Because of their previous argument, Li Yixun didn’t want to see Chen Nian at home for a while. Unfortunately, Chen Nian didn’t comply; he didn’t seem to have any business trips planned. She saw him every night, either late at night, slightly drunk and making a lot of noise, or when she got home from work, Chen Nian was already sitting on the living room carpet building Lego.
Li Yixun had never missed her husband, who was always away on business trips, so much. She missed the time she spent alone at home. She hadn’t gotten over what happened before, so she completely ignored him. If they were both home, she either wouldn’t leave her room or simply treat Chen Nian like he wasn’t there, doing her own thing.
After this continued for a week, Li Yixun didn’t know how long Chen Nian could keep it up, but she couldn’t take it anymore. One day, when she saw Chen Nian reading on the sofa in his pajamas after work, she went back to her room, dug out her long-unworn workout clothes, and went for a night run.
Li Yixun was the kind of person who was terrible at sports. In junior and senior high school, she came in last in the 800-meter dash and was panting like a broken bellows. Her slender figure was entirely due to genetics; she was the kind of beautiful but useless person blessed by God.
A woman who believed in sitting rather than standing and lying down rather than sitting, it’s easy to imagine how much determination it took for her to choose to exercise outside to avoid facing her husband at home.
Li Yixun originally intended to just walk briskly to raise her heart rate, but she forgot that the outside temperature was only in the teens (Celsius). In the end, she had to force herself to run in the cold wind to warm up.
When Li Yixun got home, it was already an hour later. Chen Nian was still patiently sitting on the sofa reading a book, as if his posture hadn’t changed at all since she left. Li Yixun didn’t have time to pay attention to him. After exercising, she felt sticky all over and just wanted to take a good shower and find something to eat.
After a comfortable shower, Li Yixun slowly applied skincare products in front of the bathroom mirror. As she got older, even with regular cosmetic procedures, Li Yixun felt her skin, except for her T-zone, was gradually becoming drier. If she didn’t apply skincare products immediately after showering, her face felt tight and uncomfortable.
Suddenly, there was an abrupt knock on the bathroom door.
“What is it?” Li Yixun put down her unfinished face cream, opened the bathroom door, and met the gaze of the male homeowner, who was dressed in loungewear.
She instinctively felt something urgent had happened to make Chen Nian knock on the master bedroom’s bathroom door.
“Ah, I’m sorry, but you haven’t come out for so long, I was worried you might have fainted in there,” Chen Nian apologized, but his eyes darted inappropriately towards a place he shouldn’t have.
A fresh, post-shower fragrance wafted through the air. The woman, still recovering from her bath, hadn’t yet donned her autumn/winter coat, wearing only a light pink silk slip dress. Her shoulder-length hair, partially dried, retained a touch of dampness that accentuated her alluring figure, highlighting her delicate collarbones and the unobstructed curves of her breasts.
“So, you’ve seen it now? Can you leave now?” Li Yixun noticed Chen Nian’s lingering gaze and deliberately crossed her arms to cover her body, coldly dismissing him.
Chen Nian, however, couldn’t bear to part with that silky beauty. He forcefully pulled her into his embrace, holding her close. “No, I need to check myself before I’m at ease, and also apologize to my beautiful wife, who’s been angry with me for a week.”
He gently caressed her sensitive waist, his movements subtle yet increasingly invasive.
“I won’t accept an apology. As for the inspection, that depends on my mood.” Li Yixun tiptoed, whispering her breath sweetly in his ear.
In her thirties, she wasn’t ashamed to openly express her physical desires; besides, a satisfying lovemaking session was, in her opinion, a duty her husband should fulfill.
Chen Nian, of course, understood her unspoken meaning and instantly picked up the signal to attack. He deftly lifted her to the sink, carefully placing a towel on the cold countertop before setting her down. Chen Nian turned his head and found her lips, freshly balmed, and began to trace her delicate lip line, returning the plum flavor from her lips to her.
His hands weren’t idle either, using the silky feel of her dress to slip inside, precisely finding her desired spot, rhythmically kneading and interlacing. With Chen Nian firmly in control, Li Yixun involuntarily tilted her neck back, pressing against him, soft, broken sounds escaping her throat, like a noble swan forced to raise its head.
However, this was no swan that would give up. With one hand, she gripped the fabric of his clothes tightly, while the other hand, through his pajama bottoms, teased him with just the right amount of pressure. Soon, she heard his satisfied groan.
Their hot breaths sprayed onto each other’s faces, and in a daze, their figures repeatedly overlapped and intertwined, drenched in sweat in the warm, cozy room heated by the bathroom heater.
Li Yixun was composed of various beautiful lines, Chen Nian confirmed in a wave of pleasurable tingling sensation, confirmed through every part of his body.
