Chapter Twenty
Second Kowtow, May You Be Well (2)
She breathed shallowly. She could see his Adam’s apple moving, too.
“Take off my suit jacket.”
She peeled off his jacket and let it fall to the floor.
“My shirt.”
Her head was beginning to spin as she reached for the buttons. He wore his shirts simply, unlike some men who wore another layer underneath. There was nothing beneath his shirt, just bare skin. Once she had opened it completely, her eyes drifted downward, fixing on the narrow waist beneath his waistband. He had once had beautifully defined abs, but over the past few years, those had disappeared, too. It was inevitable.
Every inevitable change in him made her want to cry.
Her feelings for Shen Ce were strange. They should not have run this deep. They had not known each other long enough for such feelings to take root, yet she trusted him, depended on him, and felt an inexplicable ache for him.
“Look at me,” he whispered in her ear.
How was she supposed to look at him? His face was beside her neck, kissing her.
He kissed her through her clothes, and inside her, it was as though a streak of blood-red light had exploded. Her very soul seemed to scatter into pieces, leaving her helpless before this unfamiliar sensation. She threw her head back and struck it against the door.
A heavy thud sounded against the wooden door.
It was as though he had stripped her bare and thrown her into a wilderness overgrown with weeds, or into the sandstorms beneath a scorching sun. Above her stretched endless clouds over the wilds, while beside her, warhorses drank blood. When Shen Ce's hand moved lower, the illusion grew even more intense. It was like grains of sand baked beneath the blazing sun, enveloping her, scraping against her body. So a man's hands could be this gentle, this hot...
“And you said... even if you were with me day and night, you wouldn't want to.”
“Why do you trust me?” he asked quietly.
His cunning and scheming were matters of settled judgment. Even in death, he had never left anyone a body to find, let alone anything else.
This was the first time he had truly touched her. In this room, it was impossible to tell what day or year it was. It was as though they were in Hong Kong, as though they had only just reunited, as though it were that night when his eighteen-year-old little sister had wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
He reached with one hand to take off her sweater, then lifted her onto his shoulder with one arm and carried her out of the bathroom. He had gone most of the day without taking his medication, and his emotions were in violent turmoil under the combined stimulation of body and mind. He undid her trousers, then his own.
“Ge, we can't. Let's talk about it tonight.”
It was no use at all.
His desire for her was too strong. It had burned away his willpower.
Until he pressed against her, unable to enter. A sharp pang of frustration made him stop, and he panted softly.
He breathed in low, ragged gasps, kissing her beside the ear, his breathing heavier than before.
“Does it hurt?”
Before she could answer, he thrust hard again without warning, forcing her body open.
Both of them stiffened slightly. He had only just torn through the first barrier. Zhaozhao was as though she had been propped up and held over a fire, surrounded by yellow sand scorched beneath the blazing sun, his arms wrapped around her body. In the distance, one wild beast after another appeared, watching the two living creatures before them with hungry eyes. Tremors rippled through her body, layer upon layer.
Amid the chaos of his desire, he brushed the tip of his nose along her cheek and past her ear.
“Call me.”
He bit her earlobe, grinding the thin, delicate flesh between his teeth.
“Call me Shen Ce.”
The sting in her earlobe gradually turned into a burning pain, until it swelled with a sensation she could no longer distinguish as pain or itch.
He suddenly thrust in with brutal force, driving all the way in at once. The person beneath him cried out involuntarily, yet still called him “ge.”
Shen Ce did not move again. The two of them remained in that position on the quilt.
Something had been wrong from the moment he carried her to the bed. He had tried again and again to make himself let her go, but he had failed. Wanting her was not the problem. He wanted to hurt her. Shen Ce was tearing himself apart, struggling against himself. He did not dare move even an inch, afraid that the overwhelming pleasure of his own body would make him lose all control...
He tightened his grip on her arm and struggled to pull away.
“Get dressed...” His voice grew increasingly hoarse, almost pleading. “Quickly.”
Their eyes met.
There was a wildfire in his eyes, but also the shadow of blades sharp enough to cut anything that came too close. She jolted back to her senses, tears still hanging on her face, and hurriedly slipped out from beneath him. She ran to the floor beside the bed to look for his trousers and shirt, then helped him put them on, at least enough to cover him.
After learning the truth of his condition, all his strange behavior finally made sense. She was no longer the person she had been back then. Now she understood that he was afraid of losing control of his emotions because he was afraid of hurting her.
