Sheng Sui, don’t treat me this way.

Sheng Sui feared arguments.

When she was young, every time her mother stuffed her into the wardrobe, her ears could clearly hear every word of her parents’ quarrels through the cabinet door, the bedroom door, and even the thick gray walls. She would close her eyes tightly and start counting backwards.

It never took a full hundred counts before her parents would start shouting at each other, completely disregarding the neighbors.

At first, the two would curse at each other with equal force, until accompanied by the sound of either a rice bowl or teacup shattering, the situation would escalate into her father’s one-sided beating.

If her father was sober, the violence would stop at her mother; but if the man happened to have been drinking, then Sheng Sui would become the perfect target for her father to demonstrate his masculine prowess.

The violence-filled upbringing and her unspeakable physical condition had instilled in Sheng Sui an instinctive mechanism of pleasing and submission for self-protection from childhood; not only in workplace interpersonal relationships, but even in this marriage, resistance and expressing her own feelings rarely appeared among her considerations.

Like a captive elephant, bound by iron chains around its hind legs from a young age, even after growing into a massive beast that could easily snap the thin chain with one foot, it could no longer remember how to resist.

Sheng Sui also wasn’t clear where tonight’s courage to confront Zhou Shiyu had come from.

But what she could be certain of was that when the four words “I don’t like it” were clearly spoken aloud, Sheng Sui suddenly realized that some words and some things needed to be actively expressed and fought for to achieve the desired results; simply waiting for the other person to give was not feasible.

The two didn’t continue arguing further, and the not-so-spacious tent fell into prolonged silence.

After a full minute of wordlessness, Zhou Shiyu finally spoke heavily: “I never thought of deliberately concealing it, I just felt that saying things that would only increase both our suffering was unnecessary to emphasize daily.”

“Suisui, I don’t want you to bear so much,” the man leaned down to look into Sheng Sui’s eyes, still stubborn, “Having you by my side is already the best medicine for me.”

At this moment, Sheng Sui felt that she and Zhou Shiyu were like two old stubborn bulls facing opposite directions, tied to the same rope, backs to each other, charging forward with all their might.

“You—”

Before she could finish speaking, she heard footsteps behind her. Turning around, she saw Qiu Si lifting the tent flap to enter, with the other three following behind.

“What have you two been hiding here doing for so long? Are you secretly doing something shameful again—hey, why are you pinching me?!”

Qiu Si cried out in pain, and Xiao Ming behind him, who had pinched him mercilessly, stepped forward half a step and pointed outside:

“Ate too much and feeling stuffed, planning to play some board games. Are you two coming?”

The atmosphere was somewhat tense. Sheng Sui decided to call it quits while she was ahead, curving her eyebrows in a smile: “I’m fine with either.”

Zhou Shiyu gave a faint response, which counted as agreement.

The closer people are, the more obvious their awkwardness becomes; during the game, the two who were usually like conjoined twins sat far apart, with very little eye contact.

The six people played a game called German Heart Disease, where players needed to decide whether to slap the bell in the center based on the suit and corresponding number of playing cards.

In short, it was a pure competition of reaction speed and hand speed.

Sheng Sui played absent-mindedly all evening, especially when she accidentally touched Zhou Shiyu’s hand and only felt the cold touch. In the latter half of the game, she kept spacing out and quickly lost all the cards in her hand.

According to the rules, the loser had to choose between truth or dare as punishment.

Just as the others were clapping and cheering, Zhou Shiyu, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly spoke in a low voice: “It’s getting late, let’s rest.”

“……”

Zhou Shiyu’s usual smiling face was intimidating enough, and now dressed in all black, he was almost invisible in the night, with only his pale skin and the light flickering in his dark eyes behind his glasses. His expressionless appearance was naturally imposing.

With the man’s flat statement, the others all fell silent, even unconsciously lightening their breathing.

