Cheng Mingjiao had been crying for half an hour and was still sobbing.
This was also the first time Zhang Xiyue had realized that the Emperor, who always appeared so aloof and invincible, could actually cry this much.
She tried comforting him again and again, but nothing worked. Several times, she accidentally said the wrong thing and made him shed even bigger tears.
His eyes were swollen nearly shut, yet he remained sunk in his grief, unable to pull himself out. In the end, Zhang Xiyue had no choice but to tell him, “I only think of Little Ming as a younger brother. I don’t like him that way.”
“...You’d actually say something like that just to defend him?” Cheng Mingjiao’s voice was completely hoarse, thick with pain. “Do you take me for a three-year-old you can fool?”
Zhang Xiyue felt utterly helpless. “It’s true. If you don’t believe me, I can swear on my parents’ lives.”
Mom and Dad, I’m sorry. These past two days have really been hard on you.
The moment Cheng Mingjiao heard her mention her parents, his ears twitched, but he still looked doubtful. “You barely know him. Why do you treat him like a younger brother?”
Zhang Xiyue said, “Uh... fate?”
That reason clearly failed to convince Cheng Mingjiao. Instead, it became further evidence that Zhang Xiyue was lying again.
“You’re lying to me. You lied to me again. You’re always lying to me. Now you’ve even dragged your parents into it just to fool me...”
Cheng Mingjiao’s voice trembled, and he began breathing too quickly. “You’re living with the Counterfeit, eating the food he cooks, acting as his strategist, teaching him how to build his career, and you even hit him! You’ve done so much for him, yet you’re lying to me and saying you don’t like him—”
Before he could finish, Zhang Xiyue suddenly reached out and covered his mouth and nose.
Cheng Mingjiao kissed her palm again.
Zhang Xiyue: “...”
Cheng Mingjiao came back to himself. Thinking she had lost her temper and was about to smother him to death, he immediately burst into tears again.
Zhang Xiyue: “...”
She had a feeling he had just imagined something absolutely outrageous.
She let out a soft breath and coaxed him in a low voice. “Calm down. Slow your breathing...”
Cheng Mingjiao silently looked at her. Beneath his swollen eyelids, his tea-colored eyes looked like pearls soaked in water.
A little pitiful. A little aggrieved.
Only after the breathing against her palm had steadied did she let go of him.
Cheng Mingjiao stopped sobbing, but the tears kept falling, as though he intended to cry himself blind.
Zhang Xiyue sighed. “I really don’t have romantic feelings for him. I’m staying at his place because his mental state isn’t very good, and I need to keep an eye on him up close. But we sleep in separate rooms, one upstairs and one downstairs, and we’ve never done anything beyond the boundaries of friendship.”
Cheng Mingjiao bit down on a soft patch of flesh inside his lip, considering how much of what she said was true.
“As for why I’m so good to him...” Zhang Xiyue couldn’t tell him the real reason, so she could only force out an explanation. “It’s because I’m an only child. Ever since I was little, I’ve wanted a younger brother. Don’t you ever wish you had a younger brother or sister?”
As soon as she said it, she remembered that he had a cousin, Lu Shuang, and quickly added, “I mean a biological one.”
Cheng Mingjiao actually thought about it for a moment before answering, “When I was six, I asked my mother to give me a puppy. She said she couldn’t give birth to any living creature other than a human infant, and she cruelly refused me.”
Mentioning this made him indignant. “She could have bought a puppy, rented a hospital, and hired a group of professional actors to put on a performance of giving birth to a puppy. That would have fulfilled my wish. Instead, she chose the most ruthless way to crush my innocent childhood.”
Zhang Xiyue: “...”
“It was from that moment on that I became disappointed in humanity. Then I met you...” Cheng Mingjiao took a deep breath, and his breathing began to tremble again. “I never imagined you would disappoint me even more.”
Zhang Xiyue: “...”
Did Auntie know he had just dumped such a huge burden on her?
She pinched the bridge of her nose and forcibly steered the conversation back on track. “Anyway, I don’t like Chen Mingjiao. So stop crying over this, all right?”
Cheng Mingjiao sniffed and gave her a resentful look. “What does it matter whether you like him or not? You don’t like me anyway.”
