Old Master Zhong said, “Go on.”
An Yanqing responded softly and stepped up the familiar stairs.
Zhong Chu was leaning lazily against the railing, her posture relaxed and casual; in her own home, she was clearly much more at ease than she was outside.
She watched An Yanqing gradually approach. When the two stood together, the contrast she had been trying her best to ignore suddenly became prominent.
An Yanqing was clearly half a head taller than her, so much so that when they were close, Zhong Chu had to look up slightly to see her.
Her neck was getting a bit tired from tilting back. Zhong Chu leveled her gaze, her eyes landing right on An Yanqing’s smooth chin, and her brows furrowed instantly. “An Yanqing, why did you grow so tall?”
The words sounded a bit like she was deliberately looking for a fight.
An Yanqing looked down at her, her gaze calm and composed, as if looking at an unruly little girl. “Because I ate my meals properly when I was a child.”
The response felt like a half-hearted brush-off given to a kid.
Zhong Chu couldn’t help but grind her teeth. Just a moment before An Yanqing’s hand could reach out to pat her head, she jerked her head away. “Don’t touch my head! Don’t you know that touching someone’s head stops them from growing tall?”
An Yanqing’s hand met empty air, her fingertips merely grazing the smooth, cool strands of hair. She lightly rubbed her thumb and forefinger together, savoring the fleeting sensation, and teased, “Eldest Miss, are you really that sensitive about your height?”
Zhong Chu wasn’t actually short. At 167cm, wearing 10cm “stiletto” heels, she usually commanded quite an aura among other women.
However, An Yanqing stood at a full 178cm. Consequently, when Zhong Chu stood before her in flat indoor slippers, she always felt a creeping, skin-crawling sensation of being “dainty and protected.”
Zhong Chu didn’t want to acknowledge the words that poked at her sore spot. She slowly stretched her body like a cat waking from a nap. After that, she ignored An Yanqing and started walking ahead on her own.
The soles of her indoor slippers were soft, but every step she took on the floor sent a light vibration, showing that she was in quite a temper.
An Yanqing had long legs and followed at an unhurried pace. Hearing the commotion, she tilted her head to look at her and said with a smile, “What are you huffing about? Where did I offend you?”
Even though An Yanqing was the savior she had personally brought home, Zhong Chu glanced at her sideways, feeling even angrier. If she was at a “three” on the anger scale before, the moment she saw An Yanqing’s face, it shot up to an “eight.”
The remaining two points were because, despite making her teeth itch with irritation, that face was indeed breathtakingly beautiful. Because of this, two points of anger quietly leaked out of her heart, vanishing without a trace.
“As long as you open your mouth to speak, you are irritating me. As long as you stand in front of me, you are irritating me. Just thinking about the fact that there is a person like you breathing the same air under the same sky makes my teeth ache with rage.”
An Yanqing raised her eyebrows in surprise and touched her lips, making a motion as if pulling a zipper shut.
Zhong Chu frowned slightly, wondering to herself: Is this person actually being obedient today?
Halfway through the “zipping” motion, An Yanqing’s hand suddenly stopped. She waved away the gesture and abruptly laughed, saying nonchalantly, “Anger is bad for the body, Miss Zhong. Be careful of lobular hyperplasia of the mammary glands.”
Zhong Chu’s brow twitched violently. Her face went cold, and she snapped her gaze away from An Yanqing’s detestable face.
This jerk—she really was just toyed with.
As she opened the door, for a fleeting moment, a malicious thought surged in Zhong Chu’s heart; she wanted to slam the heavy door right into An Yanqing’s face. But before she could act, An Yanqing took the initiative to hold the door for her and asked, “What do you need help with?”
It wasn’t that An Yanqing had never been to Zhong Chu’s room before, but as they grew older, they had drifted toward a total falling out. Whenever she came to the Zhong residence after that, she consciously avoided this area, which was considered the “forbidden territory” of the Eldest Miss.
It was fine as long as they didn’t meet. Zhong Chu knew An Yanqing met with her family, and since she couldn’t change her family’s decisions, she chose to turn a blind eye to keep her peace of mind.
But if they happened to run into each other, every meeting inevitably ended in a fierce argument.
Zhong Chu leaned against the desk, tilted her chin, and pointed toward the wardrobe. Her expression was listless. “There’s a small safe on the very top. Please get it down for me.”
