Zhou Jin draped Jiang Hansheng’s arm over her shoulder and bore the heavy weight of him as best she could, walking out without once looking back.

The car moved through a tangle of neon light. Through the rearview mirror, Zhou Jin glanced at Jiang Hansheng in the back seat. “Are you feeling sick?”

Jiang Hansheng had always held himself to a strict standard. Even drunk, he showed no signs of losing his composure.

The interior of the car was thick with the smell of liquor.

Zhou Jin rolled down the window. Light from the street lamps spilled in and fell across the clean, sharp lines of Jiang Hansheng’s face.

She found herself looking a moment longer than she meant to — but Jiang Hansheng still hadn’t answered.

When they arrived back at Gardenia Alley, Zhou Jin got out first and pulled open the rear door. “We’re home.”

He had his eyes gently shut, thin lips pressed firmly together, his ears and cheeks flushed an unusual red. His dark hair was disheveled, giving him a somewhat wretched look.

Zhou Jin noticed that his arm was braced across his abdomen, as though he were in discomfort. “Do you need to be sick?” she asked.

Jiang Hansheng didn’t respond.

To Zhou Jin, there was something too still about his expression — distant in a way that suggested he had no particular desire to talk to her.

Was it because Yan Bin had brought up Jiang Cheng?

During the time they had been going on dates before their marriage, Zhou Jin had been candid with Jiang Hansheng about her romantic history. He had told her it didn’t matter to him. She, too, had wanted to leave the past behind and start fresh — so the two of them had never really pressed further into the subject.

Now, looking at him, it seemed he did mind after all.

Seeing that he showed no intention of getting out of the car, Zhou Jin walked around to the other side and got into the back seat herself.

In the narrow confines of the car, the air seemed to thicken and hold still.

“I don’t know what Third Brother said to you,” Zhou Jin said quietly, “but all of that belongs to the past.”

Jiang Hansheng moved his arm away from his stomach. The burning sensation in his gut had worked its way up through his blood. He could no longer stay silent. “Do you still have feelings for him?” he asked.

Zhou Jin pressed her lips together. “I don’t.”

A plain, blunt repetition.

Jiang Hansheng’s eyes held a hazy, unfocused light — not as sharp as usual, but still more than enough to see through her. “Zhou Jin. You’re not good at lying.”

“…”

“Then do you have feelings for me?”

Zhou Jin was caught off guard for a moment.

The corner of his mouth curved into something bitter. He supplied the answer himself: “You don’t.”

Even drunk, Jiang Hansheng’s natural acuity hadn’t deserted him. The instinct that lived below the surface of his awareness — the one that made him exceptional in criminal investigation, a gift no one around him could quite match — in daily life, it felt more like a punishment.

It never gave him a moment’s peace.

“Jiang Hansheng,” Zhou Jin said, her tone softening with something like reluctance. “You’re drunk.”

Jiang Hansheng’s fingers tightened. He was holding himself together by sheer force of will, and it showed — his eyes had gone red at the edges. “I know exactly what I’m saying.”

Zhou Jin felt this wasn’t the right moment for honesty. “When you’re sober, we’ll talk about this properly.”

Jiang Hansheng pressed the back of his hand against his brow, the outer corners of his eyes drooping low, looking thoroughly miserable. “You still don’t have feelings for me.”

Zhou Jin let out a slow breath. Her tone gentled. “That’s not true.”

He didn’t look at her — afraid of what he might catch in her expression. He turned his body away, curling slightly inward in a posture that looked very much like self-protection.

He closed his eyes. Waves of dizziness crashed over him one after another. In the silence of the car, all that could be heard was the labored, pained sound of his breathing.

The stillness stretched on. Zhou Jin reached out and laid her hand on his shoulder, giving it a light push. “Are you angry with me?”

No response.

She reached further, and from behind, she wrapped her arms around him.

From childhood onward, there had only ever been one person she had feelings for, and that was Jiang Cheng. She had never known love in any other shape. What she felt for Jiang Hansheng was something she couldn’t put into clear terms — it didn’t carry that same fierce, burning certainty she had felt when she had been pursuing Jiang Cheng all those years ago.

But there was one thing she was certain of.

“Jiang Hansheng. I like having you beside me.”

Zhou Jin raised herself slightly and, with patient care, pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips. “I’ll take the time to truly know you. Going forward.”

Jiang Hansheng didn’t move. She reached up and turned his face toward her, taking the initiative to deepen the kiss — and in the space between breaths, she coaxed him softly: “Come inside now. All right?”

Zhou Jin had barely pulled back a fraction when Jiang Hansheng surged forward, his hand pressing to the back of her neck, kissing her with a fierce, almost desperate intensity — something close to release.

Zhou Jin bore the consuming force of it, her arms rising gently to rest around his neck and shoulders. She tilted her head back, letting Jiang Hansheng kiss her jaw, her neck, her collarbone—

She touched his hair. It was soft, and yielded to her fingers.

His breath was scorching as it swept across her skin, leaving a trail of warmth that was faintly damp — a little sticky, and a little cool.

Zhou Jin shifted, trying to draw back.

Jiang Hansheng caught her by the waist with one hand and demanded in a low, rough voice: “Do you really want to know me?”

The composed, refined lines of his face had taken on something darker — a shadow of wildness and danger that left Zhou Jin momentarily stunned.

Jiang Hansheng brought his hand to the back of her neck, their foreheads nearly pressed together. His eyes were closed. His breath came scalding hot. “And if I told you I really am deranged?”

“…What do you mean by that?” Zhou Jin said.

Jiang Hansheng bit her lip.

A genuine bite.

Zhou Jin felt a sharp sting at the corner of her mouth. “Jiang Hansheng — Jiang — mmh—” The sound died in her throat as the iron-tinged taste of blood mingled with the thick, overpowering smell of liquor and flooded her mouth all at once.

Aside from rare moments where she could sense the unmasked possessiveness woven through Jiang Hansheng’s nature, he had, for the most part, been extraordinarily gentle in her presence.

Nothing like this.

Jiang Hansheng’s hand slipped boldly beneath her clothing. She startled, shoving at his shoulder. “Jiang Hansheng!”

“Mm.”

A vague, unhurried acknowledgment — but he didn’t stop. He closed his hand around her wrist and pressed it back against the car window.

He bore down on her with a force that left little room for resistance in the cramped space.

“Let go—!” she said, startled.

Jiang Hansheng tugged his collar aside carelessly. Dim light traced down the line of his long throat and disappeared into the hollow shadow of his collarbone.

He braced himself above her. “Zhou Jin,” he said. “Keep your eyes on me.”

Watch him. Watch how he claimed her, piece by piece, bit by bit.

Jiang Hansheng lowered his head and closed his mouth over the soft skin of her neck, leaving the faint flush of a bite mark.

Zhou Jin felt the sting of it and instinctively thought to shove this insufferable person away with her foot — but then she remembered he was drunk, and that the liquor was likely what had stripped away all sense of measure from him, and she felt only a deep, helpless resignation.

She cupped his face in her hands. “Professor Jiang,” she said. “You cannot go about causing trouble when you’re drunk.”

Jiang Hansheng paid her no mind whatsoever.