That evening, Chen Xi went to Qin Lie’s place.

As soon as she entered, Chen Xi couldn’t wait to wrap her arms around Qin Lie’s neck, pressing her whole body against him.

Even though summer was still here, she felt a bit cold and urgently wanted to do something to warm herself up.

Qin Lie sensed that Chen Xi’s emotions weren’t quite right. He didn’t lose control as he usually did when Chen Xi lightly teased him.

He instinctively pulled her into his embrace and gently stroked her head.

“Feeling uncomfortable?”

Qin Lie asked softly.

Chen Xi buried her face in Qin Lie’s solid chest without speaking, but her arms tightened around his waist.

Qin Lie couldn’t see Chen Xi’s expression or hear her inner voice.

But since meeting Chen Xi, this was the first time Qin Lie had seen her like this.

In his eyes, Chen Xi had never shown softness.

She did things her way, spoke calmly and rationally, broke up cleanly and decisively, and even when she offended local troublemakers, she silently bore it all alone.

Even in bed, she was like an untamed little leopard, never showing a moment of docility.

He had never seen Chen Xi like this.

So even just a little bit of softness was enough to kill him.

Suddenly, Qin Lie swept her up in his arms and strode into the bedroom.

The next morning, Chen Xi was sleeping soundly when her phone suddenly rang, jarring her awake.

Chen Xi fumbled for her phone and answered groggily.

Han Susu’s voice came through the phone.

“Chen Xi, you’re off today, right? Let’s have lunch together, and then accompany me shopping for clothes.”

Chen Xi kept her eyes closed and said drowsily, “Let me sleep a bit more.”

Han Susu: “It’s almost noon, what are you still sleeping for?”

Chen Xi struggled internally for a moment, then chose to be lazy.

“I’m not going. I’m so tired.”

After hanging up, Chen Xi turned over and found Qin Lie wasn’t in bed.

She continued sleeping for a while, gradually waking up as her stomach growled with hunger.

She got up, finished washing, and wandered to the living room.

Qin Lie wasn’t in the living room. The study door was closed, and low conversation could be heard from inside.

Chen Xi gently pushed the door open a crack and saw Qin Lie sitting in front of the computer, apparently in a video conference.

Hearing the sound behind him, Qin Lie’s voice paused, then he said quietly, “Let’s leave it at that. We’ll continue at two this afternoon.”

Chen Xi leaned against the wall outside the study. A moment later, Qin Lie pushed the door open and came out.

Seeing Chen Xi again with bare legs wearing his T-shirt, the oversized shirt sliding off her shoulder to reveal a beautiful collarbone.

Chen Xi raised her eyebrows and smiled at him. With that one look, Qin Lie couldn’t stand it anymore.

He lifted her onto the dining table, parting her pair of fair, slender legs.

Chen Xi kicked at him with her feet, laughing, “I’m starving to death.”

Qin Lie wanted nothing more than to lay her across the dining table and enjoy her thoroughly.

After playing around for a while, Chen Xi jumped down from the table and went to the kitchen to find food.

She opened the refrigerator and couldn’t help smiling.

The refrigerator was packed full of fruits she liked to eat, plus a pile of vegetables they had impulsively bought at the market a few days ago.

After buying them, they hadn’t had time to cook, so everything had been sitting in the refrigerator.

Chen Xi picked up a bag of baby bok choy, looked at it, and said, “If we don’t eat this soon, it’ll go bad.”

She looked up at Qin Lie, “Let’s cook lunch ourselves.”

Qin Lie said okay.

Chen Xi took out bags of baby bok choy, onions, carrots, and tomatoes from the refrigerator and placed them in the sink.

Then she opened the freezer drawer and took out a piece of beef short ribs they had bought from the market last time.

Qin Lie watched from the side, unconsciously curving his lips into a gentle smile.

He didn’t like cooking for himself—not because he was lazy, but because he felt it was a waste of time.

But since being with Chen Xi, going to the vegetable market, shopping at the supermarket, cooking—

These trivial things began to emit some kind of magical power, making him feel endless pleasure.

Chen Xi and Qin Lie fumbled around in the kitchen with rice, oil, salt, and sauce, not very skillfully.

After lunch, Han Susu waited until her parents went to their room for their afternoon nap, then quietly left the house.

She drove to Dr. Yang’s clinic and parked her car under the shade of trees by the roadside.

At high noon, with the hot sun blazing, there were few pedestrians on the small street.

Han Susu walked into the clinic and saw no one in the outer room, knowing that Dr. Yang was taking his afternoon nap in the back courtyard.

She lifted the curtain to the adjoining room and, as expected, saw Yang Guan sitting at the table studying, with a braille medical book under his hands that was thicker than a brick.

Han Susu leaned against the doorframe, suppressing her laughter, and asked in a pinched voice, “Can I get a massage here?”

Yang Guan’s slender fingers stopped on the page. He turned his head toward the sound, his handsome face expressionless.

“Yes.”

He was silent for a moment before speaking.

Han Susu secretly smiled and walked to a massage table, lying down on it.

Yang Guan stood up and slowly walked over, asking quietly, “What’s bothering you?”

Han Susu was afraid of being exposed, so she didn’t dare say much. She hummed out one word in a thin voice: “Back.”

Yang Guan walked to the massage table, reached out to touch Han Susu’s shoulder, and found the cervical vertebrae at the back of her neck.