The feeling of having someone she disliked intrude upon her private domain was truly unpleasant. Now that her rationality had returned, Zhong Chu regretted her actions. With so many servants in the house, why was her first instinct to call for this jerk when she ran into trouble?
After entering, An Yanqing only took a cursory look at the room. Since the owner of the room was clearly repulsed by her, she didn’t want to make her probing gaze too obvious.
The room’s layout was basically unchanged; even the desk and chairs were the same set she and Zhong Chu had used to do homework together when they were young. The mahogany desk was heavy and valuable. It even bore the “luxurious” scratches and flaws left by two mischievous children.
While the furniture was the same and the placement was roughly the same, the style had changed. The former dream-castle princess style had been completely removed and replaced with a low-key, luxurious European style. Because of this, some of the original furniture pieces broke the overall harmony of the room.
Even a layman like An Yanqing found it jarring; Zhong Chu, a designer at the forefront of fashion with immense artistic talent, couldn’t possibly fail to see this.
There could be many reasons why the items weren’t replaced. An Yanqing timely suppressed her own sentimental thoughts. She lightly opened the wardrobe door and immediately spotted the silver safe, which was only about the size of two palms.
The safe was placed squarely on the top shelf, which was quite high up. Even with her arm extended, An Yanqing could only barely touch the edge.
Given Zhong Chu’s height, expecting her to reach this safe herself was indeed asking too much.
Perhaps Zhong Chu caught the faint, lingering smile on her lips. She crossed her arms, feeling as though she was being silently mocked. “An Yanqing, can you do it or not? If you can’t reach it, I’ll go find someone else.”
An Yanqing ignored her “shame turned to anger.” She braced her hand against the shelf, stood slightly on her tiptoes, and smoothly took the small safe into her palm.
As she moved, the hem of her shirt naturally rode up a bit, revealing a glimpse of her delicate, smooth waist.
Under the lamplight, her skin was as beautiful as warm jade, even glowing with a thin, faint luster.
Zhong Chu’s neck was uncomfortable, and she didn’t want to look up, so her gaze was already lowered. This scene seemed to possess an unknown magic, capturing her attention.
Just looking at this beautiful scenery, one could tell how smooth and warm it would feel to the touch.
But in the next second, she couldn’t help but frown slightly. Large patches of red marks bloomed on An Yanqing’s lower back, like roses in full bloom—gorgeous and colorful, swaying with life.
The red marks shattered the perfection of the “warm jade.” The purity was tainted, and the intersection of fragility and destruction made one feel an instinctive sense of pity.
As a semi-artist, Zhong Chu’s pursuit of beauty was practically engraved in her bones. Seeing this, without a second thought, she straightened up and approached An Yanqing.
Her indoor slippers were soft and light, making almost no sound on the wooden floor. An Yanqing turned around after retrieving the item and nearly walked straight into her arms.
“Zhong Chu?”
She had barely uttered the question when, in the next moment, a hand wrapped around her slender waist. With a hint of warmth, the hand skillfully lifted the back of her shirt and pressed against the sore, aching area on her lower back.
The warmth was a very comfortable warmth, like a handful of water at just the right temperature. Upon contact with the injury on her back, the pain was briefly alleviated, only to return even more intensely a moment later. The pain, mixed with an indescribable tingling itch, surged back even deeper and heavier.
An Yanqing’s body was already sensitive to touch; at the contact, she couldn’t help but tremble slightly. “…Zhong Chu, what are you doing?”
The wardrobe was behind her, and Zhong Chu was blocking her in front, leaving her pinned in the middle with no room to move.
After the initial shock, she tried to turn her body slightly, but the cramped space left her very little room to maneuver. Her resistance was futile; Zhong Chu’s hand successfully pressed down on the red marks she had seen earlier.
The pampered Eldest Miss was, after all, a child raised by Old Master Zhong himself. When her expression darkened, her overbearing aura was seventy percent similar to his.
She looked directly into An Yanqing’s eyes, her own eyes narrowing slightly. Her voice was very low, carrying a suppressed and restrained quality, like the calm before a storm. It was completely unlike her previous “angry” tone, which always carried a hint of soft, coquettish whining.
She asked slowly, “An Yanqing, what is the story with these injuries on your back?”