“Do you want to stay here, or go back to the car with me to do it?”
The man’s embrace was as warm as always.
Sheng Sui caught Zhou Shiyu’s faint woody fragrance – the top notes were moist oolong tea scent colliding with the cold, bitter bergamot, creating elegant yet mature and rational layers.
Just like the feeling he gave people: gentle, calm, and unfathomable.
When the man’s low voice reached her ears, Sheng Sui’s anxious and restless mood suddenly settled, like a soul that had been wandering for a long time finally returning home.
She was like a cunning child who had made mistakes outside but only told the grievances when returning home, using manipulative tactics to earn a moment of the man’s heartache.
When Zhou Shiyu held her with hoarse tenderness, Sheng Sui could feel that base satisfaction in her heart.
She had heard too many reasonable words, with rationality constantly warning her to be content and grateful. But faced with her husband’s unconditional favoritism, she still couldn’t resist, only sinking greedily and wanting more.
She suddenly understood that all unrestrained willfulness was nothing more than having someone who gave enough tolerance and protection.
And Zhou Shiyu was her confidence.
From then on, her crying and stubbornness finally had meaning.
The two stood quietly in the wind for a long time. Sheng Sui leaned on the man’s broad shoulder, lowering her eyes, her fingers restlessly touching his clothes hem: “Weren’t you supposed to go on a business trip today? How could you still come over?”
“The goal was achieved, no need for the business trip anymore,” Zhou Shiyu raised his hand to gently rub her head, suggesting, “It’s still early. Want to go to the seaside to walk off dinner?”
Sheng Sui also wanted to breathe more fresh air and nodded in agreement.
After getting in the car, Zhou Shiyu took out a paper bag from the door card slot and handed it over. Opening it, Sheng Sui found a white, plump dumpling charm with curved smiling eyes that felt wonderful to touch.
“Before you came, there was someone selling small accessories in the square across the street. When I saw this, I thought of you and bought it.”
Sheng Sui squeezed the adorable round charm, then attached it to her phone case’s hole, watching the smiling dumpling sway in the air. The corners of her mouth turned up slightly, her low mood quietly recovering.
On such an ordinary day, Zhou Shiyu saw something beautiful and thought of her, preserving this beauty to deliver to her hands.
No special meaning needed – just wanting to give her even the smallest beauty he had witnessed.
Sheng Sui loved this aimless romance.
When they arrived at the seaside, it was just past seven in the evening.
The beach was scattered with nearby residents digesting after dinner, tourists who had come for the scenery, and children happily building sand castles. The crowds concentrated around shops and restaurants.
After getting out of the car, Zhou Shiyu led Sheng Sui along the coastline, walking unhurriedly toward the deserted areas.
Leaving the laughter behind them, Sheng Sui stepped on the man’s long shadow one footprint at a time, her right hand held in his dry, warm large palm.
The sea breeze was salty, and when her mind emptied, she suddenly felt that the most comfortable way for people to get along wasn’t that two people had to do something specific.
Rather, even if they did nothing at all, they still felt at ease and leisurely together.
Finally, they stopped in front of large reefs. Sheng Sui leaned against a person-high black boulder, facing the sea, the evening wind stirring her loose black hair.
Taking a deep breath, she squinted and asked: “Do you come to the seaside often?”
Unlike her searching for directions everywhere, Zhou Shiyu had walked along the seaside with practiced ease, obviously not his first time here.
“Mm.”
Zhou Shiyu, a few steps away, turned sideways to gaze at the endless sea surface. With his coat draped over Sheng Sui’s shoulders, his white shirt and collar fluttered slightly in the sea breeze. The silver moon outlined his lean figure with a touch of desolation.
The man’s voice was low and vast: “When I was framed in business, when my efforts were destroyed overnight, or when people used me to climb up – I came to the seaside.”
Sheng Sui was curious: “Would you forgive those people, or pretend not to see?”
