After what felt like a century, I got up and opened the door.

Cheng Xia stood there. His face was still handsome and clean, his posture still upright, his face still carrying the same smile as before.

But in this smile, there was something familiar and dangerous.

“What gala should we watch?” I said, “Go to bed early, tomorrow we still have to…”

The citrus scent came overwhelming. He pressed me against the wall. In an instant, the distance between our lips was only inches apart.

I heard my own breathing, growing heavier and heavier, but didn’t dare lift my head. I could only say quietly, “We can’t do this.”

“We can.” His voice was low and filled with a strange enchantment, speaking lightly and slowly in my ear: “You haven’t done it in many years, right?”

His hand reached around to my waist. The bathrobe’s tie was gently untied.

“It could be another man, why can’t it be me? I know best how to make you happy.”

I wanted to refuse, but as soon as I opened my mouth, he kissed me. The passionate kiss awakened absurd and secret memories from many years ago—in the small shed on the grassland, on the checkered sheets in his rental room, in that cabin on the dark boat.

We had indulged our desires like this, kissing and embracing with all our might, as if the most important thing in the world was the maddening pleasure of this very moment.

I fell onto the bed. He looked into my eyes, slowly unbuttoning his own shirt. Only one bedside lamp was lit, illuminating his white chest and the muscle lines of his abdomen.

“Cheng Xia.” I wanted to struggle, but for some reason couldn’t move at all. I could only murmur incoherently: “We can’t keep entangling like this. I’m too tired. Can’t we just be friends?”

“Okay.” He said, “Friends can also make you happy. You can treat me as a tool to satisfy your needs. You really want this, don’t you?”

When he leaned down to kiss me, my brain turned to mush again. Actually, I had never actively felt any need, but somehow, under his seduction, I felt as if I were burning on fire, as if suppressed things in my body were rushing toward me all at once.

My self-control was completely insufficient to fight against it.

The hand I meant to push him away with slowly drooped to the bed’s edge, then was lifted by him and placed on his lower back.

So happy, my whole person seemed to slightly melt. Not thinking about anything, only the scalding kisses and the scalding skin pressed against my body were real.

Just then, my phone suddenly rang.

“Don’t mind it.” Cheng Xia said gently in my ear, but this made my muddled brain briefly clear. I was thinking, could it be something work-related?

I reached out to answer it, but just as I extended my hand, the call ended.

Cheng Xia pressed me down, kissing densely from my neck to my back, his voice light as a murmur: “Tomorrow, okay?”

I was dragged back into that indulgent abyss again, only muttering to myself: “How did we get to this point again?”

Cheng Xia said softly, “People can’t fight instinct. People who love each other, their bodies are attracted to each other.”

My heart suddenly boomed. My willpower, which had completely surrendered just moments ago, struggled up once more.

The phone rang again. This time, I avoided his kiss and got up to answer the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello… is this Dongxue? Why is your voice hoarse?”

It was Zhou Ting.

After that unpleasant parting that day, he had been sending me WeChat messages, but between fighting with my grandmother and being busy with work, I had long forgotten about this matter.

I got up, using the blanket to cover my body, moving a bit farther from Cheng Xia, saying, “Cough, I was just sleeping, my throat’s a bit dry. What’s up?”

“Nothing much, just wanted to say, happy Little New Year.”

“Happy Little New Year.”

Cheng Xia tried to reach out and hold me, but I batted him away. He could only sigh and lie on the other side.

“When are you coming back?”

“Next week, I guess.”

He was silent for a while, then said, “Let’s have dinner together when you get back?”

I said, “Okay.”

Zhou Ting and I had never confirmed our relationship, but in this moment, I still felt very shameless.

He had never suspected anything between me and Cheng Xia, and treated me sincerely and well.

Yet here I was, unable to resist temptation, almost sleeping with my ex-boyfriend.

Cheng Xia said from the side, “It’s better than you marrying him and then cheating. Make it clear now, it’s good for everyone.”

I laughed in anger, saying, “You’re really too narcissistic.”

“It’s not because of me.” Cheng Xia smiled, leaning against the headboard, “Remember the despair you felt when communicating with your grandmother? If you choose him as your new family, this will be the norm for the rest of your life.”

I froze there for a moment.

With my grandmother, or rather the most powerless part of my first half of life, was that no matter how I tried to explain to people, I couldn’t make them understand. I had to rely on throwing money around and losing my temper to get them to do what I said.

And with Zhou Ting, I had the same sense of powerlessness.

He was a very kind, very gentle person, seemingly tolerant of all my capriciousness, but I had no way to make him understand that some choices weren’t “capriciousness,” but were my ambition and dreams.

“Cheng Xia, sometimes I’m really afraid of you smart people. You’re like demons.” I sighed, got up, put on my scattered bathrobe properly, and walked to the window to calm myself down.

The fireworks outside had finished. There was a layer of cold, damp fog on the glass window. When my finger touched it, it was cold to the very bottom of my heart.

Cheng Xia walked behind me and held me. His warm breath completely shut out the winter chill.

I said, “Cheng Xia, there’s one thing I’m very certain about—even if I don’t end up with Zhou Ting, it won’t be with you either.”

He stiffened somewhat, then quickly laughed self-deprecatingly, saying, “I know.”

“So it’s good for us to be like we are now. You let me stay by your side, just treat me as a tool to make you happy.” He held me tightly, “Dongxue, don’t drive me away.”

I pried his hands open bit by bit and looked into his eyes.

“You’re not that kind of person, Cheng Xia. You’ll keep wanting more, just like earlier. We agreed it was just physical pleasure, but you’ll brainwash me, tell me we’re sleeping together because we love each other, then step by step, turn me back into who I was back then.”

Cheng Xia looked at me, with sadness, “What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s not good.”

I was surprised that I could produce such a clear and cold voice. I said, “Cheng Xia, to be honest, I still like you. And I’m quite certain that in this lifetime, I will never like anyone the way I liked you.”

This secret love had been too intense. It had already burned through all the love of my lifetime.

“But when I think about starting over with you, I just feel especially tired, that kind of whole-body and mind exhaustion.” I sighed, “I can live peaceful days with anyone, just not with you. Do you understand?”

Only he could bring out all my craziness, my obsessiveness. I would gain and lose, would be controlled by him through loving back and forth, turning myself into a complete idiot.

All of this made me feel very tired.

I had already passed that age. I no longer had the energy for this life-and-death romance. I just wanted to live peacefully.

“So Cheng Xia, let me go.”