Zhang Xiyue smiled. “Since it doesn’t matter, then I’ll just go ahead and like him...”
“No!” Cheng Mingjiao cut her off angrily, his eyes reddening again.
Zhang Xiyue was genuinely afraid he might cry himself sick, so she quickly gave in. “I was only saying it. Don’t cry.”
Cheng Mingjiao gave a little huff.
Zhang Xiyue didn’t dare say anything else. One of them sat on the kitchen counter while the other stood in front of it. They were so close that the slightest movement would make them brush against each other.
During the long silence, Zhang Xiyue suddenly realized that her pajama pants were still halfway down. Her smooth, pale thighs and underwear were exposed to the air.
...She had spent more than thirty minutes comforting Cheng Mingjiao in that state.
The sensation of his touch seemed to linger on her body. Heat rose to Zhang Xiyue’s face. She wanted to pull up her pants, but she was afraid that making too much noise would draw Cheng Mingjiao’s attention and make the situation even more awkward.
After thinking for a few seconds, Zhang Xiyue took advantage of Cheng Mingjiao’s distraction, lowered her head, and quietly shifted her hips to pull on her pants.
It was nothing more than the simple act of pulling up her pants, yet she somehow took a full two minutes to do it. Just as she finally managed to get them on and was about to breathe a sigh of relief, a husky voice came from above her head.
“Big Sister.”
“...Hm?”
Zhang Xiyue looked up in confusion and met Cheng Mingjiao’s deliberately solemn yet awkward gaze. She parted her lips, but suddenly found herself with nothing to say.
She really hadn’t expected him to compete over even this.
When she didn’t respond, Cheng Mingjiao called out again. “Big Sister.”
Zhang Xiyue: “...”
The only words he said were those two. The words he left unspoken included: “I’ve already called you Big Sister and fulfilled your wish to be a big sister, so you can’t be so nice to Chen Mingjiao anymore, okay? Otherwise, I’ll cry and cry and cry.”
Cheng Mingjiao had an intelligent mind, a family background even more impressive than a protagonist’s, and countless relatives and friends who adored him.
A flawless life was bound to make him more direct and honest than most people. In the eyes of those who knew him, even when he deliberately took the long way around, his intentions could be seen through at a glance.
Sometimes, Zhang Xiyue felt that his blunt honesty was a little perverted when applied to certain matters. But when she saw him testing the waters so carefully with reddened eyes, she felt that perhaps she was pretty perverted herself.
Damn it. At that moment, she actually wanted to push him onto the bed and make him call her Big Sister a hundred times through his choked sobs.
“Zhang Xiyue, why aren’t you saying anything?” The grieving Emperor couldn’t stand being given the silent treatment.
Zhang Xiyue came back to herself and quickly jumped down from the counter. “Well... it’s getting late. Go back to bed.”
She turned to run, but Cheng Mingjiao was quick enough to grab her. He insisted on getting some kind of response. “I called you Big Sister!”
“Litt... little brother?” Zhang Xiyue answered in a fluster.
Cheng Mingjiao froze.
His original intention had been to satisfy her wish to be a big sister so that she would stop being so nice to Chen Mingjiao. But after hearing her call him “little brother”...
If they hadn’t broken up, it would have been wonderful. They could have gone back to the bedroom and played some very perverted games.
Cheng Mingjiao grew melancholy again.
Zhang Xiyue took the opportunity to yank her hand free and fled the kitchen.
By the time Cheng Mingjiao chased after her, the guest-room door had just closed, followed by the unmistakable sound of the lock turning.
He stood there quietly for a moment before returning to the upstairs bedroom alone.
Zhang Xiyue, who had been hiding in her room and eavesdropping, only slowly made her way back to bed after confirming that he had gone upstairs.
The instant she collapsed onto the mattress, she felt as exhausted as if she had climbed Mount Tai three times.
She kept her eyes closed. She was too lazy even to turn off the light and intended to sleep just like that.
Ten minutes later, the phone on the bed began to vibrate.
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
She didn’t want to answer, but the phone kept vibrating every now and then, so she had no choice but to pick it up and unlock it.
