If you still have strength, you can bite me two more times.

Compared to Sheng Sui’s panic and confusion, the person involved, Zhou Shiyu, was exceptionally calm.

The man’s peaceful gaze fell on the black phone in her palm. He draped the towel in his hand over his shoulder to cover the scars, walking over and asking softly:

“Do you need me to put on clothes first?”

Sheng Sui realized her direct stare was impolite and quickly averted her eyes, looking down to hand over the black-screened phone stiffly: “…Your phone was ringing, I wanted to bring it to you.”

After she spoke, her hand was empty—Zhou Shiyu had taken the phone.

In the brief silence, Sheng Sui didn’t know where to place her gaze, feeling that either directly looking at the scars or deliberately avoiding them was offensive, when she heard the man’s gentle voice from above: “I was showering with water running and didn’t hear you calling me.”

“Mm, it’s fine,” Sheng Sui’s mind was full of what Lin Xi had said in the afternoon, her mouth dry and voice hoarse as she spoke, “The scars on your body… were they from that person beating you?”

The words escaped her lips and she immediately regretted them.

Clearly on the way home, she had promised not to be willful in her probing anymore.

Sheng Sui knew she wasn’t someone with excessive curiosity, yet she repeatedly crossed boundaries with Zhou Shiyu.

“Mm, I have keloid constitution, so marks were left behind.”

Her head was ruffled by a warm large hand, accompanied by the man’s low voice. Looking up, Sheng Sui saw Zhou Shiyu wanting to meet her eyes at the same level, his posture lowered, making the terrifying scars winding from his shoulders down his spine visible in their entirety.

The man’s eyes held gentle laughter, his peaceful tone as if telling someone else’s story: “Did it frighten you?”

Meeting his gaze, Sheng Sui saw her own panicked and sorrowful expression reflected in Zhou Shiyu’s tranquil pupils, her hanging hands quietly clenching: “Zhou Shiyu.”

“…Actually, if you don’t want to smile, you don’t have to.”

In her gaze, the man’s perfect, flawless smile froze for an instant.

“I know you have strong ability to process negative emotions, and perhaps you really do feel it’s nothing,” Even now, Sheng Sui still couldn’t see through whether the man’s smile was real or fake, only trying not to look at the scars so close at hand, speaking each word with difficulty and force,

“But I feel sad.”

Without permission, she raised her hand to lightly touch the scar on Zhou Shiyu’s chest, her fingertips sensing the moist heat of skin soaked in hot water, feeling the man’s muscles tense at the skin contact.

“This was left from surgery when I was sixteen,” Zhou Shiyu’s voice by her ear was hoarse, his tone carrying an unfamiliar suppressed restraint, “…I stayed in the hospital for a while then.”

Sheng Sui’s sliding finger paused, remembering something as she looked up, forming a smile that might have looked worse than crying: “What a coincidence, that’s the same year I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.”

Witnessing the man’s scars firsthand, her emotions were more complex than she had imagined.

Beneath the deep, unfillable tearing heartache, she also secretly felt a base sense of security from finding a companion—Zhou Shiyu’s scars made Sheng Sui realize that her seemingly flawless husband also had unknown sides, and it wasn’t just her past that was embarrassing.

Regardless of the reasons, she depended on this marriage, and precisely because of this dependence, because she knew that long-term stable relationships inevitably required mutual support and providing value to each other, Sheng Sui had always been searching for what more she could do for Zhou Shiyu.

Simply put, because she treasured this hard-won marriage from the bottom of her heart, Sheng Sui didn’t want to always be in a passive position, even if the man’s dominance stemmed from kindness and consideration.

Zhou Shiyu was too perfect a marriage partner, so perfect that when Sheng Sui saw him get up early to cook each morning, opened surprise lunch boxes at noon, and even tried new drinks before bed each night, she would occasionally feel a bubble-like illusory beauty, generating thoughts of wanting him to depend on her somewhat too.

