Chapter 59 It Turns Out They Are Neighbors

The McLaren Artura pulled into the residential complex near the Han River Park, parking right opposite space C191.

Having finished their date yet feeling not a single ounce of fatigue, Xia Xing stepped out of the car, walking lightly and cheerfully toward his home.

Because this gray supercar was far too conspicuous and flashy, he had no choice but to drop Shin Yuna off back at Han River Park, letting her drive her Tesla back, which she had left parked there since morning.

The items he was currently holding were the things they had bought earlier that evening while pretending to be high school students shopping together: dolls, couple hoodies...

Among them was also the gift to be presented next week for Xia Xuhe's seventieth birthday—a pair of gold-rimmed non-prescription glasses.

"What kind of gift do you think Grandpa would want?"

Faced with his girlfriend's question, Xia Xing was stunned for a moment, then spoke with some hesitation: "It probably wouldn't sound very good if I said it out loud."

Misunderstanding Xia Xing's meaning, his little girlfriend furrowed her brows slightly and asked incredulously, "The old man doesn't have any strange fetishes, does he?"

"How could that be? But compared to famous watches or luxury cars, the old man might prefer receiving a prenatal ultrasound scan."

"A prenatal..."

Shin Yuna repeated, and upon suddenly realizing what he meant, she didn't hesitate to smack her boyfriend's arm: "Ya, you just know how to tease me."

"I'm being serious. That guy was urging me to bring my significant other back not long ago."

"It's too fast... It's not that I don't want to, I'm just still a little shy..."

Recalling his little girlfriend's bashful appearance and the slight stinging sensation from his arm, Xia Xing couldn't help but curve the corners of his lips upward again.

Walking toward the basement-level elevator, just as he pulled out his card to swipe for access, a very familiar figure caught his peripheral vision.

Dressed in home loungewear, she was standing on tiptoes, holding a long black object in her hands and struggling next to a gray Audi Q6, looking quite exhausted.

"...Mina-xi? Why are you here?"

Carrying the bag in his hand, Xia Xing unconsciously walked toward the woman who was three years his senior.

Ever since he had met her, the mystery surrounding Myoui Mina had not diminished with their growing familiarity; instead, it had only multiplied.

From JYP to Peninsula Food, and now to the underground parking lot of his own apartment building, meeting her again and again gave Xia Xing a vague premonition.

Perhaps for a long time to come in the future, Myoui Mina would appear in his life even more frequently.

Myoui Mina, who had been examining how to replace the windshield wipers with a cold expression, looked over at the sound. In her cool and distant gaze, a flicker of certain anticipation—waiting for the fish to take the bait—flashed and vanished instantly.

Her gaze slowly traveled down from Xia Xing's cheeks, finally fixing dead-center on the high school GK uniform he was wearing and the bag in his hand.

"So it was you..."

"Because I live here. Buildings A and B share an underground parking lot."

She said lazily, handing the windshield wiper to him as naturally as could be. Dispensing with the polite formalities she usually maintained in front of outsiders, she stated simply and unquestioningly:

"Help me change this."

Without declining, Xia Xing handed her the items he was holding and bent down, briskly lifting the windshield wiper arm.

"Did you go on a date today? I never expected Representative Xia to have such a sunny, boyish side."

Myoui Mina's beautiful eyes lowered, inspecting his brown school uniform from top to bottom.

Her tone sounded somewhat like an older sister teasing her high school younger brother who had sneaked out on a date, yet hidden beneath the banter seemed to be a trace of slight dissatisfaction.

"I went out on a date with my girlfriend."

"And... in your eyes, am I some stuffy, old-fashioned person? I'm only twenty-three this year."

Perhaps because of Myoui Mina's clumsy maneuvering earlier, the old windshield wiper—which should have come off easily by pressing the jagged part and pulling outward—was stubbornly stuck in the buckle.

Using brute force to pull off the wiper might end up damaging the buckle instead.

"I just think this side of you is very novel, not quite like the Representative Xia in my memory."

"Take your time, don't be so rash. This old wiper wasn't bought by me, it might not be quite compatible with the car."

"If you want to take it off, you need to carefully examine what went wrong first, and then replace it."

Xia Xing stopped his movements. He always felt that Myoui Mina's words didn't just refer to changing the windshield wiper so simply.

"You've been here quite a while, haven't you? Did you spend all that time studying the windshield wiper?"

He noticed a faint sheen of sweat on the white T-shirt Myoui Mina was wearing underneath her loungewear. When this underground garage was originally designed, factors like air circulation had been taken into account precisely to ensure residents felt warm in winter and cool in summer.

He hadn't expected it to actually make Myoui Mina, who was studying windshield wipers in the basement garage, break a sweat.

"It's not that it's incompatible; it should be that it wasn't aligned properly when originally installed, which caused some wear at the joint between the old wiper and the buckle. That's why it's a bit difficult to open now."

Having pinpointed the crux of the problem, Xia Xing applied a sudden burst of strength, and the old wiper was successfully removed. Inserting the new wiper in reverse, he heard a muffled "click," and the installation was complete.

"All set. Since we're neighbors, just come directly to me if you have issues like this in the future."

"By the way... when did you buy property here? It wouldn't happen to be half a year ago, would it?"

Xia Xing suddenly recalled Myoui Mina's almost entirely profitable stock trades over the past half-year, and associating that with the housing prices that had plummeted to rock bottom around the same time, he couldn't help but blurt out:

"If that really is the case, we truly need to thoroughly investigate your identity. You aren't really from another dimension, are you?"

She smiled faintly and pulled the Building B elevator keycard from her pocket:

"I told you a long time ago. Do you believe it now?"

Xia Xing shrugged and said in a joking tone:

"Of course I'm willing to believe it—though it's just being willing to believe it."

"Let's go, I'll treat you to a cup of tea. Consider it a token of gratitude for helping me change the wipers."

For some reason, faced with her invitation, Xia Xing always had the vague feeling of a sheep walking into a tiger's den.

Myoui Mina seemed to possess some kind of magic, always able to ignite Xia Xing's curiosity about her and the urge to tease her, so Xia Xing suddenly developed the resolve that "if you don't enter the tiger's den, you can't catch the tiger's cub."

He declined politely with a hint of banter: "I just helped change a wiper, it's no big deal anyway... we're neighbors, aren't we?"

"I don't like owing favors. Since we're neighbors, it's only reasonable for me to invite you for a cup of tea, right? Besides, didn't you say it yourself? I can come to you for help if anything comes up in the future."

"Alright then, I suppose I'll reluctantly agree."

The elevator keycard in Myoui Mina's hand lightly touched the NFC sensor area, and the 29th-floor button lighting up on the elevator panel made Xia Xing's eyelid twitch inexplicably.

Was this... really just a coincidence?