They were text messages.
[Zhang Xiyue, are you asleep?]
[Zhang Xiyue, my eyes really hurt.]
[Zhang Xiyue, I feel a little awful.]
[Zhang Xiyue, I can’t breathe very well. Am I having an allergic reaction?]
Zhang Xiyue felt as if she were hallucinating the hyperactive child from her friend’s house. After a long silence, she finally went upstairs.
Cheng Mingjiao was clutching his phone and was almost unable to resist going downstairs to find Zhang Xiyue when he suddenly heard movement outside the door.
He immediately threw himself onto the bed, hugged the blankets, and pretended to be asleep.
Zhang Xiyue came to the bedside. In the light from outside the door, she stared at him for several seconds before saying, “Sit up.”
Cheng Mingjiao silently sat up and saw that she was holding an ice pack wrapped in a towel in one hand and a glass of water in the other.
This was Zhang Xiyue at her most considerate.
Cheng Mingjiao felt like crying again. He suspected that his nervous system simply hadn’t yet recovered from its state of extreme excitement, and that his tear ducts were still secreting tears out of habit. That had to be why he was being so fragile.
Zhang Xiyue could also see that he was about to cry, so she immediately softened her tone. “Drink the water.”
“…Okay.”
Cheng Mingjiao tried to rub his eyes, but Zhang Xiyue stopped him with a look. He silently took the glass and drank it all in one go.
The water was exactly his preferred temperature—forty-five degrees—which only made him feel even more miserable.
Zhang Xiyue: “?”
Why did he have to cry over a glass of water?
She looked completely baffled, but she knew very well that when a child wanted to cry, one should pretend not to notice. Otherwise, he would just keep crying. So after he finished drinking, she told him to lie down.
Cheng Mingjiao obediently lay back. The next second, a soft towel covered his eyes.
Zhang Xiyue placed the ice pack over it and sat at his bedside, gently massaging his temples.
It was the first time they had been this close in more than two months.
He had always considered himself a staunch materialist. He believed that time should be measured strictly in seconds, minutes, and hours, rather than by personal perception.
Yet during the two months Zhang Xiyue had been gone, every day had still been twenty-four hours, every hour 3,600 seconds, every day 86,400 seconds.
And yet it felt as though he had spent eighty years alone—so long that his organs and skin had aged, his brain had begun to atrophy, and he could only cling to life with a dying body’s systems.
Only after she reappeared did the markings of time return to normal.
Cheng Mingjiao’s eyes felt hot, and his head was a little dizzy. He really wanted to hug her and burst into tears again.
But that would be immature and unimpressive. Judging by the standards women generally had for their partners, there was a good chance Zhang Xiyue wouldn’t like him if he did that.
So he simply lay there quietly.
Zhang Xiyue’s fingertips rubbed the acupoints on his temples. The ache that had plagued his head eased considerably. Though Cheng Mingjiao was lying on an expensive mattress, it felt as if he had drifted onto a restless sea.
The ocean stretched endlessly in every direction, and at its center there were only two people: him and Zhang Xiyue.
It was narrow and vast at the same time, filling him with a sense of contentment unlike anything he had ever known.
He had no idea how he eventually fell asleep. He only knew that when he woke, clear sunlight was already shining through the crack in the window, while the towel and ice pack had both been placed on the bedside table.
Cheng Mingjiao stared at the pillow beside him for a long time, but there was no sign that Zhang Xiyue had slept there.
Disappointed, he shuffled into the bathroom with a downcast expression—only to jump in fright at the sight of the swollen, pig-like face in the mirror.
Zhang Xiyue had prepared breakfast and reheated yesterday’s scallion-braised pork chops, but the person who was supposed to eat still hadn’t shown up.
Could something have happened to him?
Zhang Xiyue’s worry gradually grew. Just as she was about to go upstairs and check on him, someone appeared wearing sunglasses and a face mask.
“…Why are you all wrapped up like that?” she asked, puzzled.
Cheng Mingjiao: “I have a bit of an allergic reaction.”
Zhang Xiyue didn’t think much of it. “Have you taken your allergy medicine?”
“Yes,” Cheng Mingjiao mumbled.
