The night was already deep.
Yu Keqing stepped out of Xiaobao’s room with light, careful steps. As the door clicked softly shut behind her, she raised a hand to press against her aching temples.
The two children had fussed until eleven o’clock before finally agreeing to sleep. Wen Ning’s energy was truly extraordinary, she had rambled from school gossip to K-POP, and then from K-POP to which high school they should take the entrance exams for together in the future. Though Xiaobao was a child of few words, Wen Ning had managed to make him smile several times. His eyes had been bright, and he, too, was beginning to look forward to high school life.
Tonight, it wasn’t suitable for Yu Keqing to squeeze into one bed with the two children, nor did she want to sleep in the master bedroom on the second floor. She intended to use the guest bedroom.
As she reached the top of the stairs, a commotion drifted up from below. “Please watch your step, Ma’am. Do you need me to help you upstairs?”
Yu Keqing paused, instinctively looking down.
Two bodyguards were supporting a swaying figure. The woman wore a wine-red, form fitting long dress, her seaweed like long curls cascading over her shoulders. Her high heels were long gone, and her bare ankles looked blindingly white under the hallway lights.
Lin Sheng abruptly flung off the bodyguards’ hands, stumbling forward a couple of steps, nearly crashing to the ground.
“I’m not drunk. Who says I’m drunk? All of you leave, don’t follow me.”
She held onto the wall to steady herself. As if guided by some telepathic connection, she lifted her head and met Yu Keqing’s gaze from the top of the stairs. Lin Sheng’s fox like eyes, hazy with intoxication, instantly turned red. They brimmed with such immense grievance that she looked as if she were about to shatter.
“Keke,” she called out softly, looking at Yu Keqing with a pitiful expression, like a dog abandoned by its owner.
The two bodyguards noticed Yu Keqing upstairs as well. They nodded to her and promptly retreated out the door.
Yu Keqing stood on the stairs, her fingers tightening around the handrail.
Barefoot, Lin Sheng began to climb the stairs step by step. With every step she took, her body swayed, threatening to tumble down and end up bleeding and battered at any moment.
Yu Keqing watched coldly for a few seconds with no intention of offering a hand, then turned to leave.
“Don’t go!” Lin Sheng rushed up and threw her arms around her.
An overwhelming scent of roses rushed over her, heavily mixed with the pungent stench of alcohol. Yu Keqing was nearly knocked over by the force of the impact. Lin Sheng hung her entire weight onto her body, her lips pressed against Yu Keqing’s neck as the hot breath she exhaled sent a tremor through Yu Keqing’s entire frame.
Yu Keqing instantly regretted not turning around and leaving the very first second, allowing Lin Sheng yet another opportunity to entangle herself.
“Let go,” she said, forcefully trying to pry Lin Sheng’s hands away.
Yet Lin Sheng only held on tighter. “Keke… Wife…”
Her voice carried a crying tone, murmuring incoherently against her ear as warm liquid slid down Yu Keqing’s neck.
The light fell upon Lin Sheng’s flushed, drunken face. The woman who was usually so bright, sharp, and arrogant now looked vulnerable beyond belief. Her long eyelashes drooped, wet and heavy, making her look like a drenched young animal.
Yu Keqing took a deep breath, suppressing the complex tide of emotions churning in her chest. “Are you going to let go or not?”
Lin Sheng acted as though she hadn’t heard, still clinging to her and refusing to let go, making it impossible to tell if she was truly drunk or just pretending.
“You used to always wait for me to come home,” Lin Sheng’s voice grew lower and softer. “No matter how late it was, you would wait for me in the living room, leaving a light on for me, and you’d even cook hangover soup for me. Why is none of that there anymore? Keke, I want you to cook hangover soup for me just one more time, please?”
Yu Keqing’s nose suddenly grew sour. Ten years ago, she had clung to that tiny, ridiculous illusion, believing that as long as she was gentle and patient enough, she would eventually touch the heart of this noble rose. In the end, it had all been a joke.
Lin Sheng nuzzled against the side of her neck, her voice laced with the slurred speech and grievance of intoxication.
