“Don’t move…” Wen Shuyu, who had fallen into Xiao Jingchen’s embrace, suddenly leaned closer, her nose almost touching his.
Her warm, wine-scented breath brushed against his cheek. “Xiao Jingchen… there are stars spinning in your eyes, they’re making me dizzy…”
With that, she extended a trembling fingertip, wanting to touch his eyelashes.
Xiao Jingchen firmly grasped her arm, stopping her movement. His gaze, darker than usual, fixed intently on her face. “Are you drunk?”
Wen Shuyu shook her head, the crimson corners of her eyes like hooks. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her eyes hazy. “Not drunk… not drunk, you’re the one who’s drunk.”
Suddenly, she cupped Xiao Jingchen’s face, examining it carefully for a long while.
“So handsome…”
Before Xiao Jingchen could speak, she let go and picked up a peanut from a dish on the nearby stone table.
Swaying unsteadily, she brought it to Xiao Jingchen’s lips, smiling like a child. “You’re so handsome, I’ll give you this… it’s really sweet…”
Seeing him unmoving, she frowned in dissatisfaction.
She directly reached out, turned his face, and insisted on pushing the peanut into his mouth.
Only when she saw Xiao Jingchen bite down, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, did she relent.
“Was it good…”
Her fingertip lingered at the corner of Xiao Jingchen’s lips, her dazed gaze fixed unwaveringly on his mouth.
Then, a silly smile suddenly bloomed on her lips. She quickly and lightly pecked Xiao Jingchen’s mouth, then pulled away, declaring triumphantly, “Nice to kiss, I kissed him, the handsome man is mine now…”
The warm sensation came and went swiftly.
Instantly, Xiao Jingchen’s eyes darkened into an unfathomable abyss, like ink that could not be diluted.
In a flash, the world spun.
Xiao Jingchen’s palm pressed against the back of Wen Shuyu’s neck as he lowered his head and kissed her heavily, his other hand gripping her slender waist tightly.
Accompanied by a series of clattering sounds, the cups, dishes, and plates on the stone table were all swept to the ground by spiritual power, the crisp shattering noises exceptionally loud in the silent night.
Wen Shuyu’s back lay against the cold tabletop, the chill making her shiver. All her unvoiced exclamations and drunkenness were sealed between their lips and tongues by this kiss. “Mmm…”
She struggled to breathe, instinctively squirming, but the person before her remained unmoved.
The kiss only grew deeper and more intense, prying open her teeth as if to devour her whole—bones, blood, and all. Her breath was completely stolen, the air grew thin, and her mind went blank, leaving only the friction between their lips and teeth, which eventually dissolved into fragmented, soft moans.
If anyone had seen this scene, they would surely have been shocked. The usually gentle and refined Crown Prince, at this moment, gazed at the person before him with eyes full of obsessive possessiveness and intense ferocity.
After what felt like an eternity, Wen Shuyu was released, gasping for air in large, desperate breaths.
Xiao Jingchen rested his forehead against hers, his thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. His dark eyes seemed to conceal a bottomless, murky river—unfathomable and impossible to see through.
The night breeze swept by, and Wen Shuyu, growing increasingly intoxicated, shivered. Her voice was as faint as a mosquito’s hum. “Cold… my head is spinning too. Who are you… I want to go back.”
Xiao Jingchen, who had somehow regained his usual elegant and gentle demeanor, removed his cloak and draped it over Wen Shuyu, fastening it carefully.
He extended slender fingers to lift Wen Shuyu’s chin, tightening the hand around her waist by another inch. “Look again, who am I?”
Wen Shuyu giggled foolishly, as if having forgotten everything that had just happened. “It’s Big Brother Crown Prince… why are you here?”
“I came tonight to give you a gift.”
Xiao Jingchen’s gaze was gentle and kind. With elegant movements, he took out an exquisite jade hairpin shimmering with spiritual power. His eyes fell upon her waterfall-like black hair as he gently inserted the hairpin into it.
Gazing into her drunken almond-shaped eyes, his voice flowed like a clear spring, stirring ripples of emotion: “I made it myself, A’yu. This time, it’s beautiful.”
“I carved my life-protecting soul charm inside. If you ever face danger in the future, no matter where I am, it can protect you once on my behalf.”
He spoke these words lightly, unconcerned whether the intoxicated Wen Shuyu could understand them.
As if forgetting how he had split his immortal soul, forced out his golden core, and used his life’s true fire to burn and refine a trace of primordial golden light into an engraving tool, painstakingly carving the soul-protecting charm into the hairpin stroke by stroke.
With each stroke of the charm, a trickle of blood spilled from the corner of his lips—blood that carried faint golden light, his primordial essence blood. One slight misstep, and a lifetime of arduous cultivation would vanish like foam.
“I’m sleepy…” Wen Shuyu clung to his arm, burying her flushed little face completely into the crook of his elbow. Finding a comfortable position, she grew still.
Perhaps she had fallen asleep.
Xiao Jingchen gazed at her face, his voice soft, yet his eyes deep and somber, more profound than the night itself. “A’yu, falling in love with me may become the greatest regret of your life.”
“I can still allow you to leave now. But in a while, I’m afraid even in death, we must die together, our souls trapped together, never to part for eternity.”
His thumb gently stroked the side of Wen Shuyu’s sleeping face inch by inch, a soft chuckle escaping his throat.
Yet this laughter carried an overwhelming obsession in the pitch-black night, chilling to the bone…