81: Chapter 81: The moment she opened her mouth and called me "Mom," all three of them froze.

The G-Wagon merged onto the East Third Ring Road, all six lanes showing green lights.

Li Li turned his head to check the time—twenty-two minutes since leaving the airport.

In his past life, he had spent three months delivering food in the Imperial Capital; on this stretch of road from the Capital Airport to Sanyuan Bridge, being stuck for an hour and a half during evening rush hour was standard, and two hours was considered normal performance.

Now, twenty-two minutes.

The traffic planning in this parallel world has seriously cheated.

The G-Wagon turned into the Bvlgari Apartments basement garage, the ramp sinking gently, the overhead light strips brushing across the car roof, and it stopped steadily right at the entrance of the elevator lobby.

Behind them, two black business vans cut their engines simultaneously. Four Ala Country staff members in dark gray polo shirts filed out; one took the wheelchair, one carried the carry-on suitcase, and the other two moved three silver medical equipment cases out of the trunk.

They worked in perfect coordination, without a single word of nonsense.

Li Li pushed the wheelchair into the elevator.

"Which floor?"

"Thirty-second."

The elevator ascended. On the thirty-second floor, the corridor carpet was light gray, with warm-toned light strips embedded in the walls.

Turning the corner, 3201.

Jiang Rumu leaned forward and pressed her index finger onto the fingerprint lock.

"Beep—"

The door opened.

Li Li pushed the wheelchair over the threshold and looked up.

The living room was not large. Three bedrooms and one living room, estimated to be just over 110 square meters. There was an off-white fabric sofa, a pot of dried flowers on the coffee table, and the balcony faced south, with the lights in the direction of Sanyuan Bridge visible outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

On the shoe cabinet in the entryway, there were two pairs of slippers, one pink and one gray.

On the refrigerator door, a sticky note was pinned with a magnet, the handwriting scribbled— "The yogurt is expired, don't drink it."

Clean, tidy, normal.

Too normal.

Li Li stood in the entryway and was stunned for three seconds.

"Are you sure this is your home?"

Jiang Rumu turned her head from the wheelchair.

"Otherwise what?"

"A little over a hundred square meters? Three bedrooms and one living room?"

"What about it?"

"You are a top-tier celebrity in the domestic entertainment industry. One hundred million fans. Endorsement fees start at ten million. You live in a three-bedroom apartment of just over a hundred square meters?"

Jiang Rumu rolled her eyes, the motion so wide she almost saw the back of her own head.

"Do you think all top-tier celebrities live in five-hundred-square-meter luxury flats?"

"Isn't that the case?"

"I'm alone in the Imperial Capital." She counted on her fingers, "Three bedrooms and one living room; one bedroom, one walk-in closet, one for storage. The living room is big enough to sit in, that's all. If the rooms are too big..."

She paused.

"It's creepy being alone at night."

The woman who didn't even frown amidst a hail of bullets was afraid of big rooms.

Fine, the threshold for human fear is truly metaphysical.

"Besides, I'm not the one paying the rent." Jiang Rumu added, "I don't want to take advantage of others."

Li Li was crouching down to help her adjust the wheelchair footrests.

His hands stopped.

"Who pays your rent?"

He looked up.

Jiang Rumu looked at his suddenly alert face and froze for a beat.

Then she laughed.

It wasn't a polite laugh, but the kind that came from the heart, with a bit of schadenfreude, the kind that said, "I've finally caught you in a compromising position."

"What kind of reaction is that?"

"I'm asking who pays your rent."

"That tone of yours isn't asking; it's interrogating."

"I am asking normally."

"Your eyes are squinting."

Li Li quickly returned his squinting eyes to their original state.

"No. It's a lighting issue."

Jiang Rumu laughed even harder, her plastered leg swaying on the footrest.

"LVMH Group."

Li Li blinked.

"LVMH?"

"Yes. I am the Greater China brand ambassador for their subsidiary brand, and the Bvlgari Apartments themselves are LVMH property. Inviting the ambassador to stay and helping to pay the rent is considered an ambassador perk, and it also boosts the apartment's reputation and style."

She tilted her head.

"What, did you think some random man was keeping me?"

"No."

"Your expression just now didn't say no."

"I was thinking about the building structure."

"You are jealous."

"I was evaluating the distribution of the load-bearing walls in this unit."