“Back then, you said you were afraid that if you weren’t here, the house would feel too empty and cold, and that I would feel lonely and scared. You were worried I’d feel miserable from the drinking, so you couldn’t rest easy. You had to wait until you saw me return before you could feel at peace.”
She was drowning in the memory of Yu Keqing’s past tenderness and love, wishing desperately that everything could return to how it was, and that Yu Keqing could still love her like before.
“Lin Sheng,” Yu Keqing finally spoke, her voice raspy. “There is no point in bringing up these things anymore. You’ve had too much to drink. I’ll call Auntie Fang up.”
“I don’t want her! You’re not allowed to leave!” Lin Sheng refused to let her go, grabbing her shoulders to force her around to face her.
Lin Sheng’s fox like eyes, usually filled with pride and indifference, were currently brimming with unshed tears, so red they looked as if they might bleed.
She stared intently at Yu Keqing.
“Why? Why don’t you love me anymore? Weren’t you the one who loved me the most before? Even when I cursed at you, you wouldn’t leave, when I drove you away, you wouldn’t leave, even when I slapped you across the face, you still wouldn’t leave! When I was pregnant and throwing up so violently I felt half-dead, you stayed up night after night watching over me, cooking this and that for me. If I said I didn’t want to eat it, you’d change it and cook something else. The day I gave birth to Xiaobao, you stood right beside the delivery bed and kept crying, saying you were sorry, that it was because you marked me that I had to get pregnant and suffer through childbirth. You were consumed by guilt.”
She spoke faster and faster, growing increasingly agitated as tears finally broke free from her eyes, tracing down her beautiful face.
“You loved me so much back then. Even Xiao Zhiyu said so, she said your eyes only ever held one person. Why is it that now you can just say you don’t love me anymore, just like that?”
Yu Keqing looked at the face that had once consumed her every waking thought. Lin Sheng was still so stunningly beautiful. Even when drunk, even when crying, even when broken like this, she remained exquisite, like a rose battered by a torrential downpour.
But Yu Keqing no longer dared to reach out and pluck it. She spoke softly, “Then how did you treat me? Do you need me to help you remember it all over again?”
Lin Sheng’s expression stiffened for a fraction of a second, instinctively wanting to stop Yu Keqing from continuing.
“When you slapped me across the face, what did you say again?” Yu Keqing looked at her, her eyes devoid of hatred, holding only a deep, stagnant sorrow and detachment. “You said, ‘Don’t touch me, you’re filthy.’ You said, ‘You can’t even compare to a single strand of Man’er’s hair.’ You said, ‘Being marked by someone like you is the absolute greatest humiliation of my life.'”
Every single word was like a knife, not a sharp one, but a blunt blade that ground into her flesh. Yet the only one who felt the pain was herself, it would never be Lin Sheng.
She recited the exact words Lin Sheng had once thrown at her, syllable for syllable, because those words were thorns embedded deep in her heart, still aching to this day.
“No, that’s not it, I… at the time, I…” Lin Sheng tried to explain in a panic, desperate to stop Yu Keqing from speaking further.
“You didn’t mean it at the time?” Yu Keqing cut her off. “Right, you didn’t mean it, you genuinely meant it.”
The air instantly froze. Lin Sheng didn’t dare look at her anymore, riddled with guilt, yet she still refused to let Yu Keqing leave. She stubbornly trapped her at the top of the stairs. She had been dead drunk and throwing a wild tantrum just moments ago, but now she turned quiet and acted obedient, leaning heavily against Yu Keqing and refusing to budge.
She greedily inhaled the warm, soothing scent of sandalwood radiating from Yu Keqing, murmuring longingly, “Everyone makes mistakes. You have to allow me to make mistakes too. I already know I was wrong now. Can’t you just give me a chance to reform myself? We haven’t even gotten a divorce.”
Before this, Yu Keqing had simply thought Lin Sheng was unreasonable, the type of spoiled, wealthy young lady who had been pampered since childhood, forever self-centered, operating entirely on her own internal logic. Within that logic, Lin Sheng was invincible, she never suffered internal conflict over anything because the fault always lay with others. If anyone ever dared to treat her the same way she treated them, she would fly into a raging fury.