It’s lonely at the top. There must be countless people wanting to see Zhou Shiyu fall from his pedestal. If he hated everyone, wouldn’t it be more exhausting?
She asked this because Sheng Sui had never been good at expressing negative emotions. When facing conflicts, she always held an attitude of making big problems small and small problems disappear, muddling through.
This was how she dealt with daily interactions, and even more so when facing her mother and family issues.
“You can forgive or ignore.”
After pondering for a moment, Zhou Shiyu turned back to look at her quietly, giving his answer: “But don’t minimize or erase the harm you’ve suffered.”
“Many times, forgiving and forgetting often means pretending it never happened, creating secondary harm.”
“……”
These words seemed to have deeper meaning. Before Sheng Sui could think more, her phone in her pocket vibrated.
It was a call from her mother, probably finally discovering she had left.
Pressing her lips with resistance showing on her face, Sheng Sui was lowering her eyes to make an excuse not to answer when a sudden black shadow covered her. A distinctly jointed hand appeared and took her phone.
Under Sheng Sui’s stunned gaze, Zhou Shiyu calmly answered the call, getting straight to the point: “This is Zhou Shiyu. Sheng Sui is with me now.”
“…Mr. Zhou?” With no one around but the sea wind, Yu Xuemei’s half-angry, half-fearful voice sounded: “I heard from Xiao Sui that you two got married?”
“I’m not opposing it, but you’ve only known each other for a few days before marrying. You don’t understand each other, and—”
“And by us marrying, you lose a considerable amount of control over Sheng Sui.”
The woman’s breathing in the receiver stopped abruptly. Zhou Shiyu averted his gaze, no longer looking at his wife’s expression, his cold dark eyes indifferently facing the sea:
“Because you don’t want to bear moral condemnation, you directly stuffed money to the alcoholic father to be done with it. So you need your daughter to constantly be grateful, constantly making her obediently accept so-called ‘good intentions’ and ‘care’ to reduce the guilt from back then and seek peace of mind for the rest of your life.”
Zhou Shiyu’s voice was low and cold, each word cutting to the bone: “Too bad she’s successful in her career and financially independent enough. So marriage is the only thing you can interfere with in this lifetime.”
After a few seconds of dead silence, the woman on the other end became angry with shame: “What nonsense are you talking about! I’m her mother! What right do you have to say such things to me!”
Facing the sharp screaming, Zhou Shiyu didn’t even lift his eyelids, his icy voice naturally authoritative: “I always suspect others with the greatest malice. If I’ve offended you, please forgive me.”
“And there are two things I hope you understand clearly.”
“First, as her legal spouse, I am Sheng Sui’s one and only primary immediate family member.”
Zhou Shiyu turned to face Sheng Sui’s dazed gaze directly. Under the moonlight, the woman tilted her head up slightly, looking at him intently, her watery eyes filled with stars.
Remembering her helpless look downstairs, Zhou Shiyu’s Adam’s apple moved slightly: “Second, all love that forces others to bear it, regardless of reason or purpose, is equivalent to violence.”
“……”
What followed was a long silence.
Zhou Shiyu had always had little patience with outsiders. Faced with Yu Xuemei’s speechlessness, he hung up the call, striding back to Sheng Sui in two steps and returning her phone.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have answered your phone without permission.”
If possible, he would never want to speak harshly in front of Sheng Sui.
Sheng Sui took her phone back, her eyes reflecting the man’s figure filled with confusion.
Clearly, he didn’t need to participate in her family disputes. Clearly, this should be her problem to solve. Why did Zhou Shiyu interfere?
The man’s downward gaze was loving. He raised his hand to tighten the suit jacket on her shoulders, finally bending down to drop a gentle kiss on Sheng Sui’s smooth forehead.
“You see,” in front of her, Zhou Shiyu was always as gentle as ever, “bearing it together is much easier than you carrying it alone.”
