If You Could Hear My Heart

Chapter 5: Girls and Boys Should Keep a Proper Distance

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

When she’d finally elicited a different reaction from him, she grinned, flashing two rows of tiny white teeth.

“You still haven’t told me your name. How old are you?”

Xu Zhaomu propped her face up and tilted her head. She was unable to take her eyes off him.

“Shen Chi.”

“Shen Chi?” Xu Zhaomu recited the name a few times. Her tiny hands clung to his neck again. “Then can I call you Ah Chi?”

“No!”

“Husband?”

“Get lost!”

“……”

Shen Chi glanced at her uneasily. He pulled off her tiny hands that had attached to his neck like the tentacles of an octopus.

“Xu Zhaomu, know your place!” Anger could be seen on Shen Chi’s face.

He wasn’t lying when he said that he had never seen such a troublesome little girl in his life.

“Shen Chi, let me ask you a serious question.”

Xu Zhaomu suddenly put on a solemn expression. The eyes staring at Shen Chi were now prim and proper.

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

“Oh. I’m just going to ask one question. Why does your family want to adopt me? Are you all human traffickers?”

“I don’t know.” Shen Chi paused after every word. His words were like gold.

Disappointment was written all over Xu Zhaomu’s face. “Then what do you know?”

“I know that you are very noisy!”

Shen Chi rolled his eyes at her. He leaned back onto the seat and closed his eyes.

When Shen Chi remembered that he had to live together with her in the future, his face twisted with bitterness and pain.

“Don’t sleep, talk and keep me company. Tell me, what does your family do? Does this car belong to your family? It looks quite expensive. Oh right, aren’t you worried that I’ll steal your stuff and sell it for cash?”

Xu Zhaomu’s icy hands clawed at Shen Chi. Shen Chi shivered, and he was forced to open his eyes.

“Get your dirty claws off me!” Shen Chi frowned. He was really annoyed.

She had used those hands to play in the mud, and now she was touching his clothes.

“You’re being fierce to me again. Are you venting your anger on me because you were scolded by your teacher for getting terrible marks?”

Shen Chi didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. If he bickered with a ten-year-old baby, then he couldn’t call himself Shen Chi.

“Young Master, Madame hasn’t returned yet?”

A middle-aged man walked over and opened the car door, before sitting in the driver’s seat.

“Not ye, Uncle Jiang,” Shen Chi replied.

Xu Zhaomu blinked her eyes and smiled at the middle-aged man. “Uncle, are you a driver?”

“This little girl is very clever. Are you the Xu Zhaomu that Madame mentioned?” the driver smiled, before turning around to stroke her pigtail.

“Yes, yes, my name is Xu Zhaomu. Xu as in Xu Zhaomu, Zhao as in Xu Zhaomu, and mu as in Xu Zhaomu. Uncle, do you like my name? This was the name that my mother gave me.”

Pride was written all over her tiny face. However, the pride was soon replaced with boundless sorrow.

“Ha, ha, it sounds very nice. You’re so obedient!” The driver couldn’t help but chuckle.

However, this was already Shen Chi’s second time hearing Xu Zhaomu’s self-introduction.

Black lines appeared on his face. He couldn’t bear to listen any further. He fished out a fountain pen from his pocket and casually grabbed a memo pad.

“Listen up. Your name is Xu Zhaomu. Xu, which means promise, and Zhaomu, which means dawn to dusk. [1]

Shen Chi casually wrote down the words promise and dawn to dusk, before scribbling the words Xu Zhaomu underneath. His handwriting was steady and contained.

“I don’t understand.” Xu Zhaomu shook her head.

Shen Chi was exasperated. She could understand nonsense very well, but when it came to prim and proper concepts, she couldn’t understand.

“Ha, ha, Young Master, don’t make things difficult for Zhaomu. She’s still young.” The driver chuckled.

“It’s fine if she doesn’t understand. But she’s stupid.”

He wanted to keep the memo pad, but Xu Zhaomu snatched it before he could.

