Xie Junting pressed a kiss to the corner of her lips, completely unbothered that someone was standing nearby.
Out of the corner of her eye as he kissed her, Xia Yiyan glanced back toward the doorway. Qin Su’s pupils were trembling slightly, her eyes brimming with a look as though they had been dipped in poison, and her entire body carried a trace of an imperceptible tremor.
Hah, knew it! Xia Yiyan thought. This was the novel’s female secondary lead, after all; she was clearly no saint and would probably figure out countless ways to deal with her from now on. What a hard-knock life.
Still, when the water came, you built an earthen dam; when the soldiers came, you met them with general staff. Running away was simply not in Xia Yiyan’s vocabulary.
With an expression that was both saucy and coquettish, mixed with a hint of bashful shyness, Xia Yiyan chided, “Mind your manners, your sister and Auntie Lin are still right here.”
Though her words urged caution, her hands proactively wrapped around Xie Junting’s neck and refused to let go. Qin Su read pure, unadulterated provocation in that single gesture.
Xie Junting completely ignored the person standing behind him. Seeing right through Xia Yiyan’s little tricks, he pulled her entirely into his embrace and gave the tip of her nose an indulgent little pinch.
Unable to stomach the cloying, sticky atmosphere between the two of them any longer, Qin Su finally spoke up: “Brother, who is this?”
Only then did Xie Junting finally spare Qin Su a glance at the doorway, his cool, crisp voice turning distant and detached as he addressed her:
“This is my girlfriend, Xia Yiyan. You can call her Sister-in-law.”
Xie Junting didn’t mind tossing a little more fuel onto the fire.
Qin Su’s hands clenched into tight fists, her long fingernails digging so hard into her palms they nearly pierced the skin. She used the sharp pain to numb herself, desperately repeating in her head that she must not do anything rash or Xie Junting would hate it. She had to endure. If she was exiled abroad by Xie Junting a second time, she truly would have zero chance left. As long as she could stay by his side, anything remained possible, right?
Xia Yiyan feigned a spoiled pout. “Sister, don’t listen to him. We aren’t married yet, so you can’t call me Sister-in-law. Actually, come to think of it, I’m younger than you, so calling me older sister doesn’t quite fit either. You can just call me by my name.”
Mentioning age, Xia Yiyan had just turned twenty, making her even two years younger than she was in real life. Xie Junting was already twenty-nine, a full nine years her senior. Qin Su was roughly around his age, not much younger than him at all.
Xia Yiyan possessed jade-like skin, a soft layer of youthful baby fat on her cheeks, and exquisite, breathtaking features. She resembled a newly bloomed flower—pure, vibrant, and full of life.
Qin Su was quite pretty as well, sporting chestnut-colored long curls, delicate makeup, expressive peach-blossom eyes, and a striking crimson lip that lent her a mature, mesmerizing allure. By all accounts of appearance and styling, Qin Su clearly looked a good deal older than Xia Yiyan. Yet Xia Yiyan kept cheerfully addressing her as “little sister”—it was enough to drive her mad with rage.
Casting a reluctant, forced smile, Qin Su replied through gritted teeth, “Ms. Xia is certainly… very cute.”
Xia Yiyan shot right back: “You think I’m cute too? You have fantastic taste, such a wonderful eye for appreciation!”
Silence descended upon the room. Xia Yiyan cringed so hard her toes curled inside the bedsheets.
With a soft chuckle, Xie Junting issued the dismissal: “Alright, both of you go get some rest.”
Auntie Lin handed the ice pack for the ankle back to Xie Junting. “Let’s go, Miss, I’ll take you to your room to rest.” Closing the door behind them, Auntie Lin led Qin Su away.
“Such a sharp little tongue,” Xie Junting murmured, his gaze fixed straight on her as they sat close enough that their faces were practically touching. Xia Yiyan caught the scent of his ebony-wood and musk cologne, lingering with a faint trace of tobacco from his lips.
No way, she panicked internally. He surely doesn’t suspect that someone else has swapped into this body, right?
Stumbling for words under his intense stare, she nervously babbled: “What do you mean, different? I just finally figured things out, that’s all. I only want to stay good and proper by your side now, and I don’t want to hurt myself or you anymore.”
He shouldn’t figure it out, right? Such a sci-fi concept—who would ever believe it?
“Oh? Is that so?”
Xie Junting lightly nibbled on her earlobe, his cold yet bewitching voice carrying hot breath straight into her ear. Xia Yiyan’s body instantly turned to jelly. Jerk, my ears are my most sensitive spot!
“Yes. So… does Brother prefer the old me, or the current me?” Xia Yiyan trembled slightly, unable to completely control her reaction.