After speaking, the man straightened up.
But his clothes hem was caught by pale fingertips under the suit sleeves.
Before Zhou Shiyu could look down again, Sheng Sui, who had been leaning against the reef for a long time, supported herself up, hurriedly tiptoeing to reach him, tilting her head to accidentally kiss Zhou Shiyu’s mouth corner.
This was her first time actively kissing her husband.
She couldn’t explain the reason – her body acted before her brain.
The four lips touched and separated immediately. Sheng Sui didn’t even have time to feel the sensation before she was busy avoiding eye contact, standing straight and wanting to turn and walk away.
The next second, she was pulled back into the man’s arms by his long reach.
“Stealing a kiss and then running?” Zhou Shiyu encircled her slender waist, his thin lips approaching, low laughter carrying a hint of cunning.
“Even I asked for your consent last time.”
That night was clearly acting first and asking later. Sheng Sui’s momentary emotion was instantly replaced by embarrassment, her ear tips quietly reddening in the descending twilight: “…Then what do you want?”
The man still held her left hand, his fingertip stroking the red string bracelet at her wrist bone, pondering for a moment: “Give and take – let’s say Mrs. Zhou owes me a kiss.”
Seeing Sheng Sui’s eyes widen in shock at his unreasonable logic, Zhou Shiyu smiled, his tone carrying the flavor of a refined scoundrel:
“Or next time I want to kiss you, you be more obedient.”
“Teacher Sheng, are you free at 5:30 tonight? I have two tickets to an art film.”
During Monday’s lunch break in the cafeteria, Qi Yue handed Sheng Sui two movie tickets: “My husband and I have other plans, but the tickets shouldn’t be wasted. You can invite a friend to go together.”
Sheng Sui took the tickets, seeing an unfamiliar movie title: “Ah, thank you.”
Qi Yue waved her hand saying it wasn’t necessary: “No problem. You usually take care of me – I should have returned the favor long ago.”
After lunch, Sheng Sui first messaged Xiao Ming.
[Xiao Ming: Sorry babe, I have to work overtime tonight]
[Xiao Ming: Why don’t you ask your blind date? You two haven’t been on a date yet, right?]
“……”
Sheng Sui stared at the last line in the chat window, falling into thought, realizing that she and Zhou Shiyu, apart from their blind date dinner and last night at the seaside, hadn’t been on any dates – they only met at home.
So she texted Zhou Shiyu: “A colleague gave me two movie tickets for 5:30 tonight. Do you want to go?”
After sending, she was about to photograph the ticket to let him know what movie it was.
Before she could open the camera, her phone vibrated slightly – Zhou Shiyu’s instant reply.
[Zhou: Is Mrs. Zhou asking me on a movie date?]
[Zhou: Yes]
Too familiar a conversation. Sheng Sui unconsciously thought of their first communication mishap, when she mistook Zhou Shiyu for her blind date and stiffly dropped a notification, not expecting Zhou Shiyu to agree to her request without hesitation.
She hadn’t delved into the reasons then, but recalling Zhou Shiyu’s later behavior, it was hard not to be curious about when exactly the man had decided to marry her.
Sheng Sui’s personality naturally wouldn’t probe deeply. She just noticed that the person who usually called was suddenly texting and, upon inquiry, learned Zhou Shiyu was in a meeting.
[ss: You can send messages during meetings?]
[Zhou: According to regulations, no]
[Zhou: But no one can control me, so yes]
“…..”
Their conversation was no longer the unfamiliar politeness of first acquaintance. Sheng Sui saw the deliberate seriousness between the lines, smiled lightly, and took it as Zhou Shiyu accepting the invitation.
Near the end of school, as Sheng Sui and Qi Yue were organizing students into a line, Zhou Yi, sitting at the back of the classroom, suddenly screamed without warning.
The boy who never spoke sat motionless in his seat, both hands frantically scratching and hitting his own head. Qi Yue, who was closer to him, quickly hugged him, trying to stop him.