Jiang Rumu didn't press it further, but that smile hung from the corners of her mouth all the way to her ears, and she couldn't suppress it.

Li Li stood up and went to open the main door to let the medical team waiting outside come in.

The leading middle-aged female doctor wore gold-rimmed glasses and spoke fluent Chinese. After checking the plaster cast situation, she replaced it on the spot with lightweight polymer material, which was breathable and more than half the weight.

It was done in fifteen minutes; leaving behind a dressing change schedule and a medication list, the four of them withdrew.

Li Li returned after seeing them off and pushed the door open.

In the living room, Jiang Rumu was sitting in the wheelchair, her hands resting on the armrests, staring towards the balcony.

He stood in the entryway.

The two of them looked at each other for a second.

Silence.

Too quiet.

In Abu Dhabi, there was always someone trying to kill them—pursuers in the desert, gun barrels in the base, military doctors making rounds on the aircraft carrier—every second was packed full.

Now, there was nothing.

The 110-square-meter apartment, the air conditioner humming, the city lights outside the window hitting the floor. A woman sitting in a wheelchair, a man standing in the entryway.

They had known each other for less than a week.

That atmosphere of "roommates moving in on the first day but actually not being very familiar" pinned the two people who had cooperated tacitly on the battlefield to the spot.

Li Li walked over to the sofa and sat down, tapping his fingers on his knees twice.

"Do you have anything to eat in your house?"

Jiang Rumu came back to her senses.

"There should be some in the fridge... but, that yogurt is expired."

"I saw it. Your sticky note wrote it."

"That was posted three months ago."

"...So that yogurt has been expired for three months?"

"Maybe longer. I didn't have time to clean out the fridge before leaving."

Li Li stood up and walked to the kitchen, pulling open the refrigerator door.

A scent mixed with fermentation and rot rushed into his face.

He didn't even frown, just closed it directly.

"Jiang Rumu."

"Hmm?"

"There is an apple in your fridge that has grown a complete colony of Penicillium mold; you could sell it directly to a lab to cultivate penicillin."

"...Then don't open it."

"You didn't say so earlier."

The awkwardness was partially dissipated by the biochemical weapon in the fridge.

Li Li sat back down on the sofa.

It was quiet for a few seconds.

He was thinking about how to phrase things. About Company, about her contract, about the things mentioned in Director Pei Zhao's voice message—what to say, how to say it, and to what extent.

Jiang Rumu was also thinking. About the contract expiring in two months, and what would be triggered after that "See you in court" message she sent to Zhou Hui.

But neither of them spoke first.

Just at this moment when neither knew how to break the silence—

"Beep—"

The door lock sounded.

The two of them turned their heads at the same time.

The main door was pushed open from the outside.

A middle-aged woman stood at the doorway.

In her early fifties, slender build, wearing a navy blue cashmere cardigan, with her hair tied back. She was carrying two supermarket shopping bags in her hands, stuffed full of fruit and food containers.

She stood in the entryway, her gaze sweeping across the living room—first seeing her daughter in the wheelchair, then seeing the strange man on the sofa.

Jiang Rumu widened her eyes.

"Mom?!"

Li Li's brain crashed for 0.3 seconds.

Then his mouth was faster than his brain.

"Mom~ Auntie."

The voice was clear, the pronunciation standard, the trailing tone lifted, natural and flawless.

The living room was quiet for a full two seconds.

Jiang Rumu froze in the wheelchair.

Her mom froze in the entryway.

Li Li froze on the sofa.

The three of them petrified simultaneously.

Jiang Rumu came to her senses first, abruptly turning her head to glare at him; that glare was intense enough to bore a hole in the back of someone's head.

"Who are you calling Mom?!"

Li Li's expression cracked open.

"...Reflex."

At the door, the shopping bags in the middle-aged woman's hands swayed, but didn't drop.

She looked at the young man on the sofa, wearing a pilled white T-shirt, with calluses on his web of his thumb, and hair as messy as if he had just come off a construction site.

She looked again at her daughter in the wheelchair with a plastered leg, and pillow creases still imprinted on her cheek.

Slowly, she placed the shopping bags on the shoe cabinet.

She took off her scarf, folded it, and put it down as well.

Her movements were unhurried, each one carrying the sense of propriety cultivated over decades.

Then she spoke.

One word.

"Oh?"

The trailing tone wasn't long, but it was enough to lower the temperature of the entire living room by two degrees.