Tong Xi froze for a moment, then her heart suddenly clenched.
Fu Yanqin was looking at her.
She snapped back to her senses.
Wasn’t Fu Yanqin supposed to be on a business trip?
Fu Yanqin stood at the bedroom doorway, still wearing a dark gray shirt, as if he had just returned from a social engagement.
But his brows and eyes were cold, like a jade carving frozen by moonlight.
Tong Xi sat up straight at once.
With that movement, the rise and fall of her chest was too obvious, and she finally belatedly realized the problem.
She was wearing a thin-strapped slip nightgown. Earlier, when feeding the baby, she had found the strap in the way and pulled one side down.
Later, she had drifted off to sleep and forgotten to pull it back up.
Now half her shoulder was bare, the lace edge hanging loosely at the crook of her arm,
one side of her fair skin fully exposed in the warm light.
She wanted to scream, but reason clamped her throat shut.
Flustered, she yanked the strap back up and hastily gathered the hem of her dress.
She was wearing only this thin slip dress, her slippers long since kicked off, her bare feet on the dark carpet.
Now she hunched her shoulders, one hand guarding her chest, the other loosely cradling Fu Jingxi,
her two bare legs crossed, her toes unconsciously curling into the plush.
The fabric of the dress was so thin it was almost translucent, a pale lotus-root pink,
prepared by Sister Zhou to make nighttime feeding easier for her, who had said the color suited her.
Her ankles were astonishingly slender, the blue veins on the tops of her feet clearly visible,
her toenails a faint pink, shimmering with a hint of pearl under the crystal lamp.
Fu Yanqin had not expected that this young nanny—who in his impression always wore loose T-shirts and jeans and did not even dare to speak loudly—should hide such a sight at night.
His gaze darkened, his eyes lingering for two seconds on the chest she had hurriedly covered.
He had not forgotten the scene he had just witnessed—
the lotus-root pink silk slipping and pooling, what was revealed… and beside it, the face of a milk doll unconsciously smacking its lips.
The fire surged up without warning. From the base of his spine it burned all the way to the back of his head,
making him even imagine that the bedroom had suddenly risen several degrees in temperature.
Fu Yanqin’s Adam’s apple bobbed once, but his expression did not change in the slightest; only his fingertips rubbed faintly at his cuff.
Tong Xi’s scalp tingled under his gaze, and shame nearly drowned her.
She wanted to hide, but there was only so much space on the bed, and the young master was still sleeping in her arms—she did not dare move.
Fortunately, her brain had not completely crashed. She quickly grabbed the cardigan folded at the foot of the bed, and with trembling hands draped it on, covering most of her exposed skin. Her voice was thin and shaky:
“Mr. Fu, I… I can’t get up right now. Is there something you…”
Fu Yanqin gave a low “mm.”
That sound was hoarse and low, utterly different from his usual cool, aloof tone.
“I came to see Jingxi.”
“The young master is doing very well…”
Tong Xi kept her head down, her fingers clutching the collar of the cardigan tightly. “He just finished drinking and has already fallen asleep.”
Fu Yanqin nodded.
His gaze swept over her lowered neck—that nape white as a handful of fresh snow, with soft downy hair clinging to it.
He paused for a moment, then turned and left.
The room had central air conditioning at a constant temperature, and Fu Jingxi slept sprawled out on the bed.
But Tong Xi remained frozen on the bed. That scene just now had been too mortifying.
Tong Xi wished she could slap herself unconscious. Why did he have to come back at that exact moment?
Would he think she had deliberately staged such a display?
At the same time, she was puzzled—why would Fu Yanqin come to see Fu Jingxi in the middle of the night?
After this episode, Tong Xi was completely unable to sleep. She sat on the bed staring blankly at Fu Jingxi.
Her phone screen suddenly lit up—it was a WeChat message from the housekeeper, Uncle Fu:
Injured?
But why did he need her?
Tong Xi hesitated for a moment, glanced at Fu Jingxi who was sleeping soundly, then looked at her phone again.
“The young master here…”
Before she could finish typing, the other party replied instantly:
“I’ll have someone watch him. You go.”
Since the housekeeper had said so, Tong Xi could only get up and fetch the medical kit.
Tong Xi carried the medical kit and pushed open the door to the master bedroom. The first thing that met her eyes was a cold gray carpet.
The carpet’s pile was fine and dense, silent underfoot. In the center lay a dark-patterned woven wool square rug, its design so intricate it resembled some kind of geometric code.
In any case, with Tong Xi’s limited eye for such things, she couldn’t tell whether it was a designer one-of-a-kind piece or some haute couture collaboration—she only felt that the gray suppressed the chill that filled the entire room.
