Chapter 67: Sleeping on the Sofa
Mu Mu, clutching his pillow and blanket, walked directly to the other side of the stairs. If there was one thing Yan Gui Xing’s villa wasn’t short of, it was bedrooms with beds.
Mu Mu had lived with Yan Gui Xing for so long, yet he had rarely entered Yan Gui Xing’s study. It wasn’t that Yan Gui Xing didn’t want him to; on the contrary, Yan Gui Xing had once asked Mu Mu to keep him company while he worked.
Mu Mu himself had refused. He was afraid of disturbing Yan Gui Xing’s work or accidentally messing up his things.
As for the other rooms in the villa, he had toured them several times with Xiao Ting. While he couldn’t name the purpose of every single room, he remembered there were ten bedrooms in the villa, including the master bedroom, spread across all floors.
He had even proudly recounted this to Yan Gui Xing.
Yan Gui Xing, the owner of the villa, couldn’t even remember what was in his own house. When Mu Mu told him there were ten bedrooms, he was surprised, saying, “There are that many bedrooms?”
Because the villa had so many bedrooms, Mu Mu felt particularly confident in moving out of the master bedroom. Besides the master bedroom, he had nine other choices.
Mu Mu arrived at the door of the first bedroom on the other side of the hallway, using one hand to grasp the doorknob, turning it downwards, and then pushing.
With a dull “click,” the door didn’t open.
Mu Mu thought he had turned the doorknob the wrong way. He poked his head out from behind his blanket, staring intently at his hand, making sure he followed the steps correctly.
He turned the doorknob downwards and pushed inward again.
The door panel still made a dull “click” sound without opening.
Mu Mu blinked blankly. He didn’t remember this bedroom being locked. Had he remembered incorrectly?
No matter. This one was locked, but there were still eight other bedrooms.
Mu Mu didn’t linger long in front of the door, moving to the next one, the third and last bedroom on that floor.
It was also locked.
All three bedrooms on the third floor were locked.
All four bedrooms on the first floor were also locked.
This was impossible! How could they all be locked? Xiao Ting had clearly said that Yan Gui Xing was lazy, and only his confidants could enter the house. Plus, no thief would be reckless enough to break into Yan Gui Xing’s home to steal, so all the rooms in the villa were never locked.
Mu Mu stood in front of the last bedroom door, dumbfoundedly looking at the tightly closed antique white door with its exquisite carvings, unsure what to do.
“This isn’t right! Xiao Ting said the bedroom doors were never locked! Am I opening the door incorrectly?”
Mu Mu had no idea that his every move was being captured by tiny, rice-grain-sized cameras on the ceiling behind him and transmitted to Yan Gui Xing’s optical brain without missing a beat.
Yan Gui Xing himself was sitting cross-legged on the bed, propping his chin with one hand, watching with amusement. Oh yes, he was the culprit behind Mu Mu’s inability to enter any of the bedrooms.
The access control for all the doors in the villa was on Yan Gui Xing’s optical brain. The moment Mu Mu left, he locked all the bedroom doors.
Yan Gui Xing’s plan was simple: Mu Mu wouldn’t be able to get into any of the bedrooms, so he would obediently return to sleep.
Yan Gui Xing intended to curb Mu Mu’s little temper of getting angry and sleeping separately. Of course, it would be even better if he could correct Mu Mu’s other unruly habits at the same time.
While Mu Mu’s little tantrums were undeniably cute, his disobedience was also a source of frustration.
On the screen, Mu Mu stood in front of the bedroom door for a while, finally remembering that Xiao Ting was a housekeeper robot.
Since it was a housekeeper robot, if the door was locked, Xiao Ting could open it.
With a solution in mind, the gloom on Mu Mu’s face vanished. He turned and went into the living room, placing his blanket and pillow on the sofa and starting to search for Xiao Ting.
Yan Gui Xing watched the small figure in light blue pajamas on the screen, opening one door, closing it, then going to the next one that he could open, repeating the process of opening, peeking in, and closing; he couldn’t understand what Mu Mu was doing.
He curiously zoomed in on the screen, noticing Mu Mu’s mouth moving. He turned up the sound. The screen remained quiet; nothing could be heard.
Yan Gui Xing tried turning the volume to maximum, holding his breath, and pricking up his ears. After a few seconds, he finally heard an indistinct “Xiao Ting.”
“Xiao Ting?” Yan Gui Xing raised an eyebrow, recalling Mu Mu’s actions and understanding what he was trying to do.
He minimized the image of Mu Mu and opened the entire villa’s surveillance footage, finding Xiao Ting charging in the attic in the upper right corner.
Incidentally, when Yan Gui Xing had gotten Xiao Ting, for charging convenience, he had placed charging points all over the villa.
However, being a highly intelligent robot, Xiao Ting had requested its own room.
Yan Gui Xing found this amusing, saying that a robot didn’t need a room.
Xiao Ting protested indignantly, saying that even the Bailer, the robot of General Desimo, had its own room, showing photos as proof.
