Rong Qian had a habit of turning off every light when she slept. Her room was in complete darkness, and not a single trace of light filtered in from outside.

In that kind of darkness, even the slightest movement became startlingly conspicuous.

Rong Qian jolted upright in a single sharp motion!

In the darkness, she could just barely make out a shadowy figure — stumbling, swaying, lurching toward her — and then it simply collapsed onto the bed beside her.

A wave of alcohol hit her nose. Rong Qian paused, then ventured: “Shen Yi?”

The light switch was right at the headboard. She turned on the lamp.

The light inside the room was bright — almost painfully so. Shen Yi, his eyes half-lidded, let out a small frown and raised his hand to shield his face, then rolled onto his side, shifting closer toward Rong Qian.

“Shen Yi?” She tried calling his name to rouse him, but there was no response. She reached out and gave him a nudge. “How much did you drink? How did you end up in this state?”

Even from a short distance away, Rong Qian could smell the heavy reek of alcohol coming off him.

To be truthful, it wasn’t as though Rong Qian had never seen him asleep before — this should have been a familiar sight to her. But with Shen Yi lying there beside her now, her heart began to race without her meaning it to.

Perhaps it was the overpowering quality of his masculine presence — especially combined with the pervasive smell of alcohol — which made the imagination wander. To say nothing of the fact that his sleeping face was utterly captivating in this moment.

His lips, ordinarily a pale shade of pink, now carried a flush of deep rose — as if a filter had been applied over them, making them appear dewy and luminous.

It was an entirely different side of him from the composed, subtly commanding man she was used to. Shen Yi drunk was strangely fragile — he had the kind of delicate, broken quality one might associate with an ethereally beautiful invalid: at once tender and bewitching, shot through with a distinctly masculine and irresistibly alluring sensuality.

It gave Rong Qian the sudden, vivid impression of a beautiful man who had crept into her bed in the dead of night to tempt her.

To put it plainly: it was the sort of thing that made a person want to commit a sin.

Perhaps he had heard Rong Qian’s voice. Shen Yi slowly lifted his eyelids — and the moment those eyes opened, it was another blow straight to Rong Qian’s senses.

“Are you all right?”

Rong Qian found herself speaking in the softest of voices, afraid to disturb him with so much as a sound.

“A’Qian?” His gaze was hazy and unfocused, and his low voice carried a husky edge.

Rong Qian waved her small hand in front of his face. “How much have you had to drink? You can’t even recognize who I am?”

“A’Qian — I’ve missed you so much.”

Shen Yi grabbed hold of her waving hand, and in one smooth roll, pulled her close and held her tight, pressing her beneath him. One hand cradled the back of her head, and he spoke almost directly against her ear — so close it was as if their temples were pressed together.

“Am I dreaming of you again?”

His jaw rested against the curve of her neck. His tall, broad frame made Rong Qian feel small against him.

Rong Qian desperately wanted to push him away, but with him speaking right against her ear like that, a tingling sensation swept through her and all the strength drained from her limbs. She pushed and pushed, yet Shen Yi didn’t budge an inch.

Exhausted, she changed tactics. “Shen Yi, come to your senses — you’re not dreaming. I’m Rong Qian. I’ve come to find you.”

“You came to find me? Yes — you’re here. I’m not dreaming. I’m just drunk.” Shen Yi gradually began to surface back to consciousness. The light in his eyes was complex and layered, and if Rong Qian had been able to read it, she would have recognized it as the look of someone holding themselves in careful restraint.

Shen Yi moved away from Rong Qian and tried to sit up, but a sudden wave of pain from his stomach overwhelmed him. He let out a grimace of suffering and was forced to lie back down, his breathing quickening and growing labored.

Rong Qian saw his hand pressed flat against his abdomen and immediately knew his stomach was acting up. She said she would go fetch medicine from the drawer, and scrambled off the bed on all fours.

She didn’t even bother with her cotton slippers — she ran barefoot across the floor to his room to retrieve the medicine, then poured him a cup of hot water.

After she had Shen Yi take the medicine, she could see he was still in pain, and asked with concern: “Is your stomach still hurting?”

“Could you rub it for me?” Shen Yi’s breath came in shallow gasps. The flush of too much alcohol that had colored his face was entirely gone — his complexion was now ashen, his lips drained of all color, making the extent of his suffering plain to see.

Rong Qian’s gaze fell to his abdomen. Through the close-fitting white dress shirt, the contours of his stomach muscles were clearly visible.

