Sui Sui, where would you like me to kiss you?

Before leaving, Zhou Shiyu looked at the disc that had fallen to the ground during their embrace, gently patting Sheng Sui’s back:

“Should we take it back with us?”

When the long embrace ended, Sheng Sui’s feet touched the ground. The relieved pain made her exhale deeply as she lowered her head.

The disc she had carefully protected all along, afraid of any damage, was now not only cracked in half but its case was also covered with thin, long fractures.

It resembled Zhou Shiyu’s past recorded within—muddy and scarred.

“…Let’s throw it away.”

After a long while, Sheng Sui heard herself answer this way. She crouched down to pick up the disc’s transparent case, murmuring to herself in a low voice: “I don’t want to understand you through this method.”

She took a deep breath, and just as she was about to stand up, a shadow fell over her. Warm, powerful hands and arms passed under her legs, easily lifting her in a princess carry.

Sheng Sui clutched the disc, unable to wrap her arms around the man’s neck, so she instinctively curled closer into Zhou Shiyu’s embrace.

Seeing her movement was an unconscious act of dependence, Zhou Shiyu smiled softly, adjusting his hold on her slender waist and bouncing her slightly upward: “Look, this way neither of us needs to bend down or stand on tiptoes.”

“Sui Sui, I’ll find an embracing position that’s comfortable for both of us.”

Sheng Sui looked up at his words, and before she could meet the man’s gaze, she was kissed on the forehead—a warm touch that separated immediately: “You just need to give me a little more patience.”

“Alright.” Sheng Sui always had the most confidence in Zhou Shiyu and knew that in this entire matter, she was the only weak link.

After throwing the disc in the trash can, she silently buried her head in the man’s chest, listening to the steady, powerful heartbeat beneath his white shirt, whispering softly: “…I’m sorry. If only I were stronger.”

Strong enough to protect him.

Zhou Shiyu held her steadily as they walked along the coastline, with the last spring light of the day falling into the horizon where sea met sky. In this peaceful moment, he felt his chest might burst from overflowing satisfaction.

They kissed and embraced at the junction of day and night—perhaps they would accompany each other day and night until the end of their lives.

As dusk crept in, Zhou Shiyu felt the occasionally sharp reefs beneath his feet and couldn’t help but feel sorry for the pain his beloved had endured when standing on tiptoes to embrace him. He said heavily:

“…Sui Sui, don’t apologize.”

You’ll never know what you mean to me.

Soon, the two returned to the low-key luxurious Aston Martin.

Sheng Sui opened the passenger door and immediately noticed a flat, rectangular black soft case in the slot between the two seats—a portable insulin cooler.

She was all too familiar with this: unopened insulin had special temperature requirements and needed to be stored in a constant temperature space of 2-8 degrees Celsius.

Previously, Sheng Sui had always kept her insulin in the refrigerator. After marriage when she moved out, she kept it in the small refrigerator Zhou Shiyu had bought in advance.

Silently, she took out the cooler and opened it, indeed finding insulin pens wrapped in ice packs, along with matching needles, alcohol swabs, a blood glucose meter, and test strips.

“……”

She had left in a hurry this morning without bringing her bag, naturally forgetting to bring her insulin, which was why she hadn’t dared to eat all day until dark.

But she had only mentioned this on the phone—how did Zhou Shiyu know—

Catching sight of a cat hair on the surface of the box, Sheng Sui shook her head helplessly with sudden realization after a few seconds.

With a cat at home, there were naturally surveillance cameras everywhere—

This meant that from her early morning rise, to being “tricked” by Ping’An into going to the study, to eating breakfast in a daze, and even rushing out without her medicine bag, the man had seen everything clearly through the surveillance footage.

As for how he found her later, he only needed to have someone follow her the entire time and make one phone call to get the answer.

Zhou Shiyu was truly too intelligent.

“…I thought going through your bag wouldn’t be polite, so I brought new ones from home.”

Zhou Shiyu spoke up while driving with one hand. Sheng Sui noticed that the man’s left hand, which wasn’t wearing a watch, rested on the car door armrest, perfectly covering his scars as he looked ahead: “If you’re hungry, we can have Aunt Tian prepare dinner early. If not, we can eat when we get home.”

“Let’s trouble Aunt Tian.”

Sheng Sui didn’t want Zhou Shiyu to work too hard. As she lowered her head to send a text message, she suddenly realized how shallow she seemed compared to Zhou Shiyu when facing a sick loved one.

Shaking her head with half self-mockery, she suddenly remembered something a teacher used to say repeatedly in school.

—The most frightening thing isn’t smart people or hardworking students, but those naturally gifted students who work a thousand times harder than you.

Carrying some guilt and a deep belief in the theory of “the early bird catches the worm” from childhood, after returning home to change and wash, Sheng Sui sat on the living room sofa searching for relevant materials and books about “bipolar disorder.”

During her school days, she was the type of student teachers loved most: not the absolute top performer but consistently excellent, never weak in any subject and well-behaved, and she would obediently redo even the most basic practice problems given to her.

