woman wearing irish linen shirt

We wake up very early.

What an extravagant Monday I was rolling around in Miss Pender's bed while she struggled to take a shower and was in the next room.After all, the time of intimacy depends on the race against time, and finally Miss Pande was willing to dry her hair with a hair dryer.

I still nestled in bed, wrapping myself tightly in the duvet.Ms. Pande understood the unique pleasant experience of wearing a thick quilt in summer: the air conditioner was turned on at a low level, and I felt an unseasonably warm feeling while hugging the duvet.

I'm so happy that I don't feel like I'm living in reality.

It was as if the silkworm had lived in a cocoon woven by itself, and every inch of the space it could touch was so solid and reliable, as stable as a dream being guarded by someone.

But if this is really a dream, who should I thank?

There is no god in this world.Also because there is no God, it is difficult to simply attribute the events of the world to cause and effect, nor can we simply believe in fate.But those continuous coincidences, the miracles in life, and the encounter between me and her are always traces.

Karma is Karmaisabitch.

However, in my routine year after year, there is indeed such a wonderful person who is worthy of my gratitude-it is too light to say "worthy".

Because of her, at this moment, I am the luckiest person in the world.

Not far away is the sound of a hair dryer working.I moved my heart at will, and I thought that kind of noise was pleasant.

People.

I took out my phone, confirmed that Qu Zhizhi had posted her heroic running image to Moments 5 minutes ago—but the content of the selfie had nothing to do with the subject, it didn’t matter—and then called her.

Dr. Qu's voice was almost trembling: "Li Yao? What's wrong?"

"Are you free?"

As soon as I opened my mouth, all her sporadic concerns and worries disappeared: "You are free. Tell me, I am free until 08:30."

"It's nothing," I said, "I just wanted to thank you."

"Thank you, I can discount it, so I don't need to ask special questions." Zhizhi spoke slowly, "What did I do to make you so grateful to Dade?"

"You don't understand." I said, "In short, thank you very much."

Qu Zhizhi took a breath, showing a rare good temper, and didn't lose his temper.The other end of the phone said: "Did you dream about what happened when we were in school, and suddenly your conscience found out?"

"Whoever's conscience finds out, my conscience is always online." I rolled my eyes.

"...We've known each other for many years, friend. I can still tell if you have a conscience."

"That's right, you're right." I rushed back to the bedroom and made a gesture to Miss Pender, "Anyway, I owe you a favor, as long as you know."

"Wait a minute, Li Yao," Zhizhi said, "You called here specially, without saying anything useful, just to inform me——you owe me a favor?"

"I don't call that a 'notification.' That's a thank you."

She sighed: "Okay, okay. Message me if you have anything else to do, okay? Now I'm going to the office."

Her tone was completely coaxing children, and she was still very absent-minded.I didn't know how to explain it for a while, but she was kind enough to dismiss me in a few words.

Miss Pan De narrowed her eyes slightly, her tone was very complicated: "Who is that?"

"my friend."

"A friend who will be calling at eight o'clock in the morning?"

"I called her," I said, "the one who set us up. I'm just...really happy. You know, there's so much coincidence between us that we can't get into each other without a step life. I also wanted to thank Peter, but it was too abrupt."

"I'll thank you for your share." Miss Pan De sat on the side of the bed with gentle eyes, "Is your friend the corresponding author of that paper?"

"That's the person." I took her hand, "and she also brought me back in touch with my mother. This is—— This is a very long story, I will tell you later."

"Okay." Miss Pender blinked, "I thought you were talking to some cute girl on the phone."

I have a half-smile: "For example, who?"

"For example..." She ignored my full confidence, dragged on for a long time, and finally said, "For example, Ning?"

I felt that I didn't hear clearly, so I frowned slightly and asked, "Excuse me?"

"An Ning, the technical staff at Kevin's side." Seeing me reacting, she looked a little bit hostile, "Don't tell me that you are not familiar with it."

I froze for a moment: "No, I just didn't expect you to mention her."

"I saw you at Farrer Park before—" She paused, stood up suddenly, and turned her back, "Well, in fact, I saw you at Huale Hotel. It's been a while, you may not I remember, but I just happened to be over there to meet a client and was impressed. Were you guys dating?"

"No! Of course not." I lifted the quilt, put on my shoes and stood up with her, "I remember I told you..."

"You said it's something we can't talk about." Miss Pan De's eyelashes moved, and it was hard to see what kind of emotion she was hiding at the moment.

I took a breath.I can't explain this matter at all. It's not appropriate to use personal affairs as a shield, after all, this is also a family scandal.I lowered my head slightly, looked up at Miss Pender, pulled her hand and said, "Don't you believe me?"

Miss Pender was really helpful.She looked at me with some helplessness: "Considering your behavior style, I really don't think you would date someone from the same company."

"No, no, compared to that," the more I listened to it, the more outrageous I felt, I felt awkward no matter how I thought about it, and I hurriedly shook my head, explaining, "It's really weird for me to date An Ning. She is a friend of mine, I mean Outside of work."

