How was she supposed to get to know him better?
Qiu Xiaoyue was pondering that very question.
Getting to know someone sounded simple enough, but actually doing it was incredibly difficult.
Especially with someone like Qi Sen. It was as though his entire body had been wrapped in a layer of plastic film—clear enough to see through, yet impossible to touch.
She was lost in her thoughts when the person on the bed suddenly moved.
Qi Sen stood up.
He was tall, and when he rose, his entire body loomed over her head, shrouding her completely in shadow.
They were standing far too close.
Close enough that Qiu Xiaoyue could feel the warmth of his breath against her forehead. Each inhale and exhale tickled her skin.
Her mind went blank with a buzz, and she suddenly realized something serious.
She remembered what she was wearing—
A slip dress with a neckline that plunged almost to her navel.
Standing that tall, what could he see when he looked down?
She didn’t dare think about it. Her face flared hot, turning red from the tips of her ears all the way down to the base of her neck.
She shrank back a little.
Qi Sen took a step forward.
She retreated again, and he followed.
With a soft thud, her back hit the wall. There was nowhere left to go.
The cool wall pressed against her bare back. In front of her was a scorching-hot man; behind her was an icy wall. Caught between ice and fire, she couldn’t move.
“What are you hiding from?”
Qi Sen’s voice drifted down from above her. It was low and husky, like sandpaper scraping over wood, and it made her heart tremble.
Qiu Xiaoyue didn’t dare look up.
Her eyes began frantically doing eye exercises, darting up, down, left, and right. She simply refused to look straight ahead.
But the man’s overpowering presence was everywhere, seeping into every corner.
In the end, with no other way out, Qiu Xiaoyue simply buried her face in her hands, like an ostrich sticking its head into the sand. In a muffled voice, she confessed, “I… I’m embarrassed.”
A low chuckle came from above her head.
The laughter rumbled up from his chest, accompanied by a faint breath of sound.
“Now you know how to be shy?”
The tips of Qiu Xiaoyue’s ears were red enough to bleed.
She covered them even more tightly, her voice leaking out through her fingers in a muffled murmur. “I’m going to change…”
She wanted to run.
But the moment she moved, Qi Sen braced one hand against the wall, trapping her in place.
“Don’t change.”
He raised his other hand and pressed hers down from her face.
Her face was revealed.
It was as red as a ripe peach. Her fan-shaped lashes trembled, and her eyes held the pure radiance of spring. She was so adorably innocent that it was almost unbearable.
His gaze moved downward.
What he saw there was an entirely different kind of scene—one that made his blood race.
Her full, snowy breasts were half-hidden and half-revealed. Her slender waist swayed like a willow in the breeze, alluring and beguiling, making it impossible to look away.
She was innocent to the extreme, yet seductive to the extreme.
At the same time he wanted to possess her and ravish her, his desire to protect her surged even more fiercely.
Qi Sen stared at her for two seconds.
His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“I like you just like this.”
Qiu Xiaoyue’s heart skipped a beat.
Then it began pounding wildly—thump, thump, thump—as if someone were beating a drum inside her chest.
She tried to turn her head away, but Qi Sen raised a hand and pinched her chin, turning her face back toward him.
Their eyes met.
His eyes were so beautiful.
That was the first thought that surfaced in Qiu Xiaoyue’s mind.
They were deep, black, and bottomless. If she stared for too long, she felt as though she might fall right into them.
“Do I look old?”
The question caught her completely off guard.
Qiu Xiaoyue froze.
If she hadn’t heard it with her own ears, she would never have believed those words had come from Qi Sen’s mouth.
Him? Old?
Her mind suddenly filled with the male students she had seen at school that day.
They were all immature boys, some still sporting acne, their thin bodies as straight as chopsticks. They looked as if a gust of wind might knock them over.
Then she looked at the man in front of her.
His face had contours as sharp as if they had been carved by a knife, his features strong and defined, his nose straight, and his eyes deep enough to hold the entire Milky Way.
He wore a black shirt with the sleeves casually rolled up twice, revealing strong, fluid lines in his forearms and faintly visible veins. They weren’t exaggerated muscles built up in a gym, but natural, well-conditioned lines maintained by years of regular exercise.
Simply standing there, he radiated the presence unique to a mature man.
It was the unhurried composure that came from being weathered and polished by time.
Beside him, those male classmates of hers looked like half-grown brats.
Old?
Was this what old looked like?
Qiu Xiaoyue shook her head so hard it nearly rattled.
Watching her earnest expression, the corners of Qi Sen’s lips curved slightly.
He had spent the entire night thinking about this question.
After going back and forth, he had decided that as her husband, the only thing she might dislike about him was his age.
After all, she was only twenty, while he was already twenty-eight.
As his mother put it, once you rounded up, he was practically thirty.
An eight-year age gap wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t insignificant, either.
Those male students were her age. They could attend classes with her, chat about the topics young people cared about, complain about their teachers together, stay up late studying, and race to the cafeteria for meals.
What could he do?
Attend meetings. Go to business dinners.
Deal with all the tedious matters she wouldn’t understand even if he explained them.
Would she find him boring too?
“Then why don’t you want to make our relationship public in front of other people?”
When Qi Sen asked the question, he himself didn’t realize that his tone held a trace of caution.
Qiu Xiaoyue pressed her lips together.
She lowered her eyes, and her lashes cast a small shadow over her eyelids.
“My friend said that people in college don’t usually get married this early,” she said softly. “People might gossip about me, and I might even have trouble making friends…”
“So…” She blinked her bright, sparkling eyes. “Please don’t make our relationship public at school for now, okay?”
Her hands rested unconsciously against his chest, her fingers curling ever so slightly. Like a kitten gently pawing at you with its little claws, she made it impossible to refuse her.
So that was it.
The stone that had weighed on his heart all night was lifted just like that by a few words from her, vanishing without a trace.
She didn’t dislike him.
She didn’t regret marrying him.
It was simply a young girl’s little concern. She wanted to make friends and experience a normal college life.
Qi Sen smiled, suddenly realizing something.
All that stifled irritation, displeasure, and restless uncertainty he had felt had been because of her.
One sentence from her could make him miserable for an entire night.
One glance from her could make him feel fine again.
In the nearly thirty years of his life, he had always been the one in control. Calm, rational, restrained—he had trained himself to become a machine without emotions.
That was his instinct for survival in the business world.
The people at his company secretly called him the “Cold-Faced Yama.”
But with her alone…
In front of her, all those principles, all that restraint, all the self-control he took pride in—all of it became useless.
When she smiled, he wanted to smile with her.
When she frowned, he wanted to ask what was wrong.
When she avoided him, he suffered all night.
When she looked at him, he felt fine again.
He was acting like some immature boy.
Qi Sen said nothing, and Qiu Xiaoyue began to panic.
“I know this isn’t fair to you, and it’s a little disrespectful, too. If you want to—”
“Okay,” he said.
Qiu Xiaoyue froze. “Huh?”
Her reaction was rather adorable.
“We won’t make it public.” He raised a hand and rubbed her head. Her hair was soft and smooth, and it felt incredibly good beneath his palm. “I’ll listen to you.”
“Really?!”
She smiled, her brows and eyes curving into bright, charming arcs.
When she smiled, a shallow dimple appeared in her cheek.
He had never noticed it before.
Now he wanted to kiss her.