Fu Minglin did not reach out to take it.
The deeply curved, thin, razor sharp spine before her was held remarkably straight.
Her gaze slid past those earlobes that were so red they looked as if they might drip blood, constantly radiating heat. The milk gently swirling against the cup’s inner wall, however, completely betrayed the tension of the person holding it.
The amusement deep within her eyes grew clearer.
Fu Minglin suddenly took a step back, pulling the door wide open.
The sporadic shafts of light scattered across the floor spilled outward in a great flood. Staring at that warm lamp-shadow, Nan Zhi’s brain went buzz, and she completely lost the ability to think.
W-wait?
Unable to hold back, her hand gave a slight start, and scalding milk slopped over the rim, splashing a few droplets onto the back of her hand.
Yet Nan Zhi stood completely motionless, as though she couldn’t feel the pain at all.
“Remember to close the door after you come in.”
Those eight lightly tossed words utterly struck Nan Zhi dumb.
She jerked her head up, but Fu Minglin was no longer in front of her.
The lingering scent of fruit now blended with the milky fragrance cupped in her palms. From within the ajar bathroom door came the buzzing sound of hair being dried.
Before her eyes was the exact same room configuration as her own, yet it was decorated in an entirely different style.
Nan Zhi had been brought back to the Fu family for nearly a year.
Yet this was her first time stepping into Fu Minglin’s bedroom.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, where no curtains had been drawn, lay an endless night.
And the floor lamp standing beside the window was the room’s sole source of light.
On the desk lay a book opened halfway to the middle. A thin, light lotus-root-pink cardigan was casually tossed onto a black leather sofa. Nan Zhi’s mind inexplicably conjured the image of Fu Minglin sitting right there.
Did she often sit by the window, reading books beneath that lamp?
Her half-drooping hair would slightly veil her features and those amber-colored pupils. When she grew tired of reading, perhaps she would simply fall asleep right there.
The cast light and shadow were far too warm.
So soft. So tender.
Unable to control herself, Nan Zhi lifted her feet and walked toward that patch of light.
The room was fully carpeted with a shallow wool rug possessing a gentle nap. Without overthinking it, Nan Zhi bent down and slipped off her shoes.
Even though she had already showered, she still pulled a tissue from her pocket and meticulously wiped her feet clean.
A bedroom.
It was a personal realm of the utmost privacy.
And Nan Zhi was an outsider about to trespass into Fu Minglin’s domain.
An inexplicable mixture of anticipation and guilt drove Nan Zhi to quicken her movements.
After carefully wiping every inch of skin on her feet, she used a fresh tissue to wipe her hands once more.
Catching sight of the wastebasket by the door, Nan Zhi hesitated for a few seconds before wrapping that ball of used tissues inside a clean one and tucking it deep into the innermost pocket of her nightgown.
Her entry had been permitted by Fu Minglin, but none of the items belonging to her were here.
Cautiously, she stepped onto the carpet.
Holding the cup of milk tightly in her hands like a drowning person clutching at a final straw, Nan Zhi walked past the floor-to-ceiling window and didn’t dare wander around any further. She turned to wait, though her gaze kept drifting.
This room’s layout was thoroughly stamped with Fu Minglin’s personal style.
Aside from a bed and a single-person sofa by the window, there was not a single extra decorative touch.
Even dolls and throw pillows were nowhere to be seen; the carpet was the sole softness in the room.
Clearly, there was a study in the house.
Yet Fu Minglin’s walk-in closet had still been knocked through and expanded.
Readjusted to a higher ceiling, the walk-in closet looked like an attic. Inside, there were neither clothes nor jewelry; instead, what met the eye was a full wall of bookshelves, requiring Nan Zhi to tilt her head all the way back just to make out the top tier.
Professionally bound books from every industry were neatly arranged upon it, largely dominated by medicine.
Placed below the bookshelf was a solid wood desk over two meters long. It must have been used recently, as the desktop was littered with loose A4 paper and books.
This was perhaps the only place in Fu Minglin’s room that defied order.
Nan Zhi’s mind couldn’t help but conjure the image of Fu Minglin leaning over the desk to write, but this time, it lacked the warm feeling she had imagined just moments before.
Nan Zhi lowered her gaze. The soft lamp-shadow wrapping around her from behind only served to make the austere arrangement before her look all the more desolate.
In her mind, she recalled the furnishings of her own room.
The Baroque crystal chandelier that hurt her eyes to look at, the countless luxury dresses and pieces of jewelry, the plush toys and figures packing the cabinets.
Every single one of them had been given to her by Fu Minglin after she moved in.
She still remembered the exact moment she first met Fu Minglin.
In a foul, filthy stinking alley, Nan Zhi had just been robbed of her money by a pack of hooligans.
“Little bastard, if you can’t cough up your protection money today, you’d better be ready to die.”
