Living Together

Wei Yin lowered her head and fell silent at once, her attitude beyond reproach.

If Hua Yu hadn’t already seen how shamelessly clingy she could be, she might have been fooled again.

“There aren’t many rules at home. You don’t need to keep your head down when you talk to me.”

Only then did Wei Yin look up and steal a quick glance at Hua Yu.

Her expression was calm; she’d had enough for lunch, and she didn’t look like she was planning to settle old scores.

Wei Yin lifted her head. “Okay.”

Hua Yu pinched the bridge of her nose, resting her fingers against her forehead, her eyelids half-lowered. It was a lazy posture, but not an inattentive one. Through that half-lidded gaze, she looked at the person across from her and chose her words carefully. “First, no asking about the past. If you want to know something, figure it out yourself.”

Wei Yin bobbed her head like a pecking chick. “Mm-hmm.”

From today’s conversation, Wei Yin had roughly figured out Hua Yu’s attitude: as long as the past wasn’t brought up, Hua Yu was always very good to her.

The past was like a forbidden spell; she’d have to dig it up herself.

“Second, I’m very busy with work. I leave early and come back late, so most of the time you’ll be living here alone.”

Wei Yin hurriedly said, “I know. I won’t touch anything in the house.”

From a glimpse of the whole from a single leaf, being Hua Yu’s live-in housekeeper might be the easiest stretch of her entire housekeeper career. Hua Yu herself was basically the living embodiment of low-maintenance. Wei Yin would do her best to meet her requirements.

“What I mean is,” Hua Yu frowned, “will you be afraid living here alone?”

Afraid? Afraid of the dark?

Not afraid she’d stir up trouble at home?

Well, then she wasn’t afraid of the dark... probably.

Wei Yin didn’t answer right away; she really had never lived alone.

Maybe because she was rushing to repay money, or maybe because she knew her glands were bad and, as a low-grade omega, if she lived alone and something happened no one would help her. So Wei Yin had always been working, and the jobs she found either came with room and board or meant sharing a place with others.

Hua Yu’s home was a four-bedroom, two-living-room apartment of just under two hundred square meters. Being alone in her room was fine, but if she needed to go to the bathroom, she had to cross the living room, dining room, and balcony.

In the dead of night, moonlight would spill across the balcony floor, casting jagged, grotesque shadows.

A sound of a door opening came from the darkness, and a figure poked its head out...

Wei Yin’s brain automatically turned the ordinary scene into horror-movie special effects.

Her face went pale. “I, I should be okay!”

Hua Yu nodded; that meant she wasn’t okay.

“In the future, if I’m on the night shift or working overtime and not coming home, I’ll let you know in advance. You can keep the hallway light on. You can also control the security camera at the entrance through an app; I’ll send you the details.”

Wei Yin rubbed her arms. “Okay. Let’s add each other on WeChat.”

Hua Yu opened her phone and held out the QR code. Just as Wei Yin was about to scan it, Hua Yu suddenly thought of something. “Wait.”

Wei Yin had already scanned it successfully, but no verification request popped up. Hua Yu automatically accepted the friend request.

Wei Yin said, “Wow, Dr. Hua, your WeChat doesn’t even need verification? A lot of people must add you, right?”

Auto-accepted.

No verification needed.

Hua Yu tightened her fingers slightly around the phone before drawing it back. She looked expressionlessly at Wei Yin for two seconds. “You’re right.”

Wei Yin happily held up her phone and changed Hua Yu’s note, typing in the word “pretty.” She looked up at Hua Yu. The other woman’s expression didn’t look especially pleasant, so Wei Yin turned off the screen and sat properly. “What’s the third?”

Hua Yu hadn’t seen Wei Yin’s screen, but the fact that she had automatically accepted her as a friend was not exactly delightful. Her tone darkened slightly.

“Third, I don’t know what made you come home with someone you’ve known for less than half a month. After all, you’re an omega; you’re not afraid of being trafficked, and you’re not afraid of being...” Hua Yu stopped, then continued, “But I haven’t prepared myself at all to welcome another person into the house, so I hope we can both leave each other some private space.”

Wei Yin nodded, but she also found Hua Yu’s wording a little strange.

When working in other people’s homes, Wei Yin was often made to follow rules, and they were always bizarre and nitpicky, such as: “I must have absolute control over your working hours,” “You are not allowed to shop online,” “You are not allowed to tie up your hair,” “At different times every day, you must light different scents of incense in fixed locations, and each fumigation session must last twenty-seven minutes, not a second more,” “You may not step anywhere else in the house except here and here,” and so on.

Hua Yu’s rules were not only gentle; they were also a little strange.

Private space?

The employer wanted private space from her?

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

It sounded almost like drawing up house rules with a roommate...

Hua Yu pointed toward her own room. “You don’t need to clean my bedroom or my study.”

Meaning: Wei Yin should not go into the bedroom or the study.

Wei Yin accepted it readily. “Mm. That’s all?”