But Sheng Sui spoke softly at this moment, looking down at the bell on the table: “What are truth and dare, respectively.”

Qiu Si’s gaze flowed between the faces of the two sitting opposite each other, his eyes rolling, then he snapped his fingers: “Truth is simple, confess the reason you two argued tonight.”

“As for dare,” the man deliberately paused, his smile somewhat punchable: “It’s not difficult either, Teacher Sheng should kiss our Mr. Zhou—hey, why are you pinching me again!”

Xiao Ming rolled her eyes nearly to the ceiling: “If you can’t speak properly, just shut up.”

“Can’t you see I’m being kind!”

While the two were bickering non-stop, Sheng Sui had already walked to Zhou Shiyu’s front and leaned down to kiss him under the man’s heavy gaze.

Her black hair fell loose, and two pairs of lips, one warm and one cold, pressed together perfectly, then separated at a touch.

Her movements were crisp and decisive. By the time everyone reacted, Sheng Sui was already back in her seat, showing no hesitation whatsoever, as if she hadn’t been kissing her lover but had simply pressed her lips against a piece of flesh.

The woman just smiled softly: “I choose dare.”

“……”

With words having reached this point, it seemed this conflict wasn’t something the group could resolve.

When it came time to sleep in the tents at night, the original plan was for the two couples to sleep in double tents, with the remaining two singles each sleeping in single tents.

But Sheng Sui changed her mind at the last minute, saying she’d rather squeeze together and wanted to sleep in the same tent as Xiao Ming.

The other couple stayed as planned, and naturally, the remaining Qiu Si and Zhou Shiyu automatically became a group.

“Hey, what terrible thing did you do to make someone as good-tempered as Sheng Sui angry at you?” When bringing luggage in from outside, Qiu Si saw Zhou Shiyu holding his phone with a slight frown, and said kindly: “I saw her washing up outside by herself just now. If you want to apologize, go quickly.”

The chat box had no response all evening. Zhou Shiyu’s dark eyes were heavy, and hearing this, he got up and left the tent.

In the pitch-black night, he immediately spotted Sheng Sui bending over to collect water and wash her face by the camping water bucket a few meters away.

Hearing his approaching footsteps, the woman paused for a moment, then silently continued patting clear water on her face.

“……Change tents to sleep, ours is warmer.”

Zhou Shiyu saw several strands of her hair scattered and wet, reached up to tuck them behind her ear, and asked again in a low voice about the unanswered question in the chat box:

“Suisui, did you take your injection tonight?”

“It’s fine, you sleep in the big tent with Qiu Si. Xiao Ming and I, two girls, can sleep in the single tent just right, not crowded and not cold.”

Sheng Sui didn’t avoid his intimate gesture, didn’t stubbornly bring up his medication again.

Similarly, she also said nothing about her injection.

After their exchange of sentences ended, Sheng Sui finished washing her face and nodded slightly, softly saying goodnight to him before turning toward the small tent.

Zhou Shiyu quietly watched her decisive departing figure, suddenly remembering that when they first met, Sheng Sui had looked just like she did now—distant and polite.

Sheng Sui barely slept all night, her mind full of Zhou Shiyu’s expression and tone when he spoke to her during the pre-bedtime washing.

Perhaps the night wind created illusions, but she actually heard a few notes of pleasing and submission in Zhou Shiyu’s brief two sentences.

Accompanied by Xiao Ming’s steady breathing beside her, Sheng Sui repeatedly turned her phone screen off and on, looking at Zhou Shiyu’s text messages over and over again.

【Z: The sauce at dinner had quite a bit of sugar added, how’s your blood sugar now】

【Z: Don’t forget to take your injection at ten】

【Z: I put several blankets in your tent, remember to cover yourself well, don’t let your legs get cold】

【Z: Good night, sweet dreams】

“……”

The result of looking at the messages over and over was that Sheng Sui didn’t know whether she had slept or how long she had slept.

