It wasn’t a big deal—Ye Meng wanted to adopt a cat, but Li Jin Yu wouldn’t allow it. His reason was that he already had Ping An and was afraid the dog would get jealous when they returned. Ye Meng got jealous right then and there: why the hell are you so devoted to a dog? There was no helping it; that’s just how he was. Only after Ye Meng’s thousand coaxings and various ingenious ways of pleasing him did he finally relent and agree to at least visit a cat shelter with her. And wasn’t that supposed to be today? He had stood her up.
It was obvious he did it on purpose, and that he truly didn’t want to keep a pet.
Ye Meng knew Li Jin Yu’s daily schedule by heart. Sometimes they would go nowhere, staying cooped up at home all day. When Li Jin Yu needed to go out, he would report to her in advance, detailing everything meticulously—first playing basketball with Li Chen, then possibly having a meal with former friends. Some were true friends, others were fair-weather friends. Now that he had the backing of the Hanhai Group and was the only grandson under thirty who had already inherited shares from Li Chang Jin, naturally, there would be people trying to curry favor with him; it was the norm. Ye Meng would remind him not to associate with people like Zhu Yi Kun, and Li Jin Yu and rather enjoyed being managed by his older sister. Although he was already aware of most things, he would still obediently say “okay.”
Ye Meng herself was also busy. The PR company matter had been put on the agenda. During those days, she was drafting the company’s bylaws, cradling her laptop on the sofa for an entire day. She didn’t even notice the youth talent show playing on TV; occasionally glancing up, she was still thinking about the rules and regulations of the bylaws. However, every few hours, she might check his phone location. Their phones shared locations—not to check up on him, but simply because she missed him and wanted to know what he was doing. Seeing that bouncing red dot and Li Jin Yu’s arrogant WeChat profile picture was like seeing his heart beating. Several times, as she was looking at it, she would message Fang Ya’en: “I’m completely smitten by him. Even seeing his WeChat avatar makes my heart flutter.”
“You’re crazy!” Fang Ya’en had said at the time.
Ye Meng had thought that the weariness of marriage was coming very slowly, but she never expected that Li Jin Yu would so quickly reach the state of needing to smoke two cigarettes before entering the door.
After hearing her say this, Li Jin Yu helplessly tossed his jacket onto the sofa walked over, and leaned against the wall behind her, saying nothing, just watching her blow-dry her hair. He leaned there lazily, waiting indifferently for a while before suddenly reaching out to press the back of her neck. His gaze, full of meaning, looked at her in the mirror, then slowly moved through her wet and slightly tingling hair roots, following the hot air from the dryer. Ye Meng’s face was hot, her neck was hot, her entire body was hot, her skin scalding, like a snake whose vital point had been grasped, unable to move as she stared back at him in the mirror, entangled, like unstable dancing flames, crackling, mixed with the roaring sound of the hair dryer, devastatingly, hotly making one panic. Yet the culprit still maintained that lazy pose against the wall behind her, with an attitude of “I just came home late, sister can hit me, scold me, or do whatever she wants with me” as he watched her.
Usually, at times like this, Ye Meng would choose the last option—what washboard? Nonexistent. She put down the hair dryer with a pretense of composure, her expression cold as she tied up her hair and said to him: “Go wait for me in the bedroom.”
Li Jin Yu put away his half-smiling, half-not-smiling eyes and, as expected, leaned against the wall, pursing his lips twice, beginning to unbutton his shirt discreetly while negotiating with her: “Can I take a shower first? I just played basketball and I’m all sweaty.”
Ye Meng tied her hair into a bun, adjusting its size in the mirror, and gave a pretend-aloof “mm” in response.
The next second, Li Jin Yu grabbed her arm and pulled her toward himself. His back against the wall, his shirt unbuttoned to the last two buttons, revealing his clearly defined muscles—not bulky muscle blocks, but rather cool, flowing lines. Ye Meng could faintly see his wasp-like waist, lean, clean, and powerful. This kind of refreshing, cool, yet muscular physique had her completely captivated. Because she had experienced his strength and knew what was coming next, just one look made the tip of her heart tingle uncontrollably. The arm he was holding seemed to have a gentle electric current flowing through it, quite numbing.
“Do you want to?”
Li Jin Yu leaned against the wall, with something of an interrogative tone, a kind of dissatisfaction from trying to please but not hitting the mark, so he looked down at her and asked.
His gaze swept rather lewdly over the chest of her spaghetti-strap nightgown. The view was quite nice—mountains were mountains, waters were waters, snow-capped peaks, clear jade buds.
“Want me to feed you some wine?” He knew how to please her, hitting every point perfectly.
