Shen Baizhu hurried over and opened the window.
“I just poured a whole bottle of expired milk down the drain.”
“Back in university, around May or June, the streets would be full of flowering hawthorn trees. They smelled exactly like that.”
Shen Baizhu said: “Is that so?”
Rong Shu had already filled the bathtub with water in no time at all.
“Shen, could you grab another carton of expired milk? Milk in the water makes the droplets show up better on camera. Very photogenic.”
Shen Baizhu stood in front of the fridge going through expiry dates one by one. He checked over twenty bottles and could not find a single expired one. Giving up on the search entirely, he just grabbed a fresh carton and brought it into the bathroom.
“None of them are expired. This will have to do.”
The words had barely left his mouth before the sight in front of him stopped him cold.
There in the marble bathtub was a girl with not a single stitch on. Her hair was pinned up with a hairpiece, and a few loose strands drifted across the surface of the water. Her skin, both above the waterline and below it, was the same soft, luminous white all the way through.
The girl seemed completely unaware of just how easily a sight like this could send a person’s thoughts somewhere dangerous, or how readily it could make someone want to take every dark, restless urge they had and pour it all out on her.
Those wide, unknowing eyes looked him over, as if running lines for a scene was simply supposed to go this way.
Right. She was a body double for intimate scenes. Recreating the setting for rehearsal was not unreasonable at all.
“Come on in, Teacher Shen. This is a scene where Young Marshal finds out that Miss Ji went to see his wife’s husband again. His spies reported back that the two of them had been to bed together, so Young Marshal catches Miss Ji, drags her to the bathroom, and intends to wash her clean.”
She was inviting him in. Every word she said about the scene carried some kind of veiled invitation underneath it.
Something hot and restless surged through him and pushed hard downward.
Shen Baizhu’s long legs moved forward on their own, as if something else had taken over. She called him her teacher, didn’t she?
Then would it be so wrong of him to step in on behalf of the entertainment industry and teach this little actress a lesson for not knowing her place? To step in on behalf of the world at large and discipline this misbehaving student who stripped herself bare and climbed into someone else’s bathtub in the middle of the night?
“I know.”
Shen Baizhu drew in a slow, deep breath and crouched down at the edge of the bathtub. A single thread pulled taut across his mind, and he held onto it. It was called discipline. It was called self-control.
Rong Shu took the carton from him and squeezed a thick white ribbon of milk into the clear water. She stirred it gently with her forearm, and the water turned cloudy and opaque.
“Good, that’s enough. There’s a little left, I’ll just drink the rest.”
Rong Shu tilted her head back, baring the long line of her neck, and tipped the carton up to pour it into her mouth. She had misjudged how much was left inside. A large splash of white spilled out all at once, overflowed past her lips, and ran a pale streak down her chin.
Shen Baizhu thought of that photo of her eating ice cream. Something in the depths of his eyes went very, very dark.
“Ahem, ahem. Alright, let’s begin, laoshi.[1]Rong Shu calls him laoshi here which is subtly flirtatious jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2524461_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2524461_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });”
Fortunately, Shen Baizhu had one particular quality about him: the moment he stepped into a role, the rest of the world ceased to exist.
Shen Baizhu grabbed Rong Shu’s wrist and pulled hard. Her slender pale arm knocked against the side of the tub. His eyes went red at the corners, and something scorching and violent spread through his gaze, threaded through with a trace of jealousy that was barely there if you did not know to look for it.
“You went to find him again? You never learn, do you? What does he have that I don’t? I have more money and more power than he ever will. What is it about him that you actually want?”
Rong Shu twisted her wrist trying to pull free. Shen Baizhu only tightened his grip in response, pressing a red mark into her skin.
“Let go of me! He is better than you in every single way!”
Shen Baizhu let out a cold laugh. The air around him seemed to drop twenty degrees. He seized her hand, scooped up some water, and began scrubbing roughly at her fingers:
“Where did he touch you? Tell me. Did these hands of yours help him? He can’t even perform, and you still went through with it? Ji Baiyue, you are truly disgusting.”
No girl would ever be willing to be called disgusting.
“Yes! I am disgusting! You had your spies follow me everywhere and you put cameras in my room, didn’t you? I did it to provoke you on purpose. And you already know it too. He touched here, and there, and he got to all of it before you ever did.”
Rong Shu’s free hand flew quickly to her neck, her chest, and a spot on her back, tapping each one in quick succession. Shen Baizhu’s gaze followed each point her fingers landed on.
Shen Baizhu grabbed that restless hand too and scrubbed them both. Her ten slender fingers turned red all over under his hands.
A numb, stinging ache shot straight up into Rong Shu’s head.
T/N: The milk. The neck tilt. The ice cream callback. The author is UNWELL and so are we 😭🥛 Also “a single thread called discipline and self-control” sir that thread is hanging by a FIBER 🧵💀 The rehearsal scene really said zero chill, maximum tension, and Rong Shu is out here playing 4D chess while pretending she has no idea what she is doing 🦊✨ Next part coming and trust me it does NOT cool down from here 👀🔥
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