Zhang Xiyue could tell in an instant that he was lying. She immediately went to get the medicine box.
As soon as he saw her move, Cheng Mingjiao hurriedly said, “Zhang Xiyue, I really have taken it already. You don’t need to get it.”
Zhang Xiyue ignored him, found the medicine, and insisted that he take it.
Cheng Mingjiao was torn.
He was delighted that Zhang Xiyue had gone out of her way to get medicine for him, but it was upsetting to be forced to take medicine when he wasn’t actually having an allergic reaction.
After agonizing over it for a while, he finally removed his mask and sunglasses, revealing his swollen face. “I cried too much yesterday, so I look kind of ugly. I didn’t want you to see me, so I lied.”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
Cheng Mingjiao somehow produced a small mirror and looked at his face again. He felt that although he was a little less handsome than usual, he could still beat a hundred Chen Mingjiaos, so he might as well show his face.
“Zhang Xiyue, do you want to watch a movie today?” he asked, changing the subject.
When he was shut indoors, simply looking at Zhang Xiyue was enough to satisfy him. But Zhang Xiyue probably didn’t want to spend all day looking at him, so he needed to provide a little extra entertainment.
Zhang Xiyue paused. She returned to the dining table, sat down, and took two bites of the scallion-braised pork chop before saying, “No. I still want to watch short videos.”
Cheng Mingjiao was too busy watching her eat the pork chop to pay much attention. He answered distractedly.
“But I’ve finished all the ones you downloaded for me yesterday.” Zhang Xiyue looked at him and took another bite under his watchful gaze.
The corners of Cheng Mingjiao’s lips were almost impossible to restrain. His entire body seemed to be floating on clouds. “It’s fine. I’ll save some more for you.”
“Downloading them will take time, and I want to watch them now.” Zhang Xiyue held her bowl and continued eating the pork chop. “Why don’t you connect me to the Wi-Fi? I can watch them myself.”
Cheng Mingjiao: “It won’t take any time. I have another phone, and I’ve already saved some videos on it for you.”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
“Should I get it for you now?” Cheng Mingjiao asked again.
Zhang Xiyue took a deep breath, put down her chopsticks, and walked away without another word.
Cheng Mingjiao looked bewildered. “Why aren’t you eating anymore?”
“I’m full!” Zhang Xiyue called back without turning around as she went into her room and locked the door again.
Cheng Mingjiao rubbed his nose, then glanced at the plate of pork chops. Two-thirds of them had already disappeared into her stomach.
Heh. She liked the food he made.
Inside the room, Zhang Xiyue clutched her stomach, full of pork chops, and punched her pillow hard.
She had no idea how Cheng Mingjiao had managed it. The phone he’d given her didn’t even have a SIM card, yet it could still exchange text messages with him.
But that was all it could do. As soon as she had returned the previous night, she had begun investigating and confirmed that, apart from calling and texting Cheng Mingjiao, the phone was no better than a thin brick.
Her hopes of contacting the outside world had been forcibly dashed. Zhang Xiyue rolled around on the bed twice before focusing her attention on the progress bar.
After she had been gone for more than thirty hours, the progress bar had dropped from 67 percent to 65 percent.
Although Chen Mingjiao had gained Grandma Zhao’s assistance, the Chen Corporation was still beset by threats from all sides. Without Zhang Xiyue’s guidance, he would probably have a very difficult time moving forward.
Once a person began to find things difficult, their enthusiasm would inevitably wane. The progress bar was proof of that.
She had to get out as soon as possible.
Zhang Xiyue let out a long breath. Just as she was lying there in a daze, Cheng Mingjiao’s voice came from outside the door.
“Really not going to watch a movie?”
Zhang Xiyue opened the door. “Let’s talk.”
Cheng Mingjiao: “…”
Zhang Xiyue was desperate to get out. Over the next few days, no matter how she tried to persuade him, Cheng Mingjiao remained completely unmoved. In her frustration, she punched him several times.
Cheng Mingjiao had an unusually high tolerance for being hit. After getting beaten up, he would even ask her whether it felt better to hit the Counterfeit or to hit him, leaving her utterly helpless.
