Damn it, I'm surrounded by childhood sweethearts

Chapter 287 - 196. Puppy love?

Returning to Lianhua Courtyard, the door to their home was wide open, and Xia Xiaoxiao heard the sound of the iron gate being pulled open as she emerged from Xu Qingfan’s bedroom.

"Uncle, Auntie, Happy New Year!"

"Xiao Xiao is such a good girl, here’s your red envelope!" Yao Jiping said with a smile, taking out two red packets from her bag and handing them to her.

"Why did you go into my room?" Xu Qingfan glanced at the girl, changed into slippers, and headed straight back to his bedroom.

Xia Xiaoxiao looked somewhat sheepish and, without answering him, followed him back into the room.

Xu Qingfan touched his computer screen; it was cold.

[She didn’t play on the computer, what was Xia Xiaoxiao up to?] Anyway, there wasn’t anything in his room that he needed to hide; Xu Qingfan couldn’t be bothered to think more about it and comfortably sprawled on the bed.

Xia Xiaoxiao sneaked a glance at him and sat down on a chair after following him in.

Suddenly smelling a familiar scent, Xu Qingfan buried his face in the pillow like a dog and took a whiff; it was Xia Xiaoxiao’s smell!

"Did you sleep in my bed?" he turned his head to look at Xia Xiaoxiao.

"As if I’d sleep in your bed... it was Little Brother!" she said arrogantly.

"Why didn’t you shoo it off!" He disdainfully patted the pillow and indeed saw a few white hairs on it.

Xu Qingfan didn’t think much of it; indeed, if a girl kept a cat, it was quite easy for her scent to get onto the cat hair.

"I didn’t pay attention..."

"Hmm~" He closed his eyes and sprawled out on the bed, finding the lingering scent of Xia quite comfortable.

After sitting for a while, Xia Xiaoxiao realized that she had come to find Stinky Dog to go out and play!

"Hey, come out and play with me!"

"Don’t bother me, I’m taking a nap," Xu Qingfan said, turning his head away and ignoring her.

"No way, sleep tonight, Gualv Square will close down this afternoon!"

"Hey!!"

Xia Xiaoxiao took off her shoes, stretched out her leg, and kicked his buttocks, "Get up!"

"Xu Qingfan!!" She leaned against the chair, kicking her feet on Xu Qingfan’s back as if she was pedaling a tricycle.

It was actually quite comfortable.

"Hmm~ stop it, I’m sleeping for an hour," Xu Qingfan grunted, saying.

"Don’t stop, keep going, I’m adding time," he added, seeing Xia Xiaoxiao retract her feet.

The girl didn’t reward him further and put her slippers back on before sprawling over the computer desk, zoning out.

Little Brother left the living room sofa and came to the bedroom door. After observing for a moment, he went straight to the computer desk and jumped onto Xia Xiaoxiao’s lap.

After turning in a circle, he found the best position on the girl’s lap and settled down comfortably to sleep.

Xia Xiaoxiao buried her head under the table and extended her index finger to press on the cat’s nose. Little Brother shrank his head away, keeping his eyes closed, with no intention of leaving.

She smiled faintly, took out her phone from her pocket, set an alarm for three o’clock, and then also sprawled on the desk to take a lunch nap.

"Stinky little..." More than ten minutes later, Yao Jiping had arranged to go shopping with Lin Jing and came to the doorway, ready to call Xu Qingfan, when she saw the cozy nap scene with two people and a cat in the bedroom and instantly closed her mouth.

"Why don’t you sleep on the bed?" she muttered softly, tiptoeing into the room to put a blanket over Xia Xiaoxiao, then carefully closing the door again before leaving.

During this, the little brother lifted his head to glance, and upon seeing who had come in, yawned and continued his sleep.

The three o’clock alarm hadn’t rung yet, but Xia Xiaoxiao woke up at just past two fifty.

Only slightly taken aback for two seconds by the unexpected blanket over her, the girl stretched comfortably, and a series of crackling sounds emitted from her joints filled the bedroom.

"Get up, get up, it’s three o’clock!"

"Let me sleep a bit longer, I’ll take you to catch goldfish later," Xu Qingfan hugged her smelly foot that was kicking him and continued to sleep with his eyes closed.

"Ptui, ptui, ptui~ Xia Xiaoxiao, you must be poisonous!" The very next second, Xu Qingfan cursed as he woke up from the bed, as the girl had placed her other foot on his face.

"Hmph~ That’s what you get for not getting up!" Xia Xiaoxiao threw the cat onto his bed and left the room with a flushed face.

