I won't be a loser.

Looking at the sunset outside the window, Qingpu Mai should be home by now, right?

"Miss Wu, is she off work by now?"

Xianren prepared dinner and left it in the pot, stewing it over low heat. He wiped his hands, came to the living room, looked at Setsuna, and asked about Qingpu Mai's off-get off work time.

"Normally, we get off work at five o'clock, and it's almost time to get off work now."

He glanced at the clock in the living room and nodded.

Xianren sat down and held Setsuna in his arms, feeling the light and soft body in his arms, and the soft touch from his palms and fingertips around her waist, which healed Xianren's heart.

"Then let's wait for a while until Miss Mai comes back and then have dinner together."

"Ah."

Closing his eyes, Xianren thought about how he should talk to Qing Pu Mai after dinner and ask her to agree to be his 'guarantor'...

- - - -

I dreamed that I was in an abandoned temple filled with "Advertising Space for Rent" brand dolls. There were all kinds of dolls everywhere in the temple yard, and the touch of them in the dream felt pretty good.

Thanks to Cat and Dog Diary, Shuke161001402754, Kounodioda, Treasure of the Ages, Favorite Kara, "Saito Himea", Tianrenyidao, and My Canvas Shoes Are Missing for the monthly tickets and blades! Thank you all for your recommendation votes!

Cherry Blossom Season: 67. Where is your dream? — Burning

Qingpu Mai usually gets home from get off work around five o'clock, and arrives home before six o'clock.

While waiting for Qingpu Mai to come home, Setsuna sat quietly in Xianren's arms. The girl who had just found love felt extremely happy for every minute and second she spent with Xianren. When she raised her head and just looked at his face, she felt fulfilled.

"Hey, wise man."

"Ok?"

"Do?"

"Your body hasn't fully recovered yet. It's not good for your health. You should rest for a while and consider this matter again when your body is almost recovered."

Looking down at the girl who was looking up at him, Xianren was a little surprised. He had never thought that Setsuna would be so proactive in asking for love from him. Under normal circumstances, he would have no reason to refuse, as it would be too unmanly to refuse.

But Setsuna had just 'graduated' and his body had not yet fully recovered. If Setsuna's body was harmed, that would not be the result that Xianren wanted to see.

Therefore, when he opened his mouth to answer, he gave a rejection.

Setsuna blinked and looked into Xianren's pure eyes for a while. She saw the concern for herself in Xianren's eyes, pursed her lips, and lowered her head silently.

"Ah."

Having regained his youthful body, Xianren did not deny that he was always full of energy and had certain needs in that aspect, but it was not to the point where he could not endure it.

I turned my head to look out the window at the sunset. Beside the pure white gauze curtains, in the dim sky outside the glass window, a bird whose name I couldn't tell flew across the sky, emitting a lonely cry, and disappeared under the cover of the eaves, flying away to who knows where...

When Qingpu Mai returned home, as soon as she entered the house, she saw the empty house. She went back to the door and looked at the apartment opposite.

Looking at the half-closed gauze curtain and the on-lit lights, she thought her daughter was probably still visiting the sage. She stared at it for a while, sighed, and went back into the house. She closed the door again, turned on the lights, walked towards her room, and changed her clothes.

After putting on her usual home clothes, she tied her long hair with a hairband into a long ponytail, which hung diagonally on her left shoulder, and walked slowly towards the door.

I walked all the way from my home to the door of Xianren's apartment and rang the doorbell.

Ding-dong-

The doorbell rang, and Xianren, who was sitting in the room, looked at Setsuna in his arms.

He wrapped his arms around her slender waist and gently rubbed her flat and smooth belly, letting Shanshan temporarily get up from his body and leave, then walked towards the door.

Setsuna sat down where Xianren originally sat, and watched him walk to the door and open it.

"Miss Dance."

When he opened the door, Xianren saw Qingpu Mai standing at the door, and smiled and invited her into his house.

"Well, excuse me."

Qing Pu Mai, wearing a sky-blue sweater and a soft white long skirt, looked at Xianren who opened the door, slowly walked into the apartment, took off her shoes, stepped on the soft cotton white socks on the floor, put her shoes in place, put on slippers, and followed Xianren into the house.

Looking at the moment sitting in the room, Qingpu Mai had an expression as expected, and felt helpless in her heart. For a moment, she didn't know whether this was her home or the house opposite was her home.

"Sure enough, it's here. Even if it's with the wise man, he should at least leave a note at home."

"forgotten."

Setsuna was originally planning to go home and post a note in his living room or at the door to tell his mother that he was with Xianren.