Recalling Zhou Yi’s most common daily action, Sheng Sui instinctively looked at the front wall and found the wall clock missing.
She quickly turned back to ask: “Where’s the clock on the wall?”
“…Ah? In the storage cabinet!”
In two or three quick steps to the corner storage cabinet, Sheng Sui pulled open the door and quickly found the stopped clock that had run out of battery.
Without hesitation, she adjusted the time to 4:30, grabbed a stool to stand on, and hung the clock back in its original position.
The screaming finally stopped. Zhou Yi stared woodenly at the clock for ten seconds, then lowered his head to pack his bag and quietly stood at the back of the line.
Sheng Sui understood this was typical autistic stereotypical behavior and turned to comfort her new colleague: “It’s fine. I’ll bring new batteries tomorrow.”
Qi Yue was amazed by her keen observation: “Teacher Sheng, I admire you more and more.”
Today it was still that auntie picking up Zhou Yi. Sheng Sui watched the tall and short figures until they got in the car and left, suddenly feeling puzzled.
She had never seen Zhou Yi’s parents. Although she could see Zhou Shiyu cared deeply about this younger brother, the two brothers didn’t live together.
So who did Zhou Yi live with daily? The pickup auntie?
Taking a taxi to the mall where the cinema was located with this question, when Sheng Sui took the elevator to the fifth floor, she heard four young girls excitedly discussing in low voices:
“Did you see the handsome guy making a phone call in the corner? His features are really striking – sure he’s not a celebrity?”
“If he were a celebrity, he’d be famous already. I couldn’t help secretly taking a photo just now – the unfiltered shot is even more photogenic than my idol.”
“Quick, let me see—”
The whispered voices faded. Sheng Sui entered the cinema lobby and looked directly toward the corner the girls mentioned. Sure enough, through the passing crowds, she spotted Zhou Shiyu at a glance.
The standout man wore a high-end business suit, standing alone in the corner diagonal to the ticket counter. Overhead spotlights cast beams highlighting his sharp profile as he looked down making a phone call, a black phone in his palm.
So the person those girls were talking about really was Zhou Shiyu.
Sheng Sui was about to approach and greet him when she saw the man suddenly frown, his tone flat and cold: “…You’re very troublesome—”
Before he finished speaking, Zhou Shiyu suddenly raised his hand to grip her arm, pulling Sheng Sui toward him, his tone instantly gentle: “Careful.”
“……”
Sheng Sui looked back at the careless man who had nearly bumped into her, then heard a loud roar from Zhou Shiyu’s phone:
“Zhou Shiyu, there’s actually a woman with you! You really got married?! Didn’t we agree to be lifelong bachelors together – whoever gets a partner is a dog?!”
Responding to the string of angry roars was Zhou Shiyu’s unhesitating, expressionless hang-up.
“That was Qiu Si,” Zhou Shiyu explained concisely. “You met him at the restaurant during the last blind date.”
Being reminded by her husband about dating someone else, Sheng Sui coughed uncomfortably and took out the movie tickets to change the subject: “He just said you’re a non-marriage advocate?”
“I just don’t marry other people.”
Zhou Shiyu took the ticket stubs from Sheng Sui’s hands, asking: “Want some popcorn?”
“No,” Sheng Sui shook her head, looking at the popcorn machine behind the distant ticket counter, sighing regretfully. “I can’t eat too much, and throwing away the rest would be wasteful—”
Meeting Zhou Shiyu’s smiling gaze, Sheng Sui’s words paused as she heard the man say methodically:
“But you have a husband now.”
“……”
Finally, Sheng Sui walked into the screening room holding a bucket of popcorn, her cheeks still tinged with heat even after taking her seat.
Husband.
How could Zhou Shiyu say it so smoothly?
