First, then, love.

"Does your retired police dog have a sense of territory? It bared its teeth at Prince, and Prince is still hiding under the sofa, refusing to come out!"

Upon hearing this, He Zheng's face flashed with disdain, and he sneered.

"Your tabby?" he mocked mercilessly. "War God is too lazy to bother with it. If it really wanted to bite, it could slam it against the wall with one swipe, and you wouldn't be able to pry it off."

"Captain He, you son of a bitch! Don't look down on cats!" Qiao Qiao cursed angrily on the screen.

Shu Yao quickly turned her phone screen around to block He Zheng's smug face.

"Alright, alright, Qiaoqiao, you've worked so hard. We'll go back on the seventh day of the new year and treat you to a Michelin-starred meal when we get back."

After much persuasion, I finally managed to calm my furious best friend down and she hung up the video call.

Shu Yao tossed her phone onto the bed and let out a long sigh of relief.

She spent a few days in this military family compound, watching the heavy snow outside the window every day. Although the heating was very good and the He family treated her without any complaints, she still couldn't help but start to miss Nancheng.

*

The seventh day of the new year.

As dawn broke, the reveille rang out in the military family compound, loud and clear.

The SUV was parked in front of the small building, with its trunk wide open.

Wearing a thick down jacket, Shen Minghua was directing his orderly to load boxes of things into the vehicle.

Frozen autumn pears, Harbin red sausage, bags of Northeast rice, and several large boxes of beautifully packaged wild hazelnuts and pine nuts.

The originally spacious trunk was crammed so full that there wasn't even a crack left, and the rear shock absorbers of the SUV visibly sank down.

"Mom, that's enough. The car is almost full. They sell everything in Nancheng." He Zheng stood to the side, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, unlit, his brows furrowed.

"Can what you buy be the same as what you bring from home!" Shen Minghua glared at him, then turned to look at Shu Yao, her expression instantly becoming incredibly loving.

She held Shu Yao's hand tightly, reluctant to let go.

"Yaoyao, go back and eat more. You're too thin. If that brat dares to bully you, call Mom anytime and I'll fly over and give him a good thrashing."

Shu Yao felt a lump in her throat and her eyes welled up with tears.

"Okay, Mom. You and Dad should take care of yourselves too." She nodded obediently.

He's father stood on the steps, wearing a military overcoat, his posture still as upright as a pine tree.

He didn't say much, but just looked at He Zheng and uttered four words in a deep voice.

Drive carefully.

He Feng stood beside his father and nodded slightly to the two of them, "Have a safe journey."

"I'm gone."

He Zheng opened the car door, put Shu Yao in the passenger seat, and closed the door.

He walked around to the driver's seat, got in, and started the car.

The off-road vehicle let out a deep roar, its tires crunching over the snow on the road, and slowly drove out of the military family compound.

The car got on the highway and headed south.

The journey is long, taking more than ten hours by car.

He Zheng still didn't let Shu Yao touch the steering wheel; he drove alone.

Outside the car window, the snow-covered landscape of the north gradually receded.

As the car crossed the Yellow River and then the Yangtze River, the scenery outside the window began to change noticeably.

On the bare tree trunks, a hint of green was faintly visible, and the snow on the roadside had disappeared, turning into a wet asphalt road.

The temperature is slowly rising.

Shu Yao was covered with a cashmere blanket and leaned back in the leather passenger seat.

She wasn't sleepy; she turned her head to the side, her gaze fixed on the man driving.

He Zheng stared at the road ahead, holding the steering wheel with one hand and casually resting the other hand on the edge of the car window.

A layer of bluish-black stubble had sprouted on his chin, giving off an air of fatigue from a long journey.

Shu Yao looked at him.

A thought suddenly popped into my head.

Come back home.

She used to think that home was where her parents were.

Later, she felt that home was a place with a cello and a stage.

But now.

Looking at the man driving in front of her, she felt a sense of security, like a cup of warm water slowly filling her chest.

For the first time, I truly felt that going back to "their little home" was such an alluring and reassuring experience.

That large, single-level apartment of 300 square meters.

There was cat and dog hair everywhere, two electric toothbrushes, one black and one white, in the bathroom, a heavy set of knives in the kitchen, and his dark, bulky shorts hanging next to her expensive silk dresses in the closet.

That was their territory, a fortress that no one could disturb.

There, you don't have to deal with relatives' comparisons or worry about the noise from the old Simmons mattress.

Shu Yao's lips curled up uncontrollably.

"What are you grinning about?"

He Zheng suddenly spoke up, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

"You're ugly," Shu Yao retorted stubbornly, burying her face in the blanket to hide her burning cheeks.

He Zheng snorted coldly, without refuting, but pressed the accelerator even harder.

The off-road vehicle's speed increased again.

It's 9:30 p.m.

A black SUV drove into the tollbooth.

A winter rain had just fallen in the south of the city, making the roads slippery and the air filled with a damp chill unique to the south, the kind that can seep into your bones.

The car drove into the underground parking garage of Jinxiu Huating.

The engine is turned off.

He Zheng pushed open the car door, stepped out with his long legs, stretched, and his bones made a series of teeth-grinding "crackling" sounds.

After driving for more than ten hours straight, even my body, which is made of iron, felt a bit stiff.

He went around to the trunk and took out all the bags and packages that Shen Minghua had stuffed in, along with Shu Yao's suitcase.

It was covered in clothes, like a mobile shelf.

Shu Yao, carrying her small bag, followed him into the elevator.

"bite."

We've arrived at the 22nd floor.

The corridor was quiet.

The two arrived at their front door.

He Zhengteng didn't let go, but raised his chin, signaling Shu Yao to open the door.

Shu Yao stretched out her finger and pressed it on the fingerprint lock.

The green light came on, and the security door was pushed open.

The door was just opened a crack.

"Woof woof woof! Waaaaah!"

A deafening bark suddenly erupted from the crack in the door.

The God of War's massive black body, like a cannonball, smashed open the half-closed security door and pounced out.

It was so excited it went crazy.

The huge dog's head rubbed wildly against Shu Yao's legs, its tail thrashing like a propeller, slapping against the door frame with a "slap slap".

It let out a pitiful whimper, like a child who had been abandoned for eight hundred years and finally met its owner, its drool almost getting onto Shu Yao's down jacket.

"Alright, alright, good boy, I'm back." Shu Yao was knocked back a step by it, and quickly reached out to hug its fluffy head and rub it vigorously.

After rubbing against Shu Yao, the God of War turned around and rubbed against He Zheng's trouser leg.

With a dark expression, He Zheng raised his knee and ruthlessly pushed the giant beast away.

"Get off me, don't get all that hair on me, you spineless piece of trash."

The God of War let out a pitiful whimper, but still excitedly circled around the two of them.