Shen Wu was gone.
As the door closed behind him, Jiang Nuan’s peripheral vision was helplessly drawn to the floor.
That damned belt lay glaringly beside her feet, the most conspicuous blot of black in her pale, miserable life at that moment.
She kicked it away.
The belt slid into the shadows beneath the bed.
Out of sight, out of mind.
But Lu Shiyan clearly wasn’t blind.
He still wore his uniform jacket. His shoulders were drawn taut, and the fingers hanging at his sides silently curled and relaxed.
Then he walked over.
Jiang Nuan instinctively swallowed and retreated farther into the corner of the bay window, until her back pressed against the chilly glass.
Lu Shiyan approached, braced one knee against the edge of the window seat, and leaned over her. His fingers clamped directly around her chin and tilted her face upward.
His touch was anything but gentle.
“Getting bold, are we?”
His fingers rubbed heavily across her cheek.
“You played so wild, and you still had the nerve to take that map and try to fool me with him?”
Snowlight from outside fell across his face. There was little emotion in his eyes, yet they still made her heart turn cold.
“Then why don’t you tell me what exactly you two were doing just now when you said you were ‘dissipating heat’?”
Under his stare, Jiang Nuan’s scalp prickled and her heart pounded.
Based on what she knew of Lu Shiyan, if she stubbornly denied everything now, she would definitely suffer for it.
This captain, who possessed an overwhelming need for control, hated nothing more than having things slip beyond his grasp.
She decisively lowered her lashes, reached out, and lightly tugged at Lu Shiyan’s sleeve, giving it two little shakes.
“Lu Shiyan~” She deliberately drew out the last syllable. “I was just arguing with him. I was angry and wanted to scare him a little. I didn’t do anything.”
Whatever happened, staying alive was what mattered. She had used this trick before, and it had seemed to work fairly well.
But this time…
The fingers gripping her chin did not loosen. They tightened instead, forcing her head even farther back.
“Scared him all the way into bed?”
Jiang Nuan sighed inwardly.
Apparently, he had no intention of letting her off lightly today…
She stopped struggling to make up excuses. Lowering her eyes, she remained perfectly still and waited for the storm.
She waited for his usual forceful pressure, waited for him to issue an order in his capacity as captain—one she would have no choice but to obey.
But all she heard was an almost inaudible sigh. The hand gripping her chin released her.
His fingers slid down along her cheek, his palm moving slowly beside her ear and into her long hair, finally coming to rest against her back in what was almost a soothing gesture.
Jiang Nuan was completely stunned.
“I’ve tolerated their closeness.”
His hoarse voice came from above her.
“I have to tolerate them coming near you.”
A long, long silence followed.
It lasted so long that Jiang Nuan thought he would say nothing more.
“But when I take off this shell of a captain…”
His palm tightened slightly, drawing her into his arms. His chin rested against the crown of her head.
“I’m really just an ordinary man.”
Jiang Nuan’s entire face was pressed against his hard, warm chest. She smelled his familiar, clean scent—and the unmistakable trace of blood.
“So, Jiang Nuan…”
His voice trembled faintly.
“Don’t be so cruel to me right in front of my eyes.”
Jiang Nuan froze completely.
“At least… don’t let me see it with my own eyes.” His arms tightened around her.
“Next time…”
His voice dropped even lower.
“I can’t guarantee I’ll still be able to maintain the rationality of a captain like I did today.”
…
……
Wait.
What was Lu Shiyan doing?
Was he showing weakness?
Was he playing the emotional card?!
Why did it sound as though Jiang Nuan were some heartless, adulterous scumbag who had abandoned her husband and gone wild outside, while he was the pitiful rightful husband who had caught her in the act?
In just a few words—
He had claimed the moral high ground.
He had claimed the victim’s position.
He had even thrown out the absurd line, “I’m just an ordinary man.”
And had she made him see it?
No! He had forced his way in!
Besides…
Who was the one who had pressed her into this position in the first place?
Whose hands had pushed her toward everyone else, treating her ability as a tool to maintain their combat strength?
Now he was telling her he was “just an ordinary man”?
Now he was telling her she was “cruel”?
A fury that nearly burned straight through her chest surged up inside her.
“…You’re saying I’m cruel to you?”
Her voice rose as her fingers clenched hard around the fabric of Lu Shiyan’s uniform over his chest.
“What about me?”
She lifted her head and glared at him.
“Who was it that trapped me in this cruel situation?”
Lu Shiyan fell silent.
He lowered his head, his gaze settling on the hand gripping the front of his uniform.
Then he reached out and slowly pried her fingers loose, gathering her hand into his palm.
“It was me.”
His warm fingers closed around her entire hand.
“If I had to make the choice again, I would still make the same one.”
Jiang Nuan instinctively tried to pull her hand back.
She couldn’t.
His five fingers closed around hers without much force, yet she simply couldn’t break free.
Her nose stung terribly.
“You said it was a transaction back then.” Her voice trembled. “You said I would trade my ability for your protection.”
She stared at their joined hands, her vision beginning to blur.
“Then what gives you the right to say these things to me… from that position?”
How could he act as both the judge and the victim?
