Unlike Xie Fangzhu, who was full of frustration, Shen Yingying felt utterly refreshed after successfully winning their little negotiation. She practically wanted to jump three feet into the air from excitement.
Sure, Xie Fangzhu was crazy and ruthless, but when it came to relationships, he was basically an amateur.
She could completely manipulate him with just the slightest flick of her fingers—without even needing to think.
Life suddenly seemed full of hope, and the future looked dazzlingly bright!
But life never lets people stay satisfied for long.
By midnight, Shen Yingying’s bright future came to an abrupt end.
At the time, she was sleeping hazily when something crawled onto her body, slithering from her arm up toward her neck.
Half-asleep, Shen Yingying instinctively reached out to grab it.
The thing immediately coiled around her hand.
Cold.
Slimy.
Shen Yingying jolted awake instantly, all traces of drowsiness vanishing.
A snake!
The moment she realized it, she nearly went insane. She leapt off the bed screaming and frantically shook her hand until she finally flung the snake away.
Since childhood, Shen Yingying had always been fearless.
The only thing she had ever truly feared was snakes.
Even now, she still remembered the time she was at the orphanage, before life had beaten her down and while her personality was still sharp and unlikeable, making her an easy target for bullying.
The worst incident was when someone grabbed her by the collar and forcibly stuffed two writhing snakes into her clothes.
The frightened snakes had slithered desperately against her skin.
That smooth, icy sensation—so horrifying it nearly made her faint—was something she could never forget.
Her fear of snakes had been carved deep into her bones ever since.
The wooden hut’s window was only slightly open, and the moonlight outside couldn’t penetrate the darkness.
In the pitch black room, she couldn’t tell where the snake had gone after she flung it away.
Curling herself into the corner of the bed, the calmness she had always prided herself on completely crashed. Her mind became pure chaos.
Why was there a snake in the room?
Why had it climbed onto her bed in the middle of the night?
Was it still lingering nearby?
Was there one snake—or several?
Cold sweat poured down her body as she hugged herself tightly, too terrified to move even an inch.
Just as she was on the verge of breaking down, two knocking sounds suddenly came from next door, like fingers tapping against the wooden wall.
Then Xie Fangzhu’s voice drifted over.
“Shen Yingying, what’s wrong?”
Only then did Shen Yingying remember that Xie Fangzhu was right next door.
Instantly overjoyed, as though she had grabbed onto a lifeline, she loudly called his name.
“Xie Fangzhu! Xie Fangzhu!”
Her voice was panicked and hurried.
“Come over quickly! There’s a snake! There’s a snake in the room! It crawled on me just now—I’m so scared!”
As soon as she finished speaking, she heard the creaking sound of a door opening next door.
Then came a knock on her door.
“Shen Yingying, open the door.”
“Wuwuwu, I don’t dare!”
Shen Yingying hugged herself tightly, too terrified to move, afraid that even the slightest motion would bring her into intimate contact with the snake again.
She stared desperately toward the door, heart lodged in her throat.
“Xie Fangzhu, what do I do?”
There was a brief silence outside.
Then—with a loud bang—the door was forced open, and light flooded into the room.
At that moment, in Shen Yingying’s eyes, Xie Fangzhu looked like some great hero descending through clouds and mist to save her.
Carrying a kerosene lamp, he quickly walked to the bedside.
“It didn’t bite you, did it?”
“No…”
She grabbed his hand tightly, her voice trembling with panic.
“But it crawled on my neck just now… I grabbed it… its body was cold… and it wrapped around my hand… so disgusting… I’m scared…”
The hand clutching his was icy cold, as though it had just come out of an ice cellar.
Alarm flashed through Xie Fangzhu’s heart.
Using the lamp’s glow to examine her, he saw beads of cold sweat covering her forehead. All color had drained from her face, leaving her deathly pale. Her body trembled nonstop like someone who had suffered an enormous shock.
Confusion rose in his mind.