Fortunately, after dropping intermittently to sixty-one percent, the progress bar stopped moving. Zhang Xiyue’s anxiety eased somewhat, and she began thinking about how to escape.
That was when she noticed the overflowing trash cans around the house.
Over the past few days, Cheng Mingjiao seemed to have unlocked some hidden potential. He did all the housework himself. Although he had been rather clumsy at first, he learned quickly and worked diligently. He kept the house spotless and had even learned to cook a few simple home-style dishes, causing the frequency with which Zhang Xiyue cooked to plummet.
His explanation was, “Before I started doing housework, I had no idea it was this annoying. It makes you want to throw the mop out the window every few minutes.”
Zhang Xiyue immediately seized the opportunity. “I told you that not everyone can handle forced love. Why don’t you just—”
“Now that I know how annoying it is, I shouldn’t have left it all to you before.” He sighed, looking somewhat melancholy. “No wonder you don’t like me, Zhang Xiyue. Was I really that inconsiderate before?”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
In any case, he did the housework so well that no one could find fault with it.
The problem was that the young master seemed unaware that trash cans had to be emptied regularly.
Now that every trash can in the house was full, he frowned and pondered how to cram it all into the kitchen waste disposer.
Zhang Xiyue stopped him in time. “The disposer can’t deal with all of that, and it’s very noisy. You’d better take it outside.”
This was the fourth day since Cheng Mingjiao had started “imprisoning” her.
At her words, Cheng Mingjiao fell silent and thought for a long time. Instead of taking out the trash, he went upstairs.
Seeing that, Zhang Xiyue didn’t urge him.
The house was simply too large. It had three and a half floors aboveground and another two underground. It was so big that Zhang Xiyue often forgot she was trapped there.
Cheng Mingjiao didn’t seem to demand much from her. As long as she stayed there and didn’t go out, that was enough. He didn’t force her to share his room, didn’t insist that she spend time with him, and hadn’t impulsively laid hands on her and kissed her again as he had that night.
If this had been the real world, Zhang Xiyue thought she would have found it difficult to refuse a life like this—or a boyfriend like him.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the real world.
A little after eleven that night, Cheng Mingjiao appeared furtively on the first floor. He entered a string of numbers into the keypad lock on the door, and it clicked open.
He glanced back and confirmed that the guest-room door was still closed. Only then did he carry two buckets of trash outside. Before leaving, he didn’t forget to lock the door behind him.
After making two or three trips, he had finished taking out the trash. Still wide awake, Cheng Mingjiao decided to mop the first floor as well.
Housework really was the most boring, tedious, and pointless job in the world. Yet every time he finished, he saw the look of barely concealed surprise on Zhang Xiyue’s face—and received an emotional reward more exciting than anything else.
Gradually, he felt as though he was becoming addicted.
He had mopped the floor today. Tomorrow, he would have to get up a little earlier so he could see her expression again.
Cheng Mingjiao was somewhat excited. After huffing and puffing his way through the chores, he went upstairs in a pair of ugly, green, fly-shaped slippers.
The living room fell silent once more.
No one knew how much time had passed before Zhang Xiyue, who had been hiding in the storage room the entire time, quietly emerged. After looking around, she went to the door and entered the password she had memorized earlier.
“260520…”
The entry was accepted, and the lock gave a beep.
Zhang Xiyue’s eyes lit up. But the next second, the lock announced that the password was incorrect.
How could it be wrong?
Confused, she entered it again.
It was still incorrect.
Certain that she hadn’t remembered it wrong, Zhang Xiyue entered it a third time.
When she pressed the pound key, she checked the numbers one last time before solemnly pressing it down…
“What are you doing?”
Zhang Xiyue jolted and turned around. Cheng Mingjiao’s tall figure was hidden in the darkness behind her.
For a moment, she felt as if her heart had leaped out of her chest.
“I…” Zhang Xiyue faltered.
Cheng Mingjiao stood silently for a moment, then suddenly walked toward her. Zhang Xiyue couldn’t help taking a step back.
Cheng Mingjiao stopped abruptly.
The peaceful façade they had maintained for so long fell away at that moment, revealing the battered reality underneath.