Only after entering did she discover that Qi Yue had originally booked a couples’ theater – each row had five long chairs, each chair perfectly fitting two people, with partitions between each chair for privacy.
In short, very convenient for intimate activities between couples.
Probably because it was Monday evening during dinner time, only two couples were present even after the movie started, counting Zhou and Sheng.
The movie was the expected romance genre with somewhat clichéd plot. Sheng Sui guessed the ending within ten minutes of the opening, but unexpectedly, five minutes later, the male and female leads on screen suddenly began tongue kissing in the bedroom.
The protagonists kissed passionately rolling on the floor, bare shoulders half-revealed in tantalizing glimpses, shaking bed frames and hands gripping sheets tightly, with extensive suggestive shots leaving much to imagination.
…So this was the selling point.
Even slow-witted Sheng Sui realized belatedly. Just as she wondered how much longer the intimate scene would last, she heard the sound of kissing from the couple in front.
She and Zhou Shiyu had entered late, so the two couples probably thought they had the theater to themselves, quickly becoming uninhibited in their embracing and kissing.
For a moment, both the movie protagonists and nearby audience were demonstrating to Sheng Sui how couples should kiss.
“What are you looking at?”
Zhou Shiyu had to ask knowingly, his ambiguous low voice against her ear making Sheng Sui feel momentarily numb on her left side.
She turned sharply to meet Zhou Shiyu’s leisurely deep eyes in the darkness, lowering her voice: “…They’re too loud.”
She finished by looking at the couple kissing obliviously in the front right.
After hearing her complaint, the man straightened up to look at the front row, then half-squinted thoughtfully after a few seconds: “Usually in business, when encountering opponents with dirty tactics, there’s only one solution.”
“—Be more excessive than the opponent.”
The screen’s brightness exposed Sheng Sui’s reddened ear tips. Before she could understand his meaning, Zhou Shiyu’s right arm wrapped around her slender waist, eliminating the remaining distance between them as they already sat close together.
Hearing her breath catch, Zhou Shiyu wickedly pressed his thin lips to her earlobe, yet insisted on politely asking like a gentleman:
“Mrs. Zhou still owes a kiss. Want to try it here?”
Zhou Shiyu applied slight pressure with his palm. Unprepared, Sheng Sui leaned toward the man, and when her lips were about to hit his jaw, her pupils constricted as she suddenly came to her senses and hastily turned her face away.
Who knew her hands had nowhere to go – in panicked darkness, she pressed directly on the man’s thigh, her upper body losing balance and falling downward.
Sheng Sui’s long hair scattered as she supported herself against Zhou Shiyu’s inner thigh area, looking up with moist eyes and slightly parted red lips.
The position looked truly compromising.
Their eyes met. Sheng Sui was completely unaware that the man’s dark eyes behind his glasses grew deeper and deeper. Before she could get up, she spoke hastily without thinking:
“This is a public place – we can’t do certain things.”
“……”
Sheng Sui thought her warning had worked. After speaking, Zhou Shiyu indeed released his constraining hand from her waist. Even after she sat up straight, he didn’t force his face closer.
The man only quietly waited for her to arrange her hair and clothes before simply encircling her wrist, pondering for a moment with a hoarse voice:
“Alright, then let’s go to the car.”
Sheng Sui didn’t immediately connect “alright” to her previous sentence, confused: “Huh?”
“I’ve seen this movie,” Zhou Shiyu fabricated without changing expression. “The male and female leads will kiss four more times and have three more intimate scenes.”
He glanced at the couple still kissing in front, pulling his coat over his arm in a clear gesture of preparing to leave: “Also, the guy in front noticed us three minutes into the opening and probably won’t stop now.”
“So,” Zhou Shiyu’s voice was hoarse, his glasses unable to hide his burning gaze as his fingertip repeatedly stroked the protrusion of Sheng Sui’s wrist bone,
“Do you want to stay here and watch them, or go back to the car with me to do it?”