Due to various objective factors on Wu Hui Xing, Yan Gui Xing had first encountered mechas, then intelligent robots.
And the first intelligent robot he encountered wasn’t Xiao Ting, but the Yan family’s housekeeper robot, 1.7 meters tall with a humanoid form and a silver-gray metallic shell.
Logically, given the Yan family’s status and wealth, their household housekeeper robot should have been more intelligent than those found in average households.
Yet, the Yan family’s housekeeper robot couldn’t understand human speech as well as the Yan family’s old human butler.
Yan Gui Xing wasn’t particularly fond of housekeeper robots because he’d grown up doing chores, laundry, and even simple cooking.
Later, Achi became his deputy and, under his tutelage, became an all-rounder capable of battlefield combat, kitchen work, fighting Zerg pirates, and doing laundry.
Therefore, Yan Gui Xing didn’t really need a housekeeper robot.
Only after becoming a General and acquiring his own affiliated star did he take Xiao Ting from the military research institute.
So, when Xiao Ting mentioned that the military-made robots had internal connections, even Yan Gui Xing, who had seen many storms, was shocked.
Did robots make friends? Did they need social circles?
Though it seemed somewhat absurd, to prevent his robot from being outdone by other generals’ robots, Yan Gui Xing fulfilled Xiao Ting’s request, preparing a room for it in the location and style of its choosing.
Yan Gui Xing didn’t know whether Xiao Ting, with its boastful nature, had shown Mu Mu its room.
Whether it had or not didn’t matter; even if Xiao Ting could open the door, its access was controlled by him.
While locking the doors, Yan Gui Xing also forced Xiao Ting into a five-hour sleep mode.
Mu Mu, unable to find Xiao Ting anywhere in the villa, returned to the first-floor living room, collapsing onto the blanket on the sofa, tilting his head, and puffing out his cheeks as he looked at the beautiful carpet.
Without Xiao Ting, he couldn’t open the bedroom doors, meaning he had no bed. Should he go back? Mu Mu hesitated. He had a feeling that if he went back to sleep, Gui Gui wouldn’t agree to his working.
No! Mu Mu clenched his fists, his gaze hardening. He couldn’t give up just like that. Even if he loved Gui Gui, Gui Gui couldn’t be so domineering!
In Mu Mu’s simple understanding, he knew there was a large gap in status and power between him and Yan Gui Xing, but he didn’t understand that Yan Gui Xing’s possessiveness had reached the point of wanting to imprison him.
Mu Mu only knew they were lovers who loved each other, so they were equals.
Based on this equality, Mu Mu felt that even if Yan Gui Xing was acting for his own good, he couldn’t be so domineering as to make all decisions for him.
Regarding work, Yan Gui Xing’s reasons were insufficient to change his mind. Therefore, Mu Mu had to achieve his goal; this was his resolve.
Mu Mu, on the screen, got up from the blanket. A smile finally touched Yan Gui Xing’s lips; he knew the little fool would come back obediently.
But the next second, Yan Gui Xing’s smile froze. Mu Mu didn’t turn upstairs as he expected. Instead, he laboriously shook out the blanket, rolled it up, kicked off his slippers, and crawled inside.
That’s right; Mu Mu chose to sleep on the sofa.
Yan Gui Xing looked at the fluffy hair sticking out from the gray blanket and burst out laughing. He abruptly got up, quickly walking to the door, his hand reaching for the doorknob, then suddenly stopping.
After a few seconds, he released the doorknob, turning to sit down on the embroidered sofa in the outer room. He finally understood; the little fool was challenging him.
Mu Mu’s usual obedience made this sudden defiance unsettling and slightly enraging to Yan Gui Xing, who felt a sense of losing control.
The intention to comfort Mu Mu vanished under this emotion. While Mu Mu’s little tantrums were cute, the feeling of being out of control drove Yan Gui Xing crazy, so he didn’t want to encourage Mu Mu’s behavior.
He wanted to nip this little temper in the bud before it developed into something worse.
They were having a cold war, so he would see who would give in first. Yan Gui Xing was confident he wouldn’t be the one to back down.
Thus, the cold war officially began.
Yan Gui Xing was determined to teach Mu Mu a lesson. Even though he worried about Mu Mu getting cold, sleeping comfortably, or kicking off his blankets in the middle of the night, he resisted the urge to check on him.
He acted like a voyeuristic pervert, glued to his optical brain until the next morning’s early training.
The next day, Yan Gui Xing and Mu Mu met at the dinner table after early training, one pretending not to see the other, the other turning their head to talk to Xiao Ting, neither willing to speak to the other.
The whole day, Mu Mu stayed on the first floor, while Yan Gui Xing spent his time in his study, monitoring him.
That night, with Yan Gui Xing’s indulgence, Xiao Ting opened all the bedroom doors. But Mu Mu stubbornly refused to use any of them, sleeping on the sofa instead.
[Author’s Note]: I’m using this author’s note to say something. It seems like there’s a bug with Xiao Han; if I don’t write something in the author’s note, there’s a high probability that it will be flagged as unsegmented and locked.