How could she never have encountered real feelings — of course she had.

She simply hadn’t cared, had treated it carelessly, and over time, genuine feelings had grown rarer and rarer around her.

Lin Shuang forced her eyes wide open, holding her head up stubbornly. “These days, love’s a dime a dozen — you can say it to me today, say it to someone else tomorrow, cheap enough not to be worth mentioning. I don’t care for it.”

A metallic, sweet taste rose in Zhou Zheng’s throat, his mind sparking with stars from sheer fury, and he laughed bitterly, furious. “Right, genuinely too cheap to be worth mentioning — no need for you to treasure it either. It’s already fading day by day, and who knows, one day it might vanish entirely.”

“No need to wait for some day — it can vanish right now.” She let her brows droop, her tone breezy. “Who cares.”

He watched her red lips part and close, his blood seeming to freeze over entirely, throat bobbing, his voice hard and cold. “What’s the rush? It’ll happen soon enough anyway — something bound to leave sooner or later. I’d actually like to watch clearly, see exactly what it looks like the day it finally goes, swept out the door without a trace left behind, celebrating that I’ve finally been freed from this abyss.”

The man’s gaze was cold and hollow, his entire being frigid, a stark reversal of his usual gentleness — the lines of his cheekbones, brow, nose, and lips seeming carved from stone, frozen solid.

He really had been driven mad by her, felt as though his mind had been struck by lightning, cracked wide open, left entirely empty.

The air in the room had frozen to its absolute limit. They stood only a small distance apart, yet it felt as though two entire worlds separated them.

Lin Shuang’s long lashes veiled her eyes; she swallowed against her parched throat and said nothing, bending to pick up the shopping bags on the floor.

Her whole being had also gone silent and hollow, like a faded flower, dulled, having lost all its former brilliance and vitality.

The shopping bags varied in weight; she crouched halfway, hanging the handles one by one over her arm, trying to carry everything away in a single trip.

As if she’d never appeared here at all — vanishing without a trace.

Zhou Zheng watched her movements quietly, and finally, unable to bear it any longer, stepped forward and grabbed the shopping bags, trying to pull them off her wrist, his tone anxious and heavy. “Give them to me.”

She refused, batting his hand away, saying coldly, “No need, I can manage.”

“Your hand is still recovering, you can’t carry heavy things.” Zhou Zheng reached out to stop her movements. “Let me.”

“Let go.” Lin Shuang’s brows flew up sharply. Deliberately, she hung the bags over her right arm, striking his intruding hand away forcefully. “Get away, stay away from me.”

He frowned, forcibly stripping the shopping bags off her hands one by one, his own temper rising, snapping at her sternly. “Do you not care about your hand anymore? Planning to break it a second time?”

“Zhou Zheng.” Lin Shuang guarded the things in her hands, swinging a shopping bag at his arm, bristling like a cat with its tail stepped on, her face flushed red. “My hand is none of your business, did I ask you to manage it? What are you to me? Don’t touch me!”

Her expression was hard to read — disgust or resentment, some awkward mix that made his chest ache.

Zhou Zheng’s dark brows furrowed tight, frustration flooding his mind, and he forcibly locked both her wrists in his grip, pulling the bags off her wrists one by one.

Lin Shuang’s apricot eyes flashed with anger, teeth gritted. “Let go! Let go of me!!”

The shopping bags crashed to the floor one after another, scattering everywhere, bottles and jars tumbling out, rolling across the ground.

His single large hand gripped both her wrists together, the pressure firm and tight, like a taut rope binding her. She only felt pain, that crushing, clamped-down kind of pain. Trapped firmly in his grip, a rebellious streak surged up in her, and she fought with all her strength to break free. Zhou Zheng, jaw clenched, watched her furious expression, her eyes red-rimmed, refusing to let go no matter what.

“Zhou Zheng, let go of me.”

He’d never seen her like this before — teeth gritted, eyes reddened, even the corners of her eyes and brows tinged red, unclear whether from anger or from being wronged. A rare expression, genuine and unmasked, vibrant and alive in a way at odds with her usual effortless, breeze-like elegance, her playfulness and sharp wit.

In that instant — whether by some strange compulsion or something else entirely — Zhou Zheng, following the force of her struggling, pulled her wrist toward himself and wrapped her tightly in his arms.

Lin Shuang really did punch him hard.

Holding her, he suddenly, dazedly realized this feeling — like a severe cold, alternating between hot and cold flashes tangled through his body, leaving him trembling, dizzy, hazy.

The girl he’d liked for ten years, the lover he’d been hopelessly caught in — how could he possibly stop loving her just because he said so?

The two of them locked in an embrace, Lin Shuang twisting and turning in his arms, struggling with all her strength, fighting desperately to break free, pinching him, scratching him, kicking him, biting him, exhausting every ounce of force she had, while Zhou Zheng stood like a rock, neither retaliating nor letting go.

After a long while, she too grew tired, stopping, her breath rising and falling against his chest.

Neither of them said anything.

Held by him, embraced by him, in this sweltering heat, both of them had broken into a sweat, the sweat sticky between them, yet he still gripped her tightly, so tightly it left her breathless, dizzy, nearly faint from lack of air.

Why did he still want to hold her? Why was his heart racing so fast?

Lin Shuang felt her eyes swell and sting, like the feeling of soaking too long in warm water after exhaustion.