The Cheng Mingjiao who had always used every possible means to get close to Zhang Xiyue was gone. What remained was only a mature, restrained calm.
“It’s late. Go back to bed.”
“…Okay.”
Zhang Xiyue didn’t dare look at him. She lowered her head and hurried away.
As they brushed past each other, Cheng Mingjiao suddenly said, “The password changes every five minutes. Every time you enter it incorrectly, my phone gets an alert.”
Zhang Xiyue didn’t dare listen any further and rushed back to her room.
Only after the door closed did she finally let out a long breath.
The next morning, the two of them sat at the same table for breakfast, as though nothing had happened the night before.
Zhang Xiyue wanted to say something, but she didn’t know how to begin. Instead, Cheng Mingjiao suddenly took her hand.
She looked up at him in confusion.
Cheng Mingjiao stared into her eyes. When he saw no fear there, his mood immediately brightened.
“Zhang Xiyue, do you want to work out with me?”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
She didn’t refuse.
The equipment in the gym had previously been cleaned by the housekeeper. Ever since Cheng Mingjiao had shut himself away from the outside world, however, he had taken over the cleaning himself. Fortunately, he held others to high standards and held himself to the same ones, so every piece of equipment was spotless.
“Want to try the barbell? It’s great for building your chest,” Cheng Mingjiao suggested.
Zhang Xiyue: “…Why would I work on my chest?”
“Don’t you like chests?” Cheng Mingjiao said with complete composure. “You can play with mine whenever you want, of course, but surely you’d like to have a nice shape of your own, too.”
At the words “play with mine whenever you want,” Zhang Xiyue’s eyes widened.
“When have I ever said I liked them?!”
Cheng Mingjiao studied her for several seconds, then looked at her with pity.
“Stop pretending. You really do love to bite—”
“I don’t want to work out anymore!” Zhang Xiyue spun around and ran. “You work out by yourself!”
Cheng Mingjiao continued calling after her. “I’ve been training really well lately. You really don’t want to try?”
By the time he finished speaking, Zhang Xiyue was already nowhere to be seen.
Cheng Mingjiao followed her and spent ages coaxing her. Only after he promised not to say anything inappropriate again did Zhang Xiyue return to the gym with him.
The two of them spent most of the day working out. That night, Zhang Xiyue slept like a log.
The next day, Cheng Mingjiao invited her to the gym again.
After this happened several times, Zhang Xiyue’s body actually began to develop some attractive definition. Only then did she belatedly realize that perhaps Cheng Mingjiao dragged her to the gym every day to exhaust her strength, leaving her with no energy to try escaping.
Once she recognized the truth, Zhang Xiyue’s heart jolted.
When she looked at the progress bar again, it had already dropped to fifty-eight percent.
5
It had begun again… If things continued like this, wouldn’t it soon drop all the way back to zero?
The progress bar also represented Chen Mingjiao’s mental state in a way. Its continued decline showed that he wasn’t doing well either.
Aside from worrying about the progress bar, Zhang Xiyue was worried about Chen Mingjiao, too.
She wanted to call Chen Mingjiao and ask how he had been lately. Unfortunately, even though she had repeatedly emphasized that she no longer liked Chen Mingjiao, Cheng Mingjiao still regarded Chen Mingjiao as his lifelong enemy. If she brought it up out of the blue, it might send Cheng Mingjiao’s guard straight through the roof.
All Zhang Xiyue could do was wait.
After waiting another day, she came up with a good idea.
So, after Cheng Mingjiao fell asleep that night, she took a long rope made by tying bedsheets together and went up to the attic above the third floor.
Sure enough, although Cheng Mingjiao had sealed every door and window, he had overlooked this place.
Zhang Xiyue easily made her way onto the terrace, tied the rope to the railing, and began lowering herself inch by inch.
Her workouts over the past few days had clearly paid off. Though she was so nervous that sweat covered her body as she slid down the bedsheet rope, her arms were still strong enough. Little by little, she descended from the third floor to the second, then from the second floor to the first.
The moment both feet touched the grass, she let out a huge sigh of relief. Beaming, she turned around…
And came face-to-face with Cheng Mingjiao. The smile froze on her face.
