Volume One, Chapter 129: Lou Ye, I Like You!

Give me a title.

The amber floor lamp dimmed little by little.

Silver moonlight spilled into the bedroom.

Sang Wan lifted her head and could see half of Lou Ye’s face in sharp relief.

Even the moon seemed especially fond of him.

Shadows from outside fell over him, tracing the high bridge of his nose and the deep set of his eyes.

And the way he looked at her was especially profound, especially dark.

Like a calm sea waiting to erupt into storm and waves.

His hot breath brushed her neck as Lou Ye lowered his head and ground his lips against hers. “I want it openly. I want to stand beside you in broad daylight, without having to hide.”

Sang Wan blurted, “No.”

Lou Ye froze.

Sang Wan lowered her head and explained, “At least not now.”

The gossip on the forum had only just quieted down, and the label of that other woman still hung over her head.

What happened at the company gate with Sang Dawei was still fresh in memory.

Even if Lou Ye truly cared about her.

Even if she truly liked Lou Ye.

This was not the time to make it public.

It was not as though she clung to him like a lifeline only because she was desperate to escape the troubles surrounding her.

No, it was not that.

Even without all those messy things, she would still have fallen for him.

She liked cooking for him, liked watching his eyes shine with contentment as he ate.

She liked talking with him, talking about buildings, about Imperial Capital University, even if it was only idle chatter about the flowers and grass outside the window. She liked that too.

And more than that, even when he said nothing at all, simply lounging on the sofa and lazily stroking the cat—

her heart was still filled with tiny, dense bursts of joy.

She truly liked him.

“Lou Ye…”

He could tell that her refusal had angered him.

Sang Wan let go of the hand braced against his chest and instead wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Did I ever tell you that I like you?”

Lou Ye’s breathing stilled.

Her lips softened against his.

Sang Wan lifted her face and kissed him, pecking gently at his mouth in the way he loved most. “Lou Ye, I like you.”

“Give me a little time, okay—”

Lou Ye’s kiss came crashing down on her like floodwaters.

The air turned scorching in an instant.

Sang Wan never had another chance to finish those soothing, apologetic words.

It was as if Lou Ye had already understood.

And he answered her with all the force of his own way.

The fierce scent of fir was warmed by their heated bodies until it turned sweet and heady.

The moon’s pale frost withdrew beyond the floor-to-ceiling window.

Great swathes of darkness pressed down, and the cool whiteness that had just begun to surface was swept away by heat.

“Sang Wan…”

When it was all over, Sang Wan felt like a fish stranded on the shore, gasping for breath.

Lou Ye came up from behind and laced his fingers through hers. “I’ll give you time, but you have to give me a deadline.”

Her emptied mind slowly began to clear.

Sang Wan thought about it seriously.

Lou Ye seemed displeased that she was taking too long, and he lowered his head to bite her shoulder. “One month. I’ll give you only one month.”

One month?

And if she still wasn’t ready after a month?

Sang Wan turned around and clung to him carefully. “But I need this time to prepare for the competition. I—ah!”

Lou Ye pressed in with unapologetic force. “Am I really that unimportant? So unimportant that, for all twenty-four hours of the day, every last bit of your time goes to work and life, and you can’t spare even a moment to think about me?”

“Sang Wan!!!”

Somewhere along the way, he had stopped calling her Sister.

Lou Ye kissed her fiercely. “Do I even have a place in your heart?”

“Of course.”

After saying that she liked him, it felt as though the stone in her heart had finally been thrown off.

Sang Wan felt much lighter now. “Lou Ye, in my heart, my mother comes first, and you come second…”

“Lou Ye, I really do like you.”

His kisses grew gentle.

That eased the tightness in her chest.

Though it was only liking, and there was no telling how long it would take before it became love.

Still, compared with nothing at all, liking was already infinitely better.

In the past, she could only appear in his dreams, and even the things that happened in those dreams he had only dared to imagine by himself, never daring to let anyone know.

But now, she was right before him.

Close enough to be kissed just by lowering his head.

A dream come true.

He kissed her with deep feeling, a numbing current like electricity sliding from his brain down to the tip of his spine.

Lou Ye clasped Sang Wan’s fingers tightly, tireless.

“Sang… Sang Sang…”

As the aurora appeared, vast darkness swept in.

At the far end of the sky, that soft murmur of Sang Sang seemed to come from the deepest place of the soul.

A flash of light cut through Sang Wan’s mind, too fast to catch.

Then she sank into sleep.

When the alarm buzzed awake, Sang Wan fumbled for her phone and turned it off.

She felt as if she were a victim at the scene of a car crash.

Aching.

And sore.

Her back hurt so badly that even sitting up was difficult, as though she would break if she moved.

Her arms were weak as cotton thread and would not lift.

And her legs felt numb.

With great effort, she rolled over, only to find the space beside her empty.

Sang Wan lay there breathing quietly for a while, and it took a long time before she managed to get up and walk into the bathroom.

She could only regret that today was not a weekend, when she could sleep until heaven and earth forgot themselves.

There was a message from Xu Yiyi at one in the morning telling her she was safe.

She was already home.

When she went out to the living room again, Lou Ye, dressed in a beige house outfit, was holding up the front paw of S2 and teaching it to speak. “Call me Dad.”

Sang Wan: …

Meow!

Seeing that S2, which had just been at his mercy, was now refusing to cooperate, Lou Ye turned back and saw Sang Wan leaning weakly against the bedroom doorway.

When their eyes met, she shot him a fierce glare.

Lou Ye broke into a smile, tossed S2 aside, and strode over to pull Sang Wan into his arms. “Glowering at me first thing in the morning? I see you don’t like me at all.”

“…”

Sang Wan looked utterly speechless. “What time did you get up?”

“Six!”

Lou Ye looked innocent. “Did I wake you? But when I got out of bed, you were sleeping pretty soundly.”

“Then where did you go—”

“To the gym upstairs.”

“…”

Thinking she was upset because she had woken to find him not beside her, Lou Ye held her and coaxed her for a long while. “How about I get up at five to work out from now on? Then I can come back at six, shower, and still hold you while you sleep for another hour.”

Sang Wan: …

He did the work.

She only had to cooperate.

And yet he could get up at five to go exercise, while when she woke up, she felt as though she had been run over by a car.

Both of them were human beings. Why was the gap so enormous?

Sang Wan felt like crying without tears.

After breakfast, when they were about to leave and reached the elevator, Sang Wan looked back and saw S2 curled lazily on the sofa.

Whenever they were in the apartment and she started changing her shoes, S2 would meow and trot over no matter where it had been, unwilling to let her go.

It had always looked heartbroken to see her leave.

She even had to be especially careful when closing the door, making sure to tuck back in that little cat head trying to squeeze out.

But at that moment, S2 showed not the slightest trace of reluctance.

It just rolled over.

Licked its paw.

As if this were its true home.

Sang Wan: …

Last night she had left in such a hurry that her clothes were far too casual.

Not to mention she still had a lot of competition material saved on her computer.

After rejecting Lou Ye’s plan to see her downstairs, Sang Wan got out by the neighborhood gate and made her way back to the apartment.

Buzz.

At the sound of a car door opening, Sang Wan seemed to sense something.

She turned back and saw Lu Jinnian getting out of the car.