In her twenty-seven years of life, she was accustomed to going with the flow. This was the first time she so strongly realized that if she wanted to obtain something, staying in place would never work.

“…Before marriage you said that with you, I could be a ‘bad child.'”

Amid their intertwined suppressed breathing, Sheng Sui heard her not-so-pleasant voice speak up, her hand remaining on the man’s heart, looking up into his dark, focused eyes, speaking softly:

“Zhou Shiyu, with me, you don’t need to always be strong either.”

As her words fell, she felt herself being encircled by solid, burning arms, and the next second was steadily lifted and placed on the nearby vanity table, her feet dangling in the air.

The man’s moist forehead pressed against hers, his dry, broad palm holding her right hand against his heart, his breath lacking its usual gentleness and becoming aggressively intense.

His burning, hoarse voice pressed heavily by her ear: “Not afraid?”

Words were pale. Sheng Sui no longer let the man grip her hand tightly, instead guiding him to lift her shirt hem, revealing a section of snow-white, flat abdomen.

Having been ill for nearly thirteen years, both sides of her small abdomen were pierced by sharp needles four times daily. Even with the finest, smallest needles, traces could still be seen where she frequently injected, and sometimes when the injection sites weren’t good, there would be lumps and bruises.

Leading the man’s slightly rough hand, Sheng Sui guided Zhou Shiyu to caress over her skin that had been “kissed” by fine needles tens of thousands of times, suddenly feeling that their mutual exposure of wounds had a bittersweet humor.

She rested her head on her husband’s shoulder, who had been silent for so long, her cheek feeling the old scars on the man’s right shoulder, asking in return:

“When you see wounds on my body, are you afraid? Do you find them ugly?”

“…Not afraid.” Zhou Shiyu looked down at her flat abdomen. From Sheng Sui’s angle looking down, she could clearly see the man’s tense jaw muscles,

“But it makes me heartache.”

The man, who always concealed his emotions flawlessly, was someone from whom Sheng Sui heard for the first time a voice trembling slightly from inability to control himself.

The man almost stubbornly held her in his embrace, bending down again and again to place kisses on her small, dense wounds, his careful, gentle movements almost devout, his hoarse voice rarely murmuring her name.

“Sheng Sui,” Zhou Shiyu’s thin lips lingered touching her abdomen, as if talking to himself, not knowing to whom he was speaking,

“If only you didn’t have to go through these things.”

“……”

No one could truly empathize with another’s pain, but there were always different degrees of sympathy.

Sheng Sui raised her hands to embrace her husband in return, learning from his example to gently kiss the wounds on his shoulder, stating honestly: “I was indeed unhappy yesterday because I felt you were hiding a lot from me.”

Zhou Shiyu straightened up to facilitate the embrace, pulling down her rolled-up clothes to prevent her from catching cold: “Mm, it’s my fault.”

“But on the way home today, I reflected that I was demanding too much,” Sheng Sui held him like a sloth, “Just now seeing your wounds, I felt sad and heartbroken again.”

The roller-coaster psychological changes made Sheng Sui feel pretentious even as she spoke, quietly blushing: “I sound so fickle.”

“It doesn’t matter, I love hearing it.”

After a moment of emotional loss of control, Zhou Shiyu returned to his usual gentleness, his large hand stroking her thin back, his slender fingers seemingly brushing over her spine through the fabric, sliding downward, whispering intimately by her ear: “Also, the wounds aren’t ugly.”

“Sui Sui is beautiful everywhere.”

Comforting words from the man’s mouth could inexplicably transform into ambiguity and flirtation. Sheng Sui had originally been immersed in self-blame, but the next second was stirred by Zhou Shiyu’s teasing touches that seemed close yet distant.

She was lifted at the waist and gently set down, with the man’s heavy shadow pressing over her. The familiar rustling sound of plastic packaging being torn rang out, particularly jarring in the quiet bedroom shielded by gauze curtains.

