“Why do you say that?”

Zhou Jin looked at him with puzzlement, her gaze drifting to the corner of his mouth. Jiang Hansheng’s features were already too refined — the bruising on his face, rather than diminishing him, lent him a kind of damaged beauty.

She couldn’t help but notice. She reached up and touched his cheek, asking again, “What exactly happened?”

He rubbed his thumb slowly along her back.

Jiang Hansheng didn’t dare say another word. Before jealousy could twist his emotions any further, he pressed his hand firmly against Zhou Jin’s waist and kissed her again.

She tasted the clean freshness of him.

Since jolting awake from that nightmare, the loneliness that had filled every corner of the room was being driven back — little by little — by the warmth of Jiang Hansheng’s breath. Zhou Jin closed her eyes and let herself feel the heat of his body, and couldn’t help thinking —

How wonderful. To have someone by her side, right now, in this moment.

Her hand slowly slid to the back of his neck. She pulled him close and kissed him back with equal warmth.

The tip of Jiang Hansheng’s tongue pressed gently, coaxing her lips apart, deepening the kiss until it became heavy and consuming. As his tongue pressed into her mouth, his body pushed between her legs with unrelenting force.

Blood surged and burned, battering the last remnants of rational thought. Zhou Jin’s soft lips parted slightly, meeting his fervor in kind.

Her back was against the wall — nowhere left to retreat. The rustling of fabric against fabric between them stirred something unspoken in the air.

“Wait—” She tried to reclaim her senses, pulling away. “Somewhere else.”

“Zhou Jin.”

He saw through her evasion with ease. His palm closed around the back of her neck, allowing no retreat, no drawing back.

His refusal came from a fear buried deep within him — the terror of gaining something only to lose it again. The mere thought of such an ending was enough to drive him to the edge of madness.

Jiang Hansheng held back the redness threatening to flood his eyes. “Right here,” he said. “I’ll be gentle.”

Zhou Jin hadn’t known he could be like this — that he had this ruthless streak, this shameless side to him. He’d never had the opportunity before. But now, any battlefield where he could measure himself against Jiang Cheng — he wanted to win every single one.

He was determined that it be here, in this place she had shared with Jiang Cheng — ideally every corner of it — that he claimed her for himself.

With Jiang Hansheng pressing so relentlessly, Zhou Jin stopped resisting. Under his touch, she surrendered completely.

She let Jiang Hansheng kiss her neck without restraint, bite her shoulder — his thin lips seemed to carry sparks, igniting every inch of her skin they touched.

The whole of it was intense and unhurried. By the time Jiang Hansheng finally let her go, she had lost all sense of how much time had passed.

They were both flushed with warmth, their breathing still tangled together. He kissed her sweat-damp temple, and then her eyes — dark and glistening with moisture.

Zhou Jin’s voice had gone hoarse. The sleeplessness that had gripped her before was utterly gone now; after being put through his particular form of exhaustion, drowsiness crashed over her in heavy, rolling waves.

Her eyelids were barely staying open. She had no energy left to take issue with anything else.

The sofa was narrow. The two of them lay on their sides, Zhou Jin’s back pressed snugly against his chest.

Jiang Hansheng propped himself up slightly, stroking her hair. After a long quiet moment, he asked in a low voice, “Zhou Jin — shall we hold a proper wedding ceremony? A real one, just for us?”

“Didn’t we already agree…” She moved to argue, turning her head to look at him.

Jiang Hansheng took her hand. His eyes deepened slightly. “A wedding that belongs to us,” he said.

She didn’t know why, but she never seemed able to refuse him. Something softened in her chest. She thought back to the time before and after their marriage — how it had always been Jiang Hansheng who yielded to her, again and again.

She understood that marriage was one of life’s most significant things — especially for someone like Jiang Hansheng, who had always held absolute loyalty to it, and for that very reason held it all the more dear.

Zhou Jin thought: Perhaps some sense of ceremony is warranted after all.

She reached her arm back around his neck, tilted her head up, and pressed a light kiss to his lips. “Alright,” she told him.

His cool, composed features softened — a rare, quiet smile. He dipped his head and kissed her back.

“Move in tomorrow. I’ll help you.”

Zhou Jin smiled with her lips pressed together, and agreed again, “Alright.”

The two of them lay wrapped around each other in the quiet, and before long, Zhou Jin drifted off to sleep.

Jiang Hansheng carried her to the bed, gently cleaned her up, and pulled the blanket carefully over her.

Zhou Jin murmured a sleepy goodnight, turned over, settled into a comfortable position, and sank into a deep sleep.

No more nightmares.

Deep in the night. The darkness was dense and absolute, like a wall with no gaps.

Jiang Hansheng stood by the window. Against the faintest trace of light, half of him seemed to dissolve into the thick black air around him.

He stood in silence, watching Zhou Jin’s sleeping face. Shadows gathered beneath his eyes.

He pressed his hand against the aching bruise on his ribs, and thought of the way Jiang Cheng had spoken to him the day before — hard-edged and without any give: “Stay away from Zhou Jin.”

Jiang Hansheng knew, with full clarity, that no one had more standing than Jiang Cheng to say those words to him.

Five years ago, when he had pulled Jiang Cheng’s file from the “8·17” case records, he had already caught the shape of a truth — one he could barely bring himself to carry.

He had always believed there were no coincidences in this world. Behind every apparent stroke of chance lay someone’s deliberate arrangement —

Such as Jiang Cheng being caught cheating by Zhou Jin just as their marriage was drawing close.

Such as the murder weapon used by Lai Zhengtian being, of all things, the very gun gone missing from the “8·17” case.

Such as the fact that, at this very moment, Jiang Cheng happened to be working within the same organization as Lai Zhengtian.

And such as the fact that it was he, with his own hands, who had sent Lai Zhengtian to prison — which, beyond the politics of factional rivalry, perhaps had another explanation entirely.

“I’m sorry, Zhou Jin.”

Half of Jiang Hansheng’s face was swallowed by the darkness. His eyes dropped slightly — overcast and cold.

These things, he would keep sealed away like a secret.

Until the day Zhou Jin came to know them herself.