Xu Qingfan then threw the cat onto the floor and was inwardly conflicted.

On one hand, he had felt oddly excited just now, and on the other hand, Xu Qingfan was worried that Xia Xiaoxiao might think of him as a pervert.

[At this vigorous age, it’s really the death of me...] Once calmed down, Xu Qingfan put his shoes on and left the room.

"What are you looking at, hurry up and put your shoes on!" Xia Xiaoxiao glared at him and said.

"You put on lipstick, huh? Looks pretty good," Xu Qingfan said with a smile, he had felt there was something different about the girl today.

Xia Xiaoxiao secretly rejoiced in her heart and, ignoring him, got up and walked to the doorway.

Before long, the two of them appeared side by side on the street. Having missed shopping just by themselves, the girl seemed very happy, humming a cheerful tune while walking.

"Are you wearing height-increasing shoes?" Crossing the zebra crossing, Xia Xiaoxiao unexpectedly discovered that Xu Qingfan was not much shorter than her.

"You’re the one wearing height-increasing shoes; I’ve grown taller!" Xu Qingfan grumbled.

He admitted that he had inserted two extra insoles in his shoes, but could that really be called height-increasing?

"Weird, you used to be only up to my ears!" Xia Xiaoxiao’s memory was still stuck at the time when they graduated from primary school when he was just over one and a half meters.

"Don’t you know what puberty is? Didn’t you grow quickly after you started getting your period? Can’t I have my ’time of the month’ too?" he said irritably after they crossed the road.

"You boys have that too?" Xia Xiaoxiao was very curious about it.

"Kind of..." Remembering that day’s underwear, and the ruby... Xu Qingfan suddenly found it a bit hard to look Xia Xiaoxiao in the eye.

"Is it like us girls, coming regularly every month, does it hurt?"

"Are you out to shop or to ask ten thousand whys?"

"Tsk~ Fine, don’t tell me then, I’ll look it up online when I get back!" Xia Xiaoxiao thought to herself that ungrateful people don’t recognize kindness; she was just thinking of showing the same special care towards Xu Qingfan on his special days, just as he did for them.

Speaking of which, Xu Qingfan’s puberty this time seemed to be earlier than in his previous life. He didn’t know whether it was due to regular exercise, or because living with five girls had stimulated hormone secretion and caused him to develop early.

In the past two months, he had grown seven or eight centimeters taller quite suddenly. With height-increasing shoes, he wasn’t much shorter than Xia Xiaoxiao. At least walking on the street, they didn’t look like an older sister with a younger brother anymore, but more like a well-matched couple of junior high school sweethearts.

"Xu Qingfan, let’s buy a lottery ticket!" During the New Year period, the scratch card stalls were crowded with people, and Xia Xiaoxiao also wanted to try her luck.

"Wouldn’t drinking two cups of milk tea be better? With that money you could go to Dream of the Red Chamber and assess equipment," Xu Qingfan shook his head and refused.

"Hmph, boring!" Xia Xiaoxiao turned her head away.

She thought to herself, If it were Lin Wanning asking you, you’d definitely buy!

[Brother Qing Fan, Wanning wants to buy a lottery ticket!

Sweetheart, we don’t buy what deceives us!

Please, please, I beg you!

Buy, buy, buy!

Hehe~ Brother Qing Fan is the best!]

After her little daydreaming scene, Xia Xiaoxiao felt even more aggrieved and glared at Xu Qingfan, "Then you go stand in line to buy milk tea!"

The queue at Good Taste Milk Tea was seven or eight meters long, Xia Xiaoxiao challenged him.

"Drinking milk tea isn’t actually healthy. How about we drink some mineral water instead?" Xu Qingfan said with a sheepish smile.

"No way, I want milk tea, what’s unhealthy about fruit tea with less sugar?" Xia Xiaoxiao refused to back down.

"Buy, buy, buy!" He shook his head helplessly and obediently took his place at the end of the line.

Xia Xiaoxiao wore the smile of a victor and quietly stood beside him to queue up.

Being the only regular shop in the market, Good Taste Milk Tea had formidable market competitiveness, with standardized flavors and regularly updated new products that rivals like Safe Harbor and Green Tea Island couldn’t match.

Benefiting from consumer bonuses, if the location was chosen well, investing in a Good Taste Milk Tea shop could break even in just half a year, and the constant cash flow was the confidence behind Zhang Chunxue’s pioneering ventures.

Ten minutes later, the two were leisurely walking with a cup of milk tea each in hand.

As Xu Qingfan was about to sip from his straw, Xia Xiaoxiao suddenly stopped him, "Wait a minute!"