But sitting on Xianren's body was so comfortable that she forgot to do this for a moment, and later on, she even forgot about it.

"No matter how much you like a wise man, you must not forget what you should do. Liking a wise man is not an excuse for laziness."

“…Hmm.”

Setsuna slowly buried his face, looking like he didn't want to pay much attention to Qingpu Mai, so Qingpu Mai looked at her daughter. She didn't know if it was because of Xianren, but she always felt that she was different from before.

"Dinner is ready. Miss Mai, please get ready and let's eat together here."

After bringing the tableware to the table, Xianren looked at Qingpu Mai who was sitting in the room with a smile. Qingpu Mai, who just wanted to confirm whether her daughter was there, couldn't help but be stunned.

I looked back towards the kitchen counter and smelled a pleasant scent as I entered. So dinner was ready?

"In that case... I'll be inconvenienced, Master."

"No, it's all thanks to Mai-san...and Setsuna's care on a daily basis. They're just small things."

Glancing at Setsuna who was sitting nearby, Xianren replied with a smile.

After placing all the dishes on the table, Qingpu Mai stood up and washed her hands. When she came back, she stared at Setsuna, which made Setsuna look towards the bathroom, then stood up silently and went to wash his hands.

Just as Setsuna stood up and Xianren was still serving the food, Qingura Mai, who was sitting in the room, slowly lowered her head and glanced towards where Setsuna was sitting.

There was no tissue paper, nor any strange water stains. She tilted her head and sniffed calmly, but didn't smell anything strange. She gradually put her mind at ease and sat quietly in her seat, as if nothing had happened.

Until Setsuna returned to the room and sat down, she was unaware of the subtle actions that Qingpu Mai had taken when she was away.

As for the wise man who was holding the food, he was completely unaware of what was happening here.

After Xianren brought the dishes to the table and placed the cooked rice aside, the three of them sat around the small dining table and began to have dinner.

"I'm gonna start now."

Setsuna whispered softly, then picked up the chopsticks, glanced at Xianren, then looked at her mother, and ate in silence. Qingpu Mai also just glanced at Xianren, then tasted the cooking of her future son-in-law.

During the meal, everyone remained silent and ate quietly, no one spoke.

Only when the meal was halfway through did Setsuna stand up and pour a glass of water. The rest of the time they remained silent. The silence was gradually broken only when the meal was over and Xianren was clearing the table.

"Did Xianren prepare dinner alone?"

"Ah."

Xianren didn't say anything, and the answer came from Setsuna who was sitting next to Qingpu Mai.

After looking at her daughter, Qingpu Wu was silent for a moment and sighed slowly.

"Setsuna needs to work hard on learning how to cook, or she won't be a good wife."

"I will work hard."

Xianren, who was cleaning up in the kitchen, heard the conversation between the mother and daughter, but the content of the conversation was too family-oriented, so he felt it was inappropriate to interrupt them for a moment.

He felt that once he opened his mouth, all kinds of shameful things would come to light, so reason made him choose to remain silent temporarily.

After putting away the kitchen utensils and tableware, Xianren slowly walked out from the kitchen counter, picked up the magazine that was mailed back from his desk, and put it on the dining table.

"Magazine?"

Qingpu Mai noticed Xianren's movement towards the desk, but when she saw Xianren pick up a magazine from the desk and put it on her dining table, she still felt a little surprised. She couldn't help but look at Xianren who sat down again with curiosity.

"This is?"

"I submitted it to the magazine before, and it was approved and published."

"Eh?!"

Qing Pu Mai widened her eyes in surprise and looked at the weekly magazine in front of her. Just as she was about to reach out, a pair of faster hands took the magazine and began to flip through it.

"page?"

"I don't know which page it was. I didn't look at it. When I got home that afternoon, I saw the envelope in the mailbox. I took it and put it on the desk. I didn't read the contents carefully, so I don't know which page I was on."

He stretched out his hand and immediately handed the weekly magazine to the wise man.

It was not a shameful thing to flip through the contents of the weekly magazine and show what he had written to people he knew. After all, during his comatose period, Sanye, who took care of him, knew everything about his writing of erotic novels. Sometimes, she would even help him take the magazines and single volumes from the mailbox to his room and hand them to him.

From Mitsuha to the magazines and booklets in his hands, almost every one of them has been read. For a sage who has experienced such things, how could he care about Kiyoura Mai and Setsuna seeing the serious content he wrote?

You know, the subject matter he wrote about most was the 'luanpai' style, and the 'luanpai' style mostly involved topics like teacher and student, siblings, brothers and sisters, etc...