At this moment, Sheng Sui approached this with almost the same attitude as preparing for college entrance exams. After using the internet to find book lists and several papers, she immediately made a reading plan with high efficiency.

She was so absorbed that when Zhou Shiyu called her several times unsuccessfully and had to come over personally, Sheng Sui was completely unaware.

The cold white screen content reflected in his glasses, Zhou Shiyu’s dark eyes scanned over her densely packed book list, saying gently:

“Sui Sui, time for your injection and dinner.”

“…Hm? Oh, alright.”

Very tacitly, neither of them mentioned the day’s events at the dinner table, consciously avoiding the painting, the diary, and everything that had happened these past two days.

The lunch prepared in the refrigerator hadn’t been eaten and shouldn’t be wasted, so Zhou Shiyu simply made one meat dish, one vegetable, and one soup for the evening.

While ladling soup for Sheng Sui, Zhou Shiyu asked: “About the blood glucose monitor we discussed last time—should we go to the hospital tomorrow to take a look?”

Sheng Sui indeed had other things to ask. After thinking it over, she nodded in agreement: “…Alright.”

Zhou Shiyu probably mistook her hesitation for fear and comforted her gently: “I’ve tried all the models on the market and finally chose the Dexcom G6. The wearing process is basically painless, and the waterproofing and Bluetooth connection are also good.”

Hearing the man fluently describe his user experience, Sheng Sui’s eyes widened slightly: “You tried them? When?”

Zhou Shiyu skillfully deboned the garlic spare ribs, placing the meat in Sheng Sui’s bowl, speaking in a natural tone as if discussing daily matters: “Yes, whenever new models come out, I try them all.”

Seeing his beloved still looked surprised, Zhou Shiyu reached over to ruffle her hair: “Don’t worry.”

“If it would hurt, I wouldn’t bear to let you try it.”

Sheng Sui was momentarily speechless.

Zhou Shiyu wasn’t a diabetes patient at all, yet before they were married, before she even knew him, he had tried all the devices she had never considered using.

Even his first investment project after starting his business was research into diabetes medications and equipment.

Sheng Sui put down her chopsticks, and after several long seconds, heard her hoarse voice: “…What else have you done that I don’t know about?”

From Ping’An to Aunt Tian, from Z to Cheng He, and from the alley painting to the diary—just how much had Zhou Shiyu hidden from her?

“Probably some other things,” Zhou Shiyu’s answer was ambiguous, “Maybe I don’t remember them all either.”

Why wouldn’t he remember?

Could it be that the electroshock therapy Liang Xubai mentioned had taken away part of the man’s memory?

This meal was destined to remain unfinished.

Since they had no appetite for food and couldn’t keep starving, they might as well consume something else.

In the dimly lit bedroom, no one spoke for a long time.

Sheng Sui didn’t know what they were competing over or who had started it, but when she came to her senses, Zhou Shiyu was kissing her lips.

Her lips naturally refused to be outdone, relentlessly biting, entangling, and enveloping the man—neither willing to let the other go.

The result of this contest was her continuous tears, falling like broken pearl strings one after another—crying was her emotions wailing, yet her body gave a completely different answer of joy.

Teardrops dampened the pillowcase. Zhou Shiyu stopped, reaching up to wipe away the tears sliding from her eye corners, wanting to hold her up: “Does it hurt? Should we rest for a bit?”

Sheng Sui shook her head, naturally wrapping her arms around the man’s neck as she sat up, taking matters into her own hands.

More tears poured out as she pleaded in a begging tone, softly requesting: “Zhou Shiyu, kiss me, okay?”

The man always granted her every request. He gathered the hair from her side face behind her burning ears, his tone extremely gentle:

“Sui Sui, where would you like me to kiss you?”

“…Anywhere, anywhere is fine.”

This was Sheng Sui’s first time being so conscious, and also the first time she didn’t push his head away when Zhou Shiyu bent down deeply.

The man’s hair between her fingers was clearly soft—so why did the touch against her lips always feel somewhat prickly?

Sheng Sui couldn’t understand. Looking at the ceiling that rose and fell above her head, she felt like a broken faucet at both ends, with tears and other fluids flowing endlessly.

It seemed only this way could she find a legitimate reason for crying—after all, Zhou Shiyu was the one suffering, so what reason did she have to cry endlessly for him?

“……”

Because of her earnest cooperation, the two spent an unprecedentedly wild night: relearning the usage of “returning to basics” and learning like animals to leave special marks in their territory.

When returning to modern human society, Sheng Sui’s eyelids were heavy with fatigue. Unable to care about the bruises on her knees from kneeling too long, her head touched the pillow and she fell into a deep sleep.

Zhou Shiyu remained awake, getting up to clean the aftermath scattered across the floor before finally bringing back ointment for promoting blood circulation and removing bruises.

Using the natural warmth of his palms for heat therapy, he looked at his deeply sleeping beloved in the darkness for a long time, remembering how he had tried several times to pull her into his arms.

He had deliberately kept his voice low, saying there was no rush for today, saying they could wait until the carpet arrived next time, okay?