But now, her understanding of Lin Sheng had been completely rewritten. The sheer shamelessness of this person left her utterly astounded. In the past, she must have been entirely blinded by Lin Sheng’s beauty and figure, so blinded that she could completely overlook all of Lin Sheng’s flaws, loving only that beautiful shell until she ended up battered and bruised. After finally managing to escape, she had been trapped back in this cage once again.
It had been entirely pointless to say so much to her anyway. Lin Sheng would never actually listen.
“Let go of me, I want to go to sleep.”
Staying here was not a long-term solution. She could dodge her once, but she couldn’t dodge her a second time. Lin Sheng would surely think of every possible way to force her hand. She needed to take Xiaobao and move out of this place, never to share a roof with Lin Sheng again.
“Okay, let’s go back to the room,” Lin Sheng mumbled sleepily, her mind slipping back into intoxication.
The strap of her long dress had slipped down her shoulder, revealing a boundless, alluring view of her voluptuous curves. She intentionally rubbed against Yu Keqing’s arm, it was impossible to ignore even if one wanted to.
Yu Keqing yanked her arm away forcefully. As skin rubbed against that soft, snow-white flesh, Lin Sheng let out an ambiguous, low moan. She was truly drunk, her mind drifting in and out of clarity. The only thing her instinct recognized was that she wanted to be close to Yu Keqing. As long as Yu Keqing could make her feel comfortable, even a fleeting moment of skin to skin contact like this could slightly ease her tightly strung nerves.
Yu Keqing, however, felt nothing but revulsion. Finally wrenching herself free, she walked straight toward the guest bedroom.
Left standing in place, Lin Sheng ran the tip of her tongue over her red lips. She stared at Yu Keqing’s departing back, her eyes flashing with a wild, frantic desire for possession.
She knew Yu Keqing was avoiding her as if she were a plague.
But so what? As long as Yu Keqing remained inside this house, as long as she stayed within her line of sight, there would always be a way to make her fall in love again. Yu Keqing definitely still held feelings for her, she was simply too fixated on the past.
Lin Sheng staggered after her, her steps uneven as she swayed and stumbled forward, yet her disarray only added to her seductive allure.
The door to the guest bedroom was promptly locked from the inside by Yu Keqing. Lin Sheng reached out, her fingertips sliding gently across the cold surface of the wooden door.
“Keke, open the door,” her voice carried the raspy, low depth of alcohol, yet it thrummed with an unyielding, stubborn insistence. “Let’s talk. Just for five minutes, alright?”
There was absolutely no response from within, only a heavy silence.
Lin Sheng leaned her back against the door, the icy sensation clearing her chaotic mind by a fraction.
She knew the hurdle in Yu Keqing’s heart. Those wounds she had personally inflicted were not things that could be smoothed over by a simple ‘I was wrong.’ But she would not give up. From the moment she decided to win Yu Keqing back, she had never intended to let go.
Even if Yu Keqing was unwilling, she would have to stay by her side forever.
She slowly slid down until she was sitting on the floor, her wine-red gown pooling across the carpet like a rose in full bloom that carried the faint, heavy scent of decay. She sat there quietly, guarding the outside of the guest bedroom door, looking as though she intended to sit there until the end of time.
The lighting from the hallway outlined her figure, stretching her shadow long and distorted against the floor. The scent of roses seeped through the gap beneath the door, accompanied by low, soft moans that acted as a continuous temptation to the person inside.
Time ticked away, minute by minute, until the pendulum clock downstairs quietly struck one in the morning.
Inside the guest bedroom, Yu Keqing pulled the blanket over herself, but even that could not block out the intrusive pheromones. Lin Sheng was out of her mind, relentlessly trying to entice her from outside. If her resolve wavered for even a second, she would easily be led by the nose by that rose fragrance, falling right back into Lin Sheng’s control to continue that absurd cycle.
“Keke, did Xiaobao and Xiaoneng wake up? I think I heard a noise,” Lin Sheng called out from behind the door.
Yu Keqing grit her teeth and flung the blanket off her body.