Li Yixun used Chen Nian’s strength to jump off the sink, disdainfully tossing the soaked towel into the nearby trash can.
“Get me a new set of pajamas.” Li Yixun tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, preparing to take another shower.
“Okay, together?” Chen Nian gently pinched her face, his eyes gleaming with undisguised desire.
Li Yixun slapped his hand away, casually turning on the bathroom ventilation system to remove the stale air. “No, I don’t have your stamina.”
She raised an eyebrow, her eyes full of mockery. “Besides, don’t forget, I didn’t promise to forgive you.”
“…You really treat me like a tool, you heartless woman.” Although annoyed, Chen Nian obediently went to the dressing room to get her some clothes.
“Welcome to continue next time.” Chen Nian glanced at the beautiful lines of her body under the shower, adding unwillingly, before closing the door and leaving.
Li Yixun and Chen Nian’s relationship remained stiff. She refused Chen Nian’s daily apology bouquets and ignored him despite his daily routine of coming home at the same time of day. Chen Nian was clearly helpless against her stubbornness, so he could only exert himself to torment and get close to her in bed whenever he had free time, because only then was she the soft, alluring, and vibrant woman he loved.
Li Yixun’s excessive indulgence left her feeling physically exhausted, and her experience of being hospitalized for wearing insufficient clothing made her acutely aware of her frail health. She resolved to exercise. She didn’t want to run outdoors in the cold wind anymore, but she also didn’t want to go to the high-end gym near her home; if she remembered correctly, Chen Nian was a member there and would go whenever he had free time.
She rummaged through her office drawer for a long time before finally finding the company-issued gym membership card for the building downstairs. The card had been sitting unused for a long time. After work, she grabbed a quick bite, went to the mall, bought a complete set of workout shoes and clothes, and headed straight to the gym.
Li Yixun had no idea how to approach fitness. Glancing at the gym’s schedule, she saw that the dance and yoga classes had already started. She decided to just wander around for the day and see if she needed a personal trainer later.
The gym was quite crowded at this time. Looking around, she noticed men, women, young adults, and middle-aged people—probably mostly nearby office workers exercising after work.
She mounted her phone on the elliptical trainer, started watching a TV series, and pedaled the high-resistance machine while watching.
Perhaps because she was a new face, several trainers quickly approached her for guidance, but she declined them all, saying, “I’ll contact you again if I need anything.” She wasn’t particularly attracted to overly muscular physiques and planned to find a female trainer or a less muscular male trainer later.
While large muscles might indicate that these trainers were well-trained, her aesthetic preferred a more defined, leaner, muscular physique, like Chen Nian—a man who looked lean in clothes but muscular underneath. She hadn’t asked him how he trained, but she imagined that maintaining his abs during his demanding business trips was no easy feat.
The gym downstairs in the CBD office building wasn’t just a place to exercise; it was also a social space for adult men and women to display their hormones. Not only did the trainers notice Li Yixun, but other men in the weight area also clearly noticed this tall, slender, and intelligent woman. However, the ring on her finger deterred most of their potential advances. While some men don’t mind a beautiful woman being married, a woman with some life experience might be harder to handle.
But some men still didn’t give up their “fishing net,” trying to strike up a conversation. “Hi, I haven’t seen you before. First time here?”
“Hmm…” Li Yixun glanced at the man, giving a perfunctory reply, and continued to focus on the TV series on her phone.
“I see you’ve turned down several trainers. Are they too expensive? How about I take you to work out?… You’re already skinny enough, you don’t need cardi. Come with me to the weight room.” The man intentionally showed off his muscles, enthusiastically suggesting.
Li Yixun hadn’t forgotten that, among the men groaning in the weight room earlier, this man seemed to be one of them.
“No, I just like the elliptical machine.”
“That’s fine then, we can chat. What do you do, beautiful lady? You have a great presence. Are you a university professor?”
“…You seem to have the air of a salesperson. Sorry, I really have no interest in chatting, so I won’t reply to the rest.” Li Yixun always ignored these kinds of obviously flirtatious advances. She stared at her phone screen, not looking up as she said her rejection.
“Who do you think you are?!” The man, feeling awkward, grumbled and walked away.
The man on the elliptical machine next to Li Yixun was forced to listen to the whole conversation and couldn’t help but laugh.
Seeing her look up at him, he explained, “Sorry, I wasn’t wearing headphones today and accidentally overheard your entire conversation. I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s alright, it’s a public place.” She stared at this refined man for a few seconds, thinking that the man who had just guessed she was a university professor was clearly more like someone eavesdropping on her conversation.
The two didn’t try to strike up a conversation again. It wasn’t until Li Yixun finished watching two episodes of a TV series on the elliptical machine and left that he noticed the seat next to him had been taken by someone else sometime earlier.