The damp white bath towel slid slowly down, only to be abruptly caught by a large, bony hand the next instant.
The girl’s eyes, black and white sharply distinct, flew wide open.
His cool, pale skin beaded with water droplets. Along the man’s lean, taut abdomen, winding veins pulsed, revealing a faint hint of cinnabar red.
In a flash, it was covered by the white towel again.
He’d moved too fast—she hadn’t seen it clearly.
A very vivid red, with fine, delicate strokes. It looked like a tattoo.
A tattoo in that place?
Wen Sui was shocked all over again, blinking blankly.
An almost imperceptible sigh sounded. A damp, bony hand gripped her chin, forcing her face up.
Wen Sui, still wearing an expression of utter shock, met Pei Yuli’s gaze.
That face, misted and dampened by steam, loomed large before her eyes. Pei Yuli looked rather helpless.
“Haven’t stared enough yet, Your Highness?”
Wen Sui flushed and started being stubborn:
“I wasn’t looking.”
Pei Yuli watched her with a half-smile:
“Oh, you weren’t looking…”
Pei Yuli looked a bit wicked like this. Thinking of that flash of a mark just now, Wen Sui felt an itch inside, like a kitten’s paw scratching at her.
Held by the chin by Pei Yuli, her lashes fluttered rapidly:
“Pei Yuli, I think I saw something…”
Pei Yuli raised an eyebrow:
“Something all normal males have?”
Wen Sui’s face grew even hotter. Pretending not to understand, she cut straight to the point:
“You got a tattoo?”
Pei Yuli gave a small laugh but didn’t answer her question. Instead, just like when they were kids, he pressed her cheek lightly.
“Pretty quick eyes for a little brat.”
The man’s large, damp hand patted her face, still carrying the moisture of the steam.
The touch was light, teasing.
The next moment, Pei Yuli, adjusting his bath towel, strode out on his long legs.
Wen Sui trailed after him like a little shadow. The more she didn’t ask, the more curious she got, muttering quietly behind him:
“Who are you calling a little brat? We’re the same age.”
“Pei Yuli, tattoos are not what good kids do—we’ve discussed this before. How can you take such poor care of your own body?”
“And why did you get it in that place? Getting one there means you definitely don’t want anyone to know… Are you secretly in love with someone?”
“Or, in all these years I was gone, did you develop some special kink—something about sneaky, hidden nee—”
Pei Yuli stopped abruptly, and Wen Sui, still chattering away, accidentally bumped into his back.
Pei Yuli turned around and gently rubbed the tip of her nose, his low voice drawling lazily:
“Mm, I do have a special kink. I like playing with thrills.”
As he spoke, he pushed open the door to the walk-in closet and made an inviting gesture:
“I’m about to get dressed, young lady.”
“Care to come in and watch?”
Pei Yuli shamelessly invited her, the corners of his lips curling into a gleaming smile:
“Perhaps if our Suisui saw it with her own eyes, she’d discover something even more thrilling.”
Wen Sui said nothing, just flushed and shoved him through the doorway.
The door closed. The spacious, cool-toned walk-in closet was clean and tidy, and the man’s tall, upright figure slowly appeared before the full-length mirror.
He turned to open the wardrobe and picked out a shirt.
The enormous mirror reflected the man’s broad back. Below his shoulder blade ran a vicious scar, the wound still not fully healed, flesh having torn and curled. Under the cold light, it grew all the more horrifying with every shift of his shoulders.
A moment later, the vicious scar was hidden beneath the white shirt.
In the mirror, the man had returned to his impeccably dressed appearance.
When he pushed the door open and stepped out, his childhood sweetheart was curled up on the sofa, fiddling with her phone.
Hearing his footsteps, she propped up her head and made an adorably wicked expression.
“Pei Yuli, I looked it up—online it says what you’re into is a special fetish, S/M!”
Wen Suisui made her outrageous declaration while Pei Yuli’s face didn’t change at all. He pulled her up from the sofa and led her out.
“And did the internet also tell you which of the two I am?”
The girl’s fluffy little head nuzzled against his chest, her voice sweet and soft—yet the words that came out were utterly brazen:
“The tattoo there means sacrifice and submission. You’re an M!”
The moment the words landed, the butler, who was coming up the stairs, stumbled.
The old man scrambled frantically, grabbing a spotless vase beside him and wiping it over and over.
Two mismatched sets of footsteps sounded in his ears—Mr. Pei’s steady and measured, the girl’s light and quick, the two rhythms overlapping as they brushed past him.
Mr. Pei’s voice rang out with a gentleness the butler had never heard in his life:
“Not quite accurate. The internet lied to you.”
The girl Mr. Pei had brought back answered in a clear, bright voice:
“Really? I don’t believe you.”
The two voices drifted away. Mr. Pei, always decisive and intolerant of any defiance, gave a small smile, his low voice faintly tinged with coaxing.
“Search for any more of that nonsense online, and I’ll put you on child mode.”
“What’s child mode? I only know about airplane mode… Oh right, Pei Yuli, you still haven’t told me—is ‘electronic pickled vegetable’ something you feed to electronic pets…”
Wen Suisui ate her dinner in a frantic rush.
After eating, she went right back to fiddling with electronic devices, exploring her new world.
Pei Yuli had a multinational conference call, so he simply carried Wen Sui off to the study.
As he ran the meeting, listening to executives across the ocean report on the previous quarter’s performance, his long, narrow phoenix eyes kept darting now and then in another direction.
The girl sprawled on the sofa was biting a throw pillow, typing rapidly on her phone.
The glow of the screen lit up her fair little face, translucent as a freshly peeled lychee—almond eyes, delicate nose, soft lips caught on the edge of the pillow.
Pei Yuli’s dark gaze fixed on that throw pillow, and it took him a long while to look away.
The meeting ended quickly.
Having missed her afternoon nap that day, Wen Sui gave a yawn.
The two said goodnight to each other and returned to their rooms.
Night closed in, the stars sparse across the sky.
In the second-floor bedroom of the estate, Pei Yuli, finished with the day’s affairs, was not yet resting.
He held a cup of coffee, his slender knuckles clicking rapidly across the keyboard as dense windows popped up on his silver laptop.
The man’s fingers moved precisely, tapping once in a certain place.
A video feed opened. On it was unmistakably Wen Sui, just out of the shower.
Her rose-pink silk nightgown brushed against her calves, the hem fluttering as she leapt onto the bed, revealing soft, graceful lines of her legs.
In front of the screen, the man’s Adam’s apple bobbed sharply.
The girl in the footage noticed nothing. She bent slightly forward, pressing her hips down into a smooth curve like the waist of a cello.
She scooped up a StellaLou plush, pressed it to her cheek, then leaned in and kissed it.
Pei Yuli’s eyes were pitch-black. His bony hand gripped his tie, and with a cold, handsome face, he gave it a hard tug.
His Adam’s apple bobbed rapidly, betraying a parched thirst. His narrow eyes churned with obsession, his dark, heavy gaze licking over the slender figure on the screen again and again.
His heartbeat quickened, his breath grew hot.