Knock knock—class is in session~
I secretly added 2,500 words to the second half of the previous chapter (Chapter 75)! (I added them around 5:20 p.m. on July 9, so if you read Chapter 75 after that, you don’t need to go back and reread it.)
For those who haven’t read it yet, remember to go back and read the second half!
Once you’re done, we’ll officially begin this chapter’s story. Let’s go!
*
A thought popped into Jiang Nuan’s head: Did Lu Shiyan have some serious misunderstanding about the concept of “creating an atmosphere”?
Beside a frozen lake, with temperatures well below freezing? The atmosphere was certainly there. So was the possibility of losing her life.
Lu Shiyan stood outside the car door, palm facing up, his fingers long and slender.
He didn’t urge her. He simply held out his hand in silence, waiting for her to make the decision herself.
Jiang Nuan sat in the car for a few seconds.
During those few seconds, her mind raced through several possibilities.
For example, was this temperature suitable for dancing? What dance steps could she possibly do while wearing a puffy down jacket that made her look like a white marshmallow?
And if she refused now, how would Lu Shiyan react?
But in the end, what she thought about was how Lu Shiyan had actually said that he was bothered by her feelings—and had even admitted, in a self-deprecating tone, that he was jealous of Lu Zhaoming.
Hearing those words from Lu Shiyan was about as absurd as seeing the sun rise in the west.
She pulled her hand out of her down jacket pocket and placed it in his palm.
His hand was a little cold, carrying the chill of the snowy night.
But his grip was steady.
Lu Shiyan gave her fingers a gentle tug, and she followed his lead out of the car.
The snow crunched beneath their feet as he led her a few steps toward the lakeshore, stopping on a patch of snow smoothed flat by the wind.
It was hard-packed snow along the shore, solid enough that she wouldn’t slip on it.
“You even scouted the place beforehand?” Jiang Nuan asked, incredulous.
“I happened to pass by and took a look.”
Fine. Whatever Captain Lu said was right. A man over six feet tall had happened to pass by a frozen lake and thought, This patch of snow is nice and level. Perfect for dancing.
Jiang Nuan glanced around.
The frozen lake stretched away to the left, while distant mountain ranges were blanketed in vast expanses of white snow.
It was incredibly vast.
Lu Shiyan had already released her hand. He took half a step back, turned slightly to the side, and extended his right hand toward her again.
A textbook invitation to dance.
Beside a frozen lake. Wearing a down jacket that bundled her up like a ball. Snow beneath her feet. The moon overhead.
The scene was absurd.
But honestly, if she ignored the temperature, it was also… beautiful.
She placed her right hand in his.
His left hand settled against her waist. Through that ridiculously puffy white down jacket, she could barely feel the pressure of it at all.
But she knew his hand was there.
Music began playing from inside the car.
Filtered through the closed door and the few feet of snow between them, the waltz was reduced to a faint melody drifting through the air.
Then he led her into the first step.
His stride was very small.
So small that Jiang Nuan felt it was completely unlike the stride a man of his height should have.
For a man over six feet tall to shorten his steps until she could follow without effort—that was deliberate.
He was adjusting to the length of her legs, the snow boots she was wearing that were completely unsuitable for dancing, and her dance skills, which could hardly be called proficient.
Afraid of stepping on him, she looked down at her feet.
“Don’t look down.” Lu Shiyan’s voice came from above her.
It sounded completely different from the way he usually spoke. Now, he sounded simply like a guide offering her a gentle instruction.
Jiang Nuan raised her head and met his gaze.
That face.
Moonlight fell across his brow and the bridge of his nose, sharpening his features into clean, striking lines.
And yet his eyes lacked their usual cold scrutiny of the world. Instead, there was something she had never seen before—a certain looseness, a little more relaxed than usual…
Fine. He was handsome. Far too handsome.
As Jiang Nuan followed Lu Shiyan’s rhythm, the captions scrolling through her mind began to flood the screen.
【From a purely visual perspective, I’m not losing out here.】
【I’ll just consider it an eye spa.】
【If Lu Shiyan doesn’t speak or put pressure on anyone, and just stands there looking pretty, he’s actually not bad.】
【I recommend he stay like this from now on, thank you.】
And because she was too busy admiring that face, which was especially compelling beneath the moonlight, her feet failed to keep up.
Her left foot went out at the wrong angle, and the solid sole of her boot landed squarely on the top of his foot.
“…”
Jiang Nuan froze. “I’m sorry.”
Lu Shiyan gave a soft laugh.
It was a rare reaction from him—one that showed he had genuinely been pleased.
Then he lowered his head and leaned a little closer to her.
She could even feel his breath brush against the stray hairs at her forehead.
“Like what you see?” His voice was low, the end of the question lifting slightly.
He obviously already knew the answer.
Jiang Nuan’s ears grew warm.
But she didn’t instinctively deny it the way she usually would.
Perhaps she had already been too honest tonight. She had even admitted, “I’m genuinely afraid of you.” Her honesty meter had already maxed out.
One more confession shouldn’t matter, right?
“Mm.” She nodded.
For once, the leader missed half a beat.
It seemed he hadn’t expected her to admit it so directly.
Jiang Nuan pressed her advantage. “A face this good would be wasted if I didn’t look at it. Any objections?”
She felt like she had already thrown caution to the wind.
The hand Lu Shiyan had placed against her waist tightened slightly. “None. You can keep looking.”
Normally, that would have been an incredibly flirtatious thing to say. But his tone was so calm, as if he were genuinely making her a promise.
That left Jiang Nuan momentarily speechless.
Lu Shiyan guided her into a turn, his steps still unhurried.
Whenever she stepped onto an uneven patch of snow and her balance shifted, the hand at her waist would tighten, steadying her, before easing back to its original pressure.
“Are you still afraid of me?” Lu Shiyan’s voice drifted to her through the faint music.
Jiang Nuan didn’t answer immediately.
Her gaze passed over his shoulder and landed on the frozen lake before them.
The moon spread across the entire surface of the ice, while snow and moonlight enclosed everything beneath the sky.
There were no walls, no bay windowsills, no cramped corners that would leave her with nowhere to retreat.
And the person standing before her was unusually different tonight.
He had said absurd things, like that she couldn’t strangle her eight-year-old self. He hadn’t forced her into surrender with relentless questions, nor pushed her to her limits with the pressure of silence.
He had simply brought her here, to dance a slow dance in the very center of this vast world.
Jiang Nuan bit her lip and told the truth anyway.
“I have no way of not being afraid of you.”
She couldn’t offer such a cheap forgiveness.
She shifted her gaze from the lake back to him. “But right now, at this moment… I think it’s a little better.”
The moment she finished speaking, she regretted it.
What kind of answer was that? It sounded like she was giving a progress report on her emotional state to her boss, her status bar having crawled from zero to three percent.
Fortunately, Lu Shiyan didn’t press her.
He didn’t ask questions like “How much better?” or “Only a little?” He didn’t apply pressure the way he usually did.
He led her through two more steps.
“I’m happy, Jiang Nuan.”
His voice held the genuine satisfaction of someone who had received the answer he wanted.
“Be honest with me.” His voice dropped lower. “That’s something you never need to hesitate over.”
“You can be honest about every feeling you have.”