She squinted her eyes: "You have a lot of friends. Friends who will call at eight o'clock in the morning, and friends who refused me to go to the appointment on Saturday."

I hold my forehead.Where did this aged flying vinegar come from?

Did she still have this habit of cross-ocean jealousy?

Although I feel that Miss Pender is just making fun of me, there are still many things in life that are worth taking risks, so it's better not to count this kind of situation.I immediately chose to say it directly: "This may be a little unbelievable...but Ning is the sister of the friend who just talked on the phone."

She obviously didn't expect this possibility.

"I know, I know. The world is small, right?" I sighed softly, "No one in our company knows about this. I hope you can keep it a secret for me. Is this too much?"

"No. Of course I'll keep it a secret." Miss Pender touched her lips, her doubts seemed to have dissipated for a little while, but a new fog was immediately enveloping her, and she didn't intend to retreat at all.

"What are you thinking?"

Her gaze turned into a gentle river like water vapor gathering, walking towards me.Her smile made it difficult for me to explain why I came here, but I almost subconsciously followed her and laughed: the river was full of my reflection, as if in the reflection, the corners of my mouth felt warm, and my eyes also connected with her mind .

But don't talk about the connection, I can't even grasp the beginning and end of her prank at the moment.Miss Pender reminded me of jumping silk threads—the kind held by her skilful hands.

She just hid such a mischievous corner of her clothes in her eyes, and said softly: "I was thinking, when you touch Ning's hand, what kind of feeling will she feel in her heart."

I frowned. "Uh, feeling supported? Wait a minute—"

"I'm at a place other than your two tables." Miss Pande looked at me nonchalantly, "Ningdu saw me, and nodded to me before leaving. Didn't you notice at all?"

At that time, my mind was very restless, and it would be good if I didn't show my truth in front of An Ning, so I didn't have the energy to pay attention to these things.I shook my head numbly, trying to bring the topic back on track: "Anyway, as I mentioned last night, for a long time, there was only you in my life, and of course there will be no other people in my life after that. And there's no way I'm dating An Ning anyway."

"Why, isn't she cute?"

I stroked my eyebrows: "You think this is the point?"

If we don't have to rush to a meeting right away, we will definitely have to discuss this issue in a more in-depth way of communication.

"No, of course not. I would say whether she is cute or not is irrelevant." Miss Pender moved her index finger away from her lips, calmly, "I just realized something suddenly."

"what?"

"You don't know she likes you, do you?" She looked at me and suddenly laughed, "I knew it. You didn't count at all."

A punctuation mark slowly popped into my head.

That's a question mark.

Then, there were two, three, and question marks all over the head.

Did Miss Pender suffer from hallucinations because she liked me too much?For the first time since we met, I questioned her intelligence from the bottom of my heart, suspecting that the way she sees and understands the world is different from mine.

I tried to stay calm, but my shock was clearly unconcealed: "Well, I'm sorry - but what the hell is making you judge that? It's just not possible, we've known each other for over ten years and I just met her She was a high school student at the time."

"You know, technically, we've known each other for over ten years." Miss Pender touched my face, "What did you do to me last night?"

I swallowed, "That's different."

"Why is it different?"

"That, that—" I choked.

Miss Pender laughed.Her hands had left my face, and she was hugging herself, smiling very happily.I laughed uncontrollably, and she laughed even more uncontrollably, as if she couldn't stop.By the end she was almost out of breath and fell back on the bed, one hand on her belly.

Although I knew that she was laughing at me, but because I didn't know the specific reason, she...was so contagious in every aspect, including my rectus abdominis, my whole body was mobilized by her.

It seemed that it took a lot of willpower, but she finally stopped.Still smiling, Miss Pender held out her hand to me.

I grabbed her without thinking and tried to drag her up: my right hand was suddenly pulled down by a force from the opposite direction, and I fell onto her body.

Miss Pender was about to overturn and appeared above.

My brain is starting to go haywire again.

Her fingers slid down my ears, but she only used the back of her hand to reach her cheeks and then slid to her lips.Like the feet of a hummingbird, touching the dew on the rose every now and then, Miss Pande stirred my nerves vaguely.

Her voice was soft: "People who are not good at expressing are easy to suffer."

"I'm just not good at verbal expression."

"I think you're very good at it." Miss Pande bit her lips lightly, and looked at me with lowered eyes. "Of course, there are some verbal expressions that you are not good at..."

I had already forgotten what I was discussing with her earlier, and it took me a long time to organize my words: "Didn't you say that you will go out with me later?"

"I blow-dried my hair. That means I saved half an hour...and for you, there's obviously room to compress." Her hand stepped forward. 50 seconds?"

"what?"

"Compared with competing companies, they have a unified set of single-product dismantling procedures, which is expensive to maintain, but it is worth the money. The multi-threaded MFY system even reduces the dependence on the duty manager, which reduces the cost of employment. If You are interested in data..." Miss Pan De said love words that were not love words at all.

And I'm already obsessed.