Their house sat halfway up a mountain slope. In summer, snakes and insects were common in the hills, and occasionally a snake crawling into the house was perfectly normal.
He remembered it had happened before.
Back then, Shen Yingying had been startled too, but her reaction had been completely different.
At the time, she had chased the snake around wildly with a broom while cursing him out for being useless and building the house in such a terrible place.
So why was she this terrified today?
Was it because it was nighttime?
Xie Fangzhu glanced around the room, fell silent for a moment, then wrapped an arm around her protectively and gently patted her back.
“Don’t be afraid. There aren’t many venomous snakes on this mountain. The one that came in is probably harmless. Besides, if you’re afraid of it, it’s even more afraid of you. Usually—”
“I’m scared!!”
Shen Yingying cut him off.
The tightly stretched string in her mind had completely snapped.
She utterly broke down.
“It crawled onto my neck just now! What if it crawls into my clothes?!”
Xie Fangzhu originally wanted to say: What snake would have the guts to crawl into your clothes?
But feeling her trembling body, he swallowed the words back down.
In a low voice, he said instead:
“I’ll go find the snake. Once I find it and kill it, you won’t be scared anymore.”
After speaking, he picked up the lamp and prepared to search the room.
But Shen Yingying held onto his hand tightly and refused to let go.
Helpless, he softened his voice to coax her.
“Be good. Let go for a second.”
“No!”
Shen Yingying rejected him outright.
Struggling upright, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. All the smug satisfaction she’d felt earlier about insisting on separate rooms had long been forgotten.
Pressing herself tightly against him, she pleaded in a trembling voice:
“I don’t want to stay here anymore. Xie Fangzhu, take me away. I want to stay with you…”
Xie Fangzhu froze.
Even though he knew perfectly well that she only said this because she was frightened—and didn’t mean anything else by it—
His heart still trembled uncontrollably upon hearing it.
At that moment, all his earlier vows about “standing up for himself” and “not letting her walk all over him” vanished completely.
Without hesitation, he picked up the kerosene lamp in one hand, wrapped the other around her waist, and lifted her effortlessly with one arm before striding toward his own small room.
Once inside his room, Shen Yingying still refused to release him, tears shimmering in her eyes as she asked uncertainly:
“There aren’t any in here, right?”
Xie Fangzhu set the kerosene lamp on a nearby cabinet and sat down on the bed while holding her.
“They probably wouldn’t dare come in here. I spread realgar powder before sleeping. Did you forget to do yours?”
Only then did Shen Yingying remember that the original host used to scatter realgar powder around the room every night.
But the original host’s memories were far too vast. Usually, she only recalled things when she saw, heard, or deliberately thought about them.
And in Shen Yingying’s original world, snakes crawling into houses simply wasn’t a thing.
The concept had never even crossed her mind.
Naturally, she hadn’t thought about using realgar powder either.
Burying her face into his neck, she spoke in a tiny voice.
“I forgot…”
“It’s okay. They won’t come here.”
Xie Fangzhu supported the back of her head and gently lowered her onto the bed, preparing to withdraw his hand.
But Shen Yingying immediately grabbed him again, her voice full of alarm.
“Where are you going now?”
Xie Fangzhu lowered his head to look at her.
Under the dim glow of the kerosene lamp, her beautiful face was filled with panic, and her dependence on him was impossible to hide.
He paused slightly.
It reminded him of the time when he had still been an ordinary worker down in the mines, working in teams.
Whenever danger or uncertainty appeared, his teammates would always look terrified and place all their hope entirely on him, relying on him completely.
He had always hated that feeling.
But with the person relying on him now being Shen Yingying—
The feeling became entirely different.
Even though the remnants of his rational mind kept sneering at himself, his emotions refused to listen. All he wanted was to pull her into his arms and protect her properly.
In a low voice, he said:
“Don’t be scared. I’m just blowing out the lamp.”
And his voice was softer than it had ever been before.