Chapter 12: The Dreamscape

“I know.”

She didn’t specify who ‘she’ was, and he didn’t ask, yet they both tacitly understood the person in question.

She wasn’t surprised, her gaze fixed on the rearview mirror. “Did you know I hit her?”

He replied, “Yes.”

She clutched her little skirt tightly. “You don’t mind?”

He countered, “Why would I mind?”

Jiang Mugu was momentarily taken aback; this wasn’t what she had expected. Fang Muqing had been by his side for several years, and she thought Fang was different from all the other women he had been with before.

Seeing his calm and composed demeanor, she instead spoke with a hint of sarcasm, “I thought Fang Muqing was very important to you.”

He said nothing. His black eyes were as calm and deep as the sea, devoid of emotion—a gaze she couldn’t decipher.

“Then what do you like about her? Is it worth neglecting your own family for her?”

After asking, she realized the latter question was almost unanswerable. He hadn’t started neglecting his family only after meeting Fang Muqing. As expected, he gave no response.

“I don’t think she’s very beautiful either. I remember your previous lovers—many far more striking. Why did you choose her?”

---

To the girl’s calm yet slightly provocative tone, he responded briefly, “Because she meets my requirements.”

She curled her lips into a smirk. “What requirements? Physical ones?”

Her words instantly chilled the atmosphere to an icy point. She blurted it out, then momentarily regretted it, but her expression remained fearless.

Mu Anyan’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. Before, even when she mocked him, it was subtle, but now his gaze was direct and intense, almost aggressive, as if he desperately wanted to know the answer.

He was silent for a moment, then didn’t avoid the question: “If you insist on asking, then yes.”

Jiang Mugu was speechless.

This was neither the answer she wanted nor one she didn’t want. The question, asked in a moment of impulsive satisfaction, left her unsure how to proceed.

She couldn’t—and dared not—ask further. Delving deeper was beyond the bounds of their relationship.

Leaning back against the rear seat, she relaxed her entire body.

From Mu Anyan’s perspective, she closed her eyes and soon fell into a deep sleep, no longer questioning, resembling a doll that somehow evoked a strange tenderness.

Suddenly, Mu Anyan wondered how she had spent these past years.

After boarding, the two remained silent throughout the journey. He had several attempts to break the ice with small talk; after all, she was still so young. He worried the earlier conversation might have affected her emotionally, but the girl’s complete resistance to speaking left him no opportunity to continue.

---

Upon arriving at S City airport, she pulled her luggage and joined him in his assistant’s car.

The assistant seemed a bit surprised upon seeing her—uncertain whether it was because she was in Haicheng or because Mu Anyan had brought her along—but he greeted politely and sat quietly beside Mu Anyan in the back seat.

In such close proximity, she could smell the unique, crisp scent emanating from him—a fragrance that calmed the mind. Yet she sat by the window, far away from him.

Twenty minutes later, the car came to a steady stop beneath her apartment building.

The girl did not get out immediately but glanced sideways at him. He was fumbling with a pack of cigarettes in his hand, seemingly waiting until she left to light one and relieve his boredom.

She hesitated for a moment, then spoke slowly, “As for the requirements you mentioned, I think my mother could meet them—any woman could. But since you’ve come this far, there must be your reasons. I won’t force anything...”

She was continuing the earlier conversation.

Her eyes were tinged with bitterness, but her soft, delicate face held a wealth of thoughts, as if she had summoned great resolve to say this: “But Dad, if you can’t return to the family, if you continue to be cold toward me as before—or even colder—then please don’t be kind to me anymore. Don’t care for me like you did today or recently. I’m afraid it’s just a dream, and what I gain will be lost just as quickly.”

She paused, lowering her eyelids, a mist seeming to gather in her eyes. “I don’t like this feeling.”