you're no good."

"Is this funny?" Shen Jie asked him.

"Is not funny."

"Actually, I have thought about how to tell my dad." Shen Jie finally got to the topic that Xiao Yao had started.

"How so?" Xiao Yao asked, craning his neck.

“I wanted to persuade my dad that the Zhang family was just eyeing our Shen family’s property,” Shen Jie told him.

"Oh?" Xiao Yao said.

“Think about it, I’m my dad’s only daughter. Marrying me off to Zhang Zhengkai might solve his immediate problem, but in the long run, isn’t that just handing me over to him and letting him eat my bread?” In the darkness, Xiao Yao couldn’t see Shen Jie’s expression.

"What does 'eating the childless' mean?" Xiao Yao asked, puzzled.

“I’m going to tell my dad this,” Shen Jie said, “Xiao Yao has no parents, no background, he’s a bit simple-minded and easy to control, he’s quite tall, not bad-looking, and most importantly, he’s devoted to me. He’s an excellent candidate for a live-in son-in-law.”

"..." Xiao Yao felt somewhat hurt by these words, but after thinking about it, he figured it was just persuasive rhetoric and there was no need to take it too seriously: "Are you serious or joking with me?"

"I'm serious!" Shen Jie sat up.

"Do you think your father will believe your story?" Xiao Yao was secretly pleased, feeling that Shen Jie was finally on the same page as him again.

"I don't know." Shen Jie shook her head gently. "Actually, I don't know much about these things."

Xiao Yao didn't understand these things very well either, but he felt that this seemed to be an idea worth trying.

He actually had two ideas in mind, but he couldn't bring himself to tell Shen Jie either of them.

The first idea is to use the temple of the shadow world to change other people's hearts—but with Teacher Yao and Teacher Song as examples, telling someone's daughter to harm her father is clearly a path to death.

Even if they were to target Zhang Zhengkai...

The image of a large truck flashed through Xiao Yao's mind again. No, no, no, what kind of person have I become?

The second approach is to simply make it a fait accompli—even if a wealthy family like Shen Jie's father wouldn't just marry their daughter off to a worthless scoundrel, and even if Zhang Zhengkai remains infatuated and insists on taking the job, once the matter gets out, the district chief will definitely lose face.

Xiao Yao wasn't sure if this method would be effective, but the most crucial point was that it was proposed by him, which made it seem very... ill-intentioned.

Moreover, this would also damage Shen Jie's reputation, so it was best to just give up on the idea.

"What are you thinking about?" Shen Jie asked him.

"I wasn't thinking about anything," Xiao Yao said.

“Speak!” Shen Jie raised her voice: “You’re stammering.”

"I can't tell you," Xiao Yao said. "It's unspeakable."

"Such a big, effeminate man..."

Xiao Yao threw off the blanket, grabbed the small cat-shaped blanket, got out of bed, walked to Shen Jie's sofa, sat down on the floor, and rested his head next to Shen Jie's round head.

"Tsk, what are you doing?"

“It’s nothing,” Xiao Yao said. “I just wanted to… stay close to you and always be with you.”

"Whatever, you clingy pest." Shen Jie huffed and turned away, turning her face towards the back of the sofa to sleep.

Xiao Yao reached out to put his arm around the girl's waist, but she pulled his hand away. He then put his hand back on her, only to have it pulled away again. This went on for three or four times until Shen Jie finally stopped moving.

So Xiao Yao remained in that awkward position, with his hand on Shen Jie's waist and his hand reaching inside the sofa to hold Shen Jie's hand, and slept on his stomach.

“I’m telling you, what you’re doing is against a woman’s will, and it constitutes sexual harassment.”

"Okay, I'll go against your wishes and bother you." Xiao Yao hugged her even tighter.

"How can you be so shameless?" Shen Jie scolded.

"Mmm." Xiao Yao gently squeezed her fingers.

"..."

"..."

"Xiao Yao, are you tired?"

"What do you mean by tired or not tired?"

"Aren't you tired in this position? Go back to bed and sleep."

"Okay, you can come with me."

"Men and women are not allowed to be intimate."