“Call me ‘gege’ tonight when we’re doing it, and I’ll tell you.”

Shiyu, gege.

This term of address, obviously inappropriate for two adults nearing thirty, contained too much deliberate implication and stimulation.

In the instant the air grew still, Zhou Shiyu was quick to embrace Sheng Sui’s slender waist, his eyes reflecting the woman’s bright, sparkling eyes.

He clearly realized that Sheng Sui was completely different from the beloved he had waited for before marriage.

The beloved of that time was gentle and soft. Every time Zhou Shiyu looked from afar at her slender figure, he would unconsciously feel infinite tenderness, fearing that even a cool breeze might harm her already fragile body.

But the person in his arms now seemed somehow different.

Her kindness and sensitivity remained unchanged, only she had gradually become something that even Zhou Shiyu marveled at: strong enough to stand alone, resilient enough that no blizzard could break her, and wise enough to transform suffering into bright hope.

She no longer wished to be the frail one seeking shelter in his embrace, but instead insisted on standing in front of him, using only her slender frame to protect her beloved with all her might.

“…I’m going to be late for work.”

The gentle female voice pulled back his thoughts. Zhou Shiyu felt Sheng Sui struggle a bit in his arms, her two soft thin lips opening and closing, deliberately and slowly mouthing four more characters silently.

Her lip movements were unmistakable.

His long-dormant competitive spirit was ignited. Zhou Shiyu tightened his grip, not allowing her to escape, and inch by inch pressed the woman who showed no fear of him against the glass display case behind them.

No longer wearing glasses at home, he narrowed his pitch-black eyes slightly, while his no-longer-gentle hoarse voice carried considerable pressure:

“I didn’t hear clearly. Say it again.”

Unfortunately, the intimidation was visibly ineffective. When their four eyes met, he saw Sheng Sui’s white fox-like eyes suddenly curve into crescents, the laughter in them making Zhou Shiyu’s heart itch unbearably.

The woman didn’t try to escape either, only glancing from the corner of her eye at the large hand that protected her waist and back from hitting the glass case even while threatening her, shrugging casually:

“If you didn’t hear, then forget it.”

“……”

Unable to help raising an eyebrow, Zhou Shiyu was almost amused to anger. His restless right hand wandered upward along her back, stopping below Sheng Sui’s spine, finding that small mole with practiced familiarity.

Just as he did at night to help her relax, the man’s distinctly jointed hand pressed against the hard bone, then pinched and ground over it with moderate pressure.

As their married days grew longer, Zhou Shiyu gradually discovered the unique advantages between spouses. Whether bickering or arguing, or like now when he couldn’t win verbally, because he knew too well how every inch of her skin would react, he could always instantly find her most vulnerable and sensitive spots, allowing him to turn the tide of battle in an instant.

Sure enough, the next second, the stubborn person in his arms was the first to weaken at the knees, her rising body falling back toward him.

Zhou Shiyu pretended to be magnanimous as he caught her, continuing the previous topic in a leisurely manner: “I remember it seems Mrs. Zhou is the one with a request of me—”

Before he could finish speaking, he saw Sheng Sui grab his sleeve and look up, facing the offensive head-on by actively tilting her head to kiss Zhou Shiyu’s thin lips, breaking away immediately.

“This is a thank-you gift for Mr. Zhou’s dishonorable victory.”

After kissing him, Sheng Sui retreated, suddenly remembering something and cautiously adding: “If there’s any change left over, you don’t need to give it back.”

Zhou Shiyu understood clearly that this was Sheng Sui’s response to his bastard behavior during their last camping trip, when after being kissed he had used the excuse of “making change” to bite back.

After several rounds of back-and-forth, it was finally Sheng Sui who tilted her head: “Now, can Mr. Zhou let me go?”

The woman kept calling him “mister,” but it was no longer the distant, respectful avoidance of before. Instead, it carried a different kind of intimate and tender meaning.

Zhou Shiyu knew when to stop, lightly patting the pert buttocks of the person in his arms, then lowering his head to bite and leave a mark on her ear bone, determined to continue being a bastard:

“One kiss and you want to dismiss me? Mrs. Zhou is being rather perfunctory.”

Undeniably, the appearance of the tattoo did indeed bring inconvenience to Sheng Sui’s life.

Besides the persistent stinging pain over the next few days, how to conceal the obviously positioned tattoo design was the core problem.

The snapdragon pattern was just a small cluster, and the interwoven lines of varying lengths took up even less space. Sheng Sui had measured last night—Zhou Shiyu’s custom watch band was wide enough to cover the entire tattoo.

However, the wound was still painful these past two days, so it wasn’t good to constrain it with a watch band. Sheng Sui could only wrap it layer by layer with medical gauze and change to long sleeves.

Even so, the conspicuous white gauze still attracted much attention, with many people asking with concern what had happened to Sheng Sui’s wrist.

