Hope

People with a smoking habit are highly likely to light one up after doing two things.

One is after a meal, and the other is...

Xu Mingyao glanced at the round-faced girl beside her. Propping herself up with one hand, she reached over to the nightstand on the girl's side for her cigarettes.

Sitting back on the bed, she paid no mind to her snow-white skin exposed to the air. She pulled a slender woman's cigarette from the pack, casually felt for a lighter by the nearby candle, put the cigarette in her mouth, and lit it.

Thanks to this cigarette, inspiration suddenly struck Xu Mingyao. Delighted, she held the cigarette in her lips and picked up her phone nearby.

Pressing the screen to life, a beautiful photo of Qing Mo appeared.

It was a candid side-profile shot. The Qing Mo in the photo looked somewhat younger, her eyes fixed straight ahead on something unknown, a small spoon held in her mouth.

There was nothing particularly special or unique about this photo.

The entire frame contained only Qing Mo's profile, highlighting just one theme.

Beauty.

She was just stunningly beautiful!

Xu Mingyao had secretly taken this photo when Qing Mo was eating yogurt. It was so lovely that she kept it as her lock screen wallpaper.

Swiping past the lock screen, her home screen wallpaper was another version of Qing Mo, each page different—all were photos she had sneakily taken when Qing Mo wasn't paying attention.

This was her Qing Mo alone, one no one could take away!

Opening the messaging app, Xu Mingyao thought of a great topic, feeling there was a high chance she'd get a reply if she sent it to Qing Mo.

Thinking this, she excitedly typed out a line of text using the on-screen keyboard and clicked send, full of anticipation...

...

A thousand miles away.

Qing Mo, having just finished work, returned to her villa. The servants, already informed of her arrival, had filled the bathtub with water at a perfect temperature and prepared some snacks and drinks to her liking nearby.

Qing Mo entered the bathroom, took off her clothes and placed them aside, then sank into the tub full of warm water, carrying the weariness of the day.

She lay there for a long time, yet the physical fatigue didn't ease much.

Feeling slightly lightheaded, she stood up from the water. After a moment, once the dizziness had subsided a bit, she stepped out of the tub, put on her slippers, took the neatly folded towel from the rack, and carefully dried herself.

After drying off, she tossed the towel aside and reached for the bathrobe on the rack.

Suddenly, her reaching hand paused, her attention largely caught by the mirror in her peripheral vision.

She slowly turned to face the dressing mirror in the bathroom.

She took a few steps forward, looking at the person in the mirror, a thought suddenly arising in her mind.

Am I not good-looking enough?

The person in the mirror was completely naked, her skin tinged a faint pink from the long soak in the warm water. Her perfectly proportioned figure seemed like a creation of the gods, inspiring nothing but desire at a glance.

If one saw this body and then looked at the exquisite face in the mirror, most people would probably have only one thought.

Hmm.

This body just barely matches this face.

The long soak in warm water had melted away some of her usual coldness. On that exquisite face, allure and charm now held sway, a beauty that could stir the soul.

But the owner before the mirror wasn't entirely satisfied. Her delicate brows furrowed slightly, and she let out a self-pitying hum, murmuring with a mix of annoyance and grievance:

"What's the use of looking like this?"

"Even standing naked in front of him, I couldn't win him over."

Qing Mo put on the bathrobe and left the bathroom.

In the living room outside, the servants had already prepared a hot drink and snacks. Qing Mo walked over and sat down, and a maid immediately gently lifted her long hair to dry it with a hairdryer.

Qing Mo picked up a cookie and ate it. Bored, she picked up her phone, using the time while her hair was being dried and she couldn't move to scroll through it.

Opening the messaging app, she glanced at the pinned contact at the top. Seeing no red notification dot on that chat window, she closed the app, planning to watch some short videos to pass the time filled with the boring noise of the hairdryer.

The moment she swiped up on the app interface, sharp-eyed Qing Mo noticed a red dot appear on the top message bar.

Her slender eyebrows raised, and she immediately reopened the app to see if he had sent a message.

The chat interface reappeared on the phone screen with a tap of her jade-like finger. Seeing the chat window with the ID "Long Aotian" completely empty, Qing Mo frowned, her eyes filled with impatience as she closed the messaging app again.

After her hair was dried, and since she had already eaten out, Qing Mo decided to change into her pajamas and go straight to bed.

Lying on the soft bed in her bedroom, Qing Mo still felt uncomfortable. That inexplicable sense of fatigue seemed to have seeped into her bones; bathing, resting, eating, even sleep couldn't effectively relieve it.

Qing Mo thought about it; she had indeed been working very hard lately, and her body had accumulated a lot of stress.

Maybe she should reward herself and release some tension?

As she thought about it, she felt tempted, and her hand began to move accordingly...

...

Lying on the soft bed, her red lips parted as she breathed rapidly, Qing Mo's eyelids were half-closed. Her eyes, which usually seemed to hold shards of ice, now looked somewhat dazed and unfocused.

Lin Yu's angry voice kept repeating from the phone, but she had already finished, out of energy.

She lay like that for a while. Coming back to her senses, she turned off the phone, got up from the bed, and walked to the ensuite bathroom to rinse off.

Water flowed down her still slightly flushed skin. Qing Mo's hand slid aimlessly over her body. Her eyes were dim and confused, always feeling somewhat...

...

Unsatisfied.

She grew even more wistful.

After a quick rinse, she put on her pajamas and decided to sleep in a different room.

Lying on another equally soft bed, Qing Mo closed her eyes, the corners of her mouth inexplicably curving into a faint smile.

Thinking about how Lin Yu treated Tang Manman, she felt she still had hope.