Chapter 356: Chapter 355: So You Do Think I’m Too Old, Don’t You?

"What?"

The voice from above her was all too familiar, making Xu Su’s body stiffen for a moment. She then craned her neck to look up.

"Zhou Mochen!" Her eyes went wide. "Why is it you?"

As soon as she spoke, the room became so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Zhou Mochen stared blankly for several seconds, as if it took him that long to understand what she meant. His expression changed instantly. "Who did you think it was?"

Xu Su snapped back to her senses. She pinched her own cheek, then felt the person beside her. After confirming that Zhou Mochen was real, she hugged him joyfully. "I’m back! I’m really back!"

"Zhou Mochen, I had a dream, it scared me to death!" she said, a little shaken. "The dream was so real. I thought I’d never come back."

"Oh?" Seeing that her expression didn’t seem fake, Zhou Mochen carefully reined in the surge of emotion that had just risen in his heart. He responded slowly, playing along. "What did you dream about that was so scary?"

"I dreamed of the eighteen-year-old you. You have no idea, that dream was so, so real. I could even feel pain in the dream. I couldn’t tell it was a dream at all!"

Xu Su looked relieved. "Thank goodness it was a dream. Otherwise, if I couldn’t come back, what would you have done?"

"The eighteen-year-old me?" Zhou Mochen frowned. "Susu, you’ve really been dwelling on that, haven’t you."

His words were loaded with meaning. Xu Su’s cheeks flushed slightly, and she avoided his gaze, sitting up in embarrassment.

’It must be true what they say—what you think about by day, you dream of by night. I kept thinking about what he looked like as a teenager, and my mind actually built such a realistic dream world... with the teenage him from my dream...’

Thinking about what happened in the dream, Xu Su covered her face with her hands. ’Am I just completely lost to my desires?’

Seeing her so embarrassed, and remembering what she’d said right after waking up, there was nothing left for Zhou Mochen to misunderstand. His face darkened. "Xu Su, I’m lying right here next to you, and you’re having a wet dream about a younger version of me?"

And the subject was the younger him.

Zhou Mochen’s face grew even darker. "So you really think I’m too old, don’t you?"

"That’s not it at all!" Xu Su explained righteously. "It wasn’t a wet dream! I rejected you in the dream. We didn’t do anything, we just slept in the same bed."

As she spoke, however, Xu Su started to feel that the young man in her dream wasn’t someone she could have just imagined.

Right now, her whole body ached as if she had spent all night climbing a mountain. This was hardly how one felt after a good night’s sleep.

’Could it be that my dream took me on a tour of another, smaller world?’

Xu Su let her imagination run wild for a while but couldn’t come to any conclusion. She finally just stretched her arms, threw off the covers, and got out of bed. "Get up. We have to go to my grandma’s house today."

Ignoring Zhou Mochen’s dark expression, she went straight to the bathroom to wash up.

Xu Su was in a hurry to get to her grandma’s house. She only had a few bites of porridge for breakfast before pulling Zhou Mochen out the door in a rush.

It wasn’t until she was seated in the passenger seat and they were on their way that she finally had a moment to knead her aching limbs.

After casually complaining that he shouldn’t hold her so tightly when they slept because it gave her a poor night’s rest, Xu Su leaned her head against the headrest, closed her eyes, and prepared to catch up on some sleep.

Listening to her complaint, Zhou Mochen drove while periodically glancing over at the passenger seat. Seeing that she really did look exhausted and drowsy, he actually started to wonder if he had held her too tightly and made her uncomfortable.

Xu Su kept feeling like she had forgotten something very important, but she was too exhausted to even try and think about what it could be.

But subconsciously, a sense of unease hung over her, and she couldn’t shake it.

Even as she slept, she was restless. Her hand unconsciously came to rest over her chest, and her brow was tightly furrowed.

Zhou Mochen noticed she seemed to be having a nightmare. Since they were about to arrive, he took her hand and patted it gently. "Susu, we’re almost at Grandma’s house. Wake up."

Xu Su was groggily woken by his call. Her expression was dazed. She blinked, her voice a little hoarse. "Zhou Mochen, I remembered something."

"What is it?" The rural road was bumpy and full of potholes. Zhou Mochen maneuvered the steering wheel, glancing back at her and adding, "Your phone is vibrating."

Just as she was about to speak, Xu Su had to stop. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. The call was from the landline at Uncle Xu’s house.

Xu Su’s fingertips paused for a second before she swiped right to answer the call.

"Susu, where are you now?"

Hearing her grandmother’s concerned question on the other end, Xu Su answered, "We’re already on Shuinan Street. We’ll be there in five minutes at the latest."

On the other end of the line, Grandma Xu said "Okay," and quickly hung up to hurry her family to set out the food and drinks.

It was the first time their granddaughter was bringing a boyfriend home. To Grandma Xu and Uncle Xu, he was an honored guest who had to be warmly received, no matter what.

Over here, just as Xu Su hung up, Zhou Mochen returned to their previous topic. "What was it you just remembered?"

"..." Xu Su looked at the familiar scenery outside the car window and took a deep breath. "Let’s talk about it later. We’re almost there."

Her expression was a little off. Zhou Mochen pressed his lips together and nodded, an unexplainable heaviness settling in his heart.

Soon, the houses belonging to Grandma Xu and Uncle Xu came into view in the distance, just off the road.

Zhou Mochen had been to this place twice before. Both times, he had traveled through the night, only to have to park on the side of the road for a brief meeting with Xu Su before driving back overnight.

This time, however, he parked the car in Uncle Xu’s courtyard. When he got out, Grandma Xu even set off firecrackers to welcome him.

From the moment Zhou Mochen opened the car door, a gentle smile was fixed on his face. Paired with his deceptively pleasant looks, he truly appeared to be a refined and incredibly good-natured young nobleman.

Xu Su had long been familiar with his ability to charm people. Unsurprised, she gave her family a brief introduction.

At first, the expressions on Grandma Xu and her two uncles were a bit stiff. After all, they knew this was the ruthless man who had chopped off his own girlfriend’s biological father’s finger. The Chen Family had been law-abiding citizens for generations; how could they not be terrified by such news?

But once everyone was at the dinner table and a few rounds of drinks had been served, Zhou Mochen’s words and actions remained polite and humble. He was clearly a child raised in a family with a good upbringing, definitely not some deranged monster.

The two uncles from the Chen Family couldn’t help but start to wonder if there had been some kind of misunderstanding.

It wasn’t like they were unaware of how the Xu Family operated. It was entirely possible they had exaggerated things and framed him.

With this thought in mind, the smiles on the faces of Xu Su’s two uncles became much more genuine. The atmosphere at the dinner table grew increasingly warm and harmonious, with both hosts and guest enjoying themselves.

Xu Su watched Zhou Mochen, who was toasting her uncles one glass after another, feeling a bit stunned herself. She never expected him to be able to put aside his pride like this. When had she ever seen him proactively toast anyone?

Even in her past life, her two uncles had only ever received a toast from Zhou Mochen at her wedding. They never even had the chance to eat at the same table like this.

After all, back then, she would never have taken the initiative to bring Zhou Mochen home to meet her family.