Knowing their good intentions, Sheng Sui felt helpless explaining to each person individually. After shaking her head and sighing in the office, she carried her teaching materials back to the classroom for class.

Zhou Yi didn’t come to school today, and only Sheng Sui and the school’s senior leadership knew the reason.

Recalling how the school leaders had specifically called her over this morning just to emphasize that she must be careful and cautious in her public statements from now on, or else all the teachers and students in the school would be implicated.

These words made Sheng Sui hesitate momentarily about whether agreeing to Lin Xi’s request was right or wrong.

She had indeed been impulsive and inconsiderate, never considering what would happen if, because of her video, the remaining students in her class and other students in the school received excessive attention.

The students below were seriously completing their learning tasks with heads down. Sheng Sui stood at the podium with mixed feelings, thinking about the approaching storm of public opinion. Her gaze fell on the half-section of gauze showing beneath her long sleeves, and she sighed softly.

As Lin Xi had said that morning, at the same time the press conference-related trending topic parachuted to first place on the hot search, the hashtag #Don’t exploit special needs children for traffic# quietly followed close behind.

Clicking into this second-ranked trending topic, Sheng Sui unsurprisingly heard her processed voice in the most popular video having a dialogue with the media, angrily rebuking their behavior of using special needs children to grab attention.

The poster claimed to be a school teacher who couldn’t stand seeing colleagues and students harassed anymore. The video was prefaced with text:

“Posting a dialogue of an innocent colleague being blocked by paparazzi at the school gate, advising certain people to stop eating blood-soaked buns or face karma.”

As expected, public opinion became controllable as anticipated, with comments in the section completely changing direction from recent days.

[Some people are really enough. Lin Xi is an actress, not a traffic star. Does she need to report to anyone about getting married and having children? I think some people have eaten too much salt and are meddling unnecessarily]

[I don’t care about Lin Xi, but the child and teacher are ordinary people, right? The media harassing them like this—are they still going to let people attend school normally?]

[Support the teacher’s rights protection. These media don’t care about others’ feelings. Someone needs to deal with them]

However, there were also a few skeptical voices, saying that Lin Xi’s press conference trending topic had just gone up, and this audio was immediately exposed. The timing was so perfect that it was hard not to suspect it was arranged in advance.

There were also some people posting individual microblogs, speculating that since Sheng Sui could personally deliver students to Lin Xi, and the audio seemed to speak for her between the lines, she might have been paid privately.

With tens of thousands of comments that could never be finished reading, Sheng Sui saw that things were proceeding in the direction Lin Xi hoped for. She exited the trending topics related to her and stopped watching the press conference, going directly to the cafeteria for lunch when the time came.

“…Teacher Sheng, why didn’t we see your husband’s loving lunch today?”

Sheng Sui had just entered the school cafeteria when Qi Yue’s voice sounded behind her. Turning around, she saw several colleagues with whom she had relatively close relationships and smiled in greeting.

Facing her teaching partner’s teasing, she naturally wouldn’t admit that she and Zhou Shiyu had gone too late last night and both nearly couldn’t get up this morning. She just made casual excuses, then heard the female teacher across from her praising her.

“Teacher Sheng, you might not know, but you’ve really helped the school a lot this time.”

Seeing Sheng Sui’s confused expression, the female teacher quickly took out her phone, her fingers skillfully clicking several times, then turned the screen to show Sheng Sui a microblog with tens of thousands of reposts, comments, and likes.

[Qi Xiajing: Even now, mental health issues among adolescents have not received the attention they deserve. Among them, the number of adolescents suffering from special conditions and mental illness is increasing year by year, yet related education remains lacking, and demonizing rhetoric continues to run rampant. After multi-party consultation, Shanghai First People’s Hospital will collaborate with various parties to carry out related work, using online lectures and documentaries for publicity and education. May everyone treat adolescent mental health issues correctly, and may all children in the world grow up equally happy and free.]

Once the microblog was published, it was immediately reposted and commented on by the official hospital account. The hashtag #Correctly treat adolescent mental health issues# followed closely behind Lin Xi’s press conference and steadily surpassed Sheng Sui’s audio.

“…Teacher Sheng might not know, but this Dr. Qi is very famous online. On my way here, I happened to hear the academic director on the phone, apparently saying that the hospital sent people to contact them, wanting to use our school as the subject to specifically film several episodes of a documentary!”

The female teacher’s voice was excited, and Qi Yue, infected by the emotion, also chimed in: “Hasn’t the school always been worried about publicity? Last time during the cultural festival and Autism Awareness Day, only parents came to watch. If we can cooperate with a major hospital, it would be incredibly beneficial!”

“Exactly, thanks to Teacher Sheng.”

“……”

Colleagues chatted non-stop with their back-and-forth comments, but Sheng Sui’s mind was full of thoughts about the microblog sender her colleague had shown her. She lost her appetite completely, hurriedly took two bites of rice, then found a random excuse to return to class.