Anyway, when she groggily opened her eyes again, the dawn light of late spring was already filtering through the tent gaps, carrying a somewhat damp morning chill.

Her head felt foggy, but helplessly, her 6:30 biological clock was hard to change, and lying motionless in the sleeping bag was quite uncomfortable.

Sheng Sui decided to get up and go outside the tent to breathe some fresh air.

The morning temperature in the forest was lower than expected. When Sheng Sui took a long breath outside the tent, the cold air invaded her lungs, making her cough lightly twice involuntarily.

Afraid that her coughing and footsteps would wake the others, she deliberately walked to the more distant creek side, planning to sit and rest on the folding chair from last night’s dinner while enjoying the early morning lake scenery.

Who knew the morning soil was soft? When Sheng Sui carelessly stepped on a broken branch, she only heard a crisp snapping sound beneath her feet. Her shoe sole sank into the wet, soft earth, and her ankle twisted along with it.

Her center of gravity shifted momentarily. She quickly raised her hand to grab the thick tree trunk beside her, but misfortunes never come singly. When she came to her senses, her palm had already been scraped raw by the coarse bark, with large patches of red covering her right palm.

The continuous pain couldn’t be ignored. Sheng Sui sighed at her own clumsiness, half-annoyed and half-amused as she walked to where they had eaten last night. At the wooden table piled with miscellaneous items, tools, and board games, she quickly found the temporary medical kit.

The wound was very shallow and only needed cleaning with water and medical alcohol, but the scraped area was quite large. After applying the red medicine, Sheng Sui decided to use the only gauze in the kit to wrap up her right palm.

Her left hand wasn’t used to it, so her movements were somewhat clumsy when applying medicine and bandaging; after a minute, Sheng Sui looked at her bear paw-like white, chubby hand and shook her head with a helpless smile.

Just as she was wondering if this looked too exaggerated, she heard distant footsteps.

Sheng Sui looked up to see Zhou Shiyu, who had also risen early, standing a few meters away, his gaze precisely focused on her raised injured right hand.

“What happened to your hand?”

The man’s eyebrows immediately furrowed tightly. As he spoke, he strode over on his long legs, glancing at the barbecue rack beside her, his voice rarely showing some urgency: “How did this happen?”

Sheng Sui thought Zhou Shiyu probably mistook her wound for coming from the metal rack and was worried about tetanus, hence his urgent tone.

“It’s nothing.” She put her right hand behind her back, pressing her lips together.

“But your hand is still bleeding, it’s even seeping through the gauze,” Zhou Shiyu leaned down, forcing Sheng Sui to make eye contact with him, his dark pupils staring straight at her, “Let me take a look, I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

“……”

Seeing Sheng Sui still looking down and remaining unmoved, the man’s frown deepened, his voice carrying an absolute sense of pressure that brooked no refusal: “I just want to look at your wound, is even this not allowed?”

Regarding the scene before her, Sheng Sui felt strangely familiar—compared to last night, it was just that their roles had switched.

She didn’t explain that the faint reddish color on the gauze came from the medicine, and recalling last night’s evasive response, she spoke vaguely:

“You don’t need to worry, I’ve already treated the wound. You can just do what you want to do.”

The surrounding deathly atmosphere solidified. She avoided his gaze and steeled her heart, directly borrowing Zhou Shiyu’s words from last night:

“Also, it’s rare that we came out, must we talk about these things—”

“……”

Before she could finish, the man who had reached his limit of patience stopped wasting words. His jaw muscles tightened on both sides, and he directly bent down to lift Sheng Sui horizontally, walking toward the distant parking area with a cold face.

Sheng Sui didn’t want Zhou Shiyu to exert himself, and knew that her physical resistance would be meaningless. She just lowered her eyes and let herself be carried to the passenger side door and set down.

Her lower back pressed against the hard car door, coolness drilling through her clothes into her spine through the fabric. Her right hand was still firmly hidden behind her back, silently expressing her protest.

