“Wife! I said, thank you, Wife.”
Xu Mengzhou bit the tip of her tongue as she watched the woman squint at her with a casual, hummed acknowledgment.
She felt like a zoo keeper frantically trying to figure out the right food to throw at apex predator…she had tossed an apple first, leaving the beast confused, so she’d quickly thrown in a hunk of raw meat. Only then did the predator, who was already standing, settle back down onto its paws.
Secretly letting out a breath, Xu Mengzhou cautiously unlocked her phone, tapped on the link Han Shutong had sent, and carefully muted her phone to read the subtitles.
It was a popular science video explaining the concept of physiological attraction.
When she finished, a hundred giant question marks popped up over her head.
According to the video, if you constantly felt drawn to someone, wanted to be glued to them 24/7, kiss them, call them baby, and cuddle… and if you found their natural scent intoxicating and couldn’t stop taking sniffs of it…that meant you were smelling their pheromones, and they happened to be your exact type.
The video went on to claim this was a primal attraction baked straight into your genes; the body would register this feeling and send signals long before the brain even realized what was happening.
Signals like a racing heartbeat, dilated pupils, sweaty palms, a spike in body temperature, and an uncontrollable urge to sniff them.
Xu Mengzhou wished she could chuck this absurd video…along with her phone…straight out the car window. Or better yet, grab a memory eraser and wipe the last two minutes from her brain.
What kind of absolute nonsense was this?! Did that mean the real reason she couldn’t stop sniffing around was because she was physically craving Ruan Li’s body?!
Her phone felt scorching hot in her hand, like it had just been fished out of boiling water, though it was nothing compared to the sweltering heat of her sweaty palms.
At a snail’s pace, Xu Mengzhou turned her head just enough to catch the woman next to her in her peripheral vision.
Ruan Li was resting with her eyes closed.
She possessed a classically delicate beauty, her features soft rather than starkly defined. Her eyebrows were like a stroke of faint charcoal drawn against distant summer mountains, her eyes like a clear spring scooped up from deep in the woods, and her lips reminiscent of peach blossoms dampened by a fine drizzle…pale and soft.
Her eyelashes were long, though not dramatically curled, fluttering up just a tiny bit at the tips like little hooks.
Her breathing was light…the faint airflow as delicate as a butterfly’s wings, sweeping against the skin to leave a warm, tingling itch.
Suddenly, those eyes snapped open. Deep, ink-dark pupils locked onto hers.
Xu Mengzhou’s breath caught in her throat. Only then did she realize she had somehow leaned right up into Ruan Li’s face.
“Are we going to kiss?” Ruan Li asked smoothly.
Xu Mengzhou’s face instantly flushed crimson. Panicking, she scrambled backward…and whacked the back of her head hard against the car window.
THUD!
Solid and loud.
Every drop of blood in her body seemed to rush straight to her face. She couldn’t even tell if her head hurt more or her cheeks.
“I… no, I mean…” She stammered uselessly for a solid ten seconds.
There was simply no logical explanation for what she had just been doing.
Giving up entirely, Xu Mengzhou turned around, frantically banged on the partition, and yelled at the driver: “Pull over! Stop the car! Let me out!!”
The driver didn’t react at all.
Ruan Li, on the other hand, let out a soft laugh. It wasn’t loud, but to Xu Mengzhou’s ears, it sounded like a crack of thunder.
“Why hide?” Ruan Li murmured. “You’re eighteen now. An adult. You’re allowed to kiss.”
The deep flush was glaringly obvious against Xu Mengzhou’s wheat-toned skin. After banging on the glass a few more times with zero response from the driver, she slumped back in defeat. Ears burning bright red, she glared at Ruan Li and ground out through gritted teeth, “Stop teasing me on purpose.”
“I am your wife. It’s only natural for me to want to kiss you, isn’t it?” Ruan Li offered a sweet, serene smile. The quiet, ink-painting-like elegance she had radiated moments ago suddenly felt like a total illusion.
She raised a finger and lightly pressed it against her pale lower lip, gently stroking the flesh. “Do you want to know the details of our first kiss?”
Before Xu Mengzhou could scream, Ruan Li shook her head teasingly. “Actually, let’s save it for when we’re alone. It’s not really appropriate content for a public setting.”
Her keeping quiet was ten times worse than if she had actually said it!
Was there anything in the world more terrifyingly graphic than a person’s own imagination?!
Just what on earth had they done that couldn’t even be spoken out loud?!
“Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know!”
If someone had dropped Xu Mengzhou onto a steam engine right now, she could have easily substituted for the smokestack, puffing out massive clouds of white steam straight from her ears.
Feeling thoroughly satisfied after her metaphorical feast, Ruan Li magnanimously decided to spare the poor “just turned eighteen” youngster.
Otherwise, she was genuinely worried the girl’s runaway body temperature from sheer embarrassment might actually melt her brain.
Ruan Li kindly changed the subject. “I have to head back over there tomorrow, so don’t wait up for me for dinner.”
“Over where?” Xu Mengzhou’s brain hadn’t fully rebooted yet.
“My old house,” Ruan Li explained. “I might not come back to sleep, either.”
“You’re sleeping there by yourself?” Xu Mengzhou blurted out instinctively.
The intense crimson on her face hadn’t completely faded, but her eyes had cleared up a bit. She was likely employing her favorite trick…self-hypnosis…pretending that none of what just happened had ever taken place.
“Can’t bear to be away from me?” Ruan Li chuckled softly, her voice laced with playful teasing. “I thought you’d prefer having the bed to yourself.”
“I don’t!”
“You don’t what? Can’t bear to be away from me, or prefer sleeping alone?”
Xu Mengzhou: “…I refuse to answer.”