He opened the weekly magazine in his hand and read two pages. He didn't see his own content. After turning a dozen pages, he saw a familiar text and handed the weekly magazine to the mother and daughter.

"This paragraph is the content of my submission."

After lightly clicking on the content of his own article, Setsuna and Qingpu Mai came together and started reading together.

Kiyoura Setsuna also had a deep impression of Kento submitting an article to the magazine. After all, that day was the day when Saionji Sekai first sneaked out, and she happened to catch the evidence.

Looking at the content of the weekly magazine in front of me, I didn’t expect that after about a week, the content submitted by Xianren was actually published in the magazine.

While Shanshana appeared calm on the surface but was actually happy for Xianren, Qingpu Mai looked at the magazine in front of her and felt a little surprised in her heart. She didn't expect that it would actually be approved and published in the magazine.

Previously, I learned about this matter from Shanna's mouth.

At that time, she just thought that Xianren would try to submit his work, but she didn't think that the boy would succeed. But now it seems that she has underestimated Xianren.

After blinking and quickly reading the article, Qingpu Mai raised her head and looked at the boy who was just smiling beside her.

"this......."

I was just about to ask if this was really written by the sage himself?

But when the words came to his lips, he realized that it seemed inappropriate to ask such a question. However, even though he was not engaged in work in this field, nor was he a researcher in this field, Qingpu Mai could still feel the accumulation of time between the articles.

He looked down at the article in the magazine in front of him, then looked up at the young boy in front of him, and a strong sense of incongruity suddenly arose in his heart.

But when her eyes met Xianren's, Qingpu Mai looked at Xianren's clear and inexplicably deep eyes, and she suddenly didn't feel so out of place anymore.

He lowered his head in silence, feeling somewhat inexplicably strange.

"Sage, that's amazing."

Shanna lowered her head to read the content of the article, then slowly raised her head and looked at the boy opposite her. She was a little surprised, a little happy and confused. After reading the content of the article, she was also a little confused and puzzled in her heart, but looking at the boy opposite her, she did not ask.

"Is this Xianren's first submission?"

Qing Pu Mai looked at the young man beside her and asked slowly.

"Well, this is my first submission, and I was surprised that it was accepted. It's just... hehe, the fee is a little low. I thought it would be over ten thousand, but it was only eight thousand."

I originally wanted to ask some questions about the content of the article, but after hearing what the wise man said, Qingpu Wu couldn't help but be stunned. The original confusion in her heart was replaced by more speechlessness. She sat in her seat, not knowing where to start for a long time.

Even Setsuna was stunned for a moment. He didn't expect the wise man to give such a mercenary answer.

Looking at the stunned mother and daughter, Xianren chuckled, lowered his head to look at the contents of the magazine, a trace of nostalgia flashed in his eyes, and he smiled and closed the magazine.

"I probably won't be submitting to this magazine anymore. It seems like getting published isn't difficult, but the pay isn't very high either. For a living, this magazine isn't suitable for me."

If at the beginning, when she saw Xianren putting the magazine in front of her and telling her that he had published an article in it, she felt that he was full of youthful mind and wanted to share the sense of accomplishment with her, then the current Xianren gave Qingpu Mai the feeling that he was completely like a real adult, which made her a little unable to adapt for a while. Even Setsuna blinked and looked at Xianren, not knowing how to respond.

"You're submitting articles for living expenses? Doesn't your father, a civil servant, give you living expenses every month?"

After a moment's silence, Qing Pu Wu came back to her senses, looked at the wise man in front of her, and spoke with some surprise.

"Yes, but it's only in the early stages. My father still hopes that I can be self-reliant, so he will only provide me with living expenses in the early stages. But in the future, I still have to rely on myself to earn my living expenses, so I thought of submitting my article."

Qingpu Mai was completely speechless. She originally thought that Xianren did it out of interest, hobby, or even a dream.

I just didn't expect the real reason to be so realistic.

He blinked and looked at the boy in front of him.

Qing Pu Wu had previously felt that the boy's skills were inexplicably proficient, leaving her completely unable to react, and her mind went blank...

Now, Xianren's realistic answer made her feel that the boy only looked like a boy, but was actually an adult.

Even now, when I look at him, I feel like there should be a cigarette between the fingers of his idle left hand, and a glass of wine in front of him...

In a trance, she seemed to see a melancholy young man who looked similar to the sage, but more vicissitudes and decadent, nodding and smiling at her.

It seems that compared to the current sages, he has more charm of a mature man?