Rain mixed with greasy sewage dripped down from the low eaves, and the scattered pages of a book quickly dissolved in the water.
Crouched in the corner, Nan Zhi shivered, her disheveled long hair covering her swollen cheeks, her old, faded school uniform stained with mud.
That was a notorious bully’s alley. Because of an aging, abandoned drainage ditch and its geographical location right between the urban district and the rural fringe, it attracted dropouts who had turned to delinquency. It was also a mandatory route for Nan Zhi on her way home from school.
That day, she was exceptionally unlucky, grabbed by the straps of her schoolbag. To safeguard the eighty-six yuan in her bosom that she had earned by finishing a night shift, Nan Zhi had already steeled herself for a brutal beating.
Yet, before the beating came an inclined umbrella.
Fu Minglin had appeared right there in the bully’s alley. Her pure white shirt looked completely out of place, yet the umbrella held overhead sheltered Nan Zhi from all the wind and rain.
“The police will handle those bullies. I’m here to take you home.”
Amidst the pouring rain, the young woman delivered a concise self-introduction: “My name is Fu Minglin.”
Ever since then, Nan Zhi’s life had been utterly rewritten.
She was brought back to a lavish mansion worth every inch of its weight in gold. A series of tedious blood tests and reporting procedures proved her identity.
To put it laughably, the first nineteen years of her life spent rolling in gutters and fighting wild dogs for scraps hadn’t bought her half a day of peace, yet relying purely on the blood flowing through her veins had completely flipped the tables.
Plunging back into the memory triggered a physical pang, causing Nan Zhi to shiver.
The spilled milk dragged her thoughts back to reality.
Nan Zhi searched every visible corner of the room, yet she still couldn’t find a single thing—not even a fraction of anything—that resembled the pile of gifts she had received.
Her heart gradually grew cold.
When she received those gifts, Nan Zhi had assumed they were things Fu Minglin liked. So every time she received a plush toy, she would carefully “study” that doll’s IP and backstory.
Yet looking at it now, Fu Minglin didn’t seem to like them at all.
They were probably just bought on a whim. Even though she ought to feel grateful, a sense of loss like the night sky sealed off beyond the window silently devoured the tiny trace of joy in Nan Zhi’s heart.
“Why aren’t you sitting down?”
The inquiring voice broke Nan Zhi’s wandering thoughts.
She jerked her head up. Fu Minglin had walked over without her noticing.
Her long hair had been dried, but it was still hanging loose.
Her unpainted face was ruddy and fair, and those amber pupils shimmered in the lamplight.
The person who had walked out resembled a white porcelain vase, set off by the red mole between her eyebrows, which mysteriously added a few points of seductive charm.
“I…” Words choked in her throat. Realizing where she was standing, Nan Zhi lowered her head in apology: “I’m sorry.”
As her gaze slid downward, Nan Zhi sharply caught sight of something.
Having suffered beatings for a long time, Nan Zhi was exceptionally sensitive to injuries, and she locked her eyes long and hard upon Fu Minglin’s knees.
Fu Minglin was exceptionally blessed, not just in her features, but even her skin was superior.
Yet right now, with her slightly stiff walking posture, the area around her knees—brushed by the hem of her nightgown—seemed to have sustained prolonged pressure.
The spreading flush was mingled with dark bruising.
Could it be that Fu Minglin hadn’t just returned a moment ago?
Recalling those two separate door-closing sounds, a seed of doubt planted itself deep in Nan Zhi’s heart.
Taking in every shift of emotion from the younger girl, ranging from embarrassment to confusion, Fu Minglin—her scheme having succeeded—curved her lips slightly, yet changed the subject: “Why are you saying sorry?”
She had small canine teeth that peeked out as her smile slipped free.
All her swirling suspicions were punctured by those playful little tips of teeth.
Nan Zhi’s pupils shrank slightly, and she blankly shook her head.
“I invited you in,” Fu Minglin naturally picked up the remote control for the curtains from the tabletop, her gaze dropping to the cup of milk: “Don’t tell me you secretly took a sip while waiting for me?”
Feeling that gaze fall upon the milk—
“Of course not.”
A crisp and decisive reply. Nan Zhi realized she was joking, and her face flushed red all over again.
Fu Minglin right now was vastly different from usual.
She no longer looked like the untouchable figure held aloft in crowds.
Those canine teeth lightly pressed against her lips without being tucked away, and her amber pupils reflected the light, appearing even purer and more translucent.
The distance between them was growing closer.
So close that Nan Zhi began to worry whether the frantically beating sound inside her chest would be heard.
“Then that’s settled.”
Fortunately, Fu Minglin didn’t hear it.
The curtain was halfway closed when the pause button was pressed, leaving an angle that let in just that single moon.
Puttering the remote control back onto the tabletop, Fu Minglin casually settled into the sofa, her voice very soft: “Were you frightened by what happened tonight?”
