Huh? Are villainous bosses this easy to flirt with?

Chapter 166 Preparing gifts

Time waits for no one, so Xie Qing didn't hesitate at all. She put aside her training and ran to prepare a birthday gift for Huo Yunting.

Ties, watches, custom pens, cars... they even crocheted a pair of Q-version dolls based on their appearance.

He discovered that Huo Yunting really liked these trinkets; the dozen or so dolls he had previously won for him were treasured by the other man, and he hadn't lost a single one.

Not only that, Huo Yunting later went out of his way to buy many co-branded dolls of Qin Cheng, the character he played in "Breaking the Sky," and filled a corner of his room with them.

This was Xie Qing's first attempt at crocheting, and she was still not very skilled.

Sometimes the stitches come undone while you're crocheting, and sometimes the yarn gets tangled in knots. You have to be patient and spend a lot of time straightening it out little by little.

Finally, after several hours of "hard work," the doll that Xie Qing had poured countless efforts into was born.

But its appearance was rather indescribable. The cotton was overflowing, it was limp and sickly, like it was malnourished. It wasn't cute as I had imagined; instead, it was a bit frightening.

Xie Qing sat cross-legged on the soft sofa, looked down at the unusually ugly doll in her hand for a while, and couldn't help but click her tongue.

This is so different from what I expected; to put it bluntly, it's completely unrelated.

Having no other option, he had to ask for outside help.

Xie Qing carried a bunch of yarn balls downstairs and knocked on the door—Aunt Lan usually lived downstairs so it would be convenient for her to cook for the two of them.

A moment later, the door opened, and Aunt Lan's eyes flashed with obvious surprise when she saw him. "Young Master Xie, why didn't you go to class today?"

"I took leave and didn't have time to explain in detail," Xie Qing said. "Aunt Lan, I came here to ask you for advice on crochet techniques."

"Crochet?" The old lady smiled, her eyes crinkling with wrinkles. She tilted her head back slightly, her face radiating confidence. "Then you've come to the right person!"

"Come on, have a seat."

Xie Qing sat down on the sofa. Aunt Lan went to the kitchen and poured Xie Qing a steaming glass of milk. She asked kindly, "Young Master Xie, what are you planning to seduce?"

Xie Qing pulled out a drawing, on which were chibi-style drawings of himself and Huo Yunting, “two dolls.”

Aunt Lan examined the blueprint carefully for a while and said, "It's quite easy."

"..."

Xie Qing: Is this easy...?

As Aunt Lan spoke, she picked up a brightly colored ball of yarn from the side, skillfully winding it around her fingers, ready to show off her skills.

Xie Qing quickly reached out to stop her, "Aunt Lan, wait a minute!"

She reached out and snatched the ball of yarn back, explaining with a smile, "Aunt Lan, I want to crochet this doll myself. Could you keep an eye on it for me and see if there are any problems?"

"Okay, then I'll keep an eye on it for you."

Xie Qing took a deep breath, roused herself, and started crocheting again from the beginning.

However, he had only taken the first step when Aunt Lan pointed out his mistake: "Young Master Xie, your braid stitch is a bit loose. It needs to be tighter so that the subsequent stitches will be more solid."

After Xie Qing corrected the mistake, she continued weaving.

"Young Master Xie, the tension you're applying to the thread is uneven, sometimes too strong and sometimes too weak. The stitches tend to come loose in places where the tension is too weak."

"Young Master Xie, you've missed a spot..."

"Hey, another needle's in here..."

"Young Master Xie, here..."

"..."

Finally, under Aunt Lan's patient guidance, Xie Qing concentrated intently and spent more than two hours to complete the task.

Looking at the well-shaped finished product in his hand, the corners of his mouth unconsciously turned up. Recalling the crooked and limp failure of the previous product, and then looking at the exquisite and cute doll in front of him, a sense of accomplishment welled up inside him.

But he couldn't stop. Tomorrow was Huo Yunting's birthday, and time was tight. He still had a doll to finish.

Xie Qing wiggled her fingers and then immediately threw herself into crocheting the next doll.

As Aunt Lan helped Xie Qing straighten the yarn, she asked curiously, "Young Master Xie, I've never seen you fiddling with these things before. Why are you suddenly thinking about crocheting dolls?"

Xie replied with a light laugh, "Tomorrow is Huo Yunting's birthday, and these two little ones are gifts I prepared for him."

He blinked. "Aunt Lan, please remember to keep this a secret."

Aunt Lan was stunned for a few seconds upon hearing this. After regaining her senses, she slowly nodded and replied, "Okay."

After this incident, her expression became a little strange. Her eyes were filled with hesitation as she looked at Xie Qing, as if she had something to say but didn't know how to start.

That gaze was impossible to ignore. Xie Qing stopped what she was doing, looked up, and asked, "Aunt Lan, is there something you want to tell me?"

Aunt Lan hesitated for a long time, but still couldn't bear to see Xie Qing's carefully prepared gifts go to waste, so she advised, "Young Master Xie, it's not that I'm being a spoilsport, but your gift... might not be able to be given away."

Xie Qing knew that Aunt Lan wouldn't say such things without reason, so she couldn't help but ask, "Why do you say that?"

Aunt Lan sighed and began to recount her story, “When the head of the family was eight years old, he was brought into the Huo family by the master. I have been responsible for taking care of his daily life since then.”

She paused, her tone tinged with emotion, "When the other younger members of the Huo family celebrate their birthdays, the celebrations are always grander than the last, with lavish parties and expensive gifts. But in my memory, the head of the family... has never celebrated a single birthday."

"At first I was also puzzled, thinking, as a child being groomed to be the future heir of the Huo family, is he so busy that he doesn't even have time to celebrate his birthday?"

Aunt Lan's voice was solemn, each word seemingly carrying years of melancholy and sighs.

"I later found out that it wasn't that he didn't want to celebrate, but that he simply didn't want to. The master would certainly not celebrate his birthday either, because that day... was also the anniversary of the eldest young lady's death."

Seeing Xie Qing's sudden change in expression and her eager look for confirmation, she nodded and slowly said, "That's right, it's the head of the family's mother."

Xie Qing lowered her eyes, her thick eyelashes acting as a barrier, completely concealing the turbulent emotions surging within them. Her hands clenched unconsciously, her knuckles turning white.

Aunt Lan continued, "In previous years, on June 30th, the head of the family would visit his mother at the cemetery, where he would stay for a long time."

"When he comes back, he'll act like nothing happened and go back to work..."

Xie Qing listened to everything in silence, and after a long while, slowly raised her eyes. "Aunt Lan, thank you for telling me all this."

“However…” he said firmly, “I still want to finish making the gift, even if I can’t give it to anyone in the end. I’ll accept that.”

Seeing Xie Qing like this, Aunt Lan didn't say anything more and quietly helped him finish making the gift.

Halfway through knitting the second doll, Aunt Lan's phone rang intermittently, which was quite annoying.

Aunt Lan answered the phone—

"Aunt Lan, it's me, Chu Luo."

Aunt Lan smiled and said, "Little Chu, what brings you here?"

The person on the other end spoke rapidly, as if a catastrophe was imminent: "Aunt Lan, do you know where Young Master Xie is? Something terrible has happened!!!"