He did not answer. He merely remained silent.
For so long that Jiang Nuan thought the subject would be brushed aside just like this.
“I’m not a good person, Jiang Nuan.”
When he finally spoke, the chin resting against her head tightened, as though he were suppressing his emotions.
His chest rose and fell heavily several times before gradually settling.
“I’m not afraid of you hating me.”
His fingers gently rubbed the back of her hand.
“But even if you hate me, you can only stay here.”
The instant those words landed, Jiang Nuan trembled with rage.
She yanked her hand free and shoved him hard.
Her palm struck his solid chest, using every ounce of strength and fury in her body.
Lu Shiyan stood there and let her push him away. He merely lowered his eyes to look at her, his expression so calm that it held not the slightest ripple.
There was even a faint hint of… acceptance, as though she could hit or curse him however she wanted.
“I can’t change that.”
His voice was as light as a sigh, more as though he were speaking to himself.
“But if you keep hiding things from me, keep trying to fool me…”
He raised his hand again, his broad palm stroking up and down her back.
“I’ll do something worse than what I did today.”
Jiang Nuan trembled even more violently, her reason finally shattering.
She thrust out her foot and stomped down hard.
Her shoe ground viciously over the top of Lu Shiyan’s boot, carrying all her strength and fury.
Though that amount of force meant little to him.
Lu Shiyan lowered his head and glanced at her childish act of retaliation.
The next second, Jiang Nuan felt an arm tighten around her waist.
The moment both her feet left the floor, she instinctively began to struggle. She drove her knee upward with all her strength and slammed it into him.
Lu Shiyan did not stop moving for even an instant. With effortless ease, he lifted her entire body and set her on the edge of the bay window.
Then his tall frame leaned over her.
He planted both hands on either side of her body, his palms pressing hard against the edge of the window seat.
His powerful arms closed in, forming an inescapable cage.
Jiang Nuan was completely trapped in that tiny, confined space, her back pressed against the glass and his hard chest in front of her.
All her struggles had been restrained. She could not move.
She tilted her head up and met those deep, fathomless eyes, dark currents roiling within them.
She could clearly see her own reflection in his pupils—small, curled into herself, trembling with anger, the corners of her eyes red.
Every disguise and every ounce of restraint finally snapped. The tears she could no longer control began to spill.
She bit down hard on her lower lip, the taste of blood spreading across the tip of her tongue.
Tears continued to slide down her cheeks from her tightly shut eyes.
“Captain wants to get into bed, is that it?”
Her voice trembled so badly that the words nearly broke apart.
“Then go ahead.”
She drew a breath, but it shattered into a sob in her throat.
“Standing or sitting, I don’t care.”
Large tears fell one after another, striking her knees and the back of his hand.
“That’s all you want anyway.”
The air seemed to freeze.
Lu Shiyan went rigid.
The hand gripping her waist tightened for a moment, then suddenly released her as if burned.
It stopped in midair, as though he no longer knew where to put it.
The room was so quiet that they could hear the wind outside, scraping across the glass and letting out one monotonous whine after another.
“…Is that how you see me?”
His voice had dropped an entire register, hoarse and low. The arm braced beside her trembled faintly.
Lu Shiyan stared at her tightly shut eyes, watching the tears continue to pour from them.
He had heard countless people beg for mercy.
In interrogation rooms, suspects would cry and shout, “I’ll confess everything.”
During combat missions, opponents would plead, “Let me go.”
In restricted zones, desperate people would kneel on the ground, kowtowing as they begged for help.
Not once had anything made him feel so breathless as this.
What did she take him for?
What he wanted was not this. What he wanted—what he had wanted—was for her to come to him of her own accord.
Jiang Nuan’s words struck Lu Shiyan’s mind, leaving it blank for a moment.
Then came a sensation he had never experienced before—something close to physical nausea.
Nausea at himself.
He had done nothing. He only reached out and slowly freed her bitten lower lip from between her teeth.
Jiang Nuan’s lashes trembled.
Her tears fell even harder, rolling down to strike his knuckles.
Why was he acting like this now? Pretending.
There was a trace of blood on Lu Shiyan’s fingertip. He stared at the smear of red for two seconds.
Then—
“Beep, beep, beep—”
The communications device on Lu Shiyan’s wrist began to ring.
The urgent alert shattered the stagnant silence in the room.
Lu Shiyan closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath. Then he straightened and stepped back half a pace.
When he opened his eyes again, all trace of the loss of control had vanished.
He had become the Zero Squad Captain once more—the man who was always perfectly rational and always in complete control.
He tapped the terminal. His voice was calm, without the slightest hint of warmth.
“Report.”
Qinian’s loud, carefree voice came through the communicator.
“Captain, while searching Area A, we found a Cleaner squad. We managed to keep their leader alive.”
“He’s already restrained. We’ll have him brought to you shortly.”
After a pause, Qinian added in an innocent yet malicious tone,
“Oh, right. Shen Wu specifically told me not to mention that he was the one who urged me to call you first and tell you about this.”
“I didn’t let it slip, did I?” Qinian drawled. “Or… did I interrupt something, Captain?”
