The silence in the greenhouse stretched on for a long time.
Bai Siyuan stood by the flower bed, his body angled away from her.
Sunlight filtered through the glass, casting a warm glow across his pale face.
After a few seconds, Bai Siyuan let out a soft laugh.
There was an openness in that smile—a “since you asked, I’ll tell you” kind of candor.
“I rallied the Federation to pressure the Command Council,” he said, lifting his eyes to meet hers. “The paperwork and that compromise agreement—they weren’t the Bai family’s doing. They were mine.”
He paused.
“But if I hadn’t used those tactics, they would have kept you under their control forever. You never would have been able to come home.”
“A Nuan, everything I do is for your own good.”
It was a masterful move on Bai Siyuan’s part.
First, he offers up what looks like a sincere confession—admitting his selfishness—so she believes he’s being transparent, letting her guard drop. Then the bigger secrets can stay hidden behind that same “for your own good” excuse.
A textbook case of emotional manipulation.
Jiang Nuan met his gaze, her tone flat. “And how many more of these ‘for your own good’ surprises are you still carrying?”
Her fingers absently twisted the stem of the rose in her hand.
A tiny thorn pricked her fingertip—a sharp, faint sting that sharpened her focus.
This line of questioning was over.
Bai Siyuan wasn’t a man who could be pried open with a few words. Someone who climbed from an orphan in the refugee district to the core of the Bai family in just a few years—every word he spoke had likely been rehearsed a hundred times in his head.
If today he’d really been cracked open by a few sentences from her, that would have been nothing short of a miracle.
She placed the flower back on the flower bed.
Bai Siyuan’s gaze followed the rose as it came to rest on the surface. His lips moved faintly, as if he wanted to say something.
But before he could speak—
Click.
The greenhouse door slid open.
A wave of cold outside air rushed in, cutting through the cloying sweetness of the flowers.
Ye Que’s boots struck the floor, each step drawing closer.
His eyes swept past Bai Siyuan first, then landed on Jiang Nuan.
“Twenty minutes are up.”
Bai Siyuan smiled, leaning back against the flower bed with an easy posture. “Mr. Ye is nothing if not punctual.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” Jiang Nuan said, turning to face Bai Siyuan with a curved smile. “Brother, we’ll head back to the room, then.”
Ye Que’s hand extended naturally.
Fingers spread, palm facing up, waiting quietly.
She placed her hand in his, and his fingers closed around it, wrapping her entire hand in his palm.
Bai Siyuan had claimed he saw through their act.
But she hadn’t admitted anything.
The observer’s file recorded their relationship in black and white. As long as she never said otherwise, the paper-thin barrier remained intact.
Without evidence, a suspicion was just a theory.
Their two figures disappeared through the greenhouse door, one after the other.
Behind them, the glass door slid shut, sealing out the cold air.
The greenhouse returned to its sealed, humid warmth.
Bai Siyuan stood still, his gaze passing through the transparent glass wall, watching the two walk farther and farther down the corridor.
His eyes finally settled on their intertwined hands.
He paused for a moment.
Then he looked down at the rose Jiang Nuan had left on the flower bed. A single spot of dark red blood stained one petal.
Her blood.
He reached out and picked up the flower. His fingers tightened slowly.
The stem snapped in his palm, silent and soundless.
On the way back to the bedroom, Jiang Nuan’s hand remained held in Ye Que’s, fingers laced together.
From an outsider’s perspective, they walked side by side, intimate and natural.
But her mind was racing, replaying the conversation.
Bai Siyuan saw through the disguise.
Simple reason: he knew her too well—and he knew the current version of her.
He had a full analytical system for understanding her.
Jiang Nuan lowered her eyes, staring at the hand clasped in Ye Que’s.
Until this problem was solved, every second inside the Bai estate was exposed.
At the end of the corridor, the bedroom door came into view.
Ye Que released one hand to push the door open, stepping aside to let her enter first.
Once they were both inside, the door clicked shut behind them, closing off all outside eyes.
Immediately, Jiang Nuan pulled her hand free from Ye Que’s and stepped back.
“Bai Siyuan figured it out. That we’re faking it.”
Ye Que didn’t look surprised.
He leaned against the door, arms crossed over his chest, eyes lowered toward her.
The afternoon light couldn’t fully pierce the curtains; a single beam slipping through the gap slanted across half his face. The play of light and shadow cut cleanly across his brow, leaving his eyes buried in shade—unreadable.
“What did he say?”
“...When you got close to me,” Jiang Nuan paused, “he said my body had an instinctive flinch reaction.”
The room was silent for a beat.
Silent enough that she could hear her own heartbeat.
“Was he right?” Ye Que asked.
Jiang Nuan’s back stiffened.
“...Yes.”
She didn’t deny it.
“I can’t control that reaction,” she said, staring at the floor. “My body instinctively stays guarded against anyone who gets near. You, Bai Siyuan—everyone, all the same.”
She was lying.
Not everyone, exactly.
But she wasn’t about to explain that right now.
Ye Que didn’t call her out.
He pushed off the door and took a step forward.
Jiang Nuan didn’t move.
He took another step.
This one was slower than the last.
Slow enough that it felt deliberately like he was giving her room to back away.
The distance between them shrank to less than an arm’s length.
Jiang Nuan could smell him—the clean scent of soap and the gunpowder that never washed out.
Her shoulders tensed involuntarily.
Ye Que’s gaze dropped, landing on the tight line of her shoulders.
He saw it. The light in his eyes dimmed for a fraction of a second.
“You do have an instinctive flinch response to me.”
His voice dropped lower.
Jiang Nuan said nothing. She wanted to step back, but her body didn’t obey.
That contradictory reaction again.
Ye Que’s right hand lifted—slow, restrained.
His fingers spread slightly, pausing less than an inch above her shoulder.
It didn’t drop.
His hand hovered there, like a motion frozen mid-frame.
Jiang Nuan could feel the warmth of his palm radiating through the air, settling onto her tense shoulder.
So close that if she breathed just a little deeper, she would brush against his fingertips.
She held her breath.
He seemed to hold his, too.
The room was filled with nothing but heartbeats—hers, his, tangled together, impossible to tell which was faster.
He was waiting. Waiting for her tensed shoulders to tell him the answer.
She couldn’t let her body make decisions for her anymore. She wanted to try and take control of that instinctive reaction.
Inch by inch, she let her shoulders relax.
Ye Que noticed. He didn’t pull his hand back.
His fingertips came down.
Feather-light.
Through the fabric, that faint warmth still burned into her skin.
Jiang Nuan’s lashes fluttered.
But she didn’t flinch away.
His fingers slid slowly from her shoulder down to her upper arm, settling there lightly—no pressure, just a loose grip.
A boundary he’d drawn that she could walk out of any time.
Ye Que’s gaze moved from her shoulder to her eyes.
He looked at her.
“Let’s try.”
He said.
“Let’s see if we can make that flinch reaction go away.”
The last syllable fell softly, almost a whisper.