“Should I ask Shen Yan to come in?” She put on her shirt, but had no mind to finish buttoning it before pulling her sweater over it.
She raised her eyelashes and saw that he was staring at her.
“I originally,” he said in a low voice, “wanted to wait until we had our wedding ceremony.”
A proper marriage, solemnly arranged and publicly recognized, followed by a bridal chamber on their wedding night.
Seeing that he was talking nonsense, Zhaozhao grew even more flustered.
“Yes, we had the ceremony,” she continued to go along with him. “Look, the bridal chamber is already prepared.”
Shen Ce said nothing. He leaned against the headboard, his gaze resting on her as though gathering her into it.
She wiped her face clean, then tried sitting down beside the bed and gently took his hand.
“Ge, I'm very happy. We don't need a wedding ceremony.”
“When you were thirteen, the next time I saw you, you were standing beside the waterside pavilion, watching the falling leaves.” Shen Ce held her hand, too. After a long silence, he said, “There was a beautiful woman...”
There was a rare tenderness in his voice as he said it.
There was a beautiful woman, graceful and fair. By chance, I met her, and she suited my heart's desire.
She had read those lines before. He was praising her beauty, saying she had captivated him at first sight. She liked the poem, too, especially its final line: By chance, I met you, and together we found our happiness.
Together we found our happiness. How beautiful that sounded.
Zhaozhao hugged him.
“Ge, this is the first time you've told me I'm pretty.”
Shen Ce smiled, though even he might not have known what he was smiling about.
She must have been thirteen at the Shen residence. He was confused. There had been no falling leaves. It had been summer.
The intimacy they had just shared came back to her mind. There was no hiding the tenderness that lingered after her first experience of physical intimacy with a man, and she did not want to hide it anyway. He was calm now, after all. She would hold him for a little while first.
Shen Yan and she took turns staying upstairs with him.
Zhaozhao told herself not to dwell on things. She had already prepared herself mentally, so she needed to face this calmly. Otherwise, how was she supposed to get through each day from now on? Was she going to spend every day weeping? That would not do. With such a poor state of mind, she would not be able to take care of him.
She suddenly felt grateful that she had not been by his side over the past three years. Given how young she had been back then, if she had faced him when he was never fully lucid, she would surely have cried every day, and her own mental state would have suffered, too. She really ought to thank Heaven and his mother for giving her time to study and grow up.
Even so, she remained distracted as she made arrangements for the guest rooms with the household auntie.
After dinner, Liang Jinshan chatted with Zhaozhao, and their conversation eventually turned to financial management. There were plenty of people like Liang Jinshan in Zhaozhao's family, people who received a fixed monthly allowance of tens of thousands from their family trusts. They worked in all sorts of professions, but everyone needed to learn how to manage money and make money generate more money.
Back then, to train her, her mother had handed over the management of her personal assets to Zhaozhao when she turned eighteen. Her mother neither interfered nor asked questions. If Zhaozhao made money, she would pay her as she would a financial adviser. Zhaozhao had earned her mother quite a lot, and she had made a considerable income for herself, too.
When Liang Jinshan heard that Zhaozhao liked buying real estate, she mentioned that she had been thinking of buying property herself, so the two chatted a little longer. Zhaozhao recommended several places and showed her properties in Tokyo, which could preserve their value while serving as places to stay during holidays or for personal use.
“They'd also be good for running a minsu. You can have an agency manage everything, so you won't have to worry about a thing.”
A minsu (民宿) is a privately owned and family-run guesthouse, bed-and-breakfast, or farmstay.
She also recommended several cities with rapid economic growth or favorable immigration policies, such as Toronto, New York, and Shanghai, as investment options. A strong economy meant a high population density, and favorable immigration policies meant the population would grow, too. With more people, there was naturally less risk of property prices falling.
Zhaozhao was grateful for how much they cared for Shen Ce, so she made her recommendations with care. She was even willing to give up the properties she had wanted to buy herself so they could have them first. She also promised to prepare a detailed written list of recommendations before she left.
The child went to bed early, and Liang Jinshan accompanied him to their bedroom well ahead of time.
She sat on the dark-colored carpet, her face buried in her folded arms, watching the firelight. She was worried.
Footsteps approached.
“Even the Along the River During the Qingming Festival wallpaper is the same. Someone really put thought into this.” It was Shen Yan.