“Shuangshuang, in your heart, is love something cheap?” he asked her, a little weary. “Then what isn’t cheap?”

“You won’t accept my love, but you’re willing to be fuck buddies with me? Why?”

She blinked, holding back the tears welling in her eyes, suppressing her breath, saying nothing.

“You say you’re used to playing games with feelings? You were never like that before.” He asked, “Didn’t you date Li Xiaoyi for years? After your father went to prison, after you broke up with Li Xiaoyi — how did you get through it? What else did you go through in those years after?”

A naive girl who used to love reading romance magazines, browsing articles like “How to Make Your Boyfriend Love You More,” “A Hundred Tips to Keep the Romance Fresh,” “A Compatibility Survey for Couples” — how could she have become someone so used to playing games with love?

Her breath came fast and ragged; a long while passed before she managed to force out a reply. “What business is it of yours what I’ve been through? What does it have to do with you?”

“Are you going to lecture me again? Trying to redeem me with your lofty moral principles?” Her voice carried a tearful edge. “Am I some terrible sinner, morally corrupt? That day you dropped me, not a single word of explanation, cut off contact completely — deep down you look down on me, don’t you? Do you always think I’m loose and shameless?”

“I’m sorry.” He leaned against her, speaking slowly. “I shouldn’t have lectured you, shouldn’t have argued with you. I didn’t want it to come to this.”

“I didn’t want to interfere with whatever you’ve been through — that’s all in the past. I just felt that you shouldn’t let past experiences shape how you live now. I’m not overflowing with some moral righteousness — I just think you deserve to live better, deserve to be held and cherished carefully by someone, instead of squandering yourself so carelessly. The reason I didn’t reach out was only because I didn’t know how to face you.”

“I’ve already forgotten all of it.” Her face stayed rigid, her voice hoarse. “All of that — I’ve forgotten.”

He lowered his head, looking at her, staring at the stubborn expression on her face, thinking for a long while.

“That night at midnight, why did you call me? We’d been broken up for so long, and you had a new boyfriend after.”

She turned her face away, avoiding his gaze. “Because you’d come whenever I called, granted any request.”

“If you crooked a finger, I believe any man would come running, granting any request, in a situation like that.”

Lin Shuang bit her lip and said nothing.

“That invitation to be fuck buddies… was it only me, or other men too?”

Her expression darkened; a sudden wave of humiliation washed over her, and she twisted her neck, struggling to pull free from his embrace.

“Tell me.” Zhou Zheng gripped her cheeks, his gaze suddenly sharp. “I want to know.”

He forced her to turn and face him.

Lin Shuang’s gaze met his and flinched, twisting her cheek away again; he pressed his palm firmer, forcing her to look at him directly, his gaze burning, commanding, his tone compelling too. “Tell me.”

“Just you.” Her lips trembled.

“Why?”

“Because you’re good in bed and capable, and you know how to please me with real effort.” Her expression stiffened. “Is that reason enough?”

“That was a very rude thing to say. But what I’m about to say next might be even ruder.”

“Shuangshuang, at the very least, you still have some interest in me, don’t you?”

“Before your interest in me disappears, before my love for you disappears — this stretch of time won’t be very long — will you try dating me? For real, out in the open?”

“I don’t expect this to lead to marriage. I know I might not measure up to your standards, and I might not be able to support you either. Maybe there won’t be any result at all. But at least there’ll be a process, a memory — something seen through to its end.”

Lin Shuang lowered her eyes, refusing to look at him.

“You dared to play games with me, dared to say ‘fuck buddies’ to my face — do you dare to try this with me?”

“Say yes!” He gripped her face, turning it toward him, seeing her eyes glistening with tears. “What are you afraid of? What’s there to be afraid of? Like you said, the end result is just sex anyway.”

She stared at him fixedly, watching his eyes, calm yet sharp, her throat going soft, her heart pounding fiercely.

“Say yes!” He stared her down, unrelenting.

“Okay…”

“I agree…” She gritted her teeth, as if making some desperate, all-or-nothing decision. “I’ll try this with you. But let’s part on good terms if it doesn’t work — if either of us feels it’s not right, we can end it anytime.”

“Of course, but at the very least, let’s be upfront and honest with each other — no setting the rules unilaterally.”

“Deal.”

Zhou Zheng suddenly smiled, a look of profound relief washing over him.

Watching his smile, she felt a flutter of nerves, a strange awkwardness, a flustered uncertainty.

The two of them stood in silence for a long while.

He touched the red mark on her cheek.

And kissed her.

Lin Shuang’s lashes trembled, and she closed her eyes obediently.

The two of them kissed amid the cluttered room.

The kiss was urgent, unusually forceful. His hands braced against her sides, pressing forward into her space; she leaned back, her body like a supple bow, drawn tighter and tighter, tauter and tauter, yielding under his pressure into a kind of surrender and invitation.

When he entered her, both of them drew in a sharp, deep breath.

She was like a fish on the cutting board, suddenly pulled from water, gripped tight and firm, unable to move, left entirely at his mercy.

An uncontrollable rhythm, like drowning, drifting weightlessly with no sense of safety — she could only cling tightly to him, unable to hold back her sobs amid the storm’s violent assault.

“Zhou Zheng…”

He freed one hand, wiping away her tears with firm yet gentle care.

Zhou Zheng understood one thing.

Never hand the initiative over to her.

This girl had lost her heart somewhere along the way.