Directly opposite was a full wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Beneath the window sat a minimalist black console table, on which rested a single lamp with clean, sharp lines.
At this moment, the curtains were half-open, wrapping the room in a thin blue-toned mist.
On the right was a set of built-in dark wardrobes and a semi-transparent frosted glass partition.
Behind the partition, one could vaguely make out the clothing racks and shoe cabinets of a walk-in closet, along with a single armchair and a standing full-length mirror.
On the left was the same partition structure, inside which a ring of warm-toned light strips glowed, the light kept very low.
But one could see a writing desk and swivel chair, and by the window lay a wide leather lounge chair.
Yet Tong Xi’s gaze wasn’t on any of these things—it was fixed on the bedroom door further in, which was slightly ajar. The light was seeping through the crack.
Tong Xi took a deep breath and walked over carrying the medical kit.
She had no free hand to knock, so she could only set the kit gently on the floor and rap twice with her knuckles.
“Come in.”
It was Fu Yanqin’s usual cold voice.
Tong Xi pushed the door open and walked in. This bedroom was emptier than she had imagined.
On the low cabinet in the corner sat a matte black ceramic aroma diffuser, which seemed to be running—there was a faint scent of bitter orange in the air.
That was Fu Yanqin’s scent.
Inexplicably, her wrists stiffened.
And when she raised her head and saw Fu Yanqin leaning against the bed with one knee bent, she felt her breathing slow by half a beat.
Her heart pounded heavily against her ribs.
This suffocating sense of pressure was not unfamiliar to Tong Xi, because it was like this every time she got close to Fu Yanqin.
She had once analyzed the reason, and the only conclusion she could reach was that Fu Yanqin was too aggressively handsome.
Undoubtedly, Fu Yanqin was good-looking—the most sharply defined person Tong Xi had ever seen.
So good-looking that she feared exposing something if she held his gaze even a second longer.
Tong Xi lowered her eyes and tried to keep her voice steady: “Mr. Fu, I’ve brought the medical kit.”
“Help me change the dressing.”
Tong Xi didn’t dare ask more. She carried the kit over.
Having been delayed this long, the blood on his arm had already soaked through the outer layer of gauze, though fortunately it wasn’t continuing to seep.
Fu Yanqin had already undone his cufflinks himself, exposing his entire forearm—
cold pale skin, prominent veins, and a diagonal cut near his elbow, its edges already forming a dark red scab.
Tong Xi knelt on one knee beside the bed. She first cleaned the wound with an iodine cotton ball, then cut open a fresh piece of gauze and layered it on.
Fu Yanqin’s arm was pleasing to look at—clean, powerful lines, prominent wrist bones, long fingers.
Only on the inner side was there an old scar running across just above his pulse.
Tong Xi was well practiced at this; she had studied medicine in university.
His forearm muscles were drawn tight, hard as if wrapped in a thin layer of steel—clearly the result of years of gripping instruments or working out.
The bedroom was very quiet, with only the rustle of gauze being wrapped.
He leaned back in the sofa, letting her work, but his gaze drifted slowly from her fingers to her face.
That earlier thought surfaced again.
Those suspicions about whether he harbored ulterior motives toward this new wet nurse.
But watching her businesslike manner now, he felt he had been overthinking.
If she truly had that kind of interest in him, she wouldn’t refuse to even spare him an extra glance.
Yet the colder she was, the more easily he recalled a scene he had glimpsed by chance earlier when she was nursing his son.
This was precisely why Fu Yanqin had deliberately called her upstairs tonight.
His arm injury was actually not serious. Uncle Fu usually handled dressing changes.
But tonight, for some reason, the moment Uncle Fu picked up the gauze, he had frowned and said, “Let her do it.”
Uncle Fu had been at his side for over a decade; nothing could be hidden from him.
He immediately withdrew with eyes downcast and nose to the ground, barely managing to keep his lips from twitching as he left.
Sure enough, she had come in.
Outside the door, Uncle Fu paced back and forth several times before barely suppressing the smile on his face.
The master had actually taken the initiative to let someone close?
In the past, this would have been unthinkable.
He strained his ears, afraid of missing any sound from inside, and even more afraid that the girl would come running out in tears.
But he waited and waited—the room stayed quiet, with only the occasional murmur, too faint to make out.
Uncle Fu couldn’t help rubbing his hands together, pacing two circles around the top of the stairs.
Inside the room, however, Tong Xi was growing more and more uneasy.
She kept her head down, but that gaze remained fixed on her.
Just then, an indescribable tingling sensation shot up along her spine, as if something had lightly scalded her.
She felt her chest grow swollen, and even her breathing tightened.
She was engorged again.