Xie Junting released her ear and reached up to stroke her soft strands of hair. After a long pause, he gave his answer: “As long as it’s you, I like all of it. There’s no past or future to divide it.”
The autumn night was as cool as water, the night sky dotted with stars resembling scattered diamonds, while the half-moon shone pristine like a translucent piece of white jade. The man’s enchanting, handsome features, accented by a tiny red mole at the corner of his eye, radiated an indescribable wild arrogance and nobility, tinged with a streak of pure danger.
This peerlessly cold and handsome face zoomed in and out in front of Xia Yiyan’s eyes countless times.
He’s devastatingly handsome, I’ll give him that, Xia Yiyan wailed internally. But could his stamina and waist strength please not be this terrifying, huh? Even a prize ox on a collective farm would get kidney deficiency working like this! Somebody save me…
By the time Xia Yiyan’s physical strength gave out entirely and she drifted off into a semiconscious, half-fainting sleep, the man still showed no signs of stopping. A bead of sweat slid down his jawline, landing right on the tip of Xia Yiyan’s nose. The man paused just a fraction to wipe it away for her.
The dazed girl thought the torture was finally coming to an end and rejoiced inwardly. Ha, finally done—wait, is that it?
To her horror, a moment later, the assault resumed with even greater fury.
Brother, I was wrong, Xia Yiyan wept in her heart before passing out cold.
As dawn broke and the room finally quieted down, Xie Junting carried her off to wash up and called Auntie Lin to change the bedsheets. Instructing her not to wake them for breakfast, he pulled the exhausted beauty back into his arms and drifted into a deep sleep.
When Xia Yiyan woke up again, it was already two in the afternoon.
Sitting in front of the floor-to-ceiling window with his back to her, Xie Junting was hunched over his laptop, handling work emails. Still aching all over, Xia Yiyan rolled her eyes and threw a phantom punch straight at the back of his head.
Before she could yank her fist back, the man pivoted around, catching the motion mid-swing.
Startled, Xia Yiyan smoothly converted the punch into a lazy stretch.
Xie Junting snapped his laptop shut, strode straight over to her side, and hit her with the classic soulful trilogy:
“Awake? Thirsty? Hungry?”
Xia Yiyan flashed a sweet smile. “Brother, I’m awake, not thirsty, but a little hungry.” When it came to the CEO, she was an exemplary model of an obedient responder who answered every question.
Xie Junting carried her to the bathroom to wash up. By the time they emerged, Auntie Lin had already laid out a spread of dishes.
Just as he was in the middle of feeding her lunch, the time arrived for a pre-scheduled video conference. Xie Junting retrieved his laptop, logged into the software, and launched the online meeting.
Stealing a peek at the screen, Xia Yiyan spotted a massive conference room on the other end, where over a dozen blonde-haired, blue-eyed foreigners sat neatly along a long conference table. Dressed in sharp suits with solemn, serious expressions, they sat rigidly upright. To avoid disturbing her, Xie Junting popped in a Bluetooth earpiece.
For the most part, Xie Junting simply listened, occasionally speaking up. Not a single word he uttered made sense to her because he was speaking entirely in Russian.
Fearing she would interrupt his work, Xia Yiyan tried to stop him from spooning food into her mouth, whispering beside him: “Brother, stop feeding me, I can eat by myself. Go focus on your meeting.”
With an indulgent smile, the man replied, “Running a meeting doesn’t stop me from feeding you. Be a good girl, open wide.”
Xie Junting scooped up a portion of greens she despised, prompting Xia Yiyan to instinctively shake her head in refusal. “No picky eating, or your afternoon dessert gets canceled.”
Placing a hand over his mouth, Xia Yiyan whispered, “I’ll eat, I’ll eat, okay?!” She gestured toward the laptop to remind him he was still in the middle of a conference and shouldn’t say random things—even though they were foreigners and might not necessarily understand what he was saying.
By the time Xia Yiyan finished eating her fill, his meeting still hadn’t wrapped up. Seeing she was done, Xie Junting finally set his chopsticks aside and poured her a glass of warm water.
As the conference resumed, Xie Junting’s speaking time increased significantly. Hearing his rolling rs and slurred vowels, Xia Yiyan’s funny bone was somehow struck. She found it more and more amusing, until a mis-swallowed gulp of water caused her to choke violently.
Hearing her coughing fit, Xie Junting immediately dropped what he was doing to pat her back and help her clear her airway. “How did you choke? Be careful, drink slowly.”
Little did Xia Yiyan know that the moment the meeting ended, the entire other side of the screen erupted into total chaos. Among the dozen or so executives, at least half of them understood Chinese.
“Was that our CEO’s wife’s voice just now?” “Talk about spoiled rotten—even eating lunch requires the CEO to feed her!”