From the man’s suppressed, patient deep breathing, Sheng Sui could clearly sense Zhou Shiyu’s anger at the breaking point.

“……Was it cut by a metal object?”

In the end, Zhou Shiyu only trapped her in his embrace, his dominant cold woody scent overwhelming; the man pressed his forehead against hers, his voice hoarse but clearly trying to soften: “If so, I’ll take you to the hospital now.”

Sheng Sui was almost burned by his scorching breath on her skin. Her ears echoed with the man’s dishonest words from last night, and she stubbornly closed her eyes and turned her head:

“I never thought of deliberately concealing—”

The next second, Sheng Sui’s lower lip was fiercely sealed and bitten, the sweeping stinging sensation instantly overwhelming the scrape on her right hand.

The unrefusable kiss came aggressively, carrying several parts warning and punishment, several parts shame and anger, and several parts desperation.

This was, in her memory, the first time Zhou Shiyu had completely lost emotional control in front of her.

The beast dormant in the man’s bones was awakened. Sheng Sui was pressed tightly against the car door without a single gap, and due to Zhou Shiyu’s continuous pressing and demanding, even breathing became difficult in the end.

She tightly gripped her sleeves, refusing to show weakness. In the gradually rising sense of suffocation, she also sensed the man’s doubled wordless grievance and deep pain at this moment, and finally felt an absurd satisfaction and pleasure at being able to empathize for a moment.

After an unknown amount of time passed, Zhou Shiyu finally relented, his thin lips retreating half an inch. He saw Sheng Sui’s head weakly buried in his shoulder, breathing rapidly and intensely.

“……I take the medicine every day, no fixed time, usually waiting until you’re asleep before going. I’ll organize the medicine names and send them to you.”

In her dazed state, Sheng Sui heard Zhou Shiyu’s hoarse and exhausted voice from above her head: “Suisui, you can lose your temper at me, you can scold me, you can even hit me.”

His tone paused slightly, and she heard the man take a trembling deep breath, not knowing what to do with her, only able to hold her tighter.

Like a plea, Zhou Shiyu spoke low in her ear: “Just don’t treat me this way.”

“……”

“The hand is really fine, it wasn’t scraped by the metal rack, just accidentally scraped against tree bark, just scraped skin; the blood you saw was actually because I poured too much red medicine.”

Sheng Sui’s confession came out rapidly, feeling that if she were a second slower, she would be drowned by waves of self-blame.

“Making you worry just now was my fault,” she raised her hand to hug Zhou Shiyu back, gently patting his back to comfort him, not forgetting what needed to be said,

“But Zhou Shiyu, this is how you used to treat me—I didn’t even dare ask more, every day from waking up in the morning I could only guess, and by bedtime I still didn’t know if you were really okay.”

Another long silence passed.

Finally, Zhou Shiyu buried his head in her warm neck, his muffled voice coming from her shoulder:

“……I’m sorry.”

The bite mark on her lips still ached faintly. Hearing these hard-won three words, Sheng Sui only felt pitiful and helpless, smiling without choice:

“How come it seems like I’m bullying you?”

After her words fell, she felt another pain in her ear—it was Zhou Shiyu’s teeth pressed against her earlobe, his voice low and heavy:

“……You are bullying me.”

Clearly, light touches could no longer satisfy the man’s desire for revenge. After the man’s sharp teeth ground over Sheng Sui’s delicate earlobe, he moved inch by inch downward, gnawing past her earlobe and neck side.

“You’re taking advantage of the fact that I can’t do anything about you, so you do whatever you want in my world.”

Finally, Zhou Shiyu held her tightly, his thin lips stopping at her straight, slender collarbone. Seeing Sheng Sui involuntarily tilt her head back slightly and pant, he looked down as if talking to himself:

“Sheng Sui, actually you’ve always known that I will always compromise with you.”