Hua Yu took out a white plastic card shaped like a teardrop and recited a string of numbers as she said, “This is the access card and the home password. I’ll add anything else I remember later.”

Wei Yin said, “Okay!”

“Fourth, and most important,” Hua Yu sat up straight, her gaze serious. “You can break the first three points if necessary, but this one is absolutely not allowed.”

Infected by Hua Yu’s solemn attitude, Wei Yin held her breath and listened carefully to every word that followed.

Hua Yu looked deeply at her. “Don’t get sick. Don’t get sick. Don’t get sick. At the very least, before I say you’re allowed to get sick, you absolutely cannot get sick.”

Wei Yin nodded immediately. “I promise!”

Before discharge, Hua Yu had repeated this to her every day, saying she wasn’t allowed to catch a cold and wasn’t allowed to run a fever, because any minor illness would stimulate the immune system and be bad for gland treatment.

It was treatment-related, and it only affected Wei Yin, not Hua Yu, so Wei Yin agreed very readily.

Hua Yu stared at her. Wei Yin’s gaze was sincere beyond question, so Hua Yu didn’t say anything else.

Hua Yu stood up, about to take the plates to wash them, when something occurred to her and she looked at Wei Yin.

Wei Yin was already looking at her with bright, wet eyes.

Those eyes were clearly saying, “A housekeeper’s professional standards.”

Hua Yu withdrew her hand.

“Go take a nap. I still have afternoon clinic hours,” Wei Yin said, dutifully fulfilling her role as a housekeeper while she cleared the dishes and sent Hua Yu back to her room. “Tell me ahead of time what you want to eat tonight.”

Having somehow ended up with a little housekeeper in her home, Hua Yu felt she really ought to sleep for a while; this whole day had been far too surreal.

After sending Hua Yu back to her room, Wei Yin cleaned the kitchen, tidied up the second bedroom, and lay down for a quick nap.

When she woke up, Hua Yu had already gone to work.

Wei Yin pulled out her phone, tapped open Hua Yu’s profile, and changed the note to “pretty senior sister.”

She stood up, looked at the phone, changed “pretty senior sister” to “pretty older sister,” deleted it again, and typed in “Dr. Hua.”

[in]: Dr. Hua, what are you eating tonight?

Two minutes later.

[Dr. Hua]: Cafeteria.

[in]: sobbing.jpg

[in]: Dr. Hua’s already working overtime on the first day!

Hua Yu didn’t reply. Wei Yin tapped to change her note to “Dr. Hua Who Doesn’t Come Home.”

In the afternoon, Wei Yin cleaned Hua Yu’s entire home from top to bottom. Aside from the bedroom and study, she wiped the floors, the tables, every corner and crevice, opened the windows to air it out, and sprayed air freshener and insect repellent.

After finishing, she took the trash out and planned to walk around nearby to get familiar with the area.

The residential complex was beautifully landscaped. Downstairs there was a gym and a swimming pool, and the community also had a canteen, library, and convenience store.

When Wei Yin was very young, she had a similar memory: living in a high-end neighborhood, and every time she went out to play, the old men trimming the lawn would stop their shears and smile at her.

But those memories were very short. The incomplete fragments left her with neither the interest to bring them up nor the urge to dig deeper into them. In most of her memories, she had followed her mother around renting places everywhere, living a poor but happy and peaceful life.

Wei Yin was very content with her current situation.

Passing by a hair salon, she saw her reflection in the glass door: a cloud of frizz. Because of walking against the wind, her hair had puffed up; Wei Yin grabbed a handful and smoothed it down, hesitating for a moment.

A neat, clean hairstyle was good for increasing the employer’s favorability.

A housekeeper rule popped up in her mind.

Wei Yin stepped inside.

When she came out, the frizzy puff had become a French-style doll cut.

Naturally curly hair was troublesome; if it got too long, it would puff out like a bowl of Genghis Khan’s hair.

Fortunately, Wei Yin’s nutrition had never kept up, so her hair strands weren’t coarse. Otherwise, even if it were cut shorter, it would still just be a steel scrubber.

She took a photo of the salon’s name and sent it to Hua Yu.

[in]: Five-star recommendation!

A message came back from Hua Yu.

[Dr. Hua Who Doesn’t Come Home]: I was in a meeting just now. I’ll be home at nine.

[in]: Received!

[Dr. Hua Who Doesn’t Come Home]: Got a haircut?

[in]: Yes, my hair had gotten long.

[Dr. Hua Who Doesn’t Come Home]: Mm.

Wei Yin flipped back and forth through Hua Yu’s few sparse words, then happily changed the note to [Dr. Hua Who Comes Home Late].

TL Note:

From a glimpse of the whole from a single leaf (窥一斑见全豹) = infer the whole from a small clue.

favorability (好感度) is how much someone likes you; often treated like a game stat (I think this is from Japanese Otome games?).

Genghis Khan’s hair (鳌拜) = a joke comparing frizzy hair to the famously wild-haired Qing-dynasty villain Ao Bai.