Cheng Mingjiao stared at her. Even though he knew she was safe and sound, his heart was still pounding wildly.
He already didn’t want to remember how terrified he had been when he happened to see her figure through the window just moments ago.
Zhang Xiyue swallowed. “Cheng Mingjiao…”
“Zhang Xiyue, you really are being very naughty.” Cheng Mingjiao spoke calmly. “I’ve been trying very hard to turn a blind eye, but you keep challenging my limits.”
“Cheng Mingjiao…”
“Zhang Xiyue, you should be handcuffed to the bed—or handcuffed to me. I should be the one feeding you, and carrying you to the bathroom.”
“You should be so exhausted that you don’t have even an ounce of strength left, with your mind too tired to think. All you should be able to do is look at me.”
“Or perhaps I should simply take you to an island where no one can ever find us. The sea would stretch endlessly in every direction, and you would finally give up on escaping.”
A chill entered Cheng Mingjiao’s voice. He was clearly furious beyond words.
And deeply shaken by fear.
Yet all he did was take Zhang Xiyue home and lock the attic door three times. He did nothing else.
When the sun rose the next morning, he had returned to being the usual Cheng Mingjiao. Zhang Xiyue, afraid that he might truly do those things, didn’t dare make another reckless move.
One day passed after another. Before long, ten days had gone by.
No one knew how many supplies Cheng Mingjiao had stockpiled. Every time Zhang Xiyue opened the refrigerator, she had the strange feeling that even if she were imprisoned here for the rest of her life, she would never starve.
After ten days, the progress bar had fallen to fifty-two percent.
For someone with psychological problems, that was already a relatively decent rate of decline.
Zhang Xiyue grew anxious again. Finally, after two sleepless nights, she appeared in the basement and opened a bottle of red wine to drown her sorrows.
By the time Cheng Mingjiao found her, she had nearly finished it.
He sat quietly beside her for a long while, then opened a bottle of wine himself.
The two of them drank in silence, as though competing with each other.
Only after she was seven or eight parts drunk did Zhang Xiyue speak her first words.
“I want to leave.”
“No.”
Zhang Xiyue said, “Are you really going to keep me locked up for the rest of my life?”
“Why not?”
Zhang Xiyue rubbed her brow and took another drink.
Cheng Mingjiao lowered his eyes. His fingertip traced lazy circles around the rim of his glass. After a long silence, he finally said, “The night we decided to be together, we drank quite a lot too.”
Zhang Xiyue’s eyes flickered.
“Even though you keep saying you don’t like me, I’ve always felt that wasn’t true.” Cheng Mingjiao’s voice was very soft.
The hand Zhang Xiyue had resting on the table shifted slightly. She looked at him calmly.
Cheng Mingjiao continued playing with his glass. “You’re always worried about me and taking care of me. No matter how outrageous the things I do are, you never criticize me. You’re always so tolerant of me…”
“Everyone around you is tolerant of you.” Zhang Xiyue couldn’t help defending the others.
Cheng Mingjiao shook his head. “It’s different. You’re different. You’re nothing like anyone else.”
Zhang Xiyue fell silent.
The alcohol had risen into Cheng Mingjiao’s cheeks, making him feel warm, and he tugged open his collar. “I’m doing something extremely wrong.”
Zhang Xiyue paused and looked at him.
Beneath the basement’s deliberately atmospheric sunset lamp, he gave a faint smile. “I locked you up, restricted your freedom, and forced you to spend every day and night with me. Yet you didn’t have the Counterfeit call the police.”
Zhang Xiyue’s breathing grew slow and shallow. “That’s because I didn’t want to drag him into this.”
Even she lacked confidence in that explanation.
Clearly, Cheng Mingjiao didn’t believe it either.
“When you look at me, there’s never any hatred in your eyes. No matter how angry you are, there’s only helpless resignation—as though you simply don’t know what to do with me. I truly can’t understand it. If this doesn’t count as liking me, then what does?”
Cheng Mingjiao’s voice grew softer and softer, as though he had fallen into an argument he could never prove.
No one knew how much time passed before he came back to himself. Carefully, he reached out and touched Zhang Xiyue’s face.
“Zhang Xiyue, you like me, don’t you?”