The students were still napping. Sheng Sui nodded in thanks to the teacher watching the class at the podium, then sat in the back and took out her phone, clicking into the second-ranked trending topic to find the microblog the female teacher had just shown her.

She hadn’t seen wrong.

The person who posted the microblog was Qi Xiajing—that doctor who had kindly saved her years ago but was injured by her father with an IV bottle.

Sheng Sui discovered that Qi Xiajing’s posting time was only seven short minutes after her audio was published online, with even the official account coming down to support within five minutes.

How could there be such a coincidence?

Zhou Shiyu’s name immediately came to mind. After greeting the teacher in front again, Sheng Sui took her phone outside the classroom to make a call.

As usual, he answered immediately. Zhou Shiyu seemed to have people around him, with faint conversation clearly audible in the background.

Sheng Sui originally thought he was on lunch break: “Is it convenient to talk now?”

“It’s convenient.”

Footsteps and the sound of a door closing came one after another. After there was no more background noise, Zhou Shiyu’s gentle voice came through the receiver: “Go ahead.”

After several seconds of silence, Sheng Sui cleared her throat: “…Was Dr. Qi Xiajing’s microblog post something you helped with?”

The woman deliberately lowered her voice, her nervousness and anticipation clearly audible.

Recalling being played around this morning, Zhou Shiyu stood alone in his spacious office by the floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing out at the high-rises, speaking unhurriedly and gently:

“Perhaps Mrs. Zhou still remembers that we have unfinished business from this morning.”

Zhou Shiyu knew he wasn’t naturally a gentle and courteous gentleman. Previously, he had restrained his temperament out of tenderness for his beloved, but recently, due to Sheng Sui’s rapid growth, being suppressed instead aroused some of the mischief in his bones.

The next second, Sheng Sui softened and agreed, her voice sounding somewhat pitiful: “Then how do you want to settle it?”

“Simple.”

Zhou Shiyu was no longer fooled by his little fox. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he spoke slowly, word by word:

“Call me ‘gege’ tonight when we’re doing it, and I’ll tell you.”

“……”

Faced with his beloved’s silence, Zhou Shiyu, having won a small victory, couldn’t help but curve his lips in a low laugh, when he heard knocking at the door.

It was Secretary Chen coming to remind him that the scheduled interview time was approaching, asking if they could start preparing.

Before hanging up, Zhou Shiyu didn’t forget to seek Sheng Sui’s opinion: “I’m about to do a personal interview. I’m wearing my wedding ring. If you’re worried the media might ask curious questions, I can take it off now.”

Sheng Sui had mentioned more than once before that she didn’t want to appear in the public eye.

Zhou Shiyu respected all her decisions and choices.

“It’s fine. If they ask, just tell them.”

Different from before, this time Sheng Sui no longer refused to be mentioned. Instead, she comforted herself: “Last time in the leaked video, my profile was captured, and it didn’t seem to matter much.”

Her tone paused slightly, then the woman gently added: “Besides, because of my personal reasons, making you have to hide your marital status isn’t fair to you either.”

Sheng Sui’s understanding and consideration inevitably softened hearts. Zhou Shiyu’s gaze toward the window was tinged with infinite tenderness. After a long while, his thin lips parted slightly:

“Baby, even so, the debt of what you should call me and do tonight can’t be written off because of this.”

“……”

Hearing the somewhat exasperated hang-up from the other side, Zhou Shiyu finally let out two low laughs, put his phone back in his pocket, and walked out of the office with long strides, his expression returning to its usual calm composure.

The interview team was chatting happily with Qiu Si in the adjacent conference room. Seeing Zhou Shiyu push the door open, they hurriedly stood up to greet him:

“Mr. Zhou taking time out of your busy schedule to accept this exclusive interview is truly our honor.”

Zhou Shiyu’s black eyes behind his glasses swept over the carefully arranged interview scene and five-person team, responding warmly:

“I’m not busy. That was just my wife calling.”

“……”

Unlike Qiu Si’s “here we go again” disgusted expression, the interviewing reporter was quite surprised to hear about Zhou Shiyu’s marriage news.

So he asked curiously: “Congratulations, when did Mr. Zhou get married?”

“March 14th this year, my wife’s birthday.”

Zhou Shiyu placed both hands on the table, where the wedding ring on his left ring finger was clearly visible. Seeing the other party indeed look down, he smiled slightly:

“If you’re really curious about the story between my beloved and me, I don’t mind if you ask about the details during the upcoming interview.”

Author’s Note:

Reporter: Not curious at all, thank you very much.

Old Qi and A Li will make brief cameo appearances. They’re the male and female leads from the previous book. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t read it—they won’t have much screen time

Thank you very much for everyone’s support. I will continue to work hard!