“We finished it yesterday, the last bottle,” she said.
“I just bought some.”
Ye Meng was about to be seduced to death by him.
The room had no lights on, the curtains tightly drawn, with only a dim wall lamp lit. The warm orange light looked very cozy, casting the shadows of their intertwined bodies onto the opposite wall, like two butterflies out of control, vigorously flapping their wings in the spring light, following the rippling life and death of passion.
They were kissing. Quiet yet intense, the dense sound of pecking kisses was as fragmented yet ambiguous as the sound of spring silkworms breaking out of their cocoons.
Seeing her not making a sound, he developed a competitive urge from somewhere, insisting that she make noise. Finally, he bit her lip.
Ye Meng became anxious and called out to him muffled under the covers: “Li Jin Yu, you’re not hurting anymore, are you?”
“I stopped hurting a few times ago.” It might have been even earlier.
“So, you’re okay now, right?” Ye Meng said.
“Still okay.” He said indifferently, fishing out a small box from the bedside table.
“…” At that moment, watching his practiced movements unwrapping things with such a playboy’s skill, Ye Meng felt this bastard was not a good character.
…
Afterward, Li Jin Yu carried her to the shower. Ye Meng was exhausted, lying on his shoulder, about to fall asleep. She never expected that against the slippery bathroom wall, Li Jin Yu would press her against it, without the lazy and perfunctory attitude he had on the bed earlier. Once more.
Ye Meng had the illusion that just as she was finishing, he was only beginning. Was this man crazy?
The sound of water poured down on top of their heads, mist swirling between them.
“Li Jin Yu?” Full of confusion, light from behind, mixed with the hazy water vapor, merged into her blurry eyes.
He was looking down at her, his expression smug: “I stood you up today on purpose.” So he had also prepared to face punishment when he returned.
“I knew it. Is it because you don’t want me to have a cat?”
“Mm, you said you didn’t want to have children because you were afraid they would take away my attention,” he lowered his head, looking at himself and her below. “I also don’t want you to have a cat. You didn’t see the look in your eyes when you saw that cat the other day—brighter than when you look at me.”
In the bathroom, voices were low, drawn out, and muddled.
“Fine, then I won’t get one,” Ye Meng said.
“If you like them, keep a fly. That way, when I’m unhappy, I can just slap it dead with one blow,” the bastard said.
“…”
After a while, the sound of water seemed never to have stopped, pattering down onto the floor.
“Kiss me,” he suddenly said in a deep voice.
Ye Meng uncontrollably kissed him but ended up being bitten back. Li Jin Yu’s tongue entwined with hers without asking, his gaze intense and profound as he looked at her.
Ye Meng was forced to tilt her head back, wrapped in a humid, hot breath. Only then did Ye Meng understand why people say this can be addictive. Tonight was the first time she felt a sense of emptiness the moment Li Jin Yu withdrew. Just as she was immersed in it, savoring it, Li Jin Yu tied a knot in the condom and threw it into the trash bin, with an expression of ‘your lord is having a hard time,’ saying—
“Sister. It’s not that I’m a scumbag, but every time at this crucial moment, I want to say I love you.”
During previous encounters, Li Jin Yu had said it several times, but Ye Meng had hit him each time. Ye Meng said he wasn’t allowed to say that in bed because it sounded insincere, like something a playboy would say.
Ye Meng: “…”
You’ll seduce me to death.
The next day, the two went to the supermarket. Ye Meng sneaked off to buy half a basket of ‘little umbrellas’ (condoms), clearing out the entire shelf. A couple standing nearby watched in astonishment, weakly asking, “Are… are they on sale?”
“…”
Li Jin Yu was in the alcohol section, selecting red wine for her. He was wearing the black fisherman’s hat from their first meeting by the lake, pulled down low so that his eyes were hidden, only revealing his cold, smooth jawline. Ye Meng walked over and squeezed his hand. Li Jin Yu carelessly squeezed back, his eyes still lowered, looking at the wine bottle in his hand. After a while, he finally looked up to see what Ye Meng had bought, and with one glance, spotted that half-basket of planned condoms…
The next second, he turned his head away without showing any reaction and continued studying the origin of the red wine in his hand.
Ye Meng somehow felt like she had dodged a bullet, probably afraid he would say something lewd. She also felt like she had revealed something about herself.
When they were checking out, as luck would have it, their machine’s scanner was broken and couldn’t manually input quantities. They had to take out each condom one by one and scan the barcode with the infrared light. The queue behind them was full of people.
Li Jin Yu calmly unlocked his phone, handed it to her for payment scanning, and said, “Here, sister, do it yourself.”
Ye Meng: “…”
You dog.