Chapter 528: Chapter 547: Painted-Skin Panda Demon (Reveal in Progress)

Mo Si sat on the small sofa beside her for a while, lost in thought. A sudden sound drew his attention. He looked up to see that Jiang Qiuqiu had thrown off the blanket and was now half-lying down.

’Leaning like that must have been uncomfortable.’ But after sliding down, she was bent in half like the number ’7’, which looked even more uncomfortable. Her brows furrowed in her sleep, and she shifted again on the sofa.

But the sofa was too small; she couldn’t get comfortable no matter how she moved.

Mo Si immediately stood up and walked over to Qiuqiu. After a moment’s thought, he bent down, placed one hand on Jiang Qiuqiu’s back and the other under the crook of her knees. With a gentle lift, Mo Si picked up Jiang Qiuqiu, blanket and all.

He carried Qiuqiu to the bedroom. The bed was indeed much more comfortable. The moment he laid her down, a ’satisfied’ expression seemed to appear on her face. The frown vanished, replaced by a peaceful, sleeping visage.

After tucking Jiang Qiuqiu in, Mo Si went to the outer room to wait.

While he waited, Qiudao sent some messages and official documents from the Military Department office. Seeing they were dispatches from the Pole, Mo Si quickly cleared his mind of any strange thoughts and instantly switched into work mode.

He ended up working for two hours. By then, it was almost six o’clock. As the sky darkened, the butler robot turned on the lights in the courtyard house.

And yet, Jiang Qiuqiu still hadn’t woken up.

Mo Si decided to go check on her in her room. Since it was getting late, the butler’s smart system had turned on a small lamp even in the bedroom.

The dim, yellow light clearly illuminated Jiang Qiuqiu’s rather messy sleeping posture. She had kicked off the covers again. Mo Si felt a little helpless as he pulled the blanket back up, tucking it over her shoulders.

But as soon as he let go, she shrugged the blanket off again right before his eyes.

Mo Si: ...

He covered her.

She threw it off.

He continued to cover her, and she continued to throw it off.

After this repeated three or four times, Mo Si suddenly leaned down and called Qiuqiu’s name a few times. There was no response.

’Looks like she really hates being covered.’ He’d thought after a few repetitions that Jiang Qiuqiu had woken up and was teasing him, but it turned out—

She was still fast asleep.

Her movements were getting larger, though, so she was probably about to wake up.

What he didn’t know was that just as he turned his head away, Jiang Qiuqiu’s eyelashes fluttered on the bed, looking like she was on the verge of waking.

Mo Si decided to leave the room and wait for her to wake up. This was Qiuqiu’s bedroom, after all.

He was just her boyfriend; without her permission, he still needed to maintain a certain level of social etiquette.

But the thought that she was about to wake up made his heart, which had been calmed by work and official documents, suddenly grow restless again.

’What should I say when she wakes up?’

The words he had prepared that afternoon had been completely forgotten amidst his work.

As he walked, he thought, ’Maybe I should switch from being active to passive. I’ll just take off my mask. When Qiuqiu sees me, she’ll naturally ask who I am, and then I can answer.’ 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Then Qiuqiu would ask questions, one by one, and Mo Si wanted to be the one giving the answers.

So, as he passed the bedroom mirror, he paused for a moment, raised his hand to the recognition point on his virtual mask, and took it off.

His own face appeared in the mirror.

Perhaps from seeing the mask too much recently, he actually felt his own face looked a bit out of place here.

Feeling awkward, Mo Si put the mask back on.

But as soon as it was on, he remembered his plan.

So, Mo Si started taking the mask off again.

Absorbed in this cycle of taking off and putting on his mask, he didn’t notice that the Qiuqiu he was so preoccupied with had already woken up.

Lying in bed, Jiang Qiuqiu felt like she was about to start smoking. Heat and thirst enveloped her, and her throat felt like it was on fire.

Opening her eyes, she quickly realized she was in her bedroom. There was always water by her bed, so she reached out and found the glass. Just as she sat up to drink, she noticed someone else was in the room.

The familiar back allowed her to quickly identify him. Oh, it was Black Hole.

She relaxed, but then she took a closer look and saw—

Generally speaking, Jiang Qiuqiu was a very brave person.

She wasn’t afraid of traveling through time, she wasn’t afraid of being oppressed by the powerful, and she wasn’t afraid of poverty or hardship.

But when the scene before her seared itself into her brain—Black Hole was grabbing his own face with one hand, and with a pull, half of his face... came off???

The light was somewhat dim, so Jiang Qiuqiu couldn’t see anything clearly. But not being able to see clearly at a time like this only made it more terrifying.

Jiang Qiuqiu’s brain told her not to be afraid, but her hand had already reacted first. It went slack, and the glass fell to the floor with a loud crash.

The person standing in front of the mirror, who hadn’t yet managed to take the virtual mask off completely, instinctively looked toward the source of the sound.

In that instant—

Mo Si saw Jiang Qiuqiu half-sitting up in her blankets, staring straight at him.

And Jiang Qiuqiu also caught a glimpse of his full appearance.

Half of his face was that of the sharp-featured youth she was familiar with. The other half was indistinct, but it was definitely a face, and she could tell he was handsome.

Of course, whether he was handsome or not wasn’t the point right now, because Mo Si hadn’t had time to take the mask all the way off. This "high-tech" simulated virtual mask was half-stuck to his face, while the other half flapped in the breeze.

Jiang Qiuqiu: ...

Mo Si was stunned, too.

He had just imagined countless times what expression Qiuqiu would have when she saw his real face, but he had never, ever imagined it would happen like this.

Their eyes met, and he saw an emotion like a clap of thunder in her gaze.

At this moment, Mo Si had only two choices.

One, rip the mask off completely.

Two, put it back on.

After a split second of thought, he quickly raised his hand and pressed the mask back onto his face. Then, in a few long strides, he walked to Jiang Qiuqiu’s bedside and asked, as if nothing had happened, "Qiuqiu, what’s wrong? Did you want some water?"

At this point, Jiang Qiuqiu should have had a lot of questions, but her mind was a mess too. "Yeah, I want some water."

Her voice was already a bit hoarse.

Mo Si quickly opened the door, went to the outer room, and refilled a glass with warm water. On his way back into the room with the water, his mind was racing.

But the time he had to think was far too short.

Jiang Qiuqiu got her water.

Her body’s thirst made her instinctively gulp down the liquid. The glass was empty in no time. Mo Si asked attentively, "Qiuqiu, would you like some more?"

But Jiang Qiuqiu suddenly looked up and leaned forward, getting very, very close to Mo Si—close enough to see the fine hairs on his face.

Even at this distance, Jiang Qiuqiu couldn’t find anything amiss.

So she reached out and gently pinched the flesh of Mo Si’s cheek. It was warm. Sight, touch, all her senses told her this was a real person’s face.

So—

Her hazel eyes looked as if they were experiencing an earthquake.

"Are you... a painted-skin panda demon?"

Her mind was now filled with painted skins and spirits.

And when Mo Si heard those words: ???

’What is that?’