Hearing this question, Nan Zhi instantly remembered what she had actually come here for.
“No, no,” she blurted out, her mouth faster than her brain as another “sorry” slipped out. Biting her lip, Nan Zhi explained, “I wasn’t trying to stir up trouble. That glass of wine was handed to me by a waiter as I walked past; she said she needed to deliver food somewhere else, so I helped take the wine in. I never expected it to choke that young lady.”
An explanation that was half-true and half-false.
Nan Zhi spoke very quickly, her voice growing softer and softer.
After listening to the explanation, Fu Minglin raised a delicate eyebrow: “Just walking past?”
Hearing the amusement in her tone, Nan Zhi tightened her grip on the cup of milk: “Not entirely…”
After parting ways with Fu Minglin in the hallway earlier, Nan Zhi hadn’t obediently returned to the banquet hall.
She knew someone was sitting inside that private dining room, and she knew that person was Fu Minglin’s betrothed, whom she had heard about in the rumors.
A wave of jealousy had surged up.
Watching Fu Minglin step inside, Nan Zhi had sneaked back into the banquet area, grabbed wasabi from the food station, and crouched outside the private room waiting for her moment.
She had originally intended to find an excuse to walk in, but she hadn’t expected that Miss Gu would order wine herself.
So Nan Zhi intercepted the waiter halfway and quietly planted a little scheme at the bottom of the cup.
Only, lacking familiarity with alcoholic drinks, Nan Zhi had no idea that particular beverage required setting on fire, which resulted in tonight’s farce.
Stumbling and stammering through the truth, Nan Zhi couldn’t help but look up to observe Fu Minglin’s expression.
The disgust and reprimand she had imagined never arrived.
Instead, Fu Minglin’s smile only grew wider, and her other canine tooth poked out as well.
Those amber pupils absorbed the emotion, becoming even more vibrant.
Dazed by this smile, Nan Zhi foolishly found her own spirits lifting along with it.
“Still laughing?” Fu Minglin’s voice was very soft, sounding less like a complaint and more like a tender scold: “Care to guess why I carried Miss Gu to the lounge?”
Nan Zhi had truly been ruthless; there had been a full layer of wasabi paste at the bottom of that cup.
The moment the glass was smashed, the concentrated flavor mingling with the alcohol had been sharply caught by Fu Minglin.
Even if Gu Shixu hadn’t been choked by the very first mouthful, the wasabi essence dissolved in the alcohol would have irritated her throat anyway, making that farce somewhat fortuitous in the end.
“I’m sorry.”
She hadn’t expected Fu Minglin to be attentive to such a degree. Far from exposing her, she had actually helped cover for her.
Feeling deeply in the wrong, an even heavier wave of guilt washed over Nan Zhi.
She instinctively lowered her head again—she didn’t know when she had formed this habit, but whenever she encountered something she couldn’t resolve or found too painful, Nan Zhi would habitually drop her head.
As if simply by lowering her head, fate might let her go.
In the past, when she was malnourished and small-framed, lowering her head allowed her to easily hide herself away.
Yet ever since coming to the Fu family and catching up on her nutrition, she had shot up like a teenager during a growth spurt.
At one meter seventy-five and still growing, with long arms and legs, Nan Zhi had lost that timid air.
Like a large hound, she always loved to lower her head, easily exposing the crown of her head right in front of Fu Minglin.
“You really ought to apologize,” Fu Minglin watched that lowered head, specifically the slightly protruding bone at the nape of her slender neck, feeling inexplicably amused: “Because your methods were simply terrible.”
“Not to mention that the crime scene was a closed private room, that glass of wine was personally handed over by you. You showed your face and left an impression.”
Eh?
Nan Zhi froze.
Then she heard Fu Minglin say: “I clearly warned you.”
Warned…
Nan Zhi recalled Fu Minglin’s parting admonition in the hallway.
So that was what she meant.
A sudden realization dawned on her as she raised her head, her fox-like eyes blinking and blinking, filled with confusion.
“Did you think I was going to scold you?”
Meeting those eyes, Fu Minglin playfully nodded. “Indeed, you deserve a scolding—too stupid.”
Her voice was very soft, yet Nan Zhi felt as though she had been heavily struck.
Having adjusted her posture at some point, Fu Minglin was now resting her cheek in one hand.
Her body leaned back into the sofa, her long hair draping softly like water.
The light and shadow behind her were blocked by her silhouette, yet leaked out from the edges of her clothes. The red mole between her brows resembled an extra branch of red plum blossoms sticking out of a white porcelain vase.
Her breath stalled abruptly, and that frantically pounding heart was no longer content within her chest, currently battering furiously against her eardrums.
Desperate to leap out.
To leap over to its true master.
“What?”
Fu Minglin could sense the gaze fixed upon her growing heavier.