“Is he better?” She scrambled to her feet from the carpet, delighted.
“He's asleep. You could strip him naked right now, and he wouldn't know. It doesn't matter if you wake him, either. He's been sleeping too much.”
She smiled and shot Shen Yan a glare. “Making fun of an elder. Where are your family values?”
“You two have nothing to do with family values.”
Her thoughts had already flown to the room. Ignoring Shen Yan, she hurried toward the stairs.
“Zhaozhao.” The person behind her called her to a halt.
After seeing the bedroom's decor, Shen Yan had decided to tell her something.
“Shen Ce drew up a will.”
She stopped on the stairs and looked at Shen Yan by the light of the wall lamp.
“After he came of age, he received the family assets belonging to the senior branch of the Shen family, as well as all the assets of his mother's family. He left everything to you.”
“That was while you were in Macau.”
Resting one hand on the dark brown banister, she picked at the wood with her fingers. In the end, she nodded to Shen Yan and went upstairs. After taking two steps, she stopped and said earnestly, “I'm sleeping with him tonight.”
This time, Zhaozhao locked the bedroom door.
The room had been tidied up. It had been in disarray before. The soundproofing was good. When she had moved in, she had soundproofed every room, so neither she nor Liang Jinshan downstairs would be disturbed. But she had arranged all the furnishings herself, and no change, however small, would escape her notice.
Shen Ce lay on his side among the bedding, fast asleep, his eyes closed. His arm rested outside the quilt, emerging from the sleeve of his white short-sleeved shirt. It was very thin. All the muscle in his upper arm was gone. Zhaozhao crouched down and studied the ridge of his brow, the bridge of his nose, and the curve of his chin.
Although many people complimented her, Zhaozhao had never thought herself particularly beautiful. She had never told anyone that she had once seen a young man at the flower cake shop. Now that was a face of breathtaking beauty.
Someone who had taken his medication would not wake easily.
She tucked the edge of the quilt around him. The room was very warm, and she had done it unconsciously. Once she was finished, she reconsidered and pulled the quilt loose again, afraid he might get too hot.
She stared at Shen Ce's face for what felt like a century.
“It's fine if you don't wake up. You can just be Sleeping Beauty.”
After saying this, she smiled again.
She hurried to the bathroom and took out a dark green glass bottle. Squeezing a little white lotion onto her fingertips, she carefully applied it to the scar on the bridge of his nose. It was the scar treatment she used regularly. When they had gone to pay their respects to their ancestors, she had even asked Shen Ce if he wanted to use some, only to be laughed at by him and a group of male cousins. If he had listened to her and used it back then, who knew how much fainter the scar might have become?
As she continued applying it, she remembered the scars on his thighs, below his waist. She lifted the quilt, intending to apply the treatment there, too.
The moment she touched the bedding, she realized something was wrong. Her entire attention had been on him, and she had not noticed that the duvet cover had been removed. It wasn't in the bathroom. She searched everywhere, only to discover that Shen Ce had stuffed everything into the wardrobe. Even the bedspread was there. Everything that had been stained with blood was hidden away.
She had not been embarrassed at first. It had all happened too quickly, almost as though it hadn't been real. But seeing the things he had carefully hidden away, she finally began to process what had happened. She stood dazed in front of the wardrobe for quite some time, suddenly feeling awkward all over.
Thinking about it, he was silly, too. When Shen Yan had come upstairs, Shen Ce had already been acting strangely. If there had been anything to see, Shen Yan must have seen it already.
If Shen Ce waited until he woke up to do all this, Shen Yan would have to pretend not to know...
That night, she held him in her arms and slept soundly.
She woke because the person in her arms moved.
Zhaozhao had turned over countless times in her dreams before finally finding the strength to open her eyes again. He was still asleep.
She touched his face. “Are you awake?”
Afraid, she felt for the pulse beneath his neck. It was still there.
He caught her hand in his, and her heart settled back into place.
At last, the eyes beneath his lashes opened, and the two of them looked directly at each other. In the depths of his dark eyes, there she was.
Before he opened his eyes, Zhaozhao had guessed that he had probably forgotten what happened yesterday. Now, looking at him, she realized that he was wondering the same thing.
The man who always acted swiftly and decisively, who struck harder with every move in the boxing ring, had a hesitant, indecisive side to him, too.
She pressed her lips together in a smile and burrowed into his arms.
“Don't think about it anymore. It was real.”
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