The moment she placed her hand there, she felt a searing warmth spread across her palm. The texture beneath her hand was firm and solid — a result, no doubt, of his regular exercise.

She had barely laid her hand down before she quickly pulled it back, looking at her own palm and saying: “My hand might be too cold.”

“It’s fine — actually helps with the heat…”

Shen Yi’s voice was so faint that Rong Qian didn’t catch the words. She leaned in closer. “What did you just say?”

“Go to sleep. I’ll be fine in a little while.” Shen Yi forced himself to say it, pushing through the discomfort.

Rong Qian looked at the bed — he was taking up more than half of it. So she simply made up her mind: “Fine then. I’ll give up my comfortable bed to you for tonight, and go sleep in your room.”

“Mm, go ahead.” Shen Yi agreed.

Rong Qian gathered her pillow, and before leaving, remembered to remind him — if he got thirsty in the night, there was hot water she’d prepared on the bedside table.

Shen Yi didn’t respond. His hand was draped over his eyes, and it was impossible to tell whether he’d already drifted off to sleep.

Rong Qian thought it over, and decided to leave the small bedside lamp on for him. She turned off the overhead light before stepping out of the room.

She was already thoroughly exhausted, too tired to think much at all. She tossed her pillow onto Shen Yi’s bed, then threw herself down after it and went completely still — flat out like a fallen soldier.

Half an hour later, Rong Qian forced herself to fight off her drowsiness and climb out of bed again. She had to go check on Shen Yi and see if he was feeling any better.

She confirmed that he had fallen asleep, and even pressed her hand to his forehead — no fever. Only then did she feel reassured and go back to sleep.

What Rong Qian didn’t know was that the very moment she stepped away, Shen Yi opened his eyes. Beneath those long, narrow eyes lay an undisguised possessiveness — and a devotion that bordered on obsession.

Only her. He would not allow a single person in this world to take her from his side.

“Boss, are you all right after last night?”

Xu Mo arrived first thing in the morning, and made his way with practiced ease to Shen Yi’s bedroom. Finding the door open, he pushed it straight in.

Xu Mo had assumed Shen Yi was already awake — hence the door being open. But when he stepped inside, he found Rong Qian bleary-eyed and heavy-lidded, just in the process of climbing out of Shen Yi’s bed.

“You — you — you——” Xu Mo was stunned into speechlessness. He pointed at Rong Qian and stammered, completely unable to get a single coherent sentence out.

Rong Qian could see he’d jumped to conclusions. She let out a yawn and explained: “What are you thinking? Your boss wandered into the wrong room last night. He’s sleeping in my room.”

“I — I’ll go see for myself!” Xu Mo spun around and left!

He went into Rong Qian’s room and looked — and sure enough, there was Shen Yi, in Rong Qian’s room.

The man was dressed in a white dress shirt and suit trousers, radiating the polished air of a businessman, sprawled across such a very pink bed — no matter how you looked at it, he seemed utterly out of place, a strangely jarring sight.

“Boss, are you awake?” Xu Mo walked over and instinctively lowered his voice.

Shen Yi lay with his eyes closed and made a muffled sound of acknowledgment. “Mm…”

He didn’t look to be in particularly good shape.

“Boss, let me go make you some hangover soup — you’ll feel better after.” With that, Xu Mo turned and left. As he exited the room, he nearly walked right into Rong Qian, who was stepping out of Shen Yi’s room with a luxurious stretch.

Xu Mo recalled his reaction from a moment ago and felt he’d been rather rude.

When he thought about it more carefully, even if the two of them had genuinely slept together, there was nothing to be surprised about.

His boss was at the prime age of a hot-blooded young man. With the person he cared for right here beside him, that kind of desire was only natural in anyone.

So he decided he still owed Rong Qian an apology. “Miss Rong, I’m sorry — my reaction just now was a bit over the top. I hope you don’t mind.”

“What’s there to mind about that?” Rong Qian and he were clearly operating on entirely different wavelengths.

Xu Mo smiled. “Right, well — as long as you don’t mind. I’ll go make the boss his hangover soup now.”

“Go on, go on.” Although Rong Qian had only slept for a handful of hours, she had actually slept quite well in Shen Yi’s room.

In particular, his bed sheets carried that cool, clean scent of his — as if he were right there beside her — and sleeping wrapped in it had felt deeply, quietly comforting.