Zhang Xiyue didn’t answer. Her gaze had fallen instead to his open collar.
Cheng Mingjiao noticed where she was looking. With a smug little hum, he cupped her face and kissed her.
Zhang Xiyue had been wondering exactly how many buttons he had undone when, caught completely off guard, his lips sealed over hers.
This shouldn’t have happened.
She should have pushed him away and called him a bastard. Better yet, they should have had a huge fight, until he was so angry that he opened the door and told her to get out.
But the wine was too strong, and she had drunk too much. Along with the dizziness clouding her mind, it had taken away her ability to think.
The basement had been designed to stay warm in winter and cool in summer, but now the temperature began to rise. In a daze, she seemed to hear something being swept to the floor, and then she was lying on the hard tabletop in its place.
Cheng Mingjiao’s breath and fingers were hot, leaving her head heavy and her thoughts unsteady.
Zhang Xiyue felt as if she had become a perfectly ripe mango. Fingers roughened by thin calluses tried to peel away its skin, but they were too reckless, digging straight in until they pressed against the thin pit, until sweet mango juice began to spill out.
The person in front of her was hot, while the table beneath her back was cold.
Zhang Xiyue let out an uncomfortable muffled sound, and in the next instant her view was turned upside down as she was lifted into someone’s arms.
Weak and limp, she collapsed against his chest. The thing she hadn’t taken the time to feel carefully over the past few days was now pressed to her lips.
She was too exhausted. Her mouth and nose were blocked, yet she couldn’t lift her head.
In that moment of lost oxygen, Zhang Xiyue hazily wondered whether being smothered to death by Cheng Mingjiao’s chest muscles would count as a happy death.
She hadn’t slept all night. By the time her consciousness gradually began to clear, it was already too late to stop.
Cheng Mingjiao was caught in a state of extreme excitement, treating Zhang Xiyue like a mango pit and sucking on it.
As if trying to prove his theory, he asked her again and again whether she liked him. Even without hearing her admit it aloud, he could find the answer in her reactions.
After he finished cleaning up and returned to the bedroom, it was already three in the morning.
Cheng Mingjiao, who usually went to bed early and rose early, wasn’t tired in the least. He held Zhang Xiyue close, nuzzling against her as he said, “The night before you left, I prepared a proposal ceremony.”
Zhang Xiyue, who was still dazed, suddenly froze. The impulses that had made her head swim receded like a tide, and she became completely clearheaded.
Cheng Mingjiao was in such a good mood that even when he mentioned the wedding Zhang Xiyue hadn’t attended, the end of his voice still lifted.
“I wanted to surprise you. The flowers have all withered now, but if you still want one, I can hold the ceremony again. If you don’t, then how about we just get married?”
“We can register our marriage first and take our time with the wedding. We can hold it whenever you want. Zhang Xiyue, do you want children? I’m not interested in kids, and I think Liang Youyou is really annoying, but if we could have a child who looks like you, I think I’d like her very much.”
“I’ve already learned how to do housework, so taking care of a child shouldn’t be difficult. I can be a stay-at-home dad. If you still want me to work, I can take her to the office with me. I’m the company’s boss, after all. No one would dare object.”
“But if you don’t want children, that’s fine too. The two of us can spend our whole lives together and—”
“Cheng Mingjiao.”
“Where do you want to hold the wedding? Here or abroad? Chinese-style or Western-style? Or would you prefer—”
“Cheng Mingjiao.” Zhang Xiyue raised her voice.
Cheng Mingjiao abruptly fell silent.
A few seconds later, he looked at her pitifully. “Are you going to say something hurtful again?”
Zhang Xiyue’s lips moved, but not a single word came out.
Only at that moment did she fully realize how much trouble alcohol could cause.
The anticipation and nervousness in Cheng Mingjiao’s eyes were too obvious. She could no longer come up with a reason to reject him. After a long silence, she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her expression was calm.
“I can’t marry you, and I can’t have children with you, because I have to go back,” she said.
Cheng Mingjiao was still stunned. “Go back where?”
“To where I’m supposed to be. Back to… the real world.”
After saying this, Zhang Xiyue prepared herself to tell him everything.
