After being scolded by Dongfang Mo, Mu Ru suddenly felt like an idiot. She reflected on the things that had happened in the past two days, and she was convinced that she really was not as sharp as she believed.
She lowered her head and did not say anything. She reached out her hand to adjust the water temperature. Then, she turned on the faucet to let more water into the bathtub and to disperse the bubbles.
The water flow was very strong, and the water spilled out of the bathtub and splashed onto the floor. She kept her head down like a child who had just been scolded. She did not even notice Dongfang Mo leaving.
She finally finished showering. The floor was no longer slippery. By the time she got dressed and walked into the bedroom, Dongfang Mo was nowhere to be found.
She did not have to worry about where he had gone, because he had always come and gone without a trace. She blow-dried her hair and turned on the recording pen that Dongfang Jun had given her. She plugged in the headset and stuffed the earphones into her ears. She get into bed and quietly listened to the class discussion.
Dongfang Jun had bought the headset for her during the day while she was still at the hospital. Dongfang Jun had been asking her how her nightly listening sessions were, and she told him that it was hard to pay attention because she couldn't hear the recording too clearly, especially with the noises coming from the adjacent room.
She did not know what Dongfang Jun meant when he told her to try and shut out the other noises at night, but he had given her the headset without her asking for it. He smiled and said to her, "If you use the earphones, you will be able to shut out the noise, and you'll be able to listen to the recording clearly."
Mu Ru thanked Dongfang Jun. She knew what it was because she seen Mu Xue with one when she showed off her MP3 player.
Mu Ru, however, did not have an MP3 player. The only thing she had was a playback player that was worth a few dollars. She had bought it at the market and used it to listen to English recordings. Fortunately, Mother Wang never expressed being against it in spite of the noise, and she learned how to understand basic English using that player.
She had seen earphones before, but she had never used them before. Since she had her own, she felt grateful and found them very useful. All she could hear was the sound of the teacher's lecture.
The earphones that Dongfang Jun had bought for her was of good quality. From then on, Mu Ru had not been disturbed by the ambiguous and exaggerated screams of the people next door in the subsequent nights.
Because she did not have to go to school, she was used to waking up early in the morning. Every day, she would go to the kitchen to help Mother Liu prepare breakfast for the entire family. She was also not the kind who could stay idle, and she was not used to oversleeping.
Mother Liu liked her more. Whenever she saw Mu Ru, she would say, "First Young Madam, you're such a good person. You're hardworking, sensible, and considerate. The eldest young master is blessed to have married you."
When Mu Ru heard this, she could not help but laugh bitterly in her heart. She felt that only Nanny Liu had ever been grateful for her. Dongfang Mo clearly did not feel the same way. He always called her an idiot.
Just as she was about to answer Mother Liu, she heard Dongfang Yu's voice coming from the dining room. "Xi Muxue, what do you mean by stopping me here?"
"Where did you go last night?" She heard Mu Xue ask Dongfang Yu. Mu Xue sounded angry and dissatisfied. "Why didn't you come home last night?"
Mu Ru realized only then that Dongfang Yu hadn't gone home last night, so she owed the silence of the previous night to Dongfang Yu's absence and not to the headset that Dongfang Jun gave her.