Perhaps without the barrier of clothing, Sheng Sui had never felt her husband’s robust and imposing body so close to her.

She couldn’t help but curl up slightly, her fingertips touching the man’s hand that supported him beside her face as he leaned over, her voice trembling at the end:

“…Didn’t we try yesterday and the size didn’t fit?”

“Mm, so I went to buy the right size today.”

Answering fluently, Zhou Shiyu, just like last night, placed the slippery plastic membrane in her palm, his hoarse voice coaxing: “I promised last night that I wouldn’t let you buy it anymore.”

“……”

Sheng Sui glared at him without any intimidating power: “You remember this kind of thing so clearly.”

“Of course,” Zhou Shiyu guided her hand to grip it, feeling the woman’s warm, soft palm even through the membrane, frowning and speaking in a low voice, leaning down to bite her thin lips, his breath unsteady,

“As long as it’s about you, I always remember clearly.”

Sheng Sui soon experienced firsthand that when Zhou Shiyu said that day that he was only in a “calm state,” he really wasn’t lying.

Naive as she was, until she arched her neck high and then crashed back onto the soft pillow, she thought today would be like last night, with the man half-coaxingly asking her to close her legs together before pushing between them.

She thought, experiencing the same size, hardness, and even burning heat, wouldn’t it feel the same everywhere?

Zhou Shiyu still didn’t forget to serve her first, his agile fingers and thin lips both tasting her moist, dripping tender petals before carefully and slowly pushing in.

She was split open, and Sheng Sui tried to give up halfway through, using all her coquettish pleading tactics, crying that she didn’t like hearing the collision sounds and her head really hurt.

The response was an indulgent low laugh by her ear. Zhou Shiyu, ever responsive to her requests, pulled her into his embrace, continuing to enter her while sitting up and gently comforting her, asking if this would be better for Sheng Sui.

Sitting upright only made him go deeper. Not only did Sheng Sui’s head hurt more, she felt like the bones and flesh in her brain were being scrambled, thinking hazily in her confusion that soul scattering was probably just this kind of tormenting method.

But tormenting her temperament wasn’t enough—Zhou Shiyu was particularly fond of kissing her wounds, withdrawing from time to time and then leaning down again. Only when Sheng Sui couldn’t endure it and began to struggle would he “mercifully” raise his head and straighten his waist, speaking considerate words while pushing in.

Finally, Sheng Sui was carried away for cleaning. When she returned, she could only collapse weakly, her black hair disheveled, using her remaining strength to turn her head and bite Zhou Shiyu’s shoulder vindictively when the man held her.

Not caring where the man had scars, she bit him purely for revenge against Zhou Shiyu’s lack of tenderness, her breath weak and floating: “…I regret my self-blame from this afternoon now.”

“My fault,” Zhou Shiyu was always fastest to admit mistakes, raising his hand to wrap Sheng Sui up like a dumpling in the blanket, patting the blanket surface,

“If you still have strength, you can bite me two more times.”

As he spoke, he presented his shoulder covered with teeth marks to Sheng Sui, the roguish laughter in his eyes clearly writing “please enjoy” in four big characters.

Sheng Sui decided not to let him succeed.

Ignoring the newly added shallow teeth marks, she looked at the man’s scars through the slightly dry moisture in her eyes, stubbornly saying she didn’t feel heartbroken, but still couldn’t help softening.

Zhou Shiyu had been busy taking care of her and hadn’t bothered to put on clothes yet. Sheng Sui pursed her lips and lifted a corner of the blanket, hinting matter-of-factly: “…It’s quite cold inside the blanket.”

The excuse was really clumsy.

But it didn’t matter—as long as Zhou Shiyu could understand.

The familiar bitter, clear fragrance slipped into the covers, her hands and feet being lovingly warmed by him. Zhou Shiyu held her loosely, his thin lips falling on Sheng Sui’s forehead: “Sleep, I’m here.”