In the moment of his bewilderment, the girl had already taken a sip from his cup and mumbled unclearly, "I want to try yours."

"Why are you so domineering?" Although Xu Qingfan didn’t mind her saliva, he was used to quibbling and still remarked.

"At most, I’ll let you have a sip back." Xia Xiaoxiao took another sip of her own before handing her cup to him.

Xu Qingfan glanced at the girl and drank with a look of displeasure.

"Isn’t that Xiao Fan and Xiao Xiao over there?" Far away, Lin Jing and Yao Jiping spotted the two feeding each other.

"So shameless in public, that brat!" Yao Jiping only saw the moment when Xu Qingfan drank from Xia Xiaoxiao’s milk tea and immediately wanted to go over and give him a lecture.

"Why are you going over there? Just let the kids be if they get along well!" Lin Jing said with an aunt’s smile, holding back her about-to-explode girlfriend.

"But they shouldn’t do this on the street." Yao Jiping was still stuck in the old generation’s thinking; such behavior was considered hooliganism in their era.

"Do you think they’re dating?"

"Why think so much? Haven’t the two kids always been like this since they were young?" Lin Jing was unconcerned, "Let’s go, let’s continue shopping. I saw a pair of boots a few days ago..."

Yao Jiping was dragged away, taking a second look back at the two, and unconsciously recalling Wu Lingyu’s image in her mind.

Xu Qingfan and Xia Xiaoxiao, unaware of their mothers’ presence, continued to browse through the stalls on the square shoulder to shoulder after feeding each other.

During the New Year season, Gualv Square was temporarily filled with various stalls, mostly offering fun games to win toy prizes.

It was a common sight to see a family of three touring together with the father playing games, the mother holding the child of a few years, the child beaming with joy upon receiving a prize, followed by the adults’ laughter. This was, perhaps, a materialization of happiness.

He and Xia Xiaoxiao stopped in front of a shooting game stall when the girl suddenly halted, pointing at a Stitch plush on top and saying to him, "I want that one."

Xu Qingfan glanced at the price, ten yuan for twenty shots, and after paying ten yuan he picked up the gun and aimed at the balloons.

Five minutes later, Xu Qingfan turned to the stall owner with a sheepish smile, "Can I play again? Do the balloons carry over?"

"No, ten shots get you a fourth prize, pick one keychain from over there!" The owner looked at him with disdain.

Xia Xiaoxiao gave him a white look, handed ten yuan to the owner, and also picked up the gun Xu Qingfan had just used.

"Here, it’s for you." Three minutes later, Xia Xiaoxiao handed over the newly won Stitch plush to him.

"One good turn deserves another." Xu Qingfan also passed the small dinosaur keychain he had just won to her.

Xia Xiaoxiao examined the keychain in her hand, noticed there was a little button on the dinosaur, and pressed it lightly.

"I like you!" The little dinosaur lit up and made a sound the next second.

"What does that mean?" she asked knowingly.

"I like you." Xu Qingfan thought Xia Xiaoxiao truly didn’t understand and explained as an old second-dimensional enthusiast.

"Ew, then I don’t want it." The girl showed a look of disdain.

"Even better, I’ll give it to Wanning and the others!" Xu Qingfan reached out, attempting to snatch it back.

But Xia Xiaoxiao moved faster, withdrew her hand, flicked her high ponytail, and turned to walk away.

"Hmph~"

Confirming that Xu Qingfan hadn’t followed, the girl quickened her step with a secretly triumphant smile.

However, after walking another eight or nine meters, Xu Qingfan still hadn’t caught up.

Xia Xiaoxiao looked back in confusion and saw that Xu Qingfan was actually still at the stall, seemingly starting another round.

The girl frowned slightly and returned to the original stall.

"What are you doing?" Xia Xiaoxiao asked when she got to his side.

"I’m winning a few more keychains to give to Wanning and the others." Xu Qingfan answered truthfully.

Xia Xiaoxiao: ???

"I want to eat fish balls!" She snatched the gun from Xu Qingfan’s hand, slapped it on the counter, and pulled on his collar to leave.

"Hey, I’ve paid!"

Xia Xiaoxiao indicated she wasn’t listening and continued to drag Xu Qingfan away.

"We haven’t taken the Stitch plush!" Xu Qingfan added.

This time, Xia Xiaoxiao listened, let go of him, and ran back to the stall. After picking up the plushie, she also took four laser pens from the fourth-prize area as the owner reminded her.

"Here!" After handing over the laser pens and the Stitch plush to Xu Qingfan, she said, "Little brother likes laser pens!"