“If I don’t know, I have to learn. It’s not like you were born with knowledge. When you were my age, you probably knew about the same amount as I do now.” Xu Zhaomu quipped at him in disagreement.

She placed the memo carefully in her pockets.

Much later, when the memo had yellowed and the inked words had blurred with age, she had finally understood. No matter how long a relationship between two people lasted, it was impossible for it to last from dawn to dusk.

And if there wasn’t any love between two people, even if it did last from dawn to dusk, it was worthless.

“You definitely know more than I did when it comes to nonsensical things.” Shen Chi threw her a look of disdain. “But at least I understand that girls and boys should maintain a proper distance.”

“Girls and boys should maintain a proper distance?” it was Xu Zhaomu’s first time hearing about such a profound idea. She glanced at the driver, as though she was pleading for assistance.

“Uncle, what does that mean?” Xu Zhaomu was eager to learn.

“Ha, ha, it means that little girls and little boys shouldn’t be embracing each other.” When the driver saw how well-behaved Xu Zhaomu was, he was once again struck by her adorableness.

“Oh, then that has nothing to do with me.” Xu Zhaomu relaxed.

“Why doesn’t it have anything to do with you?” the driver asked her curiously.

“We’re not little children anymore,” Xu Zhaomu said seriously.

After she’d said this, she turned to the side. Her little claws scratched Shen Chi’s neck once more. “Don’t you agree?”

“Get lost!” Shen Chi exploded in anger. He swatted her away!

Anger was evident on the boy’s handsome face. As sunlight filtered through the windows, it made his anger look even more obvious.

Xu Zhaomu feigned blindness, pretending not to notice it.

“You’re treating me fiercely again! Can’t we play happily!” Xu Zhaomu pouted her lips and looked at him in protest.

“Ha, ha, ha.” The driver doubled over in laughter. This was his first time seeing someone take liberties with his Young Master so brazenly.

Within the elite circle of C City, everyone knew that the Shen family’s Young Master was infamously aloof and arrogant. He didn’t like to smile, and it was difficult to elicit even a single word from him.

No one dared to provoke him, let alone take liberties with him so brazenly.

There were countless little girls who were infatuated with Shen Chi. But they all admired him from a distance. Xu Zhaomu was the first little girl who’d dared to touch him.

As the saying goes, the newborn calves don’t fear the tiger. As a newcomer, her guts were truly quite big.

“Uncle, do you know why their family wants to adopt me?” Xu Zhaomu secretly pointed at Shen Chi.

“This…I’m not very sure. Maybe they have too much money.” The driver teased her.

“But I’m not a pet.” Xu Zhaomu was upset.

“I’m just joking, I’m just joking. Little girl, your self-esteem is quite high. In any case, you won’t suffer any losses by coming to the Shen family.” The driver smiled.

“But some people don’t seem very welcoming of me.” As Xu Zhaomu said this, she intentionally threw a glance at Shen Chi.

“Don’t care about it so much. You just have to eat well, drink well, sleep well, and study well.”

Xu Zhaomu nodded her head. She was not sure if she understood.

At the start, she’d thought that the Shen family was just an ordinary well-to-do household. After all, there were more rich people in C City than ants. However, she didn’t know she had entered the wealthiest family in C City.

The sun descended toward the west. As the sun was setting, the temperatures plunged.

The wind caused a bunch of yellow withered leaves to swirl in the air. They knocked onto the car windows, producing a soft whistle.

Shen Chi had been ignoring Xu Zhaomu the whole time. He’d closed his eyes and put his seat back.

After speaking for some time, Xu Zhaomu was exhausted. As the heater blew warm air on her body, she huddled into a ball and slowly drifted into dreamland.

As Xu Zhaomu slept, she slowly inched toward Shen Chi’s side, possibly due to being cold.

******[1] The word promise in Chinese is pronounced Xu Nuo, while dawn to dusk is pronounced Zhao Zhao Mu Mu.