The usually most obedient person was particularly stubborn at that moment, insisting it was fine, saying that kneeling actually wouldn’t hurt much.

“…Sui Sui, I’ve been taking my medication properly and seriously receiving treatment all these years. The probability of bipolar disorder being cured is small, but it’s not uncontrollable.”

Zhou Shiyu knelt beside Sheng Sui’s bed, seeing the bright white moonlight falling on her peaceful sleeping face, lowering his head to kiss her: “So, don’t be afraid of me.”

“And don’t pity me, okay?”

This time Zhou Shiyu hadn’t lied to Sheng Sui—the process of installing the blood glucose monitor was indeed painless.

With constant voices outside the door, in the treatment room, Sheng Sui lifted the left side of her clothing, wiped the skin half a palm’s distance from her navel with an alcohol swab, tore open the packaging of the disposable device, and took out the plastic instrument shaped and sized like a handle.

The nurse’s gentle and patient guidance sounded: “…Right, now remove the adhesive, pull off the plastic rod on the round button, then press the round button.”

Sheng Sui followed the instructions, hearing only a crisp click sound. She felt something pierce into the flesh below her lower abdomen—after a second of mosquito bite-like weak stinging pain, there was no other sensation. The entire process took less than half a minute.

However, she hadn’t found the right position and happened to pierce a capillary. When she removed the handle device, she could clearly see blood seeping from the transparent shell’s groove, staining the white adhesive cloth red.

The nurse hurriedly turned back to get new alcohol swabs: “Ah, quickly wipe it—”

“No need, I have some here.”

Sheng Sui was quicker to cover the groove area with the alcohol swab she had ready, watching the blood quickly absorb upward.

She turned sideways, using her body to block the man’s direction behind her. Only after the bleeding stopped did she turn back around, looking up at the nurse with a slight smile as if nothing had happened.

“What’s wrong?” Zhou Shiyu’s inquiry came from behind as the man several steps away walked forward, “Is everything going smoothly?”

“Yes, no problem, almost done.”

Sheng Sui held the bloody cotton in her palm with an unchanged expression, picking up the Bluetooth receiver that matched the groove shape, pressing it into the groove, then taking out her phone to click the app for final pairing.

“It shows we need to wait another two hours,” after completing all operations, she looked up at Zhou Shiyu, speaking softly,

“Should we wait here or go to the supermarket to buy things?”

“Let’s wait a bit more. It’s better to be cautious the first time.” Zhou Shiyu raised his hand, gently ruffling her hair.

“Alright.”

Sheng Sui nodded without objection.

Besides installing the blood glucose monitor and visiting her father later, her other purpose for coming to the hospital was to ask about something very important.

After the nurse left, Zhou Shiyu received a phone call and then said someone had come and he needed to go out immediately.

Sheng Sui was desperately trying to figure out how to get him away, so hearing this, she couldn’t help but sigh in relief, smiling as she said: “Go ahead and take care of your business. I can manage on my own.”

“Alright, I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

Fortunately, someone arrived before Zhou Shiyu returned—Sheng Sui’s attending physician of several years, Dr. Liu, a kind-faced middle-aged woman around fifty years old.

When they last met during Sheng Sui’s physical exam six months ago, Deputy Director Liu was pleased to see she was willing to listen to advice about wearing a blood glucose monitor, saying with relief:

“You might not be used to having an extra device on your body at first, but you’ll get used to it in a few days—this model you’re wearing has very high sensitivity and automatically tests your blood glucose every five minutes, which will greatly help avoid your previous hypoglycemic episodes.”

With clothing as cover, once the device was concealed, there was no difference from a normal person. At most, it would just be inconvenient to wear crop tops or loose short tops in summer.

Sheng Sui could accept these limitations.

Not dwelling on the details, she had urgent matters to ask while Zhou Shiyu wasn’t present, so before Dr. Liu could begin her basic inquiries, she interrupted first:

“Dr. Liu, may I ask you a question first?”

The treatment room door was wide open, with crowds of people passing by constantly—who knew when someone might come in.

While speaking, Sheng Sui cautiously glanced at the doorway from time to time, then saw Dr. Liu considerately get up and close the door tightly before returning to sit down.

“Don’t be nervous,” Dr. Liu’s daughter was about Sheng Sui’s age, so she always had the patience and tolerance of treating a younger person, “What would you like to ask me?”

“……”

Sheng Sui knew very clearly that it was too early to bring up this question, but she still remembered Zhou Shiyu taking folic acid every night.

She had looked it up later—folic acid could improve sperm quality, concentration, and vitality, was very important for male reproductive health, and was a supplement many expecting fathers took when trying to conceive.

So was Zhou Shiyu hoping to have a child with her, or was he simply trying to strengthen his body?

The answer was currently unknowable.

But it inadvertently reminded Sheng Sui of something she had never considered before.

“…I got married recently,” taking a deep breath, she couldn’t help but feel grateful that the doctor across from her was also female, making this question less difficult to voice,

“Doctor, may I ask—with my current type 1 diabetes condition, would I still be able to get pregnant?”