He pressed his index and middle fingers together, exploring down the cervical spine section by section, saying with slight puzzlement, “Your cervical spine is quite good.”

Han Susu taught students to dance every day. Unlike office workers who sat in front of computers all day, her cervical spine had no problems at all.

She said in a thin voice, forcing out three words: “It just hurts.”

Yang Guan’s two fingers followed her cervical spine down to her tailbone, then slowly moved back up along the tailbone.

Han Susu’s body involuntarily shivered slightly, a tingling sensation shooting from her tailbone to the top of her head.

She hummed lazily, like a cat being petted contentedly, her body melting into a puddle.

Yang Guan’s hands reached Han Susu’s thin shoulders.

Kneading from left shoulder to right shoulder, he still said in a flat voice, “Your shoulders are fine too.”

Han Susu said nothing. She was determined to stay on this bed all afternoon.

Yang Guan lowered his hands, stood beside the bed speechlessly for a moment, then began to massage her.

The body under his hands had well-proportioned flesh and bones, a thin and long neck, two delicate butterfly bones on her back, and a waist he could span with his hands.

Without looking, he knew it was very beautiful.

Yang Guan’s Adam’s apple moved, and he asked quietly, “Too heavy?”

Han Susu hummed, with a nasal sound that was somewhat like a coquettish moan.

Yang Guan’s Adam’s apple moved sharply again, and he lightened the pressure of his hands.

After a while, Han Susu murmured again, “Use more force.”

Yang Guan said nothing and increased the pressure of his hands.

Under his pair of well-defined, large hands, Han Susu softened inch by inch, becoming as soft as if she had no bones.

Yang Guan stopped and slowly moved to the other side of the massage table.

Han Susu suddenly turned over as if possessed, lying flat on the massage table.

Yang Guan stood on the other side of the massage table, raised and lowered his hands, touching two soft, squishy things.

He was stunned for a while before seeming to realize what was happening. Just as he was about to withdraw his hands, Han Susu pressed down on the back of his hands.

“Handsome guy, do you provide special services here?”

Han Susu switched back to her voice, laughing softly.

A trace of speechlessness appeared on Yang Guan’s handsome face.

He didn’t speak, and he didn’t withdraw his hands either. The two of them remained in this stalemate.

Han Susu guided his hands, slowly wandering.

Her voice was low and seductive: “Yang Guan, is this how you treat patients?”

Blue veins faintly appeared at Yang Guan’s temples.

But Han Susu still recklessly continued to tease him, guiding his hands over towering hills and toward low marshlands.

Yang Guan finally couldn’t bear it anymore. He yanked back his hands, turned around without a word, and stormed out, slamming the curtain.

Han Susu propped herself up halfway and shouted toward the outer room, “Hey, don’t go! Are you angry?”

The clinic door slammed shut with a bang.

Han Susu suddenly lay back down on the massage table and muttered quietly, “Can’t take teasing, such thin skin.”

Just as she was lying there bored, staring at the ceiling, she suddenly heard footsteps returning from outside.

Han Susu quickly propped herself up again and coaxed, “Brother, don’t be angry anymore. I won’t tease you in the future, okay?”

Yang Guan ignored her, walked to the window, and pulled the curtains shut with a swoosh.

The light in the room suddenly dimmed.

Yang Guan walked step by step to the massage table with a cold face.

Han Susu stared blankly at his tall figure approaching step by step, her mind going completely blank for a moment.

Yang Guan stood by the bed and said coldly, “Han Susu, I’ve been patient with you for a long time.”

After saying this, he grabbed her and stripped her completely naked in no time.

“Lie down.”

He coldly gave orders, “Let me continue massaging you.”

Han Susu’s cheeks flushed red as she obediently lay back down on the bed.

Yang Guan slowly raised his hands and placed them on the body he had been longing for day and night, the body that had tormented him to the bone and driven him to distraction.

His expression was solemn, his ten fingers gently caressing, telling every inch of skin he touched how devout his heart was, how completely his body had fallen.

Han Susu’s skin broke out in fine goosebumps.

Wherever his fingers went, every pore on her body began to murmur with desire.

Two tears suddenly flowed down from the corners of her eyes without warning, winding into her thick hair.

“Yang Guan.”

She suddenly spoke, asking softly, “Do you still remember what my face looks like?”

Yang Guan suddenly stopped his hands, his eyes staring blankly toward her.

In his mind, Han Susu’s face remained at an innocent age.

Large eyes with two long eye bags underneath.

When she smiled, it was so sweet it was like pouring honey into one’s eyes.

Yang Guan stared at her like this, wanting to use all the effort of his lifetime to see her.

Han Susu placed her palm on the back of Yang Guan’s hand, guiding him to touch her face.

Slowly, from her soft hairline to her smooth, full forehead.

Delicate long eyebrows, long eyelashes, straight nose bridge, full lips, pointed chin.

She had grown up, much more beautiful than when she was little, much more beautiful than Song Ya.

How she wished he could see.

Outside the window, cicadas chirped continuously. In the room with tightly drawn curtains, the sound of the massage table creaking and swaying could be heard.

For an entire afternoon.

This bed had never endured such violent shaking, nor had it ever heard such happy yet broken murmurs.

“Yang Guan, I want to spend my whole life with you like this…”