Those fox-like eyes were far too clean; even the desire at the bottom of them was pure.
A trace of disdain flickered in her heart, though her face wore a smile as she slightly shifted her reclining frame: “Don’t know where you were being stupid?”
Nan Zhi blankly nodded.
Like a big golden retriever waiting for a lecture.
“Since you’re going to do bad things, don’t leave traces behind,” Fu Minglin murmured lightly: “When you strike, you must retreat into the shadows so that you can become the beneficiary of the spoils.”
Fu Minglin’s gaze drifted downward from those reddened earlobes.
The teenage youth standing before her had a frame that was lean rather than weak—the result of long-term malnutrition.
Her height, nurtured carefully over the past year, had shot up very fast. The nightgown bought for her last quarter was already a bit short, barely covering her calves.
The 500cc milk cup could be completely encircled in a single hand.
Veins strained against thin skin, and on the arm exerting a slight force, solid and powerful muscles were visible.
Bubble tea shops, takeout sorting, bar security, waitressing, construction site apprentice, garbage truck driver—over a hundred different occupations.
Fu Minglin recalled the data she had seen regarding Nan Zhi; those cold characters forming her past experiences only acquired a sense of reality right now.
The hardships of the past nineteen years had forged this indestructible physique.
That was why even someone with such striking, superior looks and height could still live in this villa as though she were completely transparent.
Fu Minglin felt a strange spark of anticipation for what this proud spine would look like if it were ever broken.
“Do you still remember what you came in here to do?” Fu Minglin’s voice dropped, carrying a hint of displeasure: “I’m thirsty.”
Noticing this sudden shift in mood, Nan Zhi subconsciously leaned forward with utter compliance.
Her body was more honest than her brain.
The satin nightgown was as light as a feather, rippling outward as she moved.
The hem of the skirt brushed against Fu Minglin’s ankle, closing the distance between them until it was incomparably near.
So near that Nan Zhi grew terribly timid, terrified that her abnormal heartbeat would be heard.
From the very first day she entered the Fu family, her mother had admonished her.
They were sisters.
Yet she harbored that kind of feeling toward Fu Minglin, who ought to be her older sister.
If Fu Minglin ever found out about her desire… Nan Zhi didn’t dare let her thoughts wander any further.
She bit down hard on her lip until she could taste the flavor of blood.
Yet Fu Minglin did not lift her head again; her gaze remained lowered.
The moonlight-colored satin fabric shifted with the movement, pressing against skin and wrapping tightly around Nan Zhi’s straight calves.
Just like that cup of milk held in Nan Zhi’s palms, offered forward, ready to spill over at any second.
Fu Minglin finally reached out a hand.
Nan Zhi’s heart hammered like a drum, faster and faster.
Her flustered, downward-cast eyes caught a glimpse of a shadow.
Fu Minglin’s fingers were slender and clearly articulated.
Right now, the soft gauze veiled the night, leaking just that single moon.
A vague shadow dropt upon the carpet. The prolonged motion of holding up the milk made Nan Zhi’s joints grow stiff.
Meanwhile, that raised hand acted like a supreme deity manipulating a marionette.
With just a gentle lift, it pulled taut the strings tied to Nan Zhi’s joints.
The next instant.
That set of well-articulated fingers sliced straight through the shadow in Nan Zhi’s line of sight.
And descended.
The moment her wrist was gripped, that heart finally broke through its barrier.
The illusory shadow turned into real warmth.
Nan Zhi was tugged forward, her body leaning helplessly.
Her last shred of reason was dedicated to protecting the cup of milk from spilling, while her spine surrendered completely as she fell inward.
Two unfull bodies embraced; rather than body heat, it was their bones that interacted first.
“Bringing milk?”
Fu Minglin’s voice held a trace of playful mockery. Feeling the body slowly stiffening in her arms, she couldn’t suppress her mischievous streak any longer: “Then have you tasted it yourself?”
Completely stripped of her reason, Nan Zhi shook her head.
Falling into Fu Minglin’s embrace right now felt like being suspended on the tip of a blade.
She was acutely aware of her own body weight, worrying about the purple and red bruises on Fu Minglin’s knees that she hadn’t yet had a chance to ask about, while also dreading that the milk might spill and make a mess.
Yet, precisely at that moment, Fu Minglin tightened the weight of her embrace.
Fingertips that had crept up from somewhere pressed against Nan Zhi’s spine, light as a feather, sliding slowly.
“The best temperature for goodnight milk upon entry is 36.3 degrees.”
The hand resting at the nape of her neck stopped moving upward, and Fu Minglin slightly tightened her joints.
She could clearly feel the pulse throbbing against her palm.
Turning her head slightly to prevent Nan Zhi from dodging.
Their noses brushed tip to tip.
Fu Minglin spoke softly: “That is the temperature of a human mouth.”