Sheng Sui silently raised her hands to embrace him in return, exhausted weakness sweeping over her, her voice unclear: “…Things will get better in the future, don’t be sad…”

The woman in his arms breathed steadily and peacefully. Zhou Shiyu rested his head against Sheng Sui’s soft hair, gently patting her back to lull her to sleep, the warmth in his black eyes behind the glasses gradually dissipating.

Not sad?

He seemed to have stopped being distracted by hatred for that man long ago.

Perhaps he had hated when he was young and powerless, but later as he grew older, knowing that the man who called himself his father was nothing more than a madman who couldn’t control his brain and was hijacked by emotions, his attitude gained some pity.

Until that car accident when he was twenty-three.

Zhou Shiyu, who had rushed back from abroad, stood in the morgue, required by the hospital as a family member to confirm the identity. For the first time and last time, he looked down at the man whose face and body were both mangled.

He suddenly felt that the man was just a pitiful creature. Medicine couldn’t save his maddened brain—compared to a lifetime of suffering, dying by accident was probably the best way for him to die.

The day he received the ashes from the crematorium, Zhou Shiyu sat alone in the empty bedroom, quietly looking at the small pile in the wooden box, seeming to still sense the slightly burnt smell and the man’s particular odor.

From that day on, the hatred and resentment accumulated from childhood had nowhere to go, finally becoming like the man’s burned flesh—just ash that would scatter with any breeze.

No one would hate a dead person, because doing so had no benefit.

As a businessman, Zhou Shiyu understood this principle all too clearly.

Only after the person in his arms had completely fallen asleep did the man carefully get up from under the covers, draw the curtains tight, and bend down to pick up the scattered clothes on the floor, taking them to the laundry room for washing.

After tidying up, Zhou Shiyu returned to the bathroom, took his white phone from the shelf above the washstand, unlocked it and deleted the newest call record to himself, then removed the SIM card from the side slot and broke it in half.

A slight crisp sound rang out. The two fragments were each wrapped in tissue paper, crumpled into balls and thrown into the trash can at his feet.

Zhou Shiyu carried the trash bag out of the bedroom, disposing of it at the designated collection point in the hallway where staff were responsible for it, then returned to the bedroom bathroom.

He bent down to replace the trash bag, throwing the scattered odds and ends still on the washstand into the trash can, looking down silently at the trash can that was almost identical to before.

He had promised long ago that whatever Sheng Sui wanted or wanted to know, he would give and tell her without reservation—

Just in his own way.

In a way that ensured she wouldn’t flee, distance herself, or would even feel more heartbroken and loving toward him.

After washing his hands and coming out of the bathroom, his gaze precisely fell on Sheng Sui sleeping peacefully on the bed. The woman’s breathing was long and steady, her warm white cheeks showing hints of pink.

After moving in, she had gained some weight and was no longer as thin as when he first embraced her, when her bones would sometimes be uncomfortable.

As the sky gradually darkened outside, Zhou Shiyu bent down beside Sheng Sui’s bed, raising his hand to tuck her scattered hair behind her ear, speaking gently:

“For dinner we’ll have soybeans stewed with pig’s trotters, garlic oil lettuce and clam-stuffed meat, plus some red date and bird’s nest soup to nourish your body, okay?”

The sleeping person didn’t hear him clearly, but seemed to move closer just from his scent, her soft, delicate cheek unconsciously nuzzling against his palm by the pillow, the gesture full of intimacy.

Zhou Shiyu looked down, just as he did every night when patiently waiting for her to fall asleep, quietly gazing at Sheng Sui’s peaceful sleeping face, unblinking.

He thought that if there were a mirror in front of him right now, the greed, possessive desire, and well-hidden madness in his eyes would all be clearly visible.

So Zhou Shiyu occasionally hoped that Sheng Sui could sleep a little longer.

Because only when she was asleep could he look at her so unscrupulously as he was doing now, could he let possessiveness run wild and grow;